★★★★★Unjustly shut out of the Best Foreign Language Film category at this year's Academy Awards, Wadjda (2012) is a perfect example of a film that is never eclipsed - but certainly augmented - by its remarkable context. Emanating from a Middle Eastern country that outlaws cinema and where women are denied certain everyday rights (or, indeed, a sense of autonomy), Wadjda is the first feature film shot both entirely in Saudi Arabia and by a female Saudi filmmaker, Haifaa al-Mansour, whose neorealist cinematic influences shine brightly in this heartfelt and profoundly touching debut starring newcomer Waad Mohammed.
- 2/4/2014
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
Kidnap drama Prisoners is sombre yet slick, while the Bafta-nominated Wadjda is a rich tale about a rebellious Saudi schoolgirl
February is traditionally the greyest, dampest month and therefore an opportune time to unleash Prisoners (Entertainment One, 15) into Britain's living rooms: Denis Villeneuve's rain-pelted, Pennsylvania-set thriller is so ostentatiously gloomy as to make the dregs of winter positively sparkle by comparison. That's a compliment of sorts. Solemn, cement-thick atmosphere – Roger Deakins's cinematography has been deservedly Oscar-nominated – elevates the absurdities in this lengthy, engrossing bit of pulp, which follows a suburban kidnapping case through to some very bitter ends.
Hugh Jackman (on unusually steely form) is the rampaging father scorned, Jake Gyllenhaal reprises his Zodiac performance to slightly lesser effect as the dogged detective, Melissa Leo plays the patented Melissa Leo role as the mangy shut-in who may or may not know more than she's letting on. Québécois auteur...
February is traditionally the greyest, dampest month and therefore an opportune time to unleash Prisoners (Entertainment One, 15) into Britain's living rooms: Denis Villeneuve's rain-pelted, Pennsylvania-set thriller is so ostentatiously gloomy as to make the dregs of winter positively sparkle by comparison. That's a compliment of sorts. Solemn, cement-thick atmosphere – Roger Deakins's cinematography has been deservedly Oscar-nominated – elevates the absurdities in this lengthy, engrossing bit of pulp, which follows a suburban kidnapping case through to some very bitter ends.
Hugh Jackman (on unusually steely form) is the rampaging father scorned, Jake Gyllenhaal reprises his Zodiac performance to slightly lesser effect as the dogged detective, Melissa Leo plays the patented Melissa Leo role as the mangy shut-in who may or may not know more than she's letting on. Québécois auteur...
- 2/2/2014
- by Guy Lodge
- The Guardian - Film News
Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Feb. 11, 2014
Price: Blu-ray/DVD Combo $40.99
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Waad Mohammed is Wadjda.
Directed by Haifaa Al Mansour, the 2013 drama Wadjda represents a bunch of “firsts” — the first feature film shot entirely in Saudi Arabia, the first Saudi film written and directed by a woman, and the first Saudi submission to the Foreign Language committee for the Academy Awards.
In the film, Wadjda (newcomer Waad Mohammed) is a fun-loving 10-year-old girl living in Saudi Arabia who has her heart set on a beautiful new bicycle. However, her mother (popular Saudi television star Reem Abdullah in her first feature film role) won’t allow it, fearing repercussions from a society that sees bicycles as dangerous to a girl’s virtue. Determined to turn her dreams into reality and buy the bike on her own, Wadjda uncovers the contradictions and opportunities in her world.
The PG-rated Wadjda...
Price: Blu-ray/DVD Combo $40.99
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Waad Mohammed is Wadjda.
Directed by Haifaa Al Mansour, the 2013 drama Wadjda represents a bunch of “firsts” — the first feature film shot entirely in Saudi Arabia, the first Saudi film written and directed by a woman, and the first Saudi submission to the Foreign Language committee for the Academy Awards.
In the film, Wadjda (newcomer Waad Mohammed) is a fun-loving 10-year-old girl living in Saudi Arabia who has her heart set on a beautiful new bicycle. However, her mother (popular Saudi television star Reem Abdullah in her first feature film role) won’t allow it, fearing repercussions from a society that sees bicycles as dangerous to a girl’s virtue. Determined to turn her dreams into reality and buy the bike on her own, Wadjda uncovers the contradictions and opportunities in her world.
The PG-rated Wadjda...
- 1/8/2014
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
Steve McQueen's "12 Years a Slave" was the big winner at this year's Washington DC Critics Awards taking home the best film, actor, supporting actress, adapated screenplay, acting ensemble, and music score. But McQueen failed to beat "Gravity's" Alfonso Cuaron for the best director trophy.
Here's the full list of nominees and winners (highlighted) of the 2013 Washington DC Area Film Critics awards:
Best Film
"American Hustle"
"Gravity"
"Her"
"Inside Llewyn Davis"
"12 Years a Slave"
Best Director
Alfonso Cuarón, "Gravity"
Spike Jonze, "Her"
Baz Luhrmann, "The Great Gatsby"
Steve McQueen, "12 Years a Slave"
Martin Scorsese, "The Wolf of Wall Street"
Best Actor
Leonardo DiCaprio, "The Wolf of Wall Street"
Chiwetel Ejiofor, "12 Years a Slave"
Matthew McConaughey, "Dallas Buyers Club"
Joaquin Phoenix, "Her"
Robert Redford, "All Is Lost"
Best Actress
Cate Blanchett, "Blue Jasmine"
Sandra Bullock, "Gravity"
Judi Dench, "Philomena"
Meryl Streep, "August: Osage County"
Emma Thompson, "Saving Mr. Banks"
Best Supporting Actor
Daniel Brühl,...
Here's the full list of nominees and winners (highlighted) of the 2013 Washington DC Area Film Critics awards:
Best Film
"American Hustle"
"Gravity"
"Her"
"Inside Llewyn Davis"
"12 Years a Slave"
Best Director
Alfonso Cuarón, "Gravity"
Spike Jonze, "Her"
Baz Luhrmann, "The Great Gatsby"
Steve McQueen, "12 Years a Slave"
Martin Scorsese, "The Wolf of Wall Street"
Best Actor
Leonardo DiCaprio, "The Wolf of Wall Street"
Chiwetel Ejiofor, "12 Years a Slave"
Matthew McConaughey, "Dallas Buyers Club"
Joaquin Phoenix, "Her"
Robert Redford, "All Is Lost"
Best Actress
Cate Blanchett, "Blue Jasmine"
Sandra Bullock, "Gravity"
Judi Dench, "Philomena"
Meryl Streep, "August: Osage County"
Emma Thompson, "Saving Mr. Banks"
Best Supporting Actor
Daniel Brühl,...
- 12/16/2013
- by Manny
- Manny the Movie Guy
We kick off our list of the top 10 films of 2013 with Wadjda - a funny, romantic drama based on a Riyadh girl's quest to buy a bike that's Saudi Arabia's first film directed by a woman. We'll be launching the remainder of our top 10 daily over the next two weeks
Wadjda is the first Saudi Arabian feature to be directed by a woman. Shot in the suburbs of Riyadh, Haifaa Al-Mansour's film tells the story of an 10-year-old who wants to buy a green bicycle to race against her friend Abdullah.
Wadjda (Waad Mohammed) shouldn't want a bike (her mum's worried – it could ruin her virginity), she shouldn't – as a girl on the edge of puberty – really be playing with Abdullah. But she does, cheerfully and with cursory regard for mum's fretting or the disapproval of her staunchly traditionalist teacher. She wears Converse under her traditional garb – a handy...
Wadjda is the first Saudi Arabian feature to be directed by a woman. Shot in the suburbs of Riyadh, Haifaa Al-Mansour's film tells the story of an 10-year-old who wants to buy a green bicycle to race against her friend Abdullah.
Wadjda (Waad Mohammed) shouldn't want a bike (her mum's worried – it could ruin her virginity), she shouldn't – as a girl on the edge of puberty – really be playing with Abdullah. But she does, cheerfully and with cursory regard for mum's fretting or the disapproval of her staunchly traditionalist teacher. She wears Converse under her traditional garb – a handy...
- 12/9/2013
- by Henry Barnes
- The Guardian - Film News
Spike Jonze's "Her" and Steve McQueen's "12 Years a Slave" dominated the nominations for the Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Associations. Both movies received nods for Best Film along with David O. Russell's "American Hustle," Alfonso Cuaron's "Gravity," and the Coen Brothers' "Inside Llewyn Davis."
Here's the complete list of nominations, winners will be announced on Monday!
Best Film
"American Hustle"
"Gravity"
"Her"
"Inside Llewyn Davis"
"12 Years a Slave"
Best Director
Alfonso Cuarón, "Gravity"
Spike Jonze, "Her"
Baz Luhrmann, "The Great Gatsby"
Steve McQueen, "12 Years a Slave"
Martin Scorsese, "The Wolf of Wall Street"
Best Actor
Leonardo DiCaprio, "The Wolf of Wall Street"
Chiwetel Ejiofor, "12 Years a Slave"
Matthew McConaughey, "Dallas Buyers Club"
Joaquin Phoenix, "Her"
Robert Redford, "All Is Lost"
Best Actress
Cate Blanchett, "Blue Jasmine"
Sandra Bullock, "Gravity"
Judi Dench, "Philomena"
Meryl Streep, "August: Osage County"
Emma Thompson, "Saving Mr. Banks"
Best Supporting Actor
Daniel Brühl,...
Here's the complete list of nominations, winners will be announced on Monday!
Best Film
"American Hustle"
"Gravity"
"Her"
"Inside Llewyn Davis"
"12 Years a Slave"
Best Director
Alfonso Cuarón, "Gravity"
Spike Jonze, "Her"
Baz Luhrmann, "The Great Gatsby"
Steve McQueen, "12 Years a Slave"
Martin Scorsese, "The Wolf of Wall Street"
Best Actor
Leonardo DiCaprio, "The Wolf of Wall Street"
Chiwetel Ejiofor, "12 Years a Slave"
Matthew McConaughey, "Dallas Buyers Club"
Joaquin Phoenix, "Her"
Robert Redford, "All Is Lost"
Best Actress
Cate Blanchett, "Blue Jasmine"
Sandra Bullock, "Gravity"
Judi Dench, "Philomena"
Meryl Streep, "August: Osage County"
Emma Thompson, "Saving Mr. Banks"
Best Supporting Actor
Daniel Brühl,...
- 12/9/2013
- by Manny
- Manny the Movie Guy
Decadence, violence, love and space – Guardian film critic Peter Bradshaw shares his fantasy award nomination list for 2013
• The 2012 Braddies
Awards season is now upon us and here, as every year, is my personal fantasy award nomination list for 2013, whimsically called the Braddies, which covers the period running from the beginning of the calendar year to the present. There are 10 nominations in eight categories: film, director, actor, actress, supporting actor, supporting actress, screenplay and documentary.
The reader is invited to nominate the winner in the comments section below, and perhaps to note omissions and evidence that the list betrays suggestions of sociocultural bias.
I like to think that these awards will one day evolve into an actual ceremony with chrome-and-glass statuettes, sponsorship from Sky Atlantic and a televised evening presided over by Dara Ó Briain or Mariella Frostrup. But until then, it exists in a world of fantasy only. And so,...
• The 2012 Braddies
Awards season is now upon us and here, as every year, is my personal fantasy award nomination list for 2013, whimsically called the Braddies, which covers the period running from the beginning of the calendar year to the present. There are 10 nominations in eight categories: film, director, actor, actress, supporting actor, supporting actress, screenplay and documentary.
The reader is invited to nominate the winner in the comments section below, and perhaps to note omissions and evidence that the list betrays suggestions of sociocultural bias.
I like to think that these awards will one day evolve into an actual ceremony with chrome-and-glass statuettes, sponsorship from Sky Atlantic and a televised evening presided over by Dara Ó Briain or Mariella Frostrup. But until then, it exists in a world of fantasy only. And so,...
- 12/6/2013
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Wadjda, Saudi Arabia’s Submission for the Academy Award Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. U.S.: Sony Pictures Classics. International Sales Agent: The Match Factory.
Even before the film appears on the screen there is a sense of added importance that permeates it. Just on the ground that this is not only the first ever feature film from a female Saudi Arabian director but also the first ever to be shot entirely inside the country, should makes this an event. Movie theaters are banned in the Middle Eastern Kingdom, and women live under highly restricted circumstances that forbid them even from driving, such facts make of Haifaa al-Mansour’s film a defiant move, even a political statement. But to judge a film solely on the politics that surrounded its production would be unproductive; however, with a work like Wadjda that is not necessary since it shines on its own merits.
The title character, 10-year-old Wadjda (Waad Mohammed), seems unaffected by the cloud of machismo and Islamic limitations that cover her environment. She attends an all-girls school, as mandated by the religious establishment, but that doesn’t prevent her from having a young male friend Abdullah (Abdullrahman Algohani), whose bicycle becomes her object of desire. Not only does Wadjda need to figure out how to get the money for a bike, but also how to go around the ingrained belief that girls should not ride them because they risk their sacred virginity. That is why a situation that could be deemed a mundane premise in the Western world becomes a norm-challenging story, in which via the simplicity of a childhood desire other more profound concerns about civil liberties for women are expressed.
Wearing purple sneakers, listening to rock bands on the radio, and devising ingenious scams to achieve her goal, Wadjda separates herself from the rest of the girls. Her mother (Reem Abdullah) is conservative but never fully oppressive, she understands the parameters by which they must exist, but seems to find hope in her daughter’s actions, and that is the true spirit of the film, hopeful. Women must endure long drives to their place of employment and pay to be driven around to comply with the submission that is expected from them, such lack of freedom of mobility reinforces the significance for a young girl to have access to a bicycle. Yet, for all the support at home, Wadjda is faced with the realities of her gender at school. Girls her age are ready to be married off, little girls are guilt for standing in the view field of men, and others are accused of indecent conduct for holding hands.
This is a hard world to live in for a girl who has not been tainted with insecurity or self-pity, not once is Wadjda seen surrendering her individuality or giving in to what adults tell her is the right place for a girl. Young Waad Mohammed infuses Wadjda with mischievous heart-warming quality. She is a rascal and a sweetheart at once, one that will stop at nothing to get her cherished ride but who also feels utter love and respect for both of her parents, even if their relationship is doomed by the common practice of polygamy. It is outstanding how Haifaa al-Mansour was able to conceive a fantastically multilayered screenplay that pushes the boundaries of what femininity means not only in the extremely traditional society of Saudi Arabia but in the entire region.
Wadjda’s definitive plot to obtain the money she needs for her bicycle, which has been on a sort of layaway system by the local toy vendor, is to win her school’s Quran reading and trivia contest. She is determined to succeed and devotes her time to learning and practicing it, certainly for her ulterior motives, but nonetheless she learns, and she is rewarded for it. That is probably the director’s biggest achievement, by utilizing all burdens and troubles not as fixed punishments but as obstacles to overcome, she has made a film that speaks of woman in her country as intelligent, ambitious, and creative individuals who are not less virtuous in the religious sense by being so.
Review First Published on IonCinema
Read more about all the 76 Best Foreign Language Film Submission for the 2014 Academy Awards...
Even before the film appears on the screen there is a sense of added importance that permeates it. Just on the ground that this is not only the first ever feature film from a female Saudi Arabian director but also the first ever to be shot entirely inside the country, should makes this an event. Movie theaters are banned in the Middle Eastern Kingdom, and women live under highly restricted circumstances that forbid them even from driving, such facts make of Haifaa al-Mansour’s film a defiant move, even a political statement. But to judge a film solely on the politics that surrounded its production would be unproductive; however, with a work like Wadjda that is not necessary since it shines on its own merits.
The title character, 10-year-old Wadjda (Waad Mohammed), seems unaffected by the cloud of machismo and Islamic limitations that cover her environment. She attends an all-girls school, as mandated by the religious establishment, but that doesn’t prevent her from having a young male friend Abdullah (Abdullrahman Algohani), whose bicycle becomes her object of desire. Not only does Wadjda need to figure out how to get the money for a bike, but also how to go around the ingrained belief that girls should not ride them because they risk their sacred virginity. That is why a situation that could be deemed a mundane premise in the Western world becomes a norm-challenging story, in which via the simplicity of a childhood desire other more profound concerns about civil liberties for women are expressed.
