The Square by Ruben Östlund is the winner of the Palme d’Or at the 70th edition of the Cannes Film Festival.
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Iranian Film LERD (A MAN OF INTEGRITY) Wins Un Certain Regard Prize at 2017 Cannes Film Festival.
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(Lerd) A Man Of Integrity[/caption]
A Man Of Integrity (LERD) by Mohammad Rasoul of Iran, is the winner of the Un Certain Regard prize at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival.
Un Certain Regard 2017 presented in competition 18 films hailing from 22 different countries. 6 of the works were first films. The Opening film was Barbara by Mathieu Amalric.
Under the presidency of Uma Thurman (actress – United States), the Jury was comprised of Mohamed Diab (director – Egypt), Reda Kateb (actor – France), Joachim Lafosse (director – Belgium) and Karel Och (artistic director of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival – Czech Republic).
The Jury commented “We feel enormous gratitude to have had the honor of serving on the Jury for this historic 70th anniversary of the Festival de Cannes. We are proud to present an esthetically diverse and beautiful awards list for Un Certain Regard.“
“UN CERTAIN REGARD” PRIZE
LERD (A MAN OF INTEGRITY)
by Mohammad Rasoulof
Reza (35), having distanced himself from the ur- ban quagmire, leads a simple life along with his wife and sole son, somewhere in a remote village in Northern Iran. He spends his days working in his gold fish farm. Nearby, a private company with close links to the government and local authori- ties, has taken control of nearly every aspect of the regional life. Its shareholders, accumulating wealth, power and economic rents, have been pushing local farmers and small owners to dilap- idate their belongings, farms and estates, to the benefit of the Company’s influential net- work and its monopoly. It is under their pressure that many villagers have them- selves become local rings of the larger network of corruption.
PRIZE FOR BEST ACTRESS
JASMINE TRINCA for FORTUNATA by Sergio Castellitto
Fortunata has a difficult life, a daughter of eight and a failed marriage behind her. She works as a hairdresser in people’s houses, leaving from the outskirts to cross the city, going to the homes of the well-off to do women’s hair. Fortunata fights every day with determination to achieve her dream: opening her own salon and challenging fate, in an attempt at emancipating herself and gaining her independence and the right to some happiness. She knows that to achieve her dreams she has to be firm: she has thought of everything, she is ready for anything, but she had not considered the variable of love, the one subversive force capable of sweeping aside every certainty. Also because, perhaps for the first time, someone looks at her as the woman she is and truly loves her.
PRIZE FOR THE BEST POETIC NARRATIVE
BARBARA de Mathieu Amalric
An actress, Brigitte, is playing Barbara in a film that soon begins shooting.
Brigitte works on her character, her voice, the songs and scores, the imitation of her gestures, her knitting, the lines to learn. Things
move along. The character grows inside her. Invades her, even…
Yves, the director, is also working – via encounters, archival footage, the music. He seems inhabited and inspired by her…
But by whom? The actress or Barbara?
PRIZE FOR BEST DIRECTION
Taylor Sheridan for WIND RIVER
WIND RIVER is a chilling thriller that follows a rookie FBI agent who teams up with a local game tracker with deep community ties and a haunted past to investigate the murder of a local girl on a remote Native American Reservation in the hopes of solving the mysterious death. Written and directed by Taylor Sheridan, WIND RIVER also stars Gil Birmingham, Jon Bernthal, Julia Jones, Kelsey Asbille, and James Jordan.
JURY PRIZE
LAS HIJAS DE ABRIL (APRIL’S DAUGHTER) by Michel Franco
Valeria is 17 and pregnant. She lives in Puerto Vallarta with Clara, her half-sister.
Valeria has not wanted her long-absent mother, April, to find out about her pregnancy, but due to the economic strain and the overwhelming responsibility of having a baby in the house, Clara decides to call their mother.
April arrives, willing to help her daughters, but soon it will be clear why Valeria had kept her away.
