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Remember the name Oscar Isaac. In a few months you'll be hearing a lot about him.

Isaac, star of Ethan Coen and Joel Coen's Inside Llewyn Davis, was born Oscar Isaac Hernandez Estrada in Guatemala. A graduate of Lincoln Center's Juilliard School, the actor and musician was introduced to wider attention this week when the Coen's new film debuted in competition here at the Cannes Film Festival. The star of the folk music film, Oscar Isaac is also at the center of the spotlight being cast on the movie this week.

Ethan Coen said the other day here in Cannes that, until they finally found Oscar Isaac, he and his brother Joel felt they were screwed. They wondered if they'd written, in the role of a young folk singer, a character that they couldn't cast. Isaac, on the other hand, believed he was right for the part from the get-go, if only he could get their attention.

"As soon as I even heard they were doing [Inside Llewyn Davis], I knew that the last 33 years of my life had been in preparation for this project. I 100% believe that," Isaac explained during a conversation with FilmLinc Daily in Cannes this week.

Oscar Isaac said he knew he should play Llewyn Davis because of "the role that music has played in my life on top of the fact that the Coen's have been my favorite filmmakers since I was in high school. When I heard about this I knew that I needed to at least just get a shot at it." Isaac sent the Coen's a tape of his singing and, one month later, he was hired.

The Coen's Inside Llewyn Davis is situated squarely in that moment when folk music was in a dramatic time of transition. Dylan emerged on the scene and catapulted folk music to wider awareness, Isaac explained. Similarly, his character was in a time of transition. Would Llewyn Davis achieve attention or give up his career and join the Merchant Marine?

"It's about this edge of success and failure," Isaac elaborated during our conversation. "There's very few geniuses that come and revolutionize everything. For the rest of us that want to be artists and have something to say, it's a lot of work and a lot of luck," he continued. "Things just line up in a certain way and I think the Coen's and [music producer] T-Bone [Burnett] and myself feel like things have lined up."

Inside Llewyn Davis will be released in theaters in December.

Keep up with our Daily Buzz podcast interviews from Cannes here on FilmLinc Daily or on Fandor or iTunes.

“I have never been convinced there's anything inherently wrong in having fun.” —George Plimpton

“George’s life story became his greatest story.” —Luke Poling

Filmmakers Tom Bean and Luke Poling spent more than four years researching the life and times of writer, actor, photographer, and quintessential New Yorker George Plimpton. The result is their fascinating documentary Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton as Himself, which the New York Times calls "a skilled portrait of a literary light." We sat down with Bean and Poling to discuss the film and the icon that is George Plimpton.

FilmLinc Daily: Tell me a little bit about the history behind the documentary.

Luke Poling: I always really enjoyed reading George’s books. Tom and I had written together for a couple years and when we were kicking around this idea of making our own documentary, I noticed my copy of George’s Open Net on the bookshelf and said: “What about George Plimpton?” We thought about it for a second and both agreed. We were surprised no one had done it before.

We contacted Sarah Plimpton (George’s wife) and said we’d like to make a movie about George. From the get-go she gave us the go-ahead. Tom and I were up in Boston at the time and came down to New York and met with her. It took off from there. She gave us access early on. She said, “If you can transfer George’s archives to DVDs and CDs for me, you can use it for the film.” We responded, “Sure, no problem. When can we start?”

Then she hemmed and hawed, “Well I have these shelves downstairs that are not assembled so once that gets organized you can start going through things.” Tom and I looked at each other and Tom said, “You want help putting together the shelves?” The next morning we were down in the basement using George’s hammer to put together shelves. We went out to lunch and called our one big investor that got us started and said we’d do anything to make this movie.

FD: That’s a funny story. How did you transfer all the archived material? What formats and stock was the audio and video on?

Tom Bean: We had VHS tapes, beta tapes, ¾-inch tapes, reel-to-reel, 8mm, 16mm and even a little 35mm. Initially we bought a tape-to-DVD recorder and just sat in the living room transferring everything. I moved in with Luke and his fiancé in LA [laughing] and I remember just living in this extra room and our whole apartment and our whole world just became this project. We would sit there in a pile of videocassette tapes, pop it in and convert it to DVD, then upload that DVD into Final Cut. There was one that must have had a hair in the case, it was really bad. [Laughing] We only had about $30 to do all this, but as we got a better handle on it we actually started to re-digitize, reached out to the original license holders to get masters, but it took us months at the beginning.

George Plimpton

TB: The whole thing was a fun process of discovery. George died in 2003 and Sarah gave us a good head start on what we could expect in the archives, but we often found more. We went through the archives of The Paris Review and rooted around in these boxes and would find a handwritten note from Ernest Hemingway to George. Things that no one knew were in the archives and are only being discovered now. They had reel-to-reel audiotapes that they had not digitized yet, and we were on hand for the first listening of those tapes. They were interviews with big writers.

There’s one moment that was really cool, which we put in the film. We knew George was present when Robert Kennedy was killed so we called the California State Archives and asked what they had. There’s one photograph where you can see George yelling. We knew the credit that had the California State Archive logo, so we called them up and they said, “Oh, we have this audio recording that seems to be George’s testimony to the police. Do you want it?” “Uhh, yes” [Laughing] And it is literally George’s interview with the LAPD at two in the morning after his friend had been assassinated. That was one of those moments where we looked at each other and said: “Whoa!” George would do something, write about it, talk about it, and create an elaborate legend around each event. But that event was the one that was maybe too legendary and he never talked about it. To hear his candid voice with the police, talking about what happened is pretty intense and cool that we could find that.

From the get-go we wanted George to be the posthumous narrator. We felt like that would make the film unique. A lot of documentaries get celebrity narrators, but we wanted to make something that would be completely imbued with the presence of our subject. We were always on the lookout for audio of George that could become a part of the narration.

FD: Did either of you ever meet George?

LP & TB: No.

In that vein, how much do you think you got into George’s persona? You probably knew him better than even some of the people you interviewed because you spent so much time with him through the archives. You appear to capture who he was, but is there a divide between his true self and his persona?

LP: Like Tom said, we wanted George to act as his own narrator. So much of his journalism was him talking. For years one of the things he did to keep The Paris Review afloat was to be an after-dinner speaker and appear on talk shows and give lectures—we had that material. George’s life story became his greatest story. Because we had access to George’s archives we were able to have two, three, maybe four versions of the same stories that might span two or three decades, and we were able to see how George developed, evolved and changed those stories. He reworked things to make them play better with his audience and what they were reacting to in a certain moment. We tried to cobble together, probably not a definitive version, but a good comprehensive version of George’s life through the years. The nice thing is that George wrote like he spoke and vice versa. There is far more written material than audio and video, but we still had a good sense of his voice. We wanted to give a visual adaptation of his writing style. So we imbued the film with that pomp and whimsy.

TB: George wasn’t a political figure or someone well-known. This is a guy who has now become slightly obscure. He was a wonderful performer, in his public and private life. Our goal wasn’t to have a lot of people say things about him or deconstruct him, although we do a bit of that; our goal was to present George. That’s how we were able to get around not having known him. A lot of people we interviewed said very speculative things about him like, “He was happy with this” or “I think he was happy with that,” but we didn’t want to presume anything about him and so he remains slightly elusive. We wanted to let the viewer live with him for a little while and then walk away thinking whatever they think. Some think he was the happiest person in the world and others felt like he sacrificed things he shouldn’t have.

George Plimpton (second from the left) talking with Jackie Kennedy.

FD: A couple of the people you interviewed called George a dilettante. I suppose he is, technically, in that he’s an amateur at all the things he attempted, but he’s not really because he’s a writer, which he even points out in the film.

TB: Exactly. The premise of the dilettante would be if that was the end in itself, but that is the means to an end. If he just did that stuff then yes he would be a dilettante, but he deliberately chose those things to write about while putting himself at risk of breaking a leg. He also knew he would embarrass himself. He knew he would fail. He wanted to eliminate these closed worlds of performance and talent. He wanted to meet the members of the New York Philharmonic and then bring us in through magazines or books and eventually a TV show. His TV format was actually a proto version of docudrama reality TV. That format is now ubiquitous. We needed to have people we interviewed criticize George because those were criticisms that were out there about him. Particularly for that generation of writers there is a sense that you’re supposed to sit in a quiet room and bleed over your page. (Laughing) George had so much fun doing what he did, so people were critical of it. He’s having too much fun writing. And he wrote really well.

FD: [Laughing] He did. He did so much that we take for granted. Even New New Journalists like Ted Conover are participatory journalists, but without being performers. I wonder how Plimpton would have participated in the age of social media and reality TV.

LP: George’s voice as a writer makes him stand out. You can read his stuff today and it’s still witty and funny. The same goes for Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Wolfe or Joan Didion. You only need to read a paragraph to know who the writer is. George is like that as well. Today, so many pieces in any magazine are written in that first person, such as “I had dinner with…” and that’s an acceptable way to write a profile piece. George and these other writers were the first ones to do that. Gay Talese’s piece on Sinatra is another example. George definitely deserves to be in that list.

TB: George is an interesting character. He was so much a part of his time and his era that the DNA of the “American Century” and the DNA of George Plimpton are intertwined. He was gallivanting around with the Kennedys and part of the literary community and the film community. One of his mantras was: “It’s our time, we’ve got to be a part of it.” How would we take George and put him here now? Well, he would have found a way to be a part of this time. Maybe he’d have the most followers on Twitter. [Laughing] I don’t know. But what we know about George is that he was able to become a part of people’s lives, befriend people, and to put himself out there in the world, whatever world it was. He would have found a way to be himself and a part of the times, but just in a different time.

Plimpton (bottom left) at a cocktail party. (Imagine Henry Mancini music playing.)

FD: How did you decide on the music in the film? It’s a nice mix of classical with original music that creates suspense.

LP: We had two creative editors, Maya Hawke was one, and the ukulele stuff was something she put in because it sounded playful. That was something we always talked about with Maya and our second editor Casey Brooks, trying to make the film lively and fun. And you can see that in the film. The four of us kicked around ideas and we had a great composer, Mark De Gli Antoni, who did the same thing. “This is a cocktail party in the 60s so it’s got a Henry Mancini vibe.”

TB: He added, like, a "ch-ch-ch-ch-ch." He nailed it.

LP: Yeah.

TB: George himself composed and recorded a couple pieces on piano. We incorporated those into the film too. You hear it when George and Freddy get married and then the scene at the end when his son, Taylor, is reading his wish list. That song repeats, but it was George narrating. There are only a couple classical “needle drops,” or pieces that are not original to our score. We had a couple scenes where we put in music. A lot of documentarians use songs from that era, so we thought Dylan or some other pop song, but it felt like George was really a classic person. As we played with that we kept coming back to classical music.

FD: It works well. The music flows with the documentary and adds to the story.

TB: Thank you. Casey, our second editor, is a musician, too, so he thought about it musically.

Tell me a little more about yourselves and your history in film and documentary film.

TB: I’m devilishly handsome. [Laughing]

LP: [Laughing]

TB: No, really, I went to school at Boston University and Luke went to NYU. Luke and I wrote together. I worked on a documentary project about the Iran hostage crisis and it fell apart, but would have been a cool project. We had all the hostages on board, and the man who wrote the Iranian constitution, and Jimmy Carter, and Walter Conkrite to be our narrator. This was my first big project when I got out of school and worked on it for a couple years. When it fell apart it took me awhile to recover from that. [Laughing] Then I ended up in Los Angeles and got my first big writing project, but that fell apart because the main actor died while I was writing and then the writer strike started. [Laughing] Then Luke called me and said, “We’re going to do this documentary.” Yes. After two near misses I finally got a project under my belt. But Luke and I are both in the Writer’s Guild and we do advertising and other things you don’t get Googled for. We make media for Trip Advisor. We also do smaller doc projects and are doing a series now for The Paris Review, interviewing prominent novelists about their first book. And we’ll start our next project as this one comes to a close.

LP: Yeah, I went back to Boston after graduating from NYU and was working in film production on a variety of jobs. I was tired of watching people make different choices than the ones I made and it felt like if there is a time to strike out on your own, now is as good as any. Tom and I have written together for a few years and this was the logical next step—to make our own film.

Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton as Himself opens May 22 at Film Society of Lincoln Center!

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A light-hearted story of gay cruising that morphs into a much darker tale is a surprise hit in Cannes this week. Alain Guiraudie's Stranger by the Lake, screening in the Un Certain Regard section here, is an eye-popping look at life along a lake on lazy summer afternoons as men, mostly nude, gather to ogle each other and hook up. Yet, as the film progresses, it takes a shocking turn when death threatens the isolated community of gay men.

Filmmaker Alain Guiraudie said that he sought to blend both tragedy and comedy in this new film. He hoped to blend the happiness and freedom of the men in his film with the fear found in an existential thriller. He also aimed to celebrate the joy these men are experiencing by capturing their sexual encounters in graphic detail.

"Something that I had in mind the whole time I was writing the film [was] how to mix these two genres—the comic and the tragic, the laughter and the so-called thriller," Guiraudie explained during a FilmLinc Daily Buzz interview this week here in Cannes. "As to how I did it, it’s very difficult for even me to explain."

Stranger by the Lake starts out as a seemingly light and idyllic summer story about men who gather for fun and sun on the shores of a beautiful lake. But their carefree encounters are cut short when a mysterious death occurs in their midst and threatens their isolated cruising spot.

"I wanted to show, on one hand, the depths of a romantic feeling and at the same time the triviality and even what some consider the obscenity of the sexual act itself," Guiraudie added. "But to show what is sometimes considered to be obscene acts or behavior in a beautiful manner.”

Guiraudie plays with genres in the film, exploring slasher elements alongside surprisingly graphic sex scenes, and his roll of the dice worked. Critics and audiences alike have embraced Stranger by the Lake, but the French director is realistic about the reason for the adulation.

"There are a lot of naked men in my film," Guiraudie quipped. "I think that’s a crowd pleaser.”

Keep up with our Daily Buzz podcast interviews from Cannes here on FilmLinc Daily or on Fandor or iTunes.

"Get ready for a lot of violence," one attendee who received early word about Nicolas Winding Refn's Cannes competition debut Only God Forgives said ahead of the film's early morning press screening Wednesday. That person wasn't kidding. Set in Bangkok's criminal underworld, the film stars Ryan Gosling (who also starred in Refn's well-received Cannes debut Drive two years ago)—alongside Kristin Scott Thomas, Tayaying Rhatha Phongam and Tom Buke—as a drug-smuggler who is compelled by his over-bearing mother to find and kill whoever is responsible for his brother's recent murder.