Wearing purple sneakers, listening to rock bands on the radio, and devising ingenious scams to achieve her goal, Wadjda separates herself from the rest of the girls. Her mother (Reem Abdullah) is conservative but never fully oppressive, she understands the parameters by which they must exist, but seems to find hope in her daughter’s actions, and that is the true spirit of the film, hopeful. Women must endure long drives to their place of employment and pay to be driven around to comply with the submission that is expected from them, such lack of freedom of mobility reinforces the significance for a young girl to have access to a bicycle. Yet, for all the support at home, Wadjda is faced with the realities of her gender at school. Girls her age are ready to be married off, little girls are guilt for standing in the view field of men, and others are accused of indecent conduct for holding hands.
This is a hard world to live in for a girl who has not been tainted with insecurity or self-pity, not once is Wadjda seen surrendering her individuality or giving in to what adults tell her is the right place for a girl. Young Waad Mohammed infuses Wadjda with mischievous heart-warming quality. She is a rascal and a sweetheart at once, one that will stop at nothing to get her cherished ride but who also feels utter love and respect for both of her parents, even if their relationship is doomed by the common practice of polygamy. It is outstanding how Haifaa al-Mansour was able to conceive a fantastically multilayered screenplay that pushes the boundaries of what femininity means not only in the extremely traditional society of Saudi Arabia but in the entire region.
Wadjda’s definitive plot to obtain the money she needs for her bicycle, which has been on a sort of layaway system by the local toy vendor, is to win her school’s Quran reading and trivia contest. She is determined to succeed and devotes her time to learning and practicing it, certainly for her ulterior motives, but nonetheless she learns, and she is rewarded for it. That is probably the director’s biggest achievement, by utilizing all burdens and troubles not as fixed punishments but as obstacles to overcome, she has made a film that speaks of woman in her country as intelligent, ambitious, and creative individuals who are not less virtuous in the religious sense by being so.
Review First Published on IonCinema
Read more about all the 76 Best Foreign Language Film Submission for the 2014 Academy Awards...
- 10/25/2013
- by Carlos Aguilar
- Sydney's Buzz
I'm guessing many women reading this review can remember learning to ride a bicycle -- getting the training wheels off, or refusing to have them in the first place, perhaps having someone hold the back of the seat and run behind you ... and that glorious moment when you achieve solo cycling.
In the movie Wadjda, the title character is a girl who wants to own and ride a bike in a society where such an activity is considered inappropriate for females. An event most of us take for granted becomes subversive, and the simple story of the film takes on many layers. It's remarkably fascinating, primarily due to its contemporary Saudi Arabia setting.
The basic premise of the story -- Wadjda (Waad Mohammed) wants the bicycle for sale at the nearby toy store, and will do anything she can to earn the money for it -- is enhanced by the...
In the movie Wadjda, the title character is a girl who wants to own and ride a bike in a society where such an activity is considered inappropriate for females. An event most of us take for granted becomes subversive, and the simple story of the film takes on many layers. It's remarkably fascinating, primarily due to its contemporary Saudi Arabia setting.
The basic premise of the story -- Wadjda (Waad Mohammed) wants the bicycle for sale at the nearby toy store, and will do anything she can to earn the money for it -- is enhanced by the...
- 10/19/2013
- by Jette Kernion
- Slackerwood
In Saudi Arabia, women are deemed inferior, banned from driving, playing sports, voting, holding most jobs, and walking in public without permission. That ain’t right! But one woman there has, for the first time, directed a movie. Cinemas are banned there as well, so none of her fellow countrywomen will see it, but good for her anyway! Haifaa Al Mansour reportedly had to direct much of Wadjda over the phone because of that country’s strict rules on men taking direction from women in public, but she got her film in the can and that in itself is quite an achievement. The end result is a nice low-key drama with a deceptively simple story and some nice performances. There’s much charm to be found in Wadjda, but some clunky plotting and characterization gives it something of a made-for-tv quality.
Wadjda puts a human face on the current state...
Wadjda puts a human face on the current state...
- 10/18/2013
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Wadjda
Directed by: Haifaa Al-Mansour
Cast: Waad Mohammed, Reem Abdullah, Ahd
Running Time: 1 hr 38 mins
Rating: PG
Release Date: September 20, 2013 (Chicago)
Plot: A ten-year-old from Saudi Arabia named Wadjda (Mohammed) enters a Koran-reciting contest so that she can use the prize money to buy a bike.
Who’S It For? Those who like to witness revolutions.
Overall
Wadjda is a film from a country that doesn’t have movie theaters. It is about archaic rules for women in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a country that fears gender mixing at public film screenings. Saudi Arabia has a slowly growing film scene, but such homemade products, such as first-Saudi-made movie titled in 2006 Keif al-Hal? (translated to “How are you?”) can only be viewed in private living spaces. Showtime Arabia hooked people up with Keif al-Hal, and TV is a handy way to get censored media. Even video stores exist, but scenes...
Directed by: Haifaa Al-Mansour
Cast: Waad Mohammed, Reem Abdullah, Ahd
Running Time: 1 hr 38 mins
Rating: PG
Release Date: September 20, 2013 (Chicago)
Plot: A ten-year-old from Saudi Arabia named Wadjda (Mohammed) enters a Koran-reciting contest so that she can use the prize money to buy a bike.
Who’S It For? Those who like to witness revolutions.
Overall
Wadjda is a film from a country that doesn’t have movie theaters. It is about archaic rules for women in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a country that fears gender mixing at public film screenings. Saudi Arabia has a slowly growing film scene, but such homemade products, such as first-Saudi-made movie titled in 2006 Keif al-Hal? (translated to “How are you?”) can only be viewed in private living spaces. Showtime Arabia hooked people up with Keif al-Hal, and TV is a handy way to get censored media. Even video stores exist, but scenes...
- 9/20/2013
- by Nick Allen
- The Scorecard Review
Rating: 3.5/5.0
Chicago – Haifaa Al-Mansour’s “Wadjda” is a deceptive film. It feels like a relatively slight story in that it’s about a headstrong girl who wants a bike. That’s it. Pretty simple stuff. And yet it’s not simple at all in Wadjda’s part of the world. She is a 10-year-old Saudi girl and not only are Saudi girls not supposed to ride bikes, they’re not supposed to even show their faces if men could possibly be in their line of sight. With a strong breakthrough performance at its core, “Wadjda” is a film about how cultural and social revolution starts quietly in neighborhoods and homes where girls want to ride bikes.
Wadjda’s mother (Reem Abdullah) works hard, forced to ride in a car with broken air conditioning for hours just to makes ends meet as Wadjda’s father (Sultan Al Assaf) is absent for weeks at a time.
Chicago – Haifaa Al-Mansour’s “Wadjda” is a deceptive film. It feels like a relatively slight story in that it’s about a headstrong girl who wants a bike. That’s it. Pretty simple stuff. And yet it’s not simple at all in Wadjda’s part of the world. She is a 10-year-old Saudi girl and not only are Saudi girls not supposed to ride bikes, they’re not supposed to even show their faces if men could possibly be in their line of sight. With a strong breakthrough performance at its core, “Wadjda” is a film about how cultural and social revolution starts quietly in neighborhoods and homes where girls want to ride bikes.
Wadjda’s mother (Reem Abdullah) works hard, forced to ride in a car with broken air conditioning for hours just to makes ends meet as Wadjda’s father (Sultan Al Assaf) is absent for weeks at a time.
- 9/20/2013
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
The title of this panel was Financing and Packaging: From Indie to Studio, but in fact, the most studio-like film, Rush , by the major director, Ron Howard, and produced by Brit indie production company Revolution (Andrew Eaton) and Hollywood-based Cross Creek (Brian Oliver), is actually quite independent.
Rush (U.S. Universal, International Sales by Exclusive)
Ron Howard and his producing partner Brian Grazer whose imagine Entertainment have had an overall deal at Universal for 27 years, however, this mid-budget range film of some $50,000,000 was considered not "big enough" for the majors.
To read more about this complex and fascinating film and its international film business background, read the following articles which are quoted throughout this article with thanks and acknowledgement to:
· Variety September 13, 2013 (reprinted at the end of this blog) · Wall Street Journal, September 5, 2013 · The Hollywood Reporter September 28, 2011
Aside from major director Ron Howard himself, the second “major” element of the film is that Universal is the North American distributor of the film. This happens through the three year minimum-6-picture distribution deal Brian Oliver’s Cross Creek has with Universal in which Cross Creek produces and finances either its own films or films chosen from Universal’s development slate. Cross Creek is set up to generate up to four films per year, with Universal to distribute at least two of them with a wide-release commitment.
Isa (International Sales Agent) Exclusive Media is also an independent. This too is the result of Oliver’s deal with Exclusive to jointly finance two projects per year.
Cross Creek, putting its own cash into the project, split the cost of the picture with Exclusive who financed it through a bank loan made against pre-sales generated in 2011 at the Afm. With Howard there to promote the project to buyers, Exclusive secured around $33 million in foreign pre-sales. See Cinando’s list of distributors .
Additionally, Oliver and Eaton structured the project as a U.K.- German co-production, enabling them to secure about $12 million in soft money from Germany (Egoli Tossell) in accordance with U.K.’s co-production treaty. As a result, U.K. rights ended up with Studiocanal.
Brian Oliver is a “one of Hollywood’s biggest and more unusual financiers of risky films, with coin coming mostly from oil and real estate investments in Texas”. This major Hollywood financier/ producer takes chances which prove his astute, if askew, view of what makes a “Hollywood” picture an indie at the same time, as shown by his credits, The Ides of March and Black Swan.
Andrew Eaton is a British producer with deep Hollywood connections through the British community here, e.g., Eric Fellner of Working Title, the British production company currently owned by Universal. (Parenthetically, I bought U.S. rights to Working Title’s first film, My Beautiful Laundrette for Lorimar along with Orion Classics and so I was quite thrilled to have a chance to be in touch with the talented Brits once again).
Working Title had worked with Andrew Easton on Frost/Nixon. Eric Fellner loved the script and offered it to Universal for funding. However, as said, Universal passed on it because it was too small.
“It is going to be easy for people to think this is a Hollywood movie, and it just is not,” quotes Variety from the film’s British screenwriter, Peter Morgan, who penned Frost/Nixon which was also directed by Howard. “It is a British independent film directed by a Hollywood director.”
Eaton and Oliver spoke of how they put this film together.
“We must champion the fact that this is basically 80% a British film in terms of the people who worked on it, the way it was structured and the way we ran it,” says Eaton, who was behind such indie films as 24 Hour Party People and the Red Riding TV series.
Can a Song Save Your Life? (U.S. UTA, Isa: Exclusive)
Exclusive has another film here, Can a Song Save Your Life? which is also repped by Rena Ronson, Co-Head of the Independent Film Group of UTA. Directed by John Carney who came to the public’s attention with his micro-budgeted Once which plays on stage here in Toronto at the moment, in New York and elsewhere regularly. The Weinstein Company picked it up in Toronto, reportedly paying around a $7 million minimum guarantee for U.S. rights with a P&A commitment of at least $20 million.
UTA as an agency also packages both large (studio) and smaller indie films. Rena Ronson, the co-head of UTA Indie explained how her own indie roots -- first at indie distributor Fox-Lorber and continuing into international sales before becoming the “indie agent” at Wma, succeeding the “indie” founder, Bobbi Thompson, have taught her to speak the language of the international as well as the independent film business. She knows the major modes of operating as well as she knows the independent style of business. She further explained that the successes of the larger films permit the “smaller”, i.e., “indie” films to be made.
UTA repped films in Toronto are listed below. For a full report of rights sold, before, during and after Toronto, watch SydneysBuzz.com for the Fall 2013 Rights Roundup.
Can A Song Save Your Life?
Writer/Director: John Carney Starring: Mark Ruffalo, Keira Knightley, Hailee Steinfeld, Adam Levine, Catherine Keener, Mos Def, Cee-Lo Green Publicity: Falco / Shannon Treusch, Monica Delameter U.S. Producer Rep: UTA / CAA . Isa: Exclusive Media Group
U.S. rights were acquired at Tiff 13 by TWC for a record breaking $7 million.
Since first announcing it in Cannes 2012, Exclusive has made other deals as well for Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan (Tanweer), Germany (Studiocanal), Japan (Pony Canyon Inc), Philippines (Solar Entertainment), Russia (A Company), So. Korea ( Pancinema), Switzerland ( Ascot Elite Entertainment Group ), Taiwan ( Serenity Entertainment International ), Turkey (D Productions), the Middle East ( Front Row Filmed Entertainment).
Tiff Special Presentations:
Hateship, Loveship
Director: Liza Johnson Writer: Mark Poirier Writer (Novel): Alice Munro Starring: Kristen Wiig, Guy Pearce, Hailee Steinfeld, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Nick Nolte Publicity: Prodigy PR, Erik Bright
North American Sale: UTA / Cassian Elwes. Isa: The Weinstein Co. Sena has rights for Iceland.
The F Word
Director: Michael Dowse Writer: Elan Mastai Writers (Play): Michael Rinaldi & T.J. Dawe Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Zoe Kazan, Rafe Spall, Adam Driver, Mackenzie Davis, Amanda Crew Publicity: Strategy PR / Cynthia Schwartz, Michael Kupferberg Us Sale: UTA / Lichter, Grossman, Nichols, Adler & Feldman. Isa: eOne
After UTA sold the The F Word to CBS Films for the U.S. for around $3 million in Toronto, Entertainment One Films International completed other international sales. Besides Canada and the U.K., eOne itself will release the film in Australia/New Zealand, Benelux and Spain feeding its own international distribution pipeline. Other sales include Germany to Senator Entertainment, Middle East to Front Row Entertainment, Nigeria toRed Mist, Russia to Carmen Film Group, Turkey to Mars Entertainment Group
Night Moves
Writer/Director: Kelly Reichart Writer: Jonathan Raymond Starring: Dakota Fanning, Jesse Eisenberg, Peter Sarsgaard, Alia Shawkat Publicity: Ginsberg/Libby, Chris Libby North American Sale: UTA Isa: The Match Factory
Tiff Vanguard
The Sacrament
Writer/Director: Ti West Starring: Joe Swanberg, Aj Bowen, Amy Seimetz, Kate Lyn Sheil, Gene Jones Publicity: Dda, Dana Archer, Alice Zhou North American Sale: UTA / CAA Isa: Im Global sold to Pegasus Motion Pictures Distribution Ltd . For China
As of this writing, rather 1 hour ago, Magnolia Pictures, which lost on an earlier bidding war here for Joe, is finalizing a deal for the picture reportedly for seven figures.
Coincidentallywith the beginning of the Toronto Film Festival, the front page of L.A. Times quoted Rena Ronson in an article called "Making history as cameras roll" (print edition) or "Wadjda' director makes her mark in Saudi cinema" (online edition) about Wadjda , (Isa: The Match Factory) last year’s Venice and Telluride film which Rena had spotted at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival, where it won a script award. It was written and directed by a woman which is notable in such a male-dominated part of the world. She met the writer-director, Haifaa Mansour, and that led to working with her for the next two years to finance the film. Its $2.5m budget was backed in part by the Rotana Group, the largest media company in the Middle East, owned primarily by Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. The German production company Razor Film owned and operated by Gerhard Meixner and Roman Paul whose first coproduction in 2005, Paradise Now brought them into international prominence and who also picked up last year’s Tiff groundbreaking film from Afghanistan,The Patience Stone, and previously coproduced Waltz With Bashir, came on board and brought German broadcast deals and German film funds as well.
Doha and Film Financing
The fourth panelist was Paul Miller, Head of Film Financing, from the Doha Film Institute , Qatar's first international organization dedicated to film financing, production, education and two film festivals. Doha encourages submission for financing film financing opportunities from anywhere in the world. The Dfi Grants program supports first- and second-time filmmakers in producing and developing their own stories. There are two funding rounds per year. Applications are considered from three regions (basically divided into the Middle East, developing nations and the rest of the world – with some exceptions -- each with different eligibility criteria.
