Father Geek here posting a report from our Euro-AICN crew that is filled to the brim with news on projects like THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO, CAPTAIN CORELLI'S MANDOLIN, KANAK ATTACK, EXIT WOUND, and GANGSTER #1. It's a hell-of-a-column to celebrate 3 full months of operation out of our Paris Offices. 90 days that have seen Edgard and Darth Bond publish over 50 columns covering 100's of different stories on films from Europe, or being shot somewhere on the continent. They couldn't have done it without your help finding those scoops, so keep up the good work and send in any news to our Euro-offices in France, or ol' Ozymandias at his penthouse suite in Dublin, Ireland as soon as you get it.
EURO AICN 12
by Edgard & Darth Bond
Another week has gone by... Spring has still not shown
its nice sun, its blue sky, its singing birds... in
other words : weather is crap here in Paris where your
happy-happy Euro AICN reporters have no choice but
drink a lot... or we could also report on the Euro
News. And that's what we did... here're tons of news
from UK, Germany, France, Yugoslavia, Ireland and the
Netherlands... so enjoy !!
UK
by Edgard & Darth Bond
Another week has gone by... Spring has still not shown
its nice sun, its blue sky, its singing birds... in
other words : weather is crap here in Paris where your
happy-happy Euro AICN reporters have no choice but
drink a lot... or we could also report on the Euro
News. And that's what we did... here're tons of news
from UK, Germany, France, Yugoslavia, Ireland and the
Netherlands... so enjoy !!
UK
UK
* Film Four will soon release a new film called GANGSTER N°1. It seems that this is a serious hard core gangster film, more in the vein of "The Long Good Friday" and "Get Carter" than "Lock, Stock....", "Circus" and "Love Honour and Obey" (plus other recent 'funny' British gangster films). It is getting a medium sized release in the UK starting on June 9th. Columbia TriStar have some overseas territories, although there is no US distributor yet. It is the story of an ageing gangster, played by Malcolm McDowell, who reminisces about his past and rise to power, after a bloody battle of wills with his mentor (David Thewlis). The film also has Saffron Burrows from "Deep Blue Sea" and Paul Bettany as the younger Malcolm McDowell. GANGSTER N°1 is a violent and quite chilling film. The film has a great web site Right Here (which also contains scenes banned from the film and the trailer) and a further one at http://www.filmfour.com which contains all the background stuff.
* Censorship has always been a delicate subject... everywhere... but it's true that the UK has a very complex situation regarding this... so if you're interested to discuss this with other people, check http://www.bbfc.org.uk/ The site's creator sent us an email asking for AICN readers contribution : "We discuss judgements ruled by the bbfc (british board of film classification) who regulate what we are allowed to see in the cinemas and on video in the UK".... so check that out !!
* Olly 1 informed us that he'll be making a low budget movie filmed on MiniDV in the first 3 weeks of July. It's called SPLIT, and it's a combination of "Lock, Stock" and "Run Lola Run". This will be made in London... so in case you want to know more, let us know and we will pass the message.
* Oups !! Too many tequila and we did a big mistake last week... "Fionulla Flanagan is Irish...not a 'veteran English actress...' that's like saying someone who is Canadian is American..."... That's what we got from one of our faithful Euro AICN reader... our apologizes to Fionulla then...
* More news on BAND OF BROTHERS, the costly HBO 10-part World War II miniseries which recently began production in the United Kingdom. Tom Hanks, Richard Loncraine (''Richard III''), Phil Alden Robinson (''Field of Dreams'') and Mikael Salomon (''Hard Rain'') have signed on to direct one part each. Steven Spielberg, who is executive producing the miniseries with Hanks, was previously attached as a director, but has opted not to get behind the camera, according to HBO. Six additional directors will be announced shortly. The miniseries, which is estimated to cost between $110 million and $120 million, will film throughout 2000 and debut on the pay cable network in 2001. Based on Stephen Ambrose's best-selling book ``Band of Brothers,'' the miniseries recounts the story of Easy Company, 506th Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, U.S. Army, beginning with their training in Georgia in 1942 to their achievements in France on D-Day morning. In addition to Donnie Wahlberg, David Schwimmer and Ron Livingston, ``Brothers'' will feature a cast of roughly 500, according to Chris Albrecht, president, HBO Original Programming.
