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Jeremy Thomas with Anne-Katrin Titze on his next mission, Christopher Hampton’s adaptation of Jonathan Coe’s Mr. Wilder and Me to be directed by Stephen Frears and starring Christoph Waltz as Billy Wilder: “We’ve got all the locations in Corfu and Paris where the drama is set. Now I’m looking for eight million dollars more …”

In the first instalment with producer extraordinaire Jeremy Thomas we discuss his work and admiration for Nicolas Roeg, Wim Wenders, and Matteo Garrone.

Jeremy Thomas with Glenn Kenny and Michael Almereyda at the Posteritati Gallery reception Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Karel Reisz’s Everybody Wins (written by Arthur Miller) came to Jeremy’s mind; the connection between Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor (winning nine Oscars), Paul Bowles and The Sheltering Sky; Jonathan Glazer (Sexy Beast) plus Glazer’s Martin Amis adaption of The Zone Of Interest (a Main Slate selection of...

The 1996 American film The Craft has an excellent cast which has gone on to feature in a multitude of movies and TV shows since its release. The Craft follows four outcast teen girls with supernatural abilities who come together to form a coven and take revenge on the people who have wronged them. The film did surprisingly well at the box office, grossing over $50 million against its $15 million budget, and it has since become a cult classic. Though it did not win any major awards, the film received mostly positive reviews from critics and was a hit with audiences.

Part of the reason for The Craft's continued interest is its outstanding cast. The film's four stars, Robin Tunney, Fairuza Balk, Neve Campbell, and Rachel True, carry the load, but the rest of the film's actors put in solid performances as well. The Craft is also one of the scariest...

Sam Shepard was a known face in Hollywood for his acting roles in several mainstream films, but his forte lay in the art of writing plays. In fact, for his 1979 play Buried Child, Shepard also won the Pulitzer Prize along with garnering a Tony nomination.

Related: Mank: 10 Best Screenwriters Who Deserve Their Own Biopics

When it comes to screenwriting, Shepard wrote ten feature film credits as a screenwriter. These include Wim Wenders' Paris, Texas, and Don't Come Knocking along with his own directorial ventures like Far North, and Silent Tongue. Unfortunately, some of his films didn't fare as well as his stage work. Nevertheless, Shepard's writing style is often grounded in gritty realism, occasionally adorned with surreal elements and absurdist influences.

Three-time Oscar nominee Wim Wenders, the director of “Paris, Texas,” “Wings of Desire” and “Buena Vista Social Club,” joined the “Life Through a Different Lens: Contactless Connections” talk earlier this week. Held by the Venice Film Festival and Mastercard, the virtual event allowed him to reminiscence about his beginnings. “I had no intention of becoming a filmmaker. I wanted to be all sorts of things, from a priest to god knows what, and trying to become a painter I ended up in Paris. Where else? That’s where I discovered the Cinémathèque Française, because I lived in a tiny, unheated room and the Cinémathèque was warm!”

Soon, he started to pay attention to the screen as well. “The first retrospective I followed was dedicated to Anthony Mann. He might not be recognised as one of the greats, but I learned so much from this man.” Always inspired by American cinema,...

Harry Dean Stanton with Nastassja Kinski and Wim Wenders Photo: Tom Farrell

Tom Farrell, who started out studying with Nicholas Ray, also has a long history with Sam Shepard and Wim Wenders, who co-directed Ray's final film Lightning Over Water. Tom appeared in Wim's Until the End of the World, Faraway, So Close!, Don't Come Knocking, and had a very memorable scene with Harry Dean Stanton in Paris, Texas, written by Sam Shepard.

Tom Farrell with Harry Dean Stanton on the bridge in Paris, Texas

After hearing of Harry Dean Stanton's passing on September 15, 2017 from natural causes at the age of 91 in Los Angeles, Tom sent a remembrance of what is now famously called "The Screaming Man on the Bridge with Harry Dean Stanton" that was shot by Robby Müller in December of 1983, cued by assistant director Claire Denis.

"The film crew drove north of Los Angeles for about...

Sam Shepard in Blackthorn Photo: Mongrel Media Sam Shepard: 'I still don't like to look at myself act' Hollywood today paid tribute to Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, screenwriter and actor Sam Shepard, who died on July 27, aged 73.

Shepard, who won the Pulitzer for Buried Child, died from the complications of Motor Neurone Disease at his Kentucky home.

