VarietyLA DVFLA021012 : Page 4

4 V ARIETY .COM/BERLIN FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2012 Bardem unveils passion project By JOHN HOPEWELL For the Wild Bunch-sold “Sons of the Clouds: The Last Colony,” which world preems as a Berlinale Special, Javier Bardem took on maybe the most difficult role of his life: the producer of a documentary about the plight of the Saha-rawi people. Through interviews, Bardem’s voiceover, action sequences and even animation, the Alvaro Longoria-helmed “Sons” shows how and why the Western Sahara, abandoned by Spain and annexed by Morocco in its 1975 Green March, Javier became, according to a U.N. statement, Bardem a colony — the last in Africa, noted Bar-dem — leaving 200,000 Saharawis liv-ing in desert refugee camps, mostly in South-West Algeria. Bardem and Longoria attended the 5th Sahara Film Festival in 2008, held in refugee camps. See BARDEM page 53 “Sexy Sadie” helmer Matthias Glasner explores family tensions in a remote Norwegian town in “Mercy.” SERIOUS BUSINESS By JUSTIN CHANG Though he’s weathered plenty of criticism of his programming choices in recent years, particu-larly in the German press, Ber-linale director Dieter Kosslick appears to have made few major course adjustments with the festi-val’s 62nd annual edition. If any-thing, the sheer number of Ber-lin alumni in this year’s typically serious-minded competition lineup suggests a deliberate, if not de-fiant, reaffirmation of the talent Kosslick has brought to the festi-val over his 11-year tenure. Three Berlinale regulars will deliver a strong showing for Ger-many on its home turf. Chris-tian Petzold (“Yella,” last year’s “Dreileben: Beats Being Dead”) is returning with “Barbara,” his latest collaboration with “Yella” thesp Nina Hoss; Hans-Christian Schmid (“Distant Lights,” “Re-quiem,” “Storm”) is bringing his domestic drama “Home for the Weekend”; and Matthias Glasner (“Die Mediocren,” “Sexy Sadie,” “The Free Will”) explores family tensions in a remote Norwegian town in “Mercy.” The roster of non-Teuton alums vying for the Golden Bear is equally imposing. Though better known of late for stirring contro-versy at Cannes, Filipino helmer Weighty themes, fest vets fill selections Brillante Mendoza (whose “Sling-shot” premiered in Berlinale’s 2008 Forum section) will deliver one of the fest’s most buzzed-about entries, “Captive,” a kidnap-ping drama starring Isabelle Hup-pert. Italy’s Taviani brothers (“The Lark Farm”) will be in attendance with “Caesar Must Die,” centered around a Shakespeare production mounted by maximum-security prison inmates in Rome, while Benedik Fliegauf (“Forest”) makes his competition debut with “Just the Wind,” an account inspired by the murders of Romani families in the helmer’s native Hungary. Returning to the festival that See LINEUP page 53 Garrett to play Paganini By ED MEZA Superstar violinist David Gar-rett will make his feature debut in Bernard Rose’s “The Devil’s Violinist,” a historical biopic about 19th-century Italian violin virtu-oso Niccolo Paganini. Rose is writing and directing the pic, about the imagined Faustian pact Paganini made to become the world’s first superstar performer. Budgeted at between $15 millilon-$20 million, the film is slated to begin