The American Film Festival in Deauville takes another leap towards becoming a real film festival instead of an extended press junket. Jørn Rossing Jensen reports
Last year, the American Film Festival in Deauville set a new pace for the annual showcase, developing from an extended European press junket to a real film festival.
The 1996 event unspooling between 30 August-8 September 1996 takes another leap towards a position not unlike Sundance à la France.
Expanding the programme by 30%, and adding to the number of international guests, the festival will follow up on the 1995 success, when the first competition for independent US product increased admissions by 20% from the previous year.
'In Deauville we want to show the two faces of American Cinema: the commercial blockbusters and the mostly independently produced auteur films,' says Bruno Barde, heading the cinema division of Paris-based Le Public Système Cinéma, a public relations and event marketing agency, which is the main organiser of the festival in the fashionable bathing resort.
'Recent US top grossers such as Mission: Impossible, Independence Day and The Nutty Professor represent the kind of American film which has found a cinema language that seems to work in all countries.
So they are included in the programme,' adds Barde, who admitted he was not in the right position to comment on quota restrictions for US fare in France.
'The competition was created last year very much inspired by Sundance, taking hands-on independent productions which would probably pass unnoticed if screened in Berlin or Cannes. It did not only boost attendances in Deauville, but the winners scored a considerably better performance at the French box office than they would otherwise have done.'
Tom DiCillo's Living in Oblivion, which was awarded both the first Grand Prix Spécial Deauville and the Audience Prize, was released by Pyramide in France to critical acclaim, taking in excess of 300,000 admissions. Harold Salwen's Denise Calls Up, sharing the Special Jury Prize with Edward Burns' The Brothers McMullen, reached more than 200,000 attendances for ARP.
This year, 10 films will compete for the laurels only one from the selection was shown in Sundance, Todd Solondz's Welcome to the Dollhouse. But two are presented by Majors, reflecting the big studios' renewed interest in independent product: Edward Burns' She Is the One, from Columbia-TriStar, and Daniel Sullivan's The Substance of Fire, from Miramax.
'The very spirit of the festival is demonstrated when we have the filmmakers of Unhook the Stars and A Time To Kill on stage. Unhook the Stars is produced by René Cleitman, a European who wants to work in America, after such films as Cyrano de Bergerac and Le hussard sur le toit. A Time To Kill is made by an American, Arnon Milchan, who would like to produce films the European way.'
Last year, reinforcing the event by adding the competition, festival director Lionel Chouchan also introduced a series of tributes, then to director-producer Irwin Winkler. The 1996 programme includes an hommage à Milchan, who is credited for such features as Legend, Brazil, War of the Roses, Pretty Woman, JFK, Sommersby, Natural Born Killers, Copycat and Heat.
Further tributes will honour Gena Rowlands, the late John Cassavetes' wife and favourite actress, who stars in their son, Nick Cassavetes' Unhook the Stars, and Abel Ferrara, the Miami Vice director who has become one of the prominent figures in American Independent Cinema, represented in Deauville by his latest film, The Funeral.
Milchan, Rowlands and Cassavetes will spearhead the strong corps of US filmmakers who will fly in to introduce their works, including Kevin Spacey, Matt Dillon and Gary Sinise for Albino Alligator, Norman Jewison and Gérard Depardieu for Bogus, Rob Cohen and Dennis Quaid for Dragonheart, Kurt Russell for John Carpenter's Escape from LA and Tony Scott for The Fan.
Also expected are Abel Ferrara and Christopher Walken for The Funeral, Roland Emmerich, Bill Pullman and Will Smith for Independence Day, Nick Nolte for Mulholland Falls, Michael Keaton and Andie MacDowell for Multiplicity, Eddie Murphy for The Nutty Professor, Joel Schumacher, Matthew McConaughey and Sandra Bullock for A Time to Kill, and Rebecca De Mornay for The Winner.
According to Barde, last year's performance has enabled the festival to lure more partners into the organisation, besides traditional playmakers such as hotels, airlines, cigarette and champagne brands.
Infonie, the French multimedia on-line service, will provide 24-hour a day information, and the French film magazine, Premiere, as well as the commercial radio station, Fun Radio, will offer their own awards.
The Deauville showcase is primarily a European bridgehead for American Cinema described by UIP international marketing topper Hy Smith as 'a wonderful showplace for new films, and a very efficient launching platform especially to the French market. If a film comes off well in the American Film Festival, it could hardly get a better start.'
But it has also an eye for other parts of US culture. Every year the festival will focus on an American state, not only informing about its filmmaking and its incentive programmes for filmmakers, but also about its literature, music, art, architecture and tourist attractions. The 1996 choice is Massachusetts, which will organise several events at Deauville.
There is also an exchange the other way round. MPEA head Jack Valenti will issue a cheque of FFr50,000 to the winner of a script competition for French-language screenwriters. The recipient of the Prix Michel d'Ornano will be selected by the jury from 200 entries, and he or she is guaranteed to have the screenplay adapted by an American studio.
In 1995, 3,000 film professionals attended the event at Deauville, where afternoon concerts on the sunny casino terrace contributed to recreating the mood of the past, when elegantly garbed holidaymakers appeared as bright accents against the windswept sea and sky. This year, they can enjoy a performance by Cassandra Wilson and Tom Waits.
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