In addition to his career as a playwright - penning more 40 plays - he also forged a career onscreen. He featured in films including Terrence Malik's Days Of Heaven and went on to be nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role in Philip Kaufaman's biographical drama about test pilot Chuck Yeager, The Right Stuff.

Other film roles included Steel Magnolias, Black Hawk Down and Don't Come Knocking. More recently, he also starred in Blackthorn, Ithaca and Midnight Special. His last film Never Here had it's premiere last month and he...

Tony Sokol Aug 1, 2017

Sam Shepard has sadly passed at the age of 73. We bid farewell to a great playwright, author and actor.

Playwright, author, and actor Sam Shepard, who spearheaded the Off Broadway movement, and starred in such films as The Right Stuff, Mud and Midnight Special, died on the 27th of July, the theatre public relations firm Boneau/Bryan-Brown announced. Shepard was 73 years old. Known for such plays as Buried Child, which won the Pulitzer Prize for drama, Curse Of The Starving Class and A Lie Of The Mind, Shepard’s 1969 science fiction play The Unseen Hand influenced Richard O'Brien's stage musical The Rocky Horror Show.

Shepard wrote 44 plays as well as books of short stories and essays. Besides his 1979 work Buried Child, his plays, True West and Fool For Love were also nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. 11 of Shepard’s plays won Obie Awards including Chicago and...

Sam Shepard, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and Oscar-nominated actor, died Sunday at the age of 73.

Shepard, who suffered from Als in recent years, died at his home in Kentucky from complications from the disease, his rep told The Hollywood Reporter.

The winner of 13 Obie Awards, Shepard won his first six for plays he penned between 1966 and 1968. After his success on the off-Broadway stage, Shepard segued to screenwriting with credits on films like Michelangelo Antonioni's Zabriske Point and Robert Frank's Me and My Brother.

During this time, Shepard also...

Jessica Lange, SAG Awards 2012 Jessica Lange, the Best Actress SAG Award winner for the drama series for American Horror Story, speaks onstage during the 18th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards. "To be an actor means everything to me," Lange told the crowd at the Shrine Auditorium on January 29, 2012, in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by John Shearer/WireImage.) Lange's SAG Award competitors were Kathy Bates for Harry's Law, Julianna Margulies for The Good Wife, Kyra Sedgwick for The Closer, and Glenn Close for Damages. Lange had previously been nominated for two SAG Awards: for Tony Richardson's feature drama Blue Sky (1994), opposite Tommy Lee Jones, and for Michael Sucsy's television drama Grey Gardens (2009), opposite eventual SAG Award winner Drew Barrymore. Additionally, Jessica Lange has six Oscar nominations to her credit. She won twice, as Best Supporting Actress for Sydney Pollack's Tootsie (1982), opposite Dustin Hoffman, and for Blue Sky. (Nell's...

Sony Pictures Classics announced today that they have acquired the Us Rights to David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method from UK based Hanway Films. The film, produced by Jeremy Thomas (The Last Emperor, Sexy Beast), stars Viggo Mortensen, Keira Knightley, Michael Fassbender, and Vincent Cassel. The film is currently in post-production.

Cronenberg once again gathered a prestigious crew to work on A Dangerous Method, director of photography Peter Suschitsky (A History of Violence, Eastern Promises), composer Howard Shore (The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Avatar), editor Ronald Sanders (A History of Violence, Eastern Promises, Coraline), costume designer Denise Cronenberg (A History of Violence, Eastern Promises, The Incredible Hulk) and production designer James McAteer (Good Will Hunting, A History of Violence, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen). The screenplay was adapted by Christopher Hampton (Atonement, The Quiet American) from his own play.

Seduced by the challenge of an impossible case, the driven Dr.

Ahead of an expected fall fest circuit run for David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method, Sony Pictures Classics has acquired Us rights from UK foreign sales company Hanway Films. Produced by Jeremy Thomas (The Last Emperor), the film, which is in post-production, stars Viggo Mortenson as Sigmund Freud and Keira Knightley as the unbalanced patient of Freud's protege, ambitious young psychiatrist Karl Jung (Michael Fassbender). Vincent Cassel co-stars as another patient who pushes the rival shrinks apart. Spc also released Cronenberg’s Spider and Thomas's Brother (Takeshi Kitano), Don't Come Knocking (Wim Wenders) and Young Adam (David Mackenzie). More details are below. Cronenberg is working again with director of photography Peter Suschitsky, costume designer Denise Cronenberg, editor Ronald Sanders (A History of Violence and Eastern Promises), and ...

