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Lionsgate makes Break BY JEREMY KAY
Cargo, Duhamel to bask in Sun BY JEREMY KAY
Cargo Entertainment sales head Mark Lindsay and his team will kick off sales here on the thriller Lost In The Sun starring Josh Duhamel. Trey Nelson will direct from his screenplay about a smalltime crook who kidnaps a teenage orphan. Production is set to begin in February in Texas. Clay Floren and Aimee Shieh of Floren Shieh Productions will produce with Clay Pecorin of Two Ton Films. ICM represents domestic rights. Cargo Entertainment CEO Marina Grasic said: “This actionpacked thriller will attract audiences worldwide.” The Invisible Woman
Lionsgate International has added Point Break to its crop of new AFM titles alongside Mortdecai, Gods Of Egypt and Love & Mercy. Ericson Core will direct Alcon Entertainment’s reimagining of the 1991 action-thriller and previously served as director of photography on Invincible, The Fast And The Furious and Daredevil. Alcon co-founders and co-CEOs Broderick Johnson and Andrew
Sony Pictures Classics (SPC) has taken a host of remaining territories on Ralph Fiennes’ Charles Dickens drama The Invisible Woman from WestEnd Films. After securing US, Latin America and South Africa rights at Berlin earlier this year, SPC has now picked up Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan and Korea. Lionsgate has UK rights, Hopscotch handles Australia, Wild Bunch releases in Benelux and Smile has Scandinavia. SPC is due to release in the US in December. Andreas Wiseman
Kosove are producing with Christopher W Taylor and screenwriter Kurt Wimmer. Robert L Levy, Peter Abrams and John McMurrick serve as executive producers. The extreme-sports heavy Point Break is due to start shooting in March on location in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, China and Malta. Warner Bros will distribute in the US. No cast has been announced. Patrick Wachsberger and his
Lionsgate team will also talk up OddLot Entertainment’s Mortdecai starring Johnny Depp and Gwyneth Paltrow. Fantasy tale Gods Of Egypt stars Gerard Butler, Brenton Thwaites, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Geoffrey Rush. Basil Iwanyk and director Alex Proyas produce. Bill Pohlad’s Brian Wilson tale Love & Mercy stars John Cusack, Paul Dano, Elizabeth Banks and Paul Giamatti and is in post.
NEWS Big voice Sony has acquired multiple territories on IFT’s Your Voice In My Head, starring Emma Watson. » Page 6
FEATURES Market buzz Screen introduces the hottest titles coming to market at AFM. » Page 13
Wish fulfilment Zach Braff on turning to Kickstarter to fund his feature, Wish I Was Here. » Page 30
SCREENINGS
» Page 42
Content scares up The Nightmare BY JEREMY KAY
Content will commence sales here on The Nightmare, the latest genre title from its Preferred Film & TV joint venture with producer Ross Dinerstein and Kevin Iwashina. Rodney Ascher of Room 237 fame will direct the horror documentary about victims of sleep paralysis who experience demonic visions. Ascher himself has personal experience of such visions.
Dinerstein and Iwashina are producing alongside Glen Zipper, whose credits include Oscar-winning documentary Undefeated. Content’s Jamie Carmichael serves as executive producer and will kick off pre-sales with his team at AFM this week. Iwashina and Carmichael represent North American rights. “Rodney has a piercing intellect and a unique cinematic vision for
horror,” said Carmichael. “We can’t wait to follow him down this new supernatural wormhole.” The Nightmare is the sixth film produced by Preferred Film & TV following The Pact and The Pact 2, The Diabolical, Mr Jones and Dark Summer. Content’s AFM slate includes Jimi: All Is By My Side, Ironclad: Battle For Blood and Pudsey: The Movie.
Divine deal for Showbox Kitsch takes BY JEAN NOH
SPC falls again for Woman
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Major South Korean investor/distributor Showbox/Mediaplex has taken on Quick director Jo Bumgu’s The Divine Move, starring Cold Eyes’ Jung Woo-sung. Jung stars as a hard-boiled Go player who is framed for his brother’s murder. Veteran actor Ahn Sung-ki, from Unbowed and Battle Of Wits, features as a blind master who backs him up as he penetrates the underground gambling circle of his brother’s killer.
Currently in production, the film is set to be released in the first half of 2014. Showbox also has three market premieres at AFM: Jang Joonhwan’s Hwayi: A Monster Boy, spy thriller Commitment and the 3D baseball-playing gorilla film Mr. Go. The company is also revealing first footage from Won Shin-yun’s action thriller The Suspect, starring Gong Yoo. The film is in post-production, and is scheduled for local release in December.
QED brings Strange But True BY JEREMY KAY
QED International arrives at AFM with worldwide rights to the noir thriller Strange But True starring Imogen Poots, Bill Paxton and Melissa Leo. Alex and David Pastor will direct the tale about a woman who discovers she is pregnant five years
after her boyfriend has died. Principal photography is earmarked for spring 2014. Fred Berger produces alongside Adrian Guerra, Christina Piovesan, Alex Lalonde and Darryn Welch. Executive producers include Ross Katz, John Penotti, Tim Williams and Brian Kornreich.
Umedia’s Exit
Taylor Kitsch is attached to star in thriller Exit 147, one of three films being introduced by Umedia here at AFM. In Exit 147, Kitsch stars as a cop who plays mindgames with a young traveller. Julian Jarrold directs the film, which will shoot in the second quarter of 2014. It is a Umedia presentation of a Mandalay Vision production. Umedia International, the sales arm of the Belgian film finance and production group, is also handling world sales on John Goldschmidt’s comedy-drama Dough, starring Jonathan Pryce, and psychological horror The Well, a UK-Sweden-Hungary co-production to be directed by Misko Massanyi. Tony Krantz and Jesper Böcker are producing through 79 Pictures, with production set for early next year. Michael Rosser
Gaumont to dream with Arnby’s Animals BY MELANIE GOODFELLOW
Gaumont has picked up sales rights for Danish film-maker Jonas Arnby’s When Animals Dream (pictured), about a young girl who is hunted down by the inhabitants of her remote fishing village when it emerges she is a werewolf. “Think Let The Right One In and Carrie,” Gaumont sales chief Cécile Gaget says of the coming-of-age horror film. Sonia Suhl heads the cast, which includes Lars Mikkelsen, Sonja Richter and Jakob Oftebro. Gaumont will unveil a teaser and photographs for the production, which started shooting in North Jutland in early September. The film is due for delivery next year in time for Cannes. Nordisk handles Scandinavia. Gaumont’s slate also includes Belle And Sebastian, Diplomacy, My Summer In Provence and Samba.
NEWS
K5 scores with Next Goal By Wendy Mitchell
Emma Watson
Sony hears IFT’s Your Voice In My Head
K5 International has boarded documentary feature Next Goal Wins, directed by Mike Brett and Steve Jamison. The feelgood movie is about the turnaround in fortunes of the American Samoa soccer team. Having become a laughing stock after a world-record 31-0 defeat in 2001, they landed maverick coach Thomas Rongen and set out for World Cup qualification in 2011.
Kristian Brodie produces the Archer’s Mark and Agile Films project. K5 introduces the project to buyers here at AFM; narrative feature adaptation rights are already under discussion. WME Global, which brokered the deal, is handling the film’s North American rights. The film-making team, which shot on a RED Epic camera, was embedded with the American
Samoa national team for months at a time. More than 300 hours of footage were edited in the UK. “We have handled a few great documentaries at K5 and this is up there with the best of them. It’s also without doubt the most feelgood movie we’ve ever handled. “It’s often hilariously funny, has you on the edge of your seat and makes you cry for sheer joy,” said K5’s Oliver Simon and Daniel Baur.
by Jeremy Kay
IFT has licensed rights for Your Voice In My Head to Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions (SPWA) for the UK, Australia/New Zealand, Scandinavia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. IFT has closed further deals for South Korea (Sookie Pictures), Turkey (Kalinos), Switzerland (Praesens), Hong Kong, India and Taiwan (PT Parkit), Singapore (Shaw), China (HGC) and the Middle East (Shooting Stars). Emma Watson will star in the adaptation of Emma Forrest’s bestseller as a young bipolar Englishwoman in New York. CAA represents US rights. Production is set to begin in early 2014. Francesca Gregorini directs and Alison Owen and Michael Benaroya produce for Benaroya Pictures and Ruby’s Faye Ward serves as executive producer.
FilmNation winds up Vice FilmNation Entertainment will finance and commence international sales at AFM on the thriller Tokyo Vice, to star Daniel Radcliffe. The project is based on reallife journalist Jake Adelstein, who covered murder, extortion and the Yakuza on his Japanese beat. Music video and commercial director Anthony Mandler will direct from a script by JT Rogers, adapted from Adelstein’s book Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter On The Police Beat. Production is set to begin in mid-2014 with John Lesher and Adam Kassan producing. Binn Jakupi is executive producing for Le Grisbi Productions. UTA packaged the project and handles US sales. Alison Cohen brokered the deal on behalf of FilmNation. Jeremy Kay
Rocketman duo orbit AFM
Tom Hardy and Elton John in Santa Monica
Elton John and Tom Hardy came to AFM yesterday for Good Universe’s buyers reception for Rocketman. The “movie musical spectacle” will star Hardy as the musician. Michael Gracey directs from a script by Lee Hall. Focus Features will release in the US and Good Universe is handling international sales. Steve Hamilton Shaw and David Furnish of Rocket Pictures and Lawrence Bender for AI Films produce. Elton John and Len Blavatnik are executive producing, along with AI Films CEO Aviv Giladi and Focus Features CEO Peter Schlessel. John will re-record many of his hits for the film, which will shoot in autumn 2014.
Fortissimo tucks in with Foodies By Wendy Mitchell
Ahead of AFM’s kick-off, Fortissimo Films has acquired world rights (excluding Scandinavia) to documentary Foodies, directed by Thomas Jackson, Charlotte Landelius and Henrik Stockare. The feature film explores the growing worldwide phenomenon of the titular ‘foodies’ — passionate, food-loving, blog-writing, globetrotting culinary jet-setters. The film follows the dining elite
on their gastronomic adventures across the world. Fortissimo has had a string of food-related documentary hits including Jiro Dreams Of Sushi, Food, Inc. and Super Size Me. The deal was negotiated by Fortissimo’s chairman Michael J Werner and managing director Nelleke Driessen with Mattias Nohrborg of B-Reel on behalf of the producers. Sales are set to commence here
at AFM, where Fortissimo will show exclusive footage. Werner said: “The pursuit of great meals, and new food adventures, has become an omnipresent and global phenomenon. Witness your dining companions snapping food photos, to your friends planning restaurant excursions; everyone is joining the foodie revolution. Foodies captures this new movement in an exquisite, mouthwatering documentary.”
Exclusive snags thrillers, caper By jeremy kay
Exclusive Media has picked up international rights to supernatural thrillers Shomer and Out Of The Dark, and crime caper Murder Of A Cat. Alex Walton and his team will start sales here on the trio. Lawrence Bender, Lauren Selig and Ray Ricord are producing
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Shomer, which is in pre-production and centres on a religious vigil that results in a demonic encounter. Guillem Morales (Julia’s Eyes) will direct from a screenplay by David Abram Nahmod. Aneurin Barnard stars. Len Blavatnik of Access Industries is executive producing along-
side Shomer financier Aviv Giladi and Vince Holden of AI Film. Gillian Greene’s directorial debut, Murder Of A Cat, is in post and tells of a man trying to uncover the truth about his murdered cat. Sam Raimi, Molly Hassell and Ivan Orlic produce. Fran Kranz, Nikki Reed, JK Simmons, Blythe
Poulter turns superhero for iBoy By Andreas Wiseman
Will Poulter, star of We’re The Millers and Son Of Rambow, is to lead the cast of the adaptation of wellreceived superhero novel iBoy, about a teenage boy who gains special powers when he is hit by a falling iPhone. His fellow 2013 Screen Star of Tomorrow, screenwriter Joe Barton, has adapted Kevin Brooks’ London-set thriller, with commercials director Adam Randall on board to direct. Donnie Brasco and Kinsey producer Gail Mutrux produces for US-based production outfit Pretty Pictures alongside London-based Emily Leo, Oliver Roskill and Lucan Toh of Wigwam Films (Having You). Metro International is selling at AFM and will be showing a teaser shot by Randall and starring Poulter. Shooting will start in February. iBoy follows average teenager Tom whose world is turned on its head when a violent encounter with thugs leaves fragments of a smartphone embedded in his brain. Tom knows, sees and can do more than any normal boy. With his new powers, he sets out to take revenge on the gang who assaulted Lucy, the girl he loves. Discussions are underway with further cast and vfx companies. Momoco will provide graphic design. Also on the slate of recently revamped Metro International are Toronto festival titles Half Of A Yellow Sun, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor and Thandie Newton, and Irish comedy The Stag, both of which get AFM screenings. In post-production is Nina Simone biopic, Nina, starring Zoe Saldana and David Oyelowo, which is screening on promo, while in pre-production are Last Man Out with Pierce Brosnan, and Crooked House adapted by Julian Fellowes from the book by Agatha Christie. Danner and Greg Kinnear star. CAA handles US sales. Out Of The Dark is in post and stars Julia Stiles and Scott Speedman as a couple in Colombia who discover a shocking family secret. Luis Quilez directs. Dynamo, Apaches Entertainment and XYZ Films produce and Jeff Skoll and Jonathan King of the project’s financier Participant Media serve as executive producers.
NEWS
Eckhart finds Solution to thriller Fade Out Stay
Gravitas takes US for Stay By JErEMy KAy
Gravitas Ventures has acquired US rights from international sales agent Visit Films to Wiebke von Carolsfeld’s recent Toronto world premiere Stay. Aidan Quinn and Taylor Schilling star in the story of a relationship between a young woman and a disgraced professor. The film is based on Aislinn Hunter’s acclaimed novel of the same name. Gravitas has scheduled a theatrical and VoD release for the Canada-Ireland co-production in the first quarter of 2014. “Wiebke von Carolsfeld has captured the beauty and complexity of coastal-Ireland living,” said Gravitas Ventures CEO Nolan Gallagher, who brokered the deal with Visit head Ryan Kampe. “We look forward to sharing the intimate performances of Aidan Quinn and Taylor Schilling, which will no doubt resonate with theatrical and video-on-demand audiences in the US.”
By JErEMy KAy
Aaron Eckhart will star in the psychological thriller Fade Out, which The Solution Entertainment Group introduces at AFM this week. Robert Salerno will direct from a screenplay by Michael Cristofer. Anthony Bregman of Likely Story and Naomi Despres of Artina Films will produce. Fade Out centres on a paranoid screenwriter recovering from a breakdown on a tropical island; his wife goes missing as he is writing a script about a wife murderer.
