How to Survive a Plague turned on the water-works and other outpourings of emotion when it debuted at Sundance earlier this year. Its subjects, the driving-forces behind AIDS activist groups ACT-Up (the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power) and TAG (Treatment Action Group), took matters into their own hands against a massive tide of fear, discrimination and government failure to deal with the disease that ravaged the gay community in the ’80s and ’90s. Director David France profiles the heroes of the movement who moved the needle in forging treatment and official recognition against extraordinary odds, and today Movieline has your first look at the official poster. Sundance Selects will debut the feature September 21st following the film’s healthy festival run to date. Below, find the poster designed by Sam Smyth and the trailer along with the official synopsis: How to Survive a Plague is the story of the brave young men and women who successfully reversed the tide of an epidemic, demanded the attention of a fearful nation and stopped AIDS from becoming a death sentence. This improbable group of activists bucked oppression and, with no scientific training, infiltrated government agencies and the pharmaceutical industry, helping to identify promising new medication and treatments and move them through trials and into drugstores in record time. In the process, they saved their own lives and ended the darkest days of a veritable plague, while virtually emptying AIDS wards in American hospitals in the process. The powerful story of their fight is a classic tale of empowerment and activism that has since inspired movements for change in everything from breast cancer research to Occupy Wall Street. Their story stands as a powerful inspiration to future generations, a road map, and a call to arms. This is how you change the world. Official Selection: Sundance Film Festival, New Directors/New films, San Francisco International Film Festival, Provincetown International Film Festival, Outfest Documentary Centerpiece, Seattle International Film Festival. Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Indian-born filmmaker Mira Nair said that 9/11 formed part of the inspiration for her latest film, The Reluctant Fundamentalist , which kicked off the Venice Film Festival Wednesday evening. Just days before the attacks, Nair won the festival’s top prize, the Golden Lion, for her much praised Monsoon Wedding and she left the fabled Italian city for the Toronto International Film Festival to promote the film when the attacks happened. Like other New York residents, she was stranded in the Canadian city following the tragic event, taking her a week to get back to NYC and her husband and son. When she did make it back, she felt an “otherness” in the post-9/11 period, a theme she explores in her latest feature. “It was quite shocking when I got back because it felt like images I had seen in my part of the world, refugee camps, helicopters, a sense of war, a war zone, and it was in our backyard,” she said in Venice Wednesday as reported by A.P. “And so suddenly, (New York) became a place where people who looked like us were ‘the other.’ And that was painful, and that was also part of the inspiration to try to make this film.” Based on the novel by Mohsin Hamid, British-born musician and actor Riz Ahmed plays Changez a gifted financial analyst whose allegiance to America is questioned following the 9/11 attacks. Changez travels to the Pakistani city of Lahore re-connecting with his routes. Liev Schreiber plays a journalist who interviews him in Lahore as a kidnapping crisis rages. Kate Hudson plays his girlfriend and Kiefer Sutherland plays his former Wall Street mentor in NYC flashback scenes. “[The novel is] essentially a dialogue between East and West,” Nair said in Venice. “”We all know there has been an enormous schism, a wall between East and West, since, in this last decade. So I sought very much in the dialogue between America and the Islamic world in The Reluctant Fundamentalist to really bring some sense of bridge-making, some sense of healing, a sense of community that goes beyond the stereotypes, goes beyond the myopia, goes beyond the ignorance.” [ Source: A.P. ]
Also in Wednesday morning’s round-up of news briefs, David Lynch will travel to Poland to receive festival honors. Filmmaker Béla Tarr to lead Asian film jury. And considering the future of the Venice Film Festival ‘s film market as the event opens Wednesday. Venice: Can Film Market Get Back to Business with New Film Market? FilmNation, LD Entertainment and The Weinstein Company are on the list of attendees, but with Venice on the heels of Toronto, some companies are dubious about big ticket business, Deadline reports . Eddie Murphy and Shawn Ryan Shop Beverly Hills Cop Series A possible sequel to the movie franchise is being shopped as a series with Detroit detective Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) making an occasional appearance. The four major networks are getting pitches, Deadline reports . Polish Festival to Fete David Lynch Multiple Oscar-nominated director David Lynch will receive a lifetime achievement award at the 20th Plus Camerimage festival in Poland. The festival, considered one of the world’s leading events focusing on the art of cinematography, will honor Lynch with its Lifetime Achievement Award for Directing on the festival’s opening night, Nov. 24, THR reports . Director Béla Tarr will Head Busan International Film Festival Jury The Hungarian filmmaker will lead the New Currents section at the 17th Busan International Film Festival. Also joining the jury is Naomi Kawase ( The Mourning Forest ), Korean actor Jun Woo-Sung ( The Good, the Bad, the Weird ) Nobel-prize winning French author Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio and Canadian author and film critic David Gilmour ( The Film Club ). The festival takes place in the Korean port town of Busan October 4 – 13, THR reports . George Nolfi to Direct Darren Aronofsky-produced XOXO The Adjustment Bureau director George Nolfi will direct and oversee the re-write of XOXO , a social media thriller. Black Swan writer Mark Heyman initially wrote the story on spec and was pitched as a modern-day Fatal Attraction , Collider reports .