* Vertino has a tiny report on... well... someting we are all waiting for, the return of the real adventure, the return of Dr Jones, Indiana Jones more precisely !! : My University - Liverpool John Moores University held a "cyber-lecture" with Steven Spielberg last week. Via a digital link-up some of our media students were able to have a Q&A session with the man himself. It seems that someone asked him about his up-n-comming projects... he told the audience that a fourth Indiana Jones movie is currently in preproduction. The main chunk of the lecture was about the digital media revolution. Minutes before the end of the "cyber-lecture" Spielberg was presented with one of our sacred LJMU baseball caps... after which he returned to the set of his new WW2 TV series - currently filming at Hatfield Studios, Hertfordshire, UK.
* This comes from Uber-Albino : We dont usually get many scoops here in the good old UK (im in Scotland), but DMX the popular rapper was on the Rap SHow on Radio One and he revealed that he is to be in some Steven Seagal piece called "Exit Wound", "The Crow 4" (oh dear), but more interestingly, "Blade 2". How cool would it be to have Blade train a replacement in the movie? I think DMX would fit the bill perfectly.
* And to finish the British news, don't dorget to check the Netribution website. Tons of info are available. Like for example an interview of director Tina Gharavi (the short film CLOSER). And of course many other greats stuffs by Clicking Here
IRELAND
* Fitzreal sent us this story about Depardieu and THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO... : My uncle (Fran) like me is a massive movie geek and got me started on the road to geekdom but since having 20 years head start on me his collection is vastly more superior... An ad appeared in a Irish magazine called Buy & Sell (guess what happens in this mag) and under the video section a person was looking for the 1977 Ridley Scott film 'The Duellists' (A film I have yet to see). This request was asked for URGENTLY. My uncle has an original and always wanting to help out those in need, phoned the number. A pleasent English woman answered and said that yes she was in need of the film as it was for her 'Boss'. It was obvious she was simple a Personal Assistant. (It took her a while to believe that he actually had it and it wasn't a hoax from her job - apparently she has been looking for this flic for a while). She revealed that she was down in Ardmore (where the studio's are he presumed) and that she would travel to his place of employment (Malahide) to collect the film. Which she did. He said she was very grateful for the tape and that GERARD DEPARDIEU had landed in England and was desperate to see this film for RESEARCH. She also asked him if he had any of THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO versions as GERARD was desperate to see those as well as he is doing a remake of said film....he said he did not but recommended the Richard Chamberlain version....if she could get her hands on it... Why was she in Ireland ... and why was she in ARDMORE STUDIO'S ? Well it doesn't take a genius (with a little touch of speculation) that GERARD DEPARDIEU is making a version of THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO in Ireland..... possibly this summer....I just checked the IMDB and I see that Kevin Reynolds is down to direct one for a 2001 release (check it out for yourself) .... Note from Edgard : Reynolds is starting his Monte-Cristo film now with Jim Cazievel (sorry for the spelling if I am wrong) and Guy Pearce... I have not heard about Depardieu's involvment in this but the weird thing is that Depardieu did a TV film for French Television channel TF1 on Monte-Cristo two years ago already...
* Ozymandias is never too tired to get you nice looking news, so fans of Penelope Cruz check this out : These are quite interesting shots of Christian Bale and Penelope Cruz from the set of the upcoming movie version of Captain Corelli's Mandolin... CHECK THEM OUT HERE
* Also from Ozymandias, something about the next DRACULA : Jonny Lee Miller will join horror legend Christopher Plummer and Jennifer Esposito in the latest updating of the story of the famous Transylvanian bloodsucker. Wes Craven Presents: Dracula 2000, is being made by Dimension Films - the people behind Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer - but is actually directed by long-time Craven collaborator Patrick Lussier. There's very little plot detail available, but it looks like Plummer will play Van Helsing and Lee Miller an antiques expert who assists him. Singer Vitamin C (aka Colleen Fitzpatrick) will also star.
GERMANY
* Simplicius Simplicissimus sent us a list of 12 upcoming German films he's looking forward to... he also apologized for his supposedly bad English but that's crap as my German is non-existent. Here we go with the 12 upcoming German films he's most looking forward to:
1. KANAK ATTACK is the adaptation of the book "Abschaum" ("Scum") by Feridun Zaimoglu. In episodic form it tells the story of a Turkish small-time crook and drugdealer in Kiel (Northern Germany) who eventually becomes addicted himself. Judging by his earlier films (especially SCHATTENBOXER and LANDGANG FÃœR RINGO) the director Lars Becker knows the background of Turks and other foreigners living in Germany very well. Besides, with his laconic style in the tradition of Melville or Rene Clement and his dry sense of humour he simply is the best German thriller director at the moment IMO.
