The Circuit

"The Hobbit":

"The Hobbit is the only book from Tolkien that I read at the right age.  I read it at 11.  I proceeded very gingerly though the trilogy and failed miserably.  The Hobbit comes from a place that is completely spontaneous.  It almost blurted out.  It came out of a very personal side of Tolkien, I would imagine.  I keep thinking in a way it's his reaction to his own experience going through World War I."

Moving to New Zealand:

"Before The Hobbit came I had just bought a house for my crap.  I was home hammering art on my wall... when the call came:  Would you pledge half a decade of your life to The Hobbit [by moving to New Zealand]?  Fucking yes."

Fucking institutions:

"I fucking hate institutions.  I love bank robbing movies.  Rififi. Ocean's 11.  As long as they're fucking a bank, I'm happy.  In my mind, planning a bank robbery would be a very creative endeavor.  You would need to plan them like a movie shoot and organize the crew.  I would probably make more money."

Simple humor never dies:

"I'm absolutely the target audience for Family Guy.  I'm easily amused.  If there's a fart joke, I consider it a comedy masterpiece."  (Seth MacFarlane voices "Johann Kraus" in del Toro's "Hellboy 2")

The role of monsters:

"Physical ugliness is very important.  We live in a world that constantly tells us how to diminish our ugliness.  And I say fuck them all.  Let us be whatever we are."

Mythology and religion:

"In a world that enthrones skepticism as intelligence... it's much more ballsy to believe than to be a fucking skeptic.  If you're a skeptic because it's cool, fuck you.  Tell me why you don't believe."

• SXSWclick, the fest's online competition of short work, has picked 15 finalists, including Becky James' animated "Snake."  Other films are divied up into five categories: Old School Shorts, Really Real Shorts, Animate-It, Sound Checks, and What the F*#!?.  SXSWclick.com to watch.

• The inaugural LA Irish Film Festival will run October 2-5, and they're looking for films.  They're advisory board has directors Jim Sheridan, Neil Jordan, and Mary McGuckian on it.  Check out lairishfilm.com.

• NYC's second annual Japan Cuts will unspool 18 mostly-recent films from Japan, including Naomi Kawase's Cannes 2007 Grand Prix winner "The Mourning Forest" (pictured).  Other flicks include Takashi Miike's "Sukiyaki Western Django," starring Quentin Tarantino and "The Inugami Family" to commemorate the late director Kon Ichikawa.  Full lineup here.

Submarine's Josh Braun, "This Film is Not Yet Rated" producer Eddie Schmidt, HBO Docs' Sara Bernstein, LAFF juror Morgan Spurlock, and indieWIRE's Eugene Hernandez.

Braun was celebrating his company's new pact with MSNBC Films for a handful of docs he reps.  He had a hand in selling Spurlock's "Super Size Me."


"Kurt Cobain: About a Son" director AJ Schnack and "Throw Down Your Heart" director Sascha Paladino at the IFC party.


"Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story" director Stefan Forbes and "Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired" director Marina Zenovich.  Forbes doc has emerged as an audience fave.

With CineVegas behind him, artist director Trevor Groth finally finds some nod-time.  Until another drink comes...

Toronto has picked 27 international festival selections to screen at their September fest.  Many preemed at Cannes, Berlin, SXSW, etc.

GALA PRESENTATION
"The Good, The Bad, The Weird" 
Kim Jee-woon, South Korea
North American Premiere

SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS
"Adoration"
Atom Egoyan, Canada
North American Premiere

"Un conte de Noël"
Arnaud Desplechin, France
North American Premiere

"Entre les murs"
Laurent Cantet, France
North American Premiere

"Gomorrah"
Matteo Garrone, Italy
North American Premiere
Winner of the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival.

MASTERS
"24 City"
Jia Zhang-ke, China
North American Premiere

"Four Nights with Anna"
Jerzy Skolimowski, Poland/France
North American Premiere

"Of Time and the City"
Terence Davies, United Kingdom
North American Premiere

"Le Silence de Lorna"
Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne, Belgium/France/Italy
North American Premiere

"Three Monkeys"
Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey/France/Italy
North American Premiere
Winner of Best Director at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

REAL TO REEL
"Blind Loves"
Juraj Lehotský, Slovakia
North American Premiere

VISIONS
"Liverpool"
Lisandro Alonso, Argentina/France/Netherlands/Spain/Germany
North American Premiere

VANGUARD
"Waltz with Bashir"
Ari Folman, Israel/France/Germany
North American Premiere

DISCOVERY
"Hunger"
Steve McQueen, United Kingdom
North American Premiere
Winner of this year’s Caméra d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

