News

‘After the Party’ in the U.K.

Channel 4 has acquired U.K. rights to the acclaimed New Zealand drama “After the Party” from Lingo Pictures.

The six-part series, co-created by and starring Robyn Malcolm (“Black Bird”), follows Penny Wilding, a mother, teacher and environmental activist, whose life imploded five years earlier after she accused her husband Phil, played by Peter Mullan, of a sex crime and nobody believed her.

When Penny’s now ex-husband returns to town, her daughter pressures her to let go of her accusations and move on. As her old furies rise to the surface, Penny must decide what’s more important – the truth or rebuilding her relationships with the people around her.

Co-created by Dianne Taylor, “After the Party” was produced by Australia’s Lingo Pictures and Luminous Beast in New Zealand as an original commission for New Zealand’s Tvnz in association with and distributed by ITV Studios.

Gerard Depardieu has joined the cast of Bach, an upcoming biopic on the 17th century classic composer Johann Sebastian Bach. Max Von Sydow (Star Wars: The Force Awakens), Axel Milberg (Hannah Arendt) and Marianne Sagebrecht (Bagdad Cafe) will co-star in the feature from That Good Night director Eric Styles. The role of Bach in the film, which will chart the beer-fueled rebellion of one of the world's greatest composers, has not yet been cast. Styles is directing from a script by Jeffrey Freedman, who will also produce alongside S.J. Evans of Dark Art Films. “I believe in

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Exclusive: Cast, sales outfit The Yellow Affair join composer biopic.

Gérard Depardieu is set to join the cast of Bach, a biopic about iconic composer Johann Sebastian Bach.

Depardieu’s role has not yet been set in the film, which is also due to star Axel Milberg (Hannah Arendt) and Marianne Sagebrecht (Bagdad Café).

The Yellow Affair has boarded sales on the project, currently in development, which will chart the life and passionate battles of the German Baroque composer.

Director is Eric Styles (That Good Night). Writer is Jeffrey Freedman who also produces alongside S J Evans.

Crew attached to the production includes Oscar winner Gabriel Yared, American Beauty editor Tariq Anwar and three-time Oscar winning DoP Vittorio Storaro.

Depardieu said: “I believe in this production which will please millions of fans. Jeffrey Freedman’s film is an important one and I have long been an admirer of Bach.”

The Yellow Affair is at the Afm with...

Wetlands has released a new trailer.

David Wnendt's scatological German film won critical acclaim when it screened at the Sundance Film Festival in January.

Based on Charlotte Roche's novel Feuchtgebiete, the film centres around Helen (Carla Juri), a young woman proudly disinterested in hygiene.

When a shaving accident sees her confined to hospital, she uses her time to mix fantasy and reality and flirt with a handsome nurse.

Christoph Letkowski, Meret Becker, Axel Milberg, Marlen Kruse and Edgar Selge also star in the film.

Wetlands will receive a limited release in the Us from September 5. It is yet to announce a UK release date.

A teenager obsessed with bodily fluids, experimentation and tampon-swapping is put on display in the first trailer for Wetlands. Carla Juri stars as Helen, an unorthodox young girl who begins to flirt with a handsome male nurse while scheming with her friend Corinna to reunite her parents.

Christoph Letkowski, Marlen Kruse, Meret Becker and Axel Milberg co-star in this adaptation of Charlotte Roche's novel, arriving in limited release September 5 from Strand Releasing.

Bodily fluid-obsessed teenager Helen describes herself as a living hygiene experiment. After an intimate shaving accident, she ends up stuck in the hospital, where she skateboards through the halls and reminisces about her culinary experiments, the seductive powers of her unwashed scent, and used-tampon swapping with her equally uninhibited best friend, Corinna. All the while, she charms a handsome male nurse with her nasty sex talk and schemes to reunite her mismatched parents.

Wetlands comes to theaters September 5th,...

The filthier the toilet, the better? I beg to differ, but with all the acclaim for David Wnendt’s Wetlands that came out of Sundance, I guess I’d be willing to tolerate Helen’s (Carla Juri) obsession with bodily fluids for two hours. The film is based on the Charlotte Roche novel, Feuchtgebiete, and features a character who has absolutely no problem sticking her finger up her butt, prefers to indulge in the most disgusting bathrooms she can find, doesn’t care for personal hygiene whatsoever and has absolutely no filter. As someone who much prefers to keep things neat, clean and organized, this new trailer for the film is borderline nightmarish and nauseating yet, oddly enough, there’s still something mesmerizing and dare I say charming about Helen’s behavior. Catch her in action for yourself in the Wetlands trailer after the jump. The film is set for...

