62nd EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2008
18.06.08
Location:
Scotland
Dates:
18 – 29 June 2008
Attending:
Joe Dreier
M: +44 (0)7802 216 353
Screenings:
Edinburgh
Bigga Than Ben: A Russians’ Guide to Ripping Off London
Wednesday 18 June at 11:15am (Industry)
Filmhouse 2
Wednesday 25 June at 9:15am (Industry)
Filmhouse 2
Friday 27 June at 9:30pm (Public)
Filmhouse 1
Sunday 29 June at 11:00am (Public)
Filmhouse 2
30th MOSCOW INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
19.06.08
Location:
Russia
Dates:
19-28 June 2008
Screenings:
Moscow in the Gala Screenings
Bigga Than Ben: A Russians’ Guide to Ripping Off London
Sunday 22 June at 10:30pm (Press)
Khudozhestvenny – Hall 1
Monday 23 June at 10:00pm
Multiplex Cinema October – Hall 1
LUFF (London UK Film Focus)
03.07.08
Location:
BFI Southbank, London
Dates:
30 June – 3 July 2008
Attending:
Neda Tancic
M: +44 (0)7980 997 561
Screenings:
LUFF
Seachd: The Crimson Snowdrop
Wednesday 2 July at 9:30am
NFT 3
Wishbaby
Monday 30 June at 2:00pm
NFT3
34th DEAUVILLE AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL
05.09.08
Location:
France
Dates:
5-14 September 2008
Screening:
Deauville
Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door
Friday 12 September at 5:30pm
C.I.D
AFM 2008
05.11.08
Location:
Le Merigot Hotel – Room 156
Telephone: (310) 395 9700 (room156)
Dates:
5 November – 12 November 2008
Attending:
Ildi Toth Davy – Sales and Acquisitions
M: +1 626 390 6882
Steven Mackler – Acquisitions
M: +1 646 244 2880
Maja Zimmermann – Acquisitions
M: +1 323 428 1623
Fezzia Ramdani – Marketing
M+1 323 244 0237
Screenings:
Celia The Queen
Wednesday 5 November at 1:00pm
Fairmont 5
Thursday 6 November at 11:00am
Fairmont 3
Berlin EFM details
02.02.09
Altadena Films Office
Stand 19 – Martin Gropius Bau (ground floor)
tel: 49 (0) 30 246 497 440
Ildi – 44 7807 197 659
Altadena screenings
OFFSPRING – Thursday 5 Feb, 19.00, Marriott 2
CELIA THE QUEEN – Thursday 12 Feb, 13.00 Marriott 3
Silentkid Reviews The Girl Next Door
08.08.07
No, this isn’t a review of that Elisha Cuthbert movie where she is the ex-pornstar neighbor of some horny kid and she never shows off her breasts even though she was a pornstar and everyone knows that pornstars walk around topless all the time and the movie turns out to be a major suckfest because she doesn’t even give a glimpse of boobage; this is a review of the film adaptation of a book of the same name written by Jack Ketchum in the 1980’s. Again, Elisha Cuthbert is not in this…she’s in that terrible movie Captivity that I reviewed here a while back. Don’t see that one. Go away, Elisha. The film that I am reviewing here is serious business.
“You think you know about pain?” I read Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door a couple of years ago when it was finally re-released by Leisure Books. Leisure has been re-releasing all of Ketchum’s work in mass-market paperback. I love Leisure (check them out here) Ketchum is my favorite horror author. His books are intense, scary, morbid, and depressing. The Girl Next Door is easily his most disturbing work and is the most disturbing book I’ve ever read. It follows the story of a young boy named David Moran who lives in a small suburban community in the 1950’s. He meets a teenage girl and her younger sister who have been placed in the care of his neighbors (the Chandlers) following the death of the girls’ parents. He develops a friendship with (and a crush on) the older of the two girls, Meg Laughlin. Meg’s younger sister, Susan, was seriously injured in the car accident that killed her parents; she has to wear those leg brace things that were commonly used for polio patients.
I don’t want to give away too much of the plot. Suffice it to say that the family that is taking care of the girls is not very nice (understatement). The single mother, Ruth Chandler (played brilliantly by Blanche Baker), takes out her frustrations on the girls. Her three sons and some other neighborhood kids start playing games with Meg, which escalate in their perversion and cruelty. Ruth allows and encourages the brutal behavior. She even offers suggestions for the types of punishment that the girls “deserve”. All of this goes on in the quiet suburban neighborhood and none of the other residents take notice. David witnesses the atrocious acts but remains silent about them, not sure if he should report Ruth to the police, not sure if he should step in and try to prevent further harm to the girls. He’s trapped in a difficult situation.