lensing in August throughout Europe. Garrett will play the violinist and perform his music in the film. The parallels are apparent in the casting of Garrett, one of Eu-rope’s biggest music stars and a performer who bridges the worlds of rock and classical music. In-deed, Garrett calls Paganini “the first rock star — an eccentric ge-nius with many flaws.” Argentine faves get redos By EMILIANO DE PABLOS and JOHN HOPEWELL Palomar chairman-CEO Joni Sighvatsson has optioned English-language remake rights to Argen-tinean comedy “Igualita a mi” (Just like Me). In a separate deal, New York-based Primary Prods., headed by Amy Kaufman (“The Whistle-blower”), has teamed with Kamala Films’ Marissa McMahon to option remake rights on Juan Taratuto’s Argentinean hit “Un novio para mi mujer” (A Boyfriend for My Wife). Both deals have been tied down by Guido Rud’s Buenos Aires sales agency FilmSharks Intl., which over the last three years has developed an international redo biz, complement-ing its sale of original movies. Argentineans Adrian Suar and Florencia Bertotti star in “Me,” a comedy about a single man whose party-hearty lifestyle comes to an abrupt halt when a pregnant girl turns up claiming to be his daughter. One of Argentine’s hottest local draws in 2010, “Me” was produced by Disney-backed Patagonik Film Group, based out of Buenos Aires. “Boyfriend” turns on a man who tries to help his wife fall in love with another man — so he can leave her. FilmSharks remake biz is now expanding beyond the U.S. Korea’s Chris Lee and Jin-soo Min, the founder of Soo Film, have purchased Korean remake rights to “Boyfriend.” DIGITAL EDITION David Garrett will play his hero, violin virtuoso Paganini, whom he calls the first rock superstar. “It has been a lifelong ambition to be involved in a film about my hero Niccolo Paganini,” said Gar-rett. “He has a special place in my heart and to have the opportunity to bring him back to life on the bigscreen is an extremely exciting experience for me.” See GARRETT page 53 Looking for each day day’s Berlin edition online? For full digital editions of Variety ’s coverage, go to Variety.com/berlin LEADS SET FOR NEW GALLIC ‘BEAUTY’ TALE By JOHN HOPEWELL and ELSA KESLASSY Vincent Cassel and Lea Seydoux are attached to star in “Beauty and the Beast,” one of the biggest new European movies to be announced at Berlin’s market this year. Christophe Gans (“Silent Hill,” “Brotherhood of the Wolf”) has written the screen-Juan Naharro Gimenez/WireImage Vincent Cassel is a French fave. play and will direct. Budgeted at €33 million ($43.2 million), the French-language “Beauty” is produced by Paris-based Eskwad and Gallic mini-major Pathe. Pathe is taking French and U.K. distribution rights and will sell international and distribute in France. Fox handles Pathe’s the-atrical, home entertainment and TV distribution in the U.K. Eskwad owner Richard Grandpierre, who produced 2001’s “Brotherhood of the Wolf,” will produce here. Gans’ screenplay is based on one of the earliest published vari-ants of the traditional fairy tale, included in Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve’s 18th century collec-tion “La Jeune Ameriquaine et les Contes Marins.” Dana Nalbandian/WireImage Kevork Djansezian/ Getty Images