Aaron Eckhart
The Solution Entertainment Group’s Lisa Wilson and Myles Nestel are on board as executive producers alongside John Penotti and Tim Williams. Principal photography is sched-
Works jumps into bed with Sigma’s Swung
By ANDrEAS WISEMAN
UK sales outfit AV Pictures has picked up world rights to First World War horror script No Man’s Land. Set in the trenches of the western front, the film follows English troops who encounter an ancient race of bloodthirsty subterranean creatures. Student Academy Award winner Jen Handorf produces for Dark Matter Films, with Sean Hogan directing. VFX expert Dan Martin will create the monsters while Ben Wheatley collaborator Martin Pavey is on board as sound designer. Principal photography is due to start in the UK in March 2014 with Lee Brazier overseeing for AV Pictures. The film is out to cast.
AFM brieFs FD falls for Girlfriend
By ANDrEAS WISEMAN
Principal photography is underway in Glasgow on Colin Kennedy’s debut feature Swung, starring The Skin I Live In’s Elena Anaya. The Works International will introduce buyers to the Sigmaproduced English-language romance here at AFM. Based on a script adapted by author Ewan Morrison from his novel of the same name, Swung follows a couple whose relationship spirals out of control after
Elena Anaya
they come across a swingers website. Saving The Titanic actor Owen McDonnell co-stars.
Quantschnigg joins Goldcrest Former Indomina executive Catherine Quantschnigg has joined sales outfit Goldcrest Films as vp international sales. The executive — who reports to MD Pascal Degove — was most recently vp of international sales and acquisitions at Indomina Releasing and was formerly vp international sales for IM Global, where she also managed genre label Octane. The hiring comes as Goldcrest begins to revamp its slate. Screen announced last week the outfit will finance and sell Troll Hunter director André Ovredal’s English-language debut, The Autopsy Of Jane Doe. Degove said: “Catherine’s understanding of the marketplace, combined with her inexhaustible contacts list, make her an invaluable addition to the team.” Andreas Wiseman
uled to commence in mid-February in Puerto Rico. The producers are handling US rights. “Aaron is the perfect actor to bring the character to life in this Hitchcockian thriller,” said Wilson and Nestel. “We are delighted to be partnering with Robert Salerno on his directorial debut and debuting the project at AFM.” The Solution’s AFM slate also includes The Forger with John Travolta; How To Make Love Like An Englishman with Pierce Brosnan, Salma Hayek and Jessica Alba; and Jenny’s Wedding starring Katherine Heigl.
AV enters No Man’s Land
Brian Coffey (Starred Up) produces for Sigma Film, with finance coming from Creative Scotland, Boudica Films and the UK tax credit. Executive producers are Gillian Berrie for Sigma and Rebecca Long and Ian Davies for Boudica. Kennedy, a Screen Star of Tomorrow in 2011, was second unit director on David Mackenzie’s sci-fi romance Perfect Sense and comedy drama Tonight You’re Mine.
Films Distribution has boarded international rights to Francois Ozon’s The New Girlfriend, which is now shooting, starring Romain Duris and Anais Demoustier.
TF1 shoots for football drama
Mongrel Media has acquired all Canadian rights to Israel’s foreignlanguage Oscar submission Bethlehem. Yuval Adler’s thriller won the Venice Days strand at Venice Film Festival and earned six Ophir Awards in Israel this year.
TF1 International has unveiled this first image of Gérard Depardieu as World Cup founder Jules Rimet in soccer epic The Men’s Dream, which charts the history of the sport’s governing body, FIFA. Frédéric Auburtin’s $31m English-language production, co-starring Sam Neill and Tim Roth, has wrapped after a 13-week shoot in France, Switzerland, Brazil and Azerbaijan. Melanie Goodfellow
7&7 treats buyers to Breakfast By ANDrEAS WISEMAN
London-based sales team 7&7 Producers’ Sales Service arrives at AFM with three newly completed features: Breakfast With Jonny Wilkinson, Delicious and Little Happiness. Sunshine On Leith’s George MacKay stars in the sporting comedy Breakfast With Jonny Wilkin-
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son, directed by Simon Sprackling and based on the hit play by Chris England. Romantic drama Delicious follows a French chef (played by Nico Rogner) in London who falls for his anorexic neighbour (Sherlock’s Louise Brealey). Tammy Riley-Smith’s film debuted at Busan.
Turkish-language drama Little Happiness (Uzun Yol) charts the harrowing repercussions faced by a young couple whose elopement has brought dishonour to their families. 7&7’s managing director Maura Ford said: “With the expansion of worldwide distribution models, we need to keep our slate diverse and these films reach out to the new global audience.”
Imagina heads to Mexico Imagina International Sales is handling A Night In Old Mexico, Emilio Aragon’s English-language road movie starring Robert Duvall. Imagina will handle Europe, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East.
Mongrel visits Bethlehem
Moving into California Double Dutch International has picked up international rights to Marco Weber’s teen thriller California Scheming and launches sales here. Webber produces through his Rapid Eye Film. Double Dutch International president Jason Moring brokered the deal with Weber.
AFM hits six-year high AFM top brass said this year’s market boasts more than 8,000 participants, marking a six-year high. A total of 357 exhibitors from 33 countries bring 405 films, while the attendee roster includes 100 new buyers and a record number from mainland China.
» Full stories on ScreenDaily.com
BULLET
Completed
MARKET PREMIERE
CHARMING (3D)
ANIMATION / ACTION / FAIRY TALE
Cast: Danny Trejo, Jonathan Banks, Julia Dietze
Cast: Prince Charming, Snow White and The Seven Dwarves, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty
Completed
MARKET PREMIERE
Producer: John H. Williams, Dan Krech
THE BOXCAR CHILDREN
THE LAST SHOWING
Completed
NEW TITLE
ACTION
ANIMATION / FAMILY / DRAMA
UK release: Lionsgate
Voice: Zach Gordon, Martin Sheen Over 50 million books sold worldwide
SCREENING Thurs Nov 7th – 1 pm – Broadway Cineplex 3 Sun Nov 10th – 5pm – Broadway Cineplex 3
GREEN STREET HOOLIGANS 3
NEW TITLE
ACTION / THRILLER
SCREENING Wed Nov 6th – 3pm – Broadway Cineplex 2 Sun Nov 10th – 1pm – Broadway Cineplex 1
I AM SOLDIER
Pre-production
Completed
MARKET PREMIERE
GUS (3D)
In production
ACTION / MMA
ANIMATION / ACTION ADVENTURE
Cast: Scott Adkins UK release: Lionsgate
Voice: Dakota Fanning, Seth Green
SCREENING Wed Nov 6th – 1pm – AMC Santa Monica 1 Mon Nov 11th – 3pm – AMC Santa Monica 2
Producer: TeamTO
Post-production
Director: Dominique Monfery, Chrisia De Vita
NEW TITLE
FIRST FOOTAGE available.
JUNGLE SHUFFLE (3D)
In production
PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER
ANIMATION / ACTION ADVENTURE
Cast: Robert Englund, Finn Jones, Emily Berrington
Voice: Rob Schneider, Drake Bell Producer: Wonderworld Studios, Avikoo Studios
Writer/Director: Phil Hawkins
Korea release: CJ Entertainment
FIRST PROMO available
TOMORROW (AKA OMNI)
Pre-production
NEW TITLE
THE REEF2: HIGH TIDE (3D)
Completed
SCI-FI ACTION
ANIMATION / FAMILY
Writer/Director: Tristan Cornelius Versluis
Voice: Rob Schneider, Drake Bell
Producer: Kate Glover
120+ screen release in the UK 800+ screen release in Russia
CONCEPT PROMO available
AFM: Suite 650 | The Loews Hotel | Santa Monica Simon Crowe (CEO) t: +44 7764-942-149 e: simon@scfilmsinternational.com Fumie Suzuki Lancaster (Sales & Marketing Director) t: +44 7804-632-427 e: fumie@scfilmsinternational.com Russell Webber (Acquisitions & Legal Executive) t: +44 7894-220-886 e: russell@scfilmsinternational.com
SC Films International London: 1st Floor | 56 Brewer Street | Soho | London W1F 9TJ | United Kingdom | t +44 (0)20 7287 1900 | www.scfilmsinternational.com
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Feature Focus
ScreenIngS, pAge 42
The highs at the Loews Screen previews some of the hottest titles coming to market at AFM, from pre-production to finished films
US Sellers By Jeremy Kay Lionsgate International arrives at the market to
kick off pre-sales on a powerhouse duo. Shooting has begun in London on Mortdecai, starring Johnny Depp as an art dealer on the hunt for lost Nazi gold. The first project under Lionsgate and OddLot Entertainment’s co-financing and distribution deal also stars Gwyneth Paltrow, Ewan McGregor, Paul Bettany, Ulrich Thomsen and Olivia Munn. David Koepp directs. Alex Proyas’s Gods Of Egypt stars Gerard Butler, Brenton Thwaites, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Geoffrey Rush in the story of a mortal in ancient Egypt who teams up with a vengeful god to thwart an evil ruler. Basil Iwanyk and Proyas produce. QED International will start pre-sales on the red-hot Tom Hardy Yakuza crime thriller The Outsider from Worldview Entertainment. Takashi Miike will direct in early 2014 in Japan. Panorama Media has revived the adventure
story The Lost City Of Z and will finance and sell. James Gray will direct Benedict Cumberbatch and Robert Pattinson in the Plan B production. FilmNation will tempt buyers with the Sherlock Holmes mystery A Slight Trick Of The Mind. Bill Condon will direct Ian McKellen as the legendary sleuth who is lured out of retirement by an unsolved case. Icon/AI Film, Archer Gray Productions and See-Saw Films produce and shooting is set to kick off in April in the UK. Good Universe comes to the Loews with the Elton John biopic Rocketman to star Tom Hardy. Focus Features will distribute the Icon/AI Film project in the US and Michael Gracey will direct. John himself will re-record select hits to accompany the musical production, set to shoot in autumn 2014. Good Universe’s slate also includes The 33, the true-life story of the trapped Chilean miners to star Antonio Banderas. Dallas Buyers Club co-screenwriter Craig Borten is among the screenwriters and Mike Medavoy produces with Robert Katz and Edward McGurn.
clockwise from top left: Tom Hardy, nicole Kidman, Aaron eckhart, Zoe Saldana, Michael caine and Johnny Depp star in projects coming to AFM
Don Cheadle is scheduled to make an appearance to talk up his directorial debut Kill The Trumpet Player, the Miles Davis biopic that IM Global is selling. Daniel Wagner’s BiFrost Pictures is fully financing and Ewan McGregor and Zoe Saldana are in talks to join the cast. Herbie Hancock is executive producer and music supervisor. IM Global and Blumhouse International are jointly financing the Aaron Eckhart and Catalina Sandino Moreno exorcism tale Incarnate from producer Jason Blum. Brad Peyton directs the project, which is now shooting, and Universal will distribute in the US. Adam Sandler project The Cobbler comes to AFM under the auspices of Voltage Pictures and is set to shoot this month in New York. Voltage is fully financing the drama from director Tom McCarthy about a shoemaker who can experience the lives of other people when he wears their shoes. Nu Image will introduce London Has Fallen, the sequel to 2013 hit Olympus Has Fallen. Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart and Morgan Freeman reunite in »
November 6, 2013 Screen International at AFM 13 n
Feature AFM buzz titles
the story of a terror attack at the funeral of the UK prime minister. Focus Features is likely to release in the US. Exclusive Media arrives with Murder Of A Cat, currently in post. Sam Raimi, Ivan Orlic and Molly Hassell produce the caper about a man who sets out to uncover the double life of his murdered cat. Nikki Reed, Fran Kranz, Greg Kinnear, Blythe Danner and JK Simmons star. Werner Herzog is lining up production on Queen Of The Desert to star Nicole Kidman, James Franco, Robert Pattinson and Damian Lewis. Sierra/Affinity handles sales on the Palmyra Films and Benaroya Pictures project about the UK spy and writer Gertrude Bell, credited with founding modern-day Iraq. Content will offer Dark Summer, the latest title from its Preferred Film & TV joint venture with producer Ross Dinerstein and business partner Kevin Iwashina. The project is described as a new twist on the summer supernatural horror trope. Paul Solet (Grace) directs. Radiant Films International arrives with the upcoming friendship drama Harry And The Butler to star Samuel L Jackson and Michael Caine. Radiant is also selling Sophie Barthes’ Madame Bovary, in production now, starring Mia Wasikowska. Fresh from the successful Toronto launch of The Disappearance Of Eleanor Rigby, Myriad Pictures brings The Keys To The Street to Santa Monica. Gemma Arterton, Tim Roth and Max Irons will star in the London-set erotic psychological thriller that Christopher Nolan and Michael Stokes adapted from Ruth Rendell’s novel. Red Sea Media will introduce buyers to the Russian animation Ivan Tsarevich And The Gray Wolf 2 from director Vladimir Toropchin, about a king who challenges an exiled prince to win his daughter’s hand in marriage. Anatoly Sverchkov produces. XYZ Films will be talking up Life After Beth starring the hip pairing of Aubrey Plaza and Dane DeHaan. Jeff Baena directs the American Zoetrope, Starstream Entertainment and Abbolita Productions comedy about a young man’s dead girlfriend who miraculously returns to life in a different form. The attachment of Guy Pearce should help Buenos Aires-based FilmSharks International generate heat on the original US comedy Mis-Fits. LD Napier will direct the story of a Brooklyn ‘necrodetective’ who hunts down lost or dead relatives. Doug Claybourne will produce and Seymour Cassel and Virginie Ledoyen also star. Cinema Management Group (CMG) will introduce the heist thriller Plastic. Ed Speleers from Downton Abbey stars as the college student mastermind of a Miami credit-card scam that morphs into an outrageous robbery. The CMG slate also includes The Santa Story, the latest 3D animation following CMG’s success with Zambezia. Los Angeles-based RGH Entertainment produces the Father Christmas origins story based on a book by L Frank Baum. eOne Films International commences sales in earnest on Xavier Dolan’s Mommy as well as Australian arthouse horror The Babadook. The company has a promo for Liam Hemsworth thriller Cut Bank and David Cronenberg’s Maps To The Stars. Visit Films has boarded It Follows, David Robert Mitchell’s nightmarish follow-up to The Myth Of The American Sleepover. Inception Film Partners has upcoming ensemble comedy Eisner starring Robin Williams, Isla Fisher, Shirley MacLaine and Sienna Miller. The Exchange handles sales on Accident from commercials and music-video director Dan Ton-
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(Top) The Babadook; (above) Madame Bovary; (left) Savaged
dowski. The 3D story will shoot in South Africa and follows four teens whose joyriding escapade turns into a nightmare. Thomas Mann of Project X and Ashley Hinshaw from Chronicle will star in the thriller from France’s Superbe Films and Forefront Media from South Africa. Hot on the heels of popular screenings in Toronto and Fantastic Fest, Lightning Entertainment will screen Zeke and Simon Hawkins’ We Gotta Get Out Of This Place. Jeremy Allen White, Logan Huffman and Mackenzie Davis star in the thriller about friends who rob a gangster at the behest of a sociopathic cotton farmer. The Solution Entertainment Group has boarded the rom-com Jenny’s Wedding to star Katherine Heigl and Tom Wilkinson. The story centres on an affable woman whose choice of marriage partner forces everyone to reassess their values.