Consideration for funding is open to feature-length films in development, production and post-production, as well as short films in production and post-production. Since 2010, Dfi has provided funding to more than 138 filmmakers.
Beyond the regional grants program, Dfi also invests in a diverse slate of international productions to encourage greater collaboration, mentorship and co‑production opportunities between Gulf countries and the rest of the world. Co-financing applications apply to both Middle Eastern and international feature films, television and web series. Submissions are accepted on a rolling basis throughout the year.
Four films at Tiff that Doha has helped finance:
Mohammed Malas’s Ladder to Damacus, screening in Tiff’s Contemporary World Cinema section; Jasmila Žbanic’s For Those Who Can Tell No Tales in the Special Presentation section. Both films were co-financed by Dfi. Dfi grant recipients Néjib Belkadhi’s Bastardo and Mais Darwazah’s My Love Awaits Me by the Sea screening in the Contemporary World Cinema and Discovery sections, respectively.
The fifth panelist, Ted Hope, Director of the San Francisco Film Society, a non-profit training, festival, and funding operation is known to everyone from his history with Good Machine (which was acquired by Universal and renamed Focus Features), and from his blog Hope for Film/ Truly Free Film . In his always-inimitable fashion, Ted proposed a new sort of financing, called "staged financing", based on a progressive meeting of certain criterion from development through distribution. This way of financing is similar to the venture capital models of financing. His broad ideas on what has to change with the industry's funding and packaging methods brought the panelists and the audience to heel at attention. I reprint his blog after this because this idea goes against the current grain of financing an entire film which may or may not prove to be the final box office bingo winner it always purports to be when securing full financing.
The Sffs provided some funding to Thomas Oliver's 1982 which is in Tiff this year. Aside from winning Us in Progress’ $60,000 in post-production services at this year’s Champs Elysees Film Festival, 1982 also received Sffs’s $85,000 post production grant and participated in the Sffs’s A2E labs. The film is being represented by Kevin Iwashina’s Preferred Content.
The panel became very animated as Ted Hope and Rena Ronson faced off about whether a film is made for a broad audience or whether, if targeted correctly, it could actually make money with niche audiences. As always, the two of them, both equally astute, brought much to bear on both sides of the argument. And, I, as the panel’s moderator, hereby declare, They are both right.
The broader the audience the more potential for making money.
However, as Ted points out, with crowd sourcing, crowd funding and crowd theatrical exhibition, there are many other ways beyond ticket purchases that filmmakers can offer in order to make money with their targeted audience.
This, as well as the great contributions made by Doha’s Paul Miller and Revolution’s Andrew Eaton could have extended the panel into a full day. Paul Oliver of Cross Creek was the quietest, perhaps most reticent, of the speakers, but he amply demonstrated that he is one who puts his money where his mouth is. His acumen and taste make us all grateful for his existence as he is a pivotal point person in creating works of art that create substantial revenues for a sustainable art house film business.
The audience as well was most enthusiastic with their questions and post panel discussions with panelists who stayed to talk.
Articles Reprinted Here:
Truly Free Film
Staged Financing Must Become Film Biz’s Immediate Goal
Posted: 06 Sep 2013 05:15 Am Pdt
Each day I become more and more convinced that staged financing could be a cure to much of the Film Biz’s ills. Staged financing? What? Is the phrase not exactly center of your conversations right now? Why not?!! Whatsamattawidyou? Don’t you know a good solution when you see one?
Although it already exists in many fields, and even in a few small patches of our own yard, I recognize that a staged financing strategy is not yet the force behind Indieland’s own gardening. I am however growing convinced it could yield a far more fruitful harvest than our current methods. A staged-financing ecosystem can’t be built in a one-off manner though. Although it also does not need to the rule of the realm, it needs a permanent eco-system to support it.
Staged financing is part of a much bigger solution that we urgently need to bring to our industry: a sustainable investor class . We need smart money and need to stop seeking, encouraging, and propagating dumb money. Most film investors get out, win or lose, by their third film (I have been told this and don’t have the stats to back it up now, but if you do, please share — otherwise just trust that is what my experience has shown). The value of most independent money in the film biz is the money itself, and that is not good for anyone.
Staged financing is exactly what it says to be. I know in this world such literalness is a strange thing, but there is it. Staged financing is a funding process that is there for each distinct stage. In comparison, it is the opposite of up-front financing — the type that monopolizes the narrative feature world. I am proposing that we institutionalize the staged-financing process and make it easier to finance your film in drips and drabs. Why am I so bullish on what probably sounds like hell to many? Why do I think it will save indie film? Let’s count the ways.
Staged financing increases the predictability of success. Investors can base their continued commitment on a proof of prinicipal instead of just a pitch. The longer one waits the more they know — of course the longer one waits the lower the chance for their to be the opportunity for investment, so there. The more investors can project or even predict their success, the longer they will stay in the game, and the more that will gather to pay — i.e. more capital at play! Staged financing allows filmmakers and their supporters to pivot based on real world data. The old way had very little it could do when new information hit. Your film (and investment) could be rendered obsolete over night. But that does not have to be a done deal is this new world. This is just one of the many reasons for #1 above of course. Staged financing diversifies the creative class. Wouldn’t it be great if the film biz was actually a meritocracy? Well, if people had to make good movies to complete their financing, wouldn’t that be a bit closer to the case? Staged financing gives all people the opportunity to prove they have a good idea, whether that idea is completed or not. It is not about who you know, but about what you’ve done and can do. Documentary film — compared to the narrative world — already has a great deal of staged financing institutionalized — and benefits from gender proportional representation among directors. Need I say more?Staged financing allows ambitious artistic work to flourish. Instead of just having “commercial elements”, unique and inspiring work can be recognized for the potential it truly has. Instead of being rewarded for being able to earn trust or arrogantly claim to know what one is doing, staged financing allows good work to be rewarded for being good work. Currently, we mistake confidence for capability and those that boast to be able to predict what the end product will be (where there is no way that they will actually know what the 100+ decisions each day will yield), get to play — not the work that delivers something new and wonderful. Staged financing rewards quality over risk mitigation. Staged financing is actually a better form of risk mitigation than the present form that is only based on regurgitating what has already proven successful. When we limit risk by mimicking what has worked in the past, all we are doing is guessing and covering our ass — and this leads to a film culture of movie titles overrun with numerals. We live in an era of abundance, and as comforting as the familiar may be, we have more access to it than ever before. We rarely need the new version of it. We will however need truly original work more and more as time goes on as we will drowning in the repetitive. How will we prove what works? Staged financing, my friend, staged financing. Staged financing creates a better project as it incentivizes the creators every step of the way. Not that you truly need to incentivize those that are in the passion industries for the right reason, but it never hurts to weed out those that are in it for the wrong reason. When your financing is based on your work and not your connections or investors’ fears, you will do all you can to make each stage of financing shine, justify itself, and be truly competitive. Staged financing requires you to walk a series of steps, proving you have earned the right with every advance — and you better do your homework if you don’t want to get left behind. Staged financing requires you choose your initial partners wisely. It’s not just about the terms of the deal that should determine whom your investors are — but that is how we generally act nowadays. Everyone should instead seek value-add investors. You should get more than just money from your investors. You should benefit from their expertise. Filmmakers, agents, lawyers, and managers, often are willing to leap into bed with anyone who offers the most cash — there’s a name for that practice and it should not be film investment. Staged financing means the creators will have “skin in the game”. When it is an up-front finance model, the creators are not working for a payout in success but working just for the upfornt fees (or some semblance thereof); they may have “profit participation” but basically the only anticipated earnings are what is in the budget. It becomes increasingly difficult to motivate the creative team to be engaged in the needed work after the film premieres. Investors have long recognized that this is not the most beneficial arrangement, yet what can they do? The answer my friend, is… yup, you know the song I am singing: everyone loves that staged financing! Staged financing is a time-tested process that has already been adopted by many industries . Staged financing is the modus operandi of Silicon Valley and all the Vc firms. Other industries, from mining onwards, have seen real benefits from the process. Why do we limit our success and not apply proven models to our field? Could it be that somewhere someone is desperately clutching on to what ever paltry power they perceive themselves to possess? Hmmm… If they don’t offer the model you want at the store, build a new model — or maybe even a chain of stores. Staged financing gives producers of quality work more power. The main objection to staged financing is that it gives financiers more power. That is only true if you are making crap. Or mediocre work. If you are making something wonderfully astounding you will never struggle to progress to the next round — and in fact you will be able to improve your terms. And investors won’t complain either, because they now can have to know a good thing when they see one.
So if Staged Financing is this marvelous thing, why have our leaders not yet delivered it to you? Well, they don’t care about you; didn’t you know that?
And if Staged Financing could really save Indie Film, why has the community not constructed this marvelous ecosystem yet? Well, we’ve all been too busy chasing shiny objects and marveling at the reflections fed back of us.
But change is here. We have hope. We can build it better together. And I have already started. The San Francisco Film Society is committed to it. We have others who want to be part of. We are have spots for more to join in. And we are going to help a few select projects really rock this world.
Watch this space. Let’s do it together and truly astonish the world with your awe inspiring work. Just don’t be slack, okay?
Variety, August 21, 2013:
“Rush,” the high-octane car racing film about the public rivalry between legendary Formula One drivers Niki Lauda and James Hunt during the 1970s, has all the markings of tinseltown’s latest flashy biopic, withRon Howard at the wheel, Chris Hemsworth as its star, and Universal Pictures releasing the film Sept. 27. But that assumption couldn’t be further from the truth.
“It is going to be easy for people to think this is a Hollywood movie, and it just is not,” says the upcoming film’s British screenwriter, Peter Morgan, who penned “Frost/Nixon,” also directed by Howard. “It is a British independent film directed by a Hollywood director.” Get Weekly Online News and alerts free to your inbox
As the majors focus more on putting their money behind mega-budgeted projects with built-in brand awareness — sequels, reboots, films based on toys, videogames and comicbooks — filmmakers are finding Hollywood’s studio system rapidly shifting under their feet.
“Because studios are less interested in the midbudget area, there is a massive opportunity for independents to step into that (area) at the moment,” says “Rush” producer Andrew Eaton of London-based Revolution Films.
Indeed, it’s getting harder to set up a midbudget range original project at a studio, even for veteran filmmakers like Howard and his producing partner Brian Grazer, whose Imagine Entertainment has had an overall deal at Universal for 27 years (the longest standing deal U has had in its 100-year history with a production company). That’s forced directors to look elsewhere to tackle the kinds of films now considered too risky to make or the ones that won’t fill retail shelves with merchandise.
Another Hollywood vet, producer Marc Platt, who’s had a production deal at Universal since 1998 after stepping down as its production head, similarly had to find indie financing for his film “2 Guns” after Universal said it would not bankroll the picture but simply distribute it.
With “Rush,” Howard found himself in an entirely new role as the director of a $50 million film that was his first to be independently financed — through a series of bonds, contingencies and pre-sales. He also was a director for hire, replacing Paul Greengrass, who was originally set to bring the showy personalities of Hunt (Hemsworth), a British playboy; and the more serious Austrian champion Lauda (Daniel Bruhl) to the big screen.
“We must champion the fact that this is basically 80% a British film in terms of the people who worked on it, the way it was structured and the way we ran it,” says Eaton. The exec, who was behind such indie films as “24 Hour Party People” and the “Red Riding” series, is modest, and like most Brits politely shies away from the spotlight, tending not to grab credit even when its due.
But he believes “Rush” shows off Blighty’s mettle.
“These are the kinds of films we should be making in the U.K. because we can do it, and we can do it for better value of money,” he says.
Morgan began writing the story of Lauda, a friend of his wife’s, on spec some years ago, intrigued by the driver’s courageous comeback just 40 days after a devastating crash at the 1976 German Grand Prix that severely burned his face and saw him lapse into a coma, and how that might play against Hunt’s notorious womanizing and party lifestyle that gained him rock-star status.
Eager to work with Eaton again after Fernando Meirelles’ “360,” Morgan showed the producer the first draft of “Rush,” and Eaton was hooked.
“Andrew was always going to be a great fit for this project,” Morgan says. “If (the) responsibility was to make this at a price, Andrew could do this. He could make a $50 million film feel like a $150 million film.”
With Greengrass, another Brit, attached to direct, Morgan showed the script to close friend Eric Fellner at his Universal-owned British production outfit Working Title. Fellner, who had worked with him on “Frost/Nixon,” loved the new script and offered it to Universal for funding.
But the studio passed, considering it risky subject matter, given the biopic elements and low profile of F1 racing in the U.S. Universal also didn’t believe the film could be made for the right price. Still Fellner stayed onboard, and his contacts in the F1 arena proved invaluable. His relationships with Ferrari and McLaren thanks to his work on documentary “Senna” enabled “Rush” to enlist the brands in the pic without losing editorial control.
“Ron (Howard) jokes that my major contribution was engine noise,” Fellner says. “Maybe I can take credit for a bit of that.”
Soon after Universal passed, Cross Creek Pictures topper Brian Oliver reached out to Eaton to finance the project — so eager that he offered to put up $2 million before he even signed the deal so that Eaton could order replicas of the 1970s cars to be ready in time for the shoot. He also was instrumental in steering Hemsworth toward the project.
“Typically we don’t spend that kind of money without knowing the movie is going and the budget is done,” Oliver says. “But I was passionate about the script, and I really thought it was a film with a lot of heart, not just a race car movie.”
Cross Creek, also behind “The Ides of March” and “Black Swan,” has quickly become one of Hollywood’s biggest and more unusual financiers of risky films, with coin coming mostly from oil and real estate investments in Texas.
“He’s an unusual maverick in Hollywood because he really fought to get the budget to the highest level he could,” says Eaton of Oliver. “There’s no bullshit with him — he gets stuff done.” Adds Fellner: “Without Brian, the film wouldn’t have gotten off of the ground. He put his money where his mouth is.”
Shortly after funding started coming together, Greengrass dropped off the project due, ironically, to his issues with the budget. Within 24 hours, Morgan and Fellner enticed Howard to come onboard. The financing arrangement intrigued him, but what really attracted Howard was the ability to re-create the world of Formula One in the 1970s “when sex was safe and driving was dangerous,” as he has said in past interviews.
“Ron was incredibly gracious in trusting us to deliver,” Eaton says. “He was very smart about knowing we needed to make this film in a different way. He’d never made a film with a bond before, and never made a film with a contingency before, but he rolled up his sleeves and was ready to learn.” Some of that indie spirit has already rubbed off on Howard, who is now sticking with a mostly British crew on his next project, “In the Heart of the Sea,” including “Rush” cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle and costume designer Julian Day. “Heart” lenses in London.
Exclusive Media came in as the final partner on “Rush,” brought in by Oliver under his deal with Exclusive to jointly finance two projects per year.
Cross Creek split the cost of the pic with Exclusive, with the former putting its own cash in to the pic and the latter financing through a bank loan made against pre-sales generated in 2011 at the Afm, where Howard helped shop the project to buyers. The move proved a success, as Exclusive secured $33 million in foreign pre-sales.
Additionally, Oliver and Eaton structured the project as a U.K.-German co-production, enabling them to secure about $12 million in soft money.
As a result, U.K. rights ended up going to Studiocanal. Universal agreed to distribute “Rush” in the U.S. through its output deal with Cross Creek.
Eaton pressed to put all of the money raised on the screen. “Rush” became the highest-budget film he had ever worked with after 2000’s “The Claim,” which cost $18 million to produce.
“(‘Rush’) was financed in exactly the same way we finance every independent film, and we approached shooting in the same way as we do everything — you try to put as much money as you can onscreen,” Eaton says. “It’s about not wasting money on things you don’t need, like private jets and extravagances.”
Hollywood has tried to bring to life the world of Formula One before.
Sylvester Stallone directed “Driven,” which originally was set in the world of F1, before he changed course and based it on rival Cart racing, instead.
