Word is that directors Daniel Kleinman and Ringan Ledwidge
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Word is that directors Daniel Kleinman and Ringan Ledwidge are teaming to form a London production house. A moniker for the new venture has not yet been chosen, but the shop will be based at Kleinman’s current offices (Kleinman Productions). Ledwidge comes over from SmallFamilyBusiness, a house that is winding down operations….Director Stewart Cohen has signed with Directorz, Dallas….Wendy Brovetto has been named executive producer at New York-based creative design studio Pure. She comes over from Saucer Attack, New York, where she held the same title….Sound designer Roland Alley has joined New York-based Burst, the music/sound design sister shop to post house Creative Bubble, New York….Producer Geyla Robb has joined music, sound design and licensing shop Q Department, New York…..
For many filmmakers, the Oscars are a pipe dream. But not because they think their movies aren't good enough.
The Iranian director, Mohammad Rasoulof, for instance, knew his native country was more likely to jail him than submit his film for the Academy Awards. Iran, like some other countries including Russia, has an official government body that selects its Oscar submission. For a filmmaker like Rasoulof, who has brazenly tested his country's censorship restrictions, that made the Oscars out of the question.
"A lot of independent filmmakers in Iran think that we would never be able to make it to the Oscars," Rasoulof said in an interview through an interpreter. "The Oscars were never part of my imagination because I was always at war with the Iranian government."
Unlike other categories at the Academy Awards, the initial selection for the best international film category is outsourced. Individual countries make their submission, one movie per country.
Sometimes that's an easy call. When the category — then "best foreign language film" — was established, it would have been hard to quibble with Italy's pick: Federico Fellini's "La Strada," the category's first winner in 1957.
But, often, there's great debate about which movie a country ought to submit — especially when undemocratic governments do the selecting. Rasoulof's fellow Iranian New Wave director Jafar Panahi likewise had no hopes of Iran selecting his 2022 film "No Bears" for the Oscars. At the time, Panahi was imprisoned by Iran, which didn't release him until he went on a hunger strike.
Rasoulof's film, "The Seed of the Sacred Fig" — a movie shot clandestinely in Iran before its director and cast fled the country — ultimately was nominated for best... Read More
