By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com

SUNDANCE SELECTS TO RELEASE KECHICHE’S PALME D’OR WINNER BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR WITH NC-17 RATING IN U.S.

Posted Wednesday, August 21st, 2013 - Comments Off on SUNDANCE SELECTS TO RELEASE KECHICHE’S PALME D’OR WINNER BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR WITH NC-17 RATING IN U.S.
Be Sociable, Share!

NEW YORK, NY (August 20, 2013) – Sundance Selects announced today that they will release Abdellatif Kechiche’s 2013 Cannes Film Festival Palme D’Or Winner BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR with the MPAA rating of NC-17 in the United States, as opposed to trimming the film or releasing the film Unrated. With a screenplay by Kechiche and Ghalya Lacroix, and starring Lea Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos, the film was produced by Alcatraz Films, Quat’Sous Films and Wild Bunch.  The film is being rated NC-17 for “explicit sexual content.” Sundance Selects will release the film in theaters beginning on October 25, 2013, on the heels of screening as part of the 2013 New York Film Festival.

Jonathan Sehring, President of Sundance Selects/IFC Films, said: “This is a landmark film with two of the best female performances we have ever see on screen.  The film is first and foremost a film about love, coming of age and passion. We refuse to compromise Kechiche’s vision by trimming the film for an R rating, and we have every confidence that BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR will play in theaters around the country regardless. An NC-17 rating no longer holds the stigma it once did, and we look forward to bringing this unforgettable film to audiences nationwide. We believe this film will leave a lasting imprint as the LAST TANGO IN PARIS for a whole new generation.”

BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR centers on a 15-year-old girl named Adèle (Exarchopoulos) who is climbing to adulthood and dreams of experiencing her first love. A handsome male classmate falls for her hard, but an unsettling erotic reverie upsets the romance before it begins. Adèle imagines that the mysterious, blue-haired girl she encountered in the street slips into her bed and possesses her with an overwhelming pleasure. That blue-haired girl is a confident older art student named Emma (Seydoux), who will soon enter Adèle’s life for real, making way for an intense and complicated love story that spans a decade and is touchingly universal in its depiction.

An NC-17 rated motion picture is one that, in the view of the Rating Board, most parents would consider patently too adult for their children 17 and under. No children under the age of 17 and under can be admitted into theaters to see the film.  The rating signals that the content is appropriate only for an adult audience. An NC-17 rating can be based on violence, sex, aberrational behavior, drug abuse or any other element that most parents would consider too strong and therefore off-limits for viewing by their children. The film received a rating of “12” by the French Ministry of Culture, which indicates the film is unsuitable only for children younger than 12 years of age in that country.

Sundance Selects’ sister broadcast label IFC TV recently released Kirby Dick’s documentary THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED that explored how flawed the ratings system is in the United States. In relation to this film, Sehring said, “We have intimate knowledge of how the MPAA works, and it is unquestionable that changes must be made. That the board finds violence acceptable for young viewers while condemning sex is egregious.”

When BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR won the Palme D’Or at this year’s Cannes film festival, Jury president Steven Spielberg called the film “a great love story that made all of us feel privileged to be a fly on the wall, to see this story of deep love and deep heartbreak evolve from the beginning. We didn’t think about how it was going to play, we just were really happy that someone had the courage to tell this story the way he did…The issue of gay marriage is one that many brave states in America are resolving in a way that suits all of us that are in favor of gay marriage. But I think actually this film carries a very strong message, a very positive message.”

Sundance Selects is a sister label to IFC Films and IFC Midnight, and is owned and operated by AMC Networks Inc.

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. Previous releases include David France’s Oscar nominated documentary HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE; Wim Wenders’ Oscar nominated PINA; Werner Herzog’s CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS; the Dardennes Brothers’ THE KID WITH A BIKE; Abbas Kiarostami’s CERTIFIED COPY and Richard Rowley’s DIRTY WARS.  Upcoming releases include two 2013 Sundance Film Festival hits — Alexandre Moors’ BLUE CAPRICE and Nick Ryan’s THE SUMMIT; and some of the most talked about films at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival  — Abdellatif Kechiche’s Palme D’Or winner BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR, Kore-eda Hirokazu’s Cannes Jury Prize Winner LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON, Roman Polanski’s film adaptation of VENUS IN FUR, Clio Barnard’s THE SELFISH GIANT and Francois Ozon’s Competition title YOUNG & BEAUTIFUL. Sundance Selects is a sister label to IFC Films and IFC Midnight, and is owned and operated by AMC Networks Inc.

Be Sociable, Share!

Posted in Movie City News, Press Releases | Comments Off on SUNDANCE SELECTS TO RELEASE KECHICHE’S PALME D’OR WINNER BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR WITH NC-17 RATING IN U.S.

Comments are closed.

Quote Unquotesee all »

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