Bleiberg Entertainment has boarded the Sitges hit Delivery, styled as Rosemary’s Baby meets Paranormal Activity. Brian Netto directed the story of a young couple’s ill-fated decision to chronicle the birth of their first child on a reality TV show. Relativity International will meet buyers to discuss Atlas Independent’s thriller The Man On Carrion Road. Patrick Wilson is set to star and production kicks off in the US in the spring. International Film Trust will commence talks on Your Voice In My Head to star Emma Watson. The adaptation of Emma Forrest’s bestseller recounts the story of a bipolar English woman in New York. Alison Owen and Michael Benaroya will produce and production is tentatively set for early 2014 in New York. Lotus Entertainment will commence pre-sales on Worldview Entertainment’s Candy Store, to star Robert De Niro, Jason Clarke and Omar Sy. Stephen Gaghan will shoot the undercover cop thriller in 2014. Raven Banner will screen Savaged, a revenge tale about the victim of a brutal attack. Shoreline will sell family title Sneezing Baby Panda: The Movie, inspired by the viral YouTube phenomenon. Breakthrough Entertainment will talk up Montefiore Films’ Cas & Dylan with Jason Priestley directing and Richard Dreyfuss and Tatiana Maslany starring. The story follows a terminally ill doctor forced on an impromptu cross-country drive with a young social misfit. »
FEATURE AFM BUZZ TITLES
Asia Sellers By Liz Shackleton Several Korean companies are launching highprofile upcoming titles at this year’s AFM, including Showbox, which has action thriller The Suspect in post-production. Directed by Won Shin-yeon, who made a splash with 2007 thriller Seven Days, the film revolves around a North Korean spy abandoned by his masters and accused of murder in South Korea. Gong Yoo and Park Hee-soon head the cast. Finecut is unveiling two new titles that are currently shooting — $6m drama Sea Fog (Haemoo), executive produced by Bong Joon Ho and directed by his Memories Of Murder co-writer Shim Sungbo; and Kim Dae-woo’s erotic romance Obsessed. Based on true events, Sea Fog revolves around a ship that runs into trouble while smuggling illegal immigrants. Set at the end of the Vietnam War, Obsessed stars Song Seung-heon as a traumatised officer who falls into an obsessive love affair. M-Line Distribution is launching Jeong Yeonshik’s thriller The Fives and Korean-Chinese filmmaker Zhang Lu’s Gyeongju (working title). Scheduled for Korean release on November 14, The Fives follows a woman who convinces four other people to help avenge the death of her husband and daughter. Zhang’s film stars Park Hae-il (War Of The Arrows) as a Korean man long abroad who returns home and traces his memories in the historical city of Gyeongju. New titles from Lotte Entertainment include Kwak Kyung-taek’s Friend: The Great Legacy, a sequel to Kwak’s acclaimed 2001 blockbuster Friend. Yoo Oh-sung reprises his role in the sequel, which also stars Joo Jin-mo and Kim Woo-bin. Meanwhile, 9ers Entertainment is selling sports drama No Breathing, starring Lee Jong-suk and Seo In-guk in a story about the rivalry between two promising swimmers. CJ Entertainment’s slate includes Kim Han-
■ 16 Screen International at AFM November 6, 2013
min’s period war drama Roaring Currents; Pang Eun-jin’s drama Way Back Home; and Gina Kim’s culinary drama Final Recipe, starring Michelle Yeoh, which premiered at this year’s San Sebastian Film Festival. Fortissimo Films executive produced and is handling sales in European territories on Final Recipe,, and will also be selling South African crime drama iNumber Number and Richie Mehta’s Canada-India co-production Siddharth at AFM. Among Japanese companies, Shochiku is introducing mystery drama The Snow White Murder Case (working title), directed by Yoshihiro Nakamura and based on a novel by Kanae Minato (Confessions), ), along with Akira Nagai’s comedy Judge!. Nikkatsu is launching sales on Sion Sono’s Tokyo Tribe,, based on Santa Inoue’s manga about warring Tokyo gangs, and Kazuhiro Yokoyama’s High Kick Angels,, which sees five high-school girls pitted against a bunch of terrorists. Toei’s slate includes Takeshi Furusawa’s horror thriller Roommate and the second instalment in the animated film trilogy based on Osamu Tezuka’s
(Top) Final Recipe; (above right) Horseplay; (above) It All Began When I Met You; (below) Bonta 3D
acclaimed manga Buddha. Directed by Toshiaki Komura, Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha 2 is scheduled for Japanese release on February 8, 2014. Meanwhile Gaga Corporation is selling It All Began When I Met You, produced by Warner Brothers Japan. Directed by Katsuhide Motoki, the film comprises six interconnected romantic stories taking place in the run-up to Christmas. Hong Kong companies will also be out in force at AFM. Media Asia is unveiling Helios, Sunny Luk and Longman Leung’s follow-up to blockbuster Cold War, which is currently in production. The action drama, about a nuclear bomb stolen from North Korea and being sold in Hong Kong, features a stellar pan-Asian cast including Hong Kong actors Jacky Cheung, Nick Cheung and Shawn Yue, Korea’s Ji Jin-hee and Choi Si-won, China’s Wang Xueqi and Taiwan’s Chang Chen. Edko Films is introducing several new titles at AFM including Chow Hin Yeung’s Rise Of The Legend, starring Eddie Peng as martial-arts hero Wong Fei-hung; Teng Huatao’s Up In The Wind, starring Ni Ni and Jing Boran; and Lee Chi Ngai’s Horseplay, with Tony Leung Ka-fai and Kelly Chen. Distribution Workshop is launching sales on Jacob Cheung’s 3D wuxia epic The White Haired Witch Of Lunar Kingdom, starring Huang Xiaoming and Fan Bingbing, along with psychological thriller Insanity, produced by Derek Lee and starring Huang and Lau Ching Wan. Pegasus Motion Pictures also has several new titles, including David Lam’s crime thriller Z Storm, starring Louis Koo and Simon Yam, and action adventure The Guardsman, directed by Jiao Xiaoyu and starring martial-arts icon Cheng Pei-pei. Emperor Motion Pictures is selling Teddy Chen’s Kung Fu Killer, starring Donnie Yen as a kung-fu master who helps the police track down a vicious killer played by Wang Baoqiang. Golden Network is expanding its line-up of stereoscopic 3D animation with children’s film Bonta 3D, produced by China’s Versatile Media and available in a version dubbed into English. Beijing-based Huayi Brothers is unveiling Feng Xiaogang’s new comedy Personal Tailor, Tailor a sequel to his Dream Factory (1997), (1997), which stars Ge You and Bai Baihe and is scheduled for Chinese release in December. Thailand’s Five Star Production is launching sales on romantic comedy Coffee Please, produced by Hyper Pictures, about two friends opening an organic coffee farm. »
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FEATURE AFM BUZZ TITLES
UK Sellers By Andreas Wiseman Tim Haslam and Hugo Grumbar’s Embankment Films will be enticing buyers with Simon Beaufoy’s script, Gold, which will see Daniel Radcliffe play Olympic athlete Sebastian Coe and reunite him with The Woman In Black director James Watkins. The team will also be shopping Informant Media project Boychoir, set to star Dustin Hoffman; Kidnapping Freddy Heineken, currently in production; and The Dressmaker, starring Kate Winslet. HanWay comes to AFM with buzzed-about SeeSaw western Slow West, shooting now with Michael Fassbender, Kodi Smit-McPhee and Ben Mendelsohn. Also new to the slate is Nick Cave documentary 20,000 Days On Earth, and there will be a promo for Lone Scherfig’s Posh. Protagonist’s rounded slate includes Yorgos Lanthimos’s English-language debut The Lobster, due to shoot next spring; Potboiler’s gangster film Trespass Against Us, which has Michael Fassbender in talks to star; Vincent Cassel starrer Partisan, which is currently shooting; Peter Strickland’s The Duke Of Burgundy; and comedy-drama My Old Lady, which is in post-production. There are promos for ’71, Monsters: Dark Continent and Kill Command. David Garrett’s Mister Smith Entertainment brings to market Russell Crowe’s directorial debut The Water Diviner, which is due to get underway in Australia in December. Crowe stars alongside Olga Kurylenko in the period-adventure story backed by RatPac Entertainment, about a father searching for his sons after the First World War. Altitude’s busy slate includes the feature version of hit TV series Spooks, horror The Last Word and music documentary Pulp. Mike Runagall’s sales team will also show a teaser trailer for Brit List project The Call Up as well as a new promo for Jalmari
■ 18 Screen International at AFM November 6, 2013
Helander’s action-adventure Big Game starring Samuel L Jackson. Bankside Films will be shopping Simon Pegg drama Hector And The Search For Happiness, which now has a promo, while X Plus Y — with Ender’s Game star Asa Butterfield — is in post-production. WestEnd Films will continue to talk to buyers about David Gordon Green’s drama Manglehorn, starring Al Pacino and Holly Hunter; Michael Winterbottom’s Italy-set The Face Of An Angel starring Kate Beckinsale; and drama The Silent Storm starring Andrea Riseborough and Damian Lewis, which is in post-production. Independent’s Carol Morley drama The Falling, starring Game Of Thrones actress Maisie Williams, is currently in production while James Ward Byrkit’s Coherence has a market premiere and comedy What We Did On Our Holiday has a new promo. Hyena is in post-production. Salt’s new documentary Seve charts the life of golfing legend Seve Ballesteros. James Norrie and the team will also have market premieres for comedy Johnson, starring Cam Gigandet, action-thriller Montana and The Borderlands, while Northmen: A Viking Saga is in post-production. The Works recently acquired Toronto premiere Lucky Them starring Toni Collette and will introduce buyers to 2011 Screen Star of Tomorrow Colin Kennedy’s debut Swung, produced by Sigma Films. Nick Broomfield’s The Catastrophist is due to shoot next year. The Skin I Live In star Elena Anaya is attached to star in Celsius’s sweeping romance-drama Rosa from Jindabyne and Lantana director Ray Lawrence, while AV Pictures will be selling new titles No Man’s Land, director Sean Hogan’s action-horror set in the trenches of the First World War; and horror title Let Us Prey. AV’s Caroline Couret-Delegue will also be screening sci-fi thriller Scintilla.
(Top left) The Silent Storm; (top right) Monsters: Dark Continent; (above left) Delicious; (above) Northmen: A Viking Saga; (below) What We Did On Our Holiday
Simon Crowe’s SC Films will be in Santa Monica with first footage of Cory Edwards’ family animations Gus and Wish; as well as The Last Showing. There are screenings of Green Street Hooligans Underground, Danny Trejo-starrer Bullet and I Am Soldier. Umedia International brings to market thriller Exit 147, which has Taylor Kitsch attached to star as a cop who starts a tense game of cat and mouse with a strung-out young traveller; comedy-drama Dough starring Jonathan Pryce; and psychological horror The Well. K5 International comes with Simon Helberg’s rom-com We’ll Never Have Paris in post-production starring Helberg and Maggie Grace; Neil LaBute’s Dirty Weekend in production starring Alice Eve and Matthew Broderick; spoof SuperFast!; plus docs including Dancing In Jaffa and Cutie And The Boxer. Metro International is launching pre-sales on iBOY, a superhero thriller for the digital age starring Will Poulter. Producers are Wigwam Films and Gail Mutrux. There are market screenings for Toronto premieres Half Of A Yellow Sun and The Stag and first footage of Nina Simone biopic Nina starring Zoe Saldana and David Oyelowo. Homeland star Damian Lewis is attached to play a US astronaut tasked with saving the planet in Alone, Genesis Film Sales’ sci-fi thriller. Kirk Weddell wrote the script and will co-direct with Chris Taylor. Genesis will also debut Sitges supernaturalthriller Soul Mate. Kaleidoscope brings to market completed horror film Willow Creek and a first market promo for Enemy Of Man, a reworking of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, starring Sean Bean and Harry Potter star Rupert Grint. Maura Ford’s 7 & 7 will be introducing buyers to three newly completed features: Delicious, Little Happiness and Breakfast With Jonny Wilkinson, a sports comedy starring Sunshine On Leith’s George MacKay. Parkland Pictures will be touting completed horror Hollow and action-adventure Allies, a $3m budget action-adventure set in occupied France at the end of the Second World War. Dominic Burns directs, Julian Ovenden, Chris Reilly and Matt Willis star. The film is in post-production. Intandem will be shopping completed drama Gagarin: First In Space, the story of the Russian cosmonaut, and three Richwater Films productions: Vendetta, Assassin and Reign Of The General. Genre specialist Jinga will be looking for deals on Austin Fantastic Fest title Goldberg & Eisenberg and On Tender Hooks, a shockumentary about the world of human suspension. Moviehouse has a premiere screening for futuristic drama Biodegradable, from the Dominican Republic. GFM Films’ Schism is in post-production, Carnaby will be shopping thriller Still Waters and Timeless Films has animation titles Justin And The Knights Of Valour and Postman Pat: The Movie (3D). »
Feature AFM buzz titles
French and Italian sellers By Melanie Goodfellow Wild Bunch will launch sales on Oscar winner
Michel Hazanavicius’s The Search remake, transposing Fred Zinnemann’s 1948 classic about a young concentration camp survivor’s search for his mother to modern-day Chechnya with Bérénice Bejo as an NGO rep. The company will also unveil new footage for Gregg Araki’s White Bird In A Blizzard, Zach Braff ’s Wish I Was Here and Wolf Totem. TF1 International will introduce Dorothée Sebbagh’s Paris-set romantic comedy Divorce A La Francaise starring French actress Géraldine Nakache opposite Italian star Kim Rossi Stuart. It is a France-Italy co-production between Les Films Du 24 and Cattleya. The company will also show new promos for Suite Francaise and World Cup football saga The Men’s Dream. StudioCanal will start sales on Stephen Frears’ untitled cycling project, capturing the rise and fall of celebrity US cyclist Lance Armstrong; and continue sales on Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth, which is due to start principal photography in the UK in January. Elle Driver will kick off sales on Cécile Telerman’s The Yellow Eyes Of Crocodiles, an adaptation of the international bestseller, starring Julie Depardieu as a frumpy historian whose fortunes are reversed when she anonymously pens a romantic novel for her glamorous, wealthy sister, played by Emmanuelle Beart. The company will debut a promo reel for the eagerly awaited French Women, starring Vanessa Paradis, Isabelle Adjani, Laetitia Casta, Sylvie Testud, Géraldine Nakache, Julie Ferrier, Marina Hands, Alice Taglioni, Alice Belaidi, Mélanie Doutey and Audrey Dana. Gaumont will introduce Intouchables duo Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano’s new Omar Sy-starrer Samba to the market. It will also show first footage for Volker Schlöndorff ’s Diplomacy and Rose Bosch’s My Summer In Provence starring Jean Reno. It will also world premiere Belle And Sebastian and Turning Tide. EuropaCorp will kick off sales on the highly anticipated Taken 3, again starring Liam Neeson. It will continue sales on Louis Leterrier’s deep-sea action fantasy Sea At War and McG’s Kevin Costner-starrer Three Days To Kill. The company will market premiere Nabil Ben Yadir’s The March, reenacting an historic anti-racism march with Olivier Gourmet and Jamel Debbouze. Le Pacte has added two new French pictures to its slate: Cédric Kahn’s Wild Life, starring Mathieu
n 20 Screen International at AFM November 6, 2013
