http://blogs.indiewire.com/rania/ Week of Wonders en Copyright 2009 2009-11-20T09:29:37+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/rania/archives/50th_tiff-_fashionable_film_folk/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/rania/archives/50th_tiff-_fashionable_film_folk/ The university city of Thessaloniki is full of students in casual garb, but at the film festival, actors and filmmakers wear a range of looks. 11-15-09: Jane Birkin, star of Jacques Rivette’s Around a Small Mountain said her luggage was lost, so she borrowed a dress off the back of young festival staffer Chloé, and boots from director Despina Mouzaki.  Birkin is known in fashion circles for the Hermès bag named for her.  11-16-09: Actress Gi-Youn Kim and director Seo Lee from the Korean thriller, Missing Person were a contrast in styles. 11-17-09: Sporting a Ramones t-shirt, Romanian director Radu… Festival- Thessaloniki 2009 2009-11-20T09:29:37+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/rania/archives/thessaloniki_intl_film_festival-_new_smoking_rules/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/rania/archives/thessaloniki_intl_film_festival-_new_smoking_rules/ When I arrived in Greece earlier this week for the 50th Thessaloniki Int’l Film Festival, I was greeted with a big surprise.  In past years, this was a smoker’s paradise.  Now, in line with the rest of the EU, public smoking is banned in Greece (except for designated areas in eating/drinking establishments), including all of Thessaloniki’s festival venues.  To illustrate the rule, clever shots of actors smoking feature the “banned” symbol.  Here are some examples: Festival- Thessaloniki 2009 2009-11-18T21:03:19+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/rania/archives/yowza1/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/rania/archives/yowza1/ That’s quite a comment thread on Anne Thompson’s Scott Foundas story. Film Biz 2009-11-13T15:42:36+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/rania/archives/wes_anderson_and_the_current_wave_of_fantastical_filmmakers1/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/rania/archives/wes_anderson_and_the_current_wave_of_fantastical_filmmakers1/ Fantastical (fantastic + whimsical) is the best word I can come up with to describe the output of Wes Anderson, Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze, Charlie Kaufman, Tim Burton, and sometimes Sophia Coppola. Their playful, artful films mine the world of daydreams and childhood.  I’ve noticed that the fans of these filmmakers are on average decades younger than the usual art-house crowd. Anderson has been out in full-throttle Fox publicity-tour-mode for “Fantastic Mr. Fox.”  I caught him with his regular star, Jason Schwartzman yesterday evening at the cool café/performance space, 92Y Tribeca, where the two were so hilarious I didn’t mind… Director 2009-11-11T20:18:50+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/rania/archives/ifc_center_mural_heralds_the_theaters_expansion/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/rania/archives/ifc_center_mural_heralds_the_theaters_expansion/ 10-18-09: Looks like someone had fun painting the mural on the construction site adjacent to the IFC Center. As Brian Brooks wrote in indieWIRE, “New York’s IFC Center is expanding its venue from three to five auditoriums, augmenting the arthouse theater’s capacity by 25%. Construction is underway, in the space once used as a bar and restaurant, and the new theaters are expected to open to the public in early 2010.” Movie Houses 2009-10-18T21:55:47+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/rania/archives/patricia_field_and_the_cast_of_ugly_betty_thetimescenter1/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/rania/archives/patricia_field_and_the_cast_of_ugly_betty_thetimescenter1/ Earlier this evening, costume designer Pat Field (The Devil Wears Prada, Sex and the City) and the cast of Ugly Betty sat down for a conversation with Horacio Silva from “T: The New York TImes Style Magazine” to usher in the new season of the show, which shoots in the Silvercup Studios in Long Island City and locations around town. 10-12-09: Pat Field and the cast of Ugly Betty agreed that their jobs were “almost 100% fun”   10-12-09: Pat Field grew up in Queens (like Betty) to a mixed Greek family and said that a multicultural family is in… TV 2009-10-13T02:02:30+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/rania/archives/vardas_cleo_from_5_to_7_reimagined_as_a_stage_production/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/rania/archives/vardas_cleo_from_5_to_7_reimagined_as_a_stage_production/ When the French Institute Alliance Française commissioned a performance by husband and wife partners Paul Lazar and Annie-B Parson, the two incorrectly assumed that their work needed to have a French subject.  That’s how “Comme Toujours Here I Stand” came to be— inspired by the screenplay for the seminal Agnes Varda film from 1962, Cleo from 5 to 7, wherein a singer goes about her life as she awaits the results from a cancer test.  The couple chose not to watch the film until late in the process.  The resultant performance is a satirical take on the story, with lively… Arts 2009-10-10T16:15:20+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/rania/archives/maurice_sendak_spike_jonze_moma/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/rania/archives/maurice_sendak_spike_jonze_moma/ 10-08-09: Sendak and Jonze at the debut of MoMA’s “Spike Jonze: The First 80 Years” Arts, Director 2009-10-09T03:44:18+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/rania/archives/bright_star_bits_and_pieces/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/rania/archives/bright_star_bits_and_pieces/ This is what I tweeted last week on my WeekofWonders twitter account:  Romantic in the classical sense, BRIGHT STAR is a perfect film. Perfect. Film. Did I hear Tony Scott on “At the Movies,” say that “Bright Star is porno for English majors”? OK.  