Linklater’s ‘Last Flag Flying’ to open New York Fest
Hazanavicius, Bercot set for jury duty at Deauville
LOS ANGELES, June 13, (Agencies): Richard Linklater’s “Last Flag Flying” has been tapped as the opening night film of this year’s New York Film Festival.
The movie is a sequel of sorts to 1973’s “The Last Detail,” a profane drama about a group of Navy officers that scored Oscar nominations for Jack Nicholson and Randy Quaid. Linklater’s film has an entirely new cast. It stars Steve Carell as Doc, a soft-spoken vet whose only child has been killed in the early days of the Iraqi invasion. Bryan Cranston plays Sal, the volatile part that Nicholson made famous, with Laurence Fishburne as another vet named Mueller. Together the friends go on a road trip up the Eastern Seaboard.
“Last Flag Flying” will have its world premiere on Thursday, Sept 28. The film will open theatrically on Nov 17, 2017 from Amazon Studios. Past opening night films include hits such as “Gone Girl,” “Life of Pi,” and “The Social Network,” as well as duds like “The Walk.” Last year’s festival kicked off with Ava DuVernay’s acclaimed “13th,” a look at race and the criminal justice system that was nominated for a best documentary Oscar.
The selection puts “Last Flag Flying” in the heart of awards season, signalling it will very much be on the hunt for Oscar gold. Along with the Telluride and Toronto film festivals, the New York Film Festival is seen as a key launching ground for Oscar bait movies.
Linklater’s credits include the Oscar-winning “Boyhood” and “Dazed and Confused.”
“It’s always special to be at the New York Film Festival, but to be premiering our movie on opening night, when you look at the half century of films that have occupied that slot, is a wonderful honor,” Linklater said in a statement.
LOS ANGELES:
Also:
French director Michel Hazanavicius, whose latest film “Redoubtable” competed at Cannes, is set to preside over the jury of the 43rd Deauville American Film Festival.
Hazanavacius’ jury will hand out two awards, the Grand Prize and Jury Prize, to films playing in competition in Deauville.
“I’m extremely moved and honored to preside over this year’s Jury of the Deauville American Film Festival,” said Hazanavicius, whose Oscar-winning film “The Artist” has been described as a love letter to Hollywood’s silent era. “Like half the planet, I was in part raised on American cinema and I am looking forward to spending these 10 days of binge-watching the latest output. In cinema we trust!”
Helmed by artistic director Bruno Barde, the Deauville festival complimented Hazanavicius on showing “an iconoclastic yet appealing style, revealing a concern to reach audiences without abandoning his artistic rigor since his beginnings as a filmmaker.”
Meanwhile, Emmanuelle Bercot, the critically acclaimed actress/ screenwriter/director whose filmmaking credits include “Standing Tall,” has been tapped to preside over the Revelation jury, which will honor an up-and-coming director.
“As a great lover of all things American, I am delighted and honored to be called upon to preside over the Revelation Jury of Deauville. In my imagination, America and cinema have always been one,” said Bercot, who won a prize in Cannes for her performance in Maiwenn’s “Mon Roi” in 2015.
LOS ANGELES:
One of Europe’s on-the-rise animation talents, France’s Aurelien Froment, also known as Aurel, is developing a first animated feature, “Josep.”
Written by Froment and Jean-Louis Milesi, a director (“Lino”) and regular scribe for Robert Guediguian (“Marius et Jeannette,” “La ville est tranquille”), “Josep” is produced by Serge Lalou and AnneMarie Luccioni’s Les Films d’Ici Mediterranee, a production outfit founded in 2014 in Montpellier specialized in documentaries, with several animation projects in development.
Les Films d’Ici, the Paris-based producer of Golden Globe-winner “Waltz with Bashir,” and La Fabrique Animation, which backed JeanFrancois Laguionie’s “Louise en hiver,” will act as co-producers. A co-production with a Catalan company is under negotiations.
Pitched at Cartoon Movie, “Josep’s”’ story is inspired by a true sketch artist born in Barcelona at the beginning of the last century. In a long life — spanning almost the whole century — Josep was a cartoonist, Republican soldier, a prisoner in a concentration camp, Frida Kahlo’s lover, an illustrator for US magazines and a Hollywood stage designer and painter.