With the rise of Toronto and Venice, France's film festival may need all the big-name European friends it can get

Did Lars von Trier overstep the mark in his jokey association with Hitler? At a week's distance from the hoo-hah, it looks like the wrong question. What perhaps ought to be asked is: can Cannes afford to exile its own enfant terrible at a potentially vulnerable time for the festival?

For despite Von Trier's hat-trick of apologies, the board's decision to declare him persona non grata is beginning to look like an own goal. Von Trier is, along with Pedro Almodóvar and Michael Haneke, one of a few semi-mainstream European auteurs who've been championed by Cannes so long and so fruitfully they'd be damned if they were to defect to a rival event. Now, Von Trier's loyalty to the Riviera need never be tested.

What the incident does, now the dust has settled,...

Cologne, Germany -- Oscar-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody ("Juno"), producer In-Ah Lee ("Don't Come Knocking") and Iranian director Rafi Pitts ("It's Winter") make up the jury for this year's First Feature film award at the Berlin International Film Festival.

The prize, endowed with 50,000 euros ($65,000), goes to the producer and director of a debut feature screening in one of the Berlinale's main sections: competition, Panorama, Forum and Generation.

The jury will announce the 2009 First Feature winner Feb. 14 at the official Berlinale awards ceremony.

Berlin -- Bernd Hellthaler has resigned from EuroArts Medien, the Berlin company he founded in 1994 and built into one of the world’s leading producers of classic music and fine arts programming.

Some of the company’s best known work was done as co-productions, including the Grammy-nominated documentary “Blue Note - A Story of Modern Jazz (1997)”.

EuroArts also co-produced several feature films, including Kenneth Glenaan’s “Yasmin” (2004), “Don’t Come Knocking” (2005) from Wim Wenders and Lajos Koltai’s “Fateless” (2005).

Hellthaler cited unspecified “personal reasons” for his exit. He will continue to advise the company and its corporate parent Medici Arts, which acquired EuroArts in 2004.

• When do the organizers of the Cannes film festival revoke the VIP card? When does the red carpet become off limits to folks who've worn out their welcome. Thus should be the case for German filmmaker Wim Wenders who received a Cannes main competition invite for his latest feature - a road movie that Variety described as "pretentious and inconsequential", and that many colleagues of mine walked out during the mid way mark of the official screening. With the exception of the Ry Cooder motivated docu film on Cuban musicians Buena Vista Social Club, many would argue that we haven't had anything to cheer about in the Wenders camp since 1987's Wings of Desire. Among the five or so pictures that I did not bother with in the competition titles at Cannes this year is The Palermo Shooting - a drama with wheels about a successful photographer Finn

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BERLIN -- Teddy Hoon-Tack Jung, president of Korean production, distribution and talent management company iHQ, has greenlighted the company's first English-language movie to shoot in the U.S. IHQ said Friday that American Zombie, from Korean-American director Grace Lee, is part of the company's mandate to "engage in international co-productions and target the North American market." Shooting on the $1 million project is set to begin in April in Los Angeles and will be produced by L.A.-based LeeLee Films. LeeLee is headed by In-Ah Lee, whose producer credits include the Wim Wenders-helmed films Don't Come Knocking and Land of Plenty.

BERLIN -- Teddy Hoon-Tack Jung, president of Korean production, distribution and talent management company iHQ, has greenlighted the company's first English-language movie to shoot in the U.S. IHQ said Friday that American Zombie, from Korean-American director Grace Lee, is part of the company's mandate to "engage in international co-productions and target the North American market." Shooting on the $1 million project is set to begin in April in Los Angeles and will be produced by L.A.-based LeeLee Films. LeeLee is headed by In-Ah Lee, whose producer credits include the Wim Wenders-helmed films Don't Come Knocking and Land of Plenty.

