Sony Classics Announces Actors’ Showcase ‘Carnage’

Carnage is the kind of film that makes fans of the dramatic arts’ tongues wag. It’s a filmed presentation of a Tony Award-winning play by Yasmina Reza, adapted by Roman Polanski, starring four of the hands-down best actors alive: Christoph Waltz, John C. Reilly, Jodie Foster and Kate Winslet.

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment will release the Sony Classics film, which was nominated for two Golden Globes (for Foster and Winslet’s performances), March 20 (prebook Feb. 16) on DVD ($30.99) and Blu-ray ($35.99).

The story concerns two New York couples who come to meet because the son of one couple punches the son of the other. One couple, played by Waltz and Winslet, at first seem like stereotypical uppity Manhattanites, he on his phone every two minutes to discuss some Wall Street conundrum, she pressed and polite, eager to keep up appearances and smooth away her husband’s rudeness. Foster and Reilly, on the other hand, play, on the surface, a more down-to-earth couple, consisting of a bleeding-heart liberal who pushes fairness and justice upon her peers, and a working-class man who has worked his way up into the upper middle class and carries its associated manners but also a certain internal darkness.

The film takes these four and places them into a room, bouncing their conflicting views and veneers off of one another until all niceties melt away and what’s left is a truer, harsher view of humanity through these people.

“When the gloves come off, it’s pretty revealing,” Reilly said of the characters.

With a film such as this in which nearly all of the action takes place in one room, between four characters, two weeks of rehearsals took place before anything was shot for the film. But don’t expect any of that rehearsal footage to make the home video release, according to Waltz.

“If I had a say in these things, I would do away with all this ‘behind-the-scenes, making-of’ rubbish,” Waltz said. “It’s nobody’s business. Why would you poke your nose in our rehearsals? Where do we then have our safe space where we try and make fools of ourselves and just fathom what it is we need to do?

“… It’s a huge drag, and I try to avoid making-ofs, EPKs, blah blah, ‘Can you explain your character?’ … Why would I? I would be doing myself and the story and, most of all, your experience watching the film, the greatest disservice possible. I’m just there to incarnate … the character that has no body when it was written.”

If there’s one particular sequence of Carnage sticks out in many viewers’ — and the actors’ — minds, it’s when Winslet’s character throws up the peach cobbler the nervous other couple has been foisting upon them. Her character runs off, mortified, to clean herself off, while the others stick around to deal with the mess.

“It was days of that. It was horrible. It was really gross,” Reilly said. “Everyone’s like, ‘Poor Kate, she had to vomit.’ I had to clean up Kate’s vomit.

“… Needless to say, I haven’t had cobbler since I made the movie.”

Regardless, Reilly said the cast of heavy-hitters got along smoothly.

“There wasn’t a diva in the bunch,” he said.

Both Waltz and Reilly had only the highest praise for Polanski, whose resume includes classics from Chinatown to The Pianist.

“If you look at his movies, the only thing that really kind of strings them all together is like, they’re excellent,” Reilly said. “They’re really well-made and beautifully photographed. … He has a lot of variety as a director. I thought this was a really gutsy movie for him to make.”

When asked what Polanski brought to his performance, Waltz replied: “Precision. Exactitude. Concreteness. All the qualities that I adore and that I really strive for and that I’m grappling with and fighting with, and where I derive all my inferiority complexes and all that.”

Perhaps that precision is why the film’s DVD and Blu-ray don’t include any deleted scenes.

“It’s all there,” Reilly said. “What we said is what’s in the movie.”

The DVD and Blu-ray do include a making-of of sorts in the form of an “Actor’s Notes” featurette, as well as a red carpet featurette and another dubbed “An Evening with John C. Reilly and Christoph Waltz.”

Documentary Premieres With Sundance Doc Club

The documentary Walk Away Renee from director Jonathan Caouette will see its digital premiere through SundanceNOW’s new SVOD program, Doc Club, day-and-date with its North American film festival premiere.