The reason? To gain access to F1, filmmakers must first get the greenlight from the often polarizing Bernie Ecclestone, the 82-year-old billionaire who holds a tight grip on the racing league that has long counted the elite as fans, including Carlos Slim, the world’s richest man, and celebs including Michael Fassbender, Patrick Dempsey, Gordon Ramsey, George Lucas, and Cirque de Soleil founder Guy Laliberte.
Although Stallone tried to gain Ecclestone’s approval, “I apologize to fans of Formula 1, but there is a certain individual there who runs the sport that has his own agenda,” Stallone said in 2000. “F1 is very formal, and it’s very hard to get to know people.”
David Cronenberg also planned to direct a tentpole around F1 for Paramount, in 1986, with the director scouting the project by attending Grand Prix races in Australia and Mexico. The film, “Red Cars,” would have revolved around American driver Phil Hill winning the world championship for Ferrari in 1961. Plans were shelved when Ecclestone decided not to support the project. Instead, Cronenberg published a limited edition art book based on the screenplay in 2005.
One of the few cinematic standouts so far is Asif Kapadia’s documentary “Senna,” about the charismatic Brazilian driver Ayrton Senna, killed in a race in 1994 that’s show in the docu. “Senna” went on to earn $8.2 million, and helped educate viewers of the sport by focusing not on the races but Senna’s iconic presence and his impact on pop culture.
“Rush” is looking to put a spotlight on the personalities behind the wheel and the often riveting rivalries between drivers — what many consider the real draw to the sport. Bruhl has compared them to “modern knights constantly facing death.”
As the film races toward its September release — it will be shown at the Toronto Film Festival out of competition — Howard has screened it for not only racing fans but Formula One, itself.
He recently showed the film to a group of F1 drivers (including Lauda, Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg and Felipe Massa) at Germany’s Grand Prix, calling that audience the toughest test so far, and comparing the experience to screening “Apollo 13” to Nasa’s astronauts and mission controllers in 1995.
In his efforts to promote the film, Howard has called the Hunt-Lauda rivalry one of the greatest in all of sports. “Their story is so remarkable, you (could) only do it if it was true, because people wouldn’t quite believe it. They were willing to risk their lives to attain this elite status. They paid a price for it, but they defined themselves.”
Morgan also has been doing his part to reassure F1 fans that the film is authentic, stressing that it’s about the people in the cars, and not the sport itself.
Any way the wheel’s spun, it’s clear the film’s overall success will largely be driven by how it plays overseas. “Rush” will need to appeal to an international audience that’s more familiar with F1 — a sport second in popularity only to soccer — than to those in the U.S.
But Howard needs to hook moviegoers closer to home — making the American director’s job a much tougher sell.
It’s not really that surprising that there’s nothing all that American about “Rush.”
Formula One is still struggling to find an audience in the U.S. It’s looking to change that through a new $3 million broadcasting deal with NBC Sports that airs 13 races on the cable channel, two on CNBC, and four on NBC. The Monaco Grand Prix was the first of four F1 races to air live on NBC this year, with the final race taking place Nov. 24 from Brazil.
Ratings have averaged a 0.3 rating, although the Monaco race was watched by 1.5 million viewers, making it the most-watched Formula One race on U.S. television in six years, and up 40% over last year’s race when it aired on Speed TV, Nielsen said.
Promos have emphasized the speed of F1’s jetfighter cars, its international appeal and Olympics-like profiles of the drivers.
Formula One also is looking to rev up new fans in the U.S. through the opening of its first permanent track in Austin, Texas, last year, known as the Circuit of the Americas. Howard attended its first race, where Lauda also roamed the track’s garages.
What’s ironic is that Howard isn’t a very good driver. He proved that recently racing around the track of BBC’s hit show “Top Gear” to promote “Rush,” ending up in second to last place on the series’ celebrity leader board — behind Genesis’ Mike Rutherford.
Host Jeremy Clarkson was quick to mock him, saying “We finally found something you can’t do. Good at directing, brilliant in ‘Happy Days,’ a charming human being — but utterly crap at driving.”
Ron Howard's Risky Formula One Movie, 'Rush'
Can this Euro-centric car racing film play in the U.S.?
By Rachel Dodes Conn
Ron Howard's films, like "Apollo 13" and "Frost/Nixon," typically deal with issues very familiar to American audiences. His latest project, Mr. Howard's first independently financed film, is a bit of a departure: "Rush" chronicles the rivalry between Austrian Formula One racer Niki Lauda and his nemesis, the British driver James Hunt, over the course of the historic 1976 season. While competing in Nürburg, Germany during treacherous weather conditions, Mr. Lauda (Daniel Brühl, right) crashed his Ferrari and sustained severe burns to his face and lungs. Yet, fueled by a desire to beat Mr. Hunt (Chris Hemsworth, above), a playboy type whose wife (Olivia Wilde) ran off with Richard Burton, Mr. Lauda was back in his car just six weeks later—still wearing his bandages—to race against him in the Italian Grand Prix.
When Mr. Howard received the script on spec from screenwriter Peter Morgan ("Frost/Nixon," "The Last King of Scotland"), he wasn't a Formula One fan and didn't know who Messrs. Hunt and Lauda were. "I looked them up on Wikipedia," he admits. But as he read about the racers' personalities, he started to see broader themes that would appeal to U.S. moviegoers. "Maybe this is the American in me identifying this," he says, "but both these guys are utterly and entirely individuals—there was no Yoda telling them to seek their higher self."
For Mr. Howard, the process of researching "Rush" was surprisingly similar to learning about space travel for his "Apollo 13," because he found himself having to make arcane automotive engineering terms accessible to viewers. "It was really fun to understand a sport that combines cutting-edge technology with very dangerous competition," he says. "The visceral, cool and sexy element offered a kind of cinematic experience that nowadays exists only with sci-fi."
Formula One isn't nearly as popular in the U.S. as Nascar, and the subject matter is likelier to play well overseas, where the film's financing came from. It premiered Monday, in London, a few weeks before its U.S. opening. The filmmakers say it's more than just a sports picture, and they expect it to appeal to women as well as men.
Saudi Female Filmmaker Succeeds In Making A Movie About A Girl Who Wants A Bicycle
Los Angeles Times
By Rebecca Keegan
Sept. 6, 2013
In a country where women can't freely move around, Haifaa Mansour covertly films the story of a girl's quest for a bicycle.
The production lost two days to sandstorms. The crew faced a last-minute scramble when the nervous owner of a mall changed his mind about allowing filming there. Some days locals chased the cameras away; other days they brought platters of lamb and rice to the set, and asked to be extras.
Meanwhile, the director hid in a van, speaking to her cast via walkie-talkie. In Saudi Arabia, where driving a car is a subversive act for a woman, a 39-year-old mother of two has done something remarkable: written and directed what her distributor believes is the first feature film shot entirely in the ultraconservative kingdom.
Haifaa Mansour is the director of "Wadjda," a drama about a plucky 10-year-old girl who enrolls in a Koran recitation competition in order to win money for a bicycle she's forbidden by law to ride.
Like her young protagonist, Mansour's own story is one of feminine moxie.
In a sly protest of the country's ban on women behind the wheel, she drove herself to her wedding in a golf cart. Because women in Saudi Arabia can't mingle publicly with men outside their families, she shot her movie covertly on the streets of the capital, Riyadh. With movie theaters banned, she screened "Wadjda" in two foreign embassies and a cultural center.
Petite, self-assured, wearing white high-tops and blue nail polish, Mansour is modern in both her fashion and bearing. She speaks English quickly and colloquially, dropping frequent "you knows" into conversation. And she isn't afraid to counter misperceptions about her homeland, as when she gently corrected Bill Maher for calling Mecca the Saudi capital during a recent appearance on his HBO show.
Laced with empathy and humor, "Wadjda" is a quietly provocative portrait of a culture that straddles the centuries, where men wear the ancient white thobe but carry the latest iPads and women hold important jobs as doctors and news anchors but have yet to vote in an election.
"I didn't want to make a movie about women being raped or stoned," Mansour said in an interview in Beverly Hills in June. "For me it is the everyday life, how it's hard. For me, it was hard sometimes to go to work because I cannot find transportation. Things like that build up and break a woman."
The eighth of 12 children of a poet, Mansour grew up in a small town in a home that she describes as nurturing for a little girl.
"My family is very traditional, but my parents are very supportive, very kind," she said. "I never felt I can't do things because I'm a woman."
When Mansour was a teen, her mother removed the light veil she wore while picking her daughter up from school, a gesture that mortified the young woman at the time, but empowers her when she reflects on it now.
Though movie theaters have been shuttered in Saudi Arabia for decades for religious reasons, Mansour said her father, like others, often rented VHS tapes at Blockbuster for the family to watch -- she grew up on Jackie Chan movies, Bollywood productions, Egyptian cinema and Disney animated films. "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" was a particular favorite.
"In small-town Saudi, there is nothing to do. You don't get to exercise your emotions because nothing much is happening, you know?" she said. "So to see people falling in love and fighting, it's so powerful, you see beyond your small town."
After earning her bachelor's degree in comparative literature at the American University in Cairo, she returned to Saudi Arabia but quickly felt stymied.
"Going back to Saudi as a young woman, trying to assert yourself in the workplace, you have all those ideas … and all of a sudden you realize because you are a woman you are not heard," she said. "It was such a frustrating moment in my life. It was as if you are screaming in a vacuum."
The idea of women holding jobs still unnerves some Saudi men -- writer Abdullah Mohammed Daoud recently encouraged his more than 97,000 Twitter followers to sexually harass female grocery store clerks to intimidate women from working.
Recalling the freedom she found in movies, Mansour decided to make a short film with her siblings serving as cast and crew, a thriller about a male serial killer who hides under the black abaya worn by Muslim women. Her work -- two more shorts, a documentary and a stint hosting a talk show for a Lebanese network -- focused largely on the untold stories of Saudi women.
In 2005, at a U.S. embassy screening of her documentary, "Women Without Shadows," Mansour met her future husband, American diplomat Bradley Neimann. They now have two children, 2 and 5, and live in Bahrain, where Neimann works for the State Department.
When her husband was posted in Australia, Mansour pursued a master's in film studies at the University of Sydney, and wrote the script that became "Wadjda."
The story was inspired by her now teenage niece, who has tamped down her rambunctious personality to fit into Saudi norms.
"I thought, 'Wow, a woman writer from Saudi Arabia won?'" Rena Ronson said. "I had to meet her. She was so open and tenacious and smart."When Mansour's script for "Wadjda" won an award at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival, it caught the eye of the co-head of the independent film group at United Talent Agency.
Over the next two years Ronson helped Mansour secure financing for her film, which cost a little less than $2.5 million. The primary obstacle, as far as many potential Middle Eastern producers were concerned, was Mansour's desire to shoot in Saudi Arabia, which she felt lent her story authenticity.
The production finally won the tacit approval of the Saudi government -- one of its backers is Rotana Group, an entertainment company primarily owned by Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. Another major financier is the German company Razor Film.
Finding actors was another hurdle. Mansour and her producers recruited child performers through small companies that hire folkloric dancers for the Eid holidays. Many of their parents were uncomfortable with a movie about empowering women.
A week before she was scheduled to start shooting, Mansour still hadn't cast her title character when 12-year-old Waad Mohammed entered the room in blue jeans, with headphones clapped over her ears. Singing along to Justin Bieber, she won over Mansour with her sweet singing voice and tomboyish style.
The movie's half-German, half-Saudi crew worked around the rhythms of Saudi life, using cellphone apps that alerted them of the five daily prayer calls. The Germans carried notebooks; the Saudis relied on oral planning.
On the first day of shooting, a start time of 7:20 a.m. came and went. "I don't know what we were thinking," said German producer Roman Paul. "I don't think 7:20 exists in Saudi time. We Germans learned to relax, and the Saudis learned that there is a benefit to doing things at a certain time."
Despite tension on the set -- both from disapproving observers and from the German and Saudi crews learning to work together -- Mansour was buoyant, Paul said.
"She's very fast in overcoming new difficulties, and in an upbeat spirit," Paul said.
Last summer "Wadjda" premiered at the Venice and Telluride film festivals, earning praise for Mansour's subtle direction and a U.S. release from Sony Pictures Classics, which handled the Oscar-winning 2011 Iranian drama "A Separation," about the dissolution of a marriage.
"'A Separation' was such an eye-opener to me in the sense that there were people questioning whether the film went too specific into the Iranian culture," said Michael Barker, co-president and co-founder of the Sony unit. "But if the overall story has a universal appeal, in 'Wadjda' it's about parents and kids and restrictions and freedom, that's something we can all relate to."
Sony Classics has been showing the film to noted feminists -- Gloria Steinem and Queen Noor of Jordan both attended screenings -- and will release it in the U.S. slowly over the fall, starting Sept. 13. (The movie premiered in multiple European countries this summer.)
Mansour said she plans to work in Saudi Arabia again. For her, screening her movie in the kingdom was a high.
"Film is about uplifting, embracing the love of life, it's about moving ahead, it's about victory," she said. "It's not about defeat."
One victory has already been won. This spring, a new law went into effect: With some restrictions, Saudi women are now allowed to ride bicycles.
Rush (U.S. Universal, International Sales by Exclusive)
Ron Howard and his producing partner Brian Grazer whose imagine Entertainment have had an overall deal at Universal for 27 years, however, this mid-budget range film of some $50,000,000 was considered not "big enough" for the majors.
To read more about this complex and fascinating film and its international film business background, read the following articles which are quoted throughout this article with thanks and acknowledgement to:
· Variety September 13, 2013 (reprinted at the end of this blog) · Wall Street Journal, September 5, 2013 · The Hollywood Reporter September 28, 2011
Aside from major director Ron Howard himself, the second “major” element of the film is that Universal is the North American distributor of the film. This happens through the three year minimum-6-picture distribution deal Brian Oliver’s Cross Creek has with Universal in which Cross Creek produces and finances either its own films or films chosen from Universal’s development slate. Cross Creek is set up to generate up to four films per year, with Universal to distribute at least two of them with a wide-release commitment.
Isa (International Sales Agent) Exclusive Media is also an independent. This too is the result of Oliver’s deal with Exclusive to jointly finance two projects per year.
Cross Creek, putting its own cash into the project, split the cost of the picture with Exclusive who financed it through a bank loan made against pre-sales generated in 2011 at the Afm. With Howard there to promote the project to buyers, Exclusive secured around $33 million in foreign pre-sales. See Cinando’s list of distributors .
Additionally, Oliver and Eaton structured the project as a U.K.- German co-production, enabling them to secure about $12 million in soft money from Germany (Egoli Tossell) in accordance with U.K.’s co-production treaty. As a result, U.K. rights ended up with Studiocanal.
Brian Oliver is a “one of Hollywood’s biggest and more unusual financiers of risky films, with coin coming mostly from oil and real estate investments in Texas”. This major Hollywood financier/ producer takes chances which prove his astute, if askew, view of what makes a “Hollywood” picture an indie at the same time, as shown by his credits, The Ides of March and Black Swan.
Andrew Eaton is a British producer with deep Hollywood connections through the British community here, e.g., Eric Fellner of Working Title, the British production company currently owned by Universal. (Parenthetically, I bought U.S. rights to Working Title’s first film, My Beautiful Laundrette for Lorimar along with Orion Classics and so I was quite thrilled to have a chance to be in touch with the talented Brits once again).
Working Title had worked with Andrew Easton on Frost/Nixon. Eric Fellner loved the script and offered it to Universal for funding. However, as said, Universal passed on it because it was too small.
“It is going to be easy for people to think this is a Hollywood movie, and it just is not,” quotes Variety from the film’s British screenwriter, Peter Morgan, who penned Frost/Nixon which was also directed by Howard. “It is a British independent film directed by a Hollywood director.”
Eaton and Oliver spoke of how they put this film together.
“We must champion the fact that this is basically 80% a British film in terms of the people who worked on it, the way it was structured and the way we ran it,” says Eaton, who was behind such indie films as 24 Hour Party People and the Red Riding TV series.
