The Circuit

Regent Releasing has acquired Lynn Roth's period drama "The Little Traitor," starring Alfred Molina as a British officer in occupied Palestine.  Pic won the Audience Award at the Palm Beach Int'l. Film Festival and is set to unspool at the Palm Springs fest on January 16.  Regent will release the film in Fall of 2009.

"Although 'The Little Traitor' is a historical drama, it has tremendous relevance to the Israeli and the Palestinian conflict," said Roth.  Set in 1947-months before Israel becomes a state-story centers on a militant 11-year-old Palestinian seized by Molina.  Pic was adapted from Amos Oz's tome 'The Panther in the Basement."

Deal was negotiated by Regent's Mark Reinhart with Lynn Roth and co-producer William Jarblum for Panther Productions along with Todd Leavitt.

Earl Greenburg, Chairman of the Palm Springs International Film Festival, has died.  From the AP:

Greenburg, who was also known for his philanthropy and leading the fight for AIDS research, died Friday at Eisenhower Medical Center of skin cancer. Greenburg's son, Ari, said his father was first diagnosed with melanoma four years ago, but he seemed to have beaten it. It returned last year, he said.

by Robert Koehler
Driving back through the desert and windmills to Los Angeles, I realized that after spending ten days in Palm Springs that there were really two festivals this year. There was the festival that delivered what organizers reported as record business: $1 million each for the gala and b.o. Given the lack of red-carpet action in Los Angeles, the gala spread including Daniel Day-Lewis, upcoming Cannes Palme d'or president Sean Penn, Marion Cotillard, Halle Berry and Emile Hirsch (pictured) was a comparative spectacle. (Though, as everyone who attended told me later, dull as watching paint dry once emcee Mary Hart took over.) Big crowds squeezing to get into screenings, plus complaints by festival passholders of not being able to be seated, pointed to hot and heavy conditions for those wanting to get in to see the films.

Of course, that also meant that they were sometimes trying to get into screenings of such inglorious duds as Sergei Bodrov's "Mongol" (just announced as an inexplicable entry in the Acad's foreign-language preliminary list--a list, by the way, stuffed with inexplicable entries). The other festival, inside theaters, was a wildly uneven bag of goodies and inedibles, with a host of fine films from Cannes, Venice, Berlin and Toronto alongside a load of stuff that had no business being there. This included a whole bunch of the films submitted by 55 of the 63 countries for the Acad's foreign race, some so thoroughly awful ("Satanas" from Colombia and Milcho Manchevski's "Shadows" being two of many offenders) that it's hard to imagine any respectable festival anywhere on planet Earth allowing these past their front doors.

There's surely a better means to sample the year's best in world movies (presumably a mission of this internationally focused fest). 

To that end, Palm Springs director managed a terrific move at midpoint in the fest by deciding that, starting next year, the unwieldy section of foreign Oscar submissions would be curated by fest programmers, winnowing out the many shoddy films to a quality few. It will bring this "Awards Buzz" section in line with Palm Springs' "New Voices/New Visions," also curated by programmers. This still doesn't address another problem that was easily detectible this year (and noted in a previous column): Palm Springs' lineup only partially reflected the fact that 2007 was an extraordinary year for global cinema, underlined by a lack of significant films from East Asia, Latin America and other non-European regions. Just by glancing at the lineup, one would never have guessed that China, The Philippines and Malaysia (to note only three) enjoyed banner years.

Part of this reflects a hesitation to present more challenging, art-angled films to an unabashedly mainstream audience (an audience that can be termed as a "Laemmle audience" -- a literate and middlebrow crowd that attends Los Angeles-based Laemmle Theatres' Royal Theatre, or possibly New York's Paris Theatre); part of it purely a matter of programmer taste, and -- as MacDonald indicated in conversation -- part of it the fest's resistance to steepening rental prices from films' sales companies (a near-universal complaint across the international fest landscape). While finding just the right mix of aud-pleasers, art and those that may blend the two is always a challenge at any fest, Palm Springs' identity as an international sampler lends it a special stamp, and, at least for right now, that stamp is a tad blurry.

The outright hostility observed toward some films (largely those that experimented with narrative, or were from Latin America) -- meaning loud cackling or comments and shouting back at the screen -- suggested that the festival has some way to go toward developing its audience, in the same way that such disparate festivals as Mill Valley, Mexico City, Taormina and Vancouver have developed theirs. (A running joke that always comes up in Palm Springs is that the bottom five or ten films in the audience ballots are the ones to see.) As has happened throughout movie history, the filmmaker booed today can win prizes tomorrow, and festivals are now the primary way for film audiences to grow and expand in several ways -- including taste. With its flow of cash in good shape, Palm Springs can afford a few more boos to get to the place where it's a showing ground for everything that matters in current film.

Along with these and other complaints -- a few patient couples in lines groused to me about the lack of filmmakers present to engage in Q and As, to which I mentioned that famed Spanish director Jose Luis Guerin had his travel plans so botched that he arrived at the festival after the last screening of his magnificent "In the City of Sylvia" -- any fest vet would have noted that Palm Springs kept the crowds flowing, managed superb traffic control and started screenings on time, with very few projectionist flubs. On this level alone, the year's first festival (in the calendar) sets a model example.