Walk Away Renee hits North America June 27 at CAMcinemaFest 2012, while Doc Club subscribers will be able to download or stream the film that same day as part of Doc Club’s June offerings. Additionally the film can be rented on SundanceNOW for $6.99. The film premiered at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival and is the follow-up to Caouette’s 2004 film Tarnation, a harrowing memoir-doc about his life growing up gay and with a mentally ill mother that he famously made for $218.32 using iMovie on his Mac.

Walk Away Renee sees Caouette taking a road trip to move his mentally ill mother across the country, with flashbacks to the past portraying their extraordinary relationship.

“This online premiere of Caouette’s Walk Away Renee is a major step forward for SundanceNOW and Doc Club,” said Jonathan Sehring, president of Sundance Selects and SundanceNOW. “Our mission is to bring films to audiences in multiple ways and create exciting, innovative campaigns for each film. To give fans of Tarnation the ability to watch Jonathan’s new film from any computer in the country is the best way to make it as available as possible.”

SundanceNOW is the digital sister of Sundance Selects, which an arm of the Sundance Film Festival that brings films to 40 million homes via transactional a VOD platform through major cable providers such as Comcast, Cablevision, Cox, Time Warner Cable and DirecTV, as well as theatrically and on disc and digital download.

Seeing Tarnation on DVD when it was first released, I was stricken by how it was like no movie I had ever seen before. Viewers with the utmost stoicism and skepticism, a disposition for which they could be forgiven, knowing Tarnation’s seemingly precious and self-indulgent set-up, have been moved far beyond expectation by Tarnation’s hyperreality — not only is it a film which redefines the documentary, it predated much of social networking and foreshadowed the way Facebook and YouTube give us far more avenue than we could have dreamed for sharing our stories, for better or worse. It remains one of my all-time favorite films, and I’m glad that for his long-awaited follow-up, Caouette has remained ahead of the curve, in terms of the way this film is being brought to audiences.

 

2012 Tribeca Film Fest Announces Awards

The 2012 Tribeca Film Festival saw more than 380,000 attendees in its 11^th year, taking place in screenings, panels, talks and free community events in New York.

The festival ran from April 18 through April 29 and hosted nearly 400 screenings and panels with more than 95% attendance. The festival saw a total of 89 features and 60 short films screen from 46 countries, with 116,000 attendees hitting the screenings.

“Our 11th Festival was an extraordinary 12 days filled with amazing films, unique experiences and incredible reactions from audiences,” said Nancy Schafer, executive director of the Tribeca Film Festival.

This year also saw the Tribeca Online Film Festival, which returned to offer free content at , including world premiere features and shorts. Interactive elements included a live stream of the Universal Pictures 100th anniversary panel with Tribeca co-founder Robert De Niro and Judd Apatow; and the Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards, which honored Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, Justin Bieber and Scooter Braun.

The winners of Tribeca’s competition categories also were announced, doling out $180,000 in cash prizes. The Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature went to War Witch, directed by Kim Nguyen (Canada), awarded $25,000 and an art award; Best Actor in a Narrative Feature Film was given to Dariel Arrechada and Javier Nuñez Florian in Una Noche, directed by Lucy Mulloy (U.K., Cuba, U.S.), with the winners splitting $2,500; Best Actress in a Narrative Feature Film went to Rachel Mwanza in War Witch, awarded $2,500; Best Cinematography in a Narrative Feature Film – Cinematography to Trevor Forrest and Shlomo Godder, for Una Noche, receiving $5,000 and $50,000 in post-production services provided by Company 3; Special Jury Mention to Alex Catalan for Unit 7; Best Screenplay for a Narrative Feature Film to All In (La Suerte en Tus Manos), from director Daniel Burman (Argentina), receiving $5,000; and Best New Narrative Director to Lucy Mulloy (Una Noche), receiving $25,000, $50,000 in post-production services by Company 3 and an art award. A full list of winners can be found at .

The multiple awards given to Cuban film Una Noche also were notable for the headline-grabbing disappearance of award-winning star Nuñez and his co-star (and girlfriend) Anailin de la Rua, who went into hiding in Miami on a stopover to New York from Cuba and were absent at the ceremony. The pair are seeking political asylum in the United States.

In addition, two Heineken Audience Awards were given to audience favorites. Any Day Now, directed by Travis Fine, won the narrative award, while Burn, directed by Tom Putnam and Brenna Sanchez, was given the documentary award. The awards included a cash prize of $25,000.

And The Tribeca Film Institute announced the winners of its Tribeca All Access Creative Promise Awards. The awards were given to the narrative film Rhymes for Young Ghouls and the documentary The New Black, selected from 11 projects from budding filmmakers and given a $10,000 award, as well as an original piece from a contemporary artist.

Congratulations to all the winners!

 

 

Wolfe Nabs ‘Gayby’ at SXSW

Wolfe Releasing acquired the U.S. rights to the critically acclaimed and hilariously titled comedy Gayby at the SXSW Film Conference & Festival.

From writer-director Jonathan Lisecki, Gayby tells of a gay man and a straight woman who decide to have a child together. The film will be released theatrically later this year, in partnership with The Film Collaborative, and the DVD and VOD release will come in 2013.

I’ve seen the short film upon which it was based, on First Run Features’ Fest Selects: Best Gay Shorts Vol. 1, and I have to say it’s one of the funniest and most memorable short films I’ve seen (read my review here). Upon finishing it, I wanted to see more, as the characters, premise and writing were so promising. This looks to be a great release for Wolfe.

“Gayby is the funniest movie I've seen in years," said Wolfe president Maria Lynn. “It's a pleasure to be able to work with such a talented filmmaker as Jonathan Lisecki and help him reach the widespread audience he deserves.”

Comcast, Tribeca Give Access to Tribeca Film Fest

Comcast’s Xfinity TV subscribers are in luck. Beginning April 17, Xfinity TV and Tribeca Film will give the service’s 20 million-plus subscribers access to the 11th Annual Tribeca Film Festival via Xfinity On Demand and XfinityTV.com. 

 

Subscribers will get access to films before they screen, including Death of a Superhero, The Giant Mechanical Man and Sleepless Night. Jesus Henry Christ, a title from last year’s fest, also will be available April 17, and more new titles will follow, including Booker’s Place: A Mississippi Story, April 26. Additionally subscribers can view other current and past Tribeca films as well as special behind-the-scenes extras.

“For our customers that aren’t located in an area that has arthouses or screenings of indie films, this is a great way to experience a world-class indie film festival like Tribeca,” said Maggie McLean Suniewick, VP of video services for Comcast Cable.  “Our Xfinity On Demand and XfinityTV.com platforms give filmmakers access to millions of homes that they may not have reached otherwise, and we are committed to working with filmmakers and festivals to help broaden the distribution of these films and to bring the best festival experiences and indie films to our customers.”

Death of a Superhero features motion-capture star Andy Serkis (The Hobbit, Rise of the Planet of the Apes) in a story of a teenager struggling with his mortality.

Romantic comedy The Giant Mechanical Man stars Jenna Fischer (“The Office”), Chris Messina (Vicky Christina Barcelona) and Topher Grace (“That 70's Show”).

French action thriller Sleepless Night follows a cop dodging drug dealers in a nightclub as he tries to rescue his son from a crime kingpin, to whom he’s in debt.

Booker's Place: A Mississippi Story explores life in 1960s Mississippi and “Booker” Wright, a black man who spoke his mind on race relations on network TV. Jesus Henry Christ stars Academy Award nominees Toni Collette (The Sixth Sense, Little Miss Sunshine) and Michael Sheen (Midnight in Paris, Frost/Nixon) in a comedy about a boy prodigy who is searching for his biological father.