Cannes has seen its fair share of heavily violent movies and this one still falls far short of Gaspar Noé's Irréversible, which is likely still the standard-bearer of cringe-inducing horror. But Only God Forgives, at least so far, appears to boast the highest dose of torture and blood spatter in competition. Beautifully shot, the film received a very Cannes-like mixture of boos, applause and whistles following its initial screening ahead of tonight's World Premiere.

"Art is an act of violence. Art is about penetration. Art is about speaking toward our subconscious and meanings at different levels," Refn said today in Cannes. "I don't think about why I do things. Certain things turn me on more than others do. I can't suppress myself. I don't consider myself a violent man; I'd die if someone even looked at me mean. But I have a fetish for violent emotions and images. I can't explain where it comes from, but I do believe through art it's a way to exorcise certain feelings."

A noticeable absence from the conversation this morning was Ryan Gosling, whose star cache is such that Cannes chief Thierry Fremaux took a moment out to read (in French) a letter from the actor who is away working on another project:

"Hi all. Can't believe I'm not In Cannes. I was hoping to come but I'm on week three shooting my film in Detroit. Miss you all. Nicolas, my friend, we really are the same persons in different dimensions. I'm sending you good vibrations. I'm with you all today, Nic, Kristin, Vithaya and the whole team. Go with God."

Kristin Scott Thomas, who plays Gosling's foul-mouthed mother, however, was present and even admitted that the violence is something she personally has a hard time bearing, telling a crowd of reporters today: "This kind of film is really not my thing. This kind of violence is not something I enjoy watching at all... When I saw [Refn's previous film] Bronson, I just thought it was beautiful and incredibly moving. There's something troubling but moving and that appealed to me. So when I was asked to be in this, I was excited about doing something different."

Scott Thomas provided some of the film's most uncomfortable laughter in one scene stealer that The Weinstein Company and its sister distribution label Radius teased at a Fall Preview event earlier this week in Cannes. Without giving away too much, think of the most frightening thing a mother could say about her son to a potential girlfriend. This is worse.

"I thought, why don't we just say it—even if it's the worst possible thing," said Scott Thomas, who acknowledged that her role is quite different from the upper-crust ones she is mostly known for. "A lot of the language... just happened as we were doing that scene. I think if it had been written and set up, we would have been terrified in the lead-up. But just doing it on the set allowed us to break certain barriers and get through these taboos."

Continuing, she added: "When I first read the script, I was excited to play someone who's about as far away from the privileged, or upper class, thing that English people seem to love to see me in. So I was excited about that. But as the film became nearer and nearer, it just got more despicable."

And as if on cue, Refn chimed in about his female lead: "She had no problem turning on the 'Bitch-Witch.'"

For more coverage of the 66th Cannes Film Festival, click here.

Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton as Himself (Now Playing!)
Writer/Director: Tom Bean and Luke Poling
Cast: George Plimpton, Ken Burns, James Lipton

After four years of research, conducting interviews and delving into a wealth of archival materials, Tom Bean and Luke Poling present the story of George Plimpton using Plimpton’s own voice narration.

Eddie Cockrell of Variety says, “A fond look back at a groundbreaking media celebrity and man of letters, Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton as Himself is an entertaining profile of the self-avowed participatory journalist and his tumultuous life and times. Stuffed to the gills with media types and literary lions from the middle of the past century, this is as much time capsule as film, and will appeal to anyone who subscribed —or still does — to Plimpton’s Paris Review, and harbors fond memories of his one-off stunts.”

We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks (Opens Friday!)
Writer/Director: Alex Gibney
Cast: Julian Assange, Adrian Lamo

Academy-Award Winning director Alex Gibney brings us the story of Julian Assange and Wikileaks, which facilitated the largest security breach in U.S. History.

David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter says “Alex Gibney's docu-portrait of WikiLeaks is both a juicy chronicle of recent history and a provocative reflection on the role of secrecy in an instant-access world … Unfolding like an espionage thriller but with a methodical journalistic skill at organizing a mountain of facts, the film raises stimulating questions about transparency and freedom of information in a world in which governments and corporations have plenty to hide.”

Family Film: Microcosmos (Family Films, Saturday and Sunday)
Writer/Director: Claude Nuridsany and Marie Pérennou
Cast: Jacques Perrin

This fascinating documentary takes you into the daily life of a variety of insects with close-up, slow motion, and brilliant time-lapse photography.

Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times says, “The movie is a work of art and whimsy as much as one of science. It uses only a handful of words, but is generous with music and amplified sound effects, dramatizing the unremitting struggle of survival that goes on in a meadow in France. If a camera could somehow be transported to another planet, in order to photograph alien life forms, would the result be any more astonishing than these invasions into the private lives of snails and bees, mantises and beetles, spiders and flies?”

Elmer Gantry (Burt Lancaster, Thursday)
Writer/Director: Richard Brooks
Cast: Burt Lancaster, Jean Simmons, Arthur Kennedy

An Oscar-winning performance from Lancaster as the eponymous bible-thumping con artist in Richard Brooks’ visually ravishing (it was shot by the great John Alton) and dynamic adaptation of Sinclair Lewis’ novel.

A.H. Weiler of The New York Times says, “The briskly paced drama of a religious opportunist, his colleagues and his times utilizes the tools of the motion picture in expert fashion.”

Atlantic City (Burt Lancaster, Thursday)
Director: Louis Malle
Writer: John Guare
Cast: Burt Lancaster, Susan Sarandon, Kate Reid

Burt Lancaster’s last great performance in a film beautifully directed by Louis Malle, and just as beautifully written by playwright John Guare.

Kevin Thomas of The Los Angeles Times says, “Atlantic City is a sophisticated fairy tale, beautifully acted and beautiful to behold; it is as funny as it is touching.”

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Film Society's Daily Buzz sat down with Michael Philips of the Chicago Tribune, Logan Hill of the New York Times, and Adam Cook of Mubi for our first Hot Topics roundtable from the 66th Cannes Film Festival. The three critics discussed their overall impressions, favorite films, and most striking movie moments from the first half of the festival.

Michael Philips on Ari Folman’s The Congress: “The crowd in the rain here at Cannes, the longest line, the most finagling I had to do with my badge, the most lying I did, really, to get into a screening…”

Logan Hill on the festival atmosphere: “I just love the crazy spectacle of Cannes: no place is… more crass and more refined at the same time than Cannes.”

Adam Cook on Cannes' role in the industry: “[Cannes] really determines the trajectory for movies for the rest of the year… I don’t know if that’s something we should be celebrating.”

Keep up with our Daily Buzz podcast interviews from Cannes here on FilmLinc Daily or on Fandor or iTunes.

Every year at the fest's midpoint, insiders and critics debate whether the current Cannes Film Festival is a disappointment or marks the start of an exceptional new season of cinema. This year, with a driving rain and a howling wind trying the tolerance of attendees at many moments during the first half of this event, festival-goers have been particularly short-fused and impatient. That said, there are some standouts to highlight (even if many are waiting for a masterpiece to light up this year's festival).  

Asghar Farhadi's The Past (Le Passe) and the Coen Brothers' Inside Llewyn Davis are the competition favorites as the 2013 Cannes Film Festival crosses the midpoint today. The Past leads the voting in the daily critics poll from Le film français. It has six Golden Palms from 16 critics (although a few writers also gave it low marks). Meanwhile, the Coens' Llewyn Davis, with a score of 3.3 stars out of 5, tops the Farhadi film (2.8 stars) in Screen International's daily survey of 10 critics' rankings at the festival.

In addition to The Past and Llewyn Davis, a number of other films-—Like Father, Like Son; Stranger By The Lake; Omar; The Congress; and Heli—are standouts here in the opening days of this year's festival.

Asghar Farhadi's The Past (Le Passé)

Farhadi's film, set and shot in France, opened in local theaters here on the same day that it debuted at the Festival. Quickly picked up for U.S. distribution by Sony Pictures Classics (with a release date before the end of the year), the film explores some of the same terrain—namely a troubled marriage—that the Iranian filmmaker studied in his previous film A Separation. Farhadi said this week that he finds intimate relationships fodder for rich exploration.

The Past employs melodramatic moments and a collection of sharply constructed scenes to build towards a singular tender moment at the film's emotional climax.

"There's so much suffering and pain linked to a couple," Asghar Farhadi said during a press conference a few days ago, "I could spend my entire life with this theme and not cover it completely."

Hirokazu Kore-eda's Like Father, Like Son

Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda feels the same way about families. His Like Father, Like Son, a drama with a light touch about two families whose sons are switched at birth, sparked an on- and off-screen debate. What would you do if you'd mistakenly raised someone else's biological son for six years? Keep him or trade him in for your rightful heir? That core question drives Kore-eda's narrative to compelling places.

"This isn't the only topic I address in my films," Kore-eda said during the press conference for his Cannes competition entry. "It's the subject that is closest to me." He added that with his own parents gone, and now that he's a father himself, the subject is even more rich for him. "I want to study the topic further," Kore-eda explained.

This festival is also filled with discoveries. Two of the strongest from the first half came in the form of lead performances in a pair of competition entries: Oscar Isaac in Joel and Ethan Coen's Inside Llewyn Davis and Adam Bakri in Hany Abu-Assad's Omar.

Hany Abu-Assad's Omar

Singling live on set, the Juilliard trained actor and musician Oscar Isaac is a standout for his quiet presence in the Coens' Inside Llewyn Davis. The film, set in the 60s mostly in New York City, positions the young folk music singer in the muddled gap between success and failure as an artist at the exact moment before folk music burst out of Greenwich Village coffee houses and to a wider audience. Audiences will have to wait a bit before getting a peek at the Coens' latest. CBS Films has set a December release for the film and, like Farhadi's The Past, it's likely the film will figure into end of year awards season chatter once it heats up ahead of the fall fest circuit.

Adam Bakri, who portrays the title character, is constantly on the run in Omar, Hany Abu-Assad's energetic Palestinian feature follow-up to Paradise Now. Constantly on the move trying to dodge Israeli police, Bakri sprints, jumps and climbs through the narrow streets of his Palestinian neighborhood in a highly athletic (yet subtly touching) performance. A local baker, Omar's a bit of a lone wolf trying survive. He's navigating his own interests and those of fellow Palestinian resistors, all the while aiming to nurture the affections of a local young woman.

Alain Guiraudie's Stranger By the Lake

Alain Guiraudie's French feature Stranger By the Lake (L'Inconnu du Lac), takes a surprising turn and has generated considerable attention in the festival's Un Certain Regard Section where it screens alongside Omar. It starts out as a seemingly light and idyllic summer story about gay men who gather for fun and sun on the shores of a beautiful lake. But their carefree encounters are fleeting once a mysterious death emerges in their midst and threatens their isolated cruising spot. Guiraudie plays with genres in the film, exploring slasher elements alongside surprisingly graphic sex scenes. Last week, as the fest got underway, Steve Soderbergh's Behind The Candelabra was tipped as perhaps the gayest film ever to screen in Cannes. That honor surely belongs, at least this year, to Alain Guiraudie's stand-out entry.

The Congress, screening down the Croisette in the concurrent Directors' Fortnight section, is a wild ride that is hard to forget. Blending live action and animation in a futuristic sci-fi fantasy, Ari Folman has created a compelling commentary on Hollywood and the future. Robin Wright stars as actress (named Robin Wright) who's approaching her middle age and facing an uncertain future for her own career. Tough to describe but exciting to watch, Folman's film is an alluring entry that woke up the fest early on, and few films have generated as much energy (and passionate) responses since then. While it did'nt quite stir the passions of moviegoers the way that Leos Carax's Holy Motors or Carlos Reygadas' Post Tenebras Lux did one year ago, it certainly offered attendees ambitious cinema.

A film that certainly has stoked emotions here this week is Heli, the third feature film by Mexican director Amat Escalante. It was the first film to screen in the Cannes competition early in the festival and since its debut has weathered considerable criticism for its portrayal of graphic moments of violence and torture within Mexico's ongoing drug war. From an at times removed, often unemotional vantage point—Escalante named James Benning as an influence in our Daily Buzz interview—Heli witnesses and exposes grotesque moments. Director Escalante defended that anything he decide to show in his film pales in comparison to the real situation in Mexico, which has left more than 2,000 people murdered so far this year. The debate here is about Amat Escalante's artistic choices, but the sad reality is the persistently tragic situation back in his home country. His powerful new film, crafted over five years and approached with sensitivity and a sharp viewpoint, provocatively grapples with a devastating situation that continues unabated in his homeland.

For more coverage of the 66th Cannes Film Festival, click here.

Today in Cannes, Steven Soderbergh appeared to soften his much ballyhooed declaration that he was leaving filmmaking. The Oscar-winning director of Hollywood blockbusters and independent films alike will unveil his HBO-produced feature, Behind the Candelabra, here on Tuesday evening for its World Premiere in competition. Starring Michael Douglas and Matt Damon and based on the book Behind the Candelabra: My Life with Liberace, the film recounts the intimate, tumultuous and secret relationship the Las Vegas entertainer had with Scott Thorson, the book's author.

"I'm absolutely going to take a break. I don't know how extensive it will be," said Soderbergh. "I can say that if this were the last movie I made then I wouldn't be unhappy. I'm really, really proud of this film. There is a connection to my first film [sex, lies, and videotape] because, at the end of the day, it's about two people in a room. But stylistically, I think it represents a progression. If someone would have been able to flash forward 24 years ago to show me this film, I would have been able to recognize that there was a lot of experience, but also a simplicity and directness that would have made me very happy. It's been a nice run."

Last month, Soderbergh said he believed cinema is "under assault" during a speech at the San Francisco International Film Festival, saying the industry was plagued with a "total lack of leadership…that's killing cinema." Soderbergh linked the challenges facing filmmaking with the economics of Hollywood and again said Tuesday the models used by the studios made it necessary for him to turn to television in order to make Candelabra.

"When we were going around with it four or five years ago, the studios said they were not convinced that there was an audience for this other than for people who are gay. If you're going to spend $25 million in marketing, then you have to make $50 million just to get your $25 [million] back, so there was this sense that it didn't seem like a probability. And to be fair, when you look at a piece of paper, it's hard to imagine what the film is going to be like or how the performances would be. But looking back, this is exactly how wanted this to work out. We just wanted to make this movie and we got to. I'm not complaining; I'm very happy."