2. IM JULI is the second film by Fatih Akin after the wonderful SHORT SHARP SHOCK (highly recommended!). A timid secondary school teacher (played by Moritz Bleibtreu from RUN LOLA RUN) travels after the woman of his dreams (Idil Ãœner) from Hamburg to Istanbul, taking a hitcher (Christiane Paul) along for the turbulent journey. On the German-language website http://www.imjuli.de the film is described as a mixture of road-movie, love story and action comedy.
3. What more needs to be said about DER KRIEGER UND DIE KAISERIN, the new Tom Tykwer movie? I for one can't wait till it opens on October 12 and I hope that it means the deserved breakthrough for Benno Fürmann. A little info on the German title (which could be translated as "the warrior and the empress" while the international title will be THE PRINCESS AND THE WARRIOR instead): It refers to the superkitschy SISSI movies of the 50s about the Austrian *empress* Elisabeth, which Franka Potente's character apparently is obsessed with. (Sir Richard Attenborough plans a SISSI remake by the way.)
4. BESSER ALS BIER ("Better Than Beer") is a feature-length sequel to the hilarious short film PAS DE DEUX (1997) about two guys from the Ruhrgebiet (Germany's industrial heartland) who love alcohol, punk music and chicks and who are not blessed with too much intelligence beyond that. The director (Matthias Lehmann) and the actors (Markus Knüfken, Eckhard Preuß) from the original are on board again.
5. In GANGSTER with Frank Giering (GIGANTICS) and Laura Tonke (OSTKREUZ) screwball-comedy meets gangster-movie when a small fish in the underworld's shark pond looses his girlfriend (the daughter of a police inspector) to a pimp in a game of poker. The pimp passes her on to another gangster and chaos ensues with rapid-fire dialogue and absurd situations.
6. LOST KILLERS with a cast of unknowns was filmed in Mannheim by one of Germany's best cinematographers Benedict Neuenfels. The director is Dito Tsintsadze from Georgia. Two foreigners stranded in Germany are hired to kill a businessman but they couldn't hurt a fly and so they seek help from a Vietnamese prostitute and an illegal immigrant from Haiti.
7. EDELWEISSPIRATEN is set during the 3rd Reich and deals with the resistance group of the same name. In WWII teenagers and young workers in Cologne and the Ruhrgebiet had brawls with the Hitler-Youth, committed acts of sabotage and even planned an attack on the Gestapo headquarters of Cologne. Shooting will start in Vilnius, Lithuania, in September. Director: Niko Brücher (who made MARIES LIED, the most beautiful German costume-drama/period-piece of the 90s). Music: Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart! The cast will include the wonderful Anna Thalbach (BURNING LIFE) and Jochen Nickel (SCHINDLER'S LIST, STALINGRAD).
8. MANILA is the new film by Romuald Karmakar (THE DEATHMAKER). It's about German tourists who have to wait hours and hours for their return flight on the aiport of Manila, Philippines, because of a problem with the plane. The trailer consists of just one sentence: "Wherever you go, you'll always stay a pig." and I expect the film to be another look in the mirror for the "Ugly German". Karmakar is not know for being overly reserved in his criticism, but he's a genius, so I'm still waiting impatiently. The cast is a little bit strange: From old, almost forgotten Fassbinder actors (Margit Carstensen), to TV-comedians (Herbert Feuerstein), young stars (Jürgen Vogel) and Hollywood-imports (Elizabeth McGovern).
9. Christian Petzold's DIE INNERE SICHERHEIT tells the story of the 15 year-old daughter of two former RAF-members (Red Army Fraction, not Royal Air Force!) who are still hunted by the police and live in hiding. When the girl (played by Julia Hummer from GIGANTICS, which seems to have been overlooked at Sundance) falls in love, the story takes a tragic turn. Recently German directors have started to deal with the RAF in all kinds of genres. For decades there had been a taboo not to shoot a film about left-wing terrorism without discussing the political issues, but with the success of the brilliant TV-documentary TODESSPIEL by Heinrich Breloer (highly recommended!) this seems to have changed.
