Beyond Cinema Magazine - June 2012 Edition

Clive OwenClive tacklesPapa Hemingwayat Cannes page 18

THE F-WORD: The First Word on Film Festivals

IN-DEPTH:“The Hunter” Director Daniel Nettheim

WHAT’S UP, DOCS? Taking the Pulse of Documentaries

THE COMMISH: A desk job? Not the way THEY do it AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 FRAMES: A Gallery

ACT ONE

a publication of thea publication of the

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FILM COM MISSION

VIENNA


MASTHEAD & CONTENT 5

[ ] RASHIDA JONES... 30 Words by Elliot V. Kotek, Images by Scott McDermott

[ ] ACT ONE: CLIVE OWEN... 22 Catching up with ‘Hemingway’ in Mexico

[ ] IN DEPTH: DANIEL NETTHEIM... 41 A director in the wilderness

[ ] AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 FRAMES... 12 They shot it, we show it. A gallery.

[ ] THE F-WORD... 52The latest word from film festivals The Statesman: Festival de Cannes The Teenager: Sonoma International

[ ] THE COMMISH... 61 The folk who help film get made

[ ] WHAT’S UP, DOCS?... 46 Checking the pulse of the documentary scene

[ ] MAGIC HOUR...58 After the shoot, it’s time for you

[ ] BEYOND YOUR HORIZON...66 Postcards from the edge

[ ] A Note from Elliot... 7 [ ] A Note from the AFCI...9

EDITOR IN CHIEF Elliot V. Kotek [email protected] | 646.732.3372

PUBLISHER Peter Trimarco [email protected] | 720.851.1375

ART DIRECTION & DESIGN Skaaren Designwww.skaaren.com | 480.296.8529

CONTRIBUTORSScott McDermott, Alexandria Matos, Gill Pringle, Angela Bakke, Matt Nettheim, Vittorio Zunino (Celotto/WireImage), Pascal Le Segretain (Getty Images)

Advertising, stocking, sponsorship and distribution opportunities please contact the publisher at [email protected] /720.851.1375; address editorial and licensing enquiries to the editor at [email protected] 646.732.3372 or to our offices at 22 28th Ave, Venice CA 90291.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS PRESIDENTMary Nelson Virginia Film Office (USA)

1ST VICE PRESIDENTGeorge David Royal Film Commission of Jordan (Jordan)

2ND VICE PRESIDENT Walea Constantinau Honolulu Film Office (USA)

TREASURER Drew Mayer-Oakes San Antonio Film Commission (USA)

DIRECTORS

AFCI EXECUTIVE OFFICE

For membership or more information about the AFCI, please contact: Association of Film Commissioners International 8530 Wilshire Blvd, Ste #210 Beverly Hills CA 90211 Phone: LA: 1-323-461-2324 Fax: 1-413-375-2903 Email: [email protected] Web: www.afci.org

Kevin Chang Cheongpung Film Commission (Republic of Korea)

Jerry Day Tuolumne County Film (USA)

Sten Iversen Montana Film Office (USA)

Joan Miller Vancouver Island North Film (Canada)

Ingrid Rudefors Stockholm Mälardalen Film Commission (Sweden)

Mark Stricklin Birmingham-Jefferson Film Office (USA)

Mikael Svensson Oresund Film Commission (Sweden)

[ ] BEYOND THE COVER Issue 1 | 2012

Martin Cuff Executive Director

Kevin Clark Director of Operations

Elyse Gammer Director of Business Relationships

Jason LaBue Communications Specialist Laurie Lehmann Director of Professional Development & Events

Kathy Martini Administrative Assistant

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A LETTER FROM ELLIOT

Hi. We’re hoping the conversation you’re having with yourself as you pick up this magazine goes something like this:“I love Rashida Jones, and I love maga-zines. This is going to be a great day.”

A new magazine about cinema was once a regular occurrence. Now, however, it rep-resents the confl uence of two forms of me-dia in very different phases of their storied existences.

Like 35mm fi lm, the print publication indus-try stands on the precipice of mainstream obscurity. Sidelined by the sites, blogs and digital incarnations that offer immediate, and immediately shareable nuggets of infor-mation, print is now the domain of the wilful and passionate.

Cinema, on the other hand, struggles with its position on the brink of overpopulation. A benefi ciary (and victim) of the technological revolution, “the democratization of content” has reduced barriers to fi lmmaking to such a level that the price to play is determined squarely by ambition and tenacity. Rather than cost, in many cases the struggle for fi lmmakers is in fi nding an audience - fi nding a distributor, festival, cable venue, corporate

outlet or online destination. That said, we’ve also never consumed as much content as we do today, with fi lms just one ray of entertain-ment among many pop-culture pursuits. We are connected 24/7, and even the brief mo-ments when our companions disappear to pee or get popcorn present opportunities for just one more text, email or funny-or-die clip.

How do fi lmmakers stand out from the pack? With story, of course. And name cast, when they can. But another key in-gredient in the equation is the production value contained within the frame, some-times achieved by the location itself, other times attained by the ability to use a lo-cation to leverage other (above and below the line) benefi ts. With GoPros, HD phone cameras and courage, we can fi lm any-where on the planet.

Although we in the magazine and fi lm in-dustries may often fi nd ourselves stand-ing on the edges of commercial cliffs, it’s important to acknowledge how far we’ve climbed. If we choose to look up to the skies rather than down at the rocks, we will con-tinue to build our own ladders to new pur-suits, and create something magical.

Whether it takes you around the corner or around the world, we look forward to hav-ing you with us on our journey beyond cinema. Welcome to Issue 1.

Elliot V. KotekEditor in Chief

7

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A LETTER FROM AFCI

In 2009, I came across an article in Van-ity Fair that seemed to sum up the per-sistence, resilience and damn perkiness of fi lm commissioners. It told the tale of Har-ry Goulding, a rancher from Utah who’d learned that United Artists was consider-ing fi lming a Western on location. Armed with his convictions and a book of glorious photographs of Monument Valley, Harry and his wife loaded the “bedroll, coffee pot, grub,” and drove to Hollywood.

Arriving at UA, Harry told the receptionist he wanted to see someone about this new Western. When she said he couldn’t see anyone without an appointment, he told her he’d get his bedroll because he wasn’t leaving. When the Location Manager came out, he forced a glimpse at the pho-tographs and, naturally, wanted to know

where they were shot. From that unlikely fi rst meeting, it wasn’t long before John Ford saw the pictures and decided Monu-ment Valley was perfect for the seminal backdrop for Stagecoach.

I think of Harry as the fi rst fi lm commis-sioner, the guy who opened the door. He showed us nothing beats the authenticity of a great location - and that absolutely nothing will stop a proud commissioner from getting in front of the right producer or location professional to get the job done. Since Harry, over 350 fi lm commission-ers in more than 40 countries have been the heroes behind thousands of movies, helping to scout locations, source permits and troubleshoot with local offi cials to cut through bureaucratic red tape and maxi-mize production values and cut costs.

9

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Harry’s legacy is undeniably changing. In-centives have led commissioners to transi-tion from the “What must I do for you to fi lm here?” mindset, to becoming partners in the production process. As competition grew, fi lm commissions also began devel-oping a broader scope for their activities, becoming the hub of all fi lm-related ac-tivity within a jurisdiction. In addition to assisting international productions, com-missions now encourage the development and distribution of local productions, build audiences, facilitate fi lm literacy, institute skills training and otherwise support a cli-mate of local entrepreneurship to support fi lmmaking. In short, fi lm commissioners moved out from behind cinema to being beyond it, and now see themselves as an integral part of the development of buoy-ant fi lm sectors from California to Kowloon. With the launch of Beyond Cinema, the di-alogue around fi lm commissions is chang-ing and, with this fantastic new addition to the media landscape, we hope you’ll join us in the conversation.

Martin CuffExecutive Director, AFCIMartin Cuff

Leave Me Like You Found MeDirector: Adele RomanskiLocation: Sequoia National Park, US

“The idea for the fi lm came out of a trip I took with my father in Sequoia/Kings Canyon. Since the place inspired the story it never occurred to me to shoot it anywhere else. I’m mildly ob-sessed with how majestic the California land-scape is, and I’m equally preoccupied with this idea of ‘destination fi lmmaking.’ Trekking into the Sequoia for two weeks to shoot a movie was a perfect marriage of these ideas.”