Also very happy was actor Michael Douglas, who played the flamboyant pianist often referred to as Mr. Showmanship. Speculation mounted that the film included a heavy-dose of intimate scenes between Douglas and Matt Damon. The press saw an early morning screening of the film today, and the film certainly includes more than a passing kiss on the cheek, though nowhere near as much erotic footage as another film that's playing here, Stranger By the Lake. "In terms of being in bed with Michael Douglas, well now I have things in common with Sharon Stone, Glenn Close and Demi Moore," joked Damon. "We can now all go out and trade stories."

Michael Douglas and Matt Damon in Steven Soderbergh's Behind the Candelabra

"This role came along right after my cancer," said Douglas choking back tears and receiving spontaneous applause from the audience of assembled journalists. "It's a beautiful gift, this role, and I'll be eternally grateful to Steven, Matt and Jerry."

Adding his take on the state of filmmaking, he noted, "I'd say it's very difficult for films that are small. I don't think they had a problem with the gay issue; it's just that they don't want to be bothered with a small picture that doesn't have big marketing potential. It's just not in their wheel house. So on cable TV there is an option. A lot of us have worked on small independent films where you make close to nothing. The only advertising is when you go on talk shows. So I thought that this was a wonderful combination of the two and a great option that Jerry [Weinstraub] came up with."

Douglas admitted he felt "trepidation" playing Liberace, who was known by his friends as "Lee." He recalled one time meeting the performer when he was with his father, Kirk Douglas, in Palm Springs. Liberace pulled up in a flashy Rolls Royce and "didn't have a hair out of place," remembered Douglass, adding that he was a "forefather to Elton John and Lady Gaga."

Soderbergh first approached Douglas about the idea of the film years ago on the set of Traffic. In that film, the actor was playing a much different character and recalled that when the topic of Liberace came up, it seemed out of left field.

"I was playing a drug czar on the set of Traffic and I looked over and saw a pensive look on Steven's face and he said to me, 'Have you ever thought of playing Liberace?' And I remember thinking at the time, 'What does that have to do with me being a drug czar?' He had me a bit paranoid for a moment and he had me do a take off [on Liberace's voice] and then, seven years later, he had me read this book Behind the Candelabra."

Though he famously denied being gay and even successfully sued a British tabloid for saying he was, Liberace's staff and other intimates knew of the close relationship between him and Thorson. Liberace lavished gifts, travel and the promise he would adopt Thorson and take care of him. He even had Thorson go under the knife to add features to his face that would make him look like a young version of himself. After the surgeries, Thorson became addicted to drugs that were prescribed by Liberace's doctors, which, combined with Liberace's own promiscuity, sent their relationship into a tailspin.

The movie depicts a rapid evolution of appearance for Matt Damon's character. Damon noted that both he and Douglas spent a huge amount of time in make up, and he even had a Brazilian spray-tan line done in order to "fit his costumes." Damon's butt gets ample screen time.

"Everyone was laser focused on this movie," said Damon. "Every department was just great and maybe that's because they knew that Steven was going to be taking a break afterward."

For more coverage of the 66th Cannes Film Festival, click here.

The Film Society of Lincoln Center will showcase the work of Argentinian filmmaker Matías Piñeiro during the upcoming Latinbeat film festival (July 12 – 21) and will simultaneously open two of his films, Viola and Rosalinda, on July 12. Latinbeat will host the New York premiere of Piñeiro’s 2007 film The Stolen Man/El Hombre Robado and 2009 film They All Lie/Todos Mienten. All screenings of Viola at the Film Society of Lincoln Center will be followed by his short film Rosalinda. Of course, Piñeiro is no stranger to Film Society. Viola was part of the lineup from this past New Directors/New Films festival.

"Only 31, Matías Piñeiro has already established himself as one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary world cinema," said Dennis Lim, Film Society's Director of Cinematheque Programming. "His playful, mysterious films, about the power of desire and of language draw freely on theater and literature while remaining fully cinematic, at times calling to mind the youthful works of the French New Wave masters Jacques Rivette and Eric Rohmer. We are delighted to be tracing the evolution of Piñeiro’s career to date by supplementing the theatrical release of Viola with a complete retrospective of his work."

Latinbeat will take place from July 12 – 21 at the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the complete lineup will be announced soon. Tickets for Viola and Rosalinda as well as Latinbeat will go on sale to Film Society members on June 18, and to the general public on June 20.

Films:

Rosalinda (2010, 43m)
A group of actors travel to an island in Tigre to rehearse William Shakespeare’s As You Like It.  Luisa, who plays Rosalind in the play, terminates a current romantic relationship over her cell phone.  During preparations she alternates between rehearsing and daydreaming, and starts to slowly embody Rosalind, transforming into the object of desire of other cast members on the island. During those sun-soaked hours, love strikes between the players and the roles between actress and character confuse themselves in a rare mixing of joyful artifice and anguishing uncertainty. 

The Stolen Man / El Hombre Robado (2007, 91m)
Piñeiro’s sparkling debut film breathlessly follows a clever, capricious young woman as she carefully interweaves friends and lovers into an intricate web of secretive yet often unexpectedly compassionate games.  With its grainy 16mm black-and-white cinematography, its political sub-and super-texts, and its compelling portrait of impetuous youth, The Stolen Man recalls the alternately sober and sprightly nouvelle vague of Jean Eustache and Jacques Rivette.  

They All Lie / Todos Mienten (2009, 75m)
Piñeiro’s second feature unleashes eight strong-willed characters into a clandestine plot involving art forgery, an unfinished novel and Sarmiento’s US journals, resulting in a giddy kaleidoscope of differed meaning that playfully channels the high postmodernism of William Gaddis.  Piñeiro explores a cool stylistic restraint in They All Lie, deploying precision mise-en-scene to transform the rambling country house that is the film’s sole location into a series of inter-nested boxes and closets in which strange skeletons inevitably wait.  With their zealous embrace of Sarmiento’s introspective writings, Piñeiro’s youthful and self-absorbed characters once again become the delightfully improbable vehicles for thoughtful reflections on the history of modern Argentina.  

Viola (2012, 63m)
Piñeiro ingeniously fashions out of Shakepeare’s Twelfth Night a seductive roundelay among young actors and lovers in present-day Buenos Aires. Mixing melodrama with sentimental comedy, philosophical conundrum with matters of the heart, Viola bears all the signature traits of a Piñeiro film: serpentine camera movements and slippages of language, an elliptical narrative and a playful confusion of reality and artifice.

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Julie Taymor, Sean Penn and Barry Levinson. American filmmakers who influenced Valeria Golino, a woman known for acting roles in a number of movies over the years (The Indian Runner, Evita, Rain Man). Now she's switched to the other side of the camera for her directorial debut, Miele.

Golino, in a conversation with the Film Society's Daily Buzz over the weekend, explained that as an actress her point of view is not crucial to the director's vision, which is why she wanted to direct.

"That point of view is what I am interested in," Golino said.

Her film, which is screening in the Un Certain Regard section of the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, is the story of an independent Italian woman who is helping terminally ill patients die.

"Miele (which means Honey in English) is a code name for a girl who has a double life," Golino explained simply during our conversation. Her camera spends a lot of time observing Miele as she tries to protect her secrecy and maintain her dignity.

A scene from Miele

"I thought it was a very contemporary female character [who] also seems cinematographic to me," Golino explained. "I wanted to [potray] her in images." She continued, "What I am really curious about is the visuals of cinema… the form."

Born in Naples, Golino has had a busy career in Italy, but she said she learned a lot from specific American filmmakers (in addition to directors back home).

"I was very young when I worked with [Barry Levinson] and he was very astonished by the lack of discipline that I had," Golino admitted. "He taught me, during Rain Man, to become more displined. He was very severe in that way." She continued, "I took a lot of things for granted. I thought my youth and beauty and talent was enough. Good actors don't have only that."

Keep up with our Daily Buzz podcast interviews from Cannes here on FilmLinc Daily or on Fandor or iTunes.

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Mexican director Amat Escalante became unexpected poster child for his home country in the early days of the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. In particular, given a number of graphic scenes in Cannes competition entry Heli, Escalante has been thrust into the spotlight to comment on the violence back home. When we spoke on a terrace overlooking the Palais des Festivals here in France, he had just concluded a video interview with Reuters.

"My only defense is that it's really like that," Escalante said of the drug violence in Mexico. In fact, he added, "It's worse. Worse than it is in the movie."

A scene of American training torture in Mexico is depicted early in Heli. Escalante explained that he took that scene from a YouTube video he watched of American's training Mexicans to withstand torture (by torturing them).

"It's a great country that has this virus that invades certain parts, and many people are suffering a lot from it," Escalante said of his home—he lives in Guanajuato—during a festival press conference.

There have been more than 2,000 murders in Mexico from drug related violence this year alone, Amat Escalante added during the Daily Buzz interview over the weekend.

"I wouldn't have shown those scenes they way I did if it wasn't for the idea that there were very young people being affected by that violence," Escalante explained. "That is what's happening. I felt the need to show it and, to have a great impact, I wanted to go all the way with the violence."

Escalante is Mexican. His Dad was born in America and his mother in the United States. He's grew up in both countries but now lives in Guanajuato. Watching A Clockwork Orange, as well as Richard Linklater's Slacker, as a teenager inspired him to pursue filmmaking. Escalante moved to Austin, TX where he worked in a fast food restaurant and at a video store and immersed himself in the programming at Linklater's Austin Film Society, discovering the work of Ackerman, Benning, Tarkovsy, Bresson, Fassbinder and others.

A scene from Heli

Heli follows a few characters who encounter dramatic violence, but it also tracks a burgeoning relationship between two young people. The director of two previous feature films, Los Bastardos (2008) and Sangre (2005), Escalante added that this is the first of his films to explore love, the start of a relationship and the creation of new life.

"I am curious about sex and death and violence," Escalante said the other day during the Cannes Film Festival press conference. "So that's all in the film... Sex is the last hope in the film. It's where everything can be saved or destroyed."

Escalante seems sensitive, but realistic, about the focus on the violence in his new film. He defended that more people are killed, and more recklessly, in The Dark Knight (a movie he likes). But, he feels that his depiction of violence is more responsibly portrayed.

"For me, to show it the way that I think it should feel when somebody is killed in real life," Escalante said in our interview, "it seems more honest and truthful the way I do it."

Keep up with our Daily Buzz podcast interviews from Cannes here on FilmLinc Daily or on Fandor or iTunes.

Director Ari Folman may have lost the Oscar for his film Waltz with Bashir four years ago but in the process he won the star of his next film, The Congress, which debuted here in Cannes this week. The Israeli filmmaker met Robin Wright on the awards season circuit in Los Angeles back in 2009 and the two quickly hit it off.

Back in Israel, Folman's animation team swiftly sent him a few sketches of Robin Wright ahead of his meeting with the actress. She was wowed and signed on immediately for Folman's next film, an ambitious adaptation of Stanisław Lem's The Futurological Congress that mixes live action and hand drawn animation.

"I will go with you wherever you take me," the filmmaker said Wright told him. Ari Folman, who said this week that sci-fi is his favorite film genre, takes her character to interesting places in The Congress.

Folman's complex and captivating new movie, a futuristic story about a fictitious actress named "Robin Wright" who opts to save her career by having herself digitally scanned to preserve herself forever, played well here when it opened the Directors' Fortnight section of Cannes 2013. It's a film that's full of ideas—one that's not so easy to summarize here—and as a result it has provoked divergent responses from early audiences. There's little disagreement, however, that it's one of the more original visions to unfold on screen in the early days of the 66th Cannes Film Festival.

The Congress depicts an all-consuming Hollywood in which actors wholly hand themselves over to the studios. In a new star system, actors receive a massive paycheck to leave their public life behind and live privately. Only their screen image remains and it is fully controlled by a studio that can manipulate the actor on screen to serve their wishes.

The fate of cinema, in fact the future of humanity itself, is portrayed quite bleakly in Folman's take on Lem's work.

Yet, The Congress is also a film in the tradition of other movies about the movies—think Singing in the Rain or Sunset Boulevard—that feature actors and the industry at odds with dramatic changes in Hollywood, namely the shift from silent to talking pictures.

The Congress begins as a live action film in the present, but after about 45 minutes, events jump 20 years into the future and it becomes an animated movie with a style that evokes early Max Fleischer cartoons (Betty Boop, Popeye). Taken as a whole, The Congress could be viewed as a mash-up of an array of movies, from Being John Malkovich and Holy Motors to Pink Floyd's The Wall.

A number of familiar faces populate the the animated fantasy world inhabited by an aging Rob Wright. Jesus has a few cameos, as do characters that look a lot like present-day Hollywood stars.

During a brief Q&A following the film's first screening here this week, Ari Folman owned up to the fact that Jesus Christ appears in his new movie, but he said that guy who looks like Maverick from Top Gun isn't necessarily who we think it is.

"Did you see Tom Cruise in the movie?" Folman quipped slyly.

For more FilmLinc Daily coverage of the 66th Cannes Film Festival, click here.

Outside the press conference room is an artist rendering of Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi joyfully waving on what looks like a film stock version of a magic carpet flying above a minaret-filled skyline, and next to him is the word "Liberté." While Panahi has run afoul of authorities at home in Iran and is officially forbidden from practicing his craft, that did not stop him from collaborating on Closed Curtain, which premiered in Berlin in February.

It is not certain if fellow Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi saw the piece as he made his way in or out of the press room today, where he spoke about his latest film Le Passé (The Past), which will have its world premiere Friday night at the Festival de Cannes, but Farhadi did acknowledge state censorship and how that has shaped his filmmaking, even when working outside the borders of his own country.

His latest feature, a follow-up to his 2012 Best Foreign-language Oscar-winner A Separation, stars Bérénice Bejo (The Artist), Tahar Rahim (A Prophet) and Ali Mosaffa (Somewhere Else) and is set in Paris, though he hinted that even in another country, the official confines he worked under continue to inform his choices. Characteristic of Farhadi's past discussions in public when the subject of the regime in Tehran is brought up, he chooses his words carefully.

"There are two kinds of censorship which work in an official way, and there's a far more sinister one which springs from a person's inner-censorship, which comes from a social situation that surrounds someone or something like finance," said Farhadi. "When somebody works in a different [country], they're still working with assimilation—and that's a part of me. When I work with this assimilation, I try to see it as an asset, working within those [confines] and within that context."