Serious Business

Justin Chang

Weighty themes, fest vets fill selections Though he’s weathered plenty of criticism of his programming choices in recent years, particularly in the German press, Berlinale director Dieter Kosslick appears to have made few major course adjustments with the festival’s 62nd annual edition. If anything, the sheer number of Berlin alumni in this year’s typically serious-minded competition lineup suggests a deliberate, if not defiant, reaffirmation of the talent Kosslick has brought to the festival over his 11-year tenure. Three Berlinale regulars will deliver a strong showing for Germany on its home turf. Christian Petzold (“Yella,” last year’s “Dreileben: Beats Being Dead”) is returning with “Barbara,” his latest collaboration with “Yella” thesp Nina Hoss; Hans-Christian Schmid (“Distant Lights,” “Requiem,” “Storm”) is bringing his domestic drama “Home for the Weekend”; and Matthias Glasner (“Die Mediocren,” “Sexy Sadie,” “The Free Will”) explores family tensions in a remote Norwegian town in “Mercy.” The roster of non-Teuton alums vying for the Golden Bear is equally imposing. Though better known of late for stirring controversy at Cannes, Filipino helmer Brillante Mendoza (whose “Slingshot” premiered in Berlinale’s 2008 Forum section) will deliver one of the fest’s most buzzedabout entries, “Captive,” a kidnapping drama starring Isabelle Huppert. Italy’s Taviani brothers (“The Lark Farm”) will be in attendance with “Caesar Must Die,” centered around a Shakespeare production mounted by maximum-security prison inmates in Rome, while Benedik Fliegauf (“Forest”) makes his competition debut with “Just the Wind,” an account inspired by the murders of Romani families in the helmer’s native Hungary. Returning to the festival that Honored him with a Golden Bear for 2006’s “Tuya’s Marriage,” Wang Quanan is back in competition with “White Deer Plain,” a 188-minute Chinese epic about the Cultural Revolution. Out of competition, Wang’s fellow mainlander Zhang Yimou (a frequent Berlin visitor with such films as “Hero,” “A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop,” “Hero” and 1987 Golden Bear winner “Red Sorghum”) will premiere his local B.O. smash “The Flowers of War,” about the 1937-38 Nanjing massacre. All in all, it’s a fairly bleaksounding selection based on subject matter alone. It’s par for the course for most festivals and certainly for Berlin, which has never shied away from challenging its audience (easily the largest of any fest, with nearly 400 films screening to roughly 500,000 attendees) with grim, confrontational and politically charged fare. Partly out of aesthetic pride, partly due to the increasing difficulty of competing with Cannes and Venice for auteur prestige or Hollywood luster, Berlin has often staked its reputation on the promise of challenging but rewarding work from lesser-known international filmmakers, such as Maren Ade’s “Everyone Else” or Ulrich Koehler’s “Sleeping Sickness.” This year it will attempt to keep that promise with such competition debutantes as Ursula Meier (“Sister”), Miguel Gomes (“Tabu”), Frederic Videau (“Coming Home”), Antonio Chavarrias (“Childish Games”), mono-monikered Edwin (“Postcards From the Zoo”) and Kim Nguyen (“War Witch”). LINEUP Continued from page 4 Helmer Ursula Meier’s first Berlin competition film is “Sister.” Nonetheless, Kosslick arranged a splashy start with the festival’s opening-night selection, “Farewell, My Queen,” a French Revolution costume drama starring Diane Kruger as Marie Antoinette. Helmer Benoit Jacquot’s pic is one of two monarchy-themed historical dramas in competition, both set in roughly the same era; the other is Nikolaj Arcel’s “A Royal Affair,” the story of a small-town physician who rose to power in 16th-century Denmark. A very different period piece, and one of the fest’s highest-profile selections, is Billy Bob Thornton’s “Jayne Mansfield’s Car,” a tale of two rival families set in late-1960s Alabama that happens to be the sole American-directed entry in competition. The U.S./Hollywood presence is stronger in the festival’s noncompeting strands, which will present screenings of Steven Soderbergh’s “Haywire,” Jason Reitman’s “Young Adult” and Angelina Jolie’s “In the Land of Blood and Honey.” As usual, the Berlinale will serve as a European platform for Oscar contenders that have already played Stateside, though in terms of critical and commercial reception, the selection of “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” and “The Iron Lady” reps a considerable downturn from last year’s sterling choices, “True Grit” and “The King’s Speech.” For redcarpet wattage alone, the festival’s hottest ticket may well be Robert Pattinson starrer “Bel Ami,” Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod’s adaptation of Guy de Maupassant’s oft-filmed novel. Striking less frivolous notes are the numerous documentaries programmed throughout the fest’s sidebars. Past Berlin jury president Werner Herzog will present “Death Row,” a four-part, 188-minute companion-piece to his recent “Into the Abyss” in the Berlinale Special section. Portraits of artists abound, from such world premieres as Kevin Macdonald’s “Marley” and Klaartje Quirijns’ “Anton Corbijn Inside Out” to Sundance-preemed titles including Matthew Akers’ “Marina Abramovic the Artist Is Present” and Alison Klayman’s “Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry.” Roughly a month before the one-year anniversary of Japan’s earthquake/tsunami disaster, the Forum will present three nonfiction efforts examining the fallout of the disaster: Shunji Iwai’s “Friends After 3.11,” Toshi Fujiwara’s “No Man’s Zone” and Atsushi Funahashi’s “Nuclear Nation.” It’s the sort of sober, topical programming that befits a festival clearly trying hard to be taken seriously; whether the quality lives up to the promise, only the next 10 days or so will tell.