The Washington Post caught up with Jon Voight , Hollywood’s “new senior Republican,” while the 73-year-old actor was stumping for his favorite candidates down in Tampa, FL: “‘The Hollywood community is historically conservative,’ he said. ‘All the people that I so admired growing up were very patriotic and loved the country.’ But then came the left-wing ‘nonsense’ of the 1960’s, which Voight admits he also got caught up in it. ‘I’m quite ashamed of it, actually. . . I know as much as anybody about this stuff and I know how poisonous it is.'” [ Washington Post via Salon ]
Also in Monday afternoon’s round-up of news briefs, the Hamptons International Film Festival revealed its list of the “10 Actors to Watch” for this October’s event. Minnie Driver joins a “horror musical.” A Toronto and Cannes film is headed for U.S. theaters. Abbie Cornish joins a Fellini pic. And two jail-bound punks flee Russia after being convicted of Russian Orthodox Church offense. Noah Baumbach, Brian De Palma, Abbas Kiarostami Set for NYFF Event Noah Baumbach and Brian De Palma will take part in the “On Cinema” conversation while Abbas Kiarostami, David Chase and Robert Zemeckis will participate in the Directors Dialogues at the upcoming 50th New York Film Festival . The Film Society of Lincoln Center, which organizes the annual festival also said that the the Director’s Cut of Frank Oz’s Little Shop of Horrors restored versions of Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate , Laurence Olivier’s Richard III and Peter Whitehead’s The Rolling Stone – Charling is My Darling – Ireland 1965 will be presented as part of NYFF’s Masterworks program in addition to two sidebar presentations as part of the festival’s 50th Anniversary event. Hamptons International Film Festival to Fete “10 Actors to Watch” The October festival on Long Island’s East End will spotlight the “2012 ‘Variety’s 10 Actors to Watch: Breakthrough Performers’ at the upcoming 20th anniversary edition of HIFF taking place October 4 – 8. This year’s honorees include: Adam Driver ( Inside Llewyn Davis ), Domhnall Gleeson ( Anna Karenina ), Bella Heathcote ( Not Fade Away ), Dree Hemingway ( Starlet ), Boyd Holbrook ( The Host ), Elyas M’Barek ( Turkish for Beginners ), Scoot McNairy ( Killing Them Softly ), Nate Parker ( Arbitrage ), Imogen Poots ( Knight of Cups ) and Alicia Vikander ( Anna Karenina ). Minnie Driver Joins Horror Musical Stage Fright Oscar nominee Minnie Driver is joining Meat Loaf Aday ( Rocky Horror Picture Show ), Allie Mac Donald ( House at the End of the Street ) and Douglas Smith ( Big Love ) in the horror-musical Stage Fright . Jerome Sable (“The Legend of Beaver Dam”) will direct from his own script. The feature tells the story of a snobby musical theater camp terrorized by a blood-thirsty masked killer who despises musical theatre. Scream meets Glee in this genre-bending R-rated horror-musical. Driver plays Kylie Swanson, the enigmatic and haunted star of the Broadway stage, and mother of siblings Camilla (MacDonald) and Buddy (Smith) who find themselves at the centre of the unfolding horror at the camp. Toronto and Cannes’ Ernest & Celestine Heads to Theaters Ernest & Celestine is based on the popular children’s book series by author and illustrator, Gabrielle Vincent. It tells the story of an unlikely friendship between a bear, Ernest, and a young mouse named Celestine. The film debuted at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival where it received a special mention in Directors Fortnight. Distributor GKIDS will release the film in the U.S. and will have its North American premiere at the upcoming Toronto International Film Festival. The deal was negotiated by Vanessa Saal for Studiocanal and Eric Beckman for GKIDS. Around the ‘net… Abbie Cornish Joins Fellini Black And White Cornish will play the female lead Betty in Fellini Black and White . She is the beautiful veterinarian that the Italian filmmaker fell in love with when he traveled to L.A. for the 1957 Oscars in which he won best picture for Nights of Cabiria Directed by Henry Bromell, the film stars William H. Macy, Terrence Howard, Peter Dinklage and Brazilian star Wagner Maura, who’ll play Fellini, Deadline reports . George Clooney Raises $625K for Obama Campaign in Geneva The Swiss contingent of Democrats Abroad raised “at least” $625,000 for the Obama campaign at an evening event in Geneva where George Clooney appeared. Guests paid $15K to have dinner with him and $5K for a photo with him and $1K to attend a reception before the dinner, Deadline reports . Two Pussy Riot Activists Flee Russia Two activists in Russian punk band Pussy Riot have fled the country, their Twitter account said. Three members of the group were jailed this month for staging an anti-Vladimir Putin protest in a Moscow cathedral. The pair who fled have not been named but the husband of one of the jailed women said the duo had taken part in the cathedral protest in February. Their brief, obscenity-laced performance, which implored the Virgin Mary to “throw Putin out”, enraged the Russian Orthodox Church. Many in the West, including recently Madonna, condemned the Pussy Riot sentences as disproportionate, BBC reports .
