News

There will be another handful (or two) of interviews coming as we march toward Hollywood's High Holy Night on February 28th. But with Oscar nomination voting closing today and so many interviews these past few weeks this seems as good a time as any to ask you to "consider" our official index of interviews from the film year and to take a less daily approach to the remaining one-on-ones.

Actors

Laia Costa (Victoria)

Chris Eigeman (Metropolitan's 25th anniversary)

Nina Hoss (Phoenix)

Jeremy Irvine (Stonewall)

James Ransone (Tangerine & Sinister 2) 

Eddie Redmayne (The Danish Girl)

Géza Röhrig (Son of Saul) 

 

next up: Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl / Ex Machina)

...and super brief chats with Sir Ian McKellen (Mr Holmes), Jane Fonda & Paul Dano (Youth), Michael Keaton (Spotlight), Pilou Asbaek (A War), and Carey Mulligan (Suffragette)

Creatives

Judy Becker (Production Design, Carol)

Odile Dicks-Mireaux (Costumes, Brooklyn)

Jack Fisk (Production Design, The Revenant)

Affonso Gonçalves (Editing,...

Del Toro joins six other directors for 7 Days in Havana, an anthology that treads a fine line between advertorial and artistry

In the scramble for financial backing, even big-shot film directors must take money where they find it. Shane Meadows took a £500,000 commission from Eurostar, and turned out Somers Town. Morgan Spurlock made a satirical virtue of it with sponsorship from juice manufacturer Pom Wonderful for The Greatest Movie Ever Sold. That, presumably, is part of the reason why film-makers of the calibre of Gaspar Noé, Laurent Cantet and Elia Suleiman accepted the invitation of rum magnate Havana Club, through its cultural arm Havana Cultura, to collaborate in a short film anthology called 7 Days in Havana. It might, just might, be designed to promote Havana.

As it turns out, 7 Days in Havana treads that fine line between advertorial and artistry, with a distinguished Cuban novelist, Leonardo Padura, overseeing the screenplay,...

7 Days in Havana will be a Cuban-set drama made up of seven vignettes helmed by seven different directors. (Think Paris Je T’aime.) According to Deadline, the slate of directors include Laurent Cantet (The Class), Gaspar Noe (Enter the Void), Elia Suleiman (The Time That Remains), Pablo Trapero (Lion’s Den), Julio Medem (Sex and Lucia), Juan Carlos Tabio (Guantanamera), and the oft enigmatic Benicio Del Toro, star of Che and The Wolfman.

This will not be Del Toro’s first time in the director’s chair, as he helmed the 1995 short Submission, which featured Matthew McConaughey. This time ’round, he has chosen The Kids Are All Right star Josh Hutcherson as his leading man. Hutcherson will play tourist in the segment titled Monday, which follows documentary-style him as he, “explores the culture of the island for the first time.”

Though Del Toro’s segment has already been shot, 7 Days...

What is it with omnibus films of late? In the past few years there have been Chacun son cinema, New York, I Love You, Paris Je T'aime and a couple others. And now there's a plan to put together a seven-part film about live in contemporary Cuba, called 7 Days in Havana. The hook here is the directorial lineup, which includes Benicio Del Toro and Gaspar Noe. That's good enough for me -- I'll spend a week in Cuba with these guys. Variety [1] explains that the full directorial lineup also includes: Laurent Cantet, Pablo Trapero, Elia Suleiman, Julio Medem and Juan Carlos Tabio. The latter is the only director in the list who is actually Cuban. The idea for the film is also fairly intriguing: each director will chronicle one days, and the main characters from one story might appear as supporting or background characters in another. Producer Didar Domehri says...

Helmers Laurent Cantet, Gaspar Noe, Pablo Trapero, Elia Suleiman, Julio Medem, Cuba's Juan Carlos Tabio and Benicio del Toro are joining perhaps one of the rare omnibus projects worth mentioning. Finally a short film collage that is a bit more organic, 7 Days in Havana is said to be an inside "view of Cuba, introducing audiences to an eclectic young Havana and its music scene." The project will be produced by Morena Films' Alvaro Longoria, Fabien Pisani, Domehri, and Full House's Gael Nouaille and Laurent Baudens. Variety reports that "Cuban novelist Leonardo Padura will coordinate screenplays, co-writing Medem's and Tabio's films. Cuban thesps Ana de Armas, Mirta Ibarra, Vladimir Cruz and Jorge Perugorria play linking characters." Gist: Del Toro will helm a sometimes fictionalized docu on a U.S. tourist's first 24 hours in Cuba; Medem portrays a love triangle; Trapero tracks an actor who arrives in Havana to receive...