80 FRAMES12

My WayDirector: Kang Je-kyuLocation: Korea and Latvia

To maximize production costs, Kang’s crew made the decision to reconstruct the WWII Japa-nese, Soviet, and German army camps at a loca-tion on the south coast of Korea at Saemangeum, the world’s largest man-made sea barrier. Nearly 250 square miles was divided into three sectors to represent the fi lm’s diverse backdrops.

Duplicating the beaches of Normandy, France, was a more daunting task. The crew settled on a stretch of beach located on the Baltic Sea in Lat-via. The Latvian shoot included 200 crew mem-bers: Latvians, Russians, Lithuanians, Germans, Norwegians, and Swiss. Thorough preparation and a warm welcome from Latvia contributed to the overwhelming success of the Normandy In-vasion sequence.

*My Way is the most expensive fi lm ever pro-duced in Korea, at a budget of approximately US$23 million.

80 FRAMES 13

TrishnaDirector: Michael WinterbottomLocation: Jaipur, Rajasthan & Mumbai, India

“I fi rst had the idea of making Trishna eight or nine years ago. We were working on Code 46 and shot for a few days in Rajasthan. On one of the recces we visited the desert outside Osian. I was with some crew from Mumbai, and there was an incredible contrast between the life of the crew from Mumbai and the people of the village, whose lives were just beginning to change with the forces of mechanization, industrialization, urbanization and above all education... It is the third time that I have fi lmed in India but this is the fi rst fi lm I have made that is set in India. It was frustrating working in India in the past, and not actu-ally telling a story that is set there. So this was a totally different experience. We were able to locate the story in a very specifi c place. We spent a lot of time talking to peo-ple in Rajasthan – and specifi cally in Osian and Jodhpur – about the story, and how it would make sense in their lives. We worked with a local location manager and shot in a lot of locations which you might expect to be diffi cult, but we had really great co-operation from the people. Mumbai was harder, but that is just the nature of a big city.”

80 FRAMES14

BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILDDirector: Benh ZeitlinLocation: Southern Louisiana, USA

This tale of six-year-old girl “Hushpuppy,” living with her father at the end of the world (aka a bayou community cut off from the world by a levee). This tale of rusted out shacks, shrimp, catfi sh, natural di-sasters and semi-wild animals won the Sundance Film Festival’s top prize this year with non-actors in the lead roles, and also screened as part of the Un Certain Regard programming at Cannes. Although the fi lm tries not to tie the narrative world to a par-ticular location, this is very much a southern Lou-isiana-bred tale, the shoot taking place southwest of New Orleans, “where the road ends and the Gulf begins.” The 40-day shoot traversed the bayous of Houma, Bourg, Pointe-Aux-Chenes and Montegut, as well as Mandeville and Slidell. Principal photog-raphy began the day of the BP oil spill about a hun-dred miles from production headquarters.

80 FRAMES 15

80 FRAMES16

LAWLESSDirector: John HillcoatLocation: Peachtree City, Georgia USA

Set in Franklin County, Virginia, Lawless was origi-nally titled The Wettest County following the book on which it is based. Capturing a tale of Prohibition-era moonshine-runners, John Hillcoat (director of The Propostion and The Road) considered shooting in Vir-ginia and was pulled in a different direction because of incentives, ending up in Peachtree City, Georgia with the help of the Georgia Film Commission. Shia LaBeouf leads an all-star team of Guy Pearce, Mia Wa-sikowska, Tom Hardy and Gary Oldman on the fi lm, which had its premiere at Cannes.

REALITYDirector: Matteo GarroneLocation: Torre del Greco, Naples, Italy

Garrone’s follow-up to Gomorrah was shot predomi-nantly in and around Italy’s Torre del Greco, a city of less than 100,000 people living in the shadow of Vesu-vius National Park in the province of Naples. Garrone achieves an enviable local truth to his fi lms by gener-ally utilizing non-actors from the region. In “Reality,” the story centers around Luciano (theater actor Ani-ello Arena), a fi shmonger who looks to shake up his existence by applying to be on “Big Brother.”

80 FRAMES 17

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ACT ONE

Just as writers and foreign correspondents were the global travelers of a century ago, actors are today’s equivalent, thanks to the growth of international film festivals and location-shooting in far-flung environs.

Take, for example, Clive Owen. When Be-yond Cinema caught up with the suave actor in Mexico, he’s dressed from head to toe in chic tropical linens promoting his thriller Intruders, which screened as the closing night gala of the inaugural Riviera Maya Film Festival.

“I’m genuinely a big fan of film festivals,” he says. “It’s a huge celebration of what it is we do. It’s a great coming together of cultures and of people and filmmakers from all over the world, all sharing their movies and their vision. I’m always keen to go to film festivals, and it’s lovely coming to this one, especially as it’s the first one here. I

22

CLIVE OWENBy Gill Pringle

ACT ONE

don’t think you could have a more beauti-ful place for a film festival and the pro-gramming is really exciting. I just hope I get invited back,” he told us, talking at the luxurious Rosewood Mayakoba resort on the Caribbean coast, in close proxim-ity to the picturesque screening locations at Tulum, Holbox Island, Cancun, Cozu-mel and Playa del Carmen.

Just months earlier, Owen had taken an-other trip, visiting Havana after becom-ing fascinated with Ernest Hemingway whom he portrays in Hemingway & Gell-horn, which just screened out of competi-tion at Cannes.

Directed by Philip Kaufman (The Unbear-able Lightness of Being, The Right Stuff, Henry & June, Quills), the drama centers on the romance between “Papa” Heming-way and WWII correspondent Martha Gellhorn, who would become the author’s third wife and the famed inspiration be-hind “For Whom the Bell Tolls.”

Filmed on location in the San Francisco area, Owen recalls: “It was a wonderful script and I think Philip Kaufman is one of the greats. I also got to work with Nicole Kidman who plays Martha Gellhorn. It was probably one of the best experiences in my career.”

Hemingway’s real-life adventures in Paris, Italy, Africa, Spain and Cuba is the stuff of legend, and his lifestyle continues to fasci-nate people almost as much as his books. A man amongst men who was still a teen-ager when he found himself on the Italian Front during World War I, he had a pas-sion for traditionally masculine pursuits: big game hunting, fishing, bull-fighting and, ultimately, alcohol.

If Owen had originally contemplated the romanticism of shooting in Cuba, he quickly learned otherwise: “Philip found lots of original documentary footage. For instance, the relationship between Hemingway and Gellhorn started against the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War, so Phil goes out and finds all this original footage from the Spanish Civil War, and if there’s a gap in the frame he can put us

ABOVE: Clive Owen dons the moustache to portray Papa Hemingway in HBO’s Hemingway & Gellhorn. FAR LEFT: Owen in Paris to celebrate the 80th anniversary of Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso

23

ACT ONE

into it. We travel enormously through the film using this device while we bleed in and out of original footage. He’s used this device in previous movies too.”

Not to be robbed of the opportunity to visit Cuba, Owen made a private pilgrim-age: “I had the most amazing week there. Hemingway’s house is incredible. They were lovely and allowed me to go in and look through all his stuff, which is amaz-ingly still there - his books, his record col-lection, even his clothes and boots are still in the closet. I actually took seven months

off and just immersed myself in all things Hemingway. Everywhere I travel, I try to do Hemiway things, like going go to Cuba, he’s all over Havana. You go to Paris and Hemingway’s Paris is incredibly vivid and alive or you go to Madrid and he’s still very present there.”

Ask him if he thinks a man of Heming-way’s macho sensibilities could exist in today’s more sensitive society, he smiles: “I think it would be tricky. It’s probably fair to say that he’s been out of fashion for a while, but when you go back and read his

work, I think he’s an absolutely extraordi-nary writer. Nobody has left such a legacy. For somebody of that time to have traveled and explored so much, its remarkable. Ob-viously there are some things in his life that became out of fashion, the hunting and the bullfighting is not so popular, and I do think it would be difficult [to live like that today]. He’s very much of his time.”

