May 18, 2012
Cannes entry ‘Paradise: Love’ looks at sex tourismCANNES, France (AP) – There’s sun, sand and sex in Cannes Film Festival entry “Paradise: Love” – and they add up to a grim and unsettling holiday movie.
Austrian director Ulrich Seidl’s film depicts middle-aged European women at a Kenyan holiday resort seeking romance with young local men.
Margarethe Tiesel plays a 50-year-old Austrian whose search for love turns increasingly predatory. But the actress says she does not judge her character’s behavior. She says the movie is about female loneliness and how “people who are exploited at home travel abroad and become exploiters in turn.”
Seidl says the film is the first one in a “Paradise Trilogy” about modern tourism.
“Paradise: Love” had its premiere Friday in Cannes, where it is one of 22 films competing for the coveted Palme d’Or prize.
Kanye West to debut short film at Cannes festival
CANNES, France (AP) – Kanye West will debut a short film titled “Cruel Summer” at the Cannes Film Festival.
The rapper announced Friday that he’ll present the film on Wednesday at the French festival. West and his creative collective DONDA will screen the “short art film” out of competition in Cannes.
West’s press release promises “a fusion of short film and art installation” and an “immersive seven-screen experience.” It will remain open to the public for two days following its premiere.
West has previously directed music videos for his music, including 2010’s “Runaway.”
Candlelit Cannes party celebrates women in movies
CANNES, France (AP) – Cannes is not featuring any female directors this year but it does love women in film.
American actresses Jessica Chastain and Shailene Woodley were honored at an exclusive soiree at a remote hillside villa on Thursday night by the Independent Filmmaker Project, along with international stars Naomi Watts, Diane Kruger and Ludivine Sagnier.
Chastain and Woodley were still dancing around a candlelit pool strewn with petals at the Calvin Klein party into the wee hours Friday.
But, as ever with Cannes, the male of the species made an even bigger splash.
The arrival of David Schwimmer, Chris Rock and Alec Baldwin – complete with a documentary camera crew – caused as much fuss and flashbulbs as the women of the evening.
‘After the Battle’ brings Egypt uprising to Cannes
By Jill LAwless
CANNES, France (AP) – If there were a prize for most topical movie at the Cannes Film Festival, it would go to Egyptian entry “After the Battle,” whose completion, its director says, is a political act in itself.
Yousry Nasrallah’s film is set after last year’s overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak. It was filmed in the streets of Cairo while the uprising and its uncertain aftermath were still unfolding, with a cast that mixes professionals and non-actors.
The director said Thursday that making the movie had been an act of faith in art “at a time when the cinema is being attacked in Egypt as a sin.”
“(The) arts are being criticized by the Islamist parties, and my commitment and the commitment of the actors … was a commitment in favor of the cinema,” said Nasrallah, whose film “Gate of the Sun” screened at Cannes in 2004.
“After the Battle” is one of 22 films competing for the coveted Palme d’Or at the French Riviera film festival, which runs to May 27.
The film’s crew worked amid the fear of intimidation from members of the old regime or Islamists, who are vying for power in Egypt’s first post-revolution presidential election next week. The largely secular and leftist forces who led the revolution have no viable candidate in the race, and many who championed change now fear for the future.
Nasrallah said the movie was shot under a code name, “to make it sound like a romantic comedy.”
It isn’t that, but nor is it a political diatribe.
“After the Battle” focuses on the relationship between wealthy Tahrir Square revolutionary Reem (Mena Shalaby) and Mahmoud (Bassem Samra), a poor horseman from the foot of the Pyramids who has seen his livelihood disappear along with the tourists and has been involved in an attack on protesters.
The characters on both sides are more messy and complicated than they initially appear. Nasrallah said his goal was to make them all human.
“We wanted to show individuals faced with major events who refused to be crushed by history,” Nasrallah said Thursday at a Cannes press conference.
“It’s about a man who is trying to regain his dignity for himself and for his family, and a woman who is trying to find a place in an Egypt that is changing.
“When there is a dictatorship you end up hating yourself,” he added. “I think the Egyptian people deserve this love letter we ended up making through this film.”
Saverin dumps US citizenship ahead of Facebook IPOSINGAPORE (AP) — Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin has renounced his U.S. citizenship, a move expected to save him hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes stemming from the company’s impending initial public offering.
The Brazil-born 30-year-old became a U.S. citizen in 1998 but has lived in Singapore since 2009. Giving up his citizenship will allow him to avoid paying taxes on billions of dollars of capital gains when Facebook launches its IPO Friday. Singapore does not have a capital gains tax.
Saverin gave up his citizenship in the first quarter of this year, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service said.