Kassovitz as a father who runs off with his young sons and raises them on the road after he loses a custody battle, and Christophe Honoré’s Métamorphoses, a contemporary adaptation of Ovid’s classic work. Both are in production. The sales company is also handling Alain Resnais’ Aimer, Boire Et Chanter, a French adaptation of Alan Ayckbourn’s Life Of Riley. Memento Film International will premiere a promo of Jim Mickle’s Texas-set thriller Cold In July, starring Michael C Hall, Sam Shepard and Don Johnson and continue pre-sales on Mr Kaplan. Urban Distribution International will launch sales on Marianne Tardieu’s urban drama Insecure starring Reda Kateb and Adele Exarchopoulos. The company will screen US premieres of Aaron Fernandez’s The Empty Hours and Andrés Baiz’s period film Roa. Bac Films will show a first promo for Pablo Fendrik’s Argentinian rainforest-set thriller The Arbor,
(Top) Belle And Sebastian; (above) Divorce A La Francaise; (above right) Three Days To Kill; (below) Two Hundred Thousand Dirty
starring Gael Garcia Bernal as a mysterious man who saves a kidnapped girl from mercenaries who killed her farmer father. SND Group M6 will roll out Buried writer Chris Sparling’s directorial debut, found-footage exorcist thriller The Atticus Institute set against the backdrop of a psychology lab in the 1970s that is occupied by the US military looking to harness the powers of a possessed patient. Versatile will unveil Chilean director Sebastian Silva’s English-language, Brooklyn-set Nasty Baby, starring the film-maker opposite singer Tunde Adebimpe as a gay couple trying to have a baby with the help of their best friend. The company will also premiere a promo reel for Emilis Velyvis’s comedy Redirected, about a bunch of amateur robbers stranded in Eastern Europe starring Vinnie Jones, Scot Williams, Gil Darnell, Oliver Jackson and Anthony Strachan. Kinology will market debut Belgian director Jonas Govaerts’ horror adventure Cub, about a boyscout trip that takes a terrifying twist, and The White Circus by the Clyde Henry collective (aka Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski). It will world premiere Guillaume Vincent’s highly anticipated Land Of The Bears and market premiere Philippe Muyl’s China-set family saga The Nightingale. Other Angle will launch sales on Philippe Lacheau’s found-footage comedy Babysitting, dissecting how a young executive’s attempt to look after his boss’s 12 year-old-son goes horribly wrong, and romantic comedy Gazelles. Pathe International will market debut Ferzan Ozpetek’s Fasten Your Seatbelts, about a mismatched couple who embark on an affair. Wide Management has taken on Timothy L Anderson’s dark comedy Two Hundred Thousand Dirty, about mattress-store employees who dream up a hare-brained money-making murder scheme. Cité Films will continue sales on Pan Nalin’s documentary Faith Connections, which has already sold well into Europe, as well as Subarna Thapa’s critically acclaimed same-sex romance Soongava: Dance Of The Orchids, which is Nepal’s foreign language Oscar candidate. Italy’s Rai Trade will market premiere Luca Barbareschi’s Hong Kong-shot thriller The Mercury Factor, in which he co-stars opposite Zhang Jingchu, and Riccardo Paoletti’s English-language, horror mystery Neverlake. »
FEATURE AFM BUZZ TITLES
wrap up further sales on Andrzej Wajda’s biopic Walesa, which has already sold widely following Venice and Toronto festival screenings. Meanwhile, Global Screen
European sellers By Geoffrey Macnab TrustNordisk will be showing a three minute promo for On The Edge (working title), the latest feature from Christian E Christiansen. It stars Cyron Melville and Jakob Oftebro in the story of friends torn apart by illegal car racing. The Scandinavian sales powerhouse is also screening Jens Jonsson’s Life Deluxe for the first time at a market; it is the third part of the hit Easy Money (Snabba Cash) gangster trilogy. TrustNordisk also starts pre-sales on Mikkel Norgaard’s crime drama/conspiracy thriller The Absent One, the second in the series of Department Q films following box-office hit The Keeper Of Lost Causes. The company also kicks off pre-sales for Susanne Bier’s A Second Chance, which starts shooting on November 18 starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. Tine Klint’s LevelK will be screening its first US film, Ted Koland’s Best Man Down starring Justin Long. The comedy-drama about a couple who cancel their honeymoon to make arrangements for the funeral of their best man, is released this month in the US by Magnolia. LevelK is also handling feature documentary Sepideh, about an Iranian girl who yearns to become an astronaut. The Yellow Affair is beginning sales on The Sarnos — A Life In Dirty Movies, a feature documentary about the life and work of erotic auteur Joseph W Sarno and his wife and collaborator, Peggy. The company is also introducing buyers to Virginia Gilbert’s A Long Way From Home, a romantic drama starring James Fox and Brenda Fricker. Also new on the company’s slate is Lance Edmands’ drama Bluebird, set in a frozen winter in a small Maine town where the local community is coming to terms with a tragic accident. Michael Werner, formerly of NonStop, brings his new sales outfit Eyewell to AFM for the first time with epic family saga Tarok — Catch The Dream, based around a famous Danish horse race. Eyewell will be showing a promo of the drama, which is now completed. The company is also promoting zombie action-adventure Zone 261 with a 12-minute pilot and will be talking up new film/TV project Nymphs. Kevin Williams Associates (KWA) is launching its Japanese Kama Sutra doc, The Art Of Sexual
■ 22 Screen International at AFM November 6, 2013
Love In The Edo Period on Williams’ Elixir label. KWA is also handling sales on Sonia Fritz’s thriller America, starring Edward James Olmos. Meanwhile, Elixir is pre-selling Japanese erotic horror film The Little Match Girl Murder. This follows on from the hot-selling Japanese erotic thrillers Dusk 1 and 2. On a different level, Elixir is also selling Killing Joke — The Death & Resurrection Show, a feature doc about the rock band. German outfit Arri is having a first market screening of family drama The Little Ghost, being released in German cinemas by Universum. The live-action movie features an animated ghost. Arri is also pre-selling 3D animation Ploe — You Never Fly Alone from the creators of Legends Of Valhalla: Thor. Following festival screenings, the company is giving market screenings to revered auteur Edgar Reitz’s Home From Home, his latest Heimat instalment. Fellow German outfit Beta is holding a private screening of Philipp Stölzl’s 11th-century adventure drama The Physician,, starring Tom Payne, Ben Kingsley and Stellan Skarsgard. Alongside its other market premieres The Notebook and Still Life,, the company is pre-selling Anna Mastro’s Walter starring William H Macy and Virginia Madsen. The company is also preselling Rupert Everett’s The Happy Prince. Atlas International is giving a market debut to Tom Holland’s thriller Killing Frank,, starring Rebecca De Mornay. Another Atlas title generating pre-market buzz is the recently completed The Last Mentsch,, a drama about an Auschwitz survivor starring Mario Adorf. Berlin-based Films Boutique is looking to
(Top) Life Deluxe; (top right) Grazing The Sky; (above) Bluebird; (below) Banklady
is giving a market premiere to Christ i a n A l v a r t ’s Banklady, billed as the true Banklady story of Gisela Werler, Germany’s first female bank robber, who became a celebrity on the back of her misdeeds. Global is also giving a first market screening to 19th-century family adventure The Black Brothers, directed by Oscar winner Xavier Koller and starring Moritz Bleibtreu. Bleibtreu also features in Sam Garbarski’s Vijay And I, sold by The Match Factory whose AFM slate also includes David Wnendt’s outrageous drama Wetlands (already a big hit in Germany) and Soren Kragh-Jacobsen’s The Hour Of The Lynx. Among the new titles on the AFM slate of Vicente Canales’ Film Factory is Marshland, the latest thriller from Alberto Rodriguez, whose credits include Unit 7. Currently in production and due for delivery next year, the film is about two homicide detectives tracking a serial killer. Film Factory also has the first promo of To Kill A Man, the vengeance thriller by Chilean director Alejandro Fernandez Almendras. Meanwhile, Canales and team will be screening Oscar winner Juan Jose Campanella’s animated 3D project, Foosball. Media Luna has picked up international sales on The Dinner, the first Dutch feature as a director from Menno Meyjes. Media Luna is also handling The Verdict, the latest thriller from versatile and prolific Belgian director Jan Verheyen. Sola Media’s new title for the AFM is SpanishCuban animated feature Tom Little And The Magic Forest. MD Solveig Langeland bills the film, currently in production, as “a very nice fairy tale with a bit of Latin flair in it”. Hungarian National Film Fund is selling two new completed films, Coming Out, about Hungary’s most famous gay celebrity and, fresh from its premiere at Warsaw Film Festival, Mark Bodzsar’s black comedy Heavenly Shift. Spanish outfit Filmax is pre-selling The King Of Havana, the new film by Agusti Villaronga (Black Bread). This is an erotic drama based on the novel by Cuban author Pedro Juan Gutierrez. Filmax also has five completed films, among them Jordan Barker’s Canadian slasher Torment. Marina Fuentes’s 6 Sales is handling Carlos Cuaron’s new film Sugar Kisse Kisses, edgy South African thriller Of Good Report and Israeli horror film Big Bad Wolves. 6 Sales will also be holding an invitation-only screening of an unfinished cut of Desert Dancer starring Freida Pinto. DeAPlaneta’s AFM line-up is headlined by Lucas Figueroa’s social media-themed horror film Viral and Tom Fernandez’s family movie The Millionaire Dog Dog. Another Spanish company, Latido, will be showcasing Grazing The Sky, Sky a feature doc about circus schools made in collaboration with Cirque Du Soleil. Meanwhile, Latido will be targeting the Latin American market with Serrat & Road, Sabina: Two For The Road and will also be screening Spain’s Oscar contender 15 s Years + 1 Day. Day ■
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Ender’s Game
Market forces This year’s American Film Market kicks off against a backdrop of US economic instability, but it’s the small screen that is likely to be the hot topic of conversation, as Jeremy Kay reports
T
he 11th hour intervention by Congress last month ending the partial US government shutdown and averting a financial crisis has allowed AFM participants to focus on the matter at hand — making movies. However, the subject of US economic stability is not going away and is sure to be a talking point at the Loews hotel. October’s fleeting cross-party consensus merely bankrolled the government until January 16 and extended the US Treasury’s borrowing authority until February 7. So it is against this backdrop of a potential return to the brink of calamity in the runup to the February 6 start of Berlin’s European Film Market that attention turns to more industryspecific issues. The company on everyone’s lips will be Focus Features International. The prognosis is gloomy in the wake of the merger between Focus Features and FilmDistrict. Nobody is willing to talk on the record at press time, however it seems that dramatic change is in store for the studio-based arthouse specialist as Comcast shifts the target to broader commercial fare. Incoming Focus CEO Peter Schlessel is a savvy executive with wide experience of the international markets, so it will be fascinating to see how this plays out. Of broader interest is the small screen. TV production opportunities, a falling advertising market,
n 26 Screen International at AFM November 6, 2013
‘It’s exciting because almost everyone has one foot in the film business and one foot in the TV business’ David Garrett, Mister Smith Entertainment
sluggish international adoption of digital/VoD and Netflix’s move into film production are likely to dominate the conversation. Few would pretend to know how all this is going to play out, but a growing number of sales companies and film-makers are willing to find out and have been migrating to TV alongside the likes of Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, David Fincher and Tom Tykwer. Next to established players such as Lionsgate and Content Media Corporation, a coterie of companies including Relativity, Sierra/Affinity, Voltage Pictures and Lakeshore have made or are making serious inroads into the TV space. Gaumont International and StudioCanal were active at MIPCOM and The Weinstein Company will co-produce a BBC adaptation of War And Peace. Financier Michael Benaroya is poised to enter the TV space and Ivanhoe Pictures, the entity launched in Toronto by financier Robert Friedland, producer John Penotti and Beijing-based media veteran Ray Chen, is also getting into the game. “It is exciting now because almost everyone has one foot in the film business and one foot in the TV business,” says Mister Smith Entertainment founder David Garrett. “You can explore complex subjects and characters in the TV format. It has given the film sector an injection of energy. People
aren’t always looking to make a movie now; perhaps it will be an eight-episode series.” Mister Smith’s long-term strategy foresees a move into TV but Garrett is quick to point out the independent film arena is still a good place to be, although everyone needs to narrow focus, pursue top-notch elements with a hook and be creative with financing. “It is very simple,” says Lionsgate Motion Picture Group co-chairman Patrick Wachsberger, Garrett’s former business partner at Summit. “There are the movies that work and the movies that don’t work. The home-entertainment business is down, VoD is starting but it isn’t there yet to compensate. The TV business is still active and US sales companies are getting into TV.” Last month Relativity chief Ryan Kavanaugh told MIPCOM attendees of his plans for a Limitless TV series based on the 2011 feature, which he said in this context could be regarded as “the biggest pilot of all time”. Beyond individual titles, Kavanaugh plans to construct a digital “TV-everywhere” platform within the next 12 months, a typically bold statement from the young mogul that calls to mind Netflix’s streaming service. Speaking of which, when the Netflix original series House Of Cards from Media Rights Capital went straight to order, it eliminated the pilot model. Company chiefs declared the series a hit — although it is difficult to quantify this because nobody has issued meaningful numbers. Netflix and Amazon have shown the originalseries business for internet-based entities is growing. As advertising revenue in broadcasting continues to fall — a situation that is exacerbated in Europe where economic woes endure — the conceptual and geographical expansion of Netflix and its peers heralds new opportunities for the film business. “I am excited about the international development of Netflix, Amazon and other [subscription VoD] providers,” says The Exchange CEO Brian O’Shea, “as it allows our foreign theatrical buyers to find new partners when acquiring films.” What international theatrical distributor wouldn’t welcome a new class of hungry ancillary buyer with deep pockets? On the flip-side, who wouldn’t want to acquire the best product from the independent space?
The movie business This month an independent release, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, is almost guaranteed to become one of the biggest hits of 2013. The Lionsgate smash, hot on the heels of the Twilight franchise, can hold its own with anything from the big six studios. Other independent success stories from 2013 include IM Global’s A Haunted House, Foresight Unlimited’s 2 Guns and Blumhouse Productions’ Insidious: Chapter 2. Plus just this weekend, another indie powerhouse topped the US box office: Ender’s Game sold by Sierra/Affinity and released by Lionsgate-Summit opened to $28m. At AFM this month, Lionsgate’s slate will include Gerard Butler in the fantasy adventure Gods Of Egypt and crime thriller Mortdecai with Johnny Depp and Gwyneth Paltrow. “It is the kind of movie that could work in every territory,” says Wachsberger. “People are realising the independent business is having an impact on the market all over the world,” says Sierra/Affinity CEO Nick Meyer. “That’s good and we have to keep that going.”
