September 7, 2012

Brian De Palma returns to Venice with ‘Passion’VENICE, Italy (AP) – Director Brian De Palma has returned to the Venice Film Festival after five years, and to the thriller genre after 20 years, with “Passion.”
   The movie is a murder mystery turning a power struggle between Christine, a business woman played by Rachel McAdams, and Isabel, her protege played by Noomi Rapace. The film makes its world premiere in competition at the Venice Film Festival on Friday.
   De Palma said “Passion” is “a woman’s film” and the actresses “played off each other quite well.”
   Rapace said she appreciated depicting a relationship between women that is not “cute,” or “just friends.”
   De Palma was in Venice in 2007 with “Redacted” and 2006 with the film noir “The Black Dahlia.”
   His last thriller was “Raising Cain” in 1992.

Hungary: Roma movie “Just the Wind” for Oscars
BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) – Hungary’s National Film Fund has selected “Just the Wind,” a film featuring a cast of amateur Roma actors, as the country’s entry for next year’s Academy Awards.
   The Hungarian-German-French co-production directed by Bence Fliegauf won a Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival this year. It depicts a day in the life of a Roma family while their community is threatened by a series of deadly attacks.
   Four men are on trial in Budapest charged with attacking Roma, or Gypsies, in nine Hungarian villages in 2008 and 2009. Six Roma were shot to death, including a 5-year-old boy, and many were injured.
   The Oscar for best foreign film is awarded to one of five nominations selected by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from the international entries.

72andSunny lands creative director Gui BorchertLOS ANGELES–Gui Borchert is joining 72andSunny as a creative director. His body of work includes PUMA’s “Love = Football” campaign, the Orange campaigns for Fallon London, and the Titanium Lion-winning Nike+ campaign from his time at R/GA New York.

72andSunny, an MDC Partners firm, has offices in Los Angeles and Amsterdam. Clients include Activision, Blizzard, Anheuser-Busch, Bugaboo, Carl’s Jr./Hardee’s, K-Swiss, Samsung Mobile, Sonos and Target.
 
Katzenberg, Needham, Pennebaker, Stevens to get honorary Oscars
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The first Oscars of the season have been awarded.

The film academy’s board of governors voted Wednesday to present honorary Academy Awards to stuntman Hal Needham, documentarian D. A. Pennebaker and arts advocate George Stevens, Jr. The group also announced that producer and philanthropist Jeffrey Katzenberg will receive the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.

Needham has more than 300 feature films to his credit as a stunt performer and coordinator. The academy recognized him in 1986 for a camera car and crane he developed that allowed greater versatility in shooting action sequences. He also directed such films as “Smokey and the Bandit” and “Cannonball Run.”

Pennebaker has been making documentaries for six decades and was nominated for an Oscar for 1993’s “The War Room.”

Stevens is the founding director of the American Film Institute and co-founded the Kennedy Center Honors, which he has produced for 34 years.

Chief of DreamWorks Animation, Katzenberg is a longtime philanthropist who helped raise more than $200 million for the Motion Picture and Television Fund, which provides financial assistance, health care and social services to members of the entertainment community.

The four honorees will receive their Oscar statuettes at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ 4th annual Governors Awards dinner. The private ceremony is set for December 1 in the Ray Dolby Ballroom, just upstairs from Oscar’s home at Hollywood & Highland’s Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. 

Sweetener spat takes another sour twist as marketing battle continuesBy Candice Choi, Food Industry Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — The battle of the sweeteners keeps getting stickier.

The nation’s biggest producers of high-fructose corn syrup are countersuing the Sugar Association, saying the group misleads consumers by suggesting its sweetener is to blame for obesity and other health issues.

The claim filed Tuesday is in response to a lawsuit filed last year, which accuses high-fructose corn syrup makers of what it calls false advertising.

The Corn Refiners Association had been running a marketing campaign stating that its syrup is actually a form of sugar and has the same nutritional value as the white, granular table sugar consumers are familiar with.

It has called the Sugar Association’s lawsuit a “silencing campaign” against its efforts to educate consumers.

Separately, the Corn Refiners Association in 2010 had also submitted an application to U.S. Food and Drug Administration to have its sweetening agent renamed “corn sugar” on nutrition labels, given the negative reputation high-fructose corn syrup in recent years.

That request was denied by the FDA in May. The agency said that it defines sugar as a solid, dried and crystallized food — not a syrup.