“Eduardo recently found it to be more practical to become a resident of Singapore since he plans to live there for an indefinite period of time,” Saverin’s New York-based spokesman Tom Goodman said Tuesday in a statement.
Goodman said that because Saverin plans to invest in Brazilian and global companies that have strong interests in entering Asian markets, “it made the most sense for him to use Singapore as a home base.”
Saverin has a 4 percent stake in Facebook, which has headquarters in Menlo Park, California. Analysts say the company could be worth $100 billion.
Saverin, who moved to the U.S. from Brazil in 1992, founded Facebook with Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 while the two were students at Harvard University. Saverin gained additional fame when his conflict with Zuckerberg and departure from the company was depicted in the 2010 movie “The Social Network.”
Kevin Spacey debuts South African short film
By Ed Brown
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — U.S. actor and director Kevin Spacey said he sees opportunity for expanding filmmaking in Africa, Asia and Europe.
Spacey spoke about his international outlook during a brief visit to South Africa Saturday for the premiere of a local short film he helped produce and in which he stars.
With backing from a whiskey company, Spacey ran a contest to find talent from the United States, Russia and South Africa.
A script from each country was chosen, and Spacey starred in and helped produce the three films, including South African Alan Shelley’s “A Spirit of a Denture,” which was given a red-carpet premiere in Johannesburg.
The 26-year-old Cape Town writer-director’s movie is about a workaholic dentist who gets a visit from a pirate.
Spacey recently starred in “Inseparable,” by Chinese-American director Dayyan Eng. In the movie, which was filmed in China, Spacey plays an American expat who befriends a Chinese man played by Chinese-American actor Daniel Wu who is bogged down by work and marital problems.
“There is no doubt that as you start to look around the world, you start to look at the Asia-Pacific region, you start to look at what’s happening here, you look at what’s happening in European cinema, there’s a lot going on,” Spacey said in Johannesburg.
Spacey, who is artistic director at London’s Old Vic Theatre, added: “I like the idea of going to as many places as possible and (having) as many experiences as you can.”
On-location sign for movie causes stir in PolandWARSAW, Poland (AP) — Lenin’s notorious name has returned to a public spot in Eastern Europe: the Gdansk shipyard where Lech Walesa led his anti-communist movement. Though just for a film set, the move has sparked emotions.
A reconstructed sign with the words “In the name of Lenin” returned to the shipyard on the Baltic coast late Sunday. Mayor Pawel Adamowicz allowed the sign to go up to help create a historically accurate backdrop as the Oscar-winning director Andrzej Wajda makes a film about Walesa.
Solidarity, a labor union that is heir to Walesa’s freedom movement, and Law and Justice, a conservative party, protested strongly Monday. Law and Justice asked prosecutors to investigate whether Adamowicz broke a law against propagating communism.
Prosecutors say there is no crime since the reconstruction is for educational purposes.
Brian Marr named director of strategy at Smashing IdeasSEATTLE–Digital media company Smashing Ideas has hired creative marketer Brian Marr as its director of strategy. In the newly minted position, Marr will direct the company’s strategy practice, focused on continuing to broaden the expertise Smashing Ideas will offer their clients.
Marr’s professional background includes long term roles at several companies, including HP and Microsoft, where he operated in groundbreaking product management and marketing roles focused on new media. In 2007 he transitioned to an agency role, serving as the managing director of the Wexley School for Girls advertising agency, and eventually the director of digital strategy. This role provided the opportunity to create award-winning campaigns for clients including Microsoft, Pepsico, Wilson and the Seattle Sounders FC/Seahawks.
Marr grew up in Northern California and graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. He currently teaches a marketing and branding course in the Master of Communication in Digital Media Program at the University of Washington.
Fabien Coupez joins MassMarket as VFX supervisorNEW YORK–Fabien Coupez has joined MassMarket as sr. Flame artist and VFX supervisor. Coupez comes to the MassMarket team with over 14 years of experience in the visual effects realm working on top productions worldwide with companies such as MacGuff Ligne, Wizz, Premiere Heure, Digital District and Film Delux.
Coupez has forged relationships with internationally acclaimed directors in the commercial, music video and feature film worlds such as Bruno Aveillan, H5, Pleix, Stylewar, Harold Einstein and filmmaker Jan Kounen, with whom he worked on the acclaimed film 99 Francs as well as a Peugeot-407 spot. Clients range from fashion (Prada by Jean-Paul Goude), L’Oreal by No Brain) to car (Audi by Sebastien Chantrel, BMW by Nico Beyer) to other large brands (France Telecom by Daniel Askill, Lipton by Mike Maguire)