"Medicine for Melancholy"
Barry Jenkins, USA
Canadian Premiere

"The Paranoids"
Gabriel Medina, Argentina
International Premiere

"Three Blind Mice"
Matthew Newton, Australia
International Premiere

"Tony Manero"
Pablo Larraín, Chile/Brazil
North American Premiere

"Tulpan"
Sergey Dvortsevoy, Germany/Switzerland/Kazakstan/Russia/Poland
North American Premiere
Winner of this year’s Un Certain Regard Prize at the Cannes Film Festival

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA
"Acne"
Federico Veiroj, Uruguay/Argentina/Spain/Mexico
North American Premiere

"Linha de Passe"
Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas, Brazil
North American Premiere
Linha de Passe garnered Best Actress at Cannes 2008

"O’Horten"
Bent Hamer, Norway/Germany/France
North American Premiere

"Lion’s Den"
Pablo Trapero, Argentina/South Korea/Brazil North
American Premiere

"Restless"
Amos Kollek, Israel/Germany/Canada/France/Belgium
North American Premiere

"Revanche"
Götz Spielmann, Austria
North American Premiere

Director and co-writer Brian Peterson brings "Coyote" to LAFF after small fest run, including Atlanta and a win at Big Bear.

Peterson, who was the AD and played "Lance" in "Napoleon Dynamite," also stars with co-writer Brett Spackman and Marina Valle.  The film is about a two friends who start a human trafficking business.

The preem of "Frost/Nixon," Ron Howard's film adaptation of Peter Morgan's stage play, will open the 52nd London Film Festival.  Michael Sheen and Frank Langella play journo David Frost and Richard Nixon, who sparred on several televised interviews in the summer of 1977. 

At a private screening in New York recently, the film drew big raves.

• Gen Art has brought its film/party/film/party/film/party recipe to Chicago, closing it out this week.  Tonight is "The Living Wake," and a party.  Thursday night will see Rachel Samuels' "Dark Streets," followed by a party.  Friday gets Mark Webber's "Explicit Ills."  And then a party.  Saturday will see a run on hang-over cures.

• The Angelus Student Film Festival has picked a doc jury comprised of HBO's Sara Bernstein, "51 Berch Street" director Doug Block, Michael Kaufman from Al Roker Entertainment, editor Geof Bartz, and doc filmmaker Hilla Medalia.  Fest boasts a $10 grand prize.  Check it out here. 

• While not at all fest related, we were enthralled by an email from Chris Hepburn, thrown like a message-in-a-bottle from across the Atlantic:

"This is a dark tale of Kafkaesque like perversity it relates to an evil E-list actress by the name or Elizabeth Gracen, who's claim to fame is she screwed Bill Clinton to obtain a Miss Arkansas crown." 

His website goes on to say that he's begging on the streets of France, that he hates French people, and "The Amazing Race" was his idea until "Mr. Celluloid Vomit Jerry Bruckheimer" stole it.

by Erin Torneo
There’s nothing like a doc fest, with its unforgettable chronicles and complex characters, to revive one’s faith in cinematic storytelling. The AFI/Discovery Channel Silverdocs Festival, which wrapped today, proved the form was still alive and kicking, despite the difficult climate nonfiction filmmakers face. From the intensely personal (Cynthia Lester’s “My Mother’s Garden”), to searing indictments (Juan Manuel Sepúlveda’s “The Infinite Border”), Silverdocs showcased 108 films from over 60 countries in downtown Silver Spring, MD, home to Discovery’s Corporate Headquarters.

Highlights from the lineup included: “Triage: Dr. James Orbinski’s Humanitarian Dilemma,” (pictured above) a riveting look at a Nobel peace prize winner’s work with Doctors without Borders; “The English Surgeon,” a moving portrait of the friendship between a British and a Ukrainian doctor that won best feature in the World Doc Competition, (scenes of them performing brain surgery on an awake patient must be some of the most dramatic screen moments of late, doc or narrative); “Four Seasons Lodge,” journo-turned-helmer Andrew Jacobs’ tale of Holocaust survivors summering together in the Berkshires featuring cinematography by Al Maysles; and “Hard Times at Douglass High,” a year in the life of a Baltimore high school struggling to meet the demands of the No Child Left Behind initiative, (a surefire hit with "The Wire"’s cult following, something distributor HBO is no doubt banking on.)

While “Hard Times” represented classical verité, the fest presented a number of films that departed from the traditional doc style.

“The new generation of filmmakers are much more willing to push the boundaries of the form. They are stepping away from verité, and using narrative techniques like animation and highly styled reenactments,” said Director of Programming Sky Sitney, citing “American Teen,” “Stranded: I’ve Come From a Plane That Crashed in the Mountains,” (pictured) and “Man on Wire” as examples.