At 47, Owen can look forward to maintain-ing his busy career, although he’s cognizant that 40+ is a dangerous age for his female counterparts such as his Oscar-winning Hemingway & Gellhorn co-star Kidman, 44: “I think you would have to be naïve to say that it wasn’t harder for women. It just is. It’s totally unfair. There are absolutely amazing actresses in their 40s who should be working more than they are. That’s wrong. We’ve got to do what we can to try to change that.”

While Hemingway & Gellhorn is based on a man about whom so much is known, a psychological horror film like Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s Intruders posed a different challenge for him, in trying to capture the essence of fear, not to mention attempting to master Spanish while filming in Madrid.

“People talk about Intruders as being a ge-neric horror film but I think of it as something much more interesting, more of a psycholog-ical thriller. It’s very spooky and scary but all the strangeness and spookiness comes from within the characters as opposed to things from the outside.

“The first thing I saw that ever scared me was an episode of the ‘Twilight Zone’ when I was very young. It really freaked me out. But the film that had the biggest impact in terms of a horror film has to be The Exorcist. Not only is it a great horror film, it’s also a brilliantly made film that still stands up today.”

But it’s the real world that scares Owen more than any horror film: “Being the fa-ther of two girls growing up in the modern age, my biggest fear is the kind of world they are growing up into. The world has radically changed just in terms of the whole Facebook/computer age and how that has revolutionized the way people

24

ABOVE: This year, Clive Owen can also be seen in James Marsh’s Sundance film Shadow Dancer.

“I’m always afraid of doing bad movies. That’s

a constant fear every time I start one.”

ACT ONE

communicate with each other, how chil-dren relate to each other. In some respects my 12-year-old daughter is further ahead in all that than I am. She teaches me things about the way they relate, the way the world is moving. You just hope that chil-dren still stay centered and humane and human; that we don’t drift off into a way of communicating with each other that isn’t real and tangible. There’s an awful lot of socializing, sitting on their own in front of the computer screen. I’m a great

believer that people should go out and actually relate to other people,” says the actor whose Intruders char-acter is also the father of a teenage girl. “Over the last few years, it’s no accident that I’ve done a number of films where parenting has been a big issue. I did The Boys are Back, Trust and Intruders. Parenting a child is a big thing in all those films. It’s some-thing that I obviously know some-thing about and also something in-

teresting to explore in film. There’s no question when I read this script I can’t help but put myself in the posi-tion of what it would be like.”

His greatest fear, perhaps, is making poor film choices: “I’m always afraid of doing bad movies,” jokes Owen who has a string of successful movies to his credit including Inside Man, Closer and Sin City. “That’s a constant fear every time I start one.”

25

ABOVE: Nicole Kidman and Clive Owen are both receiving top marks from critics as Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn, the couple who met at war, then created their own.

These images could not have been shot without a location.

And it takes “Beyond Cinema” to bring the stories behind the images from

up on the screen into the hands of film professionals and film lovers like you.

(Images from The Hunter, Trishna, Celeste & Jesse Forever)

BEYOND

THE

SCREEN

Choose Beyond Cinema.Partner with the AFCI to have your messagereach the best audience we [email protected] 323.461.2324


COVER STORY30

Named To PeoPle magaziNe’s “mosT BeauTi-ful” lisT Three Times (Third Time makes iT Tru-er, righT?), rashida JoNes is ThaT rare Breed of life-liver for Whom iT seems The World is a small oNe. acTiNg, siNgiNg, WriTiNg, Produc-iNg, graduaTiNg harvard aNd somehoW hav-iNg a sPare BreaTh To sPeNd oN iNvolviNg oTh-ers iN her JourNey, iT musT helP maTTers To groW uP WiTh The magical geNes of music gi-aNT QuiNcy JoNes, aNd WiTh The gorgeous aNd mulTi-faceTed ‘mod sQuad’ sTar Peggy liPToN for a mom.

after a long road trying to get celeste and Jesse for-ever produced at a variety of budget levels, Jones and co-writer/actor Will mccormack brought in The vicious kind’s spirit award-nominated director lee Toland krieger, and gathered friends and family from across the spectrum of the industry to make the movie. one of the hot titles at this year’s sundance (where it was acquired by sony Pictures classics), and playing as part of the los angeles film festival’s ‘summer showcase,’ the film fi-nally brings Jones front and center.

WORDS BY ELLIOT V. Kotek Photos by Scott McDermot

department name

COVER STORY

BEYOND CINEMA: Was the Sundance premiere the fi rst time you’d seen the fi lm with an audience?

RASHIDA JONES: Yeah. I must say, it was a completely utterly psychedelic experience. Overwhelming. It was fantastic, really scary, and really painful. It was kind of everything, and mostly a refl ection of the really close relationship that Will [McCormack] and I have had to this movie, how long it has taken to get it made, how arduous it was, and sharing that with the world. I really felt like I was showing everybody all my inside organs in an uncomfortable way.

BC: Are you good at watching yourself on screen?

Rashida: I don’t have a lot of hang-ups about looking at my face for a long time. [Laughs] It’s not like I’m dying to watch my face all day.

BC: Having grown up in and around music, deciding whom to hire for the score must have been one of the hardest. Did you bring in Zach Cowie and Sunny Levine?

Rashida: Sunny is my nephew. He’s a musical genius. I can say that, biased and unbiased. Will and I wrote the script to Sunny’s album Love Rhino. There was no question that Sunny’s under-standing of music had to be the bottom line in the fi lm. And Zach is a musical catalogue and an innovator. He can be like a curator and also a creator, which is a really cool thing. Having those two guys meant nothing I did would affect the outcome of all the brilliance that they brought. That being said, I totally wanted to be involved because I think we had such a good collaborative building process with the whole team where we saw what the movie could be, and those guys took it to another level.

BC: I take it you were friends with almost all the key actors before the project?

Rashida: Pretty much. If I wasn’t, I became friends with them for sure during fi lming.

BC: What was it like the fi rst time you met Andy Samberg?

Rashida: We met through friends and just immediately connect-ed. It was clear we were going to know each other for a very long time. The same with Will, even though Will and I dated briefl y for two weeks when we fi rst met, I think we were just trying to fi gure out how we fi t to each other’s lives. We were 25 and that’s what you do, right? At 25, the only way you could imagine possibly be-ing in the company of someone of the opposite sex is to date them. With our lives colliding dynamically, we still managed to fi nd a way back to friendship. Actually, with everybody on this movie it was kind of love at fi rst sight, from Elijah [Wood] to Ari [Graynor] to Emma [Roberts]. The minute we met them, we were just kind of in love with them. It happened incrementally from 15 years ago to the day before we started shooting. It all felt pretty – not to overuse an overused word – organic.

BC: Speaking of ‘organic’ – the Los Angeles yoga and vegan scene is integrated into the fi lm and you shot scenes through Sil-ver Lake, Downtown and Venice. Was location written in specifi -cally? Did you ever consider shooting elsewhere for tax credits?

Rashida: At a certain point there was a discussion (that I was not that fond of) that we would take some tax credits and fi lm in some other state. It just wasn’t anything that Will and I ever wanted to do because it was so important to us that LA be LA. I know that you can do it and I know that people do it all the time. But I wanted to do what we could to show what life is like right now, and this script is very much a product of where we are in our lives right now. I really don’t think that Connecticut would work. It was always about LA. I grew up in LA, Sunny grew up in LA. We wanted to make sure that we showed that version of LA that we know that maybe other people don’t know. It’s really hard to do that when you’re us-ing another town.

BC: Was having this opportunity to knock out a starring role exciting or daunting?

Rashida: I think this is probably a pretty common experience for actors in LA. I know so many incredibly talented, dynamic, skilled actors. What ends up happening is you get this one part or these two parts and then you’re known as the girl who plays the funny girlfriend or the guy who is a serial killer, or whatever. Everybody gets put into these little boxes but the truth is, when you actually know these people, they’re capable of so much more.

I knew that I had more in me than just the supportive friend or girlfriend. I felt like if there was going to be a time when I was going to do it, it was going to be now. I was either going to blow it, or not.

