Film at Eleven

Twitch have managed to get hold of the first still from Anders Ronnow Klarlund’s dark comedy, How To Get Rid Of The Others.

The film is set in a Denmark governed by the “New Copenhagen Criteria”, a set of rules that dictates those who take more from society than they add to it are to be eliminated.

You can see the full size still and see what those rules include by clicking here.

The Internet Movie Awards provides regular people the opportunity to cast their vote and have a say in what actor and what film was their favorite in the past year.

The nominees for the Internet Movie Awards are collected from ballots submitted by the Internet Entertainment Writers Association (IEWA). Members provide their list of what they feel are the best of the best of the year. These lists are compiled into public voting ballots which is where you, dear reader, come in.

Public voting is now open and lasts until March 3, 2006, so click here to express your preference.

Filmfestivals.com (via) reports that the North American distribution rights for Bent Hamer’s first English Language film, Factotum, have been aquired by IFC films at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

The film, based on a novel by punk novelist Charles Bukowski, stars Matt Dillon, Lili Taylor and Marisa Tomei. The film had its north american premiere at the Sundance Film Festival last night.

Factotum had a rocky Sundance start. Originally announced as a pickup by the newly created Picturehouse Films (the independent division of media powerhouse Time Warner), the film was dropped from Picturehouse’s roster just after the Sundance announcement that it would have its north american premiere at the Festival. Undisclosed legal issues surrounding rights clearances were at the core of the problem.

The film now has found a home with IFC Films, one of the more aggressive independent distribution companies, which also programs the Independent Film Channel and has a built-in theater chain, Clearview Cinemas, that is part of its corporate parent.

The Star (via) reports that, as well as a sequel to the spectacular Kung Fu Hustle, Stephen Chow is also working on a US$20 million (€6.6 million) science fiction film.

Chow had said earlier that filming on the “Kung Fu Hustle'’ sequel would start in either late 2005 or early 2006.

But Hong Kong’s Apple Daily newspaper reported that Chow may shelve the project and tackle a sci-fi film about a relationship between an astronaut and an alien.

“Apart from ‘Kung Fu Hustle,’ I’m indeed also working on a sci-fi movie. I haven’t decided which one to film first, but it isn’t very appropriate to reveal details now. I’ll wait until the time is riper,'’ the newspaper quoted Chow as saying.

However, the Apple Daily also said Chow isn’t fond of sequels because he thinks they limit creativity.

Apparently, he’s already found American investors for the science fiction film and was in the US, ahead of the Golden Globe awards to work out the details with his backers.

Twitch reports that Matthew Barney’s collaberation with Björk, Drawing Restraint 9, is to get a (probably very limited) US theatrical release, courtesy of IFC Films.

Apparently…

[Björk] and Barney play visitors aboard a Japanese whaling ship carrying a shape-shifting sculpture of liquid vaseline. Barney and Björk, dressed for reasons best know to themselves in “mammal fur costumes”, are taking part in a tea ceremony below deck when it’s rudely interrupted by a flood of said gunk from above. They do what anyone would do in such circumstances: start breathing through blowholes on the back on their necks and cut off each other’s feet to reveal whale tails.

The film will debut on March 29th at New York’s IFC Center, with regional distribution to follow.

Yahoo (via) reports that two Two producers are developing a feature about Emmett Till, the black teenager from Chicago who was killed in Mississippi in 1955 for whistling at a white woman.

Frederick Zollo and Thomas Levine are teaming on the project with director Keith Beauchamp, whose documentary “The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till” is in theaters.

Till’s killing by a group of white Southerners is widely recognized as the impetus of the civil rights movement. The men were acquitted by an all-white, all-male jury after less than an hour of deliberation. Four months later, they boasted about the crime in an interview with Look magazine but were never brought to justice because of laws against double jeopardy.

Zollo said the film will focus on Till’s life and slaying as well as the crime’s immediate aftermath and will include elements of Beauchamp’s life that parallel Till’s.

“I have always wanted to do a film about the Till case but was never sure how to tell the story,” Zollo said. “When Tom and I met Keith Beauchamp and saw his powerful film, it became much clearer.”

Zollo has visited the theme of the civil rights movement before. His producing credits include “Mississippi Burning,” which told the story of three civil rights workers killed in Mississippi in 1964, and “Ghosts of Mississippi,” which centered on the killing of Medgar Evers, a leading figure in the civil rights movement.

Cinematical reports that ThinkFilm has picked up North American distribution rights for Down in the Valley, a “romantic crime drama” starring Edward Norton.

According to Yahoo:

[Evan Rachel Wood] plays a disaffected high school senior from Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley who encounters a mysterious cowboy type (Norton). The two bond in the face of objections from the girl’s sheriff father (David Morse), who is concerned over disparities in their ages and backgrounds. It was written and directed by Dahmer filmmaker David Jacobson..

The film will have a limited release in the spring.

I mentioned some time ago that Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez were planning to combine their talents to make Grind House - a homage to the low budget double features of old.

And now, Bookgasm reports that a companion hardcover book, chronicling the creation of the movie, is already in the works. Robert Rodriguez’s Troublemaker Publishing will be publishing Grind House: The Sleaze Filled Saga of an Exploitation Double Feature which, they promise, will be filled with cast and crew interviews, hundreds of full-color photographs, never-before-seen conceptual art and an in-depth history of the grindhouse genre by the directors themselves.

Cinematical reports that Dreamworks have bought the film rights to John Wagner and Arthur Ranson’s excellent Button Man.

First appearing in 2000AD, this is the story of Harry Exton, a mercenary who becomes involved in “The Game,” in which bored millionaires each hire a “Button Man” and set these trained killers against each other in a fight to the death.

It is a superb story and, if Dreamworks handle it well, it could make an incredible film. Here’s hoping Dreamworks handle it well.

I know I’ve said it before, but I’m really looking forward to Guillermo del Toro’s next film, Pan’s Labrynth.

The film is described as a “horror-fantasy” and tells the the story of a young girl living in Franco’s Spain who prefers to live in an imaginary world of her own creation than face the real world. Over the course of the film, she learns to deal with post-war Fascist repression - at its height in rural Spain - and come to terms with that through a fable of her own.

And now the hype has just turned up a notch with the arrival online of a set of spectacular stills from the film. Head on over to the Latino Review to see the full size versions.