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Darius Marder’s feature debut, “Sound of Metal,” is the riveting story of a heavy metal drummer (Riz Ahmed) who goes deaf and struggles to reassemble his life. Making it nearly consumed the 46-year-old Marder’s life. The film took more than a decade to produce, and those close to him speak about that process in almost spiritual terms. Call it fate, grit, or unfettered determination, but the real story of “Sound of Metal” begins with a $1 million check to a different filmmaker for another movie.

That was Derek Cianfrance’s “Blue Valentine.” IFP awarded the $1 million grant in 2006, eight years after he completed his acclaimed Sundance debut “Brother Tied.” Marder attended the IFP lunch celebrating Cianfrance’s prize, watching with keen interest; he’d recently quit a career in catering to direct his own debut, the documentary “Loot.” As he watched Cianfrance hold a giant check from the stage,...

Directors’ trademarks is a series of articles that examines the “signatures” that filmmakers leave behind in their work. This month, we’re examining the trademark style and calling signs of Derek Cianfrance as director.

Cianfrance was born in Colorado and attended film school at the University of Colorado. Upon graduating, he filmed his first feature length film in 1998 called Brother Tied. That film went on the festival circuit and was praised by critics. After 1998, Cianfrance worked in TV where he directed several movie documentaries and series. In 2010, he returned to cinema, releasing Blue Valentine. This film was his breakthrough and was well liked by critics and caught the eye of many big-name filmmakers and studios. After Blue Valentine, he directed 2012's The Place Beyond the Pines, which received moderate appraisal from critics and was sucessful at the box office. His latest film, releasing this week, is The Light Between Oceans.

Wonsuk Chin, is a Korean American Indie Filmmaker. I have known Wonsuk since the early Ifp Market days in the 1980s when he lived in New York and produced “Too Tired to Die” which made some waves in the indie world at that time. He disappeared for several years and we recently reconnected in L.A.

Wonsuk: As you know, I started out in New York. I went to School of Visual Arts and studied film there. My first film was “Too Tired To Die”, a dark comedy I wrote and directed in 1998. It starred Takeshi Kaneshiro, Mira Sorvino, Ben Gazzara and Jeffrey Wright. It premiered at Sundance Film Festival that year.

Then I did a feature length documentary “E-Dreams” which chronicled the rise and fall of kozmo.com. After a special world premiere at Walter Reade Theater, the film went on to screen at such festivals as Seattle, Hamptons, Jeonju (in Korea) and San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. The film also won the Best Documentary Award at Ammi, the aMagazine-sponsored Asian-American "Academy Awards” when “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” won the Best Film.

Having grown up in Korea idolizing Hollywood films, I was one of the first Korean emigre filmmakers in the United States. When I first came here, many people were asking me if we even had a film industry in Korea. Truly, Korean films were virtually unknown outside Korea at the time. Of course, things have changed dramatically and Korea has produced some amazing films in the past 15 years. Some of the filmmakers like Park Chan-wook and Bong Joon-ho are very influential and I am proud of it. But it is true many of those wonderful Korean films are still considered cult classics and have a limited audience. It has been my goal to make a film about Korea that can travel beyond the arthouse and foreign film fans.

In the mid 2000s, I tried to make a film called “Expats”, a heist comedy about American expats teaching English in Busan, Korea. Although we had a partial cast (Chris Kline, John Cho and others have expressed interest), we couldn’t raise money and the project ultimately fell through. Many were saying I was a little ahead of the time. In the mid 2000s, Korean studios weren’t interested in making films for the global audience. Personally it was a devastating experience. You work on a project for several years and it doesn’t happen. Financially and spiritually it hurts you so much.

Wonsuk: In the past decade, I would travel back and forth between Korea and L.A., always trying to find the right project that has the best of Korean and American indie cinema.

Meanwhile, I ended up hosting a radio program in Korea to play soundtrack music. It was a great experience. I also appeared in a TV show regularly as a part time critic. I taught classes at Korea National University of the Arts.

