The Canberra International Film Festival has secured producer Harvey Weinstein as the subject of its inaugural Body of Work retrospective. Picture: Getty Images Source: Getty Images
THE Canberra International Film Festival has scored a coup, securing producer Harvey Weinstein as the subject of its inaugural Body of Work retrospective.
Details are sketchy ahead of the official announcement of the program this week but the multi-Academy Award-winning producer of Shakespeare in Love and Pulp Fiction will be in the nation's capital for the festival from October 30 to November 10. And he may be joined by some of the stars or directors of his films, which include a batch of anticipated Academy Award contenders: The Butler, August: Osage County, Fruitvale Station, Grace of Monaco and Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. The Weinstein Company's recent acquisitions include Australian films Tracks, starring Mia Wasikowska, and Jonathan Teplitzky's The Railway Man, with Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman.
SPEAKING of Weinstein and Kidman, the actress will join Firth again after the Weinstein Company picked up the film rights to children's favourite Paddington Bear to make a live-action feature. Created by Michael Bond in 1958, the marmalade sandwich-loving bear found in a railway station and adopted will be rendered in CGI and voiced by Firth. Also in the cast are Downton Abbey's Hugh Bonneville and Blue Jasmine's Sally Hawkins as the bear's adoptive parents, Mr and Mrs Brown. Jim Broadbent will play antiques shop owner Mr Gruber, Julie Walters will play the housekeeper, Mrs Bird, while Kidman, according to Screen International, will play "an evil taxidermist determined to wreak revenge" in the film by Bunny and the Bull's Paul King. Look out for a candid interview with Kidman in The Weekend Australian Magazine's 25th anniversary edition on Saturday.
EXPAT James Wan has become the second filmmaker to direct two films with $US40 million opening weekends in a calendar year. The Melburnian, who created the Saw franchise with Leigh Whannell, directed Insidious: Chapter 2, starring the leads from his original Insidious, Rose Byrne and Patrick Wilson. The horror sequel earned $US41m at the North American box office last weekend, three months after his The Conjuring opened there with $US41.8m before earning $US135m in North America and another $US135m globally. Insidious 2 also stars Whannell and Angus Sampson. Wan is directing Fast and Furious 7; Insidious 3 will go ahead with Whannell writing, although Wan is not expected to direct. And the other filmmaker(s) to have two hits released in one year? Andy and Lana (then Larry) Wachowski, whose The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions opened within six months of each other in 2003.
FRED Schepisi's latest film, Words and Pictures, has been picked up for a US release after screening at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film about two teachers falling in love, written by Gerald Di Pego and starring Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche, has been picked up by Roadside Attractions. Umbrella Entertainment will distribute the film in Australia.
CINEMATOGRAPHER Adam Arkapaw won an Emmy (best cinematography in a miniseries/telemovie) this week for his work filming the miniseries Top of the Lake. Arkapaw, who shot Animal Kingdom, Lore and Snowtown, was a winner at the Creative Arts Emmys, the technical awards given a week before the prime-time Emmys. Top of the Lake, a murder mystery directed by Jane Campion aired on Foxtel's UKTV this year.
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