Can a Song Save Your Life? (U.S. UTA, Isa: Exclusive)
Exclusive has another film here, Can a Song Save Your Life? which is also repped by Rena Ronson, Co-Head of the Independent Film Group of UTA. Directed by John Carney who came to the public’s attention with his micro-budgeted Once which plays on stage here in Toronto at the moment, in New York and elsewhere regularly. The Weinstein Company picked it up in Toronto, reportedly paying around a $7 million minimum guarantee for U.S. rights with a P&A commitment of at least $20 million.
UTA as an agency also packages both large (studio) and smaller indie films. Rena Ronson, the co-head of UTA Indie explained how her own indie roots -- first at indie distributor Fox-Lorber and continuing into international sales before becoming the “indie agent” at Wma, succeeding the “indie” founder, Bobbi Thompson, have taught her to speak the language of the international as well as the independent film business. She knows the major modes of operating as well as she knows the independent style of business. She further explained that the successes of the larger films permit the “smaller”, i.e., “indie” films to be made.
UTA repped films in Toronto are listed below. For a full report of rights sold, before, during and after Toronto, watch SydneysBuzz.com for the Fall 2013 Rights Roundup.
Can A Song Save Your Life?
Writer/Director: John Carney Starring: Mark Ruffalo, Keira Knightley, Hailee Steinfeld, Adam Levine, Catherine Keener, Mos Def, Cee-Lo Green Publicity: Falco / Shannon Treusch, Monica Delameter U.S. Producer Rep: UTA / CAA . Isa: Exclusive Media Group
U.S. rights were acquired at Tiff 13 by TWC for a record breaking $7 million.
Since first announcing it in Cannes 2012, Exclusive has made other deals as well for Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan (Tanweer), Germany (Studiocanal), Japan (Pony Canyon Inc), Philippines (Solar Entertainment), Russia (A Company), So. Korea ( Pancinema), Switzerland ( Ascot Elite Entertainment Group ), Taiwan ( Serenity Entertainment International ), Turkey (D Productions), the Middle East ( Front Row Filmed Entertainment).
Tiff Special Presentations:
Hateship, Loveship
Director: Liza Johnson Writer: Mark Poirier Writer (Novel): Alice Munro Starring: Kristen Wiig, Guy Pearce, Hailee Steinfeld, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Nick Nolte Publicity: Prodigy PR, Erik Bright
North American Sale: UTA / Cassian Elwes. Isa: The Weinstein Co. Sena has rights for Iceland.
The F Word
Director: Michael Dowse Writer: Elan Mastai Writers (Play): Michael Rinaldi & T.J. Dawe Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Zoe Kazan, Rafe Spall, Adam Driver, Mackenzie Davis, Amanda Crew Publicity: Strategy PR / Cynthia Schwartz, Michael Kupferberg Us Sale: UTA / Lichter, Grossman, Nichols, Adler & Feldman. Isa: eOne
After UTA sold the The F Word to CBS Films for the U.S. for around $3 million in Toronto, Entertainment One Films International completed other international sales. Besides Canada and the U.K., eOne itself will release the film in Australia/New Zealand, Benelux and Spain feeding its own international distribution pipeline. Other sales include Germany to Senator Entertainment, Middle East to Front Row Entertainment, Nigeria toRed Mist, Russia to Carmen Film Group, Turkey to Mars Entertainment Group
Night Moves
Writer/Director: Kelly Reichart Writer: Jonathan Raymond Starring: Dakota Fanning, Jesse Eisenberg, Peter Sarsgaard, Alia Shawkat Publicity: Ginsberg/Libby, Chris Libby North American Sale: UTA Isa: The Match Factory
Tiff Vanguard
The Sacrament
Writer/Director: Ti West Starring: Joe Swanberg, Aj Bowen, Amy Seimetz, Kate Lyn Sheil, Gene Jones Publicity: Dda, Dana Archer, Alice Zhou North American Sale: UTA / CAA Isa: Im Global sold to Pegasus Motion Pictures Distribution Ltd . For China
As of this writing, rather 1 hour ago, Magnolia Pictures, which lost on an earlier bidding war here for Joe, is finalizing a deal for the picture reportedly for seven figures.
Coincidentallywith the beginning of the Toronto Film Festival, the front page of L.A. Times quoted Rena Ronson in an article called "Making history as cameras roll" (print edition) or "Wadjda' director makes her mark in Saudi cinema" (online edition) about Wadjda , (Isa: The Match Factory) last year’s Venice and Telluride film which Rena had spotted at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival, where it won a script award. It was written and directed by a woman which is notable in such a male-dominated part of the world. She met the writer-director, Haifaa Mansour, and that led to working with her for the next two years to finance the film. Its $2.5m budget was backed in part by the Rotana Group, the largest media company in the Middle East, owned primarily by Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. The German production company Razor Film owned and operated by Gerhard Meixner and Roman Paul whose first coproduction in 2005, Paradise Now brought them into international prominence and who also picked up last year’s Tiff groundbreaking film from Afghanistan,The Patience Stone, and previously coproduced Waltz With Bashir, came on board and brought German broadcast deals and German film funds as well.
Doha and Film Financing
The fourth panelist was Paul Miller, Head of Film Financing, from the Doha Film Institute , Qatar's first international organization dedicated to film financing, production, education and two film festivals. Doha encourages submission for financing film financing opportunities from anywhere in the world. The Dfi Grants program supports first- and second-time filmmakers in producing and developing their own stories. There are two funding rounds per year. Applications are considered from three regions (basically divided into the Middle East, developing nations and the rest of the world – with some exceptions -- each with different eligibility criteria.
Consideration for funding is open to feature-length films in development, production and post-production, as well as short films in production and post-production. Since 2010, Dfi has provided funding to more than 138 filmmakers.
Beyond the regional grants program, Dfi also invests in a diverse slate of international productions to encourage greater collaboration, mentorship and co‑production opportunities between Gulf countries and the rest of the world. Co-financing applications apply to both Middle Eastern and international feature films, television and web series. Submissions are accepted on a rolling basis throughout the year.
Four films at Tiff that Doha has helped finance:
Mohammed Malas’s Ladder to Damacus, screening in Tiff’s Contemporary World Cinema section; Jasmila Žbanic’s For Those Who Can Tell No Tales in the Special Presentation section. Both films were co-financed by Dfi. Dfi grant recipients Néjib Belkadhi’s Bastardo and Mais Darwazah’s My Love Awaits Me by the Sea screening in the Contemporary World Cinema and Discovery sections, respectively.
The fifth panelist, Ted Hope, Director of the San Francisco Film Society, a non-profit training, festival, and funding operation is known to everyone from his history with Good Machine (which was acquired by Universal and renamed Focus Features), and from his blog Hope for Film/ Truly Free Film . In his always-inimitable fashion, Ted proposed a new sort of financing, called "staged financing", based on a progressive meeting of certain criterion from development through distribution. This way of financing is similar to the venture capital models of financing. His broad ideas on what has to change with the industry's funding and packaging methods brought the panelists and the audience to heel at attention. I reprint his blog after this because this idea goes against the current grain of financing an entire film which may or may not prove to be the final box office bingo winner it always purports to be when securing full financing.
The Sffs provided some funding to Thomas Oliver's 1982 which is in Tiff this year. Aside from winning Us in Progress’ $60,000 in post-production services at this year’s Champs Elysees Film Festival, 1982 also received Sffs’s $85,000 post production grant and participated in the Sffs’s A2E labs. The film is being represented by Kevin Iwashina’s Preferred Content.
The panel became very animated as Ted Hope and Rena Ronson faced off about whether a film is made for a broad audience or whether, if targeted correctly, it could actually make money with niche audiences. As always, the two of them, both equally astute, brought much to bear on both sides of the argument. And, I, as the panel’s moderator, hereby declare, They are both right.
The broader the audience the more potential for making money.
However, as Ted points out, with crowd sourcing, crowd funding and crowd theatrical exhibition, there are many other ways beyond ticket purchases that filmmakers can offer in order to make money with their targeted audience.
This, as well as the great contributions made by Doha’s Paul Miller and Revolution’s Andrew Eaton could have extended the panel into a full day. Paul Oliver of Cross Creek was the quietest, perhaps most reticent, of the speakers, but he amply demonstrated that he is one who puts his money where his mouth is. His acumen and taste make us all grateful for his existence as he is a pivotal point person in creating works of art that create substantial revenues for a sustainable art house film business.
The audience as well was most enthusiastic with their questions and post panel discussions with panelists who stayed to talk.
Articles Reprinted Here:
Truly Free Film
Staged Financing Must Become Film Biz’s Immediate Goal
Posted: 06 Sep 2013 05:15 Am Pdt
Each day I become more and more convinced that staged financing could be a cure to much of the Film Biz’s ills. Staged financing? What? Is the phrase not exactly center of your conversations right now? Why not?!! Whatsamattawidyou? Don’t you know a good solution when you see one?
Although it already exists in many fields, and even in a few small patches of our own yard, I recognize that a staged financing strategy is not yet the force behind Indieland’s own gardening. I am however growing convinced it could yield a far more fruitful harvest than our current methods. A staged-financing ecosystem can’t be built in a one-off manner though. Although it also does not need to the rule of the realm, it needs a permanent eco-system to support it.
Staged financing is part of a much bigger solution that we urgently need to bring to our industry: a sustainable investor class . We need smart money and need to stop seeking, encouraging, and propagating dumb money. Most film investors get out, win or lose, by their third film (I have been told this and don’t have the stats to back it up now, but if you do, please share — otherwise just trust that is what my experience has shown). The value of most independent money in the film biz is the money itself, and that is not good for anyone.
Staged financing is exactly what it says to be. I know in this world such literalness is a strange thing, but there is it. Staged financing is a funding process that is there for each distinct stage. In comparison, it is the opposite of up-front financing — the type that monopolizes the narrative feature world. I am proposing that we institutionalize the staged-financing process and make it easier to finance your film in drips and drabs. Why am I so bullish on what probably sounds like hell to many? Why do I think it will save indie film? Let’s count the ways.
Staged financing increases the predictability of success. Investors can base their continued commitment on a proof of prinicipal instead of just a pitch. The longer one waits the more they know — of course the longer one waits the lower the chance for their to be the opportunity for investment, so there. The more investors can project or even predict their success, the longer they will stay in the game, and the more that will gather to pay — i.e. more capital at play! Staged financing allows filmmakers and their supporters to pivot based on real world data. The old way had very little it could do when new information hit. Your film (and investment) could be rendered obsolete over night. But that does not have to be a done deal is this new world. This is just one of the many reasons for #1 above of course. Staged financing diversifies the creative class. Wouldn’t it be great if the film biz was actually a meritocracy? Well, if people had to make good movies to complete their financing, wouldn’t that be a bit closer to the case? Staged financing gives all people the opportunity to prove they have a good idea, whether that idea is completed or not. It is not about who you know, but about what you’ve done and can do. Documentary film — compared to the narrative world — already has a great deal of staged financing institutionalized — and benefits from gender proportional representation among directors. Need I say more?Staged financing allows ambitious artistic work to flourish. Instead of just having “commercial elements”, unique and inspiring work can be recognized for the potential it truly has. Instead of being rewarded for being able to earn trust or arrogantly claim to know what one is doing, staged financing allows good work to be rewarded for being good work. Currently, we mistake confidence for capability and those that boast to be able to predict what the end product will be (where there is no way that they will actually know what the 100+ decisions each day will yield), get to play — not the work that delivers something new and wonderful. Staged financing rewards quality over risk mitigation. Staged financing is actually a better form of risk mitigation than the present form that is only based on regurgitating what has already proven successful. When we limit risk by mimicking what has worked in the past, all we are doing is guessing and covering our ass — and this leads to a film culture of movie titles overrun with numerals. We live in an era of abundance, and as comforting as the familiar may be, we have more access to it than ever before. We rarely need the new version of it. We will however need truly original work more and more as time goes on as we will drowning in the repetitive. How will we prove what works? Staged financing, my friend, staged financing. Staged financing creates a better project as it incentivizes the creators every step of the way. Not that you truly need to incentivize those that are in the passion industries for the right reason, but it never hurts to weed out those that are in it for the wrong reason. When your financing is based on your work and not your connections or investors’ fears, you will do all you can to make each stage of financing shine, justify itself, and be truly competitive. Staged financing requires you to walk a series of steps, proving you have earned the right with every advance — and you better do your homework if you don’t want to get left behind. Staged financing requires you choose your initial partners wisely. It’s not just about the terms of the deal that should determine whom your investors are — but that is how we generally act nowadays. Everyone should instead seek value-add investors. You should get more than just money from your investors. You should benefit from their expertise. Filmmakers, agents, lawyers, and managers, often are willing to leap into bed with anyone who offers the most cash — there’s a name for that practice and it should not be film investment. Staged financing means the creators will have “skin in the game”. When it is an up-front finance model, the creators are not working for a payout in success but working just for the upfornt fees (or some semblance thereof); they may have “profit participation” but basically the only anticipated earnings are what is in the budget. It becomes increasingly difficult to motivate the creative team to be engaged in the needed work after the film premieres. Investors have long recognized that this is not the most beneficial arrangement, yet what can they do? The answer my friend, is… yup, you know the song I am singing: everyone loves that staged financing! Staged financing is a time-tested process that has already been adopted by many industries . Staged financing is the modus operandi of Silicon Valley and all the Vc firms. Other industries, from mining onwards, have seen real benefits from the process. Why do we limit our success and not apply proven models to our field? Could it be that somewhere someone is desperately clutching on to what ever paltry power they perceive themselves to possess? Hmmm… If they don’t offer the model you want at the store, build a new model — or maybe even a chain of stores. Staged financing gives producers of quality work more power. The main objection to staged financing is that it gives financiers more power. That is only true if you are making crap. Or mediocre work. If you are making something wonderfully astounding you will never struggle to progress to the next round — and in fact you will be able to improve your terms. And investors won’t complain either, because they now can have to know a good thing when they see one.
So if Staged Financing is this marvelous thing, why have our leaders not yet delivered it to you? Well, they don’t care about you; didn’t you know that?
And if Staged Financing could really save Indie Film, why has the community not constructed this marvelous ecosystem yet? Well, we’ve all been too busy chasing shiny objects and marveling at the reflections fed back of us.
But change is here. We have hope. We can build it better together. And I have already started. The San Francisco Film Society is committed to it. We have others who want to be part of. We are have spots for more to join in. And we are going to help a few select projects really rock this world.
Watch this space. Let’s do it together and truly astonish the world with your awe inspiring work. Just don’t be slack, okay?
Variety, August 21, 2013:
“Rush,” the high-octane car racing film about the public rivalry between legendary Formula One drivers Niki Lauda and James Hunt during the 1970s, has all the markings of tinseltown’s latest flashy biopic, withRon Howard at the wheel, Chris Hemsworth as its star, and Universal Pictures releasing the film Sept. 27. But that assumption couldn’t be further from the truth.
“It is going to be easy for people to think this is a Hollywood movie, and it just is not,” says the upcoming film’s British screenwriter, Peter Morgan, who penned “Frost/Nixon,” also directed by Howard. “It is a British independent film directed by a Hollywood director.” Get Weekly Online News and alerts free to your inbox
As the majors focus more on putting their money behind mega-budgeted projects with built-in brand awareness — sequels, reboots, films based on toys, videogames and comicbooks — filmmakers are finding Hollywood’s studio system rapidly shifting under their feet.
“Because studios are less interested in the midbudget area, there is a massive opportunity for independents to step into that (area) at the moment,” says “Rush” producer Andrew Eaton of London-based Revolution Films.
Indeed, it’s getting harder to set up a midbudget range original project at a studio, even for veteran filmmakers like Howard and his producing partner Brian Grazer, whose Imagine Entertainment has had an overall deal at Universal for 27 years (the longest standing deal U has had in its 100-year history with a production company). That’s forced directors to look elsewhere to tackle the kinds of films now considered too risky to make or the ones that won’t fill retail shelves with merchandise.
