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Exclusive: NYC-based design agency Keithcity Group has signed on to craft animated sequences for Tony Kaye’s film, Tremendum, which is currently in production and scheduled for release this fall.

Tremendum tells the story of a struggling Russian actress who travels to Hollywood, hellbent on achieving mainstream success. Tragically murdered, she lives in the mind of an investigating detective, and inadvertently sets up a manifesto that leads to a Holy Grail, on a new acting methodology.

The film stars a largely Russian cast: Valeriya Kozhevnikova, Victoria Dayneko, Denis Shvedov and Beverly D’Angelo. Its producers include Kaye, Raymond Markovich and Kostas Khionidis.

Only partially animated, Tremendum is inspired by Kaye’s conversations with Marlon Brando, from the late ’90s through the early 2000s. Kaye and Brando worked together on a series of acting workshops titled “Lying for a Living,” the participants of which included Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, Little Richard,...

Right from the first moments of “The Factory,” it’s clear that Greyhair (Denis Shvedov) has been through some shit. He chooses to walk six kilometers every morning, rain or shine, to the factory where he works, forgoing the company bus because it’s too noisy. Once there, he feeds metal rods into a machine all day long with monotonous efficiency, without saying a single word to his co-workers.

Continue reading ‘The Factory’ Manufactures A Lackluster Kidnapping Thriller [Tiff Review] at The Playlist.

Variety has been given access to an exclusive clip from Yury Bykov’s “The Factory,” which world premieres Saturday at the Toronto Film Festival. Wild Bunch is selling the film.

Bykov has become one of Russia’s best known directors in recent years with his critically acclaimed films “The Fool” and “The Major.” The multi-hyphenate director, delivers his latest social drama, a study of corruption, moral compromise and the behavior of people in impossible situations in “The Factory.”

The film is set in a dilapidated industrial building on the outskirts of a provincial Russian town. Many of its workers have been employed before the change from state regulation to capitalist privatisation. When owner Konstantine Kalugin (Andrey Smolyakov), a local oligarch with deep-rooted links to the top, announces that the factory is bankrupt, a group of workers who haven’t been paid for months kidnap him and hold him for ransom.