Whoa. Talk about a change in public perception!
01.05.2022 - 20:15 / variety.com
Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief“Miracle: Letters to the President,” directed by Lee Jang-hoon, was Saturday named as the best film winner at the Far East Film Festival in Italy’s Udine, following an audience poll. The South Korean-made film was described by festival organizers as “a sweet-natured hymn to the power of dreams.” Second and third places belonged to Chinese-produced pictures Li Ruijun’s “Return to Dust” and Xing Wenxiong’s “To Cool to Kill,” respectively.
The festival’s Black Dragon season ticket holders voted for “Return to Dust,” while users of the MYmovies service Korea’s “Kingmaker” by Byun Sung-hyun.The jurors for the best debut film awarded the festival’s White Mulberry award to “Too Cool to Kill.” The Mulberry Award for best screenplay Jojo Hideo’s “Love Nonetheless.” If the order of the prizes seemed like a return to pre-COVID normality, so too did the operation of the event, Udine’s 24th. After a wholly online edition in 2020 and a hybrid event in 2021 the 2022 edition was largely operated as a conventional in-person event, which welcomed over 40,000 human spectators.
COVID controls operated inside the two main cinemas, but were no more restrictive than taking an airplane in Europe these days. And at outdoor events participants went mask-free.
Stephy Tang and Josie Ho, escaped the far-more disease-restrictive Hong Kong, to appear in person in Udine, show their latest films and meet audience members and media. The iconic Japanese actor-director Kitano Takeshi was presented with a Golden Mulberry Lifetime Achievement award.
But it was a virtual ceremony, where FEFF organizers gamely tried hard to wear their best smiles. Kitano undid two years of preparations with his last-minute change of heart at
.Whoa. Talk about a change in public perception!
Lise Pedersen Paris-based international sales company The Party Film Sales has nabbed the rights for Antongiulio Panizzi’s hybrid documentary “The Girl in the Fountain,” a double portrait of icons Anita Ekberg and Monica Bellucci, which opened at the Torino Film Festival last November.The story of an actress devoured by her own icon, the film alternates between archive footage of Ekberg and reenacted scenes by Bellucci, who retraces Ekberg’s weaknesses and choices, inviting the viewer to reflect on what it is like to be an icon, providing a fresh look at femininity, fame and media exposure.The famous scene in Federico Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita,” in which Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg take a midnight dip in the Trevi Fountain, hides a much more chaotic life – that of an actress consumed by her own iconic image, says Panizzi. Speaking to Variety ahead of the Torino premiere, Panizzi said that the iconic scene turned out to be a burden for the actress, who got to experience what Rita Hayworth meant when she said that “they go to bed with Gilda; they wake up with me.”It was the director’s wish to have Bellucci tell the Swedish icon’s story, as he believed she would be the perfect match.
EXCLUSIVE: Squid Game creator Hwang Dong-hyuk is in early stage development on a satire about the creation of Netflix’s Squid Game, which became a global hit overnight, provisionally titled The Best Show on the Planet.
The International Film Festival Rotterdam has appointed its new team line up and structure as the festival revamps.
Leo Barraclough International Features EditorAidan Gillen, who played Littlefinger in “Game of Thrones,” and Sandrine Bonnaire, a best actress winner at Venice for “La cérémonie,” have joined Gabriel Byrne in Samuel Beckett biopic “Dance First,” directed by Oscar-winner James Marsh.Film Constellation has closed pre-sales on the film in Australia/New Zealand (Icon), Italy (Bim Distribuzione), Spain (Filmin), Portugal (Nos Audiovisuais), Greece (Filmtrade), Hungary (Vertigo Media), former Yugoslavia (Discovery) and Taiwan (Cai Chang). Pay TV outlet Sky developed the film as a Sky Original in the U.K.Marsh, best-known for “The Theory of Everything,” for which Eddie Redmayne won an Oscar, and Oscar-winner “Man on Wire,” will start shooting the film on May 30 in Budapest.
Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefEpic Pictures Releasing has licensed North American rights to Korean action film “Hot Blooded,” from leading Seoul-based film sales agency Finecut. The deal is one of several struck by the agency ahead of Cannes, where it is also launching sales on Critics’ Week title “Next Sohee.”Starring Bae Doona and Kim Si-eun, “Next Sohee” is directed by Jung July, whose acclaimed “A Girl at My Door” played in Un Certain regard in 2014.
EXCLUSIVE: Omar Sy’s star continues to burn bright on Netflix, as the French star’s thriller The Takedown comfortably held on to top spot in the streamer’s non-English language film chart.
Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefUpgrade Productions, the production company launched last year by Matt Brodlie and Jonathan Kier, is working on an epic Japanese-language TV series.The company has teamed with venerable Japanese studio Shochiku to produce “A True Novel” as an eight-part adaptation of Mizumura Minae’s 2003 Yomiuri Prize-winning novel. Inspired by Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights,” the sweeping family narrative is set in the decades after World War II in Japan and the U.S.The series, adapted by screenwriter Sakaguchi Riko (“The Tale of the Princess Kaguya,” “Mary and the Witch’s Flower”) will bring to life a love story spanning three generations and told by different characters.
HARDCOVER FICTION1. “22 Seconds” by Patterson/Paetro (Little, Brown)2. “Run, Rose, Run” by Parton/Patterson (Little, Brown)3.
Red Hot Chili Peppers, P!nk, The Chicks, SZA, Kacey Musgraves, Flume, Paramore and Lil Nas X all set to perform headline sets across the six-day festival. As it has for the past eight IRL editions, ACL ’22 will be held over two weekends in October. Each will feature a vastly different bill, though many acts – including the likes of Diplo, Wallows, The War On Drugs, Conan Gray, Spoon and Japanese Breakfast – will perform sets on both weekends.Other names appearing on both line-ups include Sofi Tukker, Omar Apollo, Arlo Parks, Pinkpantheress, Nathaniel Rateliff And The Night Sweats, The Midnight, Oliver Tree and Genesis Owusu. 39 names are down to perform exclusively during the first weekend, with standouts including Lil Durk, Carly Rae Jepsen, Rag ’N’ Bone Man, Slayyyter, James Blake, Manchester Orchestra and Muna.
Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefIn the early years of the 21st century, bankers to the film industry set their eyes on East Asia and headed for Hong Kong and Beijing. They could see that mainland China’s decision to open the film business to the private sector had the potential to be a game-changer.
The David di Donatello Awards were held in Rome on Tuesday evening, the first time Italy’s equivalent to the Oscar has had a fully in-person ceremony in the pandemic era. Taking top honors was Paolo Sorrentino’s The Hand Of God which scooped Best Film and Director as well as Best Supporting Actress for Teresa Saponangelo and a tie for Best Cinematography. In the latter category, The Hand Of God shared the win with Freaks Out, a fantasy drama that likewise debuted in Venice.
Leo Barraclough International Features EditorMunich-based Global Screen has acquired family entertainment film “School of Magical Animals 2” for worldwide distribution. A first teaser will be presented at the Cannes Market for the project, which has a budget of more than $13 million.
Naman Ramachandran Paramount Global’s streamer Paramount+ will launch in the U.K. and Ireland on June 22, with other international territories to follow.
EXCLUSIVE: Upgrade Productions, the Los Angeles-based production company focusing on local-language content, has unveiled an initial trio of projects from around the world.
Italian actor and director Valeria Golino has been set as jury president for the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival this year.
Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefPeter Luo’s Stars Collective has optioned the rights to acclaimed Chinese novelist and screenwriter Tong Hua’s best-selling sci-fi fantasy novel series “The Memory Lost in Space” and will adapt the story into both an English language television series and feature film.A story told over four book installments, the first of which debuted in 2017, “The Memory Lost in Space” is set in the distant future, with humans forced into an exodus to the edge of the galaxy after the depletion and destruction of Earth’s energy and habitat. Humans resort to genetic modification to stay strong but this creates new diseases and conflict between pure-breeds and those modified.