News

Two-time Oscar nominee Tom Wilkinson (upcoming The Lone Ranger, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Michael Clayton) joins the thriller Felony opposite the previously cast male lead Joel Edgerton (upcoming Zero Dark Thirty, The Great Gatsby), it was announced by The Solution Entertainment Group.s (.The Solution.) founders and partners, Lisa Wilson and Myles Nestel, and producers Rosemary Blight of Goalpost Pictures Australia and Edgerton for Blue-Tongue Films.

The feature film, set to start lensing in late October, will be directed by Matthew Saville (Noise) from a script by Edgerton.

The Solution arranged the financing for the film, with Wilson and Nestel serving as executive producers. The company is representing the international rights to the film and is actively selling the title at the ongoing Toronto International Film Festival.

Felony will be distributed in Australia and New Zealand by Roadshow Films. CAA is handling Us rights.

Driving home after a celebration...

Lauren Edwards has joined the team at Goalpost Pictures, the production company currently filming The Sapphires, directed by Wayne Blair in Sydney, which Edwards is Associate Producer on.

Edwards was producer on the Nash Edgerton directed, Edgerton/David Michod written short film, Bear which screened in competition at the 2011 Cannes International Film Festival.

Goalpost’s Rosemary Blight said in a statement, “Goalpost is very committed to identifying, mentoring and working with the most dynamic and creative talent in the country – whether writers, directors, producers, actors or technicians. In Lauren we see an exceptional talent and we believe she will have a stellar career as a producer. We are delighted that she has joined the Goalpost team and very much look forward to working alongside her as her first feature film as Producer, Mixtape, becomes a reality.”

Mixtape, which will be Maia Horniak’s feature film debut, is a rom-com that connects music and love.

Adapted from the stage, The Sapphires, about a 1960s Indigenous all-girl soul group scouted from the outback and sent to Vietnam to entertain the troops is due to start filming in Sydney in August, before moving on location to Vietnam later in the year.

The doo-wop group billed as the next Supremes will be made up of Jessica Mauboy (Bran Nue Dae), Deborah Mailman (Rabbit Proof Fence, Offspring) joined by Nida graduates Shari Sebbens and Miranda Tapsell.

Adapted by Keith Thompson (Clubland) and playwright Tony Briggs, it is directed by actor/theatre director Wayne Blair and produced by Rosemary Blight and Kylie du Fresne of Goalpost Pictures Australia.

The film will be distributed by Hopscotch Films throughout Australia and New Zealand. Managing Director Troy Lum said, “The Sapphires has it all – a great story with lots of love and laugher, set against the backdrop of the social upheaval of the late 1960’s,...

Julien Temple's The Eternity is a not a movie one should watch if they enjoy the delights of plot, dialogue or subtlety. If, instead, you enjoy your movies to be all pyrotechnics and razzle dazzle mise-en-scène then perhaps it is for you. And even then you will have to get past the singing. Oh yes, there will be singing. I will be the first to admit that opera isn't exactly "my thing", but I can handle it all well and good in small doses and if, ya know, performed well. And yet while I can't call myself a particularly good judge of what makes one opera good and another bad, I must say I found the nauseating operatic warblings in The Eternity Man to be an insufferable mess.

Starting with a ten minute long sequence that recalls the opening passages of Baz Luhrmann's equally radical musical Moulin Rouge!

Rome -- Julian Jarrold's "Brideshead Revisited" will open the 61st Locarno Film Festival, highlighting a lineup that will see nearly two dozen world premieres screen in the festival's historic Piazza Grande or in the main competition.

"Brideshead" -- a European premiere -- is a World War II drama based on the Evelyn Waugh novel and starring Matthew Goode as Capt. Charles Ryder. It screens Aug. 6.

The world premiere of Solveig Anspach's Franco-Icelandic comedy "Back Soon" will close the lakeside festival Aug. 16.

In between, the Piazza Grande lineup will unspool Marco Siega's comedic drama "Chaos Theory," Clark Gregg's comedy "Choke," Denis Rabaglia's romantic drama "Marcello, Marcello" and Garth Jennings' "Son of Rambow," which was scheduled to screen in Locarno in 2007 but pulled because of a legal dispute.

The Piazza Grande selection continues the trend of accessible fare screening in Europe's largest outdoor cinema venue under third-year artistic director Frederic Maire, as opposed to the more weighty and cerebral productions that screened there in the past.

The 17-film international competition lineup, meanwhile, is made up entirely of world and international premieres.

The complete competition lineup follows:

Piazza Grande

"Back Soon," Solveig Anspach, Iceland/France

"Berlin Calling," Hannes Stoehr, Germany

"Brideshead Revisited," Julian Jarrold, U.K.

"Chaos Theory," Marcos Siega, U.S.

"Choke," Clark Gregg, U.S.

"In 3 Tagen Bist Du Tot 2," Andreas Prochaska, Austria

"Khamsa," Karim Dridi, France

"La Fille De Monaco," Anne Fontaine, France

"Lesson 21," Alessandro Baricco, Italy/U.K.

"Marcello Marcello," Denis Rabaglia, Switzerland/Germany

"Retouches," Georges Schwizgebel, Switzerland/Canada

"Night and the City," Jules Dassin, U.K.

"Nordwand," Philipp Stolzl, Germany/Austria/Switzerland

"Outlander," Howard McCain, U.S.

"Palombella Rossa," Nanni Moretti, Italy/France

"Plus Tard Tu Comprendras," Amos Gitai, France/ Germany

"Son of Rambow," Garth Jennings, U.K. /France

"The Eternity Man," Julien Temple, Australia/U.K.

"I Know," Jan Cvitkovic, Slovenia/Hungary

International competition

"33 Scenes From Life," Malgorzata Szumowska, Germany/Poland

"Daytime Drinking," Noh Young-seok, South Korea

"Dioses," Josue Mendez, Peru/Argentine/Germany /France

"Elle Veut Le Chaos," Denis Cote, Canada

"Katia's Sister," Mijke de Jong, Netherlands

"Kisses," Lance Daly, Ireland/Sweden

"Feast of Villains," Pan Jian Lin, Chine

"Mar Nero," Federico Bondi, Italy/Romania/France

"March," Klaus Handl, Austria

"Nulle Part Terre Promise," Emmanuel Finkiel, France

"Parque Via," Enrique Rivero, Mexico

"Sleep Furiously," Gideon Koppel, U.K.

"Autumn," Ozcan Alper, Turkey/Germany

"The Market -- A Tale of Trade," Ben Hopkins, Germany/U.K./Turkey/Kazakhstan

"Um Amor de Perdicao," Mario Barroso, Portugal/Brazil

"Un Autre Homme," Lionel Baier, Switzerland

"Yuri's Day," Kirill Serebrennikov, Russia/Germany...