Many first-time filmmakers, like Megumi Sasaki, found themselves playing to sold-out screenings. Sasaki’s “Herb and Dorothy,” which had its world premiere at Silverdocs, nabbed the feature audience award after charming festival goers with its tale of a former postal worker and former librarian who managed to amass one of the most important modern art collections in the U.S. (and fit it into their one-bedroom, rent-controlled Manhattan apartment, no less). 

But despite the packed theaters, distributors’ acquisition reluctance in the wake of last year’s poor box office record was a constant discussion at the fest’s concurrent conference. “I finished the film. I thought that was the hard part…” said Sasaki, summing up the feelings of many award-winning filmmakers still without distributors. While consultant Peter Broderick of Paradigm Consulting and entrepreneur Slava Rubin of Indiegogo advocated new ways for filmmakers to find their niche viewers, at least last week in Maryland, documentaries had no trouble finding their audience.

Check out the Silverdocs Awards here.

by Dade Hayes
“Never follow a comedian” is age-old advice on the public speaking circuit. Last weekend at the Nantucket Film Festival, someone should have warned me, “Never follow a pair of comedy legends, a comedian’s videotape and Brian Williams’ comic riffing before yielding the stage to Judd Apatow.”

Still and all, my playing the ultimate straight man at the festival’s epic Apatow tribute Saturday night was as earthily enjoyable as the rest of the experience. In its 13 editions, Nantucket has succeeded in putting, as a Boston Globe headline put it last week, “ease over edge.” Sales agents do not typically huddle with buyers in condos on this sandy island.

It is primarily a showcase for screenwriters, which gives the fest gravitas, but its summer berth has also made it desirable real estate for summer specialty pics looking for a marketing push. “The Wackness” and “American Teen” were two such examples screening this year.

While the fest is far more serious than a lot of the chamber of commerce tour-a-thons held in magnificent locales, there’s no getting around how stone gorgeous Nantucket is, especially on clear, sunny, 80-degree days before the summer tourist season kicks off. Dress is decidedly casual.

The most formal fashion statement might involve little whale prints on pale red – or make that Nantucket red -- pants. Many people in the tent at Jetties Beach on Saturday kicked off their shoes, the better to wiggle their toes in the sand. And in between screenings, there are near-mandatory stops at the Juice Bar, which serves up some of the best waffle cones and homemade ice cream in creation.

The Apatow tribute, which followed other characteristically low-key sessions like a staged reading of “Some Like it Hot” and “Late Night Storytelling,” featured a video hat tip from Ben Stiller (“who’s too busy shooting ‘Night at the Museum 11’ to actually be here,” Apatow quipped), an introduction to the night by the stealthily funny Williams, a lengthy roast-like ruminations by Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara and some self-confessed “ass kissing” by Universal chief Ron Meyer.

Apatow followed everyone with about 15 minutes of material. Studying his notes, he shuffled the papers and deadpanned, “I have eight pages about what a douchebag Brian Williams is.” He uncorked a spectacular tale of a meeting he and Ben Stiller had with the Rolling Stones. Way before Scorsese, someone had the brilliant idea of making a movie with concert performances punctuated by comic sketches. Apatow talked about “locking up” during the meeting, but later delighting in the “six-week window” of contact with the band.

Meyer likened Apatow to icons such as Spielberg and Sturges. But what made the night so irrepressibly Nantucket was how un-statesmanlike the guest of honor was.

A five minute highlight reel captured the most bawdy moments of his recent film work; in person, he didn’t work especially blue. But he had no agents to thank or red carpet to walk. He just took care of his funny business – and the evident work ethic behind his five summer movies and recent spree of titles either written, directed or produced (or all three) came in for some ribbing throughout the night. “When your own wife can’t see all of the movies you’re making,” he said, “that’s when you know you’re making too many.”

 

Ann Thompson has been all over the LAFF this weekend. 

• Mark Gill's keynote is big, sad, and eventually hopeful read on the state-of-the-industry.  It was pre-hyped as a head-turner, and fest-goers were buzzing about it all weekend.

• Anne also has a look at director Timur Bekmambetov's "Wanted," which opened the fest after Film Independent's Dawn Hudson's welcome (pictured).  Fest director Rich Raddon was particularly thrilled at having the comic-adaptation open their Westwood event - "I'm going to geek-out in a second."  Todd McCarthy reviews "Wanted" here.

Also, over the weekend:


"Trinidad" directors PJ Raval and Jay Hodges are flanked by two of their doc's subjects - Sabrina Marcus (left) and Dr. Marci Bowers.  Doc is about Trinidad, Colorado - the "Sex Change Capital of the World."


Austin Film Society queen Agnes Varnum and "Medicine for Melancholy" director Barry Jenkins, who was celebrating his film's recent pickup by IFC.