I also tried producing some movies. I was involved in a Korean-Singapore-Chinese co-production Dance of the Dragon and a Korean wild boar movie “Chaw” but neither was a pleasant experience for me. I guess, I missed being creative. My role was very limited in those projects.

Then, I saw “Blue Valentine”. It was directed by a fellow Sundance alumni Derek Cianfrance. He had “Brother Tied” then. When I heard Derek had been working on the project for 12 years – that he never gave up his passion and dream for it -- it was a rude wake-up call for me. I’d been slacking off, placing blames on my producers for not being able to make my own movies. But Derek just persevered and made it happen for him.

I was truly humbled. I was inspired. I also sensed the time slipping away from me. I had to go back to making movies although uncertainty always awaited me.

In 2010, I started making some short films and music videos using iPhone and it got me excited about filmmaking again. They’re tiny projects created with a smartphone but I was happy to tell stories again. I got a little bit of notoriety because of them. In 2012, I shot “992,” a 13-minute comedy with an iPhone and it premiered at Macworld. The film received great reviews both in Korea and internationally and as a filmmaker, it boosted my confidence again. To be able to tell a story, even if it’s just short and online, I started believing again in my ability as a storyteller. Also, when you make a movie with a phone and raise the budget via crowdfunding, you begin to sense this is the brand new world.

Because of my previous works such as “E-Dreams” which dealt with the early days of the dot com world and those iPhone generated shorts, I’ve been known as a tech-savvy filmmaker in my homeland. I also exec produced the iPhone film Park Chan-wook co-directed called “Night Fishing”. I’m also known to be an early adopter as I’m one of the first filmmakers in Korea to use social media. As an indie filmmaker, you have to know what tools are available to you since you have to be resourceful.

Ironically, my new project is far from technology. As you know, I’m working on a film called “Ape of Wrath”. This will be my first feature as a director since e-dreams which I made over 13 years ago. This one will be very special because I will get to shoot it in the country where I grew up.

“Ape of Wrath” is a comedy about an ambitious but questionably talentless American director who travels to Korea in 1976 to make a giant ape movie. Yes, the story takes place in 1976 and we’re going to make it as a mockumentary as if this was the making of from the era. Those who read the script have compared it to Ed Wood and “Bowfinger”.

This story was inspired by an actual giant ape movie shot in Korea in 1976. It is called “A*P*E” and is considered to be one of the worst movies ever made. But it has become a cult classic.

My story is completely fictional and the protagonist is a Edward Wood, Jr.- like character named Federico Smith who has no resemblance to Paul Leder (Mimi Leder’s father), the director of “A*P*E”.

In my story, Federico Smith is a USC graduate (went to school with George Lucas) who made one forgettable horror film called “The Seventh Steal”. Now he gets to make his own King Kong in Korea with a washed up Scottish actor John McGregor playing the ape when his college roommate, Mr. Park, tells him to fuck copyrights and come to Korea to make the King Kong rip-off. Federico thinks his giant ape movie will be up there with Merian C. Cooper’s “King Kong” but you know well how this film will turn out.

This will be my lifetime dream come true ever since, as a little kid, I saw the posters of “A*P*E” in the streets of Songtan, a small town near Osan Air Base. As a 8 year old kid, I thought “A*P*E” was the sequel to King Kong and was proud Hollywood came to Korea to make a movie.

Many years later, now, I am preparing to make a film in Korea with an international cast. Luckily I have a great team behind us already. I hooked up with Paul Green of Anonymous Content who's the main producer of the project. Paul is the president and COO of Anonymous Content and has executive produced “Laggies” and will be executive producing “The Revenant”. Earlier this year, “Avengers: Age of Ultron” was filmed partially in Korea and soon “Sense8”, the new Netflix TV series from the Wachowski siblings will shoot scenes in Korea.

