Rudderless Journey Begins/Burning for The Furnace/The Nugget Re-opens/Folman's Congress at Cannes/The Immigrant (Can someone please title this film?)/Is "The Past" in Our Future?

Good Monday morning!


RUDDERLESS JOURNEY BEGINS

William H. Macy and crew scouting locations in Guthrie, OK. this week.

William H. Macy's "Rudderless" is underway.  Friend of MTFB and script co-author Casey Twenter posted photos from the shoot yesterday here in Oklahoma.

First scene on the first day of shooting for "Rudderless"

William H. Macy with a thumbs as he wraps the first day of the "Rudderless" shoot yesterday.

And I have linked to this story that ran, in part, in the Daily Oklahoman:

http://blog.newsok.com/bamsblog/2013/04/19/william-h-macy-begins-shooting-directorial-debut-rudderless-sunday-in-oklahoma/

BURNING FOR THE FURNACE/OUT OF THE FURNACE

Friend of MTFB Kristopher Tapley of InContention/Hit Fix tweeted earlier this week an exciting prospect of a really intriguing film making the program at T-ride:

https://twitter.com/kristapley/status/324703726344486912

"Out of the Furnace" was also listed as a Telluride possibility in the HitFix "Oscar Contenders 2014: 25 Films to Watch For" post on Feb. 28th.  It's #19 in the photo gallery.

http://www.hitfix.com/in-contention/oscars-2014-contenders-25-films-to-watch-for

Director and co-writer Scott Cooper's debut film was "Crazy Heart" which led to Jeff Bridges winning a Best Actor Oscar.  It also won the Oscar for Best Original Song and earned Maggie Gyllenhall a Supporting Actress nomination.

"Furnace" boasts an impressive list of names in the cast: Christian Bale, Casey Affleck, Willem Dafoe, Woody Harrelson, Zoe Saldana, Forest Whitaker and Sam Shepherd.  It's IMDB entry is here:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1206543/?ref_=sr_1




THE NUGGET RE-OPENS

News from Telluride that The Nugget, the actual movie theater in town, has re-opened and is ready for business.   The Telluride Daily Planet reports that the theater will be run by the Telluride Film Festival directly including programming.  The complete story is linked here:

http://www.telluridenews.com/articles/2013/04/19/news/doc51707509eba91571383769.txt

FOLMAN'S CONGRESS AT CANNES

It was something of a surprise Thursday that the announcement of the Cannes lineups did not include Ari Folman's "The Congress".  I passed on word that it was likely to be announced for some part of the program later and sure enough, on Friday, it was announced as the opening film for the Director's Fortnight part of the Cannes program.  See the linked tweet below from Film Festival News:

https://twitter.com/filmfest/status/325219614768377856/photo/1


THE IMMIGRANT...OR LOWLIFE...OR THE NIGHTINGALE...

Here's a new image and a few words about James Gray's "The Immigrant" which has been previously titled "Lowlife" and "The Nightingale".  This film was teased at TFF #39 as a part of the Marion Cotillard tribute I attended with a screening of a few minutes of the film and the presence of Mr. Gray himself.  I'm hoping that signaled a possibility that the entire film shows this year...and maybe a return visit from Ms. Cotillard.

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/new-pics-from-cannes-contenders-james-grays-the-immigrant-nicolas-winding-refns-only-god-forgives-20130418


IS "THE PAST" IN OUR FUTURE?

I have a lot of anticipation for Asghar Farhadi's follow up to "A Separation".  It's playing in competition next month at Cannes.  Previously we had seen a trailer in French.  Now comes an English subtitled trailer linked here from both Rope of Silicon and The Playlist.

http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/the-past-english-subtitled-trailer/

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/watch-subtitled-trailer-for-asghar-farhadis-cannes-entry-the-past-starring-berenice-bejo-tahar-rahim-20130418



More on Thursday...

Oscar Matters: Another Oscar 2014 Speculation/Berlin Calling

Good Monday...

OSCAR MATTERS: ANOTHER OSCAR SPECULATION LIST FOR 2014

Brad Brevet of Rope of Silicon has tagged 40 films as potential Oscar players for the coming year.  These are the 10 on his list (which is pretty informative, by the way) that I think have the likeliest Telluride profile:

"12 Years a Slave"
"August Osage County"
"The Butler"
"Dallas Buyers Club"
"The Fifth Estate"
"Foxcatcher"
"Labor Day"
"Lowlife" (The Nightingale)
"The Monuments Men"
"Nebraska"

You can find Brevet's complete set of films beginning here:

http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/2014-oscar-preview-best-picture-contenders-12-years-slave-elysium-counselor/


BERLIN (2013) CALLING

The Berlin International Film Festival is usually an interesting mix of films that have already released in the U.S. and foreign films that have yet to pop up in North America.  As the following list reveals, as of late, there are usually a couple of films that make their way from Berlin to Telluride.

2012: "Barbara" and "A Royal Affair"
2011: "A Separation", "The Turin Horse" and "Pina"
2010: None
2009: "Gigante" and "London River"
2008: "Happy Go Lucky" and "I've Loved You So Long"



So what might we see from this year's recently completed Berlin fest?

Here's the lineup from the just completed festival (Feb. 7-17, 2013):

In competition:

"Dolgaya schastlivaya zhizn" ("A Long and Happy Life"), director Boris Khlebnikov.

"Prince Avalanche," David Gordon Green.

"Uroki Garmonii" ("Harmony Lessons"), Emir Baigazin.

"Vic+Flo ont vu un ours" ("Vic+Flo Saw a Bear"), Denis Cote.

"W imie ..." ("In the Name of"), Malgoska Szumowska.

"Camille Claudel 1915," Bruno Dumont.

"Elle s'en va" ("On my Way"), Emmanuelle Bercot.

"Epizoda u zivotu beraca zeljeza" ("An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker"), Danis Tanovic.

"Gloria," Sebastian Lelio.

"Gold," Thomas Arslan.

"La Religieuse" ("The Nun"), Guillaume Nicloux.

"Layla Fourie," Pia Marais.

"The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman," Fredrik Bond.

"Nugu-ui Ttal-do Anin Haewon" ("Nobody's Daughter Haewon"), Hong Sangsoo.

"Paradies: Hoffnung" ("Paradise: Hope"), Ulrich Seidl.

"Parde" ("Closed Curtain"), Jafar Panahi and Kambozia Partovi.

"Pozitia Copilului" ("Child's Pose"), Calin Peter Netzer.

"Promised Land," Gus Van Sant.

"Side Effects," Steven Soderbergh.

Out of competition:

"Before Midnight," Richard Linklater.

"Dark Blood," George Sluizer.

"Night Train to Lisbon," Bille August.

"The Croods," Kirk De Micco and Chris Sanders.

"Yi dai zong shi" ("The Grandmaster"), Wong Kar Wai.

Trying to hit the bullseye of what films might come from Berlin's lineup isn't easy.  My best guesses: "Paradise: Hope"  (the third of a trilogy,  Paradise: Love" played at Telluride last year; the other is "Paradise: Faith"). "Gloria", "Closed Curtain" and "Camille Claudel 1915".

More on Thursday.