32

DID YOU KNOW?In 2003, Thom Andersen fi nished his documentary Los Angeles Plays Itself in which he journeys through how LA has been depicted in movies. Unfortunately, due to the hundreds of fi lm clips referenced in the fi lm, it became impossible to secure licenses to all the footageand the title never received a commercial release. What’s your favorite “LA” fi lm?

COVER STORY

It was a tough thing to be producing, writing and acting. I’m not sure I want to do that particular perfect storm again. It defi nitely opened up my feelings about what kinds of parts I’m going to play. And it opened my feelings about what kind of parts I want to write. I’m just not sure how they fi t together yet.

BC: When you meet someone on a plane and they aren’t, for whatever reason, in tune with your role in recent pop culture, what do you tell them you do for a living?

Rashida: More often now I’m saying that I’m a writer. I don’t know if that’s just a way to avoid having to list my resume, be-cause people go, “Where have I seen you?” But now, legiti-mately, I can say that. I have a WGA card. And I have co-written a movie that’s coming out. It feels real.

BC: Is this your fi rst credit as a writer?

Rashida: Yeah. You know what? It is. It’s my fi rst credit.

BC: Do you write when inspired or do you treat it like a 9-to-5 gig?

Rashida: Will’s better at sitting down everyday and writing. Basically, we treat it like a job. We sit everyday whether we’re amazing, inspired, or prolifi c. We just sit there and kind of wait for it to happen.

BC: Screenwriting software of choice?

Rashida: Final Draft. I love it and I hate it. They make me re-authenticate it probably once a month.

BC: Was there anything you regret having to cut from the fi nal fi lm?

Rashida: It’s funny, now that we’re watching the movie, I’m very happy with the things that we cut. There was a really nice scene that Will and I always really liked between Veronica [Re-becca Dayan] and Celeste. It was just another way for Celeste

ABOVE: Achieving notoriety through his work on “Saturday Night Live,” Andy Samberg was born in California. Celeste and Jesse is the third fi lm in which he and Rashida Jones are both credited.

33

COVER STORY

to show that she’s grown a little bit and can be a bit of an adult. It’s funny. But I don’t think you need five versions of closure in a movie. You just need one. And that’s not clear until you see the whole thing together.

BC: Given that it was shot in your home town, did you each go home at the end of the day, or did you have a central hotel to create an ‘on location’ feel?

Rashida: I went home. It was actually just the most pleasant, protected, illuminated shooting experience. We’d have these in-credible shoot days and I would go home and I would sleep. I would wake up and come to work again. It just never felt frantic or rushed. I never felt out of my depth. I would say it was a re-ally unique experience for me.

BC: You’ve been on enough sets now to know what you’d like from a work situation – whether it’s a Kevin Smith set or Steven Soderbergh’s or David Fincher’s. Is there someone particular who cultivated a mood on set you really appreciated?

Rashida: Doing I Love You, Man has changed the entire bar for me of how a cast can get along and how a director and a producer can run a set. John Hamburg does a great job of being able to be friends with everybody and still maintain a position of authority, but not in a way that’s irritating or dominating. He had such respect for his actors and crew and they had such mutual respect for him. I definitely try to emulate the I Love You, Man experience as much as I can.

BC: What project do most people approach you to talk about?

Rashida: I Love You, Man is a big one. People love to talk about it. Obviously The Social Network just because it’s so culturally relevant. I love to talk about that.

BC: Could you feel the relevance of Social Network when you were shooting it?

Rashida: Yes, definitely. I read that script and it was like, “Oh shit. I want to be in this movie. This movie is going to mean something for a long time to come.” I came in late to the game, but when you watch David Fincher work with as many takes as he shoots, and you listen to those Aaron Sorkin words over and over again, it was pretty evident from when I showed up that it was definitely going to be special.

BC: Did you take a souvenir?

Rashida: I took my legal pad. For two weeks of the movie I had nothing to say, I just watched the proceedings. I was just practicing my penmanship and trying to document what people were saying. I took that with me. And I have this blouse – it’s so weird – I have this blouse that comes to me from wardrobe and then it goes back to the wardrobe house. I’ve worn the exact same blouse for “The Office.” I’ve worn it for Social Network and I’ve worn it for The Muppets. Finally, after The Muppets I just took it. I’ve worn it in three different things, I had to own it.

BC: Had anyone worn it in between?

Rashida: That’s a good question.

BC: Speaking of cultural relevance, it’s a political year. Will you get involved again?

Rashida: Absolutely. Anything I can do. I feel like there is a weird thing with celebrity involvement in political campaigns, it kind of goes together like peanut butter and chocolate. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad. I wouldn’t overexpose myself in the name of the President. I just want to do what I can to help.

BC: I think George Clooney’s dinner for President Obama is go-ing to raise more than $12 million dollars, which will make it the most successful presidential campaign event in history.

Rashida: George Clooney is…he’s the smart one. He really is. He’s a very impressive dude.

BC: Your father seems like a pretty impressive dude. He’s in the end credits of Celeste and Jesse. Is that just a thank you or was he involved another way in the project?

Rashida: He’s been so supportive in general, obviously. But let-ting us use his screening room to do test screenings with friends and peers was the kicker because we did a month of screenings. Every Sunday I showed up at his house with mini-cookies from Trader Joe’s and questionnaires and pens.

BC: Having parents like Quincy Jones and Peggy Lipton, with their significant involvement in the entertainment in-dustry, do you go to them for advice first or are they a failsafe for after you’ve gone to everybody else?

34

“I feel like there is a weird thing with celebrity involvement in

political campaigns, it kind of goes together like peanut butter and chocolate. Sometimes it’s good,

sometimes it’s bad.”

COVER STORY

Rashida: No. One hundred percent. It would be silly for me to not take the gift of my unconditionally loving parents, who also know so much about the business, and not to let them tell me what to do and how to approach it.

BC: Did you watch your Mom’s performances growing up?

Rashida: Yeah. Absolutely. I was totally obsessed with “Twin Peaks.” We would defi nitely watch it together, for sure. I was, like, dreaming that Bob was under my bed every night.

BC: I remember reading that you’d considered giving up act-ing to go back to school to study public policy. Is that true?

Rashida: That is true. When I was, like, 30. It was right after one of the strikes had started. There were always lulls for acting but this lull was really big. It was really diffi cult to get an acting job. I felt like maybe I was hard to cast because I was too quirky to be the lead and too confi dent to be the friend or, I don’t know, every actor feels like that sometimes.

And, I was wondering if the best use of my time was to sit and wait for a job or to maybe just search for other versions of my life – pursue some other dreams I’ve had. I thought about it and looked at some applications online and then I ended up getting the part on “The Offi ce,” which kind of changed everything for me, so I didn’t do it. But I might still. I’m open.

BC: Do you actively read reviews and the media about you?

Rashida: I do. I wish I didn’t. I’m not going to lie, there were defi nitely reviews out of Sundance that hurt. It felt like those people didn’t understand the movie, and instead of not under-standing and being like, “Eh,” they instead attacked my charac-ter as a person or as an artist. That’s how people behave, and I get it. I think I’m going to have to fi nd a way to protect myself from that a little more.

BC: A lot of critics see it as their role to be critical rather than to engage in--

Rashida: Conversation. Exactly. It’s actually good. I think I’ve had all these black and white ideals my whole life and now I have this opportunity to defi ne myself from adversity. Some-body said to me once that all successful people have people who misunderstand them and people who dislike them. I never re-ally understood what that meant. For me it was just… you’re never going to capture everybody liking you. You know what? Who wants everybody to like you? That’s too huge a responsibil-ity. Why not have a small group of people really connect and love what you do. It’s unfortunate now because of technology. The Internet allows people to be cowards. It’s become this breeding ground for nega-tivity and for people to just spew out whatever they’re thinking

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: Emma Roberts, Elijah Wood, Rashida Jones, Ari Graynor, Will McCormack and Andy Samberg share a laugh at Scott McDermott’s studio at Sundance.

35

right then and there. They might not even remember it the next morning but they’ve already put it out there and they’ve already af-fected other people. And they don’t have to think about how they affect other people because they’ll never meet that person. It’s easy to be cruel.