But “Ape of Wrath” will be the first coproduction with the U.S. to be shot entirely in Korea. It will be quite challenging though. We have a production system quite different from the ones in the States. Often, the shooting days are much longer in Korea. We can't afford to do that this time. Also it will be a daunting task to recreate 1970s Korea as Korea has changed so much.

But as a filmmaker, such challenges are always welcome. I’m not interested in making movies which seem familiar to you. The story of a hopeless dreamer may be familiar to you but such a story taking place in 1976 Korea will seem unlike anything you’ve ever seen.

If everything goes well, we will go into production next March. In the coming weeks, we hope to start casting the film.

You can watch Wonsuk Chin short film "992" below.

For better or worse, Extant was steady this week. CBS' new summer drama held its 1.1 rating among adults 18-49 during its first airing at 10 p.m. The premiere has now added another 50 percent of its demo rating thanks to live-plus-7 ratings, but same-day showings remain thin. Photos Halle Berry's Career in Pictures Extant held that score without an original lead-in from Big Brother — itself steady this week with a 2.2 rating in the key demo. Big Brother tied NBC's America's Got Talent (2.2 adults), off two-tenths of

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Though he only has three features to his name — one of which, Brother Tied, was little seen to begin with and isn’t even available on home video now — Derek Cianfrance has already established himself as a filmmaker worth paying attention to. Today, a new video does just that. Described as a “guided tour” […]

The post Watch: ‘Insight: Derek Cianfrance’ Examines the Director’s Process appeared first on /Film.

Over three films, Derek Cianfrance has made films about dudes. Okay, that's perhaps being a bit reductive, but from "Brother Tied" to "Blue Valentine" to this year's "The Place Beyond The Pines," they've featured men in various states of crisis. Now he's going to apply that approach to the most bro-tacular of industries — sports — for a project that has a tremendous amount of promise. The Wrap reports that Cianfrance is now set to direct an adaptation of the best-selling tome, "ESPN: Those Guys Have All The Fun." Assembled by authors James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales, the book was a sensation when it was released a couple of years ago, rounding up pretty much every key figure involved in the sports network, totalling over 500 interviews, to tell the rather colorful true story of how it started and became a behemoth. Here's the Amazon synopsis: It began, in 1979, as a mad idea of starting a cable channel to televise local sporting events throughout the state of Connecticut...

If there has been one through line on Derek Cianfrance's first three features, it has been family. His first (and still unreleased) film "Brother Tied" dealt with two brothers, his sophomore breakout "Blue Valentine" chronicled a crumbling marriage, while his latest, "The Place Beyond The Pines," detailed the generational sins of fathers as they are passed down the bloodline. And now he's lined up a new project, one that once again will see him tackle marriage, parenting, death and more. Cianfrance has signed on to direct (and presumably write, though THR isn't clear on that point) an adaptation of M.L. Stedman’s best-selling novel "The Light Between Oceans." And while the title might suggest a seafaring sort of movie, it's actually very much rooted in a relationship that's going through some typically Cianfrance-ian woes. Here's the synopsis from Amazon: After four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne...

I find it hard to imagine anyone willing to keep their artistic careers small. Audiences tend to be unforgiving, and expect what little work an artist produces to be representative of his/her talents. The legendary Impressionist painter, Henri Matisse, once said: “I was very embarrassed when my canvases began to fetch high prices. I saw myself condemned to a future of painting nothing but masterpieces.” Filmmakers are no different.

Derek Cianfrance is the writer and director of The Place Beyond the Pines, Brother Tied and Blue Valentine. Though he has made a handful of short films and documentaries, Cianfrance’s limited credentials force audiences to compare his latest movie with the well-received Blue Valentine, drawing both praise and disappointment.

The comparison is unfound, however, since the two movies only share an ambient resemblance. Blue Valentine is a romantic tragedy about a married couple in a troubled relationship. The film...

