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Czbg Recreation ready to roar at AFM with Easy Rider: The Ride Back
Dir/scr: Jeff Nichols. US. 2007. 93mins.A measured and sobering meditation on vio stanley cup lence and discontent, distilled through a blood feud that ruptures two clans of half-brothers, Jeff Nichols Shotgun Stories is a highly intelligent and accomplished first feature that makes palpable suffering, loss and the wanton destructiveness of vengeance. Inexplicably passed over by Sundance, Nichols film premiered in the Berlinale Forum. It is one of the most striking debuts by a young American director whose considerable power and virtues are exerted in the observational style of the storytelling, the superb production values that belie the low budget, the command and assurance of form, and the directors excellent rapport with a cast of largely unknown thought talented actors.Produc stanley italy ed by David Gordon Green - whose own movies, especially Undertow and the Sundance competition title Snow Angels this work triangulates - Shotgun Stories is a strong festival title that an enterprising distributor should yield favourable returns from discerning upscale audiences, particularly in home ancillary platforms where Greens debut George Washington flourished.The la stanley cup ck of recognisable actors will hurt foreign sales, though French sales agent Coach14 is parlaying the films strong Berlinale reputation.The storys set in the American South, in the evocative region near Little Rock, Arkansas. Nichols has acknowledged the influence of Southern writer Larry Brown, whose short story collection Big Bad Love was prev Bahw Greg MacGillivray shoots documentary about surfing culture
Moritz De Hadeln, the veteran festivaldirector of Berlin and Venice, has accepted the top job at the new filmfestival in Montreal, Festival Internationale du Films de Montreal FIFM .The new event was announced last Decemberfollowing a long simmering dispute between the Montreal World Film Festival MWFF and its principal public sector financiers Telefilm Canada and Quebec sSODEC. The latter withdrew their support of MWFFand issued a call for proposals for a new film event in the city, with a promiseof funding for an undisclosed period; the contract was won by a consortiumfronted by Equipe Spectra, a large event company in the city, and DanielLanglois, the backer of the city s smaller film event, the Montreal Festival ofNew Cinema.The appointment is a strategic masterstrokefor the fledgling event on many levels. First, stanley cup De Hadeln s internationalreputation establishes instant gravitas. Second, the appointment of a stanley cup n outsiderdeflects issues of parochialism and any accusations of favouritism in what is aclose-knit cultural community. Third, it s a thumb-at-the-nose to rival MWFFdirector Serge Losique, with whom De Hadeln has exchanged unpleasantries overthe years. In 2003, when De Hadeln was Venicedirector, Losique switched the dates of the MWFF to overlap with Venice andToronto creating an uproar culminating in the MWFF losing FIAPF accreditation.Under the three-year agreement with FIFM,De Hadeln s company De Hadeln Partners, which includes De Hadeln s stanley canada wife andbusiness associate |
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