BC: 2011 was a successful year for you – Friends with Benefi ts, The Muppets, Our Idiot Brother, “Parks and Recreation” – In addi-tion, you’ve created comic books, sang backup vocals for Maroon 5... Is that just who you are? Are you always going to do a little of everything, or are you searching for your one thing?

Rashida: I’ve always been the kind of person who is kind of okay at everything. I’ve always looked at my life and thought, like I did with acting, that if that goes away and I can’t do that anymore, I’ll get a job doing something. I’m pretty resourceful and I’m pretty industrious. It’s in that same spirit I enjoy exploring the param-eters of any given role. I like the idea of being able to do one thing and then do something diametrically opposed the next time I set out. I may be kind of lousy at one thing more than the other but I’m never going to know it unless I do it.

BC: You can always go back to writing for Teen Vogue.

Rashida: [Laughs] I can always go back to writing for Teen Vogue. Let’s see what happens.

BC: Did you have an interview question of choice?

Rashida: I did really groundbreaking, probing and brave journal-ism about fashion. It was different to me on some level, but it was

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basically, “What’s your favorite go-to outfi t?”

BC: Pop culture is a crazy world. How does being named to People’s “Most beautiful people” rank on the embarrassing-to-cool scale?

Rashida: The fi rst time that happened I thought it was the coolest thing in the world. I don’t know. It’s a nice distinction but I have nothing to do with why they think that. I don’t have control over it. They should give that award to my parents. It should be like “50 Most Beautiful People, Rashida Jones goes to Peggy Lipton and Quincy Jones.”

BC: You mentioned the peanut butter and chocolate combina-tion earlier, so is it milk duds or popcorn?

Rashida: Together, milk duds in the popcorn.

BC: Quincy Jones wants…

Rashida: Quincy Jones wants everybody to love each other.

BC: Rashida Jones needs…

Rashida: A vacation.

BC: Vindication?

Rashida: No, not vindication. [Laughs] Oh my God. That’s really funny. That’s even better. I said “vacation.” That’s my poster for my superhero movie, “Rashida Jones needs vindication.”

Project1:Layout 1 5/17/12 3:44 PM Page 2

Well known to television execs after helming a number of popular Austra-lian episodics (“The Secret Life of Us,” “White Collar Blue”), Sydney-born di-rector Daniel Nettheim tackled his larg-est project to date, an adaptation of Ju-lia Leigh’s novel “The Hunter,” starring Willem Dafoe.

The fi lm had its beginnings at the To-ronto International Film Festival last year, and has made its way into the world with a variety of release dates and distribution strategies (the US re-

lease of the fi lm beared Magnolia’s multi-platform approach).

Beyond Cinema caught up with the Auss-ie, for whom it seems this cinematographi-cally arresting fi lm, coupled with a decade of television directing, provides perfect po-sitioning for launching a career Stateside.

BC: Having two instantly recognizable and respected actors – Willem Dafoe and Sam Neill – suggests international sales would come easily. Did you pre-sell territories, or did the business end kick in after the fi rst screening?

Daniel: The sales agent at Entertainment One had a specifi c strategy. They didn’t want anyone to see it upfront. They wait-

ed until Toronto so everyone could see it together. And I think we had UTA han-dling the American sales. It seemed that in the fi rst few days of TIFF, the buyers were waiting to see what was on the mar-ket and, once they had a sense of the fes-tival, the offers started coming in. It was good meeting with all the buyers and con-sidering distribution strategies. It was an interesting process to watch because I’m not normally exposed to that.

BC: But you had some of the produc-ers who’d worked on Sundance-winner Animal Kingdom? Did that help?

Daniel: Yeah. [Producer] Vincent Shee-han had all the contacts but people aren’t going to buy your fi lm just because

41

Daniel Nettheim The Director of “The Hunter”

IN-DEPTH

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you’ve got a relationship; it’s really about this film and its marketing potential. In-terestingly, a lot of the buyers held off until they saw the first reviews come in. It’s like they don’t trust their own judg-ment or they want to get a realistic sense of how it’s going to be presented by the press to the market.

BC: Had you shown the film to Willem and Sam prior to the festival?

Daniel: Willem went to a private screen-ing in LA, which was nerve-racking for us. Conceptually, he is obliged to support the release of the film if he’s available. But if an actor doesn’t like the way a film turns out, they don’t have to do press. And the last thing you want to do is con-tractually force them to come and repre-sent a movie if they don’t like it.

After the screening in L.A., we didn’t hear anything for a few hours, and then we had a text from Willem’s manager saying, “Loved the film, well done.” And the next day there was a message

saying, “Yep, we’re all on for Toronto and the release.” BC: How was being in Toronto with your actors? The work already behind you, there must be opportunity to have conversations about things other than character and plot?

Daniel: The good thing about Willem and Sam, and Frances [O’Connor] for that matter, is they’re all really very social people, and there’s something about be-ing away on location that lends itself to very genuine social interactions.

I had Willem on set in Tasmania for sev-en weeks. During the day it was about the work, but it was an unspoken pact that, at lunchtime, it’s a break. I found Willem a great storyteller, very charm-ing, very entertaining. And his wife was there in Tasmania as well. We would often eat together at night or go have a glass of wine or something. So that kind of social connection was there, which was really great.

We had stayed in contact over the edit, es-pecially as he’d said to me, “Don’t be one of these directors that you have a really in-tense relationship with and then you just kind of drop them. We never hear from di-rectors until they need us for something.”

BC: Dafoe has worked with Scorsese, Lars von Trier, Wes Anderson… and obviously brings a lot of experience to set. Does that change your directorial approach?

Daniel: I didn’t for a moment try and compare myself, or my experience, with that of Scorsese or von Trier. I pitched the project to him as a collaboration from the start and Willem made it clear from the first time I met him that there was going to be no hierarchy between us based on experience or celebrity.

His character is in 104 out of 107 scenes, so I openly invited his input. By the time he arrived in Australia, we were com-pletely on the same page about the char-acter and our work on set became more about the practical realities of the loca-tion we found ourselves in, or the set, or the props.

BC: With such an outdoors schedule, did climate factor heavily? Daniel: Yeah, we were very adaptable and it was fortunate Willem didn’t have vast passages of dialogue to learn. We al-ways had backup scenes on the call sheet. If the weather went a certain way, we would stop what we were doing.

The one thing Willem was very particular about was actually learning the skills that his character needed to have, hunting and trapping and working in the wilderness.

BC: What was a new skill for him on this project?

Daniel: Setting a primitive snare. And skinning and gutting a wallaby, which we both learned is called “field dressing an animal.” We had a wildlife expert, she had three wallaby carcasses and demon-strated to Willem what he had to do – string it up by the legs, get a knife, put

42

ABOVE: Willem Dafoe spent seven weeks on the island of Tasmania. The island’s eco-tourism focus benefited the production with unadulterated wilderness. Photo by Matt Nettheim

IN-DEPTH

it under the neck, make a clean incision and pull the guts out.

She said many people dig a little too deep and accidentally puncture certain organs and get completely sprayed in shit. It smells revolting, it is revolting, and it’s more than likely going to happen. I said to Willem, “Do you want to rehearse with the second carcass?” And he said, “No, let’s go for it.”

With the cameras rolling, he gutted his fi rst wallaby perfectly. He didn’t punc-ture the bowels or the intestines and we didn’t need a second take. He got a round of applause from the crew. It was a pretty impressive effort.

BC: It’s obviously a unique thing to have experience shooting in Australia, but the island of Tasmania is a com-pletely different landscape to the rest of the country.

Daniel: The beautiful thing is that much of Tasmania’s industry is based on tour-ism. There has been a conscious effort over the years to preserve that unique natural environment. Most of the places we shot, we had a road behind us, but for 270 degrees in front of us there was a view of absolutely pristine untouched wilderness. So you can create an incred-ible illusion of being very, very remote, but fulfi ll the practical considerations of being kind to the fi lm crew.

It was option paralysis, no matter which way I turned the camera it looked great. I had to be quite strict with myself about avoiding gratuitous beauty, and making each section of the landscape work emo-tionally and dramatically for whatever part of the story we were at.

