“Jean-Luc Godard and Ursula Meier are among 14 directors set to participate in an omnibus film that will mark next year’s centenary of the First World War,” reports Martin Blaney for Screen. Les Ponts de Sarajevo is slated for a week-long event in June 2014, Sarajevo: Coeur de L’Europe. Meier tells Blaney that Pedro Costa and Aida Begic have also been invited to contribute. Godard is still preparing his 3D Adieu au langage, and this project, as Blaney notes, would see him “returning to the subject of Sarajevo 20 years after his two-minute short film Je Vous Salue, Sarajevo from 1993, which was in the form of a photo-montage with accompanying text and a score by Arvo Pärt.”
Indiewire‘s Eric Kohn has met up with Abel Ferrara in Locarno and, as with many a conversation with Ferrara, this one’s not to be missed. Turns out, for example, that Welcome to New York, his film-in-the-can about Dominique Strauss-Kahn featuring Gérard Depardieu, was invited to compete in Venice, but Ferrara turned them down. But his shotgun comments on DSK and Depardieu are priceless. And then there’s the Pasolini project he’s trying to put together: “Willem Dafoe is going to play Pasolini. Willem is not Pasolini, but he’s a fucking awesome actor. I can’t play him…. I think my producer’s going to come up with the money. We’ve got ARTE, we’ve got Canal Plus, we’ve got everybody, but we don’t have one penny from Italy. I’m going to abuse every one of these cocksuckers. I’ll meet you in Milan.”
Emir Kusturica’s planning a documentary on Uruguayan President Jose “Pepe” Mujica, “who lives on a ramshackle farm outside Montevideo (a city equipped with a very nice presidential palace that Mujica politely turned down) and gives 90% of his salary to charity,” as Ben Brock explains at the Playlist. “In government, he has worked on a program of massive social liberalization, legalizing gay marriage, pushing for abortion rights and becoming the first country on the planet to fully decriminalize marijuana.”
ABCs OF DEATH 2: 26th Director Filmmaking Competition from Alamo Drafthouse
Last year’s horror omnibus The ABCs of Death collected 26 shorts from 26 directors and did well enough to prompt producers Ant Timpson and Tim League to set up a sequel. As Ioncinema‘s Eric Lavallee reports, the latest to board the project are Julian Barratt, Todd Rohal, Steven Kostanski, Alejandro Brugués, Jim Hosking, Hajime Ohata, and Chris Nash. They join Álex de la Iglesia, Rodney Ascher, Erik Matti, Sion Sono, Bill Plympton, Kristina Buozyte and Bruno Samper, Vincenzo Natali, Larry Fessenden, Marcus Dunstan, Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo, E.L. Katz, Jen and Sylvia Soska, Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado, Julian Gilbey, Dennison Ramalho, Lancelot Imasuen, Jerome Sable, Robert Morgan—and possibly, you. See the video above and/or click here.
“HBO Films is closing a deal with Julie Delpy to adapt the Marisa Acocella Marchetto memoir Cancer Vixen: A True Story as a star vehicle for Cate Blanchett,” reports Deadline‘s Mike Fleming Jr. Also: Joel Edgerton may join Christian Bale in Ridley Scott’s Exodus. Edgerton would play Ramses to Bale’s Moses.
Neill Blomkamp will follow up on Elysium with Chappie, “the story of a robot imbued with artificial intelligence who is stolen by two local gangsters who want to use him for their own nefarious purposes,” reports Stuart Oldham in Variety.
Susanne Bier may direct Saoirse Ronan in Mary Queen of Scots, reports the Playlist‘s Kevin Jagernauth.
Meantime, Christopher Nolan has begun shooting Interstellar. Steven Zeitchik has a bit on the project in the Los Angeles Times.
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