AFM Feature
“There is a lot of material out there and finding the right material is the needle in the haystack,” says The Solution Entertainment Group cofounder Lisa Wilson, who believes there is a disconnect between the actors who studios want to work with and the more familiar names that please international buyers. “It is harder then ever to get big stars to do movies for a pay cheque because studios are focusing on their tentpoles and will pay the third or fourth lead millions of dollars,” says Michael Benaroya. “Hopefully they’ll take the payday and come make some art with me because studios aren’t making the kind of movies you see in the independent space.” Once again, TV may be the disrupter. Radiant Films International founder Mimi Steinbauer notes: “Some of [the rising talent in film] are coming out of TV and that’s a launchpad it probably wasn’t five years ago. Those US and UK TV series are travelling so well internationally now. That’s real clout.” “It’s all about the movies,” adds Meyer. “You have to be super-rigorous about hunting for great properties and having relationships with suppliers who can keep delivering them; that comes with doing what you say you’re going to do. I don’t think that’s ever going to change.” What will change is global acceptance of digital platforms, although the familiar refrain of the last 18 months has been how VoD is yet to replace DVD.
‘Those US and UK TV series are travelling so well internationally now. That’s real clout’ Mimi Steinbauer, Radiant Films International Limitless: Relativity is planning a TV series spin-off
“A lot of international partners want to hear about the big theatrical release and I think that’s about to change,” says XYZ Films partner Aram Tertzakian. XYZ championed The Raid: Redemption, the Indonesian sensation directed by the UK’s Gareth Evans, and is in post on the sequel. Tertzakian and his partners specialise in the early adop-
tion of international talent and foster a high volume of close ties with their discoveries. XYZ has sold or served as executive producer on a number of titles that debuted on digital channels. “It won’t be overnight but as [VoD and digital] becomes more successful in the US we’re going to s see more of this internationally,” says Tertzakian. n
November 6, 2013 Screen International at AFM 27 n
American Film Market 2 BASED ON A TRUE STORY
Victor “Young” Perez Survival is the battle. Living is the victory. Director: Cast:
Production:
Status: Delivery:
Jacques Ouaniche Brahim Asloum, Steve Suissa, Isabella Orsini, Patrice Bouchitey, Bruce Payne, Davy Sardou Noé Productions, Mazel Productions, France 3 CINEMA, Transfax Films Productions, Pierantoni and Partners, Greenhouse Media Invest Ltd. Completed Winter 2013
Screenings MARKET PREMIERE TODAY / Nov 6th / 3.00 p.m. / Ocean Screening Room Friday / Nov 8th / 9.00 a.m. / Ocean Screening Room
Attending
Andreas Rothbauer / Mobile: +49.151 - 54 458 921 / E-Mail: andreas@picturetree-international.com Maria Lavnikovich / Mobile: +49.173 - 2485 239 / E-Mail: maria@picturetree-international.com
H
t 2013
Booth #626 / Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel / 1700 Ocean Avenue/ Santa Monica Office phone: +1 310 458 6700 ext. 628 / E-Mail: pti@picturetree-international.com
Screenings
Mary Queen of Scots A queen who lost three kingdoms, a wife who lost three husbands, a woman who lost her head. Director: Cast: Production: Status: Delivery:
Thomas Imbach Camille Rutherford, Mehdi Dehbi, Sean Biggerstaff, Aneurin Barnard Okofilm Productions, SRF Swiss Television, ARTE Completed Winter 2013
MARKET PREMIERE TODAY / Nov 6th / 11.00 a.m. / Ocean Screening Room Saturday / Nov 9th / 9.00 a.m. / Ocean Screening Room
WORLD CINEMA Saturday / Nov 9th / 9.00 p.m. / Chinese 3 Monday / Nov 11th / 1.15 p.m. / Chinese 6
Metalhead Play it at full blast. Director: Cast:
Production:
Status: Delivery:
Ragnar Bragason Þorbjörg Helga Þorgilsdóttir, Ingvar E. Siguðrsson, Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir, Sveinn Ólafur Gunnarsson Mystery Island in Co-production with Hummelfilm in Collaboration with Icelandic Film Centre, Nordisk Film & TV Fond & MEDIA Programme of the European Union Completed Winter 2013
Screenings MARKET PREMIERE TODAY / Nov 6th / 9.00 a.m. / Laemmle Monica 1 Friday / Nov 8th / 11.00 a.m. / Laemmle Monica 1
Silent Summer One marriage, two perspectives. Director: Cast:
Production: Status: Delivery:
Head Office
Nana Neul Dagmar Manzel Ernst Stötzner Marie Rosa Tietjen Arthur Igual Victoria Trauttmansdorff Hans-Jochen Wagner 2Pilots Filmproduction GmbH Completed Winter 2013
Screening MARKET PREMIERE TODAY / Nov 6th / 1.00 p.m. / Laemmle Monica 3
Zur Börse 12 / 10247 Berlin / Germany Phone: +49.30 - 4208 248 - 0 / E-Mail: pti@picturetree-international.com / www. picturetree-international.com
IntervIew Zach Braff
Crowd pleaser Zach Braff is back behind the camera, directing his first feature in nine years. He tells Jeremy Kay why he was right to get help from the crowdfunding platform, Kickstarter
Zach Braff on the set of Wish I Was Here
W
hen Zach Braff couldn’t find the right financier to back his new feature, Wish I Was Here, he famously took to Kickstarter and raised $3.1m. Wild Bunch came on board to sell international rights shortly before Cannes and the company will show footage here at AFM. CAA represents North American rights. Braff is editing the film and rehearsing the stage version of Bullets Over Broadway in New York.
Screen How did this whole crazy adventure begin? Zach Braff I wrote [the screenplay] with my brother [Adam]. I hadn’t been able to put a film together since Garden State [in 2004]. I just couldn’t figure out a way. I had several projects and it was frustrating and humbling and I went back to what worked the first time I fully owned a piece of content and went to get financing. But the script is my own style and is like Garden State in that way. Everybody in town had passed on that script until I found a money guy, but he had his money committed to other projects so he was no longer my patron now. So I went out with this script and very quickly saw what we all see… what did you see? The financiers send you a list of actors who they want to make a film with. All the actors have numbers next to their names for their international value and it occurred to me that I could make it if I made the film in Vancouver for two-thirds of the
n 30 Screen International at AFM November 6, 2013
budget it required and cast people I didn’t want and gave up final cut. But I was so anxious to make another film that I was close to saying, ‘Fuck it, if I want to make this movie I’ll suck it up.’ We were about to sign a deal that was not where I wanted it to be, when this Veronica Mars thing exploded [on Kickstarter]. Your producer encouraged you to try Kickstarter. Stacey Sher told me I had a pretty big internet following and maybe I was a candidate [for Kickstarter]. I thought we had nothing to lose except maybe being humbled by the whole thing crashing and burning. I was on the fence and Stacey encouraged me to test new waters. There were a lot of people who didn’t think it would work. remind us how the campaign went. We had a month to raise $2m and we reached the goal in 48 hours [in May]. It really was a gamechanger for anyone following the business because with the right film-maker and the right audience, this could be a new paradigm. But it upset a lot of people. A lot of the blowback on the internet was from people who don’t understand film financing… I didn’t write a film that could be made for $2m. The budget was more than that so the plan was if we raised the equity on Kickstarter that would replace the financier and I would kick in with my
‘It really was a game-changer for anyone following the business because with the right filmmaker and the right audience this could be a new paradigm’ Zach Braff, film-maker
own money and then foreign sales would get us the difference. why do you think it upset people? There were people who thought I could or should invest [the entire budget] myself and that’s not something I can do. Most of the people who were against it seemed to be aspiring film-makers who thought I was somehow soiling Kickstarter, which upset me because I didn’t want to take anything away from anybody. How did the heat die down? The founders of Kickstarter put out a press release saying this was not true if you looked at the amount of traffic and new backers that Veronica Mars and Wish I Was Here have brought to the conversation. The numbers were staggering. That really made the debate go quiet. After that, Wild Bunch came on to sell it and that’s been great. what’s the movie about? It’s about this 35-year-old man dealing with his father’s illness and deciding to home-school his children and learning to be a better person, father and husband. It’s also about healthcare and the new replacing the old. It’s about the changing of the guard. Like Garden State it has funny elements and dramatic elements and also speaks to what it’s like to be a parent struggling to raise their s kids today. n
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SCREENING THURSDAY, NOV 7 AT 5:00PM AMC Santa Monica 6 SUNDAY, NOV 10 AT 11:00AM AMC Santa Monica 5 SYNOPSIS: Five friends take off for the deep woods of Texas for an epic party weekend. But once there, they come face to face with a vicious beast that may in fact be the legendary Bigfoot. As they fight for survival, they unlock a shocking truth behind a terrifying myth. DIRECTOR: Eduardo Sánchez (The Blair Witch Project) WRITER: Jamie Nash PRODUCERS: Mark Ordesky (The Lord of the Rings), Jane Fleming (Frozen Ground), Robin Cowie (The Blair Witch Project), Andy Jenkins GENRE: Horror
SOME VELVET MORNING SCREENING FRIDAY, NOV 8, 5:00PM Broadway Cineplex 1 SATURDAY, NOV 9, 11:00AM Fairmont 5 SYNOPSIS: When Fred arrives at Velvet's doorstep – suitcases in tow – and tells her that he has finally left his wife to be with her, his hopes for a new beginning are crushed as Velvet is having none of it. What follows is a passionate conversation that reveals the twisted heart of a fascinating relationship. WRITER/DIRECTOR: Neil LaBute (Lakeview Terrace) CAST: Stanley Tucci, Alice Eve PRODUCERS: Tim Harms, Daryl Freimark (Hairspray), Michael Corrente, Trent Othick, David Zander (Spring Breakers) GENRE: Drama
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CompletioN boNdiNg Feature
Nymphomaniac
Bonds put safety first Traditionally regarded with wariness by European and Asian producers, completion bonding is an increasingly important part of any production. Geoffrey Macnab explores the landscape
F
or US and UK independent producers and financiers, completion bonding — which provides a guarantee of financing on a film — is now second nature. “Part of our risk management is using a completion bond. It’s one of our investment criteria. If you’re financing independently and not a studio, I don’t think you should take the completion risk. So much can go wrong,” says Claudia Blümhuber of Zurich-based film financier and producer Silver Reel Partners, whose credits include Grace Of Monaco and Under The Skin. Industry veteran Mark Damon, chairman and CEO of Los Angeles-based production and sales company Foresight Unlimited, points out: “To discount foreign sales contracts and convert them into production funds, you need to have a completion bond. No bank will go ahead and discount your contracts without having the guarantee that the film will be completed.” Michael Barker, co-president and co-founder of Sony Pictures Classics, says: “Whenever we are involved with a film, we like to have it bonded. It makes a lot of sense for us. You can sleep well at night knowing a company like Film Finances is doing a completion bond.” It is perhaps surprising, therefore, that in continental Europe and in Asia, there has been a wariness about film completion guarantees. Some producers resent investing 1.5%-2.5% of their budget on a completion bond in addition to their
production insurance. A common refrain is that it is better to spend this money on screen, while there is also the fear an external force — such as a bonding company — might interfere on the film. “We have been looking forward to the day when the French and Germans really want to incorporate completion guarantees as part of their regular way of financing films,” says James Shirras, joint managing director of Film Finances in London. “There is this idea in France that it’s an Anglo-Saxon idea that interferes with the unique and wonderful view of the director which, of course, isn’t true.” Some argue it is precisely this auteur tradition that makes it important to bond. If you have a director who goes over schedule and over budget, the bonding company has the power to intervene. And it seems more European productions are beginning to come round. “Spain is funding its movies based on assumptions of pre-sales in Latin America and the US, where Spanish horror films have proved successful. Local producers are increasingly going to be raising finance against presales, which will then need to be guaranteed,” says Peter La Terriere, London office managing director of European Film Bonds (EFB), which has started a venture in Spain as well as working closely with German and French producers. Meanwhile, the bonding companies are also making inroads into Asia. “There are a lot more pictures coming to us that are going to shoot in China
‘No bank will go ahead and discount your contracts without having the guarantee that the film will be completed’ Mark Damon, Foresight Unlimited
with Chinese backing,” says Scott Nicolaides, ProSight Specialty Insurance’s executive director of media, bonds. The parts of a film most often bonded are the budget and finance. The bond company will not go ‘on risk’ — the point at which the bonder is responsible if the film is not completed — until the money is in the production account. Typically, US studios will not bond unless there is independent finance involved. “When the studios do use us, they probably do not want us to take control of the project but want to be able to maintain a close relationship with the creative makers of the film,” suggests David Korda, joint managing director at Film Finances in London. “It is a good cop, bad cop routine, with the bond company acting as the heavy.” It is rare for films that are bonded to run into trouble. Bond companies are meticulous in preparing against this possibility. “It doesn’t matter who it is, it could be an Oscarwinning producer or director, but if we don’t think he or she can make the budget in those days, then we would ask them to review their plan,” says Nicolaides. There are enough tales of woe to serve as warnings of what can happen when producers run out of money or fall out with each other. A famous example is Terry Gilliam’s The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, the troubled production that is chronicled in »
November 6, 2013 Screen International at AFM 35 n
FEATURE COMPLETION BONDING
Starred Up
Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe’s documentary Lost In La Mancha. Don Quixote was bonded by Fred Milstein’s cineFinance. Gilliam’s The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen was also a troubled production, bonded by Film Finances, budgeted at $23m but which reportedly cost twice that figure. Film Finances took one of its biggest ever hits but survived the setback. Early in his career, UK producer Kevin Loader worked with cineFinance on English Civil War drama To Kill A King. “We started filming before the financing closed, which is something I’d never do again,” Loader recalls. “That film ended up effectively having to shut down and refinance.” Loader did not use a bond company on Roger Michell’s latest feature, Le Week-end. It was a small film and its financiers, the BFI, Curzon and Film4, had enough trust in the producer and director not to compel them to bond the project. Speak to producers and many strike a remarkably enthusiastic note about their bonding companies. “It is always film professionals you’re dealing with, not insurance people,” says Zentropa’s Peter Aalbaek Jensen, who has worked with EFB on several of Lars von Trier’s films including his latest, Nymphomaniac. When you are working with a maverick talent like von Trier, says EFB’s CEO and co-founder Per Neumann, allowances can be made, as long as he finishes a project on time and on budget. “The distributors and everybody we are delivering the film to is expecting a Lars von Trier film. And they know he is changing his mind along the way, so they don’t have a fixed expectation as with, let’s say, an American action movie,” says Neumann. “They [the bond companies] are very user friendly, they are not super rigid when they are evaluating a budget. They’re not just sitting in a tower
somewhere making phonecalls saying it’s black or white,” says Tobin Armbrust, president of worldwide production and acquisitions at Exclusive Media, which works regularly with Film Finances. Producers often turn to their bond companies for practical advice. These companies have seen hundreds, if not thousands, of finance plans. They have also worked around the globe and have huge contacts books. “You are looking at a project to make sure it’s as safe as it can be and is availing itself of the best possible plan of action,” explains Corrie Soeterboek, CEO of First Australian Completion Bond Company.