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Cannes Film Festival Announces Winners of 2017 Cinéfondation Prizes
Paul Is Here directed by Valentina Maurel of INSAS, Belgium is the First Prize winner of the 2017 Cinéfondation at the Cannes Film Festival.
The Cinéfondation and Short Films Jury headed by Cristian Mungiu and including Clotilde Hesme, Athina Rachel Tsangari, Barry Jenkins and Eric Khoo, awarded the 2017 Cinéfondation Prizes during a ceremony held in the Buñuel Theatre, followed by the screening of the winning films.
The Cinéfondation Selection consisted of 16 student films, chosen out of 2,600 entries coming from 626 film schools around the world.
First Prize
Paul Is Here (PAUL EST LÀ)
directed by Valentina Maurel
INSAS, Belgium
Second Prize
Animal (HEYVAN)
directed by Bahram & Bahman Ark
Iranian National School of Cinema, Iran
Third Prize
Two Youths Died (DEUX ÉGARÉS SONT MORTS)
directed by Tommaso Usberti
La Fémis, France
The Cinéfondation allocates a €15,000 grant for the First Prize, €11,250 for the Second and €7,500 for the Third. The winner of the First Prize is also guaranteed the presentation of his/her first feature film at the Festival de Cannes.
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The Watergate Drama THE SILENT MAN Starring Liam Neeson Gets A September Release | Trailer
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The Silent Man[/caption]
The Silent Man, the film based on the life of Mark Felt, the secret high-ranking FBI informant during the Watergate scandal who is famously known as “Deep Throat” will be released in the Fall by Sony Pictures Classics. The Silent Man is set for a September release, as the recent political turmoil has sparked a renewed public interest in Felt’s story.
Written and directed by Peter Landesman (Concussion), The Silent Man features an all-star cast including Academy Award–nominated Liam Neeson (Schindler’s List, Taken) in the title role of Mark Felt, as well as Diane Lane (Unfaithful), Marton Csokas (The Equalizer), Josh Lucas (The Lincoln Lawyer), Tony Goldwyn (“Scandal”), Michael C. Hall (“Dexter”), Tom Sizemore (“Black Hawk Down”), Wendi McLendon-Covey (Bridesmaids), Ike Barinholtz (Suicide Squad), Bruce Greenwood (Star Trek), Brian D’Arcy James (Spotlight), Kate Walsh (“Private Practice”), Noah Wyle (W.), and Maika Monroe (It Follows).
The Silent Man centers on “Deep Throat”, the pseudonym given to the notorious whistleblower for one of the greatest scandals of all time, Watergate. The true identity of the secret informant remained a mystery and source of much public curiosity and speculation for more than 30 years. That is until, in 2005, special agent Mark Felt shockingly revealed himself as the tipster. This unbelievable true story chronicles the personal and professional life of the brilliant and uncompromising Felt, who risked and ultimately sacrificed everything – his family, his career, his freedom – in the name of justice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MR1IjeAdevI
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IFC Films to Release Lars Von Trier’s THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT Starring Matt Dillon, Uma Thurman
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The House That Jack Built[/caption]
Lars Von Trier’s The House That Jack Built, starring Matt Dillon, Bruno Ganz, Uma Thurman, Riley Keough and Siobhan Fallon Hogan, will be released in the U.S. by IFC Films. IFC Films also released Von Trier’s 2009 film Antichris.
USA in the 1970s. We follow the highly intelligent Jack through 5 incidents and are introduced to the murders that define Jack’s development as a serial killer. We experience the story from Jack’s point of view. He views each murder as an artwork in itself, even though his dysfunction gives him problems in the outside world. Despite the fact that the final and inevitable police intervention is drawing ever near (which both provokes and puts pressure on Jack) he is – contrary to all logic – set on taking greater and greater chance.
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MICKEY REECE’S ALIEN Tackles Elvis and Priscilla Presley’s Marriage at deadCenter Film Festival
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Mickey Reece’s Alien[/caption]
Mickey Reece’s Alien is a part comedy/drama/fantasy feature film that delves into divine existentialism and conveys a unique reimagining of the later years of Elvis and Priscilla Presley’s tumultuous marriage.
