Film at Eleven

Famed photographer David Hamilton’s second film follows the exploits of two cousins coming of age in the beautiful French Countryside. A young man and a girl fall in love as they compare the differences between the raunchy open sexuality of the servants with that of the refined repressive deviance of their respective families. With war imminent, the bond between the two teens as well as the love between the two families grows more intense.

Tendres Cousines (Cousins in Love) will be released on DVD on 5th November by the good folks at Arrow Films.

Andrew Jones, whose film The Feral Generation won him a lot of attention is to write and direct crime drama The Beautiful Outsiders.

After six years, 29 year old former drug addict Jason Starkweather is released from prison. Placed in a halfway house and in a dead end job he struggles to suppress the urge to return to heroin. His ex-girlfriend Sarah Fugate works in a brothel to pay her way through university while living with an abusive older man. Desperate to make up for his past mistakes, Jason tracks Sarah down. A shocking incident reunites the couple and they go on the run, fleeing the authorities while rekindling their love for one another.

After a number of incidents on the road, including betrayal by a friend of Jason’s, the couple take sanctuary in the house of affluent Richard and his daughter Shannon. Eventually the unlikely foursome are brought together by the shared pain of their pasts and forge a genuine bond as the police close in.

The film will star cult actors Giovanni Lombardo Radice and David Hess in their first pairing since Ruggero Deodato’s 1981 exploitation classic House On The Edge of The Park. Doug Bradley is also in talks to appear in the film which is scheduled to start shooting in early 2008.

Magnolia Pictures announced on Thursday the acquisition of world rights (excluding Spain) to director Nacho Vigalondo’s Timecrimes, a clever, mind-bendingly entertaining sci-fi film about a man who inadvertently discovers the perils of time travel. Timecrimes premièred at the 2007 Fantastic Fest film festival in Austin, where it received the “Best Feature” Prize and the Silver Medal for Audience Award, and went on to be a crowd pleaser at Sitges.

TIMECRIMES is an incredibly fresh, brilliantly cinematic take on the time travel concept. Nacho is a serious talent and we’re excited to be involved with him at the start of what promises to be a great career,” said Magnolia President Eamonn Bowles.

“Working with Magnolia on TIMECRIMES is a dream come true. Knowing that my film is going to be shown in USA is something I can’t describe,” added Vigalongo.

“We are so excited to be working with Magnolia, not only because they’re the best company to market an extraordinary foreign language genre film like Nacho’s, but especially because of the commitment they show towards the films that they love,” said Eduardo Carneros, Managing Director of KV Entertainment and joint owner of the company together with the Ibarretxe brothers.

Timecrimes is the feature film début from Nacho Vigalongo - already an accomplished director of short films, whose 2003 short, 7:35 In The Morning, was nominated for an Oscar for Best Live Action Short.

TOKYO FILMeX 2007 has announced their festival line up.

To Each His Own Cinema is to open the festival on November 17th at the Tokyo International Forum. This short film omnibus was premièred at the 60th Cannes Film Festival in May this year, andattracted worldwide attention. The closing film is Secret Sunshine by Korean master filmmaker Lee Chang-dong. Lee Chang-dong will also serve as chairperson of the jury for TOKYO FILMeX 2007 competition.

From November 18th through until 25th, we will present 10 films in TOKYO FILMeX Competition and 11 films in Special Screenings at the Yurakucho Asahi Hall and the film theater Cine Quanon 1-Chome.

As Special Program which shed new light on the history of Japanese cinema, we will feature 12 works from YAMAMOTO Satsuo, who is well known for directing the first film adaptation of “The Ivory Tower (Shiroi Kyotou).” Another special program will feature the great Indian filmmaker Ritwik GHATAK.

We will also coninue to have the screenings of brand new Japanese films for foreign film professionals during the period of TOKYO FILMeX 2007. Those who have an ID card can attend this program, in which you can access to the new Japanese films subtitled in English at a video/DVD library or at the screenings.

For more information visit www.filmex.net.

Other Cinema Digital have announced the upcoming release of Negativeland’s Our Favorite Things on DVD on November 20th.