The new movie from the director of Blue Valentine is a modern morality tale underpinned by outstanding central performances

Brother Tied, the first film by Derek Cianfrance, now aged 39, was made 15 years ago and apparently remains in some legal limbo, unreleased and unseen. His second film, Blue Valentine, released in 2010, attracted considerable attention for the outstanding performances of Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams as respectively a blue-collar worker and the middle-class medical student who gives up her studies to marry him. The movie traces their seven-year marriage achronologically, starting with its final collapse. But unlike Harold Pinter's Betrayal, which moves steadily back in time from bitter dissolution to propitious beginning, Blue Valentine hops around over the years as the couple reflect on their lives.

Cianfrance's ambitious new film, The Place Beyond the Pines, has a straight linear movement that sprawls and at times crawls over some 17 years. It's a...

The daring new movie from the director of Blue Valentine, The Place Beyond The Pines is a sweeping emotional drama exploring the unbreakable bond between fathers and sons.

Luke (Academy Award nominee Ryan Gosling) is a high-wire motorcycle stunt performer who travels with the carnival from town to town. While passing through Schenectady in upstate New York, he tries to reconnect with a former lover, Romina

(Eva Mendes), only to learn that she has given birth to their son Jason in his absence. Luke decides to give up life on the road to try and provide for his newfound family by taking a job as a car mechanic. Noticing Luke’s ambition and talents, his employer Robin (Ben Mendelsohn) proposes to partner with Luke in a string of spectacular bank robberies – which will place Luke on the radar of ambitious rookie cop Avery Cross (Academy Award nominee Bradley Cooper).

Avery,...

The Place Beyond the Pines is a sprawling film from co-writer/director Derek Cianfrance about the connections between fathers and their sons, with drastic life decisions rippling through generations. The ambitious movie stars Ryan Gosling as circus performer-turned-bank robber, Bradley Cooper as a man of justice, Eva Mendes as a disturbed mother, Ray Liotta as a corrupt cop, and Dane DeHaan as the ultimate product of all of these characters’ decisions.

Cianfrance previously directed Gosling in Blue Valentine, the 2010 aching relationship drama starring Gosling and Michelle Williams. For her performance in the film, Williams was nominated for an Oscar.

I sat down with Cianfrance to discuss his film, why shooting is living but editing is death, how his failed first film was a blessing, his uncanny facial resemblance to Gosling, and more.

The Place Beyond the Pines opens in Chicago on April 5.

Something striking about your films is the concept of maturity within your characters,...

Chicago – The first image that surfaced of Derek Cianfrance’s “The Place Beyond the Pines,” was that of a bleached blonde, tattooed Ryan Gosling seated on a motorcycle. For many viewers, that would be enough to earn their ticket, yet Cianfrance’s brooding epic is bound to give them far more than they bargained for. Some may feel betrayed, others will be hooked.

With the exception of “Brother Tied,” a 1998 effort Cianfrance dismisses as an “exercise in egomaniacal hubris,” the director’s first major feature film was 2010’s “Blue Valentine,” a shattering drama that juxtaposed the dawn and dusk of a relationship between two lost souls (played by Gosling and an Oscar-nominated Michelle Williams). “Pines” unspools an even more ambitious narrative structure, exploring the impact of violence on two generations of men in purely linear fashion. Each segment in the film’s three-act structure is self-contained, shifting the audience’s...

Filmmaker Derek Cianfrance took twelve years to make his sophomore effort, "Blue Valentine." A searing relationship drama about husbands and wives starring Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, it quickly put the almost-forgotten director – who made his feature debut with 1998's still unreleased "Brother Tied" and had turned to documentaries in that time – firmly back on the cinematic map. His follow-up, "The Place Beyond The Pines" arrived a relatively quick two years later, but was six years in the making and Cianfrance actually had Gosling on board before 'Valentine' had even begun shooting. Cianfrance presents a triptych of stories in “The Place Beyond The Pines,” exploring themes of fatherhood, legacy and the sins we pass down to our children. A sprawling and engrossing drama that spans two generations (read our review here), 'Pines' stars the outstanding cast of Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Eva Mendes, Dane DeHaan, Ray Liotta, Emory Cohen, Ben Mendelsohn and Rose Byrne.

