SHOWING TODAY
Rolf De Heer (Bad Boy Bubby, The Quiet Room) was reportedly so moved when he first read Richard Flanagan's screenplay for The Sound of One Hand Clapping (screening today in competition) that he broke down in tears. He claims the epic Tasmania-based family drama triggered the most emotional reaction he has ever had to a script: "It speaks of the best and worst in human beings, of what can be avoided and what can't."
Also screening today, Barry Levinson's wicked political satire, Wag the Dog, which seems more and more topical with each passing day. When the President of the US is caught with his trousers down, his advisors cook up a foreign war to deflect media attention from the sex scandal. Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman, who first worked together on Levinson's Sleepers, are reunited here. De Niro plays a White House spin doctor while Hoffman (Oscar nominated for his efforts) is cast as a hotshot Hollywood producer.
Robert Altman's Savannah-based John Grisham adaptation, The Gingerbread Man (the third competition film of the day) is film noir, Deep South-style. British thesp Kenneth Branagh stars as a lawyer up to his neck in trouble after a one-night stand with a femme fatale (Embeth Davidtz.) GM
IN TOWN
Dr Fulvio Lucisano, Walter Veltroni, Herbert Achternbusch, Embeth Davidtz, Eva Maria Jonsdottir, David Leland, Bertrand Tavernier, Nils Tavernier, Amos Poe, Johan van der Keuken, Robyn Watts, Dominique Cabrera, Olivier Assayas, James Gianopoulos, Christian Grass, Gwyneth Paltrow, Carlo Ripa Di Meana, Rosel Zech...
EXTRA
Alain Resnais, whose film On connait la chanson screened in competition a couple of days ago, has expressed his heartfelt thanks to the festival for sending him a bouquet of flowers following his recent operation. "He was touched," commented festival director Moritz de Hadeln, who was responsible for the gift. "Apparently he was surprised to get such good treatment for not attending the festival, that he was curious about what he would get if he actually attended."
The delegates of the Berlinale and the selection committee will meet today in the festival club and will for the first time in years welcome Al Newman who it is hoped will re-assume his role as delegate of the festival in Los Angeles.
It was a nervous Joan Chen who attended the press screening of her directorial debut Xiu Xiu. This was the first screening of the film to a wider public and naturally her first-night nerves far surpassed anything she has experienced as an actress. So nervous, in fact, that she let slip to the festival director that large chunks of the film were actually shot in the People's Republic of China.
Almost 500 unemployed and social security recipients have responded to the Berlinale's offer of reduced price tickets to the films in all sections.
The GfK reseach institute has reported that the press conferences of the festival that are being broadcast during the night have notched up nearly 72% of the market share for that time of the evening.
NEWS
The Italian job
There's a twinkle in the eye of Gillo Pontecorvo, legendary Italian filmmaker and former director of the Venice festival, and it's because he's a happy man - Italian film is making a comeback.
"Like other countries, we have had a down period," says Pontecorvo, who's currently heading up Ente Cinema (Italian Public Cinema Corporation), "but now, finally, there is some sign of creative start-up and something stirring. All the Italian directors and actors are working. We have the feeling that '98 will be the year of change."
With production increasing, investment rising (from L4 billion to L8 billion in the Culture budget) and box office take up, Pontecorvo's optimism seems warranted, and at this year's Berlinale there is definitely a concerted attempt to harness this feeling of renewal with the showcase of new Italian films, public talks and video-link conferences. Still, reputations are hard to shake off. "When you have new signs of productivity you have to fight against the negative tradition that has formed," says Pontecorvo. "When I was younger, I was in Paris and as soon as an Italian film arrived, people wanted to go. Now we have to break the opposite perception."
Support has come from the new Italian government. A law is currently being drafted to establish greater television and theatrical investment from private and public TV, and deputy prime minister Walter Veltroni is in Berlin to lend his weight to the cause. And he is quite clear about his goal: "We have one aim," he says, "and that is to make our cinema into an industry. It's previously been run by the state and that isn't healthy. Our cinema was in deep crisis between 1985 and 1995, but over the last 18 months ticket sales are up by 14% and Italian cinema is experiencing a real renaissance."