Bardem Unveils Passion Project

John Hopewell

For the Wild Bunch-sold “Sons of the Clouds: The Last Colony,” which world preems as a Berlinale Special, Javier Bardem took on maybe the most difficult role of his life: the producer of a documentary about the plight of the Saharawi people. Through interviews, Bardem’s voiceover, action sequences and even animation, the Alvaro Longoria-helmed “Sons” shows how and why the Western Sahara, abandoned by Spain and annexed by Morocco in its 1975 Green March, became, according to a U.N. statement, a colony — the last in Africa, noted Bardem — leaving 200,000 Saharawis living in desert refugee camps, mostly in South-West Algeria. Bardem and Longoria attended the 5th Sahara Film Festival in 2008, held in refugee camps. "The only thing we know more or less how to do is make films, so we decided to make one on the Saharawi people, whose situation usually gets pushed to the back of political and diplomatic agendas,” said Bardem. They hardly knew what they were letting themselves in for. Some of the most telling scenes in “Sons” document Bardem and Longoria’s challenges in merely putting the documentary together. It includes shaky covert footage of a Saharawi protest about living conditions in November 2010. “The Arab Spring really started there,” said Bardem. Bardem is seen on the phone, attempting to tie down interviews in vain. Despite four years of efforts, Bardem said no Moroccan was willing to go on the record about why the country has blocked a referendum, ordered by the United Nations, on Saharawi selfdetermination. “We tried government officials, intellectuals: Everybody refused to speak,” said Bardem. “The difficulties we encountered serve as a metaphor for the reality of the Sahawaris,” said Longoria. Profits on the film will be sent to education or health orgs in the Western Sahara, he added. “Sons” is produced by Bardem’s Pinguin Films, Longoria’s Morena Films and Candescent Films in the U.S. Spain’s Canal Plus has acquired “Sons,” Longoria said. Wild Bunch has struck pre-sales and will initiate a sales campaign in Berlin. “But just opening in Berlin is big, more than we ever imagined,” Bardem said.

Argentine Faves Get Redos

Emiliano De Pablos And John Hopewell

Palomar chairman-CEO Joni Sighvatsson has optioned Englishlanguage remake rights to Argentinean comedy “Igualita a mi” (Just like Me). In a separate deal, New Yorkbased Primary Prods., headed by Amy Kaufman (“The Whistleblower”), has teamed with Kamala Films’ Marissa McMahon to option remake rights on Juan Taratuto’s Argentinean hit “Un novio para mi mujer” (A Boyfriend for My Wife). Both deals have been tied down by Guido Rud’s Buenos Aires sales agency FilmSharks Intl., which over the last three years has developed an international redo biz, complementing its sale of original movies. Argentineans Adrian Suar and Florencia Bertotti star in “Me,” a comedy about a single man whose party-hearty lifestyle comes to an abrupt halt when a pregnant girl turns up claiming to be his daughter. One of Argentine’s hottest local Draws in 2010, “Me” was produced by Disney-backed Patagonik Film Group, based out of Buenos Aires. “Boyfriend” turns on a man who tries to help his wife fall in love with another man — so he can leave her. FilmSharks remake biz is now expanding beyond the U.S. Korea’s Chris Lee and Jin-soo Min, the founder of Soo Film, have purchased Korean remake rights to “Boyfriend.”

