Posts Tagged ‘Foreign’
Posted by dominie in Films, News on October 22nd, 2008
Paramount Vantage has acquired the English-language remake for Géla Babluani’s French thriller, 13 Tzameti, to be written and directed by himself, for international sales. According to The Hollywood Reporter, 50 Cent, Mickey Rourke, and Jason Statham will join Sam Riley in the remake which starts shoot next month in New York City.
The original film won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize award in 2006. The tale follows “a naïve young man [who] assumes a dead man’s identity and finds himself embroiled in an underground world of power, violence, and chance where men gamble behind closed doors on the lives of other men.”
Also to begin filming in November is Relativity Media’s Season of the Witch starring Nicholas Cage. Principle photography will commence in Austria and Hungary. Variety reports that Stephen Campbell Moore (The Children), Claire Foy, and Robbie Sheehan have been cast alongside Cage.
As announced previously, Dominic Sena will direct the screenplay by Bragi Schut Jr. that “chronicles the journey of 14th century knights transporting a girl suspected of being the witch responsible for spreading the Black Plague.
Posted by dominie in Events, Films, News on October 2nd, 2008
I can’t stop raving about how great this little Swedish vampire film is. Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In (review) debuts in New York and Los Angeles Friday, October 24. The US trailer is now available in high definition on IGN and you can visit the official website for all everything you want to know about the upcoming release.
Let the Right One In is the inaugural film in Magnet Releasing’s Six Shooter Film Series that will feature theatrical releases of six films from the vanguard of quality worldwide genre cinema. Alfredson’s Let the Right One In has been named winner of such film festival honors as Best Narrative Feature at the Tribeca Film Festival, Best Film and Best Cinematography at Göteborg, and Best Film, Best Director, Best Photography, Best European, North or South American Film at the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal.
Official Plot Synopsis:
A fragile, anxious boy, 12-year-old Oskar is regularly bullied by his stronger classmates but never strikes back. The lonely boy’s wish for a friend seems to come true when he meets Eli, also 12, who moves in next door to him.
But Eli’s arrival coincides with a series of gruesome deaths and attacks. Though Oskar realizes that she’s a vampire, his friendship with her is stronger than his fear…
Swedish filmmaker Tomas Alfredson weaves friendship, rejection and loyalty into a disturbing, darkly atmospheric, yet unexpectedly tender tableau of adolescence. The feature is based on the best-selling novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist, which the UK press qualified as “reminiscent of Stephen King at his best.”
Screening Dates and Locations:
10/24/2008
West Hollywood, CA: Sunset 5
New York, NY: Angelika Film Center
11/7/2008
San Diego, CA: Hillcrest Cinemas (more…)
Posted by dominie in Films, News on September 12th, 2008
Oldboy director Chan-Wook Park returns!! If you haven’t seen Oldboy you will regret not running to your nearest video store now to rent the psycho mystery thriller. Oldboy comes alive in Park’s wholly original story about a man who is locked up in a cell for 15 years and then suddenly released only to find himself still trapped in a web of conspiracies.
This morning Variety received news that Universal Pictures and Focus Features sealed a deal Thursday to jump on board as co-producers to director Chan-Wook Park’s new vampire film Thirst. The film is currently in production under Korean major CJ Entertainment who’s been the film’s sole financier up until now. This collaboration marks the first time a Korean film has ever received US studio coin and a US distribution deal (through Focus) before its local release. Local sales in South Korea along with international sales rights will remain the responsibility of CJ Entertainment.
Thirst will star Song Kang-ho (Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, The Host, The Good the Bad and the Weird) and Shin Ha-kyun (Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance), with Kim Ok-bi (Dasepo Naughty Girls) as leading lady in a story about a well respected priest Sang-hyun, who falls in love with his childhood friend’s wife and who, after a failed medical experiment is turned into a vampire. The priest’s faith can only hold for so long as his humanity withers away in this unique thriller and horror impassioned by an illicit love story.
With Focus Features to distribute, Thirst will likely be guaranteed a theatrical release! Sources say we can expect Thirst sometime in mid 2009!
Posted by dominie in Films, News on August 29th, 2008
IFC Films has quickly become today’s leading theatrical film distribution company since their launch in 2000. Bloody Disgusting has learned that IFC Films’ latest acquisition is Mark Tonderal’s (Dog Eat Dog) UK horror thriller titled Hush for US release. The film is about a cat and mouse chase involving a young couple and a truck driver staring William Ash, Robbie Gee, Andreas Wisniewski, Claire Keelan, Christine Bottomley, and Stuart McQuarrie. We’re still waiting on the official announcement and release date.
