SWERVE announces Australian and North American distribution

Jump Street Films will release Craig Lahiff’s SWERVE as part of its strategic positioning platform, together with the film’s distribution company Duo Art Entertainment.

A simultaneous release date with the North American opening is planned for later this year.

Moviehouse Entertainment yesterday announced at Berlin’s European Film Market that the film has sold to the Cohen Media Group for North America and High Fliers for the United Kingdom. This adds to the film’s previous sales to Italy, Germany and the Middle East, with offers currently pending for France, Benelux, Scandinavia, Latin America and China.

A sexy and explosive Australian noir, SWERVE is written and directed by Craig Lahiff (BLACK AND WHITE, HEAVEN’S BURNING). SWERVE stars Jason Clarke, Emma Booth and David Lyons – Australia’s up and coming stars on the international stage – with a great supporting cast of Vince Colosimo, Travis McMahon, Roy Billing and Chris Haywood.

The tightly paced thriller was an audience favourite at the prestigious Hamptons International Film Festival in New York State recently. It had its world premiere at last year’s Melbourne International Film Festival and will open next month’s Australian Film Festival in Sydney.

REBELLION releasing April 12

Jump Street Films Developing New Content

Jump Street Films is partnering with a US-based private equity group on a multi-purpose company that will incorporate finance, production, distribution and sales.
Jump Street Films will develop and acquire feature films with an Australian connection that have international viability. We are now seeking submissions for partially-packaged, quality commercial films to produce under the 5 to 25 million dollar budget range.
Leveraging an existing opportunity in the marketplace, the group will also handle international sales out of NY and LA, combining significant experience across all components. Jump Street Films will have the first option to distribute the films in Australia before they are taken to marketplace.
Further details will be released at a later date.

Jump Street Films moves into multi-service strategic positioning

Jump Street Films will expand its core distribution business to act as a strategic consultant for Australian filmmakers looking to position their films in the marketplace. The service will specialize in publicity strategy for films in pre-production and production, and theatrical/ancillary campaign strategy for films in post-production.

Company director Jamie Bialkower will manage the new strand together with Diana Peters, former Vice President of Publicity for The Weinstein Company. Activity has already commenced on Richard Gray’s BLINDER, to be shot in Torquay in February.

“In this day and age when filmmakers are increasingly acting as their own distributors, and the traditional distribution structures are constantly evolving, we want to work closely with the client to formulate the best way for their film to reach viewers”, Bialkower said. “Diana and I have both worked across distribution and publicity for a number of years, in different countries, and we feel that the combined resources we can offer are very much linked and stronger together.”

Jump Street Films will also formally announce a partnership with a New York-based production company in the coming weeks.

Having recently distributed (together with Sharmill Films) Richard Gray’s SUMMER CODA, and previously developed a comprehensive national release and publicity campaign for Dean O’Flaherty’s BEAUTIFUL, on behalf of Kojo Pictures, the next release for Jump Street Films will be Mathieu Kassovitz’s REBELLION in March 2012. Past acquisitions include THE GROCER’S SON, THE ECLIPSE, A GUIDE TO RECOGNIZING YOUR SAINTS and THE KING, and together with Sharmill Films THE ITALIAN, EDEN IS WEST and COPACABANA.

COPACABANA RELEASING ON DVD NOVEMBER 2

Jump Street Films Acquires Mathieu Kassovitz's REBELLION

Jump Street Films has acquired REBELLION, a searing political epic from Mathieu Kassovitz which premiered last month at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Budgeted at nearly $20 million, this uncompromising film is based on an incident that occurred in 1988 in the French colony of New Caledonia. Kassovitz is Philippe Legorjus, an elite counter-terrorism captain who is flown in with 300 of his men when a group of indigenous Kanak separatists take 30 French police hostage. The rebels are demanding independence, and the captain has 10 days to negotiate a settlement. But with the army treating the crisis as a war on hostile soil, and an election in France rapidly approaching, Legorjus is confronted with a situation that will push his own morality to the brink.

While REBELLION offers the nail-biting pleasures of a military action thriller, at its heart it is a boldly intelligent exploration of ideological conflict, of words vs. actions, trust vs. betrayal, and of the choices a soldier must make in times of intense volatility.

The director, actor, co-writer, co-producer and editor of REBELLION, Kassovitz is renowned as director for his controversial Cannes-winning LA HAINE, along with THE CRIMSON RIVERS and American thrillers such as GOTHIKA. As an actor, he may be best known as the male lead in AMELIE opposite Audrey Tautou and alongside Nicole Kidman in BIRTHDAY GIRL.

REBELLION will screen at the London Film Festival next week, and has been acquired by Lionsgate for UK distribution. It will be released in Australia in the first half of 2012.