TLA Inks With Polish Distributor Tongariro

TLA Releasing has signed a deal with Polish LGBT distributor Tongariro to release content to Poland day-and-date with the United States and the United Kingdom. The first title under the deal will be the drama Beauty.

“The expansion into the Polish market provides further assurance of a global day-and-date strategy with our future releases, and we are excited to be making in-roads into a rapidly expanding European market,” said TLA President Derek Curl.

Additionally, the VOD service Outfilm.pl will debut in Poland in late February, featuring TLA content.

Anchor Bay, Wolfe Make Sundance Acquisitions

Anchor Bay Films has acquired all North American distribution rights to director-writer Richard Bates Jr.’s debut feature, Excision, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last month.

The horror film stars AnnaLynne McCord (“90210”), Traci Lords (Cry Baby), Ariel Winter (“Modern Family”), Malcolm McDowell and John Waters.  The quirky horror film follows Pauline (McCord), a teenage outcast with horrific fantasies who decides to perform a risky surgery on her sister in order to repair her damaged relationship with her family.

Also, Wolfe Releasing has acquired the North American rights to Mosquita y Mari at Sundance. Writer-director Aurora Guerrero’s debut feature is a complex love story between two young Latinas growing up in South East L.A. Wolfe plans to release the film theatrically this year and on VOD and DVD in 2013.

Magnolia Nabs ‘Marley’

Magnolia Pictures has landed the U.S. rights to Marley, a documentary about reggae legend Bob Marley directed by Academy Award winner Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland) and executive produced by Bob’s son, Ziggy Marley, and Island Records founder Chris Blackwell.

Marley will make its world premiere at the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival in February and will premiere in North American at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin in March. The film comes to theaters day-and-date with VOD April 20.

“This documentary is the ultimate revelation of my father’s life,” said Ziggy Marley. “The family is proud to be able to have the world finally experience this emotional journey."

SnagFilms Launches Apps

Indie on-demand site SnagFilms has put some of its most popular titles on free apps for Amazon’s Kindle Fire, Android-based smartphones and other tablets using the Android and Blackberry Playbook Tablet platforms.

SnagFilms’ app brings 400 non-fiction, fiction and foreign films to more than 50 smartphone models and 10 tablet models. SnagFilms earlier this year bowed an iPad app as well. SnagFilms also will launch apps for connected TVs later this month, with an app for Sony’s connected TVs already in place.
 

AFM Attendance, Buyers Up

This year's American Film Market saw buying companies up 8% to 718 from 664 in 2010; buying executives up 7% to 1,523, compared with 1,417 a year ago; and overall attendance jump 4% to 7,988, compared with 7,695 in 2010. The festival has been going since Nov. 2, concluding Nov. 9.

“We are thrilled with the strong growth in buyers — it’s our most important metric — and selling out the new AFM Conference Series in its first year underscores the AFM’s relevance to the production community,” said AFM managing director Jonathan Wolf, who also is EVP of the Independent Film & Television Alliance, or IFTA, which produces the film conference.

Non-buying or -selling attendees also jumped 21% to a high of 2,402 from 1,988 last year. Exhibitor-affiliated participants (including executives, producers, talent and guests) dropped 3% to 3,219 from 3,321 last year.

Internationally speaking, films where screened from 35 participating countries. China posted the highest growth for buying companies (up 50%, to 21 versus 14 last year).

AFM this year saw 415 films screened, including 69 world premieres, 310 market premieres and 28 films screened in 3D, with a total of more than 700 screenings.

Speakers at this year's AFM included director-writer Rob Reiner, producer Lauren Shuler Donner (the “X-Men” franchise), actor Kevin Pollak and actress Selma Blair.

AFM takes place each year at the Loews Santa Monica Hotel in Santa Monica, Calif.