Although director Derek Cianfrance's first movie Brother Tied did the festival circuit in 1998, it wasn't until 12 years later when he started getting attention as a director with Blue Valentine , a relationship drama starring Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams that got the latter nominated for an Oscar. Fans of that movie don't have to wait nearly as long for The Place Beyond the Pines , the title being the literal translation for Schenectady, New York where Cianfrance's latest film is set. It's a film that's far more complex than Blue Valentine 's two-person character drama literally taking place over the course of years, plus there's also a good deal of action as it delves into genre territory. It also reteams the filmmaker with Ryan Gosling, playing Handsome Luke, a...

Considering that Derek Cianfrance showcased his first two films, Brother Tied (Sundance ’98) and Blue Valentine (2010) in Park City and since The Place Beyond The Pines launched at the Toronto Int. Film Festival with no subsequent festival release afterwards, Focus Features might be considering a U.S premiere spot before the theatrical release set for March 29th. With about 10 slots in the Spotlight section, chances are low as the fest favors foreign film titles over U.S. pics (only Lynn Shelton’s Your Sister’s Sister broke into the line-up last year) but this is an epic that would be difficult to pass up.

Gist: Luke (Ryan Gosling) is a professional motorcycle rider who turns to bank robberies to support his newborn son. But when he crosses paths with a rookie police officer (Bradley Cooper), their violent confrontation spirals into a tense generational feud. The Place Beyond the Pines is a rich dramatic thriller,...

One of the many films to premiere at this year's Toronto International Film Festival was The Place Beyond the Pines. Written and directed by Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine), the pic centers on a professional motorcycle rider turned bank robber (Ryan Gosling) and a rookie police officer (Bradley Cooper). Pines premiered to a rapturous response (read Matt’s glowing review here and here's two clips), and Focus quickly snapped it up for a planned 2013 release. The pic also stars Eva Mendes, Bruce Greenwood, Dane DeHaan, Ray Liotta, Ben Mendelsohn and Rose Byrne. The day after the premiere, I landed an extended video interview with Cianfrance. We talked about his first feature--Brother Tied--and if it'll ever be released, the genesis of The Place Beyond the Pines, premiering at Tiff, editing (he shot 400 hours of footage), deleted scenes, and more. In addition, Cianfrance talked about his HBO project Muscle, which is...

“I'm interested in telling stories about families,” Derek Cianfrance, the director of “The Place Beyond The Pines,” said this week during the Toronto International Film Festival, where his hotly anticipated drama finally premiered to much acclaim. Cianfrance stormed Sundance in 1998 with “Brother Tied,” a picture that was critically acclaimed at the festival, but then vanished afterwards. It wasn’t until twelve years later that he returned with his sophomore feature effort, “Blue Valentine,” a searing family drama about a marriage in irreparable decay, starring Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, which put him squarely back on the map. “‘Brother Tied’ -- the first film I made that no one saw -- was about brothers,” he explained about his affinity for the familial subject. “ ‘Blue Valentine’ was about husbands and wives, and this, [‘Pines’] is about fathers and...

Wow, we weren't expecting this. At all. Thus far, director Derek Cianfrance has shown a proclivity for either soul music (which fills his directorial debut "Brother Tied," which is one of the reasons keeping it from being properly released -- the licensing costs are expensive) or indie rock (the Grizzly Bear powered "Blue Valentine," which also featured the rarity "You And Me" by Penny & The Quarters). But Mike Patton? Damn, son. Today it's been announced that Patton will score Cianfrance's upcoming "The Place Beyond The Pines," which should add an interesting texture to film already brimming with tension. Starring Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Rose Byrne, Eva Mendes, Ben Mendelsohn, Ray Liotta, Dane DeHaan, Max Martini and Emory Cohen the story centers on Luke (Gosling), a motorcycle stunt rider who turns to robbing banks to support his son, but winds up crossing paths with a police officer-turned-politician (Cooper),...