Expendables 2 looks likely to top the box office across the U.S. again, but naturally there are others waiting in the wings to capture your hard earned box office dollars and the choices do not have to be limited to studio carry-overs. Sleepwalk with Me is looking like an immediate hit, though most audiences across the U.S. will have to wait (but go for it New York). Samsara took a long, long path to its theatrical roll out this weekend, with an epic that travels the world. And two Latin American films will hit U.S. screens today. Hermano centers on two aspiring football (OK, ‘soccer’) stars who grow up in Venezuelan slums and Neighbouring Sounds won accolades at film festivals about a middle class Brazilian neighborhood that undergoes change once a private security firm arrives… Sleepwalk with Me Director: Mike Birbiglia, Seth Barrish Writers: Mike Birbiglia, Joe Birbiglia, Ira Glass, Seth Barrish Opens: New York’s IFC Center exclusively this weekend with Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Washington, D.C., Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Portland, Seattle and more in coming weekends. Indications point to a strong opening for the Sundance film that won an audience prize at the festival. Sleepwalk with Me . revolves around a burgeoning stand-up comedian who struggles with the stress of a stalled career, a stale relationship and frequent episodes of sleepwalking. “We are selling it as the first film from the creators of This American Life ,” an IFC Films exec noted. “We are also capitalizing on the fact that Mike Birbiglia and a cast of up-and-coming and established comics are heavily featured in the film.” Synopsis: Winner of a 2012 Audience Award at Sundance, comedian Mike Birbiglia wrote, directed and stars in this sincere and hilarious film, based on his off-Broadway show and bestselling book. It’s also the first movie co-written by Ira Glass and co-produced by “This American Life.” The story: when an aspiring stand-up fails to express his true feelings about his girlfriend and his stalled career, his anxiety comes out in increasingly funny and dangerous sleepwalking incidents. SLEEPWALK WITH ME features Lauren Ambrose (“Six Feet Under”), Carol Kane (“Taxi”), James Rebhorn (“Meet the Parents”), Cristin Milioti (star of Broadway’s “Once”), plus comedians Marc Maron, Kristen Schaal, Wyatt Cenac, Jesse Klein, Henry Phillips and David Wain. Samsara Writer-Director: Ron Fricke Opens: New York and Seattle this weekend followed by Los Angeles on August 31st followed by a national roll out. “I think that the challenges were making a film that doesn’t have a traditional screenplay or structure ahead of time and trusting that you’ll find the film as it’s made,” said writer and producer Mark Magidson. “We had a structural bookend that’s created and destroyed at the beginning and end of the film. Once we had that, it was a big relief. The film came together in the editing process.” Spanning five years with locations in 25 countries, the film travels to sacred grounds, disaster zones, industrial complexes and natural wonders. Synopsis: Expanding on the themes they developed in Baraka (1992) and Chronos (1985), Samsara explores the wonders of our world from the mundane to the miraculous, looking into the unfathomable reaches of man’s spirituality and the human experience. Neither a traditional documentary nor a travelogue, Samsara takes the form of a nonverbal, guided meditation. Through powerful images, the film illuminates the links between humanity and the rest of nature, showing how our life cycle mirrors the rhythm of the planet. The filmmakers approach non verbal filmmaking with an understanding that it must live up to the standard of great still photography, revealing the essence of a subject, not just its physical presence. Samsara was photographed entirely in 70mm film utilizing both standard frame rates and with a motion control time-lapse camera designed specifically for this project. This camera system allows perspective shifts to reveal