The movie adaptation of the book remains true to the text. It’s a harsh viewing experience. I watched it having already read the book; I knew what to expect and I was still shocked. That’s a testament to the strength of the story. This is an extremely low-budget film. Sometimes the acting is corny (towards the beginning of the film), sometimes the lighting is bad, but when the poo-poo hits the proverbial fan, you forget about all of that and are transported into this nightmarish world. You feel sympathy for the girls and hate for Ruth and her sons and her sons’ friends and anger and frustration that what you are watching is something that could happen and it turns out that it’s something that did happen, that it’s loosely based on a true story, the story of Sylvia Marie Likens (which you can read about here but I’d suggest doing so only after seeing the movie or reading the book).
The Girl Next Door is a horror film that is actually horrific. It makes you want to turn away. It’s scary without jump scares and audio cues. It’s violent without buckets of blood. I recommend reading the book first because it does a better job of letting you get inside David’s head, to understand why he makes certain decisions or behaves in certain ways. In a story like this, the characters thoughts are as important as their actions; it’s too bad that the film medium can’t accomplish this as easily as the written word. That’s not to take anything away from the script writers; they did a great job with the adaptation.
Supposedly there are a couple more film adaptations of Jack Ketchum’s novels out there. The Lost has been done for a while. It played a few small film festivals but has yet to be released on DVD. Red just played at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. I’ve heard good things about The Lost; we’ll see about Red. Both books are definitely worth reading. It’s a good time to jump on the Jack Ketchum bandwagon.
PS: A movie based on the actual crime was also released last year…it’s called An American Crime and has some big name actors in it (including the Juno girl). It played at last year’s Sundance Film Festival. I haven’t heard anything about it. I’ll watch for a theatrical or DVD release date.
By Silentkid
InFrame strikes groundbreaking newspaper deal for The Riddle
06.09.07
Wendy Mitchell in Toronto
Brendan Foley’s UK thriller The Riddle, starring Vinnie Jones, Derek Jacobi, Vanessa Redgrave and Julie Cox, will become the first feature film to receive its premiere via a national newspaper release.
The Mail on Sunday purchased the rights to the film and is giving away up to 2.5m DVDs with the newspaper on Sept 16.
The film follows a journalist to wants to solve modern murders that involve the discovery of an unpublished manuscript from Charles Dickens.
InFrame handles sales on the title.
“As the maker of a London indie movie with a great cast, this is as good as it gets,” Brendan said.
Releasing the Riddle
11.09.07
A new feature release, The Riddle, will make film history by having its premiere in a national newspaper.
Written and directed by Brendan Foley, The Riddle is a smart thriller starring Vinnie Jones, Derek Jacobi and Vanessa Redgrave. The Mail on Sunday will give away free copies of the film with its newspaper on Sunday 16 September.
The newspaper bought the rights to the London- shot film and expects to distribute 2.5million DVD copies this weekend.
“As the maker of a London indie movie with a great cast, this is as good as it gets,” says Brendan.
“I The plot centres on an ambitious journalist trying to unravel a series of murders that follow the discovery of an unpublished Dickens novel.
hope people will spread the word and enjoy the movie on Sunday. Effectively, one of the most important characters is the city itself.”
The film was shot along the Thames and virtually every member of the cast and crew was a Londoner, by birth or choice.
Brendan Foley On The Riddle
13.09.07
By Adrian Hennigan
Brendan Foley, the writer-director-producer of The Riddle, on his unusual world first – a premiere via a newspaper.
Despite what some people in the film industry may be thinking, Brendan Foley does not sound like the Great Satan. Speaking from Belfast, where he’s in post-production on the Irish horror/comedy film Bog Bodies, he’s talking to Film Network about the upcoming world premiere of his debut feature, The Riddle. A low-budget thriller starring Vinnie Jones and Sir Derek Jacobi, the unusual casting isn’t the reason UK exhibitors are viewing his film with suspicion; it’s because the film will premiere as a free ‘covermount’ with copies of the Mail On Sunday on 16th September 2007
Inspired by the Mail On Sunday’s 15th July promotion in which it gave away Prince’s new CD Planet Earth – boosting its weekly sales by 600,000 to almost 2.9 million – writer/director/producer Foley contacted MoS managing director Stephen Miron to sound him out on the same approach to a DVD. “From initial conversation to the movie being released will have taken about five weeks,” Foley states. “The Mail On Sunday’s calculation was that the movie, because it fitted so well with the demographics of their readers, would give them publicity value, and the fact that it’s a first was very important to them as well – they like being trailblazers. One month they have the first new CD launch, the next month they have the first new film launch, so they’re on a bit of a roll.”