 

by Pat Saperstein
The second weekend of the Palm Springs film fest saw much sunnier skies than the first few rainy days, when gala guests got soaked. No matter what the weather, screenings were steadily packed throughout, and organizers said box office topped one million dollars for the first time.

Festgoers, including many retirees and members of a large Elderhostel group, lined up well in advance of screenings for even the most obscure foreign films, poring over their color-coded film checklists as avidly as Sundance regulars. Jockeying for available seats was tense at times, and local police were called Saturday when one gentleman became agitated about claiming his reserved seat for a 9 a.m. screening of Guillaume Canet's "Tell No One."

At Friday night's showing of Deny Arcand's "Days of Darkness," pic's Macha Grenon (pictured with fest director Darryl Macdonald) joined reps from the Canadian and Quebec governments for a pre-screening reception. Later that evening, filmmakers hit Palm Springs' sleek new Tropicale lounge for a reception for Indian pic "Before the Rains."

Saturday evening's benefit dinner at the lavish estate of fest benefactors Jim and Jackie Houston featured a perf by "America's Got Talent" prizewinning ventriloquist Terry Fator, whose corn-pone act proved a bit too middle-America for some festgoers. Later in the evening, filmmakers gathered at the Viceroy hotel for a relaxed party hosted by the Palm Springs chapter of Women in Film and Television.  

At the awards brunch on Sunday, filmmakers and press gathered at Spencer's Restaurant for seared ahi tuna and trophies to pics including Helen Hunt's directing debut "Then She Found Me," which took the audience award for narrative feature and "Autism: The Musical," which won the docu audience prize.

by Robert Koehler
The Pacific storms that whipped and battered the coast this past weekend came into Palm Springs like a lamb, giving toppers of the 19th edition of the Palm Springs film festival an audible sigh of relief. The relatively mild rains proved to a nice break for the start of this desert town's distinctively international fest, and failed to dampen noticeably large crowds. While the local weather is behaving, Palm Springs continues to look to the world for its movies, loading its program with works from Europe, Latin America and Asia (and nominally, Africa). This has been Palm Springs' signature identity; perhaps only the New York Film Festival--a considerably more boutique affair than this festival's massive 221 film package-- has a higher ratio of foreign to domestic films among U.S. fests.

Part of this profile is boosted by the inclusion of most of the films officially submitted to the Academy for the Oscar's foreign pic nod, pointing to a grand total of 68 non-U.S. countries repped. The global profile lends a palpable sense of local pride, visible in modest welcomes to festival guests from abroad that can be seen in small shops and restaurants around town. There's something about all of this, as well, that implicitly says: We're not Sundance.

The problem with this strategy is that it raises expectations on the part of those who follow the international festival scene that the best from the circuit will be on display--expectations that, this year at least, have been deflated. Given that it falls at the start of the year, Palm Springs is ideally positioned to offer audiences a cherry-picked roster from the fall festival rounds (first) and from Rotterdam-to-Karlovy Vary (second).

Berlin is well-repped here in a range of films including Saverio Costanzo's "In Memory of Myself" and Zhang Yang's "Getting Home" to Yasmin Ahmad's "Mukhsin." The same could be said somewhat of the Cannes imports (from Palme d'Or winner Cristian Mungiu's "4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days" and Lee Chang-dong's "Secret Sunshine" to Serge Bozon's Directors Fortnight discovery "La France"). From the early part of the year, though, films from Rotterdam, Hungarian Film Week, Guadalajara, Buenos Aires and Karlovy Vary are few and far between. From the fall, only Toronto items are abundant in Palm Springs, with few originating in major fests like Venice, San Sebastian and Pusan, and even fewer or none from Vancouver, London, Montreal and Rio.

The other main problem, as any Palm Springs jury member can attest, is that a lot of those films from Iraq, Vietnam and elsewhere are frequently not so hot. This is particularly an issue with the so-called "Awards Buzz" section displaying the foreign-lingo submissions in the Oscar race. A weak year for that field--and this is a weak year for sure--means that the experience of sitting through this section threatens to be about as close to torture as any single festival marathon can be.

Since the original submissions aren't curated (the films are submitted by countries' official committees, and thus vary wildly in quality), and Palm Springs tries to net as many as are possible in the field, this isn't a section that's so much programmed as shipped overseas. That drooping look on the faces of jury members (all of them critics affiliated with Fipresci, the international critics association) at the fest's midpoint is something one can count on. (I've experienced it directly myself, having served on this jury twice.) That they must view 55 films is tough enough; that most of these 55 are sub-par and worse makes the task grueling, for jury and auds alike.

Weekend panels went quite well, according to attendees and participants, with an especially lively session on film composing including James Newton Howard and Marc Shaiman (pictured right of Variety's Todd McCarthy). And the fest's central opening weekend gala was star-studded as usual with Daniel Day-Lewis, Sean Penn, Halle Berry, Emile Hirsch, vet producer Jerry Weintraub and "La vie en rose" star Marion Cotillard, whom Day-Lewis likened to his favorite screen actor of all time, Charles Laughton.