"Scanner Darkly" producer Tommy Pallotta, Cinetic Media's Matt Dentler, and actor Randy Ryan.  Ryan just came off working on Michael Mann's new "Public Enemies."  As a poker aficionado, he and his co-stars would sit down for a few rounds after the day's wrap.  Unfortunately, one of the co-stars was his friend, mixed martial arts champ Don Frye.  When Frye grew tired of losing, he promptly kicked Ryan's ass.  As Frye kept losing, Ryan kept getting an ass kicking.

by Winter Miller
At the Provincetown high school, Quentin Tarantino was on hand to pick up his "Filmmaker on the Edge" award at the 10th annual film fest.

Hard to say who had a better ensemble between Tarantino and John Waters as the two sat onstage as Waters interviewed Tarantino. It was like boys night on Project Runway.

Waters had on a slate blue two-toned oxford, navy blazer and brick red pants. Brick red.

Tarantino had a brick red jacket over a black button down and black pants. Brick red. What's with the Frik 'n Frak outfits? But even QT can't compete with Waters' pencil-thin 'stache.  

Waters asked about violence and the ratings board, "they don't hassle you at the MPAA, do you sleep with them? They always let you off!"

"I have a good relationship with the MPAA," Tarantino gloated.

"Mine's terrible," Waters blank-faced.

Waters wondered about Tarantino's foot fetish in his films, to which Tarantino admitted yep, he has "an affection for that appendage."

"Let's talk about casting, you reinvented John Travolta as a man, and I helped reinvent him as a woman," Waters quipped, and then asked if Tarantino writes with actors in mind.

Tarantino said he wrote "Pulp Fiction" with Michael Madsen in mind but just before they started lensing, Madsen took "Wyatt Earp."

 Tarantino added that Friday night he finished his World War II pic script "Inglorious Bastards." (Subtitled, "Once Upon a Time in Nazi-Occupied France.”) It's a screenplay he'd been working on for eight years.

"Just as I thought I was gonna throw it out, I cracked it," he said. Tarantino is hoping to lens by October and turn it in for Cannes.

An audience member presented Tarantino with a gift. On cue, Waters asked, "What's the best gift you were ever given?"

"Pussy," said Tarantino. "It just keeps giving, you have pussy, and then the memory of pussy."

In the annals of something I'd file under "things I can't picture," Tarantino shared an anecdote about boxing Bob Dylan in Dylan's own gym. More than once.

Dylan? Boxer? Why not?

Later, as Tarantino stepped up to receive his award, he blushed and paused. "I think I feel like Miss Mexico too," he said. "My heart is full."

Photos by Henny Garfunkel.

"Frozen River" and "Flow: For Love of Water" won audience award honors for drama and doc at the Provincetown Film Festival.  The 10th anniversary P-town fest closed with its awards ceremony on Sunday.

The John Schlesinger Award, which goes to a first-time filmmaker, went to Lance Hammer for "Ballast."

Whitney Peter's "Who I Am" got best short while Muhammad Ali Hasan's "Rabia" pocketed best student film.

by Winter Miller
In the high school auditorium here in Provincetown it's what I imagine a filet of salmon feels like on a slow broil. We are listening to an awards ceremony honoring thesps Jane Lynch ("The 40-year-old Virgin," and a series of Christopher Guest film roles) and Gael Garcia Bernal ("Y Tu Mama Tambien" and "Bad Education" among others) for there bodies of work.

Questioned about how she chooses her characters, Lynch responded simply: "I'm asked."

Lynch said she's never turned down a role except one; she was asked to take a role of a nun who lifts her skirt to reveal she has balls. It was a quick no.

"I met Barack Obama at an event in Chicago and he said, where do I know you?" Not wanting to be the actor who lists her credits, Lynch said possibly Chicago since that's where she's from. Midway through Obama's speech he stopped cold and said "40-year-old Virgin!"

"I love that he saw that movie," Lynch said, "Let's elect this man."

Bernal greeted the audience -- a warm one, heat notwithstanding -- and apologized for his English suggesting that maybe with a beer it would improve. For the record, it was better than fine.

I always get people saying, "oh I thought you were so much bigger," said Bernal. Who, for the record is better than fine (but looks a buck twenty, wet).

Bernal is at the fest with his first directing project, "Deficit" in which he also stars.  The film is a subtle comment on class in Mexico as viewed through a house-party.  He's newly founded a Mexican-based production shingle, Canana, with fellow thesp Diego Luna.

"There's no film industry as such, (in Mexico) so there's no niche market or infrastructure and it's really freeing," Bernal said. "You don't have to ask to shoot in the street, you just do it."

Bernal compared looking at a film like Michel Gondry's "Science of Sleep" (in which he starred with Charlotte Gainsbourg) and explaining what it means to be as futile as describing eggs. "I don't know why I like huevos rancheros, I just do."

Accepting his acting award, Bernal stood at the podium and stammered and giggled, unsure of what to say. "Oh, I feel like Miss Mexico," he said.