By MCN Editor editor@moviecitynews.com

IFC FILMS ACQUIRES U.S. RIGHTS TO NOIR THRILLER BRIGHTON ROCK

Posted Friday, January 14th, 2011 - Comments Off on IFC FILMS ACQUIRES U.S. RIGHTS TO NOIR THRILLER BRIGHTON ROCK
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New York, NY (January 14, 2011) – IFC Films, the leading American distributor of independent and foreign films, announced today that the company is acquiring the U.S. rights to director Rowan Joffe’s debut feature BRIGHTON ROCK. Joffe, whose previous writing credits include 28 WEEKS LATER and THE AMERICAN, adapted the script from Graham Greene’s 1939 iconic crime novel of the same name. Produced by Paul Webster (ATONEMENT, EASTERN PROMISES) and co-produced by Paul Ritchie (NOWHERE BOY, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE), the film stars Sam Riley (CONTROL), Andrea Riseborough (NEVER LET ME GO), John Hurt (IMMORTALS), and Helen Mirren (THE LAST STATION) and will be released by IFC Films in the summer of 2011.

The deal was negotiated by Arianna Bocco, Senior Vice President, Acquisitions & Productions, and by Anna Marsh at Studio Canal on behalf of the filmmaker. Jenny Borgars, Will Clarke, and Lamie Laurenson executive produced the project. Produced in association with the BBC and UKFC, BRIGHTON ROCK is the first of an ambitious slate of high-level British productions financed by Studio Canal to be released in the UK by its company Optimum.

BRIGHTON ROCK embraces the classic elements of film noir and the British gangster film to tell the story of Pinkie (Riley), a desperate youth who is hell bent on clawing his way up through the ranks of organized crime.  When a young and very innocent waitress, Rose (Riseborough), stumbles on evidence linking him to a revenge killing, he sets out to seduce her to secure her silence.

President of IFC Films Jonathan Sehring said, “BRIGHTON ROCK is a brilliant update of a noir classic that manages to be thrilling and beautiful. Sam Riley carries the film with his charismatic performance, and Andrea Riseborough and Helen Mirren round out the cast exquisitely.  We look forward to getting it out to a wide audience.”

About IFC FILMS

Established a decade ago, IFC Films is the leading U.S. distributor of independent and foreign film.  Its unique distribution model makes independent films available to a national audience by releasing them in theaters as well as on cable’s On Demand platform and through Pay-Per-View, reaching nearly 50 million homes. 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, Wordplay, Peep World, and Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, 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. IFC Films is a division of Rainbow Media.

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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