10. Another example for this trend is WAS TUN WENN'S BRENNT ("What To Do In Case Of Fire"). After years of lying dormant a Molotov cocktail goes off in the former residence of a US general and the police starts looking for a group of "Autonome" (left-wing radicals) who planted it there in the 80s. All but one of this group have given up the idealism of their youth in the meantime, settling for a bourgeois lifestyle. Producers: Claussen & Wöbke (NACH FÜNF IM URWALD, 23, ANATOMIE).
11. GRÃœNE WÃœSTE is a coming-of-age tale with Tatjana Trieb who played the little Lara in the Oscar-nominated BEYOND SILENCE (1998).
12. Last but not least there is THE UNSCARRED, the new film of Buddy Giovinazzo (COMBAT SHOCK) who has lived in Berlin for the last couple of years and shot his film there. The cast is international: James Russo, Ornella Muti, Heino Ferch (WINTERSLEEPERS) and others. Four friends have a reunion after 20 years. When a deadly accident happens, a game of betrayal and revenge starts which will leave no survivor unscarred.
* Brett gave us a brief report on the new JJ Annaud movie : I've heard a small tidbit concerning the Jean-Jacques Annaud Stalingrad-flick "Enemy at the gates" currently being shot in Germany (even though I don't exactly remeber where). A radio station reported, that some actors and a FX-technician have been injured because of an uncontrolled explosion on the set. I tried to get this confirmed by the newspaper the radio station got it from but had no luck yet. I'll keep you updated if I find out more.
YUGOSLAVIA
* The shoot of the new Rasa Andric`s comedy MUNJE is getting underway. Everyone who read the script says that it is one of the best scripts that are offered or being made in our country. It was rewritten twelve times because of the budget concerns.Sergej Trifunovic is on board of this picture,and after he finishes this shoot he`ll come to Hollywood to work on `an unknown Spike Lee project`.Authors claim that they`ll also bring an internatiolnal celebrity to do a cameo. If you want to see Trifunovic at his best shape rent Dennis Quaid-starrer SAVIOR. That`s all for now. God bless
Dima
Note:If you would like to read more films comments by Dima,
you can check on IMDB at :
http://comments.imdb.com/CommentsAuthor?476879
FRANCE
* We got a great report from O.T. on the new JEUNET film... right now being shot here in Paris ! : Hello, I work for the SNCF (French railroad company) in the East Station here in Paris. I have often the opportunity to assist to different film shootings (two months ago it was "102 Dalmatiens"... bof...). But today something special happened. I am a huge fan of JAN KOUNEN and JEAN-PIERRE JEUNET (Delicatessen, City of Lost Children, Alien Resurrection) and today I met Jeunet and played an extra in his new film AMELIE !! Around noon as I was finishing my shift I noticed shooting's lights, I got closer and directly recognized the actor/director Matthieu Kassovitz. Then in a corner I had a chock when I saw J-P Jeunet eating a sandwich ! I got closer and asked him if he didn't need a "rail inspector"... he smiled and answered "yes, if you want". I thought I was dreaming. I was directly taken in charge by the assistant and casting director. During 7 hours I could play my favorite role : inspector. And more important I could look at the crew in action... The few scenes shot took place around a "photomaton" (from Edgard : this is a machine taking ID pictures, don't know the English word) and there was also a chase sequence in the station. Most of the time, Amélie (the charming Audrey Tautou) was holding against her, under her coat, a "garden's dwarf" (you could only see the red hat). The film seems very poetic and visually splendid. French magazine Première reported a few months ago that all the Montmartre neighbourhood would be "recreate" with CGI... But crew members told me the special effects would not be preponderant. I guess that after "Alien Resurrection" Jeunet wanted something more simple... This looks like an intriguing and mysterious movie... This day will always stay has a good souvenir... especially the kindness of Mr Jeunet, I like him even more now !!
THE NETHERLANDS
* The Sober Dutchman here with a titbit on Rutger Hauer. This Dutch blond God has signed a deal to direct a short story of the acclaimed Dutch writer Mulisch. It will be his first directorial effort. The English spoken short will premiere at the filmfestival in Utrecht in september. No cast known. Holland by the way is really revving up to becoma a big player in film. Great tax constructions have a lot to do with it. Of the some writer Mulisch a book will be filmed which is partly produced by Mick Jagger (at present also co-porducing Enigma with Kate Winslet and directed by Michael Apted) also under this new tax regime. Watch out for the Dutch! The Sober Dutchman sent also a newspaper article in Dutch on this.... No much more to learn except maybe this short film will be titled THE ROOM. Shooting starts in June.