Certainly, the international potential for Italian films hasn't been as healthy for some time. Following Miramax's trail-blazing Oscar campaign for Il postino a couple of years ago, the company has just announced it has picked up Roberto Benigni's Italian box-office smash La vita e bella from the Cecchi Gori Group for worldwide distribution, excluding Italy. As Miramax co-chairman Harvey Weinstein puts it, "This film's box-office career will know no international boundaries." One suspects it might be the first of many... Hero Brown
Stratosphere steals thief
According to reports, Carl Icahn's new US distribution outfit Stratosphere Entertaient is in final discussions to acquire US distribution rights to Russia's foreign-language Oscar nomination The Thief.
Buzz at Berlin over this week has been that The Thief would close a US deal, perhaps with Sony Pictures Classics (SPC). Stratosphere now looks like odds-on candidate; proposed sales figure is a reported low-to-mid six figures. John Hopewell
Scorsese boards Greek liner
After Cameron's Titanic, prepare perhaps for Scorsese's Alexander, or rather Voulgaris' Alexander, with Scorsese on board.
Martin Scorsese may take his first-ever executive producer credit on a film made by a European director with Brides, a story of cross-class passion on a transatlantic liner. This would be the next project of Greek director Pantelis Voulgaris, whose Ola ine dromos (It's a Long Road) is playing in Forum in Berlin.
Based on an article which appeared in the New York press in 1922 about a transatlantic liner, the SS King Alexander, docking in New York with 700 mail-order brides from the Balkans on board, Brides is being scripted by Voulgaris' wife, the writer Ioanna Karistiani.
Shira Levin, director of development at Scorsese's New York-based Cappa Productions, confirmed to Moving Pictures that Scorsese had taken an interest in the project and was ready to take an exec producer credit for Brides, because of his large admiration for Voulgaris' films. "He may not have a lot of impact on it artistically but could have some final say on it," Levin said.
Chicago-based producer Valerie Gobis is now looking to raise money for Brides, according to Voulgaris and Karistiani, who are at Berlin to promote It's a Long Road. Brides could come in at $8-10 million depending on above-the-line talent.
The cast would include two name leads, one playing Niki, a Greek seamstress on board the Alexander, the other an American photographer, Norman. The screenplay would be largely in English but would include some local languages. Once the money is raised, production would start on the film in 1999. JH
Meet matters
Germany's Pegasus has inked for TV and cinema rights for Ben van Lieshout's Stowaway and Kairo has signed for theatrical rights only for Colleen Murphy's Shoemaker. Both films won awards at last year's Mannheim-Heidelberg film festival. "Seen there, signed here," said festival director Michael Koetz, who is busy at the Berlinale drumming up interest for the festival which first showcased the likes of Wim Wenders, Fassbinder and Truffaut.
Specialising in unknown talent "each side of the mainstream", besides the main programme which features around 100 titles, Mannheim-Heidelberg boasts a mini market and a two-year-old co-production meet which saw some 400 meetings take place last year between 80-odd participants from around the globe.
"The main idea is that people from different regions meet potential co-producers they wouldn't meet elsewhere," said festival rep Christine Schmieder. Those with projects and some financial basis are brought together with those with the money to realise the projects.
The co-production meet, which lasts from 12-15 October, is scheduled for projects from Northern Europe for the first two days, followed by Latin America and winding up with projects from Eastern Europe.
The co-production event has so far yielded more than 12 signed contracts, with a further 12 partners in intensive negotiations and further negotiations underway. This year's festival lasts from 9-17 October. Liza Foreman
States scoops double sale
To supply her high-profile line of classic cinema with new, edgy product, Cine-International president Lilli Tyc-Holm has picked up US director Zack Winestine's feature debut, States of Control, which she is introducing in the EFM. "The first screening prompted two sales," said Tyc-Holm.
Starting his career as a camera assistant to become DoP for more than 20 features including The Rook and Strawberry Fields - screened at last year's Venice - Winestine also wrote the original screenplay and co-produced the below $1 million film.
"My starting point for the story was a curiosity about what happened to the 60s radicals who were so committed that they turned to violence in order to create the changes in society they wanted," said Winestine, who has also shot 30 rock videos for, among others, the B-52s, ZZ Top and Public Enemy.
His film follows Lisa, a young woman who is stuck in a sexless marriage and a routine job.
States of Control has been selected for festivals in Los Angeles, Melbourne, Mannheim, Fort Lauderdale and Cleveland. Cine-International has also acquired world rights to Joel Marsden's Ill Gotten Gains. JRJ
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