I looked back at a lot of the great Aus-tralian landscape fi lms to see how other fi lmmakers had used an Australian land-scape for emotional and dramatic effect, starting with Picnic at Hanging Rock. And then we looked at some of the really great widescreen Hollywood fi lms from the 70s, like Apocalypse Now, Deliver-ance and Days of Heaven.

BC: Did you have to bring all the equipment from the mainland?

Daniel: We worked with a very experi-enced guy who has been in the industry for decades and had moved to “Tasi” about 10 years ago, so we were able to employ him as a local. He was our key grip and also our locations manager, which was perfect because not only did he know the lay of the land, but as a member of the crew, com-pletely understood what we needed. He wasn’t going to take us to a place if there wasn’t an accessible road. That said, most of his gear was still on the mainland, so al-most everything was shipped down. We had general support from Screen Tasmania and part of that involved offsetting the cost of freighting down the gear.

I think we were one of the fi rst projects that Screen Tasmania got behind. There was support from the word “Go.”

BC: Did the producers ever pressure you to shoot on Australia’s mainland?

Daniel: We had to explore that possibility because, like most fi lms shot in Australia, we didn’t have enough money to do what we needed. We looked around the Blue Moun-tains and a busload of other places, but the rocks are a completely different color, the veg-etation is different, plus anywhere we were going to be shooting was still outside a 50-ki-lometer radius to Sydney, which meant we were still going to have to accommodate the crew and the cast. So, really, it came down to

the cost of a few airfares to have a major, ma-jor difference in the look and credibility of it. Once we made the decision to shoot in Tasmania, we went the extra step of deciding, when we were looking for lo-cations, that if any part of the landscape looked like it could have been shot on the mainland, we didn’t use it. We really wanted to go for the places that make Tasmania unique.

BC: Where did everyone stay?

Daniel: It was pretty civilized. We based ourselves in a tourist town called Deloraine and they had some really nice accommoda-tion that the cast stayed at, and some very real motels where the crew stayed.

Most of the town closed at 7:30 at night. Where we were staying, there was a res-taurant in the motel and they said to us, “If you can phone ahead and let us know how many people are going to be coming and what time, we’ll extend our opening.” We tried to tell them it was a fi lm crew, we’re not wrapping until it gets dark, that people have got to put away their gear and that we never know how many people will come. Fortunately, there was one pizza restaurant in the town owned by a young couple, and they realized the business potential. “Red” basically opened their doors to us whenever we wanted to be there. Pretty much half the crew would walk in there every night about 9 o’clock and have a pizza and some fantastic Tasmanian vino. It became the alternative offi ce. We ended up having screenings there.

43

DID YOU KNOW?Although the hunter in this fi lm sets out to fi nd the last Tasmanian Tiger, farmers and bounty hunters killed off most the animals between 1888 and 1909 when a bounty was placed on the animal’s head. In 1936, the last of the Thylacines died in captivity.

WHAT’S UP, DOCS?46

A magical must-see, Beauty is Embarrassing is the skillfully fragmented documentary about art-ist/comedian/banjo performer/set designer/ani-mator/illustrator Wayne White, who has pursued his art forms from Alabama to Tennessee and on to Los Angeles.

Starring Matt Groening, Mark Mothersbaugh, Jon-athan Dayton and Valerie Faris, and Paul Rubens (for whom White designed the sets and puppets on “Peewee’s Playhouse”), and directed by Neil Berkeley, the fi lmmaker places White’s jovial per-sonality front and center. While the artist’s slide-show of his journey serves as the spine of the story, the movie is otherwise a wonderfully wacky and entertaining narrative. The documentary premiered at SxSW in Austin, Texas, appropriate to the fi lm’s subject whose work included music videos for the Smashing Pumpkins and Peter Gabriel. While the fi lm enables the viewer to discover White’s past and his infl uences, it is the fact that White’s kids now want to follow in this parent’s footsteps that is the greatest compliment.

BEAUTY IS EMBARRASSING: The Wayne White Story

WHAT’S UP, DOCS? 47

MARINA ABRAMOVIC: The Artist is Present

ESCAPE FIRE: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare

WE ARE LEGION: The Story of the Hacktivists

In what is undoubtedly one of the most informa-tive documentaries about any artist, Matthew Ak-ers points his camera at Marina Abramovic in the lead-up to her ground-breaking retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, a fi rst for any performance artist.

Candid, sexy and edgy, and softened by the con-templation that age brings, Abramovic bounces between hard-edged perfectionist striving to exercise (or exorcise) her driving forces from beginnings in Eastern Europe and her latest role as mother hen to a group of like-minded souls being readied at her tranquil property on the Hudson to re-enact the various physi-cal challenges that constitute her life’s work to date. Abramovic’s activism through art, and philosophies on experimentation within art’s fl exible boundaries, is hypnotizing, and Akers quietly captures both her unstoppable force and triumphant transcendence.

As Paypal, the Church of Scientology, the former Egyptian government, and even the MPAA found out earlier this year, any attempt to silence the anonymous and free speech of the masked voices of the internet world will not go unpunished.

Rallying behind the Guy Fawkes masks of the anarchist revolutionary in ‘V’ for Vendetta, “Anonymous” is a leaderless collective of individuals engaged in civil disobedience over the web, hacker activists who’ve formed a movement hellbent on maintaining the freedom of all online voices. Having debuted at Slamdance, and played SxSW, Brian Knappenberger’s well-paced tribute to this mysterious presence is mesmerizing.

It’s a political year, and it would thus be remiss of us to dance around a central issue in the 2012 election debates: Healthcare. Despite the long title, Susan Froemke and Matt Heineman’s deftly-edited documentary manages to do something that many docs ignore, that is, to discuss a solution while assessing the problem.

While other agenda documentaries serve to demonize the system, the co-directors present a politically agnostic approach which identifi es the issues and inadequacies that result in the United States’ failing health record: simply put, the system favors quick turnover rather than primary care, it encourages treating the patient for symp-toms rather than seeking to change the foundation upon which pain and suffering is presenting, and it rewards the over-performance of high-profi t surgeries that do not serve the long term health of our patients.

Froemke and Heineman’s doc accomplishes the rare feat of focusing audiences on what seem to be reasonable and rational answers that needn’t take forever to implement, and around which all parties should rally to reverse the status quo.

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The 2012 Cannes Film Festival showed plenty of Palme d’Or promise for English language fi lms - Cosmopolis, Lawless, Killing Them Softly, On the Road, The An-gels’ Share, Moonrise Kingdom, Mud, The Paperboy - but ultimately awarded Euro-pean legend Michael Haneke with the top prize for Love (Amour), a fi lm about an oc-togenarian couple’s struggle to hold onto their love despite their aging frames.

Haneke, a six-time Palme d’Or nominee (who won in 2009 for The White Ribbon,

received the Grand Jury Prize in 2001 for The Piano Teacher and took home the Best Director Prize for Caché in 2005), secured the front-runner’s position as soon as the fi lm screened for critics, and the sometimes diffi cult-to-watch fi lm failed to let go of the reins. Sony Pictures Classics will release the fi lm in the U.S. on December 19, 2012. The most seri-ous competition to the Austrian stalwart seemed to come from Thomas Vinter-berg’s The Hunt (Jagten) whose star Mads Mikkelsen earned the Best Actor jury prize (and possibly the lead villain role in the new Thor installment).

For those seeking out the craziest fl ick of the fest, Leos Carax’s Holy Motors somehow managed to garner both thunderous applause and committed boos upon its debut, the overnight ad-venture following “Monsieur Oscar” as he morphs from one character to the next, and featuring Eva Mendes and Kylie Minogue as supermodel and sui-cidal stewardess respectively amidst the surrealist meanderings.

