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Actor Michael Fassbender joins YouTube’s Your Film Festival as Juror and Co-Executive Producer

Posted Tuesday, February 28th, 2012 - Comments Off on Actor Michael Fassbender joins YouTube’s Your Film Festival as Juror and Co-Executive Producer
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**FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE**

Acclaimed international talent and Sir Ridley Scott help choose the Grand Prize Winner at the Venice Film Festival

Winner receives a $500,000 YouTube Original Production Grant to work with Scott Free

LOS ANGELES, CA (FEBRUARY 28, 2012):  Acclaimed actor Michael Fassbender (SHAME, INGLORIOUS BASTERDS) has joined the YOUR FILM FESTIVAL team to help select the Grand Prize Winner and to co-executive produce the winner’s next film. YOUR FILM FESTIVAL is a global competition to find the world’s best storytellers, connect them with a global audience, and provide one deserving entrant with a career-changing opportunity. YOUR FILM FESTIVAL is a partnership between YouTube and Emirates, along with The Venice Film Festival and Scott Free.

“I was delighted to join this partnership alongside Ridley, YouTube, Venice, and Emirates,” says Fassbender.  “I’ve worked with incredible storytellers before and am excited to help find the next great one through Your Film Festival.”

Watch his invitation to the YouTube community here.

Fassbender’s involvement will mark a reunion of sorts, as his next film will be Ridley Scott’s return to the director’s chair, the highly anticipated PROMETHEUS. Fassbender will also mark his return to Venice Film Festival since winning Best Actor for his performance in SHAME. The Steve McQueen directed film also garnered Fassbender a Golden-Globe nomination.

In YOUR FILM FESTIVAL content creators around the world are invited to submit a 15-minute, story-driven video of any format, style and genre, to Youtube.com/yourfilmfestival. After submissions are whittled down to fifty semi-finalists, YouTube users from around the world will cast their votes, choosing ten finalists. The ten finalists will travel to Italy, where their work will screen at the 69th Venice International Film Festival and a Grand Prize winner will be named. Submission period is currently open and will remain open until March 31, 2012.

YOUR FILM FESTIVAL is one of several efforts by YouTube to push the boundaries of music, art, and film.  It follows the incredibly successful partnership that YouTube experienced with Scott Free to help create the critically acclaimed documentary Life In A Day. Other projects like the YouTube Symphony Orchestra, YouTube Play, and YouTube Space Lab are examples of the convergence of online video with traditional arts. Emirates, the global airline, has also come on board as a proud sponsor of the program and the festival.

For more information, please visit youtube.com/yourfilmfestival and submit your film before March 31, 2012.

About YouTube

YouTube is the world’s most popular online video community allowing millions of people to discover, watch and share original videos.  YouTube provides a forum for people to connect, inform and inspire others across the globe and acts as a distribution platform for original content creators and advertisers large and small. YouTube, LLC is based in San Bruno, Calif., and is a subsidiary of Google Inc.

About Scott Free

Scott Free Productions was formed in 1995 and is the film and television production vehicle of acclaimed film directors, brothers Ridley and Tony Scott. Scott Free Films recently released the international hits Robin Hood and Unstoppable, as well as the critically acclaimed films Cracks, Welcome to the Rileys, Cyrus for Fox Searchlight, and most recently the YouTube backed Life in a Day. Next for Scott Free is Ridley Scott’s visionary epic Prometheus starring Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender and Charlize Theron which Fox will release in June 2012, and Joe Carnahan’s The Grey starring Liam Neeson set for January 2012.   The company just wrapped production on Stoker, the English language debut of Park Chan Wook (Old Boy) at Searchlight, starring Nicole Kidman, Mia Wasikowska and Matthew Goode and is currently in production on The East with director Zal Batmanglij and starring Brit Marling, Alexander Skarsgard, and Ellen Page also for Fox Searchlight.

Scott Free Television produces the Emmy® and Golden Globe®-nominated, Peabody-acclaimed drama, The Good Wife for CBS which is now in its third year.  Up next this year, is an eight hour adaptation of World Without End, Ken Follett’s international best-seller featuring Cynthia Nixon, Ben Chaplin and Miranda Richardson, as well as Coma, a four-hour adaptation of the Robin Cook novel, starring Geena Davis, James Woods, Richard Dreyfuss and Ellen Burstyn, set to air Memorial Day 2012 on A&E.  Scott Free also produced the Emmy® and Golden Globe® nominated mini-series The Pillars of the Earth for Starz, and the hit CBS show Numb3rs, which ran for six seasons.  With offices in Los Angeles and London, Scott Free works closely with RSA Films, one of the world’s largest and most successful commercial production houses.

About Venice Film Festival

The 69th Venice International Film Festival is directed by Alberto Barbera and organised by la Biennale di Venezia, chaired by Paolo Baratta. It will be held on the Venice Lido from 29th August to 8th September 2012. The aim of the Festival is to raise awareness and promote the various aspects of international cinema in all its forms: as art, entertainment and as an industry, in a spirit of freedom and tolerance. The International Competition awards the Golden Lion and other official prizes. The Festival is officially recognized by FIAPF (International Federation of Film Producers Associations).

About Emirates

Emirates, one of the fastest growing airlines in the world, has received more than 500 international awards and accolades for excellence. Emirates flies to 118 destinations in 70 countries across six continents and is the world’s largest airline in available seat kilometres. Operating 168 wide-body Airbus and Boeing aircraft, including an industry leading 20 A380s, Emirates has orders for an additional 237 aircraft, worth more than USD$84 billion. For more information please visit www.emirates.com.

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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

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~ David Simon