News

February 15, 2011 - [ CBS News Entertainment ]

There were several upsets on Sunday's Grammy Awards. Rockers Arcade Fire took it to  Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Lady Antebellum and Eminem for "Album of the Year." And "Best New Artist" winner Esperanza Spalding topped the favored Justin Bieber along with Florence and the Machine, Drake and Mumford & Sons.

Below is a complete list of the winners in selected major categories from Sunday's 53rd Annual Grammy Awards on CBS.

February 9, 2011 - [ The Daily ]

A good education is the lifeblood of the American dream. For millions of young Americans, that dream is now in jeopardy because the education system is failing them.

A group of leading educators and reformers gathered at The Daily recently to talk about what needs to be done to save our schools. In a special five-part series, we report on the staggering dimensions of the problem, the institutions so resistant to change and the remarkable people determined to rejuvenate the system.

February 7, 2011 - [ USA Today ]

Filmmaker Maryam Keshavarz was born in New York but lived in Iran during her formative years and returned there every summer.
 
But after making Circumstance, a tale of forbidden love in Iran, Keshavarz, 35, doesn't expect that she will be able to return to the country where many of her relatives still live. "I can't go back now," she says simply.
 
The film, which hits theaters in September, won the Sundance Film Festival's Audience Award for Dramatic Competition last month. Screenings of the film drew standing ovations.

February 6, 2011 - [ Los Angeles Times Magazine ]

I had a plan. The best plan a 24-year-old could have: driving cross-country with everything he owned in a VW Jetta. I was driving from Washington, D.C., to Hollywood, and though some of the wrinkles had not been ironed out, I knew one thing for certain: I was not going to make documentaries.

February 3, 2011 - [ Deadline New York ]

Screenwriters Jez Butterworth & John-Henry Butterworth have been named recipients of the Writers Guild of America, West’s 2011 Paul Selvin Award for their screenplay for Fair Game. The award recognizes written work which embodies the spirit of constitutional rights and civil liberties. The Butterworth brothers, along with other Guild honorees, will be recognized at the 2011 Writers Guild Awards West Coast ceremony this Saturday, February 5, at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel-Grand Ballroom.
 
“Jez & John-Henry Butterworth’s Paul Selvin Award-winning screenplay for Fair Game expertly conveys both the impact and implications of a contemporary media climate where public and private worlds are often blurred for political gain. Their absorbing script articulates nuances of political and personal speech, while adeptly maintaining a tight focus on the human-scale drama, illuminating the all-too-personal costs when our basic rights are put in jeopardy,” said WGAW President John Wells.

January 30, 2011 - [ Deadline New York ]

The 2011 Sundance Film Festival Awards went down tonight in Park City. While the biggest surprise was the volume of films acquired by distributor, in the end, the story was about excellence in independent film making. The big winner of the evening was the Drake Doremus-directed love story Like Crazy, which took the Grand Jury Prize for Drama. The film was the first major deal of a festival full of them, with a $4 million acquisition by Paramount and Indian Paintbrush that started a flurry of transactions.

January 27, 2011 - [ Deadline New York ]

Sundance has launched new directors’ careers for decades, most famously Steven Soderbergh with his 1989 sex, lies, and videotape. In recent years, helmers including Ryan Fleck (2006’s Half Nelson) and Cary Fukunaga (2009’s Sin Nombre) broke through at the festival. This year, films from several returning Sundance directors, including Drake Doremus (Like Crazy), Jacob Aaron Estes (The Details), and Miranda July (The Future) are getting attention. Here’s a look at more under-the-radar names emerging this year:

January 24, 2011 - [ Deadline New York ]

In its second Sundance deal today, Participant Media has acquired North American rights to Circumstance, a tale of forbidden love in Iran, written and directed by Maryam Keshavarz. Deal is worth mid to high six figures. The picture, which premiered Saturday, is Farsi language with English subtitles.

Participant Media president Ricky Strauss sealed the deal and is now in talks with several distributors on a film that was produced by Keshavarz, Karin Chien and Melissa M. Lee, with Christina Won exec producing. A wealthy Iranian family struggles to contain a teen's growing sexual rebellion and her brother's dangerous obsession. Deadline readers might recall Keshavarz was one of the first filmmakers to speak out against the imprisonment of Iranian filmmakers Jafar Panahi and Muhammad Rasoulof when they were issued draconian 6-year prison sentences and banned from making films for two decades by the oppressive regime there. Keshavarz told me at the time that she had to shoot in Lebanon, because she feared her film's provocative subject matter would put its crew in danger.

