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IFC MIDNIGHT ACQUIRES THRILLER “X” FROM CELLULOID NIGHTMARES

Posted Tuesday, December 14th, 2010 - Comments Off on IFC MIDNIGHT ACQUIRES THRILLER “X” FROM CELLULOID NIGHTMARES
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Los Angeles, CA (December 14, 2010) – IFC Midnight, the genre label of IFC Films, announced today that the company has acquired the U.S. rights to Jon Hewitt’s genre thriller “X” from Celluloid Nightmares following the recently-wrapped American Film Market. The film, which is currently in post-production, was written by Hewitt and Belinda McClory, produced by Lizzete Atkins, and stars Viva Bianca, Hanna Mangan, and Rowan Witt.

X” is a sizzling thriller about love, chance, escape and the oldest profession in the world, as experienced by two beautiful women on one ugly night that will change their lives forever.

Jonathan Sehring, President of IFC Films said, “This is indeed a very exciting acquisition for IFC Midnight. ‘X’ ups the ante on an already impressive list of elevated thrillers from new wave Australian auteurs, and it is an honor to be able to premiere such a quality piece of genre filmmaking.”

“‘X’ will be in good hands at IFC Midnight,” said Celluloid partners. “They have the best distribution resources available to make the film stand out in the ever-crowded US indie film landscape.”

The deal for “X” was negotiated by Arianna Bocco for IFC Midnight and Nate Bolotin on behalf of Celluloid Nightmares. Celluloid also sold ‘X’ to Revolver Films in the UK, Mongrel Media in Canada, and Senator Entertainment in Germany.

About IFC Films

Established a decade ago, IFC Films – a division of Rainbow Media’s IFC Entertainment – is the leading U.S. distributor of independent and foreign film. Its unique day and date distribution model makes independent films available to a national audience by releasing them simultaneously in theaters as well as on cable’s On Demand platform and through Pay-Per-View, reaching nearly 50 million homes. IFC Films’ “IFC Midnight” label, launched in 2010, offers the very best in international genre cinema, including horror, sci-fi, thrillers, erotic arthouse, action and more.  Some of the company’s successes over the years have included MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING, Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN, TOUCHING THE VOID, ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW, 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYS, GOMORRAH, CHE, SUMMER HOURS, IN THE LOOP, ANTICHRIST, THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE, JOAN RIVERS: A PIECE OF WORK, CAIRO TIME and WORDPLAY. IFC Films has worked with established and breakout auteurs including Steven Soderbergh, Gus Van Sant, Spike Lee, Richard Linklater, Miranda July, Lars Von Trier, Gaspar Noe, Todd Solondz, Cristian Mungiu, Susanne Bier, Olivier Assayas, Jim McKay, Larry Fessenden, Gregg Araki, Jacques Rivette, Claude Chabrol, as well as more recent breakouts such as Andrea Arnold, Mia Hansen Love, Corneliu Porombiou, Joe Swanberg, Barry Jenkins, Lena Dunham, Aaron Katz, Daryl Wein and Abdellatif Kechiche.

About Celluloid Nightmares

Celluloid Nightmares marks a new alliance between Hengameh Panahi’s Paris-based Celluloid Dreams and the Los Angeles-based XYZ Films, founded by partners Nate Bolotin, Nick Spicer and Aram Tertzakian. The company is focused on the acquisition and worldwide sales of elevated genre films from around the globe with XYZ partner Todd Brown heading up acquisitions.

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon