By MCN Editor editor@moviecitynews.com

Sundance Selects A Deux With Wenders’ PINA

Posted Thursday, March 31st, 2011 - Comments Off on Sundance Selects A Deux With Wenders’ PINA
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NEW YORK, March 21, 2011 – Sundance Selects announced today that the company is acquiring all U.S. rights to celebrated director Wim Wenders’ (WINGS OF DESIRE, BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB) 3D documentary PINA. Wenders also wrote the screenplay for the picture and produced it along with Gian-Piero Ringel (PALERMO SHOOTING). PINA, an in-depth look into the work of iconic dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch, world-premiered at the 2011 Berlin Film Festival where it became the most discussed film of the festival. In addition, HanWay Films has licensed PINA in over 40 territories internationally.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nk12SOSOtNc&feature=player_embedded

Dancer Pina Bausch is legendary. As celebrated as Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham, she transformed the language of dance. Designed to ignite emotion in the viewer, her unique multi-media creations offered a visual experience like no other. Now we can experience the synesthesia of her elemental choreography as if performed for us in the flesh. Filmed by the great European pioneer of 3D photography, Alain Derobe, this revolutionary 3D film captures the thrilling aesthetic of Pina Bausch’s greatest productions.

Jonathan Sehring, President of Sundance Selects, said: “Since the Berlinale ended, our team has remained completely mesmerized by Wim Wenders tribute to the legendary late choreographer Pina Bausch.  This one-of-a-kind spectacle is going to knock out not only dance fans but anyone interested in great cinema.  This is Wim Wenders at the top of his game, and we couldn’t be happier to be in business with him and our friends at Hanway Films again.”

The deal for PINA was negotiated by Arianna Bocco, Senior Vice President of Acquisitions & Productions for Sundance Selects with Tim Haslam, CEO of Hanway Films on behalf of the filmmakers. PINA has so far grossed in excess of $4 million in Germany in its first four weeks and premieres in France on April 6th and in the UK on April 12th ahead of its April 22nd theatrical bow.

Sundance Selects is a sister division to IFC Films and IFC Midnight, and is owned and operated by Rainbow Media.

About Sundance Selects:

Established in 2009 and based in New York City, Sundance Selects is a leading U.S. distributor of prestige films focusing on American independents, documentaries and world cinema.  Its unique distribution model makes independent prestige films available to a national audience by releasing them in theaters as well as on cable’s Video On Demand (VOD) platform, reaching nearly 50 million homes. Some of the company’s successes include Spike Lee’s PASSING STRANGE: THE MOVIE, Gregg Araki’s KABOOM, Aaron Katz’s COLD WEATHER and famed Iranian auteur Abbas Kiarostami’s CERTIFIED COPY which won Juliette Binoche the prize for Best Actress at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.  Upcoming Sundance Selects releases include master director Errol Morris’ documentary TABLOID, Werner Herzog’s 3D documentary CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS, and the 2011 Sundance Audience Award winner BUCK, directed by Cindy Meehl. Sundance Selects is a sister division to IFC Films and IFC Midnight, and is owned and operated by 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