Exclusive: Black Widow cinematographer Gabriel Beristain has signed on to direct adaptations of the books Brooklyn Story and 11 Days in Hell, which were recently acquired by Wallner Media.
The former project is a film, which Suzanne Corso adapted from her best-selling novel of the same name. The latter is a TV series, based on the non-fiction book of the same name by William T. Harper. Beristain will direct all 11 episodes, scripted by Bruce and Brett Moore.
The first novel in a trilogy, Brooklyn Story is set in the summer of 1978. It centers on Samantha Bonti, who is fifteen years old, half Jewish and half Italian, and hesitantly edging toward pure Brooklyn, even if her dreams of something more are bigger than the neighborhood girls’ teased hair. Samantha lives in Bensonhurst with her mother, Joan, a woman abandoned and scarred in a ruinous marriage, poisoned with cynicism, and shackled by addictions,...
The former project is a film, which Suzanne Corso adapted from her best-selling novel of the same name. The latter is a TV series, based on the non-fiction book of the same name by William T. Harper. Beristain will direct all 11 episodes, scripted by Bruce and Brett Moore.
The first novel in a trilogy, Brooklyn Story is set in the summer of 1978. It centers on Samantha Bonti, who is fifteen years old, half Jewish and half Italian, and hesitantly edging toward pure Brooklyn, even if her dreams of something more are bigger than the neighborhood girls’ teased hair. Samantha lives in Bensonhurst with her mother, Joan, a woman abandoned and scarred in a ruinous marriage, poisoned with cynicism, and shackled by addictions,...
- 7/14/2021
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
Argentina’s Sebastian Schindel is venturing into unfamiliar territory with romcom-spy adventure hybrid “Mienteme” (“Lie to Me”), which he plans to shoot next year.
“Although most of my filmography falls into the “psychological thriller” genre, with a strong social context, what excites me most about making films is the possibility of exploring and experimenting in new areas,” said Schindel, adding: “I have always wanted to dive into the romantic comedy world for some time now, so ‘Mienteme’ is based on a cherished script I’ve been developing for the past few years.”
Schindel’s past films, including “The Crimes that Bind,” Argentina’s current submission to Spain’s Oscar equivalent, the Goyas, are screening on Netflix.
This time round, however, the Chilean-Argentine co-production has already been pre-financed through private equity and a Latin American distribution deal with Bf Paris, said co-producer-actor Lucas Akoskin. “We’d rather finance it through a...
“Although most of my filmography falls into the “psychological thriller” genre, with a strong social context, what excites me most about making films is the possibility of exploring and experimenting in new areas,” said Schindel, adding: “I have always wanted to dive into the romantic comedy world for some time now, so ‘Mienteme’ is based on a cherished script I’ve been developing for the past few years.”
Schindel’s past films, including “The Crimes that Bind,” Argentina’s current submission to Spain’s Oscar equivalent, the Goyas, are screening on Netflix.
This time round, however, the Chilean-Argentine co-production has already been pre-financed through private equity and a Latin American distribution deal with Bf Paris, said co-producer-actor Lucas Akoskin. “We’d rather finance it through a...
- 12/1/2020
- by Anna Marie de la Fuente
- Variety Film + TV
Argentina’s preeminent writer-director Lucia Puenzo, who has proven her showrunner chops with “La Jauria” for Amazon Prime and eco-thriller series “Cromo,” has partnered with Gaumont, the producers of Netflix mega-hit “Narcos,” in a multi-project development deal.
Among the projects in the pact is “Futuro Desierto,” a near-future, dystopian thriller that turns on a robotics engineer who moves with his family to an isolated town in Patagonia where he is ordered to test the first humanoid robots in secret. Puenzo, whose notable film credits include the Cannes-selected “Xxy” and “The German Doctor,” will co-showrun and direct multiple episodes with her brother, Nicolas Puenzo, co-director of “Cromo” and “La Jauría.”
Another project, tentatively titled “This is Not a Love Song,” follows the extraordinary life of Tina Modotti, the eccentric Italian feminist photographer, model, actress and revolutionary political activist who was among the leading lights of cosmopolitan Mexico City in the early 1920s,...
Among the projects in the pact is “Futuro Desierto,” a near-future, dystopian thriller that turns on a robotics engineer who moves with his family to an isolated town in Patagonia where he is ordered to test the first humanoid robots in secret. Puenzo, whose notable film credits include the Cannes-selected “Xxy” and “The German Doctor,” will co-showrun and direct multiple episodes with her brother, Nicolas Puenzo, co-director of “Cromo” and “La Jauría.”
Another project, tentatively titled “This is Not a Love Song,” follows the extraordinary life of Tina Modotti, the eccentric Italian feminist photographer, model, actress and revolutionary political activist who was among the leading lights of cosmopolitan Mexico City in the early 1920s,...
- 10/22/2020
- by Anna Marie de la Fuente
- Variety Film + TV
Rachel Feldman’s “Kinks,” Monica Bellucci-starrer “Radical Eye,” Nabil Ayouch’s “Black-Out” and “Perfect Monsters,” from “Roma” producer Nicolas Celis, all figure among the 16 drama series projects to be pitched at this year’s second – and expanded – In Development, a joint venture of MipTV and Canneseries.
Also making the cut at In Development, known as well as the Cannes Drama Creative Forum, is “Twenty-Four Land,” an ambitious WWII project from Portugal, and “A Good Year,” from relatively new Flemish outfit Mockingbird Pictures. Chosen from 376 submissions, up on last year’s inaugural edition, the 16-title In Development projects will be pitched at an event which play out this year over an extended schedule of three-and-a-half days as MipTV itself places ever more emphasis on project development, not just distribution.
The spread of country of origin of projects has also grown from a still predominantly European base, but taking in titles from Mexico,...
Also making the cut at In Development, known as well as the Cannes Drama Creative Forum, is “Twenty-Four Land,” an ambitious WWII project from Portugal, and “A Good Year,” from relatively new Flemish outfit Mockingbird Pictures. Chosen from 376 submissions, up on last year’s inaugural edition, the 16-title In Development projects will be pitched at an event which play out this year over an extended schedule of three-and-a-half days as MipTV itself places ever more emphasis on project development, not just distribution.
The spread of country of origin of projects has also grown from a still predominantly European base, but taking in titles from Mexico,...
- 3/1/2019
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Monica Bellucci has been cast as feminist revolutionary Tina Modotti in a miniseries to be set in Mexico, Los Angeles and Italy and to be directed by prize-winning Italian director Edoardo de Angelis (“Indivisible”).
The role is one that Bellucci has wanted to play for years. Modotti was an Italian who emigrated to the U.S. in 1913, acted briefly in Hollywood silent films, then became known during the 1930s in Europe and Mexico for both her photography and her left-wing revolutionary fervor. She joined a group of major contemporary artists in Mexico and is considered a proto-feminist who advocated new freedoms for women in the early 20th century.
The six-part series, which is in advanced development, is titled “Radical Eye: The Life and Times of Tina Modotti.“ It is being produced by London-based husband-and-wife team Paula Vaccaro and Aaron Brookner (“Uncle Howard”), who have written the screenplay. They will produce via their Pinball London company.
The role is one that Bellucci has wanted to play for years. Modotti was an Italian who emigrated to the U.S. in 1913, acted briefly in Hollywood silent films, then became known during the 1930s in Europe and Mexico for both her photography and her left-wing revolutionary fervor. She joined a group of major contemporary artists in Mexico and is considered a proto-feminist who advocated new freedoms for women in the early 20th century.
The six-part series, which is in advanced development, is titled “Radical Eye: The Life and Times of Tina Modotti.“ It is being produced by London-based husband-and-wife team Paula Vaccaro and Aaron Brookner (“Uncle Howard”), who have written the screenplay. They will produce via their Pinball London company.
- 8/7/2018
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
The hit movie Frida debuted in October 2002 with Salma Hayek playing famous Mexican artist Frida Khalo and Ashley Judd as photographer and activist Tina Modotti, and now the two have given us the reunion we didn't know we needed. Salma and Ashley posed together and were all smiles on the Golden Globes red carpet Sunday night. For those who don't remember, Salma and Ashley shared a very intimate dance in the movie, and Salma has since been vocal about her experience working on the movie and fighting off producer Harvey Weinstein's advances. Keep scrolling to see these two reunite for the red carpet. RelatedICYMI: Here's Why People Are Wearing Black to the Golden Globes...
- 1/8/2018
- by Celia Fernandez
- Popsugar.com
The lives of great artists are notorious for their resistance to the biopic treatment. The iconic Mexican painter Frida Kahlo proves no exception.
While this film dutifully chronicles her suffering, obsessions and battles with her own body, it stands in pale contrast to Kahlo's real biography, which is her amazing paintings.
In development for nearly a decade, battling rival projects and studio skittishness, "Frida" emerges as a fairly convention biopic rather than the artistic statement one might anticipate given director Julie Taymor's theatrical background and actress-producer Salma Hayek's passion for the role.
The film hues closely to the facts of Kahlo's life and her tempestuous relationship with world-famous muralist Diego Rivera, her mentor and husband. Taymor puts Frida's vivid and often disturbing art to sagacious use, slipping the famous images into scenes to reflect or comment on dramatic developments. But the film somehow misses the mark, having made rather tidy a messy and brutally painful life.
As more than 100 published books concern Kahlo and Rivera, one should never underestimate the public appetite for this story. With a stellar cast -- Alfred Molina as Rivera, Geoffrey Rush as Leon Trotsky, Edward Norton as Nelson Rockefeller, Antonio Banderas as muralist David Siqueiros and Ashley Judd as photographer Tina Modotti -- along with a careful rollout and Miramax's marketing muscle, "Frida" does have potential as an art house hit. The outlook overseas and in ancillary markets is even more positive.
The movie begins on the day of Frida's one and only exhibit in Mexico, in the spring of 1953. Her health has deteriorated so greatly, the doctor forbids her to leave her bed. So she has her bed carted to the gallery. On the ride over, the movie goes into a flashback. Frida, a high-school tomboy, loves to get into mischief with a gang of boys. She sneaks into a school auditorium where the great Rivera is painting.
The movie quickly moves to the trauma that shapes her life: A trolley accident in 1925 leaves her impaled on a metal rod. So devastated is her body that it's a miracle she even lives, much less that she walks again. Lying in bed for months, bored and in pain, she takes up painting. Her parents (Roger Rees and Patricia Reyes Spindola) give her a special easel and canopied bed with a mirror above her so she can be her own model. A life of self-portraiture, of painting the inner and outer Frida Kahlo, thus begins.
The story of her event-filled life understandably moves swiftly. Yet the consequence is that the movie gives short shrift to Frida's recovery and the enormous will power she developed to tolerate pain and fatigue. Clearly, the drinking, smoking and drug use that come later help her to dull that pain.
The bond between Diego and Frida is handled with empathy. Molina captures Diego's bearish personality, his huge body, his embrace of sensual pleasures and his fierce commitment to leftist political principles. In one of the film's welcome flights of surreal fancy, Rivera is fittingly depicted, in cutout images, as King Kong atop the Empire State Building, batting at airplanes as he would his critics. Molina gets the essential goodness of the man, his firm belief in loyalty and a set of principles that sometimes gets overshadowed by his many adulterous affairs, the worst being with Frida's own sister (Mia Maestro).
Hayek learned how to paint and how to effect the outer Frida -- including her wearing of traditional Mexican clothing. Other than Frida's trademark thick, connecting eyebrows, though, she has not allowed the makeup artist to de-glamorize her. More problematic is the fact Hayek doesn't inhabit her character as Molina does his. She is playing a role while Molina is Diego.
The film neither makes too much nor too little of its protagonists' wild side -- their open marriage, where they even shared lovers, or Frida's bisexuality and her affair with Trotsky, which may have cost him his life. The only sugar-coating comes near the end: It's quite possible Frida took her own life but the film never hints of this.
Rodrigo Preito's colorful and appealing cinematography, designer Felipe Fernandez's period re-creations and Elliot Goldenthal's guitar-flavored music, picking up Mexican themes, make a tight budget go a long way.
FRIDA
Miramax Films
Miramax presents in association with Margaret Rose Perenchio
A Ventanarosa Production in association with Lions Gate Films
Credits:
Director: Julie Taymor
Writers: Clancy Sigel, Diane Lake, Gregory Nava, Anna Thomas
Based on the book by: Hayden Herrera
Producers: Sarah Green, Salma Hayek, Jay Polstein, Nancy Hardin, Lindsay Flickinger, Roberto Sneiders
Executive producer: Mark Amin, Brian Gibson, Mark Gill, Jill Sobel Messick, Amy Slotnick
Director of photography: Rodrigo Prieto
Production designer: Felipe Fernandez
Music: Elliot Goldenthal
Costume designer: Julie Weiss
Editor: Francoise Bonnot
Cast:
Frida Kahlo: Salma Hayek
Diego Rivera: Alfred Molina
Leon Trotsky: Geoffrey Rush
Nelson Rockefeller: Edward Norton
David Siqueiros: Antonio Banderas
Cristina Kahlo: Mia Maestro
Tina Modotti: Ashley Judd
Guillermo Kahlo: Roger Rees
Lupe Marin: Valeria Golino
Matilde Kahlo: Patricia Reyes Spindola
Alejandro: Diego Luna
Running time -- 119 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
While this film dutifully chronicles her suffering, obsessions and battles with her own body, it stands in pale contrast to Kahlo's real biography, which is her amazing paintings.
In development for nearly a decade, battling rival projects and studio skittishness, "Frida" emerges as a fairly convention biopic rather than the artistic statement one might anticipate given director Julie Taymor's theatrical background and actress-producer Salma Hayek's passion for the role.
The film hues closely to the facts of Kahlo's life and her tempestuous relationship with world-famous muralist Diego Rivera, her mentor and husband. Taymor puts Frida's vivid and often disturbing art to sagacious use, slipping the famous images into scenes to reflect or comment on dramatic developments. But the film somehow misses the mark, having made rather tidy a messy and brutally painful life.
