Film Festivals

[caption id="attachment_2123" align="alignnone"]Charlize Theron in Young Adult[/caption]

Variety will present actress Charlize Theron with the Indie Impact Award, at the 2012 Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF). The Indie Impact Award celebrates a performer and filmmaker for her outstanding contributions to the art and business of cinema.

“Charlize Theron continues to make an impact by committing herself to films that exemplify the best in independent cinema,” stated Variety Executive Editor Steven Gaydos.  “She notably won an Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, SAG Award and Independent Spirit Award for the independent film ‘Monster,’ and contributed unforgettable performances to films such as ‘The Burning Plain,’ ‘In the Valley of Elah’ and ‘North Country.’  Her recent acclaimed work in ‘Young Adult,’ for which she was recently nominated for a Golden Globe® Award, demonstrates Theron’s characteristic edge and verve.”

Previous recipients of the Indie Impact Award include Philip Seymour Hoffman and Mark Wahlberg.

“Young Adult” will also be honored the evening before at the Palm Springs International Film Festival’s Awards Gala with the prestigious Vanguard Award, recognizing its outstanding creative ensemble.

Variety will also honor its “10 Directors to Watch” spotlighting the most exciting new talents in the fields of directing, writing, producing, acting, cinematography and comedy.   This year’s “10 Directors to Watch” include: Zal Batmanglij (“Sound of My Voice”); Valerie Donzelli (“Declaration of War”); Gareth Evans (“The Raid”); Philippe Falardeau (“Monsieur Lazhar”); Mike “Mouse” McCoy & Scott Waugh (“Act of Valor”); Gerardo Naranjo (“Miss Bala”); Matt Piedmont (“Casa de mi Padre”); Michael Roskam (“Bullhead”); Lynn Shelton (“Your Sister’s Sister”); and Benh Zeitlin (“Beasts of the Southern Wild”).  “Sound of My Voice,” “Declaration of War,” “Monsieur Lazhar,” “Miss Bala” and “Bullhead” will be shown at the Palm Springs International Film Festival.

Past “10 Directors to Watch” honorees have included Ben Affleck (“Gone Baby Gone”), Wes Anderson (“Bottle Rocket”), Scott Cooper (“Crazy Heart”), Marc Webb (“500 Days of Summer”), Catherine Hardwicke (“Thirteen”) and Christopher Nolan (“Memento”), among others.

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[caption id="attachment_2121" align="alignnone"]Jessica Chastain in Tree of Life [/caption]

The 23rd annual Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF) will honor Jessica Chastain with the Spotlight Award and composer Howard Shore with the Frederick Loewe Award for Film Composing.

Jessica Chastain will receive the Spotlight Award.  The Spotlight Award honors an actor or actress for their extraordinary performances in the current cinematic year.  Chastain will receive the award for her roles in The Help, The Tree of Life, Take Shelter, The Debt and Coriolanus.

Her work in Take Shelter earned a Gotham Award for Best Ensemble Cast and an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Supporting Female.  Her other honors this year include a New York Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress for The Tree of Life, The Help and Take Shelter and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association’s award as Best Supporting Actress for all of her movies this year.  Additionally, Chastain’s role in The Help led her to several acclamations including a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture, a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role and a Critics’ Choice Movie Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

Howard Shore will receive the Frederick Loewe Award for Film Composing.  He previously received the same honor at the Festival’s Awards Gala in 2005 for composing the score in The Aviator.  His collaboration with director Martin Scorsese also includes composing the scores for “Gangs of New York” and “The Departed.”  This year he will be receiving the award for his ‘exceptional’ work in Martin Scorsese’s Hugo.

PSIFF recipients of the Frederick Loewe Music Award include T Bone Burnett, Alexandre Desplat, Danny Elfman, James Newton Howard, Randy Newman and Diane Warren.

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[caption id="attachment_2118" align="alignnone" width="550"]Amr Waked as Sheikh and Ewan McGregor as Fred Jones in Salmon Fishing in the Yemen[/caption]

The 23rd annual Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF) will launch on Thursday, January 5 with CBS Films’ Salmon Fishing in the Yemen and wraps on Sunday, January 15 with Almanya, Welcome to Germany.  The festival,  running from January 5-16 in Palm Springs, California announced its Galas, Premieres, Modern Masters and a Special Presentation.

OPENING AND CLOSING GALAS
The Festival will open with the screening of CBS Films’ Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (UK.  Directed by Oscar©-nominee Lasse Hallström, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is an extraordinary, beguiling tale of fly-fishing and political spinning, of unexpected heroism and late-blooming love and of an attempt to prove the impossible, possible. Ewan McGregor and Emily Blunt star in the feature film alongside Oscar©-nominee Kristen Scott  Based on Paul Torday’s acclaimed novel, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is written by Oscar-winner Simon Beaufoy and produced by Paul Webster and executive produced by Jamie Laurenson, Stephen Garrett, Paula Jalfon, Zygi Kamasa and Guy Avshalom.  CBS Films will open the film in US theaters on March 9, 2012.

[caption id="attachment_2119" align="alignnone" width="550"]Almanya, Welcome to Germany[/caption]

Closing the Festival is Almanya, Welcome to Germany (Germany), neatly structured into two interwoven time frames, this charming, colorfully styled comedy centers on multiple generations of a German-Turkish clan, and derives its touching, laugh-out-loud humor from cultural misunderstandings and the question of what constitutes national identity.  The film has received many accolades including two 2011 German Film Awards including Best Film (Silver) and Best Screenplay and winner of the Audience Award at the Chicago Film Festival.  The film is directed by Yasemin Samdereli and stars Vedat Erincin, Fahri Yardim, Lilay Huser, Demet Gul, Aylin Tezel, Denis Moschitto.

PREMIERES
The Festival will offer a selection of 60 premieres of highly anticipated films, showcasing the diversity of international cinema

World premieres include: Academy Award winner Marcia Gay Harden and Aidan Quinn in If I Were You (Canada/UK) and Michael O’Keefe in A Thousand Cuts (USA).

North American premieres include: Asma’a (Egypt), Baikonur (Kazakhstan/Germany, Russia), Beast (Denmark), By the Fire (Chile/Germany, Spain), Cold Steel (China), Happy New Year, Grandma! (Spain), Hotel Lux (Germany), How Big is Your Love (Algeria/Morocco), Love in the Medina (Morocco), Lovely Man (Indonesia), Off White Lies (Israel), The Perfect Stranger (Spain), Real Truths. The Life of Estela (Argentina); The Rif Lover (Morocco/France, Belgium), Run for Life (Serbia/Japan), Sea Shadow (United Arab Emirates), Three Quarter Moon (Germany), Time to Spare (Netherlands), Transit Cities (Jordan), Women with Cows (Sweden), Wreckers (UK)and Wrinkles (Spain).

U.S. premieres include:Alois Nebel (Czech Republic/Germany), Arranged Happiness (Germany/India), Back to your Arms (Lithuania/Germany, Poland), Blood of My Blood (Portugal), The British Guide to Showing Off (UK),Academy Award winners Olympia Dukakis and Brenda Fricker in Cloudburst (Canada/USA), Come As You Are (Belgium), Die Standing Up (Mexico), Edwin Boyd (Canada), Elena (Russia), Expiration Date (Mexico), Juliette Lewis in Foreverland (Canada), Generation P (Russia/USA), The Girls in the Band (USA), The Graveyard Keeper’s Daughter (Estonia), Guilty (France), Habibi (Palestinian, Territories/USA, Netherlands, United Arab Emirates), Las Acacias (Argentina/Spain), Last Winter (Belgium/France), Lena (Netherlands/Belgium), Let My People Go! (France), Lucky (South Africa/India), Michel Petrucciani (France/Germany, Italy), North Sea Texas (Belgium), Nuit #1 (Canada), Omar Killed Me (Morocco/France), The Orator (New Zealand/Samoa), P-047 (Thailand), Rumble of the Stones (Venezuela), Simon and the Oaks (Sweden/Norway, Denmark, Germany), The Snows of Kilimanjaro (France), Sons of Norway (Norway/France/Denmark/Sweden), Summer Games (Switzerland/Italy), SuperClásico (Denmark), The Tall Man (Australia) and Watch Indian Circus (India).

SPECIAL PRESENATION

•Haywire (USA) – Mallory Kane (Gina Carano) is a highly trained operative who works for a government security contractor in the dirtiest, most dangerous corners of the world.  After successfully freeing a Chinese journalist held hostage, she is double crossed and left for dead by someone close to her in her own agency.  Suddenly the target of skilled assassins who know her every move, Mallory must find the truth in order to stay alive.  Director: Steven Soderbergh.  Cast: Gina Carano, Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor, Bill Paxton, Channing Tatum, Antonio Banderas, Michael Douglas.

MODERN MASTERS
The Modern Masters section features films from some of the true auteurs of contemporary cinema including Christoffer Boe, Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne, Robert Guédiguian, Masato Harada, Chen Kaige, Nanni Moretti, Pawel Pawlikowski, Michael Radford, Lynne Ramsay, and Andrey Zvyaginstev.

