The 56th BFI London Film Festival kicks off October 10th and runs through October 21st. Like any good festival, this means a panoply of new marketing materials, in this case in the form of pictures. First up is a new pic from "Wish You Were Here" featuring Aussie stars Joel Edgerton and Teresa Palmer. Directed by Edgerton's fellow Blue Tongue Films cohort Kieran Darcy-Smith, the film, which debuted at Sundance earlier this year, also co-stars Felicity Price and Antony Starr.
The synopsis: Expectant parents Alice and Dave join Alice’s younger sister, Steph, and her new boyfriend, Jeremy, on an impromptu tropical getaway in Cambodia. But following Jeremy’s abrupt disappearance, the others must attempt to return to their normal lives in Sydney. The shell-shocked survivors' recovery begins to fall apart when a stinging truth about their time in Cambodia is revealed. The three must contend with the fallout, along with the looming threat of further revelations about that fateful night.
While several photos were revealed earlier this year, a new, brooding look at Edgerton has arrived. Here's our interview with Edgerton and Palmer from Sundance. Already released in Australia this spring, Entertainment One is expected to release the film in the U.S. and Canada later this year.
"Everybody Has a Plan" tells the story of Agustín (Viggo Mortensen), a man desperate to abandon what he has gradually come to feel is an unfulfilling existence, after years of living in Buenos Aires. Following the death of his identical twin brother Pedro, Agustín sets out to begin his life anew by assuming Pedro’s identity and returning to the mysterious Tigre Delta region, where the brothers spent their childhood. Soon after his homecoming, however, Agustín finds himself unwittingly embroiled in the deadly criminal underworld that his brother had been part of.
Somehow we missed ths one at the Toronto International Film Festival, and considering we didn't hear a lot review-wise, that's potentially not a great sign, but Mortensen is always an interesting actor willing to take on artistic work, ostensibly like this, instead of acting in some of the bigger Hollywood flicks he is offered but (generally) turns down (see "Man of Steel," "Snow White and the Huntsman"). Here's a couple new photos of Viggo from the film.
Based on the best-selling novel of the same title which was translated into twenty-five languages, Mira Nair's "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" is a riveting international political thriller that follows the story of a young Pakistani man chasing corporate success on Wall Street, who ultimately finds himself tangled up in a conflict between his American dream, a hostage crisis and the enduring call of his family's homeland. Starring Riz Ahmed, Kate Hudson, Kiefer Sutherland and Liev Schreiber, we didn't exactly love the picture when we saw it in Venice. But with a cast that includes the aforementioned stars, including Hudson and Sutherland in particular, surely some kind of audience will still be interested when it comes out (presumably) some time next year. New photos abound.They’re sexy, black, young, talented, and have never set foot outside of Australia. Until, in the chaos of 1968, they're plucked from the obscurity of a remote Aboriginal mission, branded as the Aboriginal answer to The Supremes — getting the chance of a lifetime — and are shipped off to Vietnam to entertain the troops. Starring Chris O'Dowd, Deborah Mailman, Jessica Mauboy, Shari Sebbens and Miranda Tapsell, The Weinstein Company is hoping "The Sapphires" is this year's crowd-pleasing answer to "The Artist."
While our Cannes review suggests it's not quite as good (or Oscar-worthy) as we may be led to believe, the picture should still entertain when it hits theaters later this year.
A noir thriller told from the point of view of a femme fatale who falls for the detective in charge of a murder case, "I Anna" stars Charlotte Rampling, Gabriel Byrne, Hayley Atwell, Jodhi May and Eddie Marsan. Above is a new look at Bryne and Rampling in the film, much to the chagrin of Atwell fans everywhere.
Cate Shortland's "Lore" is a movie we greatly looked forward to after her auspicious and stunning debut "Somersault" (2004) which introduced most of the world to Abbie Cornish and Sam Worthington, then just solid Australian actors, but far from international household names. Here's the film's synopsis: After her Nazi parents are imprisoned, Lore leads her younger siblings across a war-torn Germany in 1945. Amidst the chaos, she encounters mysterious Jewish refugee Thomas, who shatters her fragile reality with hatred and desire. To live, she must trust someone she was taught to hate and face the darkness within herself.
Starring Saskia Rosendahl and Kai Malina, while our review from TIFF noted that the film fell a little short of (possibly high) expectations, it still suggests that Shortland is a filmmaker to keep tabs on.