Posted by dominie in Films, Reviews on August 21st, 2008
We have been doing some rather extensive coverage on Magnet Releasing’s Let the Right One In over the past several months. The vampire tale has won numerous awards and accolades since its debut in Sweden last year. And its no wonder. The screenplay, based on an international best seller of the same title by Swedish author John Avjide Lindqvist, was written by Lindqvist himself, and directed by an acclaimed fellow countryman, Tomas Alfredson (Four Shades of Brown). Only lighted scripted, the film brings the audience’s focus to the character performances and production design, leaving the horror to our imagination. Read on to see what all the fuss is about.
LTROI is nothing like we have ever seen before. It is most definitely an organic rendition of all tales of the nosferatu that has come out of Hollywood. It ensues horror as a series of chilling murders are not reprimanded and evocative school scenes are marginalized as simply everyday terror. It is also incredibly heartwarming as we follow the development of a friendship between two twelve year old outcasts who ultimately become soulmates. And lets not forget to mention the CGI and special FX; there was just the right amount for the intended affect!
Oskar (Kare Hedebrant) is a lonely boy who lives with his un-present mom, longs for his alcoholic dad, and is the target of the stronger kids at school to bully. He becomes drawn to Eli (Lina Leandersson), a new resident to the suburban town who only appears at night, looks and smells strange, and is unaffected by the cold. She lives with an older man, Hakan (Per Ragnar), whom the locals assume is her father. As the story progresses, their relation becomes equivocal and not so simple—one of the many surprises the director has in store for us.
The film starts off in a slow, controlled pace that is easily forgivable since the audience becomes immediately absorbed in trying to decipher meaning from the opening scenes. Alfredson opts out of fangs and CGI vampires, and instead relies on the great performances from the cast to create the tone and build momentum for the unprecedented horror that will unravel. He makes a mockery of the insensibility and terror that humans inflict on each other in contrast to Hakan’s attempted sloppy murders, an indication that killing is not his sport. The result is extremely compelling; Alfredson humanizes the characters and offers a more relatable appeal. The tragic character of Eli is therefore so unforgettable that we can almost dismiss her crimes.
You don’t want to miss this. Let The Right One In has already received astounding reviews as a “future classic” and “one of the best films of the year—period.” It has received numerous awards including Best Narrative Feature at the Tribeca Film Festival, Best Director and Citizen’s Choice Award at the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival, and Critics Award at the NatFilm Festival. The film debuts October 24 in New York and Los Angeles.
Posted by dominie in Films, News on August 20th, 2008
First to put things in perspective, artists in France are very protected so that it allows for a more personal vision, especially in filmmaking, but France however, has never been a country particularly fond of the horror genre. The majority of French financers have always been against producing horror movies, leaving that arena for American filmmakers to gad in. So when the opportunity came through for writer-director Pascal Laugier’s Martyrs to be financed, he did not hesitate to truly explore the darkness that surrounds us.
The film is set in France in the early 1970’s when a girl, abducted over a year ago, resurfaces. The police discover that she had been confined in an old slaughterhouse, but she displays no signs of sexual abuse—there has to be a reason for her abduction and how could she have escaped?
Martyrs is filled with suspense, blood, and gore, but for Pascal Laugier, Martyrs has been more a metaphorical way of reacting to the world’s state of affairs. Horror quickly became a passion for Laugier when he saw it as a tool and an outlet for communication about his pessimistic view of urban societies. His inspiration for the concept came from listening to himself he tells B-D in an interview. (more…)
Posted by dominie in Films, News on August 19th, 2008
The French Horror-Thriller, Vinyan, is in the works and scheduled for a 2009 release in the US. Director Fabrice du Welz (Calvaire) co-wrote the screenplay with friend, Oliver Blackburn (Donkey Punch) and will star Rufus Sewell (The Holiday, The Illusionist), Emmanuelle Beart, (Disco, A Crime) Julie Dreyfus (Kill Bill: Vol. 1), and Borhan Du Welz (Calvaire). Bloody-Disgusting provides us with a synopsis:
“Still not having accepted the loss of their son in a tsunami disaster, Janet and Paul Behlmer are back in Bangkok. Hanging onto the fact that his body has never been discovered, Janet desperately clings to the idea that pirates might have kidnapped their kid in the confusion that followed the catastrophe. Looking for someone to guide them in the Thai underworld, they bribe their way to a mysterious Mr. Gao, who takes them to Ranong, where a mercenary supplies them with a boat and crew to explore the pirate-infested shores of Burma. Slowly, the will lose themselves into a strange child-infested jungle and to their inner demons.” (more…)
Paramount Vantage has acquired the English-language remake for Géla Babluani’s French thriller, 13 Tzameti, to be written and directed by himself, for international sales. According to The Hollywood Reporter, 50 Cent, Mickey Rourke, and Jason Statham will join Sam Riley in the remake which starts shoot next month in New York City.