Mickey Reece’s Alien will be showcased on Friday, June 9 at 8:30 p.m. and Saturday, June 10 at 6:00 p.m. at the 17th annual deadCenter Film Festival. The film will screen at the Harkins Theatre in Bricktown.
The black-and-white film was written and directed by Mickey Reece and produced by Mickey Reece, Cate Jones, Ron Sutor, James Paulsgrove, Beth Alonso, John Scamehorn, Joe Cappa and Jacob Ryan Snovel in association with Freestyle Creative. “Mickey Reece’s Alien” presents a talented cast, starring Jacob Ryan Snovel (Elvis) and Cate Jones (Priscilla), and featuring Alex Sanchez, John Selvidge and Michaelene Stephenson.
Surrounding discussion of existentialism, Reece capitalized on the idea that Elvis was not of this world and rarely understood, yielding the name “Alien.”
The indie fiction film started as a passion project on Seed&Spark, a crowdfunding website specifically for filmmakers. Reece said he was inspired by John Carpenter’s “Elvis,” Tim Burton’s “Ed Wood,” Kenneth Anger’s “Scorpio Rising” and Ingmar Bergman’s “Persona.”
“When I view the finished product of any movie I’ve made, I know exactly what past film, whether it be an important one or piece of garbage, influenced a particular choice. I think for any cinema buff it is important to see those influences still making it onto the screen in some fashion today,” Reece said.
“It’s an Elvis film that digs into Elvis but it’s also fantastical and hilarious,” Snovel said. “There’s no mistake in the movie. There’s an artistic integrity to the film; it wasn’t just ‘Let’s make an Elvis movie.'”
The deadCenter Film Festival runs June 8 to 11, 2017.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWR2Dk0iur0
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Award Winning Comedy FUTURE ’38 to NY Premiere at Art of Brooklyn Film Festival
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FUTURE ’38[/caption]
FUTURE ’38, which won the Audience Award at this year’s 2017 Slamdance, will have its New York premiere on June 8 at the Art of Brooklyn Film Festival.
FUTURE ’38 from director/writer Jamie Greenberg, is a technicolor valentine to the classic screwball comedies of the 1930s and ‘40s, with a sci-fi twist. It’s a time-travel adventure which presents the exotic future-world of 2018 A.D., as imagined by the film-makers of 1938! Starring Betty Gilpin, Nick Westrate, Robert John Burke, Ethan Phillips and Sean Young.
ART OF BROOKLYN SCREENING INFORMATION:
NY PREMIERE – Thursday, June 8, 9:00pm – St. Francis College, Brooklyn
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LA Film Festival to Host Gala Screening of David F. Sandberg’s ANNABELLE: CREATION
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Annabelle: Creation[/caption]
The LA Film Festival will host the Gala Screening of Annabelle: Creation, directed by David F. Sandberg and starring Stephanie Sigman, Talitha Bateman, Lulu Wilson with Anthony LaPaglia and Miranda Otto.
Award-winning film company Focus Features will commemorate its 15th anniversary at the LA Film Festival with five movies including revival programming and a newly added advance screening of Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled starring Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst and Elle Fanning, with the director in-person for a Q&A.
Additional Festival Special Screenings and Events include a conversation with Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, Portlandia: A Look Back and A Look Forward; a conversation with the stars of IFC’s Baroness Von Sketch Show moderated by Lea DeLaria; a day-long screening of every episode of Documentary Now!; and the LA Premiere of Karam Gill’s documentary G-Funk, featuring a post-screening performance with Warren G and special guests.
The festival also unveiled the panels for Diversity Speaks and the Global Media Makers.
“This year’s program is beautifully rich and varied,” said Film Independent President Josh Welsh. “From Sofia Coppola’s new film The Beguiled, to our expanded Diversity Speaks program, to the legendary Warren G performing after Karam Gill’s G-Funk and Festival Alumnus David F. Sandberg’s Annabelle: Creation, we can’t wait to share it all with Los Angeles.”