High-fructose corn syrup came into the U.S. market in the late 1970s and 1980s. The product is used widely in cereals, sodas and other packaged food and drinks. Despite the name, the Corn Refiners Association says the most common forms of it are about half fructose and half glucose.

The American Medical Association has said it wants more research, but that there’s not enough evidence to restrict the use of the syrup. The Center for Science in the Public Interest, which advocates for food safety, has said that there’s no evidence that the sweetener is any worse nutritionally than sugar.

The counterclaims were filed on behalf of Archer Daniels Midland Co., Cargill Inc., Ingredion Inc. and Tate & Lyle Ingredients Americas Inc. in U.S. District Court Central District of California.

Director/DP Jerry Dugan Joins humbleNEW YORK–After several successful collaborations, Hybrid production and post company humble has signed director/DP Jerry Dugan for U.S. representation.

Most recently humble and Dugan teamed up to capture extreme athlete Andy Bell, best known as part of MTV’s “action sports collective” NITRO Circus, while running with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain, as Bell tested the speed of the Hotels.com mobile booking app. This was humble and Dugan’s second collaboration on the Hotels.com “Xtreme Booking” campaign from Y&R Midwest in Chicago.

Dugan initially made his directorial mark in extreme sports with popular snowboarding films and shoots for MTVSports and ESPN2. The natural next step for Dugan was to step into the advertising world, and he has been sought out by advertising agencies to direct commercials for athletic companies, the tourism industry, and automobiles. His other ad credits include such brands as American Express, Burger King and AT&T….

Venice Festival screening: ‘Witness Libya’ follows war photographer
VENICE, Italy (AP) — Director Michael Mann’s production of “Witness Libya” is being shown out of competition at the Venice Film Festival, where he is chairing the jury that will decide the winner of the coveted Golden Lion.

“Witness Libya” is one of a four-part HBO documentary series following combat photographers into conflict zones. In the Libya entry, a small crew follows American photographer Michael Christopher Brown into Libya a few months after the death of leader Moammar Gadhafi.

Mann told The Associated Press that the documentary, which he executive produces, “brings you into the real human complexity on the ground.”

Brown said he tried to be “as truthful as I could.”

He said the film was a tribute to colleagues Chris Hondros and Tim Hetherington, both killed in Libya in April 2011.

Olympic ads help boost GM sales 10 pct in AugustDETROIT (AP) — General Motors says its U.S. sales rose 10 percent last month as advertising on the Olympics and a Chevrolet money-back guarantee program drew more customers.

GM rebounded from a bad July to sell almost 241,000 cars and trucks in August. Chevy brand sales were up more than 11 percent, and Chevy car sales rose 25 percent. But SUV sales tumbled in a month with rising gasoline prices.

Industry analysts expect GM’s sales to lag the rest of the industry. Overall U.S. sales were expected to rise about 20 percent compared with a year ago.

Sales of GM’s top-selling vehicle, the Chevrolet Silverado pickup, rose 4 percent. Chevy Cruze compact sales were up 19 percent.

GM began offering a money-back guarantee to Chevrolet buyers on July 10.

Chinese company closes buy of AMC theater chain
NEW YORK (AP) — Chinese conglomerate Wanda says it has closed on the acquisition of AMC Entertainment Holdings, one of the largest movie theater chains in the U.S.

The $2.6 billion deal is the largest takeover yet of a U.S. company by a Chinese firm. It also makes Wanda the world’s largest owner of cinemas.

Dalian Wanda Group Co.’s purchase reflects the global ambitions of cash-rich Chinese companies that are using acquisitions to speed their expansion.

The Beijing-based company said it will invest an additional $500 million in AMC and keep its headquarters in Kansas City, Mo.

AMC operates 338 cinemas. It’s owned by a group of private-equity firms.

Wanda, founded in 1988 and privately owned, operates hotels, department stores, tourism and other businesses. It has 94 theaters in China.

Japan’s Kurosawa tries to find hope in horrorBy Colleen Barry
VENICE, Italy (AP) — Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s interest in the impact of death on those left behind has drawn to the horror genre, but he says he tries to leave viewers with a sense of hope.

Kurosawa showed his latest project, “Penance,” out of competition at the Venice Film Festival this week.

The five-part serial drama opens with the murder of a young girl, and unfolds 15 years later, after the friends who witnessed her death have grown up. Grief-stricken, the girl’s mother has placed a curse that will haunt them unless they seek revenge.