Another Hollywood vet, producer Marc Platt, who’s had a production deal at Universal since 1998 after stepping down as its production head, similarly had to find indie financing for his film “2 Guns” after Universal said it would not bankroll the picture but simply distribute it.
With “Rush,” Howard found himself in an entirely new role as the director of a $50 million film that was his first to be independently financed — through a series of bonds, contingencies and pre-sales. He also was a director for hire, replacing Paul Greengrass, who was originally set to bring the showy personalities of Hunt (Hemsworth), a British playboy; and the more serious Austrian champion Lauda (Daniel Bruhl) to the big screen.
“We must champion the fact that this is basically 80% a British film in terms of the people who worked on it, the way it was structured and the way we ran it,” says Eaton. The exec, who was behind such indie films as “24 Hour Party People” and the “Red Riding” series, is modest, and like most Brits politely shies away from the spotlight, tending not to grab credit even when its due.
But he believes “Rush” shows off Blighty’s mettle.
“These are the kinds of films we should be making in the U.K. because we can do it, and we can do it for better value of money,” he says.
Morgan began writing the story of Lauda, a friend of his wife’s, on spec some years ago, intrigued by the driver’s courageous comeback just 40 days after a devastating crash at the 1976 German Grand Prix that severely burned his face and saw him lapse into a coma, and how that might play against Hunt’s notorious womanizing and party lifestyle that gained him rock-star status.
Eager to work with Eaton again after Fernando Meirelles’ “360,” Morgan showed the producer the first draft of “Rush,” and Eaton was hooked.
“Andrew was always going to be a great fit for this project,” Morgan says. “If (the) responsibility was to make this at a price, Andrew could do this. He could make a $50 million film feel like a $150 million film.”
With Greengrass, another Brit, attached to direct, Morgan showed the script to close friend Eric Fellner at his Universal-owned British production outfit Working Title. Fellner, who had worked with him on “Frost/Nixon,” loved the new script and offered it to Universal for funding.
But the studio passed, considering it risky subject matter, given the biopic elements and low profile of F1 racing in the U.S. Universal also didn’t believe the film could be made for the right price. Still Fellner stayed onboard, and his contacts in the F1 arena proved invaluable. His relationships with Ferrari and McLaren thanks to his work on documentary “Senna” enabled “Rush” to enlist the brands in the pic without losing editorial control.
“Ron (Howard) jokes that my major contribution was engine noise,” Fellner says. “Maybe I can take credit for a bit of that.”
Soon after Universal passed, Cross Creek Pictures topper Brian Oliver reached out to Eaton to finance the project — so eager that he offered to put up $2 million before he even signed the deal so that Eaton could order replicas of the 1970s cars to be ready in time for the shoot. He also was instrumental in steering Hemsworth toward the project.
“Typically we don’t spend that kind of money without knowing the movie is going and the budget is done,” Oliver says. “But I was passionate about the script, and I really thought it was a film with a lot of heart, not just a race car movie.”
Cross Creek, also behind “The Ides of March” and “Black Swan,” has quickly become one of Hollywood’s biggest and more unusual financiers of risky films, with coin coming mostly from oil and real estate investments in Texas.
“He’s an unusual maverick in Hollywood because he really fought to get the budget to the highest level he could,” says Eaton of Oliver. “There’s no bullshit with him — he gets stuff done.” Adds Fellner: “Without Brian, the film wouldn’t have gotten off of the ground. He put his money where his mouth is.”
Shortly after funding started coming together, Greengrass dropped off the project due, ironically, to his issues with the budget. Within 24 hours, Morgan and Fellner enticed Howard to come onboard. The financing arrangement intrigued him, but what really attracted Howard was the ability to re-create the world of Formula One in the 1970s “when sex was safe and driving was dangerous,” as he has said in past interviews.
“Ron was incredibly gracious in trusting us to deliver,” Eaton says. “He was very smart about knowing we needed to make this film in a different way. He’d never made a film with a bond before, and never made a film with a contingency before, but he rolled up his sleeves and was ready to learn.” Some of that indie spirit has already rubbed off on Howard, who is now sticking with a mostly British crew on his next project, “In the Heart of the Sea,” including “Rush” cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle and costume designer Julian Day. “Heart” lenses in London.
Exclusive Media came in as the final partner on “Rush,” brought in by Oliver under his deal with Exclusive to jointly finance two projects per year.
Cross Creek split the cost of the pic with Exclusive, with the former putting its own cash in to the pic and the latter financing through a bank loan made against pre-sales generated in 2011 at the Afm, where Howard helped shop the project to buyers. The move proved a success, as Exclusive secured $33 million in foreign pre-sales.
Additionally, Oliver and Eaton structured the project as a U.K.-German co-production, enabling them to secure about $12 million in soft money.
As a result, U.K. rights ended up going to Studiocanal. Universal agreed to distribute “Rush” in the U.S. through its output deal with Cross Creek.
Eaton pressed to put all of the money raised on the screen. “Rush” became the highest-budget film he had ever worked with after 2000’s “The Claim,” which cost $18 million to produce.
“(‘Rush’) was financed in exactly the same way we finance every independent film, and we approached shooting in the same way as we do everything — you try to put as much money as you can onscreen,” Eaton says. “It’s about not wasting money on things you don’t need, like private jets and extravagances.”
Hollywood has tried to bring to life the world of Formula One before.
Sylvester Stallone directed “Driven,” which originally was set in the world of F1, before he changed course and based it on rival Cart racing, instead.
The reason? To gain access to F1, filmmakers must first get the greenlight from the often polarizing Bernie Ecclestone, the 82-year-old billionaire who holds a tight grip on the racing league that has long counted the elite as fans, including Carlos Slim, the world’s richest man, and celebs including Michael Fassbender, Patrick Dempsey, Gordon Ramsey, George Lucas, and Cirque de Soleil founder Guy Laliberte.
Although Stallone tried to gain Ecclestone’s approval, “I apologize to fans of Formula 1, but there is a certain individual there who runs the sport that has his own agenda,” Stallone said in 2000. “F1 is very formal, and it’s very hard to get to know people.”
David Cronenberg also planned to direct a tentpole around F1 for Paramount, in 1986, with the director scouting the project by attending Grand Prix races in Australia and Mexico. The film, “Red Cars,” would have revolved around American driver Phil Hill winning the world championship for Ferrari in 1961. Plans were shelved when Ecclestone decided not to support the project. Instead, Cronenberg published a limited edition art book based on the screenplay in 2005.
One of the few cinematic standouts so far is Asif Kapadia’s documentary “Senna,” about the charismatic Brazilian driver Ayrton Senna, killed in a race in 1994 that’s show in the docu. “Senna” went on to earn $8.2 million, and helped educate viewers of the sport by focusing not on the races but Senna’s iconic presence and his impact on pop culture.
“Rush” is looking to put a spotlight on the personalities behind the wheel and the often riveting rivalries between drivers — what many consider the real draw to the sport. Bruhl has compared them to “modern knights constantly facing death.”
As the film races toward its September release — it will be shown at the Toronto Film Festival out of competition — Howard has screened it for not only racing fans but Formula One, itself.
He recently showed the film to a group of F1 drivers (including Lauda, Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg and Felipe Massa) at Germany’s Grand Prix, calling that audience the toughest test so far, and comparing the experience to screening “Apollo 13” to Nasa’s astronauts and mission controllers in 1995.
In his efforts to promote the film, Howard has called the Hunt-Lauda rivalry one of the greatest in all of sports. “Their story is so remarkable, you (could) only do it if it was true, because people wouldn’t quite believe it. They were willing to risk their lives to attain this elite status. They paid a price for it, but they defined themselves.”
Morgan also has been doing his part to reassure F1 fans that the film is authentic, stressing that it’s about the people in the cars, and not the sport itself.
Any way the wheel’s spun, it’s clear the film’s overall success will largely be driven by how it plays overseas. “Rush” will need to appeal to an international audience that’s more familiar with F1 — a sport second in popularity only to soccer — than to those in the U.S.
But Howard needs to hook moviegoers closer to home — making the American director’s job a much tougher sell.
It’s not really that surprising that there’s nothing all that American about “Rush.”
Formula One is still struggling to find an audience in the U.S. It’s looking to change that through a new $3 million broadcasting deal with NBC Sports that airs 13 races on the cable channel, two on CNBC, and four on NBC. The Monaco Grand Prix was the first of four F1 races to air live on NBC this year, with the final race taking place Nov. 24 from Brazil.
Ratings have averaged a 0.3 rating, although the Monaco race was watched by 1.5 million viewers, making it the most-watched Formula One race on U.S. television in six years, and up 40% over last year’s race when it aired on Speed TV, Nielsen said.
Promos have emphasized the speed of F1’s jetfighter cars, its international appeal and Olympics-like profiles of the drivers.
Formula One also is looking to rev up new fans in the U.S. through the opening of its first permanent track in Austin, Texas, last year, known as the Circuit of the Americas. Howard attended its first race, where Lauda also roamed the track’s garages.
What’s ironic is that Howard isn’t a very good driver. He proved that recently racing around the track of BBC’s hit show “Top Gear” to promote “Rush,” ending up in second to last place on the series’ celebrity leader board — behind Genesis’ Mike Rutherford.
Host Jeremy Clarkson was quick to mock him, saying “We finally found something you can’t do. Good at directing, brilliant in ‘Happy Days,’ a charming human being — but utterly crap at driving.”
Ron Howard's Risky Formula One Movie, 'Rush'
Can this Euro-centric car racing film play in the U.S.?
By Rachel Dodes Conn
Ron Howard's films, like "Apollo 13" and "Frost/Nixon," typically deal with issues very familiar to American audiences. His latest project, Mr. Howard's first independently financed film, is a bit of a departure: "Rush" chronicles the rivalry between Austrian Formula One racer Niki Lauda and his nemesis, the British driver James Hunt, over the course of the historic 1976 season. While competing in Nürburg, Germany during treacherous weather conditions, Mr. Lauda (Daniel Brühl, right) crashed his Ferrari and sustained severe burns to his face and lungs. Yet, fueled by a desire to beat Mr. Hunt (Chris Hemsworth, above), a playboy type whose wife (Olivia Wilde) ran off with Richard Burton, Mr. Lauda was back in his car just six weeks later—still wearing his bandages—to race against him in the Italian Grand Prix.
When Mr. Howard received the script on spec from screenwriter Peter Morgan ("Frost/Nixon," "The Last King of Scotland"), he wasn't a Formula One fan and didn't know who Messrs. Hunt and Lauda were. "I looked them up on Wikipedia," he admits. But as he read about the racers' personalities, he started to see broader themes that would appeal to U.S. moviegoers. "Maybe this is the American in me identifying this," he says, "but both these guys are utterly and entirely individuals—there was no Yoda telling them to seek their higher self."
For Mr. Howard, the process of researching "Rush" was surprisingly similar to learning about space travel for his "Apollo 13," because he found himself having to make arcane automotive engineering terms accessible to viewers. "It was really fun to understand a sport that combines cutting-edge technology with very dangerous competition," he says. "The visceral, cool and sexy element offered a kind of cinematic experience that nowadays exists only with sci-fi."
Formula One isn't nearly as popular in the U.S. as Nascar, and the subject matter is likelier to play well overseas, where the film's financing came from. It premiered Monday, in London, a few weeks before its U.S. opening. The filmmakers say it's more than just a sports picture, and they expect it to appeal to women as well as men.
Saudi Female Filmmaker Succeeds In Making A Movie About A Girl Who Wants A Bicycle
Los Angeles Times
By Rebecca Keegan
Sept. 6, 2013
In a country where women can't freely move around, Haifaa Mansour covertly films the story of a girl's quest for a bicycle.
The production lost two days to sandstorms. The crew faced a last-minute scramble when the nervous owner of a mall changed his mind about allowing filming there. Some days locals chased the cameras away; other days they brought platters of lamb and rice to the set, and asked to be extras.
Meanwhile, the director hid in a van, speaking to her cast via walkie-talkie. In Saudi Arabia, where driving a car is a subversive act for a woman, a 39-year-old mother of two has done something remarkable: written and directed what her distributor believes is the first feature film shot entirely in the ultraconservative kingdom.
Haifaa Mansour is the director of "Wadjda," a drama about a plucky 10-year-old girl who enrolls in a Koran recitation competition in order to win money for a bicycle she's forbidden by law to ride.
Like her young protagonist, Mansour's own story is one of feminine moxie.
In a sly protest of the country's ban on women behind the wheel, she drove herself to her wedding in a golf cart. Because women in Saudi Arabia can't mingle publicly with men outside their families, she shot her movie covertly on the streets of the capital, Riyadh. With movie theaters banned, she screened "Wadjda" in two foreign embassies and a cultural center.
Petite, self-assured, wearing white high-tops and blue nail polish, Mansour is modern in both her fashion and bearing. She speaks English quickly and colloquially, dropping frequent "you knows" into conversation. And she isn't afraid to counter misperceptions about her homeland, as when she gently corrected Bill Maher for calling Mecca the Saudi capital during a recent appearance on his HBO show.
Laced with empathy and humor, "Wadjda" is a quietly provocative portrait of a culture that straddles the centuries, where men wear the ancient white thobe but carry the latest iPads and women hold important jobs as doctors and news anchors but have yet to vote in an election.
"I didn't want to make a movie about women being raped or stoned," Mansour said in an interview in Beverly Hills in June. "For me it is the everyday life, how it's hard. For me, it was hard sometimes to go to work because I cannot find transportation. Things like that build up and break a woman."
The eighth of 12 children of a poet, Mansour grew up in a small town in a home that she describes as nurturing for a little girl.
"My family is very traditional, but my parents are very supportive, very kind," she said. "I never felt I can't do things because I'm a woman."
When Mansour was a teen, her mother removed the light veil she wore while picking her daughter up from school, a gesture that mortified the young woman at the time, but empowers her when she reflects on it now.
Though movie theaters have been shuttered in Saudi Arabia for decades for religious reasons, Mansour said her father, like others, often rented VHS tapes at Blockbuster for the family to watch -- she grew up on Jackie Chan movies, Bollywood productions, Egyptian cinema and Disney animated films. "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" was a particular favorite.
"In small-town Saudi, there is nothing to do. You don't get to exercise your emotions because nothing much is happening, you know?" she said. "So to see people falling in love and fighting, it's so powerful, you see beyond your small town."
After earning her bachelor's degree in comparative literature at the American University in Cairo, she returned to Saudi Arabia but quickly felt stymied.
"Going back to Saudi as a young woman, trying to assert yourself in the workplace, you have all those ideas … and all of a sudden you realize because you are a woman you are not heard," she said. "It was such a frustrating moment in my life. It was as if you are screaming in a vacuum."
The idea of women holding jobs still unnerves some Saudi men -- writer Abdullah Mohammed Daoud recently encouraged his more than 97,000 Twitter followers to sexually harass female grocery store clerks to intimidate women from working.
Recalling the freedom she found in movies, Mansour decided to make a short film with her siblings serving as cast and crew, a thriller about a male serial killer who hides under the black abaya worn by Muslim women. Her work -- two more shorts, a documentary and a stint hosting a talk show for a Lebanese network -- focused largely on the untold stories of Saudi women.
In 2005, at a U.S. embassy screening of her documentary, "Women Without Shadows," Mansour met her future husband, American diplomat Bradley Neimann. They now have two children, 2 and 5, and live in Bahrain, where Neimann works for the State Department.
When her husband was posted in Australia, Mansour pursued a master's in film studies at the University of Sydney, and wrote the script that became "Wadjda."
The story was inspired by her now teenage niece, who has tamped down her rambunctious personality to fit into Saudi norms.
"I thought, 'Wow, a woman writer from Saudi Arabia won?'" Rena Ronson said. "I had to meet her. She was so open and tenacious and smart."When Mansour's script for "Wadjda" won an award at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival, it caught the eye of the co-head of the independent film group at United Talent Agency.