Gala Screening
Annabelle: Creation, dir. David F. Sandberg, Advance Screening Several years after the tragic death of their little girl, a doll maker and his wife welcome a nun and several girls from a shuttered orphanage into their home. They soon become the target of the doll maker’s possessed creation, Annabelle. Warner Bros. Pictures will release the film in theaters on August 11.Free Event: Global Media Makers Screening & Panel
Thursday, June 15, ArcLight Culver City Global Media Makers is an innovative cultural exchange program that fosters supportive ongoing relationships between leading U.S. and international filmmaking talent. Ali, the Goat and Ibrahim, dir. Sherif El Bendary, Egypt, LA Premiere Ali believes his late girlfriend’s soul has been reincarnated in a goat. Ali, his goat and his friend Ibrahim embark on a journey of friendship and self-discovery across Egypt to reverse the curse. Post screening panel with producer and Global Media Makers’ Fellow Hossam Elouan, and other filmmakers participating in the program, who will explore filmmaking in the region and discuss the importance of telling stories from an inside perspective. Global Media Makers is supported through a partnership between Film Independent and the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.Free Event: Diversity Speaks Panels
Saturday, June 17 and Sunday, June 18, Kirk Douglas Theatre Addressing topical issues relating to diversity and inclusiveness both on and off the screen, Diversity Speaks’ focus is to expand the definition of diversity and act as a call to action for the entertainment industry. Cis in a Trans World: Transgender Visibility: Members of the trans creative community will discuss on-screen cis appropriation in depictions of trans stories, panelists include Candis Cayne (The Magicians), Mari Walker (Swim) and Rachel Crowl (And Then There Was Eve). Whitewashing: Asian and Asian-American Representation in Film/TV: Leonardo Nam (Westworld), Kelly Hu (The Scorpion King), Kelvin Yu (Master of None), Ally Maki (Wrecked), Phil Yu (Angry Asian Man blog), Bruce Thierry Cheung (Don’t Come Back from the Moon) and Gloria Fan (VP of Current Programming, FOX) will discuss packaging of Asian cultural properties. The Other: Documenting Marginalized Stories: Panelists Sydney Freeland (Deidra & Laney Rob a Train), Valerie Red-Horse Mohl (Mankiller), Amy York Rubin (Boxed In), Xan Aranda (Room 104) and Marvin Lemus (Gente-fied) will shine a light on how these filmmakers and storytellers work within, and around, the current systems to be seen and heard. Reclaiming Gay for Pay: What It Means to be ‘Out’ in Hollywood: Panelists Lena Waithe (Master of None, Twenties), Keiynan Lonsdale (The Flash), Noah Galvin (The Real O’Neals) and Guy Branum (Talk Show the Game Show) question why it remains difficult to come out in Hollywood and the future of storytelling for the LGBTQ+ creative community. The panel will be moderated by Marc Malkin of E!. State of Emergency: 25 Years After the LA Riots. Panelists Sacha Jenkins (Burn Motherfucker, Burn!), Grace Lee (K-TOWN ‘92), Daniel Lindsay (LA ’92) and T.J. Martin (LA ’92) look back on the LA Riots and the continued impact they have on the city at large and the narratives it produces and inspires.Additional Festival Screenings & Events
Premieres – added titles: World premieres of fiction and documentary films featuring noteworthy talent. Story of a Girl, dir. Kyra Sedgwick, USA, World Premiere You Get Me, dir. Brent Bonacorso, USA, World Premiere Focus 15 Founded 15 years ago this spring, Focus Features will celebrate its anniversary at the LA Film Festival with revival showings from its library of iconic movies and with screenings of highly anticipated new Focus movies, including the Festival’s Opening Night Film The Book of Henry, directed by Colin Trevorrow, screening on Wednesday, June 14, and Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled. The Beguiled, dir. Sofia Coppola, USA, Special Advance Screening Thursday, June 15, LACMA The story unfolds during the Civil War, at a Southern girls’ boarding school. Its sheltered young women take in an injured enemy soldier. As they provide refuge and tend to his wounds, the house is taken over