He’s got my number. Some smart person at distributor Apparition or publicist Donna Daniels picked the charming, historic Tilden Mansion as the setting for television and other interviews with director Jane Campion, producer Jan Chapman, and actors Abbie Cornish, Ben Whishaw, and Paul Schneider.  Built in the 1840s, the Victorian mansion now houses the National Arts… Film Biz, Movie Pick 2009-09-25T02:37:14+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/rania/archives/war_is_over_or_what_i_learned_at_the_ifp_filmmaker_conference_yesterday/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/rania/archives/war_is_over_or_what_i_learned_at_the_ifp_filmmaker_conference_yesterday/ “The wall between distributors and filmmakers is coming down,” said panelist Paola Freccero, president of distribution for B Side Entertainment at The State of Distribution– The Current & Future Indie Model.  “The days of the big bad distributor taking advantage of the naive filmmaker is over—OK, some distributors are evil,” she admitted,  “but others are looking for alignment with filmmakers.” Concurring, Mark Urman, president and owner of Paladin, said that he and filmmakers “are on the same side of the table now.”  “We agree on everything,” he added. I was struck by these words yesterday, when moderator and FILMMAKER editor,… Film Biz 2009-09-23T22:39:25+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/rania/archives/abel_ferraras_chelsea_on_the_rocks_at_the_cool_jane_hotel/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/rania/archives/abel_ferraras_chelsea_on_the_rocks_at_the_cool_jane_hotel/ 09-21-09: Ferrara after the screening of his personal, freewheeling Chelsea on the Rocks Ferrara walked into the screening lounge of the Jane as the closing credits were rolling on his loose history of the famed Chelsea Hotel, featuring Milos Forman, Ethan Hawke, Dennis Hopper, Robert Crumb and many, many others. “You don’t look like a group with any questions….where’s the party?” he said to the motley crew of rock musicians, artists and various other residents and fans of the Chelsea, in lieu of a Q&A. Director 2009-09-23T01:23:55+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/rania/archives/cell_phone_release_sally_potters_rage/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/rania/archives/cell_phone_release_sally_potters_rage/ 09-21-09: Jude Law in Rage via iPhone held by writer/director Sally Potter “I can’t think of a worse way to watch a movie than on a cell phone,” commented a reader on a “Thompson on Hollywood” blog post announcing Rage. But here’s the thing—this film was made to be watched on a phone.  Maybe it should have been called a series of webisodes.  Of course, that might have scared people from buying the DVD.  If you watch the DVD, as I did, you will see that its natural home is the hand-held device, seen in daily sections over the course… Director, Movie Pick 2009-09-22T03:00:14+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/rania/archives/crude_and_following_the_muse/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/rania/archives/crude_and_following_the_muse/ The documentaries that really work for me are those that transcend their topic, ones in which the directors follow their muse, and “allow” the story to come, often in cinéma vérité. Films such as Brother’s Keeper, Paradise Lost 1 and 2, Metallica, and some of the Sundance channel episodes of Iconoclasts, directed by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, fit into this category.  They are not what they appear to be on the surface.  Aspects of human nature are revealed through divining, not hunting down a story.  There are themes and moments in this body of work that I consider life… Director, Movie Pick 2009-09-20T15:59:36+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/rania/archives/the_essence_of_a_creative_life_coco_before_chanel/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/rania/archives/the_essence_of_a_creative_life_coco_before_chanel/ Coco Before Chanel is a film that gets progressively better, as it tells the story of the love life and career of the budding designer, and culminates in a spectacular scene of models wearing real Chanel fashion from the archives. 09-15-09: Alessandro Nivola is hot hot hot as “Boy” Capel, the love of Coco Chanel’s life Expert storyteller Nivola grew a thick moustache for his character and recounted how he was approached during the Paris shoot by guys who thought he resembled Freddie Mercury.  He learned how to play polo for the role.  His grandfather was the Sardinian sculptor, Constantino… Director, Movie Pick 2009-09-20T15:47:07+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/rania/archives/what_there_are_three_cinematographers_named_harris_from_cyprus1/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/rania/archives/what_there_are_three_cinematographers_named_harris_from_cyprus1/ So I was reading the press notes for Deadgirl, a gruesome teen horror film coming out on DVD on Tuesday, and I noticed this about the director of photography:  “Harris Charalambous was born in South Africa in 1977, and then moved to Cyprus at an early age.  It was there that he discovered his passion, photographing the island’s isolated landscape and unique people.” What? What? I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing two other cinematographers with the name Harris, who also hail from the small island of Cyprus.  What do they put in the water? Most notable is Harris Savides, who… Film Biz 2009-09-12T15:52:40+00:00