Last week we reported that Blue Valentine director Derek Cianfrance is writing and directing a new project entitled The Place Beyond the Pines, which will reunite him with actor Ryan Gosling. I recently had the chance to speak with Derek Cianfrance about the May 10 release of Blue Valentine on Blu-ray and DVD, and he spoke a bit more about this new project. Here's what he had to say below.

"The next film I'm making is called The Place Beyond the Pines, which we'll shoot this summer. We're just locking up all our financing right now. It's a film about fathers and sons. It deals a lot with ancestry. Ryan Gosling is going to play a motorcycle stunt rider who comes back to the town of Schenectady to find out he has a young son from this one-night stand. He has to choose whether he's going to be a father, or...

Blue Valentine director Derek Cianfrance discusses this drama's long road to the big screen, his directorial style, new projects and more.

At the young age of 23, director Derek Cianfrance wrote, directed and edited his first feature, Brother Tied in 1998. 12 years later, after initial difficulties to secure funding, his follow-up Blue Valentine was released, although, due to the critical acclaim of his second film, we won't have to wait that long for his third. This fantastic drama stars Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams as a couple trying to save their marriage, as we also see how their relationship started through a series of well-placed flashbacks in this intricately-structured drama.

Blue Valentine will be released on Blu-ray and DVD on May 10, and I recently had the privilege of speaking with Derek Cianfrance to promote the home video release. Here's what he had to say below.

I really enjoyed the movie, so it's...

Moviefone recently announced its best music scenes in movies and of the 50 they collected, eight came from independent films. Sixteen percent is a less than extraordinary ratio--until you consider that music is an impossible feature for many indies. As the filmmakers behind films like "Brother Tied" and "Putty Hill" can attest, the rent is too damn high. The rules were satisfactorily stringent: No docs (but mock docs are Ok), ...

Here Oscar-winner Robert Benton interviews Derek Cianfrance. The piece was originally printed in the Fall 2010 issue. Blue Valentine is nominated for Best Actress (Michelle Williams).

As a child, Derek Cianfrance always worried his parents would divorce. When he was 20 his fears were realized. Both upset as well as curious about his own emotional antennae — how he somehow sensed discord in his parents’ relationship — Cianfrance decided to tackle the subject head-on with a movie. After gaining notice in the indie community with his debut feature, Brother Tied, in 1998, Cianfrance got to work on Blue Valentine, a storied film in the New York production community on account of its 12-year, 66-draft journey to production.

Blue Valentine stars Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams as married couple Dean and Cindy Periera. Struggling to regain the spark in their relationship, Dean, a house painter, and Cindy, a nurse, try to hide their increasing disinterest in...

What does it feel like to go from one under-seen Sundance competitor to a Harvey Weinstein-distributed indie smash starring two of the hottest actors in the business, the first disappearing in the middle of a booming independent climate and the second peaking during one of the biggest buying lulls in recent memory?

Tfs talked to Derek Cianfrance about this feeling, learning film from stuff like Creepshow and Airplane 2, stealing tape recorders and man-handling HBO via VHS tapes. There’s also his next Gosling project, The Place Beyond The Pines, his long-gestating Metalhead and the difference between film and video.

Tfs: How’d it all start for you? Where are you coming from? How did you break into the business? And how’d you find yourself making your dream project and getting an Oscar nomination [for Michelle Williams] out of it?

Derek Cianfrance: When I was a kid I always wanted to make movies.

Apparently this is the week of revived debut films.

Earlier in the week, 36 minutes of Quentin Tarantino’s debut, previously thought to have been lost to history, was unearthed, and now, according to an interview with IndieWire, current “it” indie filmmaker Derek Cianfrance has revealed new information on his long talked-about debut, Brother Tied.

Read more on Derek Cianfrance talks his debut feature, Brother Tied; music rights issues holding it from the public…...