Garrett To Play Paganini

Ed Meza

Superstar violinist David Garrett will make his feature debut in Bernard Rose’s “The Devil’s Violinist,” a historical biopic about 19th-century Italian violin virtuoso Niccolo Paganini. Rose is writing and directing the pic, about the imagined Faustian pact Paganini made to become the world’s first superstar performer. Budgeted at between $15 millilon-$20 million, the film is slated to begin lensing in August throughout Europe. Garrett will play the violinist and perform his music in the film. The parallels are apparent in the casting of Garrett, one of Europe’s biggest music stars and a performer who bridges the worlds of rock and classical music. Indeed, Garrett calls Paganini “the first rock star — an eccentric genius with many flaws.” “It has been a lifelong ambition to be involved in a film about my hero Niccolo Paganini,” said Garrett. “He has a special place in my heart and to have the opportunity to bring him back to life on the bigscreen is an extremely exciting experience for me.” Summerstorm Entertainment, a subsidiary of Berlin-based Film House Germany, will produce the film, which will go into production this year. It’s one of a slew of projects in the works at Film House, one of Germany’s newest players. Launched in 2010 by Frankfurt- based financial services and investment outfit ABL Group, Film House has acquired a number of high-profile production outfits, including Summerstorm, the Berlin- based firm founded by Marco Kreuzpaintner and Fabian Wolfart, and Jens Meurer and Judy Tossell’s Egoli Tossell Film. It also joined forces with Dutch powerhouse Lemming Film last year to create Hamster Film, a family entertainment label. Headed by CEO Christian Angermayer, Film House oversees development, financing, production and co-production of films for local and international auds. In addition to its existing equity capital of more than €7 million ($9.3 million), Film House is also developing private investment vehicles for retail and institutional investors, the first of which will be unveiled in the second half of 2012. “It is our aim to produce films out of Germany for the world market,” said Angermayer. “Film House combines the networks and know-how from both industries — film and finance — under one roof.” Also in production at Summerstorm is Kreuzpaintner’s “Coming In,” a London-based romantic comedy about a gay hairdresser who unexpectedly falls in love with a supermarket checkout girl. Egoli Tossell, meanwhile, is coproducing Ron Howard’s Formula One drama “Rush”; Paul Andrew Williams’ “Songs for Marion,” starring Vanessa Redgrave, Terence Stamp and Gemma Arterton; Jon Baird’s “Filth,” with James McAvoy and Jamie Bell; and Kweku Mandela’s documentary “Mandela’s Children.” The shingle’s upcoming projects include Peter Chelsom’s “Hector and the Search for Happiness” and Iain Softley’s medieval epic “Ivanhoe.” Among Hamster’s slate of projects are “Sputnik,” an adventure tale about three kids set against the backdrop of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and “Boy 7,” described as a teen-skewed “Bourne Identity” and based on the bestselling novel by Mirjam Mous. Hamster is also spinning the wheel on “Heirs of the Night: Nosferas,” a co-production with Bavaria Pictures, the first in a series of a planned franchise based on the children’s book series by Ulrike Schweikert. The company, headed by Leontine Petit and Joost de Vries, is presenting “Heirs of the Night” at the Berlinale Co-Production Market.

Leads Set For New Gallic 'Beauty' Tale

John Hopewell And Elsa Keslassy

Vincent Cassel and Lea Seydoux are attached to star in “Beauty and the Beast,” one of the biggest new European movies to be announced at Berlin’s market this year. Christophe Gans (“Silent Hill,” “Brotherhood of the Wolf”) has written the screenplay and will direct. Budgeted at €33 million ($43.2 million), the French-language “Beauty” is produced by Paris-based Eskwad and Gallic mini-major Pathe. Pathe is taking French and U. K. distribution rights and will sell international and distribute in France. Fox handles Pathe’s theatrical, home entertainment and TV distribution in the U.K. Eskwad owner Richard Grandpierre, who produced 2001’s “Brotherhood of the Wolf,” will produce here. Gans’ screenplay is based on one of the earliest published variants of the traditional fairy tale, included in Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve’s 18th century collection “La Jeune Ameriquaine et les Contes Marins.”

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