extraordinary views of ordinary scenes. The images were then transferred through the highest resolution scanning process available to the new 4K digital projection format that allows for mesmerizing images of unprecedented clarity. Samsara will be a showpiece for the new, high-resolution 4K digital projection, the HD format, as well as standard digital and film projection. Hermano (Brother) Director: Marcel Rasquin Writers: Rohan Jones, Marcel Rasquin Cast: Fernando Moreno, Eliú Armas, Alí Rondon, Beto Benites, Gonzalo Cubero Opens: In 51 theaters in 12 markets, concentrated in states along the U.S./Mexican border as well as Chicago and New York. This Venezuelan film did not go through official government channels en route to the big screen unlike much of the country’s domestic output. Director Marcel Rasquin attended film school in Australia and wrote the script in collaboration with Aussie, Rohan Jones. “The film has an international outlook,” said exec Ed Arentz from Hermano’s U.S. distributor Music Box Films. “The story is about a family that finds a boy in a slum and the two [brothers] grow up together and aspire to be professional football (soccer) players. They are also drawn back to the criminality of where they grew up.” Synopsis: Raised as brothers, intense teammates and competitors on the soccer field – the gregarious, swaggering Julio (Eliu Armas) and the wiry, focused Daniel/“Gato” (Fernando Moreno) have remained virtually inseparable ever since the newborn Daniel was found abandoned in a trash heap in their La Ceniza slum. The opportunity of their lives arrives when a football scout invites them to try out for the city’s top professional team, just as a tragic act of violence threatens to tear them apart and prevent them from achieving their dreams. Neighboring Sounds Director: Kleber Medonca Filho Cast: Irma Brown, Sebastião Formiga, Gustavo Jahn, Maeve Jinkings, Irandhir Santos Opens: In New York this weekend followed by 10 markets in Detroit, Seattle and Florida locations. Also heading to DVD and VOD in early 2013. Brazilian film Neighboring Sounds debuted under the radar at the International Film Festival Rotterdam last winter, but it picked up a Critics Week prize, elevating its prospects and awareness. “We heard about the film right after Rotterdam,” said Ryan Krivoshey, director of distribution at Cinema Guild. “We asked for a screener and we were totally blown away.” The programmers at New York’s New Directors/New Films series also took notice and slotted the feature that looks at the changes a middle-class Brazilian neighborhood undergoes after the arrival of an independent private security company. Synopsis: A palpable sense of unease hangs over a single city block in the coastal town of Recife, Brazil. Home to prosperous families and the servants who work for them, the area is ruled by an aging patriarch and his sons. When a private security firm is reluctantly brought in to protect the residents from a recent spate of petty crime, it unleashes the fears, anxieties and resentments of a divided society still haunted by its troubled past. Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Neighboring Sounds is a thrilling debut by a major new voice in world cinema. Wild Horse, Wild Ride Directors: Alex Dawson, Greg Gricus Opens: In limited showings beginning Friday. Synopsis: Each year, through the Extreme Mustang Makeover Challenge, 100 people across the country attempt to tame a wild mustang in 100 days. Following this dangerous and harrowing feat performed by everyday people from every walk of life, is a public showcase that determines whether these horses can be saved from a life in captivity. Complete with first-hand footage and interviews, Wild Horse Wild Ride provides an in-depth look at the incredible relationship that blossoms between man and animal. General Education Director: Tom Morris Cast: Chris Sheffield, Janeane Garofalo, Larry Miller, Maiara Walsh, Elaine Hendrix, Bobby Campo, Mercedes Masohn, Tom Maden Opens: In theatrical limited release as we’ll as iTunes and VOD Synopsis: Levi Collins is set to go to the local University on a tennis scholarship, but he forgot to tell his parents one thing — he didn’t graduate. As a result, he must take summer school before his mom and dad discover he’s failed senior science. At school, Levi falls in love with his classmate, Katie, and learns that he has to make a choice between playing tennis and receiving a proper education. General Education is a quirky comedy about a family learning to grow together. General Education – Official Trailer 2012 from Pelican House Productions on Vimeo .