The bonding landscape Despite increasing demand, there are still only a handful of players in the film bonding market, with newcomers tending not to have the resources or the experience to compete with the established players. “We have been here for 63 years and our relationship with the Lloyds market is incredibly strong. They trust us, basically,” Film Finances’ Shirras says of the oldest company on the block. Set up in London in 1950 by film producer Robert Garrett and Lloyds insurance broker Peter Hope, it is now USowned after being bought by two of its US employees, Kurt Woolner and Steve Ransohoff, in 2008 but retains a sizeable London base, bonding between 200 and 250 films a year. Copenhagen-based EFB is a younger, fast-expanding company, founded in 2009 by three former Film Finances Scandinavia executives — Neumann, Nina Crone and Hans Lönnerheden — that is ramping up its UK activities, recently appointing former Universal executive Peter La Terriere as MD of its London
THE MAJOR PLAYERS Film Finances is the dominant company in the bonding market with an estimated 60% of the US market and 60% of the rest of the world. However, with the disappearance of IFG, which held an estimated 35% of the US market and 10%
■ 36 Screen International at AFM November 6, 2013
of the rest of the world, there is bound to be a realignment. There are now opportunities for relative newcomers such as ProSight (in the US and Asia) and EFB (primarily in Europe) to make major inroads.
‘We started filming before the financing closed. The film ended up effectively having to shut down and re-finance’ Kevin Loader, producer
office. EFB has Berlinale chief Dieter Kosslick on its board and has bonded more than 85 film and TV productions including recent Toronto titles Dom Hemingway and Starred Up. The insurance business regards film as a niche industry. “Insurance is shipping and it is cars, life insurance, pensions. Film is such a small part of it,” says Neumann. However, he points out that bond companies are not insurers. EFB provides a guarantee that the film will be delivered to the buyers/distributors as per whatever contract agreements are in place but does not insure directly against any failures on behalf of the producer. If in the unlikely event the bond company does not fulfil the obligations and there is a claim, then the company is underwritten by solid and credible insurers that would step in. US company ProSight, founded in 2009, offers producers both a film bond and production insurance coverage in a combined product called COMPLETE, thereby potentially offering costs savings. In Australia, First Australian Completion Bond Company, established in 1991, is a leading player and has bonded films including Tracks, Snowtown, The Kingdom. In Germany, movie Sapphires and Animal Kingdom insurer HDI-Gerling offers completion bonds. Some well-known names have disappeared from the marketplace. International Film Guarantors (IFG), backed by the Fireman’s Fund, has shut down. IFG was estimated by one trade source to have written more than $14bn in completion guarantees since it was established in 1990. Some of its assets have been taken over by Film Finances, which is now insured by the Fireman’s Fund. In theory, the withdrawal of a major player such as IFG has opened up the market. In practice, experts suggest, this is likely to remain a very concentrated sector. Myles Nestel, co-founder of the Solution Entertainment Group, observes: “There has never been more than three in the market. Obviously, there is enough business to go round but there isn’t over-demand because, if there was, there would be 10 bond compas nies.” ■ (Left) First Australian Completion Bond Company bonded John Curran’s Tracks
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ScreeningS edited by Paul Lindsell paullindsell@gmail.com
AFM theAtreS AMC SAntA MoniCA 1310 3rd Street Promenade, at Arizona Avenue
loewS SCreening rooMS 1700 Ocean Avenue — third floor
BroAdwAy Cineplex
oCeAn SCreening rooM
1441 3rd Street Promenade, just north of Broadway
1401 Ocean Avenue, at Santa Monica Boulevard
douBletree SCreening rooM
tunnel poSt SCreening rooM
1707 4th Street, enter on lobby level
233 Wilshire Boulevard, at northwest corner of 3rd Street
FAirMont SCreening rooMS
» Screening times and venues are correct at the time of going to press but subject to alteration. See thefilmcatalogue.com for late changes
101 Wilshire Boulevard, enter from 2nd Street
lAeMMle MoniCA 1332 2nd Street, between Arizona Avenue and Santa Monica Boul’d
Market 09:00 MeTalhead
Drama. 97mins. Dir: Ragnar Bragason. Cast: Thora Bjorg Helga, Ingvar E Sigurosson, Halldora Geirharosdottir, Sveinn Olafur Gunnarsson, Hannes Oli Agustsson. Picture Tree International. It’s 1970 and as Black Sabbath record their first album and mark the birth of heavy metal,
09:00 The Borderlands
Horror/thriller/ supernatural thriller. 89mins. Dir: Elliot Goldner. Cast: Gordon Kennedy, Robin Hill. The Salt Company. When claims of a supernatural event are made at a remote church, a team of Vatican-sanctioned paranormal investigators are dispatched. Buried deep in the unforgiving British moorlands, they’re unwilling investigators assuming this will be yet another trail that runs cold. It’s never a good idea to make assumptions. Confronted by the local priest, who’s convinced a miracle has occurred, the investigative team is sceptical at best. But as the
Hera Karlsdottir is born on the cowshed floor at her parents’ farm in rural Iceland. The years of her youth are carefree until a tragedy strikes. Her older brother is killed in an accident and Hera blames herself for his death. In her grief she finds solace in the dark music of heavy metal and dreams of becoming a rock star. laemmle 1
evidence mounts and events take a darker turn there can only be one conclusion, that something far more sinister has surfaced. aMC santa Monica 7
Cheap Thrills
Thriller. 85mins. Dir: EL Katz. Cast: Pat Healy, Ethan Embry, Sara Paxton, David Koechner. Films Distribution. Recently fired and facing eviction, the married father of a newborn baby has his life turned upside down when he meets a wealthy couple who offer a path to financial security… but at a price. laemmle 3
The MagiC snowflake
Animation. 82mins. Dir: Luc Vinciguerra. Gaumont.
n 42 Screen International at the AFM November 6, 2013
Nicholas is the new Santa Claus – with a gigantic toy factory to manage and billions of presents to make, it’s a huge responsibility for a seven-year-old boy. Too huge, in fact, and he comes down with a case of “grownupallosis”, a disease in children who want to grow up too soon. When it strikes a Santa Claus, grownupallosis is deadly – it infects the toys and spreads around the world, putting the very spirit of Christmas in danger. The Council of Retired Santas is obliged to suspend Nicholas and nominate a substitute Santa to manage the factory. To get his job back, Nicholas will have to find the lightheartedness, inspiration and carefree fun of the childhood he’s lost.
Moreno. The Exchange. It was the most notorious robbery in Las Vegas history. Five men, nicknamed the Rat Pack, hit the Luxor Casino for more than $100 million.
Four of the five men were soon captured while one escaped. Ten years later, after blasting their way out of a maximum security prison, the four members of the Rat Pack who did
not get away are hot on the trail of the one that did and the remaining $10 million in stolen cash. The trail leads them to a dying desert town less than 100 miles from the scene of
aMC santa Monica 1
Market MeTalhead see box, above
09:00 sTill life
sTill life see box, right
swelTer
Action/adventure/ thriller. 100mins. Dir: Keith Parmer. Cast: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Lennie James, Grant Bowler, Alfred Molina, Josh Henderson, Catalina Sandino
Drama. 87mins. Dir: Uberto Pasolini. Cast: Eddie Marsan, Joanne Froggatt. Beta Cinema. John May is a council worker whose job is to find the next of kin of those who have died alone. He goes beyond the call of duty to see a job through. Only when all leads have been checked and all doors shut will he organise the funeral of his forgotten “clients”, for whom he chooses the appropriate music and writes
eulogies, which no one but him will hear. His life is neat, calm and ordered till his new case, an elderly alcoholic called Billy Stoke, has been found dead. When May visits the man’s flat to search for clues to his life, he sees the mirror image of his own – except that Stoke’s home is full of rubbish bags and dirty dishes. As May starts to research Stoke’s life, his boss brings devastating news: the department is being downsized and he is being made redundant. aMC santa Monica 2
»
“AWESOME! A HORROR CLASSIC!” AIN’T IT COOL NEWS
SITGES WORLD PREMIERE “5 STARS!” - BLOODY DISGUSTING
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“WELL WRITTEN - A JOYRIDE!” SHOCK TILL YOU DROP
“FOUR STARS - OUTSTANDING!” DREAD CENTRAL
“SURPRISINGLY SERIOUS AND SMART” TWITCH FILM
VISIT US AT LOEWS 601 James Fler 1-416-428-3537 jfler@ravenbanner.ca AFM MULTI 2013 FINAL.indd 1
Michael Paszt 1-647-997-0600 mpaszt@ravenbanner.ca
Sonia Lowe 1-416-829-2373 slowe@ravenbanner.ca
13-11-05 11:06 AM
/OFFICIALMILLENNIUMFILMS
Loews Hotel
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Suite 537
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/MILLENNIUMFILMS
1700 Ocean Ave, Santa Monica
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310-656-2304
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/OFFICIALMILLENNIUMFILMS
Loews Hotel
.
Suite 537
.
/MILLENNIUMFILMS
1700 Ocean Ave, Santa Monica
.
310-656-2304
SCREENINGS
Aneurin Barnard. Picture Tree International. A queen who lost three kingdoms. A wife who lost three husbands. A woman who lost her head.
the crime. They find their former partner in crime is not the man he once was… now he’s the sheriff. laemmle 2
11:00
Ocean
amazONia
Family. 85mins. Dir: Thierry Ragobert. Le Pacte. A 3D odyssey into the world’s biggest rainforest: the Amazon. After a plane crash, Sai, a Capuchin monkey born and raised in captivity, finds himself alone and lost in the wilderness of the Amazon jungle. Unprepared, the little monkey feels helpless with the sudden freedom. Facing a new world in which dense and luxuriant vegetation covers everything, Sai has to find his way and protect himself from the traps nature has laid out. amc Santa monica 7
NO BreathiNg See box, left
Patrick
Market 11:00 NO BreathiNg
cuBaN fury
Comedy/musical. 100mins. Dir: James Griffiths. Cast: Nick Frost, Rashida Jones, Chris O’Dowd, Olivia Colman. Studiocanal. Poised to sweep the floor at the UK Junior Salsa Championships, 13-yearold Bruce Garrett has fire in his heels and the world at his feet… until a freakish bullying incident robs him of his confidence and his life is diverted down a very different path. So it is that 22 years later Bruce finds himself out-ofshape, unloved and well and truly wedged in his “comfort zone”. It takes Julia, his smart, funny, gorgeous new American boss, to shake him from his emotional stupor and force him to reexamine his dull, passionless existence. But with expert Lothario and alpha-male office nemesis Drew overtly in pursuit of her, it’s enough to make Bruce want to give up on himself all over again. Can his loyal sister, childhood dance instructor, and crazy new amateur salsa pal help Bruce unshackle his dancing beast, regain his long lost fury and claim the love of his life? amc Santa monica 4
Drama. 110mins. Dir: Cho Yong-Sun. Cast: Lee Jong-Suk, Seo In-Guk, Kwon Yu-Ri.
cuBicle WarriOrS
Comedy. 81mins. Dir: Jeff Stephenson. Cast: Alan Thicke, Laura Vandervoort, Michael Seater. Breakthrough Entertainment. An office comedy about two best-friend finance grads who embark on a crazy mission to stop an investment bank from closing a crooked deal involving student loans. laemmle 3
DemeNtamaNia
Horror/thriller. 85mins. Dir: Kit Ryan. Cast: Sam Robertson, Vincent Regan, Kal Penn, Geoff Bell. Stealth Media Group. Frustrated with the social injustice he must face every day and the bureaucratic culture of the office he works in Edward Arkham is at boiling point. Although successful in his job, working for a leading IT consultancy, years of routine have taken their toll, his work now seeming so unbearably monotonous, fueling his frustration and bitterness. When Edward is stung
n 46 Screen International at the AFM November 6, 2013
9ers Entertainment. A gifted swimmer rediscovers his talent by entering a competition against his long-time rival. laemmle 2
by a mysterious bug, it results in a painful and aggressive rash. It also unlocks the door to a secret world inside his head causing nightmarish fantasies to manifest themselves within vivid hallucinations. As the rash spreads and threatens to envelop his entire body, his visions become more real and reality begins to drift further and further away. Are these apparitions solely bound to the confines of his mind or are their other unknown forces at work and is he part of something more sinister than he could possibly imagine? fairmont 2
eNemieS clOSer
Action/adventure. 85mins. Dir: Peter Hyams. Cast: JeanClaude Van Damme, Tom Everett Scott, Orlando Jones. After Dark Films. Deep within a forest on the US-Canadian border, two sworn enemies must work together to escape a ruthless drug cartel hell-bent on retrieving a
drug shipment which went missing there. fairmont 1
fiNDiNg mS. right
Comedy/romance. 90mins. Dir: Bryan Fogel. Cast: Jennifer Love Hewitt, Peter Stormare. Vision Films. A one-of-a-kind love story about a young man who pretends to be Jewish in order to find the perfect wife. fairmont 4
freezer
Thriller. 82mins. Dir: Mikael Salomon. Cast: Dylan McDermott, Peter Facinelli, Yuliya Snigr. Lightning Entertainment Group. Robert, an average guy with an average life, is tested beyond human endurance when he awakens to find himself locked in an industrial freezer by Russian thugs. The gangsters threaten his life unless he returns the $8 million he stole from them. The only problem is, Robert has no idea what they are talking about. Searching his surroundings, he discovers Sam under a pile of boxes in the corner, beaten and battered. As both men fight for their lives before freezing to death, the truth about their situation slowly reveals itself. laemmle 1
gOlDBerg & eiSeNBerg
Black comedy/thriller. 97mins. Dir: Oren Carmi. Cast: Daniel Brusovani, Eran Bohem, Yahav Gal, Yitzak Laor. Jinga Films. Goldberg is a mediocre computer programmer. Eisenberg is an emotionally disturbed thug. Unfortunately their paths cross.