As more than 100 published books concern Kahlo and Rivera, one should never underestimate the public appetite for this story. With a stellar cast -- Alfred Molina as Rivera, Geoffrey Rush as Leon Trotsky, Edward Norton as Nelson Rockefeller, Antonio Banderas as muralist David Siqueiros and Ashley Judd as photographer Tina Modotti -- along with a careful rollout and Miramax's marketing muscle, "Frida" does have potential as an art house hit. The outlook overseas and in ancillary markets is even more positive.
The movie begins on the day of Frida's one and only exhibit in Mexico, in the spring of 1953. Her health has deteriorated so greatly, the doctor forbids her to leave her bed. So she has her bed carted to the gallery. On the ride over, the movie goes into a flashback. Frida, a high-school tomboy, loves to get into mischief with a gang of boys. She sneaks into a school auditorium where the great Rivera is painting.
The movie quickly moves to the trauma that shapes her life: A trolley accident in 1925 leaves her impaled on a metal rod. So devastated is her body that it's a miracle she even lives, much less that she walks again. Lying in bed for months, bored and in pain, she takes up painting. Her parents (Roger Rees and Patricia Reyes Spindola) give her a special easel and canopied bed with a mirror above her so she can be her own model. A life of self-portraiture, of painting the inner and outer Frida Kahlo, thus begins.
The story of her event-filled life understandably moves swiftly. Yet the consequence is that the movie gives short shrift to Frida's recovery and the enormous will power she developed to tolerate pain and fatigue. Clearly, the drinking, smoking and drug use that come later help her to dull that pain.
The bond between Diego and Frida is handled with empathy. Molina captures Diego's bearish personality, his huge body, his embrace of sensual pleasures and his fierce commitment to leftist political principles. In one of the film's welcome flights of surreal fancy, Rivera is fittingly depicted, in cutout images, as King Kong atop the Empire State Building, batting at airplanes as he would his critics. Molina gets the essential goodness of the man, his firm belief in loyalty and a set of principles that sometimes gets overshadowed by his many adulterous affairs, the worst being with Frida's own sister (Mia Maestro).
Hayek learned how to paint and how to effect the outer Frida -- including her wearing of traditional Mexican clothing. Other than Frida's trademark thick, connecting eyebrows, though, she has not allowed the makeup artist to de-glamorize her. More problematic is the fact Hayek doesn't inhabit her character as Molina does his. She is playing a role while Molina is Diego.
The film neither makes too much nor too little of its protagonists' wild side -- their open marriage, where they even shared lovers, or Frida's bisexuality and her affair with Trotsky, which may have cost him his life. The only sugar-coating comes near the end: It's quite possible Frida took her own life but the film never hints of this.
Rodrigo Preito's colorful and appealing cinematography, designer Felipe Fernandez's period re-creations and Elliot Goldenthal's guitar-flavored music, picking up Mexican themes, make a tight budget go a long way.
FRIDA
Miramax Films
Miramax presents in association with Margaret Rose Perenchio
A Ventanarosa Production in association with Lions Gate Films
Credits:
Director: Julie Taymor
Writers: Clancy Sigel, Diane Lake, Gregory Nava, Anna Thomas
Based on the book by: Hayden Herrera
Producers: Sarah Green, Salma Hayek, Jay Polstein, Nancy Hardin, Lindsay Flickinger, Roberto Sneiders
Executive producer: Mark Amin, Brian Gibson, Mark Gill, Jill Sobel Messick, Amy Slotnick
Director of photography: Rodrigo Prieto
Production designer: Felipe Fernandez
Music: Elliot Goldenthal
Costume designer: Julie Weiss
Editor: Francoise Bonnot
Cast:
Frida Kahlo: Salma Hayek
Diego Rivera: Alfred Molina
Leon Trotsky: Geoffrey Rush
Nelson Rockefeller: Edward Norton
David Siqueiros: Antonio Banderas
Cristina Kahlo: Mia Maestro
Tina Modotti: Ashley Judd
Guillermo Kahlo: Roger Rees
Lupe Marin: Valeria Golino
Matilde Kahlo: Patricia Reyes Spindola
Alejandro: Diego Luna
Running time -- 119 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 8/30/2002
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Salma Hayek and Edward Norton are set to cement their love on the big screen. Hayek is going head-to-head against fellow Latino beauty Jennifer Lopez in getting a biopic of Mexican painter FRIDA KAHLO to the big screen. Amongst the impressive list of cast members joining Hayek's project are Antonio Banderas, Ashley Judd, and her off-screen beau Norton. Banderas, who co-starred with Hayek in Desperado, has agreed to star in the supporting role of David Siqueiros, a painter, while Judd will play Tina Modotti an Italian photographer who was part of Kahlo's social circle, with Norton portraying the politician Nelson Rockefeller The rival Kahlo project, starring sexy Lopez, also has some big guns on board, with Francis Ford Coppola producing.
- 9/21/2000
- WENN
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