Fan Fare

Toronto film festival — bedbug free and ready to roll

With the Toronto International Film Festival set to kick off  on Thursday, organizers appear to have dodged a nasty subplot that could have turned the 11-day drama into a horror movie.

The trouble began last week after a Toronto woman woke up with itchy spots on her back after visiting the Scotiabank Theatre, where several festival movies will screen. 

Like New York, Toronto has been dealing with a nasty bedbug problem this summer, and the woman’s complaints found their way on to a friend’s Twitter account and then, as they say, it all went viral.

Film festival co-director Cameron Bailey probably did himself no favors when he mentioned the scare on his own widely-followed Twitter feed, which immediately propelled the matter on to the local entertainment pages, whose reporters were happy for pre-festival plotline.

The theatre quickly called in a pest-control company, which scoured the venue with sniffer dogs, and gave it the all clear.

Bailey said the issue has not had any impact on festival attendance or ticket sales.

“I think everything’s back to normal,” he told Reuters.

from Photographers Blog:

Shooting on the red carpet

By Eric Gaillard, Vincent Kessler, Jean-Paul Pelissier, Yves Herman and Christian Hartmann

Each year in May dozens of stars and photographers converge on the French Riviera at Cannes to attend what is recognized as the biggest film festival in the world. Since 1985, a Reuters Pictures team has taken part in the extravaganza.

This year, a team of five photographers from France, Switzerland and Belgium set up their headquarters in the basement of the Festival Palace on the eve of the 63th Cannes Film Festival. With the help of Paris-based editorial technicians Gilles and Sylvain, the 15 square meters cell was quickly transformed into an editing center as well as a stock room for equipment and a changing room to put on tuxedos.

As soon as the office was ready, photographers cruised the Croisette (a prominent boulevard in Cannes) looking for illustrative pictures for the upcoming Festival. Eric Gaillard, a festival veteran with 27 appearances to his credit, started to prepare his traditional and famous photo of the Jury President posing with a cinema clapper. This year, Tim Burton kindly accepted to pose for Eric on the balcony of his suite at the Carlton hotel. The picture was widely used by newspapers and internet sites.

Berlinale goes green…sort of

The Berlin Film Festival used to distribute tonnes of press releases, media kits, brochures and other information from filmmakers trying to get the attention of thousands of journalists every day, filling some 1,500 cubby-hole media mailboxes with piles of paper that few ever needed or read.

That all changed this year when Berlinale director Dieter Kosslick decided to abolish the paper practice and take a few other fledgling steps to protect the environment – such as switching lighting systems on the red carpet to use more energy efficient lights and using hydrogen-powered cars to shuttle celebrities to and fro.

“I’m a practising greenie,” Kosslick told a group of foreign journalists recently. “We decided to do away with the press mailboxes because they’re outdated and waste a lot of paper. Every day it seemed like paper the equivalent of 5 hectares of Brazilian rain forest was being distributed and most of it just thrown away. We had to dispose of all that paper in the evening. It just wasn’t right.”

Kosslick, who lives in a country where fears of climate change run high and protecting the environment is a mainstream political issue, admits the festival has a long way to go still and tried to downplay any notion that the festival was putting a big emphasis on going green.

“We need a lot of electricity on the red carpet, for instance, because it has to be well-lit,” he said. “This year we’re using some low-voltage lamps to try to save some energy.” Kosslick, who has been running the festival for the last decade,  said the pro-environment changes at the festival were the result of the work of many of the filmmakers themselves.

“We couldn’t go on showing films that involve making the world a better place and then not do anything in that regard ourself,” he said.

Now if he could only get some of the celebrities and movie moguls to fly on commercial flights – or take the train — rather than arrive in private jets.

from Global News Journal:

Pusan International Film Festival unveils line up

The Pusan International Film Festival opens its 14th edition with “Good Morning President”, a movie taking a warm-hearted look at the ruthless and cold-blooded world of South Korean politics.

The festival is Asia largest and runs from October 8-16 in the South Korean port city of Busan. Organisers on Tuesday unveiled the line-up for the festival where 355 films from 70 countries will be screened, including 98 that will be world premieres.

The festival has its red carpet where several of South Korea’s and Asia’s biggest stars parade before the cameras but it pales in comparison to the glamorous showings in Cannes or Venice. What the Pusan fest does best is celebrate and promote Asian films. It is also one of the biggest film markets in the region where producers from, say, Malaysia can pick up distribution deals in Japan.

Influential Bollywood director and producer Yash Chopra will be honoured as filmmaker of the year at the festival, which is considered one of the top cinema honours in Asia.

The festival will have a special programme celebrating Hong Kong’s Johnnie To, called “The Hood in the City”, while French director Jean-Jacques Beineix will heads the jury for the New Currents award that honours new Asian directors.

What do you wear to interview Valentino?

(posted on behalf of reporter Silvia Aloisi) 

What do you wear to an interview with Valentino?

I asked myself that question as I was dressing in my hotel room ahead of another busy day at the Venice film festival which included an afternoon sit-down with the fashion guru, on the Lido to present “Valentino: The Last Emperor”, a documentary about his career.

Preparing for the interview, I had read that Valentino once said: “I have had the life of an aesthete. I’ve always loved beautiful things, beautiful people. I hate sloppiness, disorder. Even relaxations must be kept under control.”

But it was a hot day and I knew I would have to run around all day between screenings and press conferences, so wearing comfortable clothes was my priority. In any case I had packed no tailored suits, let alone an evening gown … simply because I don’t own one and am not particularly fashion-conscious.

Still, wearing jeans and a striped T-shirt, I felt slightly uneasy as I sat in front of the impeccably dressed Valentino, with his light beige jacket, white trousers and pale blue shirt matching a pair of suede shoes.

I asked him about what he thought about modern fashion and whether the era of haute couture was well and truly over. Not so, he replied.

Cannes Fare – Angelina Jolie, Kung Fu Panda and Steve McQueen

Highlights of Reuters coverage of the second full day of the Cannes film festival.