VENICE: Swedish director Tomas Alfredson brings John Le Carre's 1974 Cold War spy novel Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy to the screen in this big budget European adaptation of the novel. The BBC screen version of the novel is already well known from the hugely successful TV series that was exported around the world and Gary Oldman has a tough act to follow in his role as master spy George Smiley, a role that Alec Guinness made his own. But Oldman is equal to the task giving a masterful, if less likable performance than Guinness, as the veteran spy of the Le Carre novels. Oldman is much colder and grayer than Guinness and we feel perhaps less sympathy for him. But the loneliness of being a spy and the imaginary world they live in as well as the ruthlessness and moral ambiguity are all there in Oldman's Smiley. It is a performance that should win him a slew of awards in the coming year.
MOSCOW: The third edition of CentEast Moscow (www.centeast.eu) saw organizers expand the event from one to two days and add screenings of films for participants to its programme. The expanded programme was made possible by a grant from the Russian Cinema Fund. The fund became a backer of the event for the first time this year joining the EU's MEDIA MUNDUS programme and the Polish Film Institute (www.pisf.pl) as sponsors of the event which is held in conjunction with CentEast Warsaw.
BATUMI: The 6th edition of the Batumi International Art House Film Festival (http://biaff.org) (17-24 September 2011) kicks off today in the Black Sea resort city with Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris. The festival is backed by the Georgian National Film Center (www.gnfc.ge) and the Polish Film Institute (www.pisf.pl) as well as the city of Batumi. This year will feature among other events a selection of films from the Andrzej Wajda Film School. Over 20 countries are represented each year.
VENICE: Russian director Alexander Sokurov won the Golden Lion for best film for his film Faust at the 68th Venice Film Festival (31 August – 10 September 2011). A controversial film based on the Goethe character the Russian German coproduction starring Austrian actor Johannes Zeiler as Faust beat out films presented on the Lido with starpower like Madonna, Colin Firth and George Clooney.
VENICE: Land of Oblivion, a Polish coproduction directed by Israeli director Michale Boganim and starring Olga Kurylenko and Andrzej Chyra, will have its world premiere on 3 September 2011 in the International Film Critics Week of the 68th Venice International Film Festival, before heading to the Toronto International Film Festival. International audiences will remember Kurylenko as the "Bond Girl" in Quantum of Solace. Chyra is one of Poland's hottest young stars which should give the film plenty of traction at the box office.
FNE together with Europa Cinemas continues its Cinema of the Month series. In recognition of the hard work and excellence of European cinema operators we choose a cinema from each country covered by FNE each month. We look at the challenges and the successes faced by those cinemas with a special series of interviews that offer insights that other operators can benefit from and a platform for the exchange of ideas. This month we focus on Bulgaria and Vladimir Trifonov who is programme manager 0f the Cinema House in Sofia.
CANNES: Russian director Andrei Zvyagintsev returns to form with his new feature Elena fulfilling the promise of his 2003 debut The Return. Elena deservedly won the Special Jury Prix in the Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival 2011. The story revolves around an elderly couple, Elena and Vladimir. Elena played by Nadezhda Markina is a seemingly docile wife who met the wealthy Vladimir played by Andrei Smirnov when she was a nurse and he was recovering in hospital.
CANNES: Lars Von Trier's latest film Melancholia is ostensibly about the end of life on planet Earth, although the planet that Von Trier presents us with bears little resemblance to any Earth we know of.
CANNES: Director Terrence Malick has succeeded in creating the very first American myth as film for the post war generation. No American who grew up in the 1950's will fail to recognize the images and the feelings of childhood from Malick's epic.
CANNES: Director Aki Kaurismaki’s first film in French language, Le Harve, loses none of the distinctive Kaurismaki style and ironic humour. Shot in the French seaport of Le Harve, the film continues the character of Marcel Marx begun by the director in his film La Vie de Boheme. Marx is played by Andre Wilms in both films and in Le Harve we find the former author and Bohemian working as a shoe shiner and married to Arletty played by Kaurismaki regular Kati Outinen.