52

Other big winners in the main competition include:

Matteo Garrone for Reality (Grand Prix)

Carlos Reygadas for Post Tenebras Lux (Best Director)

Cristian Mungiu for Beyond the Hills (Dupa Dealuri) (Best Screenplay)

Cristina Flutur and Cosmina Stratan for Beyond the Hills (Best Actresses)

Mads Mikkelsen for The Hunt (Jagten) (Best Actor)

Ken Loach for The Angels’ Share (Jury Prize)

Love and Lawlessness at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival (MAY 16-27, 2012)

THE F WORD 53

Between raindrops, pavilion parties, screen-ings and press conferences, Beyond Cin-ema’s Alexandria Matos hightailed it to the Martinez hotel to catch up with Lawlessdirector John Hillcoat and his team. Here’s just a little of what they had to say about their gangster tale, which moved to Georgia after fi rst scouting incentive-rich Michigan (“We were very determined to get the Ap-palachian Mountains”).

BC: What sort of research did you both do?

Guy Pearce: John supplied some photo-graphs. It was quite a visual experience, this one, opposed to The Proposition onwhich we were loaded up with reading material. I hate doing research to be hon-est. I always feel like if I can respond instantly to the script then that’s the best way that I work. I feel like it’s the writer’s job to do the research. There’s obviously the book in this case, which I stayed away from, because the charac-ters changed in the adaptation so I felt it was probably better to stay away from the book. I was moved by the script so I didn’t really need to do much more than that. But there were some visual refer-ences, photographs of hair-dos.

BC: Let’s talk about the hair-part.

Guy: Yeah, we took it from a photograph that we saw of someone, I’m not sure who it was. It was important for [Rakes] to ap-pear strange when he arrived in this town. Unappealing, and as if his focus was in all the wrong places.

BC: How diffi cult is it not to fall into caricature?

Pearce: I don’t know what the answer to that is. You just try your utmost to not fall into caricature, ya know? You just rely on your in-stincts and your insight, your intuition and your bullshit meter and try not to be--

Tom Hardy: --Unconvincing.

Pearce: Yeah, Tom put it beautifully one day on set. He said there’s only two kinds of acting, really. There’s convincing and unconvincing.

Hardy: Not convincing.

Pearce: Not convincing… that’s right. So, you know, there are strange people in the world and it’s important if you are playing someone who is extreme and unusual to honor that. And I think the beauty of work-ing with John Hillcoat is that he allows strangeness into his world.

Tom: And who [is] determined as well to stay true even if they fail. It’s not easy to make a movie like this because people don’t want to invest in movies like this. They want super-heroes and stuff, which is great, but it’s very hard to tell dramas in a way, in these times. It’s hard times fi nancially and economically.

GUY PEARCE(Special Agent Charlie Rakes)

& TOM HARDY (Forrest Bondurant)

BC: Does working in these vast locations help you get into character?

Pearce: Well, it did for me because my guy is not from this area at all so he has a completely judgmental perspective of anything outside of the structure of a city. Ultimately, he looks upon anything that he fi nds in this area as disgusting and dis-tasteful. In a way it was diffi cult because Georgia is quite beautiful and we shot in Peachtree, but it certainly adds, it’s like wearing a costume.

BC: Did you have the chance to explore the area or did you prefer to stay close to set in the hotel?

Pearce: Oh, no, I drove around and ex-plored a lot. And we fi lmed in a number of odd places and so it seemed every time that we went to set it was to a dif-ferent part of the area. so yeah I got to have a bit of a look around.

THE F WORD

BC: You both had experience with HBO’s “In Treatment.” What was it like to be a part of the series?

Mia Wasikowska: That was one of my most favorite experiences, if not my most favorite. Just because that material is very diffi cult to come across. It’s almost more material than you fi nd in a whole feature fi lm. It’s, like, nine half-hour episodes, so it’s a lot of time and a really in-depth explo-ration of the character, which is really rare.

Dane DeHaan: Especially for young ac-tors. I think it’s one of the only things out there that really takes a young actor and treats them like an actor. It gives you re-ally challenging material and challenges you to meet those expectations, and sur-rounds you with incredible people to help you get through that.

Mia: To fi nd material as a young person that resembles the reality of being a young person is rare because it’s much more at-tractive to watch a stereotype or some-thing that’s idealized but that isn’t neces-sarily reality.

BC: And how was fi lming in Georgia? Do you appreciate being on set and away from everyday life to focus on your character?

Dane: What I liked about Georgia was all of the golf courses (laughs). On my days off I just played golf all the time. Peachtree City in an interesting place. Everyone gets around on golf carts, which is strange. It’s always nice to get to know another part of the world. At least for a short period of time.

Mia: Yeah, it is. It’s a cool thing that you never really feel like a tourist because

on each film you live somewhere for a couple months, so that’s really cool be-cause you get to know the place in a dif-ferent way than you would if you were there for three days.

BC: What did you learn specifi cally on this set?

Dane: I think watching Guy [Pearce] for instance, and seeing how much care and attention he puts into not only the char-acter’s inner life but the physical appear-ances of his character. He is so particular about it and it is all rooted in the circum-stance. Who else would have thought, “Oh, maybe I’ll shave off my eyebrows and shave a part in my hair.” And it still completely works. I think his attention to cosmetic detail is something that I really took from him.

54

Mia Wasikowska(Bertha Minnix)

& Dane DeHaan (Cricket Pate)

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THE F WORD 55

SONOMAINTERNATIONALFILM FESTIVAL(April 11-15, 2012)

15 years old, but utilizing ‘International’ in its title for the fi rst time, SIFF’s Kevin Mc-Neely took ownership of this destination-focused festival and bolted from its start-ing gate with Luc Besson’s The Lady timed coincidentally/perfectly to the election to parliament of Myanmar’s 1991 Nobel Peace Prize Winner Aung San Suu Kyi.

With enthusiastic audiences fi lling seats in a range of venues each within walking distance, and special events that included an entertaining tribute to cinematic pop culture denizen Christopher Lloyd (Back to the Future, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, “Taxi” and Who Framed Roger Rab-bit?), a provocative live performance of “This Dirty World” by John Waters, and the world premiere of Sir Sean Connery’s animated effort Sir Billi with Dame Shir-ley Bassey in attendance, SIFF provided key personalities in its programming that mark this fest as a stand-out amongst its location-centric peers.

THE F WORD56

TOP: Beyond Cinema’s Elliot Kotek moderates a tribute to character actor Christopher Lloyd; Bottom: Dame Shirley Bassey (left) may have had the jewels, but John Waters (right) was presented with a SIFF crown by festival director Kevin McNeely. Photos by Patrice Ward

Utilizing Sonoma’s status in the foodie com-munity - Girl and the Fig, Estate, El Dorado Kitchen, The Cave, Della Santina’s, Epicu-rean Connection, and Swiss House to name just a few – and providing ongoing pairings with local wines such as Acacia, Chateau St. Jean and Envolve, the only danger fac-ing this festival is a potential mid-fest loss of attendees to food comas, food babies and jury member naps in the historic central square (California’s Bear Republic flag was first raised here).

With film festivals in the not-too-distant Mill Valley, Napa Valley and Santa Rosa peppered throughout the year, Sonoma has certainly thrown down its gauntlet in the race to wear the wine region’s crown.

We also have the world’s largest cowboy boot, if you’re interested.

ALBERTA IS 255,000 SQUARE KM OF UNEXPECTED FILMMAKING GLORY WITH CREWS AND INCENTIVES TO MATCH.IT’S AFRICA. IT’S ARIZONA. IT’S ANTARCTICA. IT’S AFGHANISTAN. ACTUALLY, IT’S ALBERTA.

• Funding of up to 30 per cent available for production.

• $5 million per-project cap.

• Flexible grant equivalent to a labour-based tax credit of 45 to 55 per cent.

THE F WORD 57

MAGIC HOUR

Perched in the sky, smack dab in the middle

of sin city, Heaven’s laid claim to a little hotel

action. It’s pleasure center-centric, designed

to give you a visceral experience of “the best

of the best,” and is the only hotel in Las Ve-

gas (among only four in the US) to receive the

prestigious Forbes Five Star designation in all

three categories; hotel, spa and restaurant.

It’s obvious why super-stars like Josh Gro-ban or Janet Jackson, or attendees of Cin-emaCon, and those who’ve just wrapped on a three-month shoot, would want to recali-brate at the Mandarin Oriental Las Vegas.