In the case of Le Passé, the context is one of the most anticipated titles of the weekend in Cannes. The story follows Iranian-born Ahmad, who returns to Paris to finalize his divorce with Marie, who has already embarked on a new relationship. During the visit, he sees that a unhealthy relationship exists between his estranged spouse and daughter Lucie. He attempts to repair their bond, but while doing so, Ahmad discovers a secret from the past that could cement their division.

"The relationship within a couple is the most complex there is," said Farhadi, explaining why he consistently likes to center his stories around spouses. "You can rid yourself of the past and try and run away from it, but you [ultimately] can't. The past will eventually weigh in on he present. The past is no more clear than the future. Humans aspire to predict the the future and re-write the past."

Bérénice Bejo in a scene from La passe (The Past).

At a lengthy 140 minutes, this sort of epic drama about the dissolution of a family is risky, even for a high brow audience like the one at Cannes. If the loud applause following the morning press screening is any indication, the film will have its share of positive critical response. For his part, Farhadi said he had all the tools he needed to make a quality film as a followup to the success of A Separation.

"I had no excuse to make a bad film," he said. "Everything worked perfectly. I was satisfied with everything."

"We tested a lot of things and did rehearsals for two months before shooting for four months," recalled Bérénice Bejo. "It was as if we did 50 takes before we did the actual shooting. We had a clear path."

Bejo said that American cinema had inspired her to become an actress and she enjoyed shooting The Artist in L.A., but with a new baby, she was pleased to remain in Paris for Le Passé. "For me, working in the U.S. would be fabulous, but it didn't work that way for personal reasons. Working with Asghar Farhadi on this film was the best situation."

Farhadi himself said he fielded a number of North American offers after his Academy Award triumph last year, and while he expressed interest in working in the U.S. given the right situation, he wants to continue to work as he has in the past.

"I want to write and continue to work in the way I want," he said. "Hollywood is a mixed bag. You can't say you hate or love everything that's done in Hollywood."

Augustine (Opens Friday!)
Writer/Director: Alice Winocour
Cast: Vincent Lindon, Soko, Chiara Mastroianni

Based on the true relationship between Dr. Jean-Martin Charcot, the renowned 19th century French neurologist and mentor to Sigmund Freud, and his prized teenage patient, Augustine darkly dazzles and intrigues.

Tomas Hachard of Slant Magazine gave the film 3.5 out of 4 stars, saying: "From the opening scene, Winocour sets a tense, physical tone. Augustine, at this point a kitchen maid for an aristocratic family, begins to feel ill while serving dinner. Her hands start to shake … she collapses into a brutal seizure, taking the entire tablecloth down with her. Using quick close-ups and precise editing, Winocour viscerally captures the anguished moment … [Augustine] is a period drama (the costumes, the dimly lit aristocratic mansions), but its perspective is entirely contemporary, offering a damning criticism of the abusive treatment that occurred in the hospital and, in the relationship between Charcot and his star patient, Augustine, a nuanced portrayal of power relations."

Cape Spin: An American Power Struggle (Opens Friday!)
Director: Robbie Gemmel, John Kirby
Writer: Daniel Coffin

Humorous and tenacious, Cape Spin! An American Power Struggle shows 10 years of conflict over the first proposed offshore wind farm in the United States.

"If you want to see a classic case of NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard), see Cape Spin: An American Power Struggle… showing people pushed out of their comfort zones, which causes great drama, often resulting in hilarity." —Eddie Pasa, Reel Film News

The Boy Who Wanted to Be a Bear (Family Film, Saturday + Sunday)
Director: Jannik Hastrup
Writers: Bent Haller, Michel Fessler
Cast: Marlon Vilstrup, Joachim Boje Helvang, Otto Brandenburg, Paprika Steen

The Boy Who Wanted to Be a Bear tells the story of a young boy who must choose between being human with Mother Eskimo and being a bear with his adopted Mother Bear.

Not only does The Boy Who Wanted to Be a Bear portray exceptional “watercolor animation juxtaposing stark whites with rich hues (but also) offers several complicated similarities between the families: not only does Mother Bear’s grief match and Mother Eskimo’s (Carol Jacobanis), but all live in fear of the other… questions nature versus nurture… and speaks to human ignorance of the animal world.” —Nikki Tranter, Pop Matters

(To see the trailer dubbed in English go to The New York Times website.)

The Flame and The Arrow (Burt Lancaster, Monday)
Director: Jacques Tourneur
Writer: Waldo Salt
Cast: Burt Lancaster, Virginia Mayo, Frank Allenby, and Nick Cravat

Lancaster stars as the incredible and suave archer Dardo, who faces off against the evil Hessian Count Ulrich, who has kidnapped Dardo’s wife and son. Often cited as one of Lancaster’s most acrobatic roles.

Richard Brody of The New Yorker says: "Tourneur makes exuberant use of his star’s acrobatic gifts, casting Lancaster’s former circus partner, Nick Cravat, as his sidekick, Piccolo, and incorporating their astounding leaps and catches, balancing acts and high-wire daring, into their revolutionary raids… capturing the spirit of revolt."

The Leopard (Burt Lancaster, Saturday + Tuesday)
Director: Lucino Visconti
Writers: Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (novel), Suso Cecchi D'Amico, Pasquale Festa Campanile, Enrico Medioli, Massimo Franciosa, and Luchino Visconti (screenplay and adaptation)
Cast: Burt Lancaster, Claudia Cardinale, Alain Delon

Winner of Cannes 1963 Palme d’Or, The Leopard takes place during Sicily’s social struggles in 1860 focusing on the Prince of Salina (Lancaster) and his family.

Roger Ebert said: "The Leopard was written by the only man who could have written it, directed by the only man who could have directed it, and stars the only man who could have played its title character. The first of these claims is irrefutable, because Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, a Sicilian aristocrat, wrote the story out of his own heart and based it on his great-grandfather. Whether another director could have done a better job thanLuchino Visconti is doubtful; the director was himself a descendant of the ruling class that the story eulogizes. But that Burt Lancaster was the correct actor to play Don Fabrizio, Prince of Salina, was at the time much doubted; that a Hollywood star had been imported to grace this most European—indeed, Italian—indeed, Sicilian—masterpiece was a scandal.” For Ebert, Lancaster’s Prince of Salina reminds us “why we go to the movies."

Lancaster narrates this Criterion Collection trailer himself:

The last time Sofia Coppola premiered a film in Cannes, the daughter of Hollywood royalty kicked up some latent French revolutionary zeal with Marie Antoinette. Her post-modernist English-language re-telling of one of the most pivotal figures in France's history won some praise but also audible boos. Cut to seven years later, and Coppola is back with The Bling Ring, turning the focus squarely on Hollywood and the seemingly insatiable appetite for celebrity culture that oozes out of the city onto virtually every reality show, tabloid and Twitter account there is.

What eventually morphed into Coppola's fifth feature had its roots in a Vanity Fair feature titled The Suspects Wore Louboutins, which the writer/director read on a flight. The article was about a group of celebrity and fashion-obsessed kids from nearby San Fernando Valley who sought a quick path to the life they craved by burglarizing celebrity homes, including those of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Orlando Bloom.

"I thought: This sounds like a movie. I'm sure it's already being made," said Coppola in Cannes Thursday. "It was so contemporary and I thought it said so much about our culture today. There's something about these kids living over the hill in suburbia and who wanted to be a part of it."

Apropos to the flavor of the feature, the film stars a mixture of celebrity names, including Emma Watson and Leslie Mann, and relative newcomers Israel Broussard, Katie Chang, Taissa Farmiga and Claire Julien.

"I took a year of meeting young actors before putting together this group. Casting directors suggested I meet Emma," said Coppola in Cannes. "I didn't want them to be like a spoof or like cartoon characters, and I wanted real kids who were of the same age. For Emma, it's really interesting to see someone like her transform in a way we haven't seen before."

The cast joined Coppola for the official Bling Ring World Premiere, where mobs of accredited festival-goers waited under the threat of more rain to get in. Not surprisingly given her pedigree, Coppola is a long time presence at the festival, even before she began showing her own films here. She took a different route with her previous film, Somewhere, which won the coveted Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival last September.

Emma Watson in a scene from The Bling Ring

So far, The Bling Ring has received mixed reviews in Cannes, though the audience last night gave the filmmaker and cast polite applause as the credits rolled. While many stood up, it was hard to tell if that was out of pure enthusiasm or, fittingly, as a means to snap a picture.

"I'm always excited to come to Cannes to show my film," quipped Coppola. "I've come here since I was a kid and am happy to show a film to an international audience and somehow The Bling Ring is very appropriate to show here."

Emma Watson, who shot to fame via the Harry Potter movies, was clearly carrying the star-wattage when introduced ahead of the screening along with Coppola. Earlier ,she commented on working with the Oscar-winning filmmaker and talked about immersing herself into the cult of celebrity—even as a celebrity herself—in preparing for the role, citing reality shows like Keeping Up With the Kardashians as a barometer for the cult of fame today.

"I think there are celebrities who create a brand and a business and create a job or niche out of others who are interested in their lives, and there are others who don't," said Watson. "Technology is playing its part because culture is being saturated with these images… If you look at these shots, they look like comic strips."

Huge swaths of younger generations cannot recall a time when such a connection and sense of intimacy did not exist through social media. Israel Bourssard, who plays the most sympathetic character in the film, Marc, perhaps described best the temptation felt by the real members of the so-called "Bling Ring."

"I think every generation has its problems and one of the challenges is social media," he explained. "They can almost touch these celebrities and they just took it to the next level."

The Bling Ring opens Stateside on June 14. Don't miss our free Summer Talk with Sofia Coppola on June 10!

Based on real-life people and events, Augustine tells the story of a 19th century teenage girl of the same name who, after a seizure disrupts her life and work as a housemaid, is sent to the Salpêtrière Hospital where the handsome Doctor Charcot looks after hundreds of mentally ill women. Diagnosed with hysteria, Augustine develops a special bond with the doctor. Despite the brutality and suffering the film depicts, first-time director Alice Winocour describes Augustine as a love story. She also revealed that, during filming, the cast told a lot of dirty jokes.

Augustine manages to combine aspects of the medical and the erotic in a unique way.

That was what was fascinating about the subject to me. There were 3000 patients, women, at Salpêtrière kept under influence of Charcot. All the patients were women and all the doctors were men. It was really a world apart. And these women were having all these really violent sexual fits. And these fits were actually exhibited to men, not only doctors, but those high up in Parisian society, as in a peepshow. It was really a place to go to see a sexual seizure.

Something that was really weird to me in researching the film: there were all these pictures of hysterics acting provocatively, and this really weird atmosphere felt very cinematic to me. Also, it involved bodies, women as guinea pigs, as objects of desire. I set out to make a film about this strange world and then I discovered Augustine, the real woman. She was the most photographed and exhibited patient at the hospital. She was the hospital’s big star! Also, because she was probably pretty [Laughs] and not every woman at the hospital was pretty. And she was probably acting for the doctors. I mean, she was not making it up, but Charcot was staging her.


Like a mise-en-scène?

Yes, and in this game between a patients and doctors, women would do these things that men wanted into order to be interesting in their eyes.


Can we take out the word “doctor” and put in the word “director?”

Yes, right. It’s exactly the same thing! They were really like actresses in front of directors, being staged. At that time, and even today, hysteria is really a mysterious disease. You know, “hysteria” is derived from the Greek word “uterus.” And so what is interesting about this was that the doctors, the men, were having these fantasies about the women in treating them: as you saw in the film, remember, the ovarian compressor? But ovaries have nothing to do with this illness. It was all in the men’s fantasies. And hysteria can also be a masculine disease. What I really found interesting was the way in which men were looking at women with this mix of fear and desire. And I think the strange way that men look at women still exists.


What films did you watch in preparation for Augustine?

A lot! I watched, for example, Black Swan. A lot of horror movies, actually, and exorcism films, such as Dario Argento’s films. Suspiria, in particular. Because I really didn’t want a realist approach for Augustine, but rather a gothic, poetic atmosphere. The [aesthetic] was really inspired by the dark, late Romanticism. Like the novels from the end of the 19th century, the Brontë sisters. For example, the garden in Augustine: I wanted it to express this sort of savagery of the unconscious. And everything to me had to be its own self-contained world, its own world apart.


Would you talk about how you came up with this aesthetic?

For instance, when I saw these drawings of the ovarian compressor, Charcot’s drawings. Or the tamed monkey [that Charcot has Augustine play with]. These things were true, they actually existed. These made me think of Cronenberg’s films, like Dead Ringers.


Soko in Augustine

How did you and Soko [the actress who plays Augustine] design and rehearse the fits, the way the seizures would be? Did you watch movies together?

Yes, exactly. This was very important to the movie that she be like a woman possessed by a demon. You know, in the Middle Ages, hysteria in women meant they were considered as witches and they were then burnt. So I thought it was kind of natural to reference films in that genre. And this was crucial to the film. Also crucial was how I was going to stage a lie, because hysteria is a kind of lie. You know, your body is suddenly doing things that it is impossible to do in real life. Which means it’s also really difficult to stage because the whole body becomes a kind of theater. Your head goes backwards and your body goes forwards and, you know, [laughs] even a Russian gymnast couldn’t do these things that real hysterics can do.


So, I used ropes and strings to pull Soko’s arms and legs in all directions—really brutal movements. To me, the body became like a monster. It was like a rebellion of the body [such] that she was like a victim of her own body.  It was really important to me that you could see that she was not in control at all of what was happening to her. Like, for example, possession films—where a monster is coming suddenly to rape you. So, I watched a lot of films like this. For example, this movie with Barbara Hershey, The Entity [dir. Sidney J. Furie]. And also, I was inspired by Evil Dead II, when the man is attacked by his own hand!


Augustine looks like the film had a pretty large budget. But did you?

No! We didn’t, but I’m glad that you say that! It’s funny how people ask me, “But why so many close-ups?” And I say, “Well, because we had no set.” And we had to glue Soko’s eye shut. We had a €4 million budget. For a first feature, it’s a huge project, but for this film, it was very low.


I guess you must have impressed a lot of people with Ordinary People (2009), the film you co-wrote about Serbian soldiers.

Yes. It was also hard to raise the money, but it was fun at the same time.


How did you connect with Vincent Lindon, Soko, and Chiara Mastroianni, the actors who play Dr. Charcot, Augustine and Charcot’s wife, respectively?

I knew I needed to have this erotic tension between Charcot and Augustine, so I knew I needed to have really physical actors. I liked Soko, and I liked how she had waist and hips as 19th century women had…


People in the 19th century had bigger waist and hips?

Yes. Of course.


Because they carried more weight on them, you mean?

Yes, more weight.  And also women were more shaped… And I thought of Renoir’s paintings, the way women looked in them. And Soko had these extensions in her hair. It was very difficult to find Augustine—I looked at more than 300 girls for the part because I wanted a lot of things that were contradictory, like real hysterics have. You know, they are cold and hot at the same time, happy and sad, naive and at the same time they are strong. [Laughs] You know it required a lot. Because the story tells the change of statuses between Augustine and Charcot. At the beginning, she is weak, but then she takes the power and becomes the one on top. I knew that was the path Augustine was going to follow, and I had to find someone capable of doing it. It was really hard until I found Soko.


Soko and Vincent Lindon in Augustine

The first seizure that Augustine has, she’s serving at the table and a man looks at her, and then the seizure begins. What is her relationship with that man?

Ah! Because in the script, in an earlier version, there was a scene where she was raped by that guy. But then I figured it was too much, too easy, that because she was raped, she had a seizure. Because hysteria is much more complex than that and much more mysterious. I liked that you could see in the man’s look that it was sexual and dominating.


Augustine likes to be dominated, but it also makes her ill.

Yeah, it’s like this game. There is a quote by Lacan: “A hysteric is a slave looking for a master to rule over.” To me this was really the film’s guiding saying. She’s not really a victim and not really the one in charge. This is why I asked Vincent and Soko to play the examinations as love scenes. When he’s feeding her soup, it’s to me very much like a blowjob.


And with the ovarian compressor, it’s really a sadomasochistic sequence where she’s getting pleasure from her suffering. And the classes Charcot gives with Augustine shown to an audience of men, they were really like peep shows. I mean, we made jokes nonstop about how we were making everything sexual. It was, in this hospital in the 19th century, all about sex, but no one was talking about it. They pretended hysteria was this very normal disease with phases and all this scientific terminology, but really Charcot was like a little boy frightened of women’s sexuality. He couldn’t even mention sexuality because he did not think it was serious enough. This is what was so strange about those guys: that they were obsessed by sexuality even though they never spoke of it.

How is Augustine cured?

She cures herself, even before the end of the film, before the last lesson, in a few stages. First of all, with his interest, and I would say his love—maybe I’m really weird, but I would say the film is a love story—suddenly she feels like a woman, not a guinea pig nor an object of desire, but she cures herself. And then, also, she falls down the stairs, which is a great shock, an emotional shock. After that she can move her arms again. So by the last lesson, she is already cured; she is acting for Charcot’s benefit, for the audience of men. She’s faking the seizure just to please him.

What were the best sex jokes told on set?
Oh, there were so many! I cannot remember the best. You had to be there. [Laughs] No, but we did it because it was really violent what we were doing, and the jokes were just to feel better. For Soko, we joked it was like the French show called Koh-Lanta—in which contestants must do difficult tasks and survive under difficult conditions.

I think we called that show Survivor.
Ah, yes, well on this show every day is a new struggle to stay alive, so our joke on set was “Today on Koh-Lanta you must to do this and that.” It was really a sadomasochistic film for Soko, who every day was attached to strings and bandages and cables, and then she had to run through brambles too!

But you were the sadist!
Yes, I know, I know. [Laughs] It was hard on me too. 


What are you working on now?
I’m writing another kind of strange love story, that is a thriller: there are car chases. As with Augustine, the story concentrates on a relationship, but it’s contemporary.

You’ve also spoken of male hysteria, am I right?
Why, are you afraid you are a hysteric? [Laughs]

Yes, well, am I? I’m here in part to find out.
Ah, yes but I charge for this. Money! [Laughs]

Are violent movies manifestations of male hysteria?
No, I think even today there are men in hospitals with paralyses that cannot be medically explained. Even today, after Freud, after all this time, we have no explanation for hysteria. I read something about what took place in the U.S. after September 11 where there was an epidemic of people covered in pustules, in skin problems, in rashes, who believed they were victims of a terror attack, perhaps a gas attack. Finally the experts figured out that it was a case of mass hysteria. It spread from school to school, a sequential, collective mass hysteria. Just as we saw in the Middle Ages with people possessed by evil spirits. It’s about the body expressing a trauma that cannot be expressed with words. The body, as with Augustine, becomes the very theater of one’s emotions.

Alice Winocour's Augustine screened at Film Society of Lincoln Center as part of Rendez-Vous with French Cinema. It opens for a theatrical run here on May 17.

We've got some shiny news! Joss Whedon is coming to Film Society on May 29 for a very special evening including a conversation about his career and sneak preview of his bold and modern Shakespeare adaptation Much Ado About Nothing, which will open here on June 7 (tickets now on sale)!

Whedon came to some people's attention for the first time with the success of last year's mega-blockbuster The Avengers, which became the third highest-grossing film of all time. But those who have been following Whedon’s career since the beginning know that the "Whedonverse," as his fictional repertoire has been affectionately dubbed by fans, spans more than two decades in film and television. After graduating with a film degree from Wesleyan University, Whedon relocated to Los Angeles and began to write for the television sitcoms Roseanne and Parenthood. Soon after, Whedon wrote screenplays for Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the movie), Alien: Resurrection, and Toy Story. 

By 1997, Whedon created the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and was finally able to portray Buffy’s story in the original way he intended.  Running for a total of seven seasons, the show gained incredible cult status, and even birthed a successful spin-off series, Angel. A few years later, Whedon expanded his science fiction work—to the rest of the universe—with the creation of Firefly, a Space western drama. When the show was cancelled after only one season, fan support helped Whedon get a screenplay based on the show greenlit and Serenity opened in theaters in September 2005.

Whedon’s next television show was Dollhouse, which was followed by work on other shows including The Office and Glee. Whedon even directed a musical tragicomedy miniseries starring Neil Patrick Harris; Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. A firm believer in new media, Whedon crafted the show specifically for Internet distribution. Not only was Dr. Horrible successful, it was wildly influential, and was even named one of Time Magazine’s Top 50 Inventions of 2008 (listed at #15!).

Recently, Whedon’s Avengers success landed him the gig with Marvel Studios to direct Avengers 2 and his new superhero television project Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is set to debut on ABC this fall. Of course, he is no stranger to graphic novels. Whedon is the author of Fray, which takes place in a future "Buffyverse" and he has also written comic continuations of Buffy and Firefly/Serenity.  Whedon penned 24 issues of the Astonishing X-Men series, which won an Eisner Award in 2006 for Best Continuing Series, and one of the issues (#6, to be exact) was listed by Marvel Comics readers as one of Marvel’s Top 70 comics of all time. 

If you’re not already impressed, enter: Shakespeare.  Whedon’s latest venture is an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s comedy Much Ado About Nothing, and not only did he write the screenplay and direct the film, but he also composed the original score. This sharp, fresh take on a classic has been receiving praise since its debut at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival.

Tickets to An Evening with Joss Whedon on May 29 are now on sale, as are tickets to the theatrical run of Much Ado About Nothing, which opens June 7!

Quentin Tarantino Dominates Cannes Film History, IMDb
Movie site IMDb polled its users about the top 10 films ever to be screened in the Cannes competition, and Quentin Tarantino fared quite well. In fact, he dominates the top tier with the first two spots going to Pulp Fiction and Inglorious Basterds and he even makes a showing in the third spot with Sin City, in which he has a guest director credit. Also among the top 10 most popular titles ever to screen in the Cannes competition were No Country for Old Men (4), Shrek (5), Taxi Driver (6), Pan's Labyrinth (7), Apocalypse Now (8), Drive (9) and L.A. Confidential (10).

Lars Von Trier's Nymphomaniac Set for Xmas Day Release in Denmark
Controversial Danish director Lars Von Trier's much talked about Nymphomaniac will have its world premiere on Christmas Day in his home city of Copenhagen. There had been speculation Von Trier would premiere his latest in Cannes, but the film was either not finished, or he decided to bow out following controversy that surrounded his last visit with Melancholia. "What's more Christmassy than a film like this?" said Peter Aalbaek Jensen, CEO of Zentropa, which von Trier founded. Like the title suggests, the lengthy feature is a sex-laden drama starring Charlotte Gainsbourg, Shia LaBeouf, Jamie Bell, Uma Thurman, Willem Dafoe, Stellan Skarsgard and Christian Slater, Deadline reports.

Justin Timberlake Gives The Great Gatsby Competition in Cannes
Timberlake co-hosted a party Wednesday night at the Carlton Beach just off the Croisette for foreign buyers promoting his Cannes Market project, Spinning Gold, even as the festivities for Cannes Film Festival opening night film The Great Gatsby were underway under a torrent of rain. Timberlake will star in the biopic about legendary record exec Neil Bogard, who co-founded Casablanca Records and was closely associated with the rise of disco in the 70s, THR reports.

Scarlett Johansson to Make Directorial Debut
The actress will direct an adaptation of Truman Capote's Summer Crossing. The story centers on a 17 year old debutante who shelves plans to travel to Paris with her parents in order to embark on a romance with a Jewish valet parking attendant during a 1945 New York heatwave. The novel was Capote's first, though it was never published in his lifetime after he threw it away. It is believed a janitor salvaged the book and it eventually sold at auction in 2004 and published afterward, Screen Daily reports.

Zach Braff Kickstarter Controversy Deepens
Braff raised $2.6 million on crowd-sourcing site Kickstarter, saying in part that he could not get his new comedy Wish I Was Here—a followup to his popular 2004 feature Garden State—without fan support. But more controversy is facing Braff over the moral legitimacy of raising money via his fans and the public after it was revealed that he was able to raise millions from traditional funding sources, bringing the project's potential budget up to $10 million, The Guardian reports.

Turnabout is fair play in Cannes. When the competition kicks off tomorrow night here in France, nine jurors—directors Steven Spielberg, Naomi Kawase, Ang Lee, Lynne Ramsay and Christian Mungiu, as well as actors Daniel Auteuil, Vidya Balan, Nicole Kidman and Christoph Waltz—will sit in judgement of the 20 films unspooling over the next 10 days in the race for the 2013 Palme d'Or.

"Everyone sits in judgement of us, so now its our turn," jury president Steven Spielberg joked today. He was seated alongside his fellow jurors during a press conference on a grey afternoon here at the Cannes Film Festival in France. The director said that he's been asked countless times to serve on the jury here. This year he wasn't shooting in the spring so he decided to give it a go. Nicole Kidman, who was here last year with Lee Daniels' The Paperboy, said she's been asked often to participate, but this year is different; she wanted to spend some quality time with Spielberg!

For filmmaker Ang Lee, the idea of judging his colleagues is weighing heavy on his mind.

"I'm afraid to judge people's movies in public," he said "(I have) tried to avoid it as much as I can."

Lee said he's praying that the entire jury will fall in love with the same movie so that their decision is easy and consensual: "Hopefully something will just grab our heart and we wont have to fight that hard or argue."

However, Lee and Kidman each said that being on the Cannes jury is a way to give back and hopefully shine a light on new cinematic voices.

"I think it's very difficult to rank films; it's very difficult to judge films," added the Romanian director Christian Mungiu, who won the Palme d'Or for his film 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days in 2007. "In a few years you will know if the film is good or not." But, Mungius said, awards bring attention to new films and are good for raising their international profile.

All nine judges had something to say about serving on the most prestigious jury at, arguably, the most prestigious film festival in the world. Try to match the quotes with the jurors below!

Quotes:

1. "We're always sitting in personal, private judgement of the movies we see anyway, this isn't much different than going in to see if a film moves you."

2. "An Oscar is easier than a Palme d'Or. Every festival has its own aura. Cannes is artistically driven, high brow. It is different from the Oscar race which feels more like a popularity contest for 6,000 people."

3. "Walking up the stairs to the photo call and up here [to the press conference], I forgot I was a juror; the memory was still too strong. But I promise I'll concentrate on being a juror."

4. "Today in the world, given current difficulties, it's necessary to overcome this situation. The Cannes Film Festival is an opportunity to exchange dialogues. Here at the festival, it's a place where people come together. We view all these wonderful films which gives us a glimpse into the future. [My country] has suffered many disasters and I truly believe this festival can send out positive messages to the world."

5. "When I was asked to be on the jury, I (went) on the internet to see the past winners of the Palme d'Or and was shocked I had seen a lot of the films and many of them had shaped my film understanding. I am excited to work with my fellow jury members to find the films that will go down in film history. We have all come together because we all love the cinema."

6. "The first step as a filmmaker is to [emulate others], but your next step is to be courageous enough to be original and to expand the limits of your art. I'm looking forward to seeing films that lead us on a different path."

7. "This festival has been very very good to me and I've been asked to be on the jury before. It so happens that I had time and the passion for absorbing this [now]. Ultimately it's just nine people's opinion. At the same time its a platform for films. It celebrates films and gives the films a chance to be discovered."

8. "We are celebrating 100 years of films [in my country] and it's my first film jury. I am excited to see how different people view film."

9. "I had a student film here. [Cannes] is really a platform for special films and the art of film. You come here with the pressure of your own film, instead of seeing your work, which is ultimately what [this festival] is about."

Answers (use cursor to select text to reveal):

1. Steven Spielberg
2. Ang Lee
3. Christoph Waltz
4. Naomi Kawase
5. Daniel Auteuil
6. Christian Mungiu
7. Nicole Kidman
8. Vidya Balan
9. Lynne Ramsay

Gatsby to Open a Wet Cannes
Following a press conference earlier today, director Baz Luhrmann and stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire and Carey Mulligan are braving the weather in a blustery Cannes. The Great Gatsby, which opened to solid box office numbers Stateside, will have its European premiere at the 66th Festival de Cannes tonight, marking its European premiere. Noted Luhrmann at the press conference earlier today in Cannes: "I just care that people are going out seeing it, I really do. It was a very nervous weekend for all of us and we're just very grateful to the audience." Check out FilmLinc Daily's expanded coverage of The Great Gatsby.