“I am quite interested in a death, and I wonder what is going to happen after people die, and how it will affect the living people,” Kurosawa, 57, said in an interview Saturday. “I think there are so many hints hidden in horror films.”

Kurosawa said that since childhood, he has always enjoyed the emotions conveyed in a horror movie and that when he makes a film he wants to leave the audience with a sense of hope.

“In a film I think frightening people can be entertaining. That is why I do this kind of movie,” he said.

“Penance” is based on a novel which he adapted to a screenplay. The serial nature of the drama created some fresh challenges for the director. Kurasawa said it is his first film to cover a span of time, and also his first in which the protagonist of the film’s terror is a woman.

“At the beginning of filming, I was worried if I can still bring some hope to the audience at the end,” he said.

Kurosawa, who is not related to famed late Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa, has shown films on the Lido twice before, in 1999 with “Barren Illusion” and in 2006 with “Retribution.”

His film “Tokyo Sonata” won best picture in the 2009 Asian Film Awards.

Spanish director wins YouTube online festival
VENICE, Italy (AP) — Spanish filmmaker David Victori has won the inaugural edition of YouTube’s Your Film Festival for his short movie “The Guilt.”

The winner was announced Sunday on the sidelines of the Venice Film Festival after selection by a jury that included director Ridley Scott and actor Michael Fassbender.

Victori, whose movie focuses on a man obsessed with revenge after his wife’s murder, will receive $500,000 for his next project, with Scott and Fassbender acting as executive producers.

YouTube viewers chose the 10 finalists who traveled to Venice for the final selection after viewing the films on YouTube’s channel www.YouTube.com/yourfilmfestival. The narrative-driven submissions could be no longer than 15 minutes in length.

YouTube has held film contests in the past, but the global Your Film Festival is on a much larger scale.

‘Hugo’ editor Thelma Schoonmaker wins Gucci award
By Colleen Barry
VENICE, Italy (AP) — Thelma Schoonmaker, a three-time Academy Award winner, was awarded on Friday the second Gucci award for women’s achievement in filmmaking for her work editing “Hugo.”

Schoonmaker, 72, has worked on every Scorsese feature film and won the Academy Award for “Raging Bull,” ”The Aviator” and “The Departed.”

“I just don’t think I would have become a filmmaker if I hadn’t met him,” Schoonmaker told The Associated Press after receiving the prize.

The two met in film class at New York University in 1962, while Schoonmaker was considering either a career as a diplomat or in primitive art.

“He was just a student and I helped him salvage his negatives. He had cut them wrong … and that’s the beginning of our relationship of trust,” she said.

Her favorite film is “Raging Bulll,” her first major film, which she called “pure gold.”

She said she thinks women make good editors because they are more collaborative — and praised Scorsese for having many women working for him.

“Scorsese told me some of the editors he worked with were men every cut was a battle. With me and him it’s about the film and it’s a wonderful collaboration,” she said.

Actress Salma Hayek-Pinault presented the award at a private dinner at the Cipriani Hotel hosted by Gucci creative director Frida Giannini on the sidelines of the Venice Film Festival. By coincidence, 20 percent of the films in the official program in this year’s edition are directed by women.

Festival director Alberto Barbera called it “a sign of the times.”

Gucci will make a grant of $25,000 in Schoonmaker’s name to New York University’s film and television school — where Schoonmaker and Scorsese met.

The award is meant to highlight women’s contributions to film in a wide range of capacities. Other nominees this year were Colleen Atwood for costume design in “Snow White and the Huntsman,” Nadine Labaki, director of “Where Do We Go Now?” Brit Marling, actress in “Another Earth,” and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, director “Saving Face.”

Release date for third ‘Hobbit’ film announcedBURBANK, Calif. (AP) — “Hobbit” fans need only wait seven months between the second and third installments of Peter Jackson’s highly anticipated trilogy.

Warner Bros. Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures announced Friday the final film in the series will be called “The Hobbit: There and Back Again” and released worldwide on July 18, 2014. The title was taken from the second installment, which will now be called “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.”

Here’s how it all breaks down:

— “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,’ Dec. 14, 2012.

— “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.” Dec. 13, 2013.

— “The Hobbit: There and Back Again,” July 18, 2014.

Adapted from J.R.R. Tolkien’s beloved masterpiece, “The Hobbit” series will be released in High Frame Rate 3-D, other 3-D formats, IMAX and 2-D.

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