Once the elevator bell announces your ar-rival on the 23rd fl oor, it’s like someone hit

the mute button. Your own mother would pass you by, unnoticed. Service staff are practically invisible until your need of them arises. Simply make eye contact and they’ll respond as is if you were their only guest.

Touted as Vegas’ premiere Zen zone, The Mandarin Oriental is designed to remedy an over-taxed nervous system and to ap-peal to people who notice the little things, like bamboo bowls of aromatherapy sea salts alongside porcelain tubs so deep you need a step-ladder to get out. Or decorative bowls of fl oating fl ower petals with little love notes reminding you to stay hydrated while in the desert.

The rooms are spectacularly lit. Floor-to-ceiling windows frame spectacular views of the city, its surrounding mountains, and the halogen and neon glow of The Strip (which can also be eliminated with the au-tomated blackout curtains).

The hotel takes great pride in providing for tech-savvy customers, a motherboard attached to each fl at-screen can operate just about any technology you can think to

bring. But even though you could bring the assemblage, rough cut and hard drives, should you?

5-STAR SPAJennifer Lynn, the director of the hotel’s 1930’s Shanghai-designed holistic spa, ex-plains why the hotel has become an indus-try insider, “When it comes to our celebrity clientele we get a lot of repeat visitors be-cause of the subtle things, as well as the high level security and the special access they can get to the building. I can imagine in such a high profi le life, you might always feel guarded, but here you can really let your guard down.”

She went on to describe a treatment called the “Art of Love,” and it doesn’t take long to feel the dopamine kick from her descrip-tion of the service:

INT. SPA ROOM – DAYSequestered, and lit only by candles, the therapist starts at your feet, “the gateway the body,” and spends the next three hours working his or her way up every (appro-priate) inch, topping you off with a scalp

58

Mandarin Oriental Las Vegas Luxury with a TwistBy Angela Bakke

massage. The products are all based with essential oils (your choice of two scent palates). It’s a divine touch, and the fi rst of a thousand to follow.

A “Twist” Of Molecular Gastronomy

Rounding out the fi ve-star trifecta is the ho-tel’s restaurant, Twist by Pierre Gagnaire. Renowned for his molecular cuisine, Gag-naire morphs textures and visual consisten-cies to harvest unexpected fl avors. One side dish might include pine nuts, Culatello ham and Gorgonzola cheese in the form (and with the texture) of ice cream. It works won-derfully. Let’s face it, if you’re able to travel to Vegas, then you’re able to suspend your day-to-day reality. Your reward is a celebra-tion of the senses.

Just as unexpected as his creations, Chef Gagnaire at 62 is a playful soul with the energy of a precocious eight-year-old, his youthful magic coursing through the veins of a three-star Michelin chef. He describes cheffi ng as “translating your spirit through your hands!”

Chef Gagnaire clearly operates with the man-tra that life should be taken lightly. The Vegas version of his eponymous restaurants is de-signed “to be fun, not pretentious.”

Just as likely to be joining you in the din-ing room are Liam Neeson, Helen Mir-ren, Lance Armstrong, Kevin Spacey and shoe-genius Christian Louboutin, each of whom endorsed the hotel in exchange for a $10,000 donation to a charity of choice, ranging from Unicef to St. Vincent’s Meals on Wheels.

A minute from the madness of Vegas, but operating from the sky above it, you’ll be reminiscing before you leave and plan-ning another shoot just so that you can return to “recuperate” more often.

SHOOTING IN PROGRESS

HERE IT’S POSSIBLEHERE IT’S EASY

www.bcncatfilmcommission.com

The Mandarin Oriental is situated at 3752 Las Vegas Blvd. South Las Vegas, NV 89158. For immediate effect, plughttp://www.mandarinoriental.com/las-vegas/spa/ into your search engineinstead of going to the wrap party.

61THE COMMISH

VICKSON HANGULAFilm Commissioner, Namibia

Previous gig: Filmmaker.

What impact has your offi ce al-ready had on Namibia’s industry? A meeting with Colin Gibson, pro-duction manager of Mad Max: Fury Road, at AFCI’s Locations Show led to the discussion of shooting segments of the fi lm in the Namibian desert.

Filmmakers’ incentives? Still being worked out. In the mean-time, Namibia has a 15% VAT re-bate system.

Favorite project shot in Namibia? Angelina Jolie’s project, Beyond Borders, which was famous all over the world. And the cherry on top of the cake was when she came back to have her baby in Namibia. That, I think, did us wonders.

What unique aspects make it con-ducive to fi lming? We’ve got the infrastructure. Everybody is con-versant in English, we’ve got 12-13 hours of day of clear sunshine, our environment is not polluted. No-where in the world, I think, do you get unspoiled beauty and sunshine as well as beauty for the sound peo-ple because there’s no noise, no in-dustry to pollute the sound and air.

What must visitors eat? Kapana [grilled slices of beef and fat]. It’s not for vegetarians.

Quotable quote: Let the people shoot… Let the world start consum-ing Namibian culture.

62 THE COMMISH

ELLIS PEREZFilm Commissioner, Dominican Republic

Previous gig: Radio and television host. Former Minister of Tourism.

Biggest challenge? The law was new, and was going to mark the before and after for fi lming in the DR, in order to apply the law and obtain the result we were looking for, it was important to make the law well known nation-ally and internationally. We have been attending the festivals, promoting ourselves, we’re getting to be known.

Where are productions primarily coming from? We have a production from Andy Garcia, which is a Cana-dian/Dominican fi lm. We have people from Spain interested in shooting three or four movies, one of which will be The Life and Times of Julio Igle-sias. We had a French movie shoot last January and have another French movie (from Studio 37 in Paris) slat-ed for the fall. We have a number of American movies that should be done in the course of this year and, besides that, we have a number of Dominican movies that will make up 50-60% of total production this year.

Is your job primarily to promote and encourage local fi lmmakers or to at-tract international productions? Our law has two parts. One is directed to Dominican producers, which creates an attractive fund for investing in Do-minican movies. And, for foreign pro-ducers, we say we will give you back 25% of your local spend as a transfer-able tax credit.

Who’s training the Dominican fi lm-makers and technicians?We had professors come from an Ar-gentinian school to Santo Domingo and trained about 40 students. And we just fi nished an intensive course led by faculty from the International School of Film and Television of San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba.

Quotable quote?Movies are make believe, movies are fantasy, movies are creativity.

63THE COMMISH

For more of each of these interviews, as well as conversations with fi lm commissioners from regions around the globe, visit http://www.youtube.com/BeyondCinemaMagazine

ANA ILICExecutive Director, Serbian Film Commission

Previous gig: Tourism. Primarily pro-moting Serbia as a destination for business and convention tourism.

Biggest challenge? It took a while to educate people locally about what fi lm commissions do and how they do it, and then to convince the government that it was something they need. The Serbian Film Commission is an inde-pendent association of fi lm profes-sionals and fi lm producers formed to promote Serbia for international fi lm productions and to help producers get the services they need.

Biggest impact a project has had on your offi ce? It was Coriolanus, Ralph Fiennes’ directorial debut. Fiennes chose Belgrade for the majority of production, plus a short shoot to uti-lize the coastline of Montenegro. It got a lot of coverage in the interna-tional media and we got a lot of lo-cal people interested and trained on that project. That started the buzz on Serbia internationally and helped us internally to show how impor-tant projects like these are. Lockoutis also a great example, the produc-tion was shot entirely in brand new studios just out of Belgrade and used the crews, set builders and produc-tion designers we have.

Quotable quote: I’m a strong believer that we should all work together as a region to promote the region. It’s in all of our interests to keep Eastern Europe interesting and attractive for fi lm producers so that they combine the countries. Our locations are very diverse over the region, so we should all work together.

BEYOND YOUR HORIZON66

Where you might have seen it: In the open sea, in the outer archipelago near Porvoo, Finland. interested in an adventure? Plug the co-ordinates 60°6’30”N 25°24’20”E into your GPS.

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BEYOND YOUR HORIZON

Beyond Cinema Magazine - June 2012 Edition

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Transcript of Beyond Cinema Magazine - June 2012 Edition