Over the next two years Ronson helped Mansour secure financing for her film, which cost a little less than $2.5 million. The primary obstacle, as far as many potential Middle Eastern producers were concerned, was Mansour's desire to shoot in Saudi Arabia, which she felt lent her story authenticity.
The production finally won the tacit approval of the Saudi government -- one of its backers is Rotana Group, an entertainment company primarily owned by Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. Another major financier is the German company Razor Film.
Finding actors was another hurdle. Mansour and her producers recruited child performers through small companies that hire folkloric dancers for the Eid holidays. Many of their parents were uncomfortable with a movie about empowering women.
A week before she was scheduled to start shooting, Mansour still hadn't cast her title character when 12-year-old Waad Mohammed entered the room in blue jeans, with headphones clapped over her ears. Singing along to Justin Bieber, she won over Mansour with her sweet singing voice and tomboyish style.
The movie's half-German, half-Saudi crew worked around the rhythms of Saudi life, using cellphone apps that alerted them of the five daily prayer calls. The Germans carried notebooks; the Saudis relied on oral planning.
On the first day of shooting, a start time of 7:20 a.m. came and went. "I don't know what we were thinking," said German producer Roman Paul. "I don't think 7:20 exists in Saudi time. We Germans learned to relax, and the Saudis learned that there is a benefit to doing things at a certain time."
Despite tension on the set -- both from disapproving observers and from the German and Saudi crews learning to work together -- Mansour was buoyant, Paul said.
"She's very fast in overcoming new difficulties, and in an upbeat spirit," Paul said.
Last summer "Wadjda" premiered at the Venice and Telluride film festivals, earning praise for Mansour's subtle direction and a U.S. release from Sony Pictures Classics, which handled the Oscar-winning 2011 Iranian drama "A Separation," about the dissolution of a marriage.
"'A Separation' was such an eye-opener to me in the sense that there were people questioning whether the film went too specific into the Iranian culture," said Michael Barker, co-president and co-founder of the Sony unit. "But if the overall story has a universal appeal, in 'Wadjda' it's about parents and kids and restrictions and freedom, that's something we can all relate to."
Sony Classics has been showing the film to noted feminists -- Gloria Steinem and Queen Noor of Jordan both attended screenings -- and will release it in the U.S. slowly over the fall, starting Sept. 13. (The movie premiered in multiple European countries this summer.)
Mansour said she plans to work in Saudi Arabia again. For her, screening her movie in the kingdom was a high.
"Film is about uplifting, embracing the love of life, it's about moving ahead, it's about victory," she said. "It's not about defeat."
One victory has already been won. This spring, a new law went into effect: With some restrictions, Saudi women are now allowed to ride bicycles.
- 9/15/2013
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
The Kid Without A Bike: Charming Ride Through Gender Politics in the Middle East
Even before the film appears on the screen there is a sense of added importance that permeates it. Just on the ground that this is not only the first ever feature film from a female Saudi Arabian director but also the first ever to be shot entirely inside the country, should makes this an event. Movie theaters are banned in the Middle Eastern Kingdom, and women live under highly restricted circumstances that forbid them even from driving, such facts make of Haifaa al-Mansour’s film a defiant move, even a political statement. But to judge a film solely on the politics that surrounded its production would be unproductive; however, with a work like Wadjda that is not necessary since it shines on its own merits.
The title character, 10-year-old Wadjda (Waad Mohammed), seems unaffected by the...
Even before the film appears on the screen there is a sense of added importance that permeates it. Just on the ground that this is not only the first ever feature film from a female Saudi Arabian director but also the first ever to be shot entirely inside the country, should makes this an event. Movie theaters are banned in the Middle Eastern Kingdom, and women live under highly restricted circumstances that forbid them even from driving, such facts make of Haifaa al-Mansour’s film a defiant move, even a political statement. But to judge a film solely on the politics that surrounded its production would be unproductive; however, with a work like Wadjda that is not necessary since it shines on its own merits.
The title character, 10-year-old Wadjda (Waad Mohammed), seems unaffected by the...
- 9/13/2013
- by Carlos Aguilar
- IONCINEMA.com
"Wadjda," which hits theaters stateside today, has been selected as Saudi Arabia's official entry for the Foreign-Language Oscar. Directed by Haifaa Al Mansour, the film is both the first to be made inside the Kindgom of Saudi Arabia, and the first to be made by a woman filmmaker. The film centers on a young girl, Wadjda (played by Waad Mohammed), who dreams of owning a bicycle. Even though riding bikes is frowned upon for women in Wadjda's culture, she hatches various schemes to raise the money, including entering a Koran recital competition with a cash prize. Meanwhile, Wadjda's mother deals the with the pressure of her husband considering a second wife. The film debuted in Venice last year and has been a hit on the festival circuit since. Sony Pictures Classics is its stateside distributor. Check out our Toh! interview with director Haifaa Al Mansour here. The five...
- 9/13/2013
- by Beth Hanna
- Thompson on Hollywood
New Release
Instructions Not Included
PG-13, 1 Hr., 55 Mins.
Eugenio Derbez stars as a womanizer forced to (mostly) change his ways – and become a Hollywood stuntman — after an ex-lover dumps their baby daughter on him in this preposterous but still pretty enjoyable comedy. References to Derbez’s Jack and Jill costar Adam Sandler (whose film Big Daddy this resembles) are included. B —Clark Collis
New Release
Blue Caprice
R, 1 Hr., 33 Mins.
Make no mistake: Alexandre Moors’ hauntingly intimate portrait of the 2002 Beltway snipers, which largely manages to avoid the pitfalls of speculation and exploitation, is a genuine horror movie. Isaiah Washington...
Instructions Not Included
PG-13, 1 Hr., 55 Mins.
Eugenio Derbez stars as a womanizer forced to (mostly) change his ways – and become a Hollywood stuntman — after an ex-lover dumps their baby daughter on him in this preposterous but still pretty enjoyable comedy. References to Derbez’s Jack and Jill costar Adam Sandler (whose film Big Daddy this resembles) are included. B —Clark Collis
New Release
Blue Caprice
R, 1 Hr., 33 Mins.
Make no mistake: Alexandre Moors’ hauntingly intimate portrait of the 2002 Beltway snipers, which largely manages to avoid the pitfalls of speculation and exploitation, is a genuine horror movie. Isaiah Washington...
- 9/11/2013
- by Deven Persaud
- EW - Inside Movies
Like all kid protagonists in movies, Wadjda's Wadjda wants one pure thing so much that the very concept of want shades into need. If this plucky Saudi Arabian girl (played by preteen Waad Mohammed) doesn't get a bicycle, it seems, some fundamental quality of hers might not survive adolescence. Her yen for small rebellions seems staked on it, as does her sense that she can grow up to be a person of her choosing. But that bike is a pricey 800 riyals, and Wadjda's mother's teaching salary is tied up in car services—women in the Kingdom are forbidden to drive—and in a smashing new dress chosen to win back the attention of Wadjda's father, a man who, as is his right, is scouting around for a newer, presumably younger wife. Even worse, from Wadjda's perspecti...
- 9/11/2013
- Village Voice
The most rewarding movies are the ones that take you into an unfamiliar world, with rich characters and a unique story. And the upcoming "Wadjda" not only does that, but it brings a big heart to go with it, and at the center of it all, a dynamic lead performance by the young and thoroughly charming Waad Mohammed. So needless to say, this is one we highly endorse, but in case you need more convincing, here's the new U.S. trailer for the film. The Saudi Arabian film is the first to be directed a Saudi woman, and Haifaa Al-Mansour makes the most of her debut effort. The film follows the titular Wadjda, a mix-tape making, Converse wearing girl whose dreams far exceed the expectations put on women in the country. But for now, she'd just be content to ride a bike with her friend Abdullah (Abdullrahman Al Gohani). When...
- 8/19/2013
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
One of the first features shot in Saudi Arabia, and certainly the first to be written and directed by a woman, this beguiling German-Saudi co-production turns upon an image that has been a cinematic metaphor for freedom, self-empowerment and lyrical liberation from Buñuel's Un Chien Andalou through Ford's The Quiet Man to Truffaut's Jules et Jim – a man or woman on a bicycle. The eponymous 10-year-old Wadjda (affectingly played by 12-year-old Waad Mohammed) is a spirited, lower-middle-class schoolgirl in Riyadh, troubled by the impending separation of her parents, who longs to own a bike to race against her friend Abdullah. The implication is that she's rapidly approaching the age of not being able to cycle, meet a boy or go out of the house unveiled.
The story is an admirable necklace on which to string facts, anecdotes and insights that illuminate in a good-natured way the lives of women in an unthinking,...
The story is an admirable necklace on which to string facts, anecdotes and insights that illuminate in a good-natured way the lives of women in an unthinking,...
- 7/20/2013
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
The World's End | Breathe In | Wadjda | The Frozen Ground | Easy Money | Eden | Suspension Of Disbelief | Roman Holiday | D-Day
The World's End (15)
(Edgar Wright, 2013 UK) Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman, Eddie Marsan, Rosamund Pike. 109 mins
Wright brings another Hollywood scenario down to earth by virtue of an utterly British setting, and the clash is still hilarious. Especially for the 1990s generation, since this sees Pegg and co attempting to relive their youth with an indie-dance-backed pub crawl down memory lane. Has their hometown changed because of high-street homogenisation, robotic infiltration, or the effects of 12 pints? All three, it turns out.
Breathe In (15)
(Drake Doremus, 2013, Us) Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Amy Ryan. 97 mins
As he did with Like Crazy, Doremus tells an age-old story with uncanny intimacy and powerful acting, particularly from Jones. Playing an exchange student in New England, she's drawn to Pearce's musician dad, with inevitable consequences.
The World's End (15)
(Edgar Wright, 2013 UK) Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman, Eddie Marsan, Rosamund Pike. 109 mins
Wright brings another Hollywood scenario down to earth by virtue of an utterly British setting, and the clash is still hilarious. Especially for the 1990s generation, since this sees Pegg and co attempting to relive their youth with an indie-dance-backed pub crawl down memory lane. Has their hometown changed because of high-street homogenisation, robotic infiltration, or the effects of 12 pints? All three, it turns out.
Breathe In (15)
(Drake Doremus, 2013, Us) Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Amy Ryan. 97 mins
As he did with Like Crazy, Doremus tells an age-old story with uncanny intimacy and powerful acting, particularly from Jones. Playing an exchange student in New England, she's drawn to Pearce's musician dad, with inevitable consequences.
- 7/20/2013
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
A bittersweet film about a 10-year-old girl finding her feet in Riyadh society that cannot fail to win you over
You'd need a heart of stone not to be won over by Wadjda, a rebel yell with a spoonful of sugar and a pungent sense of a Riyadh society split between the home, the madrasa and the shopping mall. Waad Mohammed plays the 10-year-old heroine who enters a Qur'an-reading competition to raise the funds to buy a bike – much to the horror of her imperiled mother and imperious teacher. In conservative Riyadh, we are told, girls do not ride bikes and are barely even permitted to laugh out of doors.
As the first woman to shoot a Saudi Arabian feature film, writer-director Haifaa Al Mansour has already assured herself of a small place in history. And yet Wadjda stands on its own merits. The road through is dusty, bumpy and fraught with danger.
You'd need a heart of stone not to be won over by Wadjda, a rebel yell with a spoonful of sugar and a pungent sense of a Riyadh society split between the home, the madrasa and the shopping mall. Waad Mohammed plays the 10-year-old heroine who enters a Qur'an-reading competition to raise the funds to buy a bike – much to the horror of her imperiled mother and imperious teacher. In conservative Riyadh, we are told, girls do not ride bikes and are barely even permitted to laugh out of doors.
As the first woman to shoot a Saudi Arabian feature film, writer-director Haifaa Al Mansour has already assured herself of a small place in history. And yet Wadjda stands on its own merits. The road through is dusty, bumpy and fraught with danger.
- 7/18/2013
- by Xan Brooks
- The Guardian - Film News
★★★★☆ Having already made history as the first full-length feature ever to have been filmed entirely inside the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Haifaa al-Mansour's charming debut, Wadjda (2012), cleverly conceals a wealth of sociopolitical complexity beneath its deceptively simplistic central narrative. Featuring a breakout performance from 12-year-old, Riyadh-born non-professional Waad Mohammed as the "spunky little girl" of the film's title, this even-handed fable portrays the Kingdom as a nation on the peripheries of great change, with gender equality foremost in the minds of thousands of young, aspirational Saudi women.
Each day, en route to her all-girls school, Wadjda passes a toy store housing a beautiful green bicycle. Keen to be able to race against a local boy, despite that fact that it's 'forbidden' for women to ride bikes, Wadjda begins her own black market operation in the playground selling 'illicit products' such as jewellery. After a few close calls, our protagonists...
Each day, en route to her all-girls school, Wadjda passes a toy store housing a beautiful green bicycle. Keen to be able to race against a local boy, despite that fact that it's 'forbidden' for women to ride bikes, Wadjda begins her own black market operation in the playground selling 'illicit products' such as jewellery. After a few close calls, our protagonists...
- 7/18/2013
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
Saudi Arabia's first female film-maker on segregation, her 11 siblings and driving to her wedding in a golf cart
Your debut film, Wadjda, about a 10-year-old girl living in Riyadh, who dreams of owning a green bicycle, is the first full-length feature shot entirely inside Saudi Arabia. Is it autobiographical?
I come from a small, conservative town in Saudi Arabia where there are many girls like Wadjda who have big dreams and so much potential. These girls can, and will, reshape our nation.
In Saudi, women are not allowed to work alongside men and they can't vote until 2015. Yet your female characters have a lot of will…
It's very important to celebrate resistance, pursuing one's dreams. Sometimes, it's easy to make a character in a place such as Saudi a victim; people exploit them, they give up hope.
Did you always plan to open the film with Wadjda wearing trainers under her abaya?...
Your debut film, Wadjda, about a 10-year-old girl living in Riyadh, who dreams of owning a green bicycle, is the first full-length feature shot entirely inside Saudi Arabia. Is it autobiographical?
I come from a small, conservative town in Saudi Arabia where there are many girls like Wadjda who have big dreams and so much potential. These girls can, and will, reshape our nation.
In Saudi, women are not allowed to work alongside men and they can't vote until 2015. Yet your female characters have a lot of will…
It's very important to celebrate resistance, pursuing one's dreams. Sometimes, it's easy to make a character in a place such as Saudi a victim; people exploit them, they give up hope.
Did you always plan to open the film with Wadjda wearing trainers under her abaya?...
- 7/16/2013
- by Liz Hoggard
- The Guardian - Film News
"All this because of a bike?!" Another charmer from the other side of the world for today's trailer. Wadjda is a film that I've been hearing great things about for many reasons. It's the first feature film from a Saudi Arabian female filmmaker named Haifaa Al-Mansour, and tells a story set in Saudi Arabia about a young girl who just wants to get enough money to buy a bike. It premiered at the Venice & Telluride Film Festivals last year and earned rave reviews. Sony Classics is releasing in the Us, but hasn't set a date, however thanks to the upcoming UK release we now have a cute English subtitled trailer to watch. World cinema at its best. Watch the official release trailer for Haifaa Al-Mansour's Wadjda, in high def from YouTube: An enterprising Saudi girl (Waad Mohammed) signs off for her school's Koran recitation competition as a way to...
- 7/14/2013
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
In Haifaa al-Mansour's excellent film "Wadjda," our eponymous tween heroine just wants to buy a bike. Waad Mohammed plays Wadjda, a typical 10-year-old who likes rock music, sneakers, and hanging out with her best friend Abdullah, whose bike she admires. Undeterred by restrictions on women riding bikes in Saudi Arabia, she sets out to earn the money to buy one.
Meanwhile, Wadjda's mom is also facing some serious hurdles to happiness, like her fear that her husband might take a second wife who could provide him with a son. Then there's the exhausting daily commute to work, one of the many limitations on life as a woman in Saudi Arabia, as well as her rebellious daughter, who keeps getting into trouble at school.
"Wadjda" is the first film ever to be shot entirely in Saudi Arabia, and Haifaa al-Mansour is the first female Saudi director. According to Time,...