The trailer can be viewed here: http://www.iunozat.com/rebellion/trailer.html


ACCLAIM FOR REBELLION
France’s maverick filmmaker returns in full form for this major production... A tightly made action drama - SCREEN INTERNATIONAL
Muscularly fulfills the duties of a war movie, a historical reckoning and a political intervention... A refreshingly unusual mega-production for its attention to the subtleties of language, to the role of words in arming or disarming weapons - VARIETY
Kassovitz’s best movie since LA HAINE. Artistically ambitious, beautifully written and politically incisive - LE FILM FRANCAIS
An outstanding movie - PARIS MATCH
Kassovitz is back! Terrence Malick meets Apocalypse Now! - LE MOUV
A brilliant movie, impeccable stylistically with fine directorial flourishes - LE FIGARO

Sight and Sound - "Forgotten Pleasures"

The King

James Marsh, US/UK, 2005

By Catherine Wheatley, academic and critic, UK

Back in 2006 I was the only person to select James Marsh’s debut feature in my contribution to S&S’s films of the year poll and assumed my critical faculties had failed me. Others were not kind to The King; indeed Variety’s Todd McCarthy expressed particular distaste, condemning the film as “noxious” and “aggravating”, before taking Marsh to task for the film’s uneasy occupation of a middle ground between atmospheric emphasis and docudrama intensity. Yet as 2008’s much-lauded Man on Wire has borne out, it’s precisely this quality that gives Marsh’s films their discomforting hold over us. Revisiting The King today, it’s remarkable how much Marsh’s Southern gothic prefigures another pair of critical hits from that year, namely No Country for Old Men andThere Will be Blood. It was Marsh, not P.T. Anderson, who first connected the angular, earnest severity of Paul Dano with religious zealotry, casting him alongside Gael García Bernal as the Abel and Cain sons of a Texan preacher played by William Hurt (an underrated classic himself). It was his film, before the Coens’, that squeezed out an ophidian narrative that went nowhere we expected it to but that was constantly infused with the faint, nauseating stench of unfathomable evil.The King is worth seeing for these reasons and many more, but especially for one indelible tracking shot that features towards the film’s end. It’s dreadful and gorgeous, and lingers with me even – perhaps especially – on the brightest of days.

Acclaim for Copacabana

4 STARS “A complex central performance illuminates this gentle character study. Huppert’s performance is rich, nuanced, internal and very natural… superb actress” Paul Byrnes, Sydney Morning Herald

“The age-defiant Isabelle Huppert shines in this soufflé-light French comedy” Jim Schembri, The Age

“Impossible to tear your eyes from Huppert, who imbues her character with so much intelligence and sharp humour… gives a genuine gravitas” Mark Naglazas, West Australian

“Entertaining comedy… Huppert reminds us what a deft comic actor she can be” Philippa Hawker, The Age

“Huppert gives a sharp comic performance as a free-spirited figure who decides to remake herself when her much straighter daughter decides to get married” Philippa Hawker, The Age

“Huppert’s delicious performance is in a strikingly new register… adds a glorious new side to the Huppert screen persona” Lynden Barber, The Australian

“The always-amazing Isabelle Huppert… is nothing short of brilliant. A character piece in the best sense… surprising and delightful” Ain’t It Cool News

“A very good film. Recommended” Julie Rigg, ABC Radio National

“An emotionally intelligent film” Jason Di Rosso, ABC Radio National

“Delightful. Guaranteed good time” Des Partridge

“A characteristically uncompromising performance by Huppert… endlessly fascinating” Tom Ryan, Sunday Age

“Played with an abudance of understanding by a vibrant and defiant Huppert” Andiee Paviour, WHO

“In a quietly comic drama, Huppert delivers a rich portrait of a colourful and compassionate woman facing a crisis” Garry Maddox, Sydney Morning Herald

“A stunning comic creation” Filmink

“Very funny and very smart” Peter Galvin, SBS

“An extremely charming and sweet film, pleasingly revealing yet another side to the chameleon-like Isabelle Huppert” Thomas Caldwell, Cinema Autopsy

“The luminous Huppert takes centre stage with an ebullient performance… fun, affirming and supremely joyful” Alice Tynan, Concrete Playground

“Wonderful Huppert… a quirky feel-good comedy” Empire

“Huppert’s effervescent performance… the scenes with her daughter Lolita Chammah have a special resonance” The Blurb

4 STARS “A delight, notable primarily for the vivacious, frequently very funny lead performance by Isabelle Huppert” Time Out London

“Huppert delights as a middle-aged hippie who must take a boring job in order to pay for the wedding of her mainstream daughter” New York Post

“A charming and honest comedy with a masterful performance by Isabelle Huppert” San Francisco Bay Guardian

“Hilarious. Huppert is hugely believable” Variety

“Huppert and Chammah make a strong mother-daughter team, accomplices who have pulled off a coup” New York Times

“A delight. Gently comic in tone, Marc Fitoussi has created a whole cast of well-rounded dramatic characters with light and shade. May well lend itself to an English-language remake” The Telegraph

“Huppert’s performance is another triumph of acting, for this muse of Chabrol who can move us to smile and cry in a single shot” Vogue

4 STARS “We laughed uproariously” Liberation

5 STARS “A jubilant comedy” Metro

“Extremely funny. Huppert illuminates the film. A comedy with a touch of rebelliousness, both enthusiastic and fresh. Dazzling colours” La Tribune

4 STARS “People are talking a lot about Marc Fitoussi’s “Copacabana”. Should be one of this summer’s hits” Le Parisien

“A refreshing and optimistic comedy in which the great Isabelle Huppert plays a balancing act with gusto. She demonstrates once again that she is the best” Paris Match

“A virtuoso performance” La-Croix

“At once funny, sharp and moving, as enchanting as a Brazilian samba” Le Journal Du Dimanche

5 STARS “A total success, which fills us with happiness. Isabelle Huppert confirms her immense talent. One cannot recommend this small jewel enough” Excessif

“Huppert lights up this bittersweet comedy” France Soir

“We had forgotten that Huppert could make us laugh. She demonstrates it with a bang in this lovely film” Les Echos

“A feel good movie in the French style” Glamour