Though the Cannes film festival has honored provocateur Abel Ferrara (Bad Lieutenant, King of New York) before, his inspired-by-true-events take on the rape scandal involving French political giant Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK from here on out) failed to crack any of the lineups at this year's festival.
But that seems O.K. and not too surprising for French distributor Wild Bunch, who, amidst claims of bullying and attempts to block the film's production and distribution, is going to skip theatrical exhibition altogether and release the film on VOD in France on May 17 after a market screening and launch party on the croissette.
To U.S. readers, this VOD business may not seem like a big deal, but in France, it is huge. The country's distribution model is still firmly based on theatrical releases, even for the smallest domestic films, and its rare that films with even the slightest mainstream appeal go straight to VOD. Add to that, Welcome to New York is very highly anticipated in France, it is essentially France's most famous, then infamous actor playing the center of the biggest political scandal the country has seen in the last decade.
But... why? Well, Wild Bunch is playing a bit coy about it, but the implication is that, given the nature of the subject matter, and the wealth and power of DSK's wife, Anne Sinclair, releasing the film theatrically would have been akin to stepping into a minefield. Producer Vincent Maravel has repeatedly said that the high ranking members of media and political organizations have repeatedly tried to destroy the film. Most recently he said, he was told by a close friend of Sinclair that, "she will spend her entire fortune on destroying your life.”
Truth or calculated stirring of the pot? Who knows. Either way, it rolls out on France on VOD May 17, and IFC Films has picked it up for stateside distribution. Also, it looks pretty amazing, based on this NSFW trailer:
Exclu Télérama.fr : Welcome to New York, d'Abel... by Telerama_BA
In Brief
- Ben Wheatley is still adapting in J.G. Ballard's thrilling, disturbing and prophetic novel High Rise, and this is still a cause for celebration. And now we've got some fresh news about the project! Jeremy Irons and Sienna Miller have joined the cast (which already included Tom Hiddleston), and production will begin in July in Belfast. Rejoice!
- Surrealist Czech director Jan Svankmajer is now developing a new feature called The Insects, which will be loosely based on a darkly comic 1922 play, From the Life of Insects. The film will be a combination of live action and animation, and according to Svankmajer, it will be life affirming and uplifting. Kidding! The director actually said, “From the Life of Insects is a misanthropic play. My screenplay only extends this misanthropy.”
- Paolo Sorrentino has began shooting his follow-up to The Great Beauty, a project called Youth which will star Michael Caine, Harvey Keitel, Rachel Weisz, Paul Dano and Jane Fonda. The film is apparently about “a great orchestra conductor on holiday in a hotel in the Alps with his daughter Lena and friend, Mick, a director who is finding his latest film difficult to wrap up.“
- Quentin Tarantino will be hosting a special screening of Fistful of Dollars to close out the Cannes film festival to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the birth of the Spaghetti Western.
- Finally, be sure to read this excellent interview with Jury president and director Jane Campion (Top of the Lake, The Piano in The Guardian.
From our Czech Republic/Slovakia Correspondent Martin Kudlac, news on festivals and more:
The 49th edition of the International Film Festival Karlovy Vary (July 4 – July 12) will honour William Friedkin with The Crystal Globe award for the exceptional artistic contribution. The presence of the director of cult film The Exorcist is meant as a part of festival´s ongoing presentation of 70´s in U.S. cinema ruled by the generation of New Hollywood. The organiser´s will introduce also the restored version of Sorcerer (1977), a remake of Henri-Georges Clouzot´s film Wages of Fear(1953) based on a book by George Arnaud.
Also, Three retrospectives will be dedicated respectively to underrated Italian filmmaker Elio Petri, leading filmmaker of contemporary Indian cinema Anurag Kashyap and British visual artist and filmmaker Ben Rivers.
Another important film festival will be happening in Uherské Hradište (July 25 – August 2). The Summer Film School will welcome Michel Gondry and offer his absolute complete retrospective comprising films, documentaries, music videos and advertisements. French filmmaking luminary, Bertrand Tavernier, will be also present in Uherské Hradiště and besides his film he has been making for last five decades, he will be also presenting his latest feature, political comedy Quai d´Orsay.
The 40th edition of the Summer Film School will zoom in on Spanish cinema, more precisely on Spanish national genre españolada and Spanish horror films such as Cannibal Sex (1980) or Who Can Kill a Child (1976). The programmers also prepared a wide section covering past and present films in Visegrad´s region. One of the themes will be sci-fi in Visegrad spearheaded by Polish cult film Sexmission (1984).
But new features from this region won´t be omitted. The spotlight will be also on Slovak the most controversial filmmaker, Zuzana Piussi, who sued for her documentary on the unflattering state of Slovak judiciary, The Disease of the Third Power. Her latest work share political themes: The Fragile Identity tackles nationalism, while From Fico Till Fico concerns Slovak elections. She also did a documentary on LGBT community in country considered strongly catholic (Crying of Angels) and fairly unconventional documentary labelled as erotic tragicomedy, The Granny, about 50-something Tamara and her take on aging. The rich programm will also cover latest offerings in arthouse circuit such as Abrahamson´s comedy-drama Frank.
Box office was mostly predictable in Europe with Spiderman 2 cleaning up in most territories including Belgium, Italy, Hungary, Greece and Poland. However, The Other Woman had a strong showing as well, taking the number one spot in Germany, Norway and Finland. And then there's the Spanish Comedy Ocho apellidos vascos which, as we noted in the last Euro Beat, is mercilessly pillaging Spain's box office. Well, it's still doing that. For a bit more info, we turn to Spain based ScreenAnarchy writer Carwyn Jones:
The film is literally translated as Eight Basque Surnames, but is seemingly going under the English title of Spanish Affair. It’s a romantic comedy about Rafa (Dani Rovira), who for the first time leaves Seville, in the south of the country, and travels to the northern Basque region to win the heart of Amaia (Clara Lago). To do this, Rafa has to pretend to be Basque, so the humour is very localised to Spain and leans on a fair few regional stereotypes along the way. Since it’s release in mid-March, it’s taken more than €44.2million and has become a potential new marker for homegrown films. Some are saying it’s a turning point in the domestic scene after a few years of box office doom and gloom. Rumours are circling of a follow up next year with the same team and cast, this time taking aim at Catalonia.