Director Needs About $300,000 To Clear Rights For Doo-Wop Soundtrack With his sophomore feature "Blue Valentine" a hit with critics and audiences alike, Derek Cianfrance's "lost" debut "Brother Tied" is now starting to draw some attention, particularly the story behind its critically acclaimed festival runs in 1998 and the film's subsequent disappearance. Speaking to Indiewire, Cianfrance reveals a combination of factors that made any previous release an impossible uphill battle, including a lack of finishing funds--about $300,000 is need to clear the collection of 1950's doo-wop songs on the soundtrack--and no distribution offers, as well as the limited options offered…...

There's many reasons why "Blue Valentine" director Derek Cianfrance's critically hailed first film, "Brother Tied," disappeared from view: a lack of finishing funds, no distribution offers. But he likens the situation to a story about a pet fish. "When my sister-in-law was a teenager," Cianfrance says, "her fish died in her tank and she couldn't deal with it, so she put a towel over it. And there was always this ...

There's many reasons why "Blue Valentine" director Derek Cianfrance's critically hailed first film, "Brother Tied," disappeared from view: a lack of finishing funds, no distribution offers. But he likens the situation to a story about a pet fish. "When my sister-in-law was a teenager," Cianfrance says, "her fish died in her tank and she couldn't deal with it, so she put a towel over it. And there was always this ...

Light on plot and heavy on expression, Derek Cianfrance's "Blue Valentine" is a study in extremes. Essentially the anatomy of a break-up, it places exclusive focus on a young couple (Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams) as their marriage disintegrates. Cianfrance, whose directorial debut "Brother Tied" premiered at Sundance in 1998, spent over a decade working on this lyrical follow-up; his efforts come through in every artfully composed frame. Aided by ...

Kevin Jonas reportedly surprised his wife with a treasure hunt to celebrate their six-month anniversary. The eldest Jonas Brother tied the knot with Danielle Deleasa at Oheka Castle in Long Island, NY just before Christmas. Deleasa revealed the treasure hunt challenge on her Twitter account over the weekend, and posted an image of the first clue, which also advised her to "grab" (more)...

Updated 04/19 They've added two titles but none to the actual competition list just yet. Updates are included below

04/15 Yes, they will add a few titles. Looking round the web people expect something like 4 to 5 more films to show up. Speculation that Malick's Tree of Life or Nolans Inception or Schnabel's Miral probably won't die until after they add said missing titles. But if you're heading over to the South of France next month or merely reading along on various Twitter feeds or film blogs, these are some of the titles you'll be hearing about.

Blanchett. Crowe. Scott

Opening Night Film

Because you have to kick off with a starry entry for that maximum red carpet kick. It gets the international and mainstream press excited and you need their eyeballs... even if your festival is for the global cinephiles.

Robin Hood (Ridley Scott)

I'm amused that the tagline is marketing this as an "untold story". Hee.

A project that has been gestating for a while, this commercials (and short film Brother Tied) director has an urban, fly-on-the wall, intimate approach which should work wonders as Half Nelson's cinematographer Andrij Parekh and actor Ryan Gosling re-team. - #27. Blue Valentine Director: Derek CianfranceWriter(s): Joey Curtis, Cami Delavigne and CianfranceProducers: Lynette Howell , Alex Orlovsky and Jamie Patricof Distributor: Rights Available. The Gist: Written by Cianfrance with Cami Delavigne and Joey Curtis, this follows a couple whose relationship is jeopardized when they find themselves in different places in their lives.....(more) Cast: Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams. Why is it on the list?: A project that has been gestating for a while, this commercials (and short film Brother Tied) director has an urban, fly-on-the wall, intimate approach which should work wonders as Half Nelson's cinematographer Andrij Parekh and actor Ryan Gosling re-team.

Filmmaker Derek Cianfrance returns to Sundance with his U.S. Dramatic Competition film, “Blue Valentine,” described as an “intimate, shattering portrait of a disintegrating marriage.” Cianfrance won the Cinematography Award (Dramatic) for “Streets of Legend” in 2003 and directed 1998’s “Brother Tied.” Cianfrance gave iW some quick comments about his film, which will have its world premiere later this month at the festival. “Blue Valentine” U.S. Dramatic Competition Director: Derek Cianfrance Screenwriter: …...