Werner Herzog to Receive Locarno Film Festival Honors
The German-born director, screenwriter, producer and actor will receive the Pardo d'onore Swisscom at the 66th Festival del film Locarno, taking place August 7 - 17. A selection of Herzog's films, which include Grizzly Man and Encounters at the End of the World, will screen at the festival and he will take part in a conversation with Grazia Paganelli, co-author of a study of the filmmaker, which will be open to the public. Said Locarno's Artistic Director Carlo Chatrian: "Over the course of his long career, Herzog has proved adept at moving between fiction and documentary, low-budget productions and films featuring major stars but without ever losing a clear sense of identity. If awards are not only recognitions but also a way of signaling the future, I think that Werner Herzog is the most appropriate person to signpost the way forward the Festival wishes to take."

Thomas Vinterberg Wins Prix Media Honor in Cannes
Danish filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg will be honored with the 2013 European Union Prix MEDIA prize. The award is given to the best new film project with "box-office potential" and is eligible for support from the EU Media program for cinema. The award will be presented to Vinterberg by Androulla Vassiliou, European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth, at the Cannes Film Festival on Sunday May 19, which is also Vinterberg's 44th birthday. He will share the award with co-writer Tobias Lindholm (A Hijacking) and producer Sisse Graum (Zentropa) for their new project Kollektivet (The Commune), which tells the story of life in a Danish commune in the 1970s and which is due to go into production next year.

Nantucket Film Festival Launches Academy Partnership
Nantucket and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will partner on an initiative with Haiti's Ciné Institute to promote a young filmmaker outreach program with Ciné students and the local Nantucket Teen View participants. Oscar-winning filmmakers Andrea Nix Fine and Sean Fine, through the Academy's Visiting Artists program, will attend NFF to present their Oscar winning short film Inocente and lead a roundtable discussion with the Ciné and Nantucket student filmmakers about the craft of documentary filmmaking, covering topics such as story development, production, editing and financing.  The Fines will also present their current release, Life According to Sam, as part of this year's programming. Additionally, students will present projects from their respective programs this past year and will engage in a conversation moderated by Ben Stiller.

Fisher Stevens, Malcolm Gladwell & Leonard Lopate Join Tropfest Jury
Stevens is the Oscar-winning producer of The Cove. He will be joined on the jury by journalist and author Malcolm Gladwell and WNYC host Leonard Lopate at Tropfest New York on June 22 in Brooklyn's Prosepect Park, which will be hosted by Live Schreiber. The event began 21 years ago in Sydney, Australia, becoming one of the world's largest short film festivals, and launched similar events last year in Las Vegas and New York. Film Society of Lincoln Center is proud to again be a partner on TropFest New York.

The Provincetown International Film Festival recently unveiled its 15th anniversary lineup with the East Coast Premiere of Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman's Lovelace on tap as the event's Opening Night film. Starring Amanda Seyfried, Peter Sarsgaard, Juno Temple, Sharon Stone and James Franco, the bio-drama tells the story of Linda Lovelace, who was used and abused by the porn industry at the behest of her coercive husband, before taking control of her life.

The long weekend event, which is the signature festival of the Provincetown Film Society, will also feature Jeffrey Schwarz's I Am Divine and Pedro Almodóvar's I'm So Excited as PIFF's Friday and Saturday Night Spotlights, respectively, while the East Coast premiere of Emanuel and the Truth About Fishes by Francesca Gregorini will close out the festival.

In other highlights, writer/director Harmony Korine (Spring Breakers, Gummo, Kids) will receive Provincetown's "Filmmaker on the Edge Award" on Saturday evening in Provincetown's Town Hall Saturday on June 22. Korine will appear for an on-stage conversation with P-town part-time resident, John Waters.

The Provincetown International Film Festival takes place June 19 - 23.

Narrative Features
AFTERNOON DELIGHT, directed by Jill Soloway (USA, 2013)
AIN’T THEM BODIES SAINTS, directed by David Lowery (USA, 2013)
THE BEAUTY AND THE PAPARAZZO, Portuguese Spotlight, directed by António-Pedro Vasconcelos (Portugal, 2010)
BLUEBIRD, directed by Lance Edmands (USA, 2013)
BY WAY OF HOME, directed by Isaak James (USA, 2013)
CONCUSSION, directed by Stacie Passon (USA, 2012)
CRYSTAL FAIRY, directed by Sebastian Silva (Chile, 2012)
THE DISCOVERERS, directed by Justin Schwarz (USA, 2012)
EMANUEL AND THE TRUTH ABOUT FISHES, Closing Night Selection, directed by Francesca Gregorini (USA, 2012)
FRUITVALE STATION, directed by Ryan Coogler (USA, 2013)
GEOGRAPHY CLUB, Youth & Diversity Selection, directed by Gary Entin (USA, 2012)
HANNAH ARENDT, directed by Margarethe von Trotta (Germany, 2012)
HAUTE CUISINE, directed by Christain Vincent (France, 2012)
THE HUNT, directed by Thomas Vinterberg (Denmark, 2012)
I’M SO EXCITED!, Saturday Night Spotlight, directed by Pedro Almodovar (Spain, 2013)
LAURENCE ANYWAYS, directed by Xavier Dolan (Canada, 2012)

LOVELACE, Opening Night Selection, directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman (USA, 2013)
OUT IN THE DARK, directed by Michael Mayer (Israel/USA, 2012)
PASSION, directed by Brian DePalma (USA, 2012)
PRINCE AVALANCHE, directed by David Gordon Green (USA, 2013)
REACHING FOR THE MOON, directed by Bruno Barreto (Brazil, 2013)
SOME VELVET MORNING, directed by Neil LeBute (USA, 2013)
THE SPECTACULAR NOW, directed by James Ponsoldt (USA, 2012)
THERESE, directed by Claude Miller (France, 2011)
THE VOLUNTEER, directed by Vicky Wight (USA, 2013)
THE WAY WAY BACK, directed by Nat Faxon & Jim Rash (USA, 2013)
WILL YOU STILL LOVE ME TOMORROW? directed by Arvin Chen (Taiwan, 2013)
THE ZIGZAG KID, directed by Vincent Bal (Netherlands/Belgium, 2012)

Documentary Features
ANDRE GREGORY: BEFORE AND AFTER DINNER, directed by Cindy Kleine (USA, 2013)
THE BATTLE OF AMFAR, directed by Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman (USA, 2013)
BLACKFISH, directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite (USA, 2013)
BUILT ON NARROW LAND, directed by Malachi Connolly (USA, 2013)
CASTING BY, directed by Tom Donahue (USA, 2012)
CONTINENTAL, directed by Malcolm Ingram (USA/Canada, 2012)
THE CRASH REEL, directed by Lucy Walker (USA, 2013)
CUTIE AND THE BOXER, directed by Zachary Heinzerling (USA, 2013)
GIDEON’S ARMY, directed by Dawn Porter (USA, 2013)
GOD LOVES UGANDA, directed by Roger Ross Williams (USA/Uganda, 2013)

GORE VIDAL: THE UNITED STATES OF AMNESIA, directed by Nicholas Wrathall (USA, 2013)
HARRY DEAN STANTON: PARTLY FICTION, directed by Sophie Huber (Switzerland, 2012)
I AM DIVINE, Friday Night Spotlight, directed by Jeffrey Schwarz (USA, 2012)
MOMS MABLEY: I GOT SOMETHINʼ TO TELL YOU, directed by Whoopi Goldberg (USA, 2013)
THE MOO MAN, directed by Andy Heathcote (UK, 2013)
PERSISTENCE OF VISION, directed by Kevin Schreck (USA, 2012)
THE PUNK SINGER, directed by Sini Anderson (US, 2013)
RUNNING FROM CRAZY, directed by Barbara Kopple (USA, 2012)
A SELF-MADE MAN, Youth & Diversity Selection, directed by Lori Petchers (USA, 2013)
SHORED UP, directed by Ben Kalina (USA, 2013)
TWENTY FEET FROM STARDOM, directed by Morgan Neville (USA, 2013)
VALENTINE ROAD, Youth & Diversity Selection, directed by Marta Cunningham (USA, 2013)

The Cannes Film Festival, the most important event of its kind in the world, will kick off Wednesday in the South of France.

Cinephiles set their clocks by Cannes because it introduces audiences to the meatiest movies of the year. These are the films that international critics, film programmers and industry executives will be talking about for the next few months and many of these movies are likely to land on festival rosters and then in theaters later this year and into the next. As an aside, I can't help but wonder which will make their way into the lineup for the 51st New York Film Festival, curated by a committee of my colleagues at the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

It all begins in Cannes.

Yet, for Americans making the trip to the Cote d'Azur, this year's Opening Night is rather anticlimactic. The 66th edition of the festival gets underway with Baz Lurmann's The Great Gatsby, which opened to mixed reviews in the USA over the weekend. It's a rare Cannes opener that has already debuted Stateside. In recent years, Cannes opening night selections—Up (2009), Midnight in Paris (2011) and Moonrise Kingdom (2012)—not only had their World Premieres here, but also went on to receive Oscar nominations. Critics seem skeptical that Gatsby will find similar success. Of course, time will tell.

In recent weeks, since the announcement of the lineup, and then over the weekend in Paris, insiders have been buzzing about this year's roster even as some sampled early screenings of Cannes Film Festival entries. I've chatted with lots of folks about the films they are seeing and hearing about from their colleagues.

Naturally, the thrill of Cannes is discovery. Finding the film that no one was even looking for is what makes the experience special. Before we start down that road, here's a subjective list of movies that have risen to the top of my list based purely on pre-fest buzz. They are listed below in the order of their debut date here at the festival.

Emma Watson in Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring

Thursday, May 16

The Bling Ring, directed by Sofia Coppola
Sofia Coppola was famously booed at this festival a few years ago for her twist on French history, Marie Antoinette, so naturally folks are wondering how she'll fare this year. No worries Coppola, there's a rich history of films that have been catcalled by the notoriously finicky Cannes audiences (in fact there's a whole Booed at Cannes series unspooling in Brooklyn this week). Buzz on The Bling Ring, Coppola's true story of teens on a crime spree in Los Angeles, is strong and the director will be at the Film Society for a free conversation about the film next month. The Bling Ring opens the Un Certain Regard section of the festival this week and will hit U.S. theaters this summer. Can't wait.

Heli, directed by Amat Escalante
Last year Mexican auteur Carlos Reygadas stirred Cannes with his latest, Post Tenebras Lux. This year, one of his collaborators will be at the festival with a film that insiders tell me could be just as divisive. Early word is that the Mexican entry, set amidst the regional violence in Escalante's home country, will shake up festival attendees. It's playing in the very first competition slot tomorrow night as The Great Gastby unspools in the adjacent theater, so watch Twitter to get the early word on the movie.

Friday, May 17

Le Passe (The Past), directed by Asghar Farhadi
In Paris over the weekend, where Le Passe (The Past) opens concurrent with the Cannes festival, a French film insider told me that this one is an early front-runner for the Palme d'Or. The film, starring Bérénice Bejo (The Artist) and Tahar Rahim (A Prophet), seals Farhadi as a major director, the industry executive praised.

Joel and Ethan Coen's Inside Llewelyn Davis

Saturday, May 18

Blue Ruin, directed by by Jeremy Saulnier
This new American indie entry has buyers buzzing because it's one of the few U.S. films arriving at the festival on the market (that is, available for acquisition). Saulnier's second feature, the story of familial revenge, is being praised as a discovery by Directors' Fortnight brass, where it will debut this weekend.

Sunday, May 19

Borgman, directed by Alex Van Warmerdam
A Dutch film hasn't competed for the Palme d'Or in nearly 40 years. That fact alone is creating palpable anticipation for this entry that Dutch film insiders are calling a "dark, malevolent fable." Observers in Paris this weekend said that this is a film to pay attention to.

Inside Llewyn Davis, directed by Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
The new film from the Coen Brothers, situated within the New York City and Chicago music scenes, arrives in Cannes with strong buzz from a select group of folks who've seen it. The last time the Coens were here in 2007 with No Country For Old Men, this festival launched it into an orbit that lead it to a Best Picture Oscar. Hopes are high.

Michael Douglas and Matt Damon in Steven Soderbergh's Behind the Candelabra

Monday, May 20

Seduced and Abandoned, directed by James Toback
Filmed in Cannes last year, Toback's doc collaboration with Alec Baldwin is described as "a cinematic exploration of several interconnected subjects: The Cannes Film Festival and cinema art, money, glamor and death." This curious entry apparently features Bertolucci, Coppola, Polanski, Scorsese, Gosling, Chastain and more.  Toback and Baldwin even had their cameras inside the Film Society's Walter Reade Theater Reade Theater last year. Did we make the cut?

Tuesday, May 21

Behind The Candelabra, directed by Steven Soderbergh
After stirring audiences at Sundance in January of 1989 with the debut of his first feature, Sex, Lies and Videotape, Steven Soderbergh was introduced to cinema's world stage in Cannes a few months later (where the film won the Palme d'Or). This year he's back with his farewell to the movies, a film that some are calling "the gayest movie ever to play in Cannes." Insiders tell me that Behind The Candelabra, an HBO film about Liberace and his lover, features bold, revealing performances by Michael Douglas, Matt Damon and Rob Lowe that will have audiences talking.

Les Salauds, directed by Claire Denis
Of course it's unfair to expect Claire Denis to bear the burden of the dearth of women in competition in Cannes. But, when the lineup for this year's festival was unveiled last month, many observers wondered aloud why this master of French cinema would screen her film in the festival's Un Certain Regard sidebar section rather than in the festival's main competition. Grousing continued this weekend in Paris. Countering the criticis, festival head Thierry Fremaux told Hollywood Reporter last week: "As a citizen, me as a private person, it is a fight for equality which I think is very important in society. But for Cannes, it's different. We select films; we don't select people. We have one woman; we had none last year; we had four the year before. It's a reflection for sure that female directors are few, and too few, unfortunately."

Jean-Luc Godard, Peter Greenaway and Edgar Pêra's 3X3D

Thursday, May 23

3X3D by Jean-Luc Godard, Peter Greenaway and Edgar Pêra
Godard + Greenaway. Together at last? How can you resist the chance to see what the master of the French New Wave will do with 3D for a film, apparently about the creative process, that explores the question: "How does 3D affect the audience and its perception of images?"

Friday, May 24

The Immigrant, directed by James Gray
James Gray is back with his fifth feature, the story of a Polish woman making her way to America in the early 1920s. Buzz from a pre-fest Paris screening is strong for this new film, starring Marion Cotillard, Joaquin Phoenix and Jeremy Renner.