The 2014 Sundance Film Festival is right around the corner, and the Sundance Institute has released the full line-up for the competition films that will be premiering!

This year there were 12,218 total submissions, and 117 films were accepted from 37 countries around the world. It looks like there's a lot of good selection of films this year.

The Sundance Film Festival 2014 runs from January 16th to the 26th, and the GeekTyrant team will be there to cover as many movies as we possibly can.

U.S. Dramatic Competition

The 16 films in this section are world premieres and, unless otherwise noted, are from the U.S.

“Camp X-Ray” — Directed and written by Peter Sattler. A young female guard at Guantanamo Bay forms an unlikely friendship with one of the detainees. Cast: Kristen Stewart, Payman Maadi, Lane Garrison, J.J. Soria, John Carroll Lynch.

“Cold in July” — Directed by Jim Mickle, written by Nick Damici.

Sundance Film Festival continues to be one of the most popular, and arguably one of the most important, events on the industry calendar, launching as it does some of the most prominent independent films at the start of each year.

This year will be no different, with Sundance announcing last night the initial line-up of films screening in competition, led by Song One, starring Anne Hathaway; Camp X-Ray, starring Kristen Stewart; Infinitely Polar Bear, with Mark Ruffalo and Zoe Saldana; Joe Swanberg’s Happy Christmas, starring Anna Kendrick, Melanie Lynskey, Mark Webber, Lena Dunham, and Swanberg himself; The Skeleton Twins, with Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, Luke Wilson, and Ty Burrell; Life After Beth, with Aubrey Plaza, Dane DeHaan, and John C. Reilly; Listen Up Philip, with Jason Schwartzman and Elisabeth Moss; Whiplash, starring Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons; and many, many more.

U.S. Dramatic Competition

Presenting the world premieres of 16 narrative feature films,...

God’S Pocket

Sundance Institute announced today the films selected for the U.S. and World Cinema Dramatic and Documentary Competitions and the out-of-competition section of the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, January 16-26 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah.

Robert Redford, President & Founder of Sundance Institute said, “That the Festival has evolved and grown as it has over the past 30 years is a credit to both our audiences and our artists, who continue to find ways to take risks and open our minds to the power of story. This year’s films and artists promise to do the same.”

For the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, 118 feature-length films were selected, representing 37 countries and 54 first-time filmmakers, including 34 in competition. These films were selected from 12,218 submissions (72 more than for 2013), including 4,057 feature-length films and 8,161 short films. Of the feature film submissions, 2,014 were from the U.S. and 2,043 were international. 97 feature films at...

It’s among the two sections that we usually don’t put much focus on (yes, we love subtitles, but we’re more concerned, naturally more inclined to cover the deluge of American Indie film offerings) but among the dozen film selections in the World Cinema Dramatic Comp section we find the latest from Argentinean director Natalia Smirnoff (she gave us the Berlin Film Fest winner The Puzzle) who returns with Lock Charmer, we find the highly anticipated film from Hong Khaou (Lilting) and a title which we start speculating on last year in Stuart Murdoch’s God Help the Girl which stars Emily Browning, Olly Alexander and Hannah Murray (see pic above). Also worth the mention is the directing debut from writer Eskil Vogt – who co-wrote Reprise and Oslo, August 31st for Joachim Trier. Here are the dozen selected.

“52 Tuesdays” (Australia) — Directed by Sophie Hyde, written by Matthew Cormack.

The U.S. and World Cinema Dramatic and Documentary Competition lineups for the 2014 Sundance Film Festival were announced today and just below I have featured pictures from the 16 films that will be competing in the U.S. Dramatic competition and they feature a lot of names you're going to recognize. The titles begin with Camp X-Ray, which stars Kristen Stewart as a guard in Guantanamo Bay, where she forms an unlikely friendship with one of the detainees. Jim Mickle made an impact earlier this year with We Are What We Are and he returns with Michael C. Hall with Cold in July. Fishing Without Nets looks to tell a story similar to that of Captain Phillips, only this time from the Somali side of things; God's Pocket is "Mad Men" star John Slattery's writing and directorial debut and he's lined up an impressive cast including Philip Seymour Hoffman, Richard Jenkins,...

