French writer Jeanne Labrune (who wrote and directed the 1998 drama Si Je T'Aime, Prends Garde A Toi) wrote the screenplay for Vatel while Oscar-winning playwright Tom Stoppard (Shakespeare In Love) adapted the it for English audiences. What was your inspiration for the screenplay?...
Did you and Tom Stoppard write the screenplay together?...
We are all guilty, myself more than the others, said Dostoyevsky in the introduction to Crime and Punishment. The quote is used to set the stage for Serge Le Péron's L'Affaire Marcorelle, a psycho-drama featuring a prosecutor who suffers from nightmares and walks the line between dream and reality. ...
This is her second year in charge of the selection Directors' Fortnight, which she shares with Jacques Gerber and Christine Ravet. Her ideal reason for selecting a film: un coup de coeur, the process of falling in love with a film. Every time you see something that's really good, your faith and hope are reborn. It happens all the time. My only real fear is of not spotting a film that's of superior quality.What is the specific orientation of the Directors' Fortnight?...
As a woman, would you consider yourself in a privileged position?...
How do you work with hundreds of sheep? It's not easy, ackowledged the 20-year-old Iranian director, whose second feature Blackboards was screened in official competition. Directing sheep as compared to human actors to advice from her father (Moshen), Samira expresses herself in English...
Ten years after the fall of the Wall in Berlin, The Unapproachable is appropriate in helping to redress some of the imbalance in measuring the cross-border cultural significance of that historical event. Director Oscar Roehler and Actress Hannelore Elsner commented on the film. ...
For her first feature film, Le premier du nom, Sabine Franel left her post as editor (notably for docu-filmmaker Emile Weiss and Manoel de Oliveira) and put thoughts into movement tracing her family tree back to the first to carry the name (premier du nom). It is screened in the Certain Regard section. Tell us about your film and the role Judaism played?...
What were your personal revelations while making this film and was the Holocaust an integral factor?...
What was your reaction to being selected at Cannes?...
Do you consider this film to be a film made by a woman?...
Critics' Week featured a special encounter with Melvin Van Peebles - actor, musician, writer and journalist - who presened his latest made-in-France film shot in digital format, Le conte de ventre plein (Bellyful). ...
Founder of Troma, Kaufman has been digging his own niche for more than 30 years now. In his own wild and crazy style, he announced that he likes women with a big heart making a gesture that conforms more to the size of their breasts....
Since he took over in 1996, Cannes Market boss Jerome Paillard has not been one to let things drift. Each year he has brought either major changes or minor adjustments designed to make the Cannes Market more efficient, easier to use and more internationally oriented. FilmFestivals.com met with Jerome at his office in Paris. What is the program for MITIC this year?...
What percentage of the films screening at the festival will also be screened at the market?...
Are there an increasing number of Internet companies present this year?...
From the hotels and the constant parade on the Croisette to the boats in the bay and the red-carpeted steps up to the Palais / En direct de la croisette…...
Aboard the private yacht Juliet for the Mill Valley cocktail, even special guests Stanley Donen and Saul Zaentz had to take off their shoes....
Cannes by night in the party spirit. Greg Von Hausch, festival director, put his glass down long enough to talk to us about the upcoming event....
The second edition is set for 15 - 19 November in Montego Bay, Jamaica and festival director Sheryl Lee Ralph was in Cannes to announce the dates. At the Man Ray Plage cocktail, she was in full-energy form and talked to us about the origin of the name, the aims......
Marco Muller, director of the Locarno Festival, spoke with us at Cannes where the festival held a cocktail party , gearing up for the August event. Marco filled us in on the festival particulars: 2nd oldest, one of the most frequented festivals in Europe, a program with contrasts and a meeting place between North and South, East and West, America and Europe....
MoPix provided enough alcohol to float a navy but not a crumb of food could be scrounged anywhere. The splashy drag queen revue and musical number by Jimmy Somerville helped numb those fainting from hunger…but the most fun was the huge live -cam screen that proved, even drunk, most film industry professionals can't dance worth a dime....
Heading the cast of O Brother Where Art Thou? by the Coen brothers is George Clooney, wryly sending up his matinee-idol image as the film's Clark Gable-style hero, Everett Ulysses McGill (whose fondness for hairnets and Dapper Dan hair grease is a running joke throughout). ...
Daughter of Quakers, she started acting at 10. Although she stopped her theatre studies, she did receive a diploma from the University of California, Berkeley in French. Baker then took up cooking, but was still drawn to the stage. She gave an acclaimed performance in Sam Shepard's Fool for Love and had an increasing success in films, notably Best Supporting Actress by the National Society of Film Critics for her role in Street Smart (1987). She talked to our reporters about her role as Rose in ...
Does the character resonate with Kathy Baker in real life?...