Thriller/sci-fi/horror. 95mins. Dir: Mark Hartley. Cast: Charles Dance, Rachel Griffiths, Sharni Vinson. Bankside Films. After killing his mother and her lover some years before, Patrick is the comatose patient in room 15 of a remote, private psychiatric clinic run by the secretive Dr Roget, who treats him as a guinea pig in his bizarre studies of life and death. When Kathy, a nurse who has recently separated from her boyfriend, begins working at the clinic, she is instructed to care for him. Broadway 2
PrOmO reel
Drama/comedy. 57mins. Films Distribution. Doubletree 1
loews 2
reD Sky iNStructiONS NOt iNcluDeD
Comedy. 115mins. Dir: Eugenio Derbez. Cast: Eugenio Derbez, Jessica Lindsey, Loreto Peralta. Highland Film Group. A man who has made a new life for himself with the daughter left on his doorstep six years ago finds his family threatened when the birth mother resurfaces. Broadway 1
lucky them
Romantic comedy. 97mins. Dir: Megan Griffiths. Cast: Toni Collette, Ryan Eggold, Thomas Haden Church. The Works. A rock journalist is assigned to track down her ex-boyfriend. amc Santa monica 5
mary QueeN Of ScOtS
Historical/biography. 120mins. Dir: Thomas Imbach. Cast: Camille Rutherford, Mehdi Dehbi, Sean Biggerstaff,
Action/adventure. 115mins. Dir: Mario Van Peebles. Cast: Cam Gigandet, Rachael Leigh Cook. Aldamisa International. Hot-stick Navy fighter pilots Tom Craig and Butch Masters are redirected from a routine patrol with special orders from Cutter to blow up an old, apparently abandoned chemical building. They carry out the ordinance but the building is actually full of friendly civilians and scientists in search of a WMD lost since Operation Iraqi Freedom. amc Santa monica 1
SiDDharth
Drama. 96mins. Dir: Richie Mehta. Cast: Rajesh Tailang, Tannishtha Chatterjee. Fortissimo Films. After sending away his 12 year-old son Siddharth for work, Mahendra (a chainwallah who fixes broken zippers on the streets) is »
Screenings at AFM November 6th, 3:00pm at Fairmont 3 101 Wilshire Blvd November 9th, 1:00pm at Doubletree 1 1707 4th Street
Screenings at AFM
November 6th, 11:00am & 10th, 3:00pm at Broadway Cineplex 2 1441 3rd Street Promenade
Suite 624 Loews Hotel
SCREENINGS
Silent Summer
Market 13:00 BontA 3d
Animation. 80mins. Dir: Leo Lee. Cast: Sarah Natochenny, Jessica Paquet, Veronica Taylor. Golden Network Asia. Peanut Planet is suffering from severe droughts, which is affecting the growth of the Bonta cactus plants that have fed the people for generations. Baraboo, a city in the desert, is particularly affected
relieved – his financial burdens will be alleviated. But when Siddharth fails to return home, Mahendra learns he may have been taken by child-traffickers. With little resources and no connections, he travels across India in pursuit, with the hope that whatever force arbitrarily took his child away will return him unharmed. Broadway 4
13:00 A CAStle in itAly
Comedy/drama. 103mins. Dir: Valeria BruniTedeschi. Cast: Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, Filippo Timi, Louis Garrel. Films Distribution. A woman meets a man. Her dreams resurface. It’s also the story of her ailing brother, their mother, and the destiny of a leading family of wealthy Italian industrialists. The story of
by the climate change. Young Boca is a wellknown trouble-maker in Baraboo. One day, he has a vision of the miraculous Bonta Grove that could save the city. When nobody believes him, he is determined to prove them wrong. Boca sets out on a journey with his best friend, the timid Neepop, hitch a ride on the floating boulders of Black Magnet Valley. AmC Santa monica 4
a family falling apart, a world coming to an end, and love beginning.
starting with his teenage brother. ocean
All CheerleAderS die
Horror/comedy/thriller. 90mins. Dir: Lucky McKee, Chris Sivertson. Cast: Caitlin Stasey, Brooke Butler, Sianoa Smit-McPhee. Celluloid Dreams/Celluloid Nightmares. A rebel girl signs up a group of cheerleaders to help her take down the captain of their high school football team, but a supernatural turn of events thrusts the girls into a different battle. AmC Santa monica 3
laemmle 2
AltergeiSt the Adulteen
Comedy. 88mins. Dir: Tristan Seguela. Cast: Laurent Lafitte, Victor George, Christophe Malavoy. TF1 International. Arnaud Mustier, 34, is a living symbol of success and excellence. Lawyer and hyperactive philosopher, he can be quite irritating sometimes. However, this apparent perfection is about to be shattered. A few pimples, odd behaviour, and the diagnosis is made: Arnaud suffers from L.T.C.D., a rare pathology that makes male patients go through a late teen crisis. As he opens up to a whole new world of intense youth, he starts to seriously freak out the people around him…
n 48 Screen International at the AFM November 6, 2013
Supernatural thriller. 90mins. Dir: Tedi Sarafian. Cast: Kristina Anapau, Mark Hapka. HeckArt Studios. Theresa Augland and her crew of five young paranormal investigators are invited by Ashen Till (heir apparent to the famously haunted King’s Ransom Winery) to investigate the violent deaths that have taken place on the family estate for generations. They discover that even the ghosts who haunt these vineyards are scared of the far more sinister presence hidden among the vines. laemmle 1
BontA 3d See box, above
Animation. 106mins. Dir: Juan Jose Campanella. Cast: Juan Jose Campanella. Film Factory Entertainment. Tells the story of Amadeo, a shy but talented boy, and of a football team that is trying to get back together after having been dismantled.
day on the island, the friends discover a hidden cave nestled into the side of a cliff and decide to go in and explore it. Filled with excitement and adrenalin, the friends start to make their way through the countless passageways that make up the cave. Before long, they realise they are lost.
AmC Santa monica 5
Broadway 3
green Street hooligAnS: underground
PPl AFm Promo reel
FooSBAll
Action/adventure/ martial arts. 93mins. Dir: James Nunn. Cast: Scott Adkins, Jack Doolan, Kacey Barnfield. SC Films International. An old firm leader returns to Green Street for revanche after receiving a call that his little brother was killed, but is he able to cope with a new type of hooliganism and can he find his killer? AmC Santa monica 1
in dArkneSS We FAll
Horror. 80mins. Dir: Alfredo Montero. Cast: Marcos Ortiz, Marta Castellote, Jorge Paez Paez, Eva Garcia, Xoel Fernandez. Filmax International. Formentera white-sand beaches, the crystal clear Mediterranean sea, unspoilt natural beauty and five friends looking forward to the holiday of their lives in this idyllic location. On their second
Action/adventure. 20mins. Protagonist Pictures. Broadway 2
roCk the CASBAh
Comedy/drama. 99mins. Dir: Laila Marrakchi. Cast: Nadine Labaki, Hiam Abbass, Lubna Azabal, Morjana Alaoui. Pathe International. A bittersweet comedy that plays out around a funeral. Over the three days of mourning called for by Moroccan tradition, the family gathers in the deceased’s villa to look back on their memories and share the loss of the dearly departed father and husband. It’s summer, but the beach is out of bounds and bathing suits are swapped for djellabas as the mainly female household comes together in a show of grief and anguish. But when the youngest daughter Sofia arrives, sparks start to fly. AmC Santa monica 7
Drama. 89mins. Dir: Nana Neul. Cast: Dagmar Manzel, Ernst Stotzner, Victoria Trauttmansdorff, Arthur Igual, Marie Rosa Tietjen. Picture Tree International. Kristine, an art historian, suddenly loses her voice after a successful auction. She retreats to her family’s house in the south of France. The villagers are surprised to see her after such a long time. That she can’t speak doesn’t seem to bother her old friends – just the opposite. Kristine gains a secret ally in Franck, the lover of her daughter Anna, who is evading her studies. But when her husband Herbert, a psychiatrist, shows up at the house, it becomes clear that their marriage is not in the best of shape. But there is also something else, something not uttered. that has come between her and her friends. laemmle 3
15:00 AlAn PArtridge: AlPhA PAPA
Comedy. 109mins. Dir: Declan Lowney. Cast: Steve Coogan, Colm Meaney, Felicity Montagu, Phil Cornwell, Sean Pertwee, Tim Key, Dustin Demri-Burns, Nigel Lindsay, Anna Maxwell Martin, Darren Boyd. Studiocanal. Steve Coogan’s famous local radio DJ/one time talk show host Alan Partridge is one of the UK’s mostloved comedy characters. When Alan’s radio station, North Norfolk Digital, is taken over by a new media conglomerate, it sets in motion a chain of events that sees Alan having to work with the police to defuse a potentially violent siege. Will Alan talk round disgruntled colleague Pat Farrell? Will there be shots fired in anger? Will Alan become a public hero or simply another footnote in the history of broadcasting? AmC Santa monica 2
AntiSoCiAl
Horror. 92mins. Dir: Cody Calahan. Cast: Michelle Mylett, Cody Thompson, Adam
»
Screenings at AFM
November 6th, 3:00pm November 9th, 1:00pm at Fairmont 3 at Doubletree 1 101 Wilshire Blvd 1707 4th Street
Screenings at AFM
Suite 624 Loews Hotel
SCREENINGS
Christie. Breakthrough Entertainment. Five university friends gather at a house party to ring in the New Year. Unbeknown to them, an epidemic has erupted outside causing outbreaks around the world. Reality becomes blurred as they slowly discover the source of the virus causing the sickness… and there is no going back.
house in the country, despite the fact that this grandmother is a cruel alcoholic. The villagers call her “the Witch”. Previously pampered, the twins must learn how to survive alone in their new, rural surroundings. They realise that the only way to cope with the absurd and inhumane world of adults and war is to become completely unfeeling and merciless. The twins keep a written record of all they have witnessed during the war, the Notebook.
doubletree 1
AuthorS AnonyMouS
Romantic comedy. 90mins. Dir: Ellie Kanner. Cast: Kaley Cuoco, Chris Klein, Teri Polo, Dennis Farina. Spotlight Pictures. After a dysfunctional group of unpublished writers with the motto “all for one” accept Hannah Rinaldi into their fold, the last thing they expect is her overnight success – but that’s exactly what they get. While her career takes off, her eccentric and envious colleagues struggle to find their own paths to publishing fame and fortune. Tensions rise, rivalries form and hearts are broken. Rejection turns to desperation. Good thing they’re only armed with pens. laemmle 3
the Brotherhood oF teArS
AMC Santa Monica 3
PAlo Alto
Market 15:00 the Brotherhood oF teArS
Thriller. 100mins. Dir: Jean-Baptiste Andrea. Cast: Jeremie Renier, Audrey Fleurot. Films Distribution. Gabriel Chevalier, 45 years old, is an ex-policeman. Unemployed, lonely and depressed, he lives like a ghost and hardly takes care of his only
teenage child, Juliette. One day, by pure chance, he finds a suspicious but extremely well-paid job: his daily mission consists of delivering a briefcase exactly where he is told. The only rule being to never open it. These deliveries will bring him to meet weird people in strange places. Gradually his cop instinct resurfaces. laemmle 2
See box, right
Bullet
Action/adventure. 87mins. Dir: Nick Lyon. Cast: Danny Trejo, Jonathan Banks, Julia Dietze, Tinsel Korey, Torsten Voges. SC Films International. Frank ‘Bullet’ Marasco is nearing retirement, but he is still the meanest undercover cop in LA. Whether he’s fighting bad guys, or MMA style fights, he’s always the toughest guy around and the first to use his fists or gun. After another undercover drugs bust, Bullet comes up against the local drug barons – the Kane bros – and no side will back down. When the Governor’s daughter is kidnapped and then his grandson, Bullet takes the law into his own hands, and no one will stop his
relentless pursuit for revenge. Broadway 2
C.o.G.
Drama/black comedy. 87mins. Dir: Kyle Patrick Alvarez. Cast: Jonathan Groff, Denis O’Hare, Corey Stoll. The Exchange. David has it all figured out. His plan, more a Steinbeckian dream, is to spend the summer working on an apple farm in Oregon with his best friend Jennifer. When she bails on him, David is left to get his hands dirty alone, watched over by the old far owner Hobbs, the first in a series of questionable mentors he encounters. laemmle 1
delivery
Horror/supernatural
n 50 Screen International at the AFM November 6, 2013
thriller/suspense. 85mins. Dir: Brian Netto. Cast: Laurel Vail, Danny Barclay, Rob Cobuzio. Bleiberg Entertainment. Young couple Kyle and Rachel Massy agree to document their first pregnancy for a familyoriented reality show. The production spirals out of control after the cameras capture a series of unexplained events, leading Rachel to believe that a malevolent spirit has possessed their unborn child. loews 2
the evolution oF SteM Cell reSeArCh
Documentary. 90mins. Dir: Mark David. Cast: Leonard Nimoy. Red Sea Media. An incredible journey of medical discovery
begins with the pioneers of stem cell research and follows the patients who may benefit from these discovered treatments. These trailblazers are opening new frontiers in the field of medicine that have contributed to unlocking the cornerstone of human life. loews 1
Felony
Thriller. 106mins. Dir: Matthew Saville. Cast: Joel Edgerton, Tom Wilkinson, Jai Courtney, Melissa George. The Solution Entertainment Group. Three detectives become embroiled in a tense struggle after a tragic accident leaves a child in critical condition. One is guilty of a crime, one will try to cover it up, and the other attempts to expose it. How far will these men go to disguise and unravel the truth? Broadway 1
GAuMont ProMo
Action/adventure/ comedy/drama. 60mins. Dir: Various artists. Gaumont. AMC Santa Monica 1
hArloCk: SPACe PirAte
Animation/sci-fi/action/ adventure. 115mins. Dir: Shinji Aramaki. Cast:
Haruma Miura, Shun Oguri. GFM Films. Space Pirate Captain Harlock and his fearless crew face off against the space invaders who seek to conquer the planet Earth. AMC Santa Monica 5
neverlAke
Drama/thriller/mystery. 90mins. Dir: Riccardo Paoletti. Cast: Daisy Keeping, David Brandon. Rai Trade. While visiting Italy, a teenage American girl meets the souls of her brothers and sisters. She discovers that they had been used by her surgeon father as a reserve for organs to be transplanted into his best-loved daughter afflicted by a rare disease. Broadway 4
the noteBook (le GrAnd CAhier)
Drama. 110mins. Dir: Janos Szasz. Cast: Laszlo Gyemant, Andras Gyemant, Piroska Molnar, Ulrich Thomsen, Ulrich Matthes, Sabin Tambrea. Beta Cinema. Towards the end of the Second World War, people in big cities are at the mercy of air raids and death by starvation. A desperate young mother leaves her 13-year-old twin sons at their grandmother’s
Drama. 100mins. Dir: Gia Coppola. Cast: Emma Roberts, James Franco, Val Kilmer. Pathe International. Trapped in sheltered suburban affluence, Teddy, April, Fred and Emily search for both cheap thrills and meaningful connection. Aided by plentiful doses of alcohol, drugs and sex, they stumble precariously through tree-lined culde-sacs as they struggle to understand their own confused emotions. AMC Santa Monica 7
PAnzer ChoColAte
Horror. 90mins. Dir: Robert Figueras. Cast: Melina Matthews, Ariadna Cabrol, Mark Schardan, Luka Peros, Geraldine Chaplin, Tony Corvillo, Joseph Segui, Richard Felix. Stealth Media Group. In the dark forests of the Pyrenees, an archaeology PhD student and three friends in search for pieces of art stolen during the Second World War discover a Nazi bunker called ‘Valhalla’. They soon realise that the place is guarded by a hideous beast named Das Kommandant Frank, and find themselves running for their lives. Fairmont 2
SkinwAlker rAnCh
Supernatural thriller. 96mins. Dir: Devin McGinn. Cast: Jon Gries, Kyle Davis, Erin Cahill, Devin McGinn, Matt Rocheleau. Highland »
VMI WORLDWIDE AFM SCREENING SCHEDULE
SCREENING INFO THURSDAY NOVEMBER 7 1:00PM BROADWAY CINEPlEX 2
SCREENING INFO SUNDAY NOVEMBER 10 1:00PM FAIRMONT 5
SCREENING INFO FRIDAY NOVEMBER 8 3:00PM FAIRMONT 5
SCREENING INFO FRIDAY NOVEMBER 8 1:00PM FAIRMONT 5
SCREENING INFO FRIDAY NOVEMBER 8 5:00PM DOUBlETREE 1
SCREENING INFO FRIDAY NOVEMBER 8 1:00PM lOEWS 1
SCREENING INFO SATURDAY NOVEMBER 9 3:00PM FAIRMONT 5
SCREENING INFO SUNDAY NOVEMBER 10 3:00PM lOEWS 1
SCREENING INFO SATURDAY NOVEMBER 9 5:00PM FAIRMONT 1
SCREENING INFO SATURDAY NOVEMBER 9 1:00PM lOEWS 1
LOEWS 504
TElEphONE: 310.458.6700 x504 SalES@vmIwORldwIdE.COm
SCREENINGS
Film Group. A scientific research team investigates and documents the supernatural events surrounding the disappearance of a cattle rancher’s 10-year-old son. Based on the true story of “Skinwalker Ranch” which shocked the paranormal community around the world.
fighter pilots throughout the Soviet Union. This legendary top 20 became the ace of aces. None of them knew who would fly first and one of them had to deal with much more than just the earth’s gravity. Broadway 3
Hwayi: a Monster Boy
fairmont 3
tHe voLCano
Romantic comedy/ Action/adventure. 92mins. Dir: Alexandre Coffre. Cast: Dany Boon, Valerie Bonneton. Kinology. A divorced couple are going to their daughter’s big wedding in Greece… separately. Except that their flight will unfortunately not take off and the only way to make it to the ceremony is to exceptionally get along (for once) and hit the road together. Needless to say that they’re going to find themselves stuck in a huge amount of troubles, lies and adventures.