Chicago – “Hannah Arendt” comes to American cinemas packaged in the sort of prestige that elicits admiration rather than anticipation. Though Margarethe von Trotta is widely regarded as the leading female filmmaker in Germany, it’s doubtful that any audiences outside of her native country are all that familiar with her work. Her new film, “Hannah Arendt,” is so undistinguished that it’s hard to believe that it was made by a director often mentioned in the same breath as Fassbinder and Herzog.

Rating: 2.5/5.0

Von Trotta’s long-standing interest in feminist icons has led her to make a series of historical (yet often fictionalized) biopics, many of which provided showcases for acclaimed actress Barbara Sukowa (she won Best Actress at Cannes for playing the titular role in Von Trotta’s 1996 effort, “Rosa Luxemburg”). Since none of these previous films were viewed by me, I was initially taken aback by Sukowa’s portrayal of Arendt,...

Hannah Arendt begins as Adolf Eichmann is captured during a covert action by the Israeli police. Eichmann is whisked away to Jerusalem to be tried and punished for the war crimes committed against Jewish people by the Nazi government during World War II. Hannah Arendt (Barbara Sukowa) immediately submits a pitch to the New Yorker to travel to Israel to cover the trial. The New Yorker editor William Shawn (Nicolas Woodeson) jumps at the opportunity to have the highly regarded New School political theory professor -- and author of The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) and The Human Condition (1958) -- covering such a landmark story for them. A German Jew, Arendt was interned during WWII in a concentration camp in France but escaped, eventually emigrating to the United States with her husband Heinrich Blücher (Axel Milberg). Despite her firsthand experience with the Nazi's, Arendt's approach to the Eichmann trial is nothing short of humanist.

Zeitgeist Films has sent along the poster, images and trailer for Hannah Arendt, starring Barbara Sukowa, Axel Milberg, Janet McTeer, Julia Jentsch, Ulrich Noethen and Michael Degen. The film opens at Film Forum in NYC on May 29, 2013 and at The Royal in West La, Playhouse 7 in Pasadena and Town Center in Encino on June 7, 2013. A national release will follow. The sublime Barbara Sukowa reteams with director Margarethe von Trotta (Vision, Rosa Luxemburg) for her brilliant new biopic of influential German-Jewish philosopher and political theorist Hannah Arendt. Arendt’s reporting on the 1961 trial of ex-Nazi Adolf Eichmann in The New Yorker—controversial both for her portrayal of Eichmann...

Margarethe Von Trotta's Hannah Arendt lands at Zeitgeist Films Variety reports that the distributor's picked up U.S. distribution rights to the film from Match Factory, starring Barbara Sukowa, Axel Milberg, Janes McTeer, Julia Jentsch and Ulrich Noethen. The biopic drama which premiered at last year's Toronto International Film Festival, will find New York's Film Forum on May 29th, and expand nationwide at a yet-to-be-determined time.

Margarethe Von Trotta's Hannah Arendt lands at Zeitgeist Films Variety reports that the distributor's picked up U.S. distribution rights to the film from Match Factory, starring Barbara Sukowa, Axel Milberg, Janes McTeer, Julia Jentsch and Ulrich Noethen. The biopic drama which premiered at last year's Toronto International Film Festival, will find New York's Film Forum on May 29th, and expand nationwide at a yet-to-be-determined time.

Cologne, Germany - Christian Alvart, the German-born director of Pandorum starring Dennis Quaid and Case 39 with Rene Zellweger, will direct Til Schweiger (Inglourious Basterds) in the German movie star's return to television. According to German newspaper Hamburger Abendblatt, Alvart will direct an upcoming episode of hit local cop series Tatort, in which Schweiger will play the lead. Alvart is no stranger to the series, having directed previous Tatort episodes featuring actors Axel Milberg and Sibel Kekilli, known for her role as Shae in HBO's Game of Thrones. Alvart will shoot the Tatort episode starring Schweiger in September for broadcast

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COLOGNE, Germany -- Tom Tykwer's espionage thriller The International received an additional funding boost on Wednesday, when Germany's Federal Film Fund approved a further €1.8 million ($2.4 million) in tax credit relief for the Clive Owen/Naomi Watts starrer.

In total the fund will pay out €5.8 million ($7.9 million) to back The International, a co-production between Columbia Pictures' Rose Line Productions and Studio Babelsberg's Babelsberg Film.

The fund's board argued the funding increase was justified because "two thirds" of the film's production would take place in Germany and The International crew includes a wealth of German talent including actors Armin Mueller-Stahl and Axel Milberg, cinematographer Frank Griebe and production designer Uli Hanisch.

The International is set to begin production this month in Berlin.