Twenty-seven years of the group’s “greatest hits” become all-new moving pictures in this amazing, years-in-the-making package. Created with 18 other filmmakers from all over the USA (and one a cappella group from Detroit), Our Favorite Things is a collaborative project that takes Negativland’s sound explorations into the world of film and video. What emerges is a darkly cracked look at 21st century America, juxtaposing paranoia, torture, control, power, weapons, fear, suicide, cola wars, mental illness, and intellectual property issues with the lighter side of dopey advertising, cartoon characters, cleaning products and Jesus.

The DVD includes over 60 minutes of never-before-seen bonus material, and, for those who would rather shut their eyes tight and just listen, it also comes with a full-length CD which isn’t by Negativland at all. The full package can be pre-ordered by clicking here.

The ground-breaking documentary Behind Forgotten Eyes, directed by Anthony Gilmore and produced by Alex Ferrari, won Best Film in the Conflict & Resolution Competition beating out some very big Hollywood heavyweights.

This bold new documentary film aims to address the views of the issue held in both Korea and Japan, including the legacy that endures today. It aims to clarify the importance of all international legal issues and to enlighten an American public which is woefully uninformed about wartime history and modern Asian society How did we get to this point, and what will happen in the future? How have both the Japanese and Korean governments approached this issue since the end of the Second World War? What role has the United States played in this issue?

Behind Forgotten Eyes examines the enduring legacy of this horrifying chapter of history in both Korea and Japan. As the first English-language film to tackle this volatile issue, Behind Forgotten Eyes aims to focus the world’s attention on this unsettled aspect of Japan’s colonial heritage and to educate an American public unfamiliar with East Asian history and modern society. Behind Forgotten Eyes combines first-hand accounts from both Korean women and Japanese soldiers who lived through the nightmare with the expert testimony of academics, social activists, and professionals from Japan, Korea, and the United States to offer a candid look into an issue that has been ignored for far too long. Time is running out for these women and their stories.

With Halloween almost upon us, MovieGoods now has their Frankenstein vs. the Creature from Blood Cove movie posters and lobby cards available, including the rather stylish red and black one you see here.

Click here to see the full set and start ordering.

Deadly Pursuit is a twisted crime thriller set in Los Angeles starring, among others, Kim Sønderholm who was recently seen around these parts in the remarkably impressive Craig.

Russ Diaper, the film’s writer and director has been kind enough to drop me a few shots from the film. So here they are…
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In Préparez vos mouchoirs (Get out your handkerchiefs), Gerard Depardieu plays an at-wits-end husband Raoul who’ll go to any length to sexually satisfy his wife Solange (Carole Laure). Raoul decides that the best thing to cure Solange’s boredom would be if she took a lover; thus, he chooses Stephane (Patrick Dewaear) for the job. However, Stephane isn’t any more successful in arousing Solange than her husband had been. Eventually, it is a 13 year old boy that quenches Solange’s erotic yearnings!

Winner of the 1979 Academy Award for Best Foreign film, this unique, offbeat and quirky tale of sexual relations features a youthful Depardieu in one of the most original sex comedies ever committed to film.

Preparez Vos Mouchoirs is released on DVD for the first time ever in the UK on November 5th 2007 by the good folks at Arrow Films.

3 Titans of European Cinema team up for a stylish film based on the work of Macabre author, Edgar Allan Poe. The cream of European talent direct Jane and Peter Fonda, Brigitte Bardot, Alain Delon and Terence Stamp in 3 separate Stories of souls tormented by their own phantasmal visions of guilt, lust and greed

Vadim directs the first segment, Metzengerstein, with Jane Fonda portraying the spoiled, vicious Frederique. Malle takes the middle slot with William Wilson, featuring Alain as the troubled hero, a man who has been haunted since childhood by a man with his exact name. Fellini’s segment, Toby Dammit, features Terence Stamp as a dishevelled drugged and English movie star who nods acceptance in the Italian press and his producers fawn over Spirits of the Dead is a real gem for those who enjoy the surreal and grotesque.

This slice of classic European cinema will be released on DVD on 5th November by the good folks at Arrow Films.