The first photograph from Kevin Jonas's wedding to girlfriend Danielle Deleasa has been released. The eldest Jonas Brother tied the knot with Deleasa at a ceremony in New York earlier this month. The image, which appears on the cover of People, shows Jonas and Deleasa posing at their wedding reception, which reportedly had a fairy-tale theme. "I always wanted my wedding to have that princess feel. I couldn't have imagined this," Deleasa is quoted (more)...

After such success with this last year, today comes the first in a multi-chapter look at the various cinematic releases hitting the U.S. in 2010.

Each 'Volume' contains brief descriptions and editorial opinion/analysis of around 25-30 films, and at present it's looking to run around nine volumes in length.

Expect the remaining ones to go up between now and the first official weekend of releases on January 8th.

13

Opens: 2010

Cast: Jason Statham, Alexander Skarsgard, Mickey Rourke, Ray Winstone, 50 Cent

Director: Géla Babluani

Summary: A remake of 2005 French thriller "13 (Tzameti)". A naive young man assumes a dead man's identity and finds himself embroiled in an underground world of power, violence, and chance where men gamble behind closed doors on the lives of other men.

Analysis: Remakes are very common, the same director remaking his own film in English is rarer but still not unheard of ("Funny Games," "Bangkok Dangerous," "The...

After such success with this last year, today comes the first in a multi-chapter look at the various cinematic releases hitting the U.S. in 2010.

Each 'Volume' contains brief descriptions and editorial opinion/analysis of around 25-30 films, and at present it's looking to run around nine volumes in length.

Expect the remaining ones to go up between now and the first official weekend of releases on January 8th.

13

Opens: 2010

Cast: Jason Statham, Alexander Skarsgard, Mickey Rourke, Ray Winstone, 50 Cent

Director: Géla Babluani

Summary: A remake of 2005 French thriller "13 (Tzameti)". A naive young man assumes a dead man's identity and finds himself embroiled in an underground world of power, violence, and chance where men gamble behind closed doors on the lives of other men.

Analysis: Remakes are very common, the same director remaking his own film in English is rarer but still not unheard of ("Funny Games," "Bangkok Dangerous," "The...

After such success with this last year, today comes the first in a multi-chapter look at the various cinematic releases hitting the U.S. in 2010.

Each 'Volume' contains brief descriptions and editorial opinion/analysis of around 25-30 films, and at present it's looking to run around nine volumes in length.

Expect the remaining ones to go up between now and the first official weekend of releases on January 8th.

13

Opens: 2010

Cast: Jason Statham, Alexander Skarsgard, Mickey Rourke, Ray Winstone, 50 Cent

Director: Géla Babluani

Summary: A remake of 2005 French thriller "13 (Tzameti)". A naive young man assumes a dead man's identity and finds himself embroiled in an underground world of power, violence, and chance where men gamble behind closed doors on the lives of other men.

Analysis: Remakes are very common, the same director remaking his own film in English is rarer but still not unheard of ("Funny Games," "Bangkok Dangerous," "The...

Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams are set to play a couple whose relationship is on the rocks in Blue Valentine, our second Valentine story of the day (after this one).The duo play a married couple whose pairing appears to be failing, causing them to reflect on happier times in the past. Presumably it's not a very long past, given the relative youth of both stars, but at least that reduces the number of flashbacks requiring bad wigs or '80s outfits.Also in the cast are Mike Vogel, of Cloverfield and Poseidon fame; John Doman (The Wire's Rawls) and Maryann Plunkett (The Squid and the Whale; Center Stage).The film was written by Derek Cianfrance, Cami Delavigne and Joey Curtis, with Cianfrance set to direct as well. He has a background in music videos and documentaries, for the most part, after making an auspicious Sundance debut with his short film Brother Tied.