Watching the trailer for Brian De Palma’s upcoming film Passion , I get the feeling that he could be a fan of SCTV ‘s classic Whispers of the Wolf Ingmar Bergman parody. Yes, I know that De Palma’s erotic thriller is based on the late Alain Corneau’s final film Love Crime (2010 ), about two international business women locked in a power struggle — but there’s something about Noomi Rapace’s vacant stare in the first scenes of the trailer that reminds me of the great Andrea Martin’s performance in the SCTV comedy gem. (You can see both videos after the jump.) And Rapace’s co-star Rachel McAdams strikes me as a more vulpine version of the also-great Catherine O’Hara. I couldn’t help but notice that both clips feature masks, by the way, although based on the contents of the sex drawer that gets opened in the Passion trailer, De Palma’s movie is going to be way kinkier than anything that ever ran on Count Floyd’s Monster Chiller Horror Theater. Here’s the trailer for Passion , which is going to premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September and screen that same month at the Toronto Film Festival: Watch It on YouTube. Now check out Whispers of the Wolf . Enjoy! Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
17 years after Waterworld , is Kevin Costner back in the game? “[The] Movie Star is dead. But Costner is catching a wave that is still building, a trend that is still sinking into the cultural psyche — he’s re-emerging not as Kevin Costner, Movie Star, but as Kevin Costner, Portrayer of Memorable Characters. This is the way forward for actors in a star-less world… These days, I don’t think a true star can break through unless it’s on the back of a signature character…This is the future. This is the Movie Star’s second act. It’s not about the star anymore. Now it’s about the Celebrity Character.” [ Lainey Gossip ]
Don’t tell David Koepp that scandal is good for box office. The screenwriter ( Jurassic Park , Indiana Jones: The Return of a Legend ) and director of this week’s Premium Rush told Movieline that speculation that the media scandal involving Kristen Stewart, her Twilight co-star and reported off-screen beau Robert Pattinson and her Snow White and the Huntsman director Rupert Sanders is somehow good for business is “a cynical response” to the situation. “The people involved in any kind of scandal like that might want to respond, Who gives a shit? I didn’t say you could eat my head . You know?” Koepp told me. John Kamps, his writing partner on Premium Rush, agreed: “I think historically scandal has never done well for movies.” (Movieline will post an interview with both regarding their new film on Friday.) When I asked Koepp what he made of the media frenzy surrounding Stewart, Sanders and Pattinson, he replied: “I think it was sad for all involved.” Koepp was hired by Universal to write a script to Snow White and the Huntsman but explained that he departed the project on friendly terms because the producers wanted to pursue a different direction. “I felt like there was a good path with her, but they wanted to explore a different thing I had no ideas for,” said Koepp, who told me he couldn’t picture SWATH 2 without Stewart and, therefore, “couldn’t follow through.” Koepp observed that the proliferation of social media has made it difficult for just about anyone, not just Twilight cast members, to maintain privacy. “In the past — in the long past now — actors were able to keep their private lives much more separate,” the filmmaker said. “Now, no one really has a private life. I don’t think it’s just actors. I have teenage sons and they’re of the social media generation. That sort of living out loud is just weird to me. “I can’t understand why you would want so much of yourself revealed to just anyone, because it is inevitably — inevitably — a target of derision. It’s impersonal, but hurtful,” he said. “You see people really get hurt by Facebook attacks. Particularly in the junior high sort of level.” Noting that “Hollywood kind of is junior high,” albeit with more money and drugs, Koepp added: “There’s a lot of pain out there for people who are exposed. I feel very bad for actors in that regard. I think it’s a suckie part of the job and, when people say, Well, you asked for it — no they didn’t. “They asked for a bunch of other stuff and were willing to make a bunch of other sacrifices,” he said. “Just because you’re in the public eye doesn’t mean that you agree that there will be a complete abrogation of decency.” Nell Alk is an arts and entertainment writer and reporter based in New York City. Her work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal , Manhattan Magazine, Z!NK Magazine and on InterviewMagazine.com, PaperMag.com and RollingStone.com, among others. Learn more about her here . Follow Nell Alk on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
