'Polanski' takes a bow

HBO premieres documentary in New York

By ADDIE MORFOOT

Emmy Rossum and Julian Schnabel chat with Dustin Hoffman and his wife, Lisa Gottsegen, at the Plaza Hotel after-party.

Marci Klein and Alec Baldwin at the 'Polanksi' premiere.

Julianna Marguiles with husband Keith Lieberthal.

Writer/director Paul Haggis at the N.Y. premiere of 'Roman Polanski:Wanted and Desired.'

The Gotham premiere for HBO documentary "Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired" was the hot ticket in town Tuesday night.

Dustin Hoffman, Glenn Close, Alec Baldwin and Paul Haggis were among the celebs who crowded into the Paris Theater and later the Plaza Hotel to celebrate Marina Zenovich's Sundance-winning doc, about the scandal that led Polanski to flee America into exile during the 1970s.

Helmer said she started the project five years ago. "Right after Polanski was nominated for 'The Pianist,' I was listening to one of the lawyers talk about the case on 'Larry King,' and he said that the case was a sad day for the American judicial system, and suddenly a light bulb went off and I thought, I want to investigate this."

Doc, which premieres on HBO in June, will be theatrically distributed by ThinkFilm, but not until July.

"Sheila Nevins bought the film at Sundance much more quickly and much more lavishly than I could have," admitted Think prexy Mark Urman.

"But each of us is getting what we need. Having the film on HBO is like word of mouth screenings for me as far as I am concerned, and the amount of promotion that they are going to do essentially serves as a giant advertisement for me."

-- Addie Morfoot