Michael Kohlhass, directed by Arnaud des Pallières
Screening near the very end of the festival, Arnaud des Pallières' film about a 16th century horse merchant is generating strong buzz on the eve of the festival. An insider told me not to miss it.

Eugene Hernandez, the Director of Digital Strategy at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, is covering Cannes daily in France. For the latest, follow him on Twitter at: @eug.

Sean Penn Takes Cannes Spotlight with Haiti Untold Documentary
Haiti Untold is a new documentary which takes a look at the rebuilding effort taking place in the impoverished Caribbean island in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake that killed thousands in 2010. The feature concentrates on NGOs working to rebuild Haiti including J/P Haitian Relief Organization, the group set up by Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn, THR reports.

San Francisco International Film Festival Wraps 56th Edition
SFIFF featured 158 films from 51 countries with over 210 filmmakers attending over its 15 day run. Among its guests this year were Steven Soderbergh, Harrison Ford, Richard Linklater, Philip Kaufman, Julie Delpy, William Friedkin, David Gordon Green, Noah Baumbach, Greta Gerwig, Sarah Polley, Michael Cera and Kate Bosworth. Belmin Sölyemez's Present Tense (Turkey) won the festival's New Directors Prize, while its FIPRESCI award went to Sébastian Betbeder's Nights with Theodore. Kalyanee Mam's A River Changes Course won Best Documentary, while the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature went to Régis Roinsard's Populaire. Morgan Neville's Twenty Feet From Stardom received the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Where Have All the Women Gone in Movies?
There have been recent success in women-lead movies such as Bridesmaids, Hunger Games and Twilight, but female representation in popular movies is at its lowest level in five years, according to a study by USC's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Among the 100 highest-grossing movies at the U.S. box office last year, only 28.4% of speaking characters were women, a drop from 32.8% three years ago, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Cannes Doc Heads to HBO
The Cannes Film Festival is giving the premium cable network its spotlight, including Steven Soderbergh's Behind the Candelabra in its Official Selection. And HBO has now picked up rights in the U.S. and Canada to James Toback's feature documentary Seduced and Abandoned, which is making its world premiere as a Special Screening in the Cannes Official Selection. Told by Alec Baldwin and Toback, the film is described as a "cinematic exploration of several interconnected subjects: The Cannes Film Festival and cinema art, money, glamor and death." Shot during the 65th Anniversary Festival in 2012, it features fascinating and original portraits of Bernardo Bertolucci, Francis Ford Coppola, Roman Polanski, Martin Scorsese, Ryan Gosling, Jessica Chastain, Berenice Bejo, Diane Kruger and James Caan.

10 Docs Chosen for Independent Filmmaker Labs
The key creative teams of the selected films, chosen from 200 nationwide, will participate in three week-long sessions over the course of 2013 with the first—the Time Warner Foundation Documentary Completion Lab—taking place May 13-17 in New York City. The ten include Approaching the Elephant by Jay Craven, Bringing Tibet Home by Tenzin Tsetan Choklay, Do I Sound Gay? by David Thorpe, Evolution of a Criminal by Darius Clark Monroe, Farmer Veteran by D.L. Anderson, In Country by Megan O'Hara and Mike Attie, Kasamayaki (Made in Kasama) by Yuki Kokubo, The Life and Mind of Mark DeFriest by Gabriel London, Mateo by AaronNaar and Roots and Webs by Sara Dosa. Recent fellows headed for theatrical distribution include SXSW's 12 O'Clock Boys, These Birds Walk and New Directors/New Films' Our Nixon.

Cambodian Filmmaker Rithy Panh to Compile IDFA Top 10
Rithy Panh came to international prominence in 2003 with his documentary S21, The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine, for which he filmed the testimony of former inmates and guards of a Khmer Rouge punishment camp, and his latest, l’Image Manquante, will screen in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival, which begins this week. Rithy Panh will be a guest of the festival during IDFA 2013, where he will talk about his work and his Top 10 in a masterclass. The 26th IDFA will run from November 20 to December 1 in Amsterdam.

Film Society of Lincoln Center is thrilled to partner with the New York Asian Film Festival and the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office to present The Jackie Chan Experience. This exciting, one of a kind event features a conversation with Chan about his career followed by a screening of his 101st film, the massive blockbuster Chinese Zodiac, on June 10. In addition, we'll be paying tribute to this daring master of comedy and dazzling stunt-filled Kung Fu with a retrospective of 13 of his films from June 23 - 27. Find out more about them below:

In Armour of God (Jackie Chan, 1986). Chan plays a pop star turned treasure hunter who tries to rescue an old friend’s girlfriend from psychotic monks. Chan also took a life-threatening fall while performing a stunt that halted production for months and required emergency surgery. To this day, he still bears the hole in his head. The sequel, Armour of God 2: Operation Condor (Jackie Chan, 1991), went way over budget and over schedule as Chan hopped around the globe trying to top himself, which he does.

Chan resurrects his character from the Armour of God franchise in Chinese Zodiac (Jackie Chan, 2012) and delivers an action spectacle that has broken box-office records in China. This movie contains manic action scenes, hidden islands, and pirate gangs. Reported to be his final “large-scale action picture,” this is Chan’s farewell to the blockbuster movies that made him famous.

In City Hunter (Wong Jing, 1993) Chan finds himself onboard a luxury cruise liner that becomes the target of terrorists. With outrageous set-pieces, a deadly card game, and a movie-theater brawl that has Chan imitating the moves of an on-screen Bruce Lee, City Hunter is packed with insane action and ridiculous comedy that you won’t want to miss.

Drunken Master 2 (Lau Kar-leung & Jackie Chan, 1994). Photo: Golden Harvest/Paragon/The Kobal Collection/Robert Lam

Drunken Master 2 (Lau Kar-leung & Jackie Chan, 1994) was filmed at the peak of Chan’s prime and many claim this to be the greatest martial arts film ever made. Chan shares the screen with Ti Lung and Anita Mui, who steals the show as his motor-mouthed stepmother. Lush, opulent, and made with no consideration for budget or schedule, it took three months just to shoot the final action scene.

Chan finally proves he’s not just an action star in Little Big Soldier (Ding Sheng, 2010). Set in ancient China, it centers on a farmer (Chan) who’s drafted into the army and winds up accidentally capturing the enemy general. If he can get his unwilling captive back home he’ll earn his freedom. It’s a heartbreaking and hilarious escapade, and Chan’s camera-ready charisma has never been put to better use.

1920s gangster fantasia Miracles (also known as Mr. Canton & Lady Rose; Jackie Chan, 1989) is the movie Chan is most proud of directing. He plays a country bumpkin who inherits the top crime king position from a dying mafia boss in this remake of Frank Capra’s Lady for a Day. 

Police Story (Jackie Chan, 1985). Photo: Golden Harvest/Paragon/The Kobal Collection 

Police Story (Jackie Chan, 1985) is Chan's first contemporary cop thriller, where he plays a hot-tempered inspector framed for murder by a drug lord. This is a breathless adrenaline rush, and contains what might be a record-high amount of broken glass per minute. In Police Story 2 (Jackie Chan, 1988), Chan begins the film demoted to traffic duty after his mall-destroying misadventures in part one. The spectacular stunts and killer set-pieces are still there, including a climactic duel with a deaf-mute bomber set in a fireworks-laced warehouse. In Police Story 3: Supercop (Stanley Tong, 1992), Chan goes undercover with a dangerous drug lord—a set-up that finds him breaking a henchman out of prison, posing with an invented family, and finally dangling from a moving helicopter. The film was released in the US in a dubbed, recut version featuring a theme song by the seminal New Wave rock band Devo.

Project A (Jackie Chan, 1983) is a cops-versus-pirates action movie that transformed Chan from a martial arts star into a director of transcendent physical comedy. One of the first action movies to be set in colonial Hong Kong, Project A is the first of Jackie’s films to contain outrageous stunts, including a jaw-dropping bicycle chase and a 50-foot fall from a clock tower that was so terrifying it took Jackie three days to work up the courage to attempt it.  In Project A 2 (Jackie Chan, 1987), Chan keeps four separate subplots whirling while leaving time for intense action and groundbreaking stunts.

Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow (Yuen Wo-ping, 1978) is where it all began. The film became Jackie’s first box-office hit, and the first movie to introduce the world to his innovative brand of action-comedy.

Jackie’s directorial debut The Young Master (Jackie Chan, 1980) was the ideal showcase for his martial arts prowess. Opening on a high-stakes lion dance competition and closing on a ferocious showdown, The Young Master features Chan exploring the thin line between Kung Fu as performance and as life-or-death combat.

An Evening with Jackie Chan takes place on June 10 at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. The Jackie Chan Experience retrospective screens June 23 - 27. Tickets are now on sale to both events.

What's better than a cool summer breeze? How about a bunch of film windbags sharing stories about some of the most exciting independent movies set to be released in the coming months!

As an extension of our NYFF Live events during the 50th New York Film Festival, Film Society is thrilled to announce a series of free Summer Talks in the Film Center Amphitheater featuring some of the most exciting filmmakers and actors working today. It all kicks off next Thursday, May 16 at 8:00pm with a conversation with the trio behind the highly anticipated Before Midnight, director Richard Linklater and stars/co-writers Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke, moderated by Film Comment contributor Phillip Lopate.

In June, Sofia Coppola will be on hand to discuss her new film The Bling Ring, based on a tabloid tizzy of a true story about a group of teenagers whose obsession with celebrity and fashion leads them to rob the houses of some of Hollywood's most famous starlets. Later in the month, Jem Cohen will show one of his short films and talk about how he came to make Locarno favorite Museum Hours.

Ryan Coogler's Fruitvale Station was among the most buzzed-about movies at this year's Sundance Film Festival, where it won both the Grand Jury and Audience Award. In July, Coogler will share with Film Society audiences what lead him to become a filmmaker and why he decided to tell the story of Oscar Grant, a young Oakland man who was victim to excessive police violence, in his debut feature.

Though they don't have confirmed dates yet, we're also excited to announce three additional free talks coming up later this summer at Film Society: Joe Swanberg on Drinking Buddies, Sebastián Silva on Crystal Fairy, and David Lowery on Ain't Them Bodies Saints.

These Summer Talks are free and open to the public. Tickets will be available to the general public at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center box office beginning one hour before the start of the event, on a space available basis.

Film Society of Lincoln Center is honored to announce the lineup for the 24th Human Rights Watch Film Festival, which will run June 13 – 23. HRWFF will bring 20 eye-opening films, including 15 New York Premieres, to Film Society and the IFC Center and, as always, most will be bolstered by fascinating Q&As and panel discussions.

Before the traditional Opening Night festivities, a special Benefit Night fundraiser for the Human Rights Watch organization will kick off the festival. The evening will honor Tim Hetherington, the Restrepo co-director, photojournalist and filmmaker who was killed covering the Libyan civil war in 2011. The Benefit Night features a screening of Which Way Is the Front Line From Here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington, directed by Hetherington's close friend Sebastian Junger.

On June 14, Opening Night begins with Oscar-winning filmmaker Freida Mock’s Anita, about Anita Hill and her testimony against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas for sexual harrassment. Mock won an Oscar for Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision (1994), and continues to unveil injustices against women through her work. Closing Night on June 23 features Jeremy Teicher’s award-winning drama Tall As the Baobab Tree, about two young sisters scheming to rescue the youngest from an arranged marriage in Senegal.

Anita Hill in Freida Mock’s Anita.

Through 18 documentaries and two narrative features, HRWFF shows us the lives of those on the margins and the injustices suffered by millions around the world. Each year, HRWFF focuses on specific themes to focus audiences' attention. This year's themes are: traditional values and human rights (women’s rights, disability rights, LGBT rights), crises and migration, Asia, and U.S. human rights.

"One of the most rewarding aspects of programming this festival is that it always reveals thought-provoking and often surprising themes distilled from the past year’s human rights films," said festival director John Biaggi. "The most striking theme this year, which is reflected in 11 films in the festival, is the tension between traditional values and human rights—from issues women face, including sexual harassment, gender equality and child marriage, to dangers faced by the LGBT community, to injustices faced by the disabled. At the core of each of these films—and of all the films in this year’s festival—is the inspiring strength of individuals standing up for themselves, their rights and their communities."

Karima Zoubir’s Camera/Woman.

Traditional Values and Human Rights:

In addition to Anita and Tall As the Baobab Tree, women’s rights issues can be seen in Kim Longinotto’s Salma, the story of a South Indian Muslim woman who was held in confinement for 25 years and became the most famous female poet in the Tamil language. Rafea: Solar Mama, directed by Jehane Noujaim and Mona Eldaief, profiles a Jordanian Bedouin woman fighting for her right to education. The life of a wedding filmmaker in Morocco comes to life in Karima Zoubir’s Camera/Woman. Sundance and SXSW alum Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer, directed by Mike Lerner and Maxim Pozdorovkin, focuses on the news-making imprisonment of the titular Russian all-female punk band/activist group.

Three films stand out addressing Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Rights: Shaun Kadlec and Deb Tullmann’s Born This Way, focusing on four gay and lesbian young people in Cameroon; Yoruba Richen’s The New Black, exploring the controversial histories of African-American and LGBT civil rights; and Srdjan Dragojevic’s dark comedy The Parade, about activists' attempts to pull-off a gay pride parade in Belgrade.

Harry Freeland’s In the Shadow of the Sun rounds out the traditional values and human rights category with with its documentation of the lives of two albino men in Tanzania, who survive being killed at birth or banished as outcasts, but face fears and prejudices on a daily basis.

Raoul Peck's Fatal Assistance.

Crisis and Migration:

Director and Haiti’s former minister of culture, Raoul Peck’s Fatal Assistance is this year’s festival Centerpiece film, focusing on Haiti after the 2010 earthquake and the unsolvable human rights assistance that continues to negatively affect the country. Also in this section are Nagieb Khaja’s My Afghanistan—Life in the Forbidden Zone, about Afghans in war-torn areas, and Marco Williams’ The Undocumented, about Mexican migrants crossing Arizona’s Sonora Desert to "freedom."