with sexual tension and dangerous rivalries, and taboos are broken in an unexpected turn of events. Focus Features will release The Beguiled in theatres on June 23. Q&A with Sofia Coppola to follow screening of The Beguiled. A screening of Lost in Translation will follow the screening of The Beguiled. Lost in Translation, dir. Sofia Coppola, USA, 2003 Thursday, June 15, LACMA Shot entirely on location in Japan, Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation is a valentine to the nature of close friendships and to the city of Tokyo. Moonrise Kingdom, dir. Wes Anderson, USA, 2012 Saturday, June 17, ArcLight Culver City Set on an island off the coast of New England in summer 1965, Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom tells the story of two 12-year-olds who fall in love, make a secret pact, and run away together into the wilderness. The Kids Are Alright, dir. Lisa Cholodenko, USA, 2010 Wednesday, June 21, ArcLight Culver City Nic and Jules are married with two teenage children. An unexpected new chapter begins for them as family ties are defined, re-defined, and then re-re defined. Portlandia: A Look Back and A Look Forward Thursday, June 15, Kirk Douglas Theatre For the past seven seasons, Portlandia’s observational humor has been one step ahead of the cultural conversation. As the series gears up for its eighth and final installment, we hear from multi-hyphenates Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein about the show’s celebrated history and what’s next in advance of the final season. Baroness Von Sketch Show Friday, June 16, Kirk Douglas Theatre Hailing from north of the border, these Baronesses of the Baroness Von Sketch Show are producing the best comedy you’ve never seen….until now! Catch a sneak peek before the show premieres on IFC. Lea DeLaria (Orange is the New Black) will moderate a conversation with the stars Carolyn Taylor, Meredith MacNeill, Aurora Browne and Jennifer Whalen. Free Event: Documentary Now! Sunday, June 18, ArcLight Culver City Catch every episode back-to-back of IFC’s Documentary Now! on the big screen. Starring Fred Armisen and Bill Hader, the series pays homage to some of the world’s best-known documentaries. G-Funk dir. Karam Gill, USA, LA Premiere Friday, June 16, The Theatre at Ace Hotel This “G-Funkumentary” tells the story of three friends from Long Beach, Warren G, Nate Dogg and Snoop Dogg, and their collaboration in creating one of the most essential styles of West Coast hip hop. The screening will be followed by a performance featuring Warren G and special guests. Free Event: Burn Motherfucker, Burn!, dir. Sacha Jenkins, USA Monday, June 19, ArcLight Santa Monica On April 29, 1992, Los Angeles exploded when four police officers were acquitted in the beating of Rodney King. But a fire beneath the feet of Angelenos had been melting flesh for years. BURN! chronicles the root causes of disenfranchisement in LA while also examining the role law enforcement has played throughout.
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Laura Poitras Named AFI DOCS 2017 Charles Guggenheim Symposium Honoree
AFI DOCS will pay tribute to Laura Poitras — the groundbreaking director of RISK (2016) and the Academy Award®-winning Edward Snowden portrait CITIZENFOUR (2014) — as the festival’s 2017 Charles Guggenheim Symposium honoree.
Each year, the AFI DOCS Charles Guggenheim Symposium honors a master of the nonfiction art form. Taking place at the Newseum on June 16, the Symposium will include an in-depth conversation with Poitras along with clips from her acclaimed works. Poitras’ latest film RISK, a six-year project following WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, was released by Neon on May 5 and will air on Showtime this summer. Poitras’ impressive documentary catalog also includes THE OATH (2010), MY COUNTRY, MY COUNTRY (2006) and FLAG WARS (2003).
“Poitras has the extraordinary instinct and ability to put her camera in the heart of history as it unfolds, regardless of the risk,” said Michael Lumpkin, Director, AFI DOCS. “Using her keen eye, Poitras reveals worlds just beyond what we can see. We are honored to celebrate her remarkable career and dedication to the documentary form.”