Meanwhile, Wadjda's mom is also facing some serious hurdles to happiness, like her fear that her husband might take a second wife who could provide him with a son. Then there's the exhausting daily commute to work, one of the many limitations on life as a woman in Saudi Arabia, as well as her rebellious daughter, who keeps getting into trouble at school.
"Wadjda" is the first film ever to be shot entirely in Saudi Arabia, and Haifaa al-Mansour is the first female Saudi director. According to Time,...
- 7/8/2013
- by Jenni Miller
- Moviefone
Wadjda has debuted a trailer.
Director Haifaa Al Mansour's film is a landmark for Saudi Arabia.
Not only is it the first shot entirely within the country, but it is the first feature to be directed by a woman.
The film centres around the titular character, a young girl who is desperate to buy a bicycle despite the opposition of her school and family.
Wadjda explores the social and gender issues that result from Saudi Arabia's deep-rooted traditions.
Reem Abdullah, Waad Mohammed, Abdullrahman Algohani, Ahd Kamel and Sultan Al Assaf star in the film, which premiered at the 2012 Venice Film Festival.
Wadjda will debut on July 19.
Director Haifaa Al Mansour's film is a landmark for Saudi Arabia.
Not only is it the first shot entirely within the country, but it is the first feature to be directed by a woman.
The film centres around the titular character, a young girl who is desperate to buy a bicycle despite the opposition of her school and family.
Wadjda explores the social and gender issues that result from Saudi Arabia's deep-rooted traditions.
Reem Abdullah, Waad Mohammed, Abdullrahman Algohani, Ahd Kamel and Sultan Al Assaf star in the film, which premiered at the 2012 Venice Film Festival.
Wadjda will debut on July 19.
- 7/5/2013
- Digital Spy
Hafaa Al-Mansour directs and also writes the winner of three awards at the Venice International Film Festival, and winner of two awards at the Dubai International Film Festival. We invite you to watch the trailer for Wadjda which stars Waad Mohammed and Reem Abdullah, Abdullrahman Al Gohani, Ahd and Sultan Al Assaf, and is distributed Stateside via Sony Pictures Classics, with a yet-to-be-determined release date. Wadjda is a 10-year-old girl living in a suburb of Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. Although she lives in a conservative world, Wadjda is fun loving, entrepreneurial and always pushing the boundaries of what she can get away with. After a fight with her friend Abdullah, a neighborhood boy she shouldn't be playing with, Wadjda sees a beautiful green bicycle for sale. She wants the bicycle...
- 7/4/2013
- Upcoming-Movies.com
Feeling beaten down and obliterated by the blitzkrieg of summer movies? Well, just remember it's just a couple of months left and we're back to movies that don't involve toys, brands and franchises. And one you should definitely put on your radar is Haifaa Al-Mansour's "Wadjda." In a country where rights for women are still staggeringly archaic, it's the first feature film made by a female filmmaker, and of course it had to be shot on the sly. But perhaps most of all, trivia aside, it's just a damn good movie already landing on our 2013 The Best Films Of The Year...So Far list. Well, here's a peek at what it's all about. The first trailer for the movie has landed, and it certainly looks like a potent charmer. The film tells the tale of Wadjda (Waad Mohammed), a rebellious 12-year-old girl who enters a Koran-recitation competition at school...
- 7/3/2013
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
As we've seen so far with other 2013 end-of-festival wrap-up polls, critics tend to single out one or two top-notch films that rise above all others. Maybe it's the nature of the Tribeca Film Festival's program, but the ballot responses from the members of our Criticwire Network who chose to participate this time praised a wide variety of films and performances from this year's lineup. The results didn't single out any clear winners but nevertheless demonstrated several of the highlights from the recently-concluded festival. Still, there were some films that garnered several mentions by critics in multiple categories. A pair of dramas about discovery, Tomasz Wasilewski's "Floating Skyscrapers" and Daniel Patrick Carbone's "Hide Your Smiling Faces," topped the overall Best Narrative Feature tally. Haifaa Al-Mansour's "Wadjda," a tale of a young girl growing up in Saudi Arabia, was singled out as a favorite by a few critics who...
- 4/30/2013
- by Steve Greene
- Indiewire
Films like Wadjda do not come around very often. Haifaa al-Mansour’s debut feature is not only the first shot entirely in Saudi Arabia by a woman director, but also the first feature film ever shot entirely in Saudi Arabia. On the one hand, this means its place in history is secured no matter what. Yet al-Mansour’s work didn’t suddenly appear out of nowhere in the Arabian Desert. An almost superhuman dedication was necessary to make this film, both due to the nation’s lack of cinematic infrastructure and the logistical problems caused by the obstacles to mobility for Saudi women. More than that, however, Wadjda simply does not feel as if it popped out of the sand. al-Mansour’s work rests on shoulders of greatness, building from a century of international cinema. That’s a loaded point, obviously, but it’s impossible to watch Wadjda without thinking of everything from Italian Neorealism to Jafar Panahi...
- 4/27/2013
- by Daniel Walber
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
Watch a clip from Wadjda starring Waad Mohammed. Directed by Haifaa Al-Mansour, the multiple award-winning drama also stars Reem Abdullah, Abdullrahman Al Gohani, Ahd and Sultan Al Assaf. Wadjda is a 10-year-old girl living in a suburb of Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. Although she lives in a conservative world, Wadjda is fun loving, entrepreneurial and always pushing the boundaries of what she can get away with. After a fight with her friend Abdullah, a neighborhood boy she shouldn't be playing with, Wadjda sees a beautiful green bicycle for sale. She wants the bicycle desperately so that she can beat Abdullah in a race. But Wadjda's mother won't allow it, fearing repercussions from a society that sees bicycles as dangerous...
- 4/15/2013
- Upcoming-Movies.com
Watch a clip from Wadjda starring Waad Mohammed. Directed by Haifaa Al-Mansour, the multiple award-winning drama also stars Reem Abdullah, Abdullrahman Al Gohani, Ahd and Sultan Al Assaf. Wadjda is a 10-year-old girl living in a suburb of Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. Although she lives in a conservative world, Wadjda is fun loving, entrepreneurial and always pushing the boundaries of what she can get away with. After a fight with her friend Abdullah, a neighborhood boy she shouldn't be playing with, Wadjda sees a beautiful green bicycle for sale. She wants the bicycle desperately so that she can beat Abdullah in a race. But Wadjda's mother won't allow it, fearing repercussions from a society that sees bicycles as dangerous...
- 4/15/2013
- Upcoming-Movies.com
Tribeca Film Festival organizers on Wednesday announced 46 of the 89 feature films screening at the New York-set festival starting next month, including selections in the World Narrative and Documentary Competition film sections, as well as out-of-competition Viewpoints screenings.
"Big Men," a documentary about American corporations pursuing oil reserves in Africa, will serve as the opening night film for the World Documentary portion; "Bluebird," a small-town drama featuring "Girls" star Adam Driver, will kick-off the World Narrative slate. "Flex Is Kings," a documentary about Brooklyn street performers, is the Viewpoints opener. All three films premiere on April 18. The Tribeca Film Festival runs from April 17 through April 28, with "Mistaken For Strangers," a documentary about The National, serving as the fest's opening night film.
"Our competition selections embody the quality and diversity of contemporary cinema from across the globe,” Tribeca Film Festival Artistic Director Frederic Boyer said in a release. “The cinematic proficiency that...
"Big Men," a documentary about American corporations pursuing oil reserves in Africa, will serve as the opening night film for the World Documentary portion; "Bluebird," a small-town drama featuring "Girls" star Adam Driver, will kick-off the World Narrative slate. "Flex Is Kings," a documentary about Brooklyn street performers, is the Viewpoints opener. All three films premiere on April 18. The Tribeca Film Festival runs from April 17 through April 28, with "Mistaken For Strangers," a documentary about The National, serving as the fest's opening night film.
"Our competition selections embody the quality and diversity of contemporary cinema from across the globe,” Tribeca Film Festival Artistic Director Frederic Boyer said in a release. “The cinematic proficiency that...
- 3/5/2013
- by Christopher Rosen
- Huffington Post
The Tribeca Film Festival announced the first half of its 2013 movie slate today, including its World Narrative and Documentary Competition film categories, along with selections from the out-of-competition Viewpoints section, which highlights international and independent cinema. Festival organizers reviewed more than 6,000 submissions to select 89 feature-length films from 30 different countries for this year’s festival, which boasts 53 world premieres. “Our competition selections embody the quality and diversity of contemporary cinema from across the globe,” said Frederic Boyer, Tribeca’s artistic director. “The cinematic proficiency that harnesses this lineup is remarkable and we’re looking forward to sharing these new perspectives, powerful performances,...
- 3/5/2013
- by Jeff Labrecque
- EW - Inside Movies
The best type of filmmaking takes us into worlds we’ve never seen before. Through cinema, we can journey into the past, into the future, to outer space, just around the corner, or to the ends of the world. But there’s one place we haven’t been, until now. A new film, Wadjda, breaks down one giant cinematic barrier, marking the first feature fully shot in Saudi Arabia in the history of film. And on top of that, its director, Haifaa Al Mansour, is a woman. Wadjda, played by Waad Mohammed, is a 10-year-old girl growing up in a world built upon …...
- 1/30/2013
- by Ariston Anderson
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Nishtha Jain’s “Gulabi Gang” won Best Film Award in Muhr Asia Africa documentary section at the 9th Dubai Film Festival. Awards were announced at the closing ceremony on Sunday, December 16, 2012.
Sourav Sarangi’s “Char … No Man’s Island” won a special mention in the same category.
Egyptian actress Aida El-Kashef won Best Actress award in Muhr Asia Africa Feature category for Anand Gandhi’s film “Ship of Theseus”.
Musa Syeed’s “Valley of Saints” got a special jury prize in the Muhr Asia Africa feature category.
Complete List of Winners:-
Dubai Expo 2020 People’s Choice award:
• Benjamin Renner, Stéphane Aubier, Vincent Patar – Ernest Et Celestine (Ernest And Celestine): France
• Karzan Kader – Bekas: Sweden
The annual ‘Prize of the International Critics’ for Arab films from the International Federation of Film Critics (Fipresci), the world’s foremost body of film writers, academics and critics from over 60 countries, were awarded...
Sourav Sarangi’s “Char … No Man’s Island” won a special mention in the same category.
Egyptian actress Aida El-Kashef won Best Actress award in Muhr Asia Africa Feature category for Anand Gandhi’s film “Ship of Theseus”.
Musa Syeed’s “Valley of Saints” got a special jury prize in the Muhr Asia Africa feature category.
Complete List of Winners:-
Dubai Expo 2020 People’s Choice award:
• Benjamin Renner, Stéphane Aubier, Vincent Patar – Ernest Et Celestine (Ernest And Celestine): France
• Karzan Kader – Bekas: Sweden
The annual ‘Prize of the International Critics’ for Arab films from the International Federation of Film Critics (Fipresci), the world’s foremost body of film writers, academics and critics from over 60 countries, were awarded...
- 12/16/2012
- by NewsDesk
- DearCinema.com
With over 200 films having screened at the 56th London Film Festival in October, it’s nearly impossible to say with genuine certainty what films presented were truly the cream of the entire crop. Yet, by metaphorically placing an ear to the ground (or reading Twitter, perhaps) a picture begins to form of what underwhelmed and what delighted or surprised.
Falling firmly into the latter category is Haifaa Al-Mansour’s debut feature film, Wadjda, which earned a “special mention” at the London Film Festival’s awards ceremony. Its two sold-out festival screenings helped earn UK distribution for the charming, yet remarkably brave tale of a fierce, young Saudi girl who rejects society’s expectations of her. Written and directed by Saudi Arabia’s first female director, there’s no denying how feminist a work Wadjda is. That such a film should be produced within the strict Islamist kingdom to begin with...
Falling firmly into the latter category is Haifaa Al-Mansour’s debut feature film, Wadjda, which earned a “special mention” at the London Film Festival’s awards ceremony. Its two sold-out festival screenings helped earn UK distribution for the charming, yet remarkably brave tale of a fierce, young Saudi girl who rejects society’s expectations of her. Written and directed by Saudi Arabia’s first female director, there’s no denying how feminist a work Wadjda is. That such a film should be produced within the strict Islamist kingdom to begin with...
- 11/23/2012
- by Jeff Galasso
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Haifaa Al-Mansour deserves some sort of award for not only managing to make a film in a country in which cinemas themselves have been banned for decades, but also one in which women are prohibited from simple(r) tasks like driving, let alone directing feature films. Al Mansour’s titular character bears the same rebellious spirit; a young Saudi girl who, when we first see her, is donning a pair of Converse All-Stars, and unlike most of her classmates, is clueless when engaged in a sing-along by her head-strong, authoritative teachers.
Continuing to flout school procedure, loitering where she shouldn’t be and failing to wear her head scarf, Al-Mansour’s thoroughly likeable protagonist helps stage a charming coming out party for talented young actress Waad Mohammed, who has to weather the storm of duelling feminist perspectives in a developing country. Tarred with the brush of guilt by her stern educators,...
Haifaa Al-Mansour deserves some sort of award for not only managing to make a film in a country in which cinemas themselves have been banned for decades, but also one in which women are prohibited from simple(r) tasks like driving, let alone directing feature films. Al Mansour’s titular character bears the same rebellious spirit; a young Saudi girl who, when we first see her, is donning a pair of Converse All-Stars, and unlike most of her classmates, is clueless when engaged in a sing-along by her head-strong, authoritative teachers.
Continuing to flout school procedure, loitering where she shouldn’t be and failing to wear her head scarf, Al-Mansour’s thoroughly likeable protagonist helps stage a charming coming out party for talented young actress Waad Mohammed, who has to weather the storm of duelling feminist perspectives in a developing country. Tarred with the brush of guilt by her stern educators,...
- 10/11/2012
- by Shaun Munro
- Obsessed with Film
It is illegal to show movies publicly in Saudi Arabia. It is forbidden for adult women to do almost anything without the permission of a male “guardian,” usually a father, brother, or husband. And yet somehow Haifaa Al-Mansour managed to write and direct a feature film -- she is the first Saudi woman to do so, and how she managed this and whether there will be repercussions are things I worry about on her behalf. I also wondered whether the sheer novelty of Wadjda’s origin would be the most interesting thing about it. In this, at least, my worries have been put to rest. For this is a delightful and powerfully satisfying film in all ways, an arthouse crowd-pleaser about a charmingly irrepressible protagonist that’s also a big ol’ delicious Fuck You, both within its story and in the larger context of its own very existence, to anyone...
- 10/11/2012
- by MaryAnn Johanson
- www.flickfilosopher.com
Sony Pictures Classics has bought all North American rights to Haifaa Al Mansour‘s Wadjda, a landmark drama that is both the first-ever feature made by a female Saudi Arabian filmmaker, and the first film shot entirely within the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The drama was well received at its world premiere during the 2012 Venice Film Festival and debuted in North America at the Telluride Film Festival, where it was first screened by Sony Pictures.
Written and directed by Haifaa Al-Mansour, Wadjda is the story of a 10-year-old girl, Wadjda, who challenges deep-rooted Saudi traditions in her quest to buy a bike and sees one last chance in her school’s Koran recitation competition and the cash prize for first place.
Haifaa Al-Mansour said:
I come from a small town in Saudi Arabia, a country where showing movies in public is illegal. To write and direct the first film ever...
The drama was well received at its world premiere during the 2012 Venice Film Festival and debuted in North America at the Telluride Film Festival, where it was first screened by Sony Pictures.
Written and directed by Haifaa Al-Mansour, Wadjda is the story of a 10-year-old girl, Wadjda, who challenges deep-rooted Saudi traditions in her quest to buy a bike and sees one last chance in her school’s Koran recitation competition and the cash prize for first place.
Haifaa Al-Mansour said:
I come from a small town in Saudi Arabia, a country where showing movies in public is illegal. To write and direct the first film ever...
- 9/16/2012
- by Nick Martin
- Filmofilia
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.