• This year Ioncinema.com is covering the 2006 edition of the Sundance Film Festival Live from Park City, Utah. Weâ€.ll be on hand to cover the festival, and while we wonâ€.t be able to cover everything from A to Z: here is a comprehensive beforehand look at the selections in each of the festivalâ€.s sections. (Note: To access individual preview pages, simply click on the links below) January 19, 2006Counting Down: updateCountdownClock('January 19, 2006');         A Little Trip to Heaven - Baltasar Kormakur Alpha Dog - Nick Cassavetes New Line Cinema) Art School Confidential - Terry Zwigoff (Sony Pictures Classics) Cargo - Clive Gordon The Darwin Awards - Finn Taylor Don't Come Knocking - Wim Wenders (Sony Pictures Classics) Friends With Money - Nicole Holofcener (Sony Pictures Classics) The Illusionist - Neil Burger Kinky Boots - Julian Jarrold Miramax Films Little Miss Sunshine - Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris

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COLOGNE, Germany -- Cannes Palme d'Or winner The Child, Oscar-nominees Hotel Rwanda, A Very Long Engagement and As It Is In Heaven, and controversial suicide-bomber drama Paradise Now are among the films that made the short list Thursday for nominees for this year's European Film Awards. The EFA's 1,600 members will choose European Film Award nominees from this list. The European Film Awards, Europe's top film prizes, will be awarded in Berlin Dec. 3. The selection holds few surprises. In addition to The Child, Cannes Competition entry Cache, which won the best director Palme for Michael Haneke; Lars Von Trier's Manderlay; and Don't Come Knocking, from director and EFA president Wim Wenders, also made the cut.

TORONTO -- The Toronto International Film Festival on Tuesday unveiled the first titles chosen for its September run, including Cannes trophy winners L'Enfant, from Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, and Michael Haneke's Cache. Unveiling 16 North American premieres among 20 films that bowed at rival festivals, Toronto said it will program the Palme d'Or-winning L'Enfant and director prize-winner Haneke's Cache in the Masters sidebar, along with Alexander Sokurov's In the Sun, a drama about Japan's World War II surrender, and Hou Hsiao Hsien's Three Times, a film from Taiwan about three different stories of love and memory through three different time periods. Also on tap for the Masters program are two films that competed in Cannes -- Manderlay, the second leg of Lars von Trier's trilogy about the U.S., and Wim Wenders' Don't Come Knocking, the Sam Shepard starrer about a movie star who escapes the set of his most recent Western to find his past.

TORONTO -- The Toronto International Film Festival on Tuesday unveiled the first titles chosen for its September run, including Cannes trophy winners L'Enfant, from Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, and Michael Haneke's Cache. Unveiling 16 North American premieres among 20 films that bowed at rival festivals, Toronto said it will program the Palme d'Or-winning L'Enfant and director prize-winner Haneke's Cache in the Masters sidebar, along with Alexander Sokurov's In the Sun, a drama about Japan's World War II surrender, and Hou Hsiao Hsien's Three Times, a film from Taiwan about three different stories of love and memory through three different time periods. Also on tap for the Masters program are two films that competed in Cannes -- Manderlay, the second leg of Lars von Trier's trilogy about the U.S., and Wim Wenders' Don't Come Knocking, the Sam Shepard starrer about a movie star who escapes the set of his most recent Western to find his past.

Eva Marie Saint will play Martha Kent, the adoptive mother of Clark Kent/Superman in Bryan Singer's Superman Returns film for Warner Bros. Pictures. Brandon Routh is playing Superman. Saint, who starred in the Alfred Hitchcock classic North by Northwest, co-stars in Wayne Wang's Because of Winn-Dixie, to be released by 20th Century Fox on Feb. 18, and will also appear in Wim Wenders' Don't Come Knocking, to be released by Sony Pictures Classics in the fall.. She is repped by ICM and Jeff Sanderson.

Eva Marie Saint has signed on to co-star in Don't Come Knocking, an independent feature film being directed by Wim Wenders and starring Sam Shepard. The story centers on an aging cowboy star (Shepard) who rides off the set midshoot on a voyage of self-discovery. Saint will play Shepard's mother. Shepard wrote the screenplay, which is based on a story by Shepard and Wenders. Knocking is a Reverse Angle production and is being produced by Peter Schwartzkopff. Production starts this summer. Saint most recently co-starred in Wayne Wang's Because of Winn-Dixie, to be released in January by 20th Century Fox. She is best known for her work in On the Waterfront, for which she won a best supporting actress Oscar, and North by Northwest. Saint won an Emmy for her work in the 1990 TV movie People Like Us. She is represented by ICM and managed by Jeff Sanderson.