Poitras’ first feature-length documentary, FLAG WARS, was nominated for an Emmy® and won a Peabody Award, cementing her stature as a top-notch documentarian from the outset. Next, she was nominated for a Best Documentary Feature Academy Award® for MY COUNTRY, MY COUNTRY, the first installment in her post-9/11 trilogy. In 2015, Poitras won the Academy Award® for CITIZENFOUR. That same year, Poitras co-founded Field of Vision, an entity that commissions and creates original short-form nonfiction films about global events.
Poitras joins a renowned list of Guggenheim Symposium honorees: Charles Guggenheim (2003), Barbara Kopple (2004), Martin Scorsese (2006), Jonathan Demme (2007), Spike Lee (2008), Albert Maysles (2009), Frederick Wiseman (2010), Chris Hegedus and D A Pennebaker (2011), Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky (2012), Errol Morris (2013), Alex Gibney (2014), Stanley Nelson (2015) and Werner Herzog (2016).
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RIP: James Bond Actor Sir Roger Moore Dead at 89
James Bond actor Sir Roger George Moore died today in Switzerland after a battle with cancer. He was 89.
Roger Moore played the British secret agent James Bond in seven feature films between 1973 and 1985.
His family issued a statement, “With the heaviest of hearts, we must share the awful news that our father, Sir Roger Moore, passed away today. We are all devastated.”
With the heaviest of hearts, we must share the awful news that our father, Sir Roger Moore, passed away today. We are all devastated. pic.twitter.com/6dhiA6dnVg
— Sir Roger Moore (@sirrogermoore) May 23, 2017
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Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Drops First Official Trailer for CANT’T STOP WON’T STOP: A BAD BOY STORY
Last night Sean “Diddy” Combs took the stage at the Billboard Music Awards to drop the first official trailer for the highly anticipated documentary Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A Bad Boy Story, that world premiered at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival.
Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A Bad Boy Story, produced by Sean “Diddy” Combs, and Heather Parry, alongside executive producers Michael Rapino, Andre Harrell and Alex Avant, explores the passion and personalities of Bad Boy and will be available on Apple Music on June 25.
Directed by Daniel Kaufman, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A Bad Boy Story is an exclusive look behind the scenes at the history of Bad Boy through a complex portrait of the label’s mastermind, Sean “Diddy” Combs, as he tries to reunite his Bad Boy Family in the course of a frantic three week rehearsal period. As they prepare to celebrate the label’s 20th anniversary, the film traces Bad Boy’s emergence in Harlem and Brooklyn, follows it’s meteoric rise, explores the tragic killing of Biggie Smalls, and celebrates Bad Boy’s influence in reshaping music, fashion, marketing and culture.
“I knew this was a story that should be shared with the world. Heather Parry and Live Nation Productions, and Director Daniel Kaufman, helped create this very special documentary,” says Sean Combs on the making of the film. “Now I’m blessed to also be working with Apple Music to showcase the film and share Bad Boy’s history and impact with fans. The support Live Nation, Apple Music and everyone on the team has given to this project is a true testament to the Bad Boy legacy.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtqIL4L8HmE
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THIRST STREET, Nathan Silver’s Psychosexual Drama from Tribeca 2017 Set for a Late 2017 Release
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Lindsay Burdge as Gina in THIRST STREET. Photo by Sean Price Williams.[/caption]
Thirst Street, the darkly comic Paris-set tale of romantic obsession directed by Nathan Silver that World Premiered at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival will be released later this year by Samuel Goldwyn Films. The film stars Lindsay Burdge (“A Teacher”), Damien Bonnard (“Staying Vertical”) and is narrated by Academy Award-winner Anjelica Huston.
Thirst Street follows grief-stricken American flight attendant Gina (Burdge) on a layover in Paris, where she hooks up with nightclub bartender Jerome (Bonnard). As Gina falls deeper into lust and opts to stay in France, Jerome’s ex (Esther Garrel) reenters the picture, sending Gina on a downward spiral of miscommunication, masochism and madness.
“We are immensely excited to work with Samuel Goldwyn on the release of Thirst Street. We feel like it’s the ideal home for this French/American labor of love,” says director Nathan Silver.