What the Dickens? Part of the Mail On Sunday’s promotion for The Riddle
Revolving around a modern-day sports journalist (Jones) investigating a spate of murders seemingly connected with the emergence of a long-lost Charles Dickens novel, like most small movies The Riddle didn’t start a bidding war when it first screened to buyers at Cannes in May 2007. That was no deterrent for Foley: “You have to choose whichever combination of distribution channels work for your product,” he believes. “Don’t wait for the audience to come to your movie, bring your movie to the audience.” And it’s some audience he’s bringing to The Riddle. The Mail On Sunday will be producing 2.5 million DVDs of the film, with up to a million of these expected to actually find their way onto DVD players across the UK and Ireland.
We had to make sure that if we never sold another DVD copy, we would end up with a deal that was still worth our while
“From the directing side, if you’re given the chance to have the movie you love and worked hard at being seen by millions of people rather than 25- or 50,000, then that’s a bit of a no-brainer,” Foley argues. As a multi-hyphenate, however, he also has to consider the financial ramifications: “From a producing side we had to make sure that if we never sold another DVD copy, we would end up with a deal that was still worth our while. There’s a confidentiality clause about the numbers but I can say that we got a good six figure deal for the rights, plus primetime TV advertising.
“We have already made more money than most British indie movies,” Foley adds, “and international sales have been given a huge boost by the publicity. Later, UK TV value is largely influenced by how well-known a film is, and putting out more DVDs in a day than Titanic did in its UK launch week is certainly helping.”
Naysayers in the industry believe that once a film has been given away – either as a covermount or a download – it is next to worthless, but Foley isn’t so sure. “There’s more to life for a little movie than just theatrical, and most little movies – if they’re honest about it – use a small theatrical platform release to generate publicity. I thought the Mail On Sunday idea was a damned sight better way of generating publicity than getting on five screens for two weeks.
Julie Cox, Vinnie Jones and Sir Derek Jacobi in The Riddle
“A movie of our size makes most of its money from DVD sales, DVD rentals or from TV,” Foley continues. “We have a DVD release where we have the best financial deal I could ask for already, and we get the rights back after a week, so we’re going to work hard to see if it has an afterlife. Who knows what will happen theatrically? If someone thinks they can make some money out of a small release – given that it will be such a household name – that’s great, but otherwise we’re not depending on it. We also hope it has a second life in DVD. Our initial interest from distributors suggests we have got plenty of DVD scope in the UK, particularly for a director’s cut version crammed with dvd extras, followed by really excellent TV prospects, so the moaners will just have to find something else to moan about.”
They may be sharpening the pitchforks down on Wardour Street, but the London-based Foley opines that “only very rigid thinkers believe that the sky will fall in” if his business model takes root. “A newspaper is simply another potential revenue channel for movies,” he argues. “I think the smart distributors are starting to realise that if the ‘motive factor’ behind sales is actually the extent of publicity as well as a good product, then newspapers have much to recommend them.”
Vanessa Redgrave in The Riddle
Foley previously wrote another low-budget thriller, Johnny Was (the unusual casting juxtaposition here involved Vinnie Jones and Lennox Lewis), which went straight to DVD in the UK after taking a “long time to get off the ground, despite winning Best Feature at six US and Canadian film festivals”. He was heartened by the diametrically opposite experience with The Riddle. “The greatest joy with working with a newspaper is that they make decisions fast and they move fast,” he notes. “A traditional distributor, even a good one, would be looking at their diary and trying to find a slot in the middle of next year; these people were able to look at their diary and say ‘How about three or four weeks’ time?’ In that time we were able to get certification and print 2.5 million copies.
“This isn’t any threat to existing distributors, particularly those who are smart enough to see an opportunity,” Foley concludes, “but at the same time I think every industry should be humble enough to see what it can learn from other industries. A newspaper’s ability to act quickly without breaking a sweat is maybe something the film industry can learn from.”
The Riddle is available on DVD with the Mail On Sunday on Sunday 16th September 2007.