As the rains are becoming a faint memory at the midpoint, fest action is looking forward to a closing weekend capped by the closer, Pierre Salvadori's Audrey Tatou-starring "Priceless."


Photo by John Shearer/WireImage.com

This AP report in the New York Times on the Palm Springs fest has echoes of what happened to AFI FEST last year -- the strike is the looming topic of conversation, but through a different lens. 

As the celebs file into the desert resort town to collect some of the first awards of the season, press talk is now all about the hobbled Globes and Oscars.  While more and more inches are devoted to the award shows' ailing health, I doubt the unemployed (and woefully under-covered by the media) are shedding much of a tear.

The AP even pulls in Britney Spears into the piece.  And just when you think there's no way to steer the story back to what it's about (Palm Springs fest, remember?), here comes "Juno":

''I feel bad, you know, because everyone kind of judges [Spears] and splatters her business everywhere,'' said Ellen Page, who appeared in the film ''Juno.'' ''No one goes, 'Why is this happening?' They just judge and judge and judge. It's too bad.''

Too bad, indeed.

Ellen Page at the 19th Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival Awards Gala.  Photo by Alexandra Wyman/WireImage.com.

Palm Springs opened over the weekend with a special live version of "Shootout," where Peter Bart and Peter Gruber put the question "why festivals?" to the four assembled directors: Jason Reitman, Adam Shankman, John Sayles, and Joe Wright.  For films with distribs, loyalty and location are good reasons:

Reitman expressed a loyalty to Palm Springs for having shown his first short film while he was still a teen. Shankman, acknowledging the venue's accessibility from L.A, said the fest offered a celebratory reunion for the cast of the summer release.

For indies, John Sayles has other motives:

Sayles acknowledged that Palm Springs was "a great place to start buzz" while likening his film's rollout strategy to a "Paul Revere approach." On a city-by-city basis, Sayles and producer Maggie Renzi could effectively alert townspeople: " 'Honeydripper' is coming!"

Read Lael Loewenstein's article here.

It's pretty brave these days to introduce yet another award.  But sure enough, tonight arrives a late-in-the-day press release from Santa Barbara fest, announcing the creation of the Virtuoso Awards, to be given out to (who else) young Oscar nom hopefuls Casey Affleck, Marion Cotillard, James McAvoy, Ellen Page, and Amy Ryan. 

Suspiciously on the heels of Palm Springs' latest announcement, it's just the kind of thing that pricks a journalist's ears.  As I mentioned in a weekly feature, it's no news that fests compete with each other.  But it's something else to see it in action at the news desk.  The dueling announcements from these two fests are as seasonally predictable as the leaves turning red -- 

1. PS lunges with Sean Penn, Emile Hirsch, and Marion Cotillard. 
2. SB parries with Javier Bardem and Tommy Lee Jones (and a throw-in for indie street cred, Ryan Gosling). 
3. PS lashes back with Jerry Weintraub and Daniel Day-Lewis. 
4. There was this strange moment where they shot at each other. 
5. PS got a hyphenate with Helen Hunt. 

Leading to this latest salvo by SB.  Quite a cluster bomb – five red carpet walkers in one shot. 

One wonders what Palm Springs' next move is. 

And then it arrives, by mail no less - a quad-folded, glossy brochure from Palm Springs, packed with 13-plus celeb-heads and a choice LA Times quote stretched across its length:

"A huge, glittering affair, the Palm Springs International Film Festival has burst into a serious A-list star scene."

Take that, SB!  

And who’s winning so far?  If you're counting, it's Marion Cotillard.

The Palm Springs International Film Festival and the SAG Foundation will honor producer Jerry Weintraub with its Patron of the Arts award at its Awards Gala. Weintraub has produced "Ocean's Thirteen," "Nancy Drew," the original 1977 "Oh, God!," as well as "National Lampoon's Vegas Vacation," the "Karate Kid" movies, "Nashville," "Cruising" and "Diner."

And since no post is complete without a mention of "Juno," the festival will also give it their Chairman's Vanguard award.  Previously, "Little Miss Sunshine" got it.

On the heels of giving its Rising Star award to “Into the Wild” lead Emile Hirsch, the Palm Springs International Film Festival said it will honor the film’s helmer Sean Penn as Director of the Year at its annual Awards Gala. The fest previously announced honors for “La Vie En Rose” actress Marion Cotillard and “Hairspray” lead Nikki Blonsky.  Mary Hart will host the black-tie event on January 5.

Past director honorees include Alejandro González Iñárritu for “Babel,” Anthony Minghella for “Cold Mountain,” Alexander Payne for “Sideways” and Ang Lee for “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.”

“Into the Wild” premiered at Telluride, opened September 21, and is continuing an international festival tour that’s included stops at Toronto, London, and recently Rome.


Pictured: Penn and Hirsch at the Variety Screening Series of "Into the Wild." Photo by Jean Baptiste/Variety via Wireimage.

Palm Springs’ Darryl Macdonald talks to Variety’s Peter Bart at the announcement of the Palm Springs International Film Festival’s Rising Star Awards.  Full story here.