•Beast (Denmark) – An obsessive, destructive love transforms a caring husband into a bloodthirsty beast in this perversely fascinating psychodrama.  Director: Christoffer Boe.  Cast: Nicolas Bro, Marijana Jankovic, Nikolaj Lie Kaas.

•Chronicle of My Mother (Japan) – Masato’s moving, impeccably acted period drama about the relationship between a self-centered writer and his aging mother draws from an autobiographical novel by Inoue Yasushi.  Director: Masato Harada.  Cast: Koji Yakushiko, Kirin Kiki, Aoi Miyazaki, Rentaro Mikuni.

•Elena (Russia) – An engrossing yarn about a coveted inheritance, cruel class differences and quietly monstrous misdeeds, Elena paints a chilling portrait of Russia’s post-Communist consumer society as culture entirely lacking in morality.  The film won a Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.  Director: Andrey Zvyagintsev.  Cast: Nadezhda Markina, Andrey Smirnov, Elena Lyadova, Alexey Rozin.

•Habemus Papam (Italy/France) – Habemus papam! is the phrase that announces the election of the new pontiff – but what happens if the chosen man does not want the job?  Nanni Moretti imagines with comedy and pathos a crisis in the Vatican when Cardinal Melville refuses to address the Catholic faithful as their new spiritual leader.  Director: Nanni Moretti.  Cast: Michel Piccoli, Nanni Moretti, Jerzy Stuhr, Renato Scarpa, Franco Graziosi, Margherita Buy, Dario Cantarelli

•The Kid with a Bike (Belgium/France, Italy) – Fate drops an angry 11-year-old in the path of a kind-hearted hairdresser.  The boy’s intensity drives the Dardennes’ Cannes prize-winning film, but the woman’s tenderness and compassion create rare moments of grace in this heartbreaking tale of abandonment.  Directors: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne.  Cast: Cecile de France, Thomas Doret, Jeremie Renier, Fabrizio Rongione, Egon di Mateo.

•Michel Petrucciani (France/Germany, Italy) – Petrucciani was born with a crippling genetic disorder that prevented him from growing more than three feet tall.  Yet he become one the greatest jazz pianists. A wonderful documentary portrait of a larger-than-life personality by director Michael Radford (Il Postino).

•Sacrifice (China) – Fifth Generation master Chen is back on top with this sumptuous Yuan Dynasty tale of mistaken identity, court intrigue, murder, and revenge. Baby Zhao is saved by his family doctor and raised by him to exact revenge on the General who murdered the Zhao clan.  Director: Chen Kaige.  Cast: Ge You, Wang Xueqi, Huang Xiaoming, Fan Bingbing, Hai Qing, Ahang Fengyi.

•The Snows of Kilimanjaro (France) – Veteran Robert Guédiguian, Marseilles’s answer to Mike Leigh, delivers a potent, moving slice of life as an aging trade unionist and his wife try to come to terms with a traumatic home invasion – and the knowledge that they know the perpetrator.  Director: Robert Guédiguian.  Cast: Ariane Ascaride, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Gerard Meylan, Gregoire LePrince-Ringuet, Maryline Canto, Anais Demoustier

•We Need to Talk About Kevin (UK) – Two years after her teenage son commits a horrific crime, Eva (Tilda Swinton) tries to come to terms with her marriage, career, and parenthood.  A grippingly cinematic, searingly honest film from the director of Ratcatcher and Morvern Callar.  Director: Lynne Ramsay.  Cast: Tilda Swinton, John C. Reilly, Ezra Miller, Siobhan Fallon, Ursula Parker, Ashley Gerasimovich.

•The Woman in the Fifth (UK/France, Poland) – Ethan Hawke and Kristin Scott Thomas star in this mind-bending psychological thriller about an American writer in Paris trying to reconnect with his daughter, whose grip on reality loosens in part due to the influence of Scott Thomas’s mysterious femme fatale.  Director: Pawel Pawlikowski.  Cast: Ethan Hawke, Kristin Scott Thomas, Samir Guesmi, Joanna Kulig.

Other Festival films with notable talent and directors include: Glenn Close and Janet McTeer in Albert Nobbs (Ireland); Ewan McGregor, Eva Green, Ewen Bremner and Connie Nielsen in Perfect Sense (UK/Germany, Sweden, Denmark); Linda Cardellini, Michael Shannon, John Slattery in Return (USA); Sal (USA) directed by James Franco; and Greg Kinnear, Alan Arkin, Billy Crudup, David Harbour, Bob Balaban, Lea Thompson in Thin Ice (USA);

 

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