Michael Dwyeron film
"There are far too many film festivals in the world today," says Belfast native Mark Cousins, a former director of the Edinburgh Film Festival. So Cousins is setting up two new festivals. He is curator on Soundtrack, to be held in Cardiff in late November with a focus on "the crucial creative relationship film has with music". Danny Boyle will give a masterclass at the inaugural event and Manic Street Preachers singer James Dean Bradfield is among its supporters. www. soundtrackfilmfestival.com
Cousins and Tilda Swinton have teamed up to organise the Ballerina Ballroom Cinema of Dreams, which runs over eight-nnd-a-half days from August 15th at a ballroom in Nairn in northeast Scotland. The programmers include Oscar-winner Joel Coen. The event grew out of "our passion to get imaginative films to young people," Cousins says.
Henry Hathaway's Peter Ibbetson(1935), one of Swinton's favourite movies, will open the festival, which will also screen Michael Powell's I Know Where I Am Going, Sylvain Chomet's The Old Lady and the Pigeonsand Mohammed Ali Talebi's The Boots. The closing film is Fellini's 8 1/2.
Cousins hopes the event will "re-inject some romance into the film festival circuit . . . There will be no champagne receptions, no opening addresses and no politicians. It will be purely triple-distilled cinephilia." Nor will there be any awards. www.myspace.com/ballerinaballroom
Baron Cohen is back in the US of A
Sacha Baron Cohen is up to his old tricks as he follows Boratwith Bruno, now shooting in the US. His production team organised a Blue Collar Brawlin' event at an Arkansas convention centre, promising "hot chicks, cold beer, hardcore fights".
An uproar ensued when one of the fighters dared a man, who was planted in the crowd, to join him in the ring. When the two men tore off each other's clothes and started kissing, the audience objected and flung chairs and other missiles at them. The Brunocrew caught it all on camera.
Cohen, in character as flamboyant Austrian fashionista Bruno, has also filmed an interview with a Mossad agent and a Palestinian academic, in which he asks them to explain the difference between Hamas and hummus.
Hurt feelings over 'Sex' coverage
Canadian distributor Alliance Atlantis last week banned critics from national daily the Globe and Mailfrom its press screenings. The company reportedly was unhappy with the paper's negative coverage of Sex and the City. The ban was to begin with the preview of Toronto film-maker Patricia Rozema's Kit Kettredge: An America Girl, starring Abigail Breslin. However, Rozema personally invited the Globecritics and turned up at the preview to ensure they were allowed in. The ban has now been lifted, according to trade paper Screen International.
Frightfully fast film-making
Irish director Paddy Breathnach doesn't waste any time. His Freakdog(formerly titled Red Mist) started shooting in February and is already set to have its world premiere at the Film 4 Frightfest event in London next month. The Belfast- filmed supernatural stars Arielle Kebell as a trainee doctor who administers an untested cocktail of drugs to a coma victim (Stephen Dillane), who wreaks revenge on the careless medics.
Freakdogis Breathnach's sixth feature, after Ailsa, I Went Down, Blow Dry, Man About Dogand Shrooms.
Laois actor off the leash
Irish actor Robert Sheehan co-stars with Harry Potter chum Rupert Grint in Cherrybomb, which began shooting in Belfast this week. They play students whose friendship is tested when a troubled young woman (Kimberley Nixon) lures them into dangerous activities. Scripted by Middletownscreenwriter Darragh Carville, Cherrybombis co-directed by Glen Leyburn and Lisa Barros D'Sa.
Sheehan, who's from Portlaoise, has the leading role in Martin Duffy's Summer of the Flying Saucer, showing at Galway Film Fleadh tomorrow afternoon. Nixon, meanwhile, is in two movies to be released here over the next four weeks: Wild Child and Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging.
Movie made while u wait
Director James Fair and his cast and crew on Watching and Waitinghave taken on the challenge of shooting and editing the entire movie in 72 hours, after which it will be screened on Sunday night at Galway Film Fleadh. They are using the latest HD Panasonic P2 technology, with technical support from Apple Computers for the editing team. www.72hourfilm.com
Big stars in the Big Apple
Alan Cooke's documentary Homegoes on cinema release from today at The Eye in Galway. It features interviews with many of New York City's most famous residents, among them Woody Allen, Susan Sarandon, Liam Neeson, Mike Myers, Alfred Molina, and Frank and Malachy McCourt.
QUOTE
"I'd love to see a musical of Springsteen songs. I would like to star in it. I'd have a crack at it." - Piere Brosnan, who caught the singing bug on Mamma Mia!