Market 17:00 apokaLips X
Action/adventure/ martial arts/sci-fi. 95mins. Dir: Mamat Khalid. Cast: Farid Kamil, Jehan Miskin,
Peter Davis. Birch Tree Entertainment. Rival gangs fight for pride and ego in a world destroyed by chemical warfare. Loews 2
aMC santa Monica 4
Gabriel Retes, Rodrigo Virago, Sara Maldonado, Adan Canto, Julio Beckhor, Mario Almada, Libia Rangel. KAFilms. Based on the maturation process that young people face when entering their thirties. When their options come to settling down and starting a family or pursuing and achieving what they’ve always dreamed of, even though this could become a risk for their economic and emotional stability.
a woLf at tHe door
apokaLips X
aged two and not having spoken a word since then, he leads a reclusive existence with his two aunts who run a dance school in Paris. The sisters have their sights set on Paul becoming a pianist of international stature and he spends his days accompanying them on the piano as they teach their students waltzes and tangos. That is until he meets Madame Proust, the neighbour from the fourth floor, who leaves Paul a message telling him she knows the whereabouts of his parents.
Thriller. 111mins. Dir: Fernando Coimbra. Cast: Leandra Leal, Milhem Cortaz, Fabiula Nascimento. Mundial. A nerve-rattling tale of a kidnapped child and the distraught parents left behind.
see box, above
Laemmle 1
attiLa MarCeL
Canopy
Drama. 106mins. Dir: Sylvain Chomet. Cast: Guillaume Gouix, Anne Le Ny, Bernadette Lafont, Helene Vincent. Pathe International. Paul has a recurring nightmare. He is a baby in his mother’s arms, when suddenly his father’s angry face fills the screen and Paul wakes in a sweat. Mysteriously orphaned
Drama. 84mins. Dir: Aaron Wilson. Cast: Khan Chittenden, Mo Tzu-yi. Odin’s Eye Entertainment. Wartime, 1942. Singapore. An Australian fighter pilot shot down in combat awakens suspended in the treetops. As night devours day, he must navigate through dangerous jungle in s
viCtor young perez
Historical/biography/ Drama. 110mins. Dir: Jacques Ouaniche. Cast: Brahim Asloum, Steve Suissa, Isabella Orsini, Patrice Bouchitey, Bruce Payne. Picture Tree International. Tells the astonishing, harrowing and incredible moving story of a Tunisian Jewish boxer, who became the World Flyweight Champion in 1931 and 1932. ocean
17:00
fairmont 3
aLMost tHirty
Romantic comedy. 104mins. Dir: Alejandro Sugich. Cast: Eiza Gonzales, Manuel Balbi,
fairmont 4
n 52 Screen International at the AFM November 6, 2013
earch of sanctuary.
eastern Boys
Laemmle 2
Drama. 128mins. Dir: Robin Campillo. Cast: Olivier Rabourdin, Kirill Emelyanov. Films Distribution. They come from all over Eastern Europe: Russia, Ukraine, Moldavia… The oldest appear no more than 25. As for the youngest, there is no way of telling their age. They hang around the Gare du Nord train station in Paris. They might be prostitutes. Daniel, a discreet man in his early fifties, has his eye on one of them – Marek. Gathering his courage, he speaks to him. The young man agrees to come and visit Daniel the following day at his place.
CHinese puzzLe
Comedy. 100mins. Dir: Cedric Klapisch. Cast: Romain Duris, Audrey Tautou. Studiocanal. Xavier’s life is turned upside down when his wife Wendy announces she’s moving to NY and taking the kids. A few months later, he’s on a trans-Atlantic flight as well. From fathering a child to a lesbian couple, to marrying a ChineseAmerican to get papers, to reigniting a flame with his first love who comes for a visit, Xavier and his world really does seem like a Chinese puzzle. aMC santa Monica 5
Broadway 1
deMentaMania
Horror/thriller. 85mins. Dir: Kit Ryan. Cast: Sam Robertson, Vincent Regan, Kal Penn, Geoff Bell. Stealth Media Group. A frustrated office worker finds himself caught between the realms of his deranged imagination and the mundane reality of his everyday existence. fairmont 2
duMBBeLLs
Comedy. 100mins. Dir: Christopher Livingston. Cast: Tom Arnold, Fabio. Red Sea Media. Loews 1
gagarin, first in spaCe
Action/adventure/ biography/historical. 113mins. Dir: Pavel Parkhomenko. Cast: Yaroslav Zhalnin, Mikhail Filippov, Olga Ivanova, Vadim Michman. Intandem Films. On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin blasted off in a Vostok rocket, becoming the first human in space. Gagarin successfully orbited the Earth for 108 minutes. The first group of cosmonauts was selected from among 3,000
Action/adventure/thriller. 120mins. Dir: Jang Joonhwan. Cast: Kim Yunseok, Cho Jin-woong, Kim Sung-kyun, Yeo Jingoo. Showbox/Mediaplex. Hwayi is a boy living in a farm village, who was raised by five fathers. His fathers are known criminals and the police nicknamed them ‘Daytime Monsters’. One day, the group is commissioned to kill a man named Lim and his wife. Apart from the leader, Suktae, the rest of the group feel something odd about this particular contract, but Suk-tae is adamant to carry out this job with Hwayi in tow. This is the first time Hwayi has ever tagged along for a job and he discovers a photograph of a child in Lim’s house. Suk-tae hands his gun to Hwayi and orders the boy to kill Lim. Despite his plea, Hwayi is forced to pull the trigger. He becomes ill after committing his first kill, and realises that the boy in the photograph looks uncannily familiar. aMC santa Monica 6
Land of tHe Bears
Documentary. 86mins. Dir: Guillaume Vincent. Cast: Kinology. A mother, her two cubs, a teenage bear and a big male in the Kamchatka peninsula: the power of individual destinies, the grandiose extravagance of the landscapes. Guillaume Vincent is getting ready to spend the next 500 days shooting bears there, teaming up with the finest European 3D specialists to bring you the most breathtaking, immersive, big-screen experience. aMC santa Monica 3
tHe Levenger tapes
Horror/thriller. 93mins. Dir: Mark Edwin Robinson. Cast: Johanna Braddy, Lili Mirojnick, »
EUROPEAN FILM MARKET IT ALL STARTS HERE.
614 Feb 2014
Early Bird Registration until November 30. Online Film Submission until December 21. WWW.EFM-BERLINALE.DE
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SCREENINGS
Room 214, Loews santa monica Beach hoteL, 1700 ocean avenue, santa monica, caLifoRnia 90401 Editor Wendy Mitchell, wendy. mitchell@screendaily.com, +44 7889 414 856 US editor Jeremy Kay, jeremykay67@ gmail.com, +1 310 922 5908 Chief reporter Andreas Wiseman, andreas. wiseman@screendaily.com, +44 7713 086 674 Production editor Mark Mowbray, mark. mowbray@screendaily.com, +44 7710 124 065 Sub editors Paul Lindsell, Jamie McLeish Commercial director Andrew Dixon, andrew. dixon@screendaily.com, +44 7595 646 541 Sales manager Scott Benfold, scott.benfold@ screendaily.com, +44 7765 257 260 VP sales and business development, North America Nigel Daly, nigeldalymail@ gmail.com, +1 213 447 5120 International sales consultant Ingrid Hammond, ingridhammond@mac.com, +39 348 5165 631 Production manager Jonathon Cooke, jonathon. cooke@mb-insight.com, +44 7584 333 148 Festival & events manager Mai Le, mai.le@screendaily. com, +44 7734 967 324 Group commercial director, MBI Alison Pitchford, alison. pitchford@screendaily.com Chief executive, MBI Conor Dignam Printer Sinclair Printing, Los Angeles Screen International London 101 Finsbury Pavement, London EC2A 1RS, UK Tel: +44 20 3033 4267 Subscription enquiries Tel: +44 1604 828 706 help@subscribe.screendaily. com
Morgan Krantz, Chris Mulkey. New Films International. Detectives in a remote town pore through every frame of a troubling tape to find the whereabouts of three missing college students. The chilling footage becomes more and more disturbing when the students come upon the bloody dress of an eight-year-old girl in the secluded wilderness, and take it upon themselves to find her. Linking the case of the missing girl and the missing students together, the detectives race to piece enough information together to find them alive. doubletree 1
NiGHT oF THe LiviNG dead: oriGiNS
90mins. Dir: Zebediah De Soto. Cast: Tony Todd. Meyers Media Group. A small group of people must fight their way through Manhattan in the hope of surviving the onslaught of the undead – zombies. The film uses a combination of both motion picture capture photography as well as new cutting edge facial capture to record the actors’ emotions and their thought processes to make this style that of a of “graphic film.” aMC Santa Monica 7
ouT oF iNFerNo 3d See box, above
PLaSTiC
Action/adventure. 98mins. Dir: Julian Gilbey. Cast: Ed Speleers, Will Poulter, Alfie Allen, Emma Rigby, Thomas Kretschmann. Cinema Management Group. High octane from start to finish, the story of intelligent and brazen Sam, who leads his ring of mid-20s London credit card thieves to Miami. In the city of “high stakes”, they poach $2 million in cash to pay back Sidat, a renowned gangster with whom they have run afoul and cannot afford to mess with. After paying off their debt, Sam and his gang set their sights on a daring final heist that could make them filthy
n 54 Screen International at the AFM November 6, 2013
Market 17:00 ouT oF iNFerNo 3d
Action/adventure. 107mins. Dir: Danny Pang, Oxide Pang. Cast: Sean Lau, Louis Koo, Sinje Lee, Chen Si Cheng. Universe Films Distribution Co. rich. But their plan turns sour when Sidat ups their debt to $5 million and members of the team start betraying each other. Now it’s up to Sam to finish the robbery he started while turning the tables on Sidat before they all go down.
On the hottest day in 50 years, a serious fire engulfs a high-rise building in southern China. A gaggle of firefighters with an indestructible enthusiasm are going to save lives. aMC Santa Monica 4
drag racers Don ‘The Snake’ Prudhomme and Tom ‘The Mongoose’ McEwen combined with corporate giants to change the face of sports and ultimately became the most famous rivalry in racing history. Laemmle 4
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SuGar KiSSeS
Drama. 98mins. Dir: Shin Yeon-shick. Cast: Lee Joon, Yang Dongkeun, Seo Yeong-hee. Finecut. Young becomes a big movie star overnight and discovers a new hidden world of power and pleasure, which puts everyone around him in danger.
Drama/comedy. 87mins. Dir: Carlos Cuaron. Cast: Cesar Martinez, Daniela Arce, Enrique Arreola, Krystian Ferrer, Paloma Arredondo, Veronica Falcon, Yolanda Martines. 6 Sales. A love story. Could the purity of first love survive the darkest aspects of our society?
Fairmont 1
Broadway 2
SNaKe aNd MoNGooSe
THaT BurNiNG FeeLiNG
Action/adventure. 100mins. Dir: Wayne Holloway. Cast: Jesse Williams, Noah Wyle, John Heard. American Cinema International. The untold story of how Southern California
Comedy. 90mins. Dir: Jason James. Cast: John Cho, Paulo Costanzo, Tyler Labine, Ingrid Haas. Joker Films. Adam Murphy – a real-estate hotshot and confirmed bachelor – feels
rouGH PLaY
the burn of failed love(s), when a social disease takes him face-to-face with a handful of one-night stands, revealing the shortcomings of his own image. Fairmont 5
ToM YuM GooNG 2 (TYG2)
Martial Arts. 90mins. Dir: Prachya Pinkaew. Cast: Tony Ja, Jija Yanin. Sahamongkolfilm International Co. aMC Santa Monica 1
TraNSiT
Drama. 92mins. Dir: Hannah Espia. Cast: Irma Adlawan, Jasmine Curtis. Electric Entertainment. Weaves together the stories of one Filipino family living in Tel Aviv under the threat of a new deportation law. When the Israeli government begins deporting children of migrant workers, Janet, a domestic worker on an expired visa, struggles to hide her half-Israeli daughter, Yael – a rebellious teenager caught up in a juvenile romance – and Joshua, a four-year old boy left in her care. Tunnel Post 1
19:00 CHavez CaGe oF GLorY
Action/adventure/Drama. 93mins. Dir: Hector Echavarria. Cast: Danny Trejo, Hector Echavarria, Steven Bauer, James Russo, Patrick Kilpatrick.
Destiny Entertainment, Barely being able to make ends meet and working at every job he can find, Hector Chavez turns to his fighting roots to pay for his gravely ill young son’s medical bills. When his amateur mixed martial arts videos go viral and earn him the recognition of the world’s top MMA federation he is given a chance to go into the cage against the world champion. A dream opportunity becomes a fight for his life when he learns the champion’s last opponent is in critical condition in the same hospital as his son. Hector must risk it all so his son can have the surgery he needs to survive. Loews 1
To HeLL wiTH a BuLLeT
Drama/thriller/horror. 107mins. Dir: Vick Wright. Cast: Timothy V Murphy, Trenton Rostedt, Ronnie Gene Blevins. Galloping Films. Billy is a washed-up rock singer whose life revolves around rehearsing with his band of burnouts, and scoring drugs to feed his increasing cocaine habit. After being fired by his band for losing his voice he seeks the advice of Dr Nick Devyril, who promises to return his voice to its prime with horrifying consequences. ocean