Asia:

Although seemingly broad in its focus on the continent of Asia, these HRWFF docs hit hot spots of injustice. Coming back to the Film Society after its New York Premiere at New Directors/New Films, Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing can do no wrong... well, at least for viewers held in awe of the joy the unrepentant members of Indonesia’s death squads get out of reenacting some of their most horrendous crimes. The second Asian film, Camp 14—Total Control Zone, from German director Marc Wiese, chronicles the life and time of Shin Dong-Huyk, who spent two years in a North Korean labor camp.

United States:

Lastly, the theme of human rights in the United States hits close to home, specifically for New Yorkers in 99%—The Occupy Wall Street Collaborative Film, about what exactly happened in the 2011 movement and where it’s going. Al Reinert’s An Unreal Dream: The Michael Morton Story tells the tragically common story of a man who was wrongfully convicted of murder and served out 25 years of his sentence before being exonerated. And don’t miss Lisa Biagiotti’s deepsouth, documenting the rise of HIV in rural southern states.

Dowry: Child and Forced Marriage in South Sudan. Photo: Brent Stirton

As always, the festival will also present a photo exhibit in the Furman Gallery of the Walter Reade Theater. This years show is Dowry: Child and Forced Marriage in South Sudan, featuring powerful images of child brides by Getty photographer Brent Stirton. The exhibit is free and open to the public throughout the festival.

For more information on the 24th Human Rights Watch Film Festival check out the festival program (PDF).

The writers and stars of director Ben Wheatley's British genre-bending road trip romp Sightseers tossed out the rule book when it comes to horror and laugh out loud fun. Veterans of television and the comedy circuit, in particular, in Great Britain, Alice Lowe and Steve Oram wrote their own script for the Sundance debut film, in which they play a seemingly quiet couple who embark on a journey through the British countryside in their Abbey Oxford Caravan. Lowe plays Tina, a sheltered woman who looks to Chris (Oram) to show her life outside of her prism. The rolling countryside and visits to kitschy roadside distractions mask a brewing underbelly of violence and class warfare as the couple merrily moves from camp to camp, wreaking havoc along the way.

Lowe and Oram tailored their unconventional road show out of the comedy circuit they know so well. Initially envisioned as a television project, the pair turned to the big screen when TV powers-that-be at home balked at their script and short film version of the story. Lowe spoke with FilmLinc Daily about her journey to the big screen and why she found the medium liberating, why script writing is helpful for acting, and taking on the director's chair down the road.

FilmLinc Daily: Sightseers crosses genre in that it's both laugh-out-loud funny at times and yet throws some unexpected turns when this seemingly unassuming couple take a dark turn on their road trip through the Lake District and other areas of England. Did you want to bend the genre rules or how did all this come together?

Alice Lowe: Steve and I met on the comedy circuit in London, which is quite a small world. We started doing a character set, in which we're a couple. We realized that we're both from the Midlands. The south here has a strong identity; if you're from Manchester, it has a strong identity, but in Birmingham there isn't this [sense] of being a cultural center or whatever. So we were talking about growing up and identity and having a lack of direction in a way. We wanted to capture that in film. 

FD: Did you consider the idea of de-emphasizing the comedy aspect and just going for the full jugular thriller story?

AL: I don't think that either of us could really carry that as actors. And what really amused us is that the road movie genre is really an American one and the killings are American as well. We're not 21 and we're not action heroes. The joke for us is that we're not glamorous. That's the initial joke really. It's a road movie with a pair on a killing spree, but with some [trappings] that are very typically British. For us, I think, we have a background in comedy, but both of us have always wanted to do film, which is a Holy Grail that you're never sure if it's something you'll get to do.

We wanted to do a comedy that has a commercial element, but then we'd just sneak in tragic aspects and classical aspects to the story. We wanted aspects of melodrama. Mike Leigh is someone who is always ingrained in your influences when you're British. We figured, though, if we could get away with there being a serious element to the film we'd be very happy. And the film makes you think as well. And we thought: "Why can't a comedy be beautiful and cinematic?"

FD: You come from a heavy television background. Had you considered doing Sighteers for television?

AL: Initially it was a television idea. When you're a comedian, it's your natural call to do television, and we made this short film and we were sending it out to channels. They were all saying it's really funny, but it's so dark and they were not going there. One thing about television in Britain is that they're so scared about complaints. It curbs a lot of drama. It's really weird how safe TV is in Britain at the moment. We were looking at all these American dramas like Dexter and others which have elements of dark comedy and we were thinking: "Well why can't we make something like this? What's the problem?" But then Edgar [Wright] saw the short film and he said that he'd executive produce it. So suddenly we felt liberated.

Sightseers writers Alice Lowe and Steve Oram in a scene from the film, directed by Ben Wheatley.

FD: It's interesting that there are shows like Dexter created on this side of the Atlantic and there are a lot of indie filmmakers who have segued to television—or at least "premium television"—and it seems to be the en vogue space to be in at the moment. And the big screen is seen by some filmmakers as being limiting. Steven Soderbergh is the prime example of that at the moment, having announced his retirement and pursuing projects for HBO including his next feature, Behind the Candelabra.

AL: I think independent film is about the individual voice and the independent vision and that's really what you're selling. The rules of "having to have [a certain] kind of ending" or worrying about whether it tests badly, etc., is really an alien world to me. In Britain, it just seems that we have realized that we have the talent here and the equipment has now become so cheap. I'm surprised that it's taken this long to make the leap, but now people realize: "Let's just do it." TV here has narrowed lately. But American and Danish TV have been much more exciting… It's weird that we generate so much successful television comedy here in the U.K., but we don't trust comedians to generate successful films, but maybe that will change.

FD: Had you both considered directing the film yourselves or at least one of you?

AL: No, I think you need someone outside yourself to tell you about your performances, while at the same time you can experiment and act like kids really. That's part of the brilliant platform Ben [Wheatley] gives you really. He wants to see something very naturalistic and we had great fun doing it.

FD: Do you think about directing?

AL: Well, I'm actually directing my next film. The reason I feel like I am able to do that is because it's one main character. I think it's harder when there are two main characters. Sightseers is a bit of interplay and a power struggle, but if one [inherently] has more power, then it wouldn't have worked. Just think if someone [directing] turned around and said: "I think I'm really going to focus on me in this scene…" It wouldn't have worked. But I think directing is something I'm interested in.

FD: Writing is something you've done extensively, especially for television but also shorts. Is that something you're going to continue to do?

AL: Definitely. It gives me a lot of confidence in having been involved with the creation of the film because it does have a lot to do with the script and that helps in the rehearsal room. I have confidence in how visual it needs to be. But in TV, it's very much more concentrated on dialog. In film, you're painting a canvas. I got really excited about that.

FD: Are you also starring in the film you're directing now and is it a comedy?

AL: It is a comedy, yes, but it's very dark. In that sense it's a continuation of those themes [in Sightseers].

FD: Do you want to exclusively stick with comedy going down the road?

AL: I would like to explore other genres really. I love doing comedy and that's the thing I will always go back to really, but I'd love to have the freedom to do sort of "meaty" roles, but also have the freedom to do the sort of films I want to make, like what Woody Allen does. You forget he's funny because you're so gripped by the story, but they still make you laugh.

Sightseers screened at Film Society in February as part of Film Comment Selects 2013. It opens Friday, May 10 in New York and Los Angeles.

BAMCinemaFest 2013 Lineup
The Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) revealed the full lineup for the fifth edition of their popular BAMCinemaFest on Wednesday, which includes 22 New York Premieres and one World Premiere. The roster draws heavily on Sundance and SXSW alums, including Opening Night film Ain't Them Bodies Saints by David Lowery, which played both festivals and will open at Film Society on August 16, and Closing Night film Short Term 12, which won the SXSW Grand Jury prize. Other standout titles include Martha Shane & Lana Wilson's late-term abortion doc After Tiller, Kyle Patrick Alvarez's David Sedaris adaptation C.O.G., Andrew Bujalski's dry 80s comedy Computer Chess, an outdoor screening with Rooftop Films of Joe Swanberg's Drinking Buddies, Jem Cohen's Vienna-set drama Museum Hours, James Ponsoldt's coming of age dramedy The Spectacular Now, and Chad Hartigan's Sundance Best of NEXT award winner This Is Martin Bonner. BAMCinemaFest runs June 19 - 28. Full lineup available here.

Bernardo Bertolucci to Head Jury at 70th Venice Film Festival
Two-time Oscar winner Bernardo Bertolucci (The Last Emperor) will preside over the jury at the 70th Venice Film Festival later this summer. He filled the same role 30 years ago, but has hardly been seen in the last decade as health problems confined him to to his Rome home. Last year at Cannes, Bertolucci premiered the first film he had directed in nearly 10 years, Me and You, marking a long-awaited return to the public eye. The Venice Film Festival will take place August 28 - September 7. The Los Angeles Times reports.

YouTube Launches Paid Subscription Services Starting at $0.99
YouTube officially announced today that it will launch a pilot program that offers more than 20 paid subscription channels with fees starting at $0.99 per month and averaging $2.99 a month. Roger Corman’s B-movies (such as Death Race 2000 and Piranha) will be available on rotation on "Corman’s Drive-in" for $3.99 a month, and Gravitas Movies and Magnet Releasing films will also have channels. The channels will be available on computers, mobile devices and TV. YouTube’s revenue will amount to slightly less than half generated by the subscriptions. For a full list of the paid subscription channels, head to Indiewire.

L.E.S. Film Fest will open with How to Follow Strangers
The 3rd Lower East Side Film Festival announced it will open the festival with How to Follow Strangers, directed by Choike Nassor. Nassor’s first full-length feature is based on a true story about a woman’s decomposing body found in an apartment long after her death, wearing a Chanel suit. The L.E.S. Film Festival runs June 13-23 at the Landmark Sunshine Cinema and features Judah Friedlander, Academy Award nominee Dan Janvey, Emmy winner Jerry Kupfer, writer and director Rebecca Miller and Bladimiar Norman of The Weinstein Company as judges. The full festival lineup will be announced May 15.

San Francisco International Film Festival winners announced
The 56th San Francisco International Film Festival wrapped up today, with the winners of Golden Gate Awards, the New Director's Prize, and the FIPRESCI Prize announced last night. Below are feature winners. Head to Indiewire for a full list of winners.

Golden Gate Award Documentary Feature Winners:
Documentary Feature: A River Changes Course, Kalyanee Mam | Cambodia/USA | 2012 (Cambodian Cinema ’13)
Bay Area Documentary Feature: The Kill Team, Dan Krauss | USA | 2012
New Directors Prize: Present Tense, Belmin Solyemez | Turkey | 2012
FIPRESCI Prize: Nights with Theodore, Sébastian Betbeder | France | 2012 (Film Comment Selects '13) 

Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby will have already had its regular theatrical release Stateside by the time it has what is sure to be a glitzy red carpet premiere later next week at the Opening Night of the 66th Cannes Film Festival. Quite frankly, the 2 hour and 21 minute feature is made to open Cannes. It also happens to be Luhrmann's second Cannes opener this century after Moulin Rouge launched the 2001 festival.

Void of some of the over the top fantasy elements that characterized that film, The Great Gatsby is nevertheless a spectacle and Luhrmann certainly leaves his characteristic stamp on the classic American story by F. Scott Fitgerald, starring Leonardo DiCaprio in the role of Jay Gatsby and Tobey Maguire as budding writer/narrator Nick Carraway. In this version, Maguire's Carraway recalls his encounter with the hedonistic 20s in Gatsby's Long Island from a sanitarium where he therapeutically writes his recollections about the mysterious party-giving multimillionaire.

Like Moulin Rouge, The Great Gatsby will no doubt divide audiences and will likely irk adherents to Roaring 20s orthodoxy.

At a recent reception at the New York Public Library, hosted by Peggy Siegal, an attendee who introduced Baz Luhrmann noted that virtually every person educated in America had read the book that spawned the Australian filmmaker's feature. While the story occupies an indelible place in the American psyche, it was actually in a very unlikely place that Luhrmann became engrossed in the novel and planned to make the story his next feature project.

"After Moulin Rouge, I took a trip on the Trans-Siberian railway," said Luhrmann. "Boarding the train wasn't quite the Dostoevsky moment I expected. But to [pass the time] I had two recorded books with me, and one was The Great Gatsby, as well as [a lot] of Australian wine… I realized I didn't know the book at all. It spoke so directly. It was us. It was now. It's a very internal book."

DiCaprio's Gatsby lords over a Long Island castle that sits across the bay from Carraway's cousin, Daisy (Carey Mulligan), who is married to the philandering blue-blooded Tom Buchanan (Joel Edgerton). Gatsby throws frequent booze-soaked bacchanalias in hopes that, one day, Daisy will attend. Upon learning that he is Daisy's cousin, Gatsby solicits help from Carraway, who has moved in next door in a beachside bungalow.

A scene from Baz Luhrmann's Cannes opener, The Great Gatsby.

"Jay-Z was one of the first people to see a rough cut of the film," Luhrmann recalled. "Jay-Z said, 'Wow, that's beautiful. But it's aspirational, not about how he made his money. Do they have a moral compass? Do they have a purpose? He uses the parties, the Charleston and everything else to bring everyone into his sticky fly trap, but he wants only one butterfly.'"

Shawn 'Jay Z' Carter, who also served as executive producer on the film, provided much of the modern music for the feature. The Great Gatsby is also peppered with jazz and other period 20s tunes, but Luhrmann was determined to be unorthodox to the music of the decade, which was fueled by a roaring Wall Street, a loosening of morals, and at least for some, a fast-paced quest for the decadent. If distributor Warner Bros. has any intention to re-create the party scenes in the movie at Cannes, that will likely be among the most sought after invitations in years.

"Fitzgerald, in my view, wasn't nostalgic," said Luhrmann. "He took jazz and pop of the time and put it into his text. It was 'the now' that he was trying to express and I want the audience to today to have a similar feeling when they see the film." Fans of the Roaring '20s should not be disappointed by the flapper fashions, lingo and music of the era, but 21st century elements are never too far away.

"Baz wanted a New York that is visceral, modern and sexy, not quaint and nostalgic," noted Maguire. Added Luhrmann, "Fitgerald was focused on new things. He loved technology and he loved film. In my estimation, he put cinematic elements into his writing. And I am channeling myself into Fitzgerald."

The Great Gatsby, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan, Isla Fisher and Joel Edgerton, opens Friday in the U.S. and will kick off the 66th Festival de Cannes on May 15.

FilmLinc will be in Cannes reporting from the festival daily beginning late next week.

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