"This remarkable debut from an exciting new film making talent, Maryam Keshavarz, gives us the perfect vehicle to begin expanding our international outreach with foreign language storytelling," Participant's Strauss said in a statement.

Participant Media teamed with Magnolia Pictures earlier today to acquire Page One, the documentary about The New York Times. Strauss, Jeff Ivers and Jonathan King repped Participant, and the Paradigm Motion Picture Finance Group repped the filmmakers.

January 24, 2011 - [ Deadline New York ]

Participant Media and Magnolia are partnering on the U.S. distribution rights to Andrew Rossi's Page One. Deal was mid-six figures and a commitment for a strong theatrical release. Participant will provide the backing it did past documentary successes Food Inc, Waiting for Superman and An Inconvenient Truth. The documentary is what director Andrew Rossi brought back after spending 14 months camped out at the media desk of The New York Times. He followed reporters like David Carr and Brian Stelter as they reported on technological changes, the same ones that were walloping the newspaper's circulation and advertising, causing newsroom layoffs. Deal was brokered by Submarine's Josh Braun after the film had its premiere on Sunday. IFC, Goldwyn and Magnolia battled late into the evening. When things were well along with Magnolia, Participant Media emerged, and the decision was made to partner.

January 23, 2011 - [ Variety ]

Other winners were:
Best Picture: The King’s Speech
Episodic TV, drama: Mad Men
Long Form TV - The Pacific
Live TV award: The Colbert Report
Animated Feature: Toy Story 3
Episodic Television Show, Comedy: Modern Family

January 21, 2011 - [ Below the Line News ]

The other documentary nominees are:
Babies
Catfish
Exit Through The Gift Shop
Inside Job
Restrepo
Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage

January 18, 2011 - [ Video Cafe ]

January 18, 2011 - [ VH1.com ]

January 14, 2011 - [ Movie City News ]

Waiting for “Superman” has been nominated for an ACE Eddie nomination for Best Edited Documentary (Jay Cassidy, A.C.E., Greg Finton & Kim Roberts).  Winners will be announced at the 61st Annual ACE Eddie Awards on February 19th at a black-tie ceremony at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

January 13, 2011 - [ Deadline New York ]

South by Southwest 2011 has programmed a bunch of features to go with previously announced opening night premiere Source Code. Coming on the heels of Sundance, the Austin, Texas-based SXSW has put itself in position to secure films that didn't play in Park City. Films that will create buzz include the Jodie Foster-directed The Beaver, which features Mel Gibson as a troubled exec who battles depression with the help of a beaver puppet, and Conan O'Brien Can't Stop, which Deadline told you last March was being filmed while O'Brien served his TV banishment by hitting the road with a 30-city comedy/musical tour. Here are the other films added to the program so far:
 
The Beaver (World Premiere)
Director: Jodie Foster, Writer: Kyle Killen
Summit Entertainment and Participant Media Present in Association with Imagenation Abu Dhabi and Anonymous Content - Two-time Academy Award winner Jodie Foster directs and co-stars with two-time Academy Award winner Mel Gibson in an emotional story about a man on a journey to re-discover his family and re-start his life. Plagued by his own demons, Walter Black was once a successful toy executive and family man who now suffers from depression. No matter what he tries, Walter can’t seem to get himself back on track…until a beaver hand puppet enters his life. Cast: Mel Gibson, Jodie Foster, Anton Yelchin & Jennifer Lawrence

January 12, 2011 - [ Directors Guild of America ]

The other nominees are:
 
Lixin Fan, “Last Train Home”
Charles Ferguson, “Inside Job”
Alex Gibney, “Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer”
Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger, “Restrepo”
 
Winners will be announced January 29th.

January 11, 2011 - [ Today ]

Today Show segment with Waiting for "Superman's" Davis Guggenheim, Michelle Rhee and Geoffrey Canada.

January 7, 2011 - [ Publicist Guild ]

The other nominated campaigns are:
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps - Fox
Despicable Me - Universal
The Social Network - Sony
Inception - WB
Toy Story 3 - Disney
 
The winner will be announced on February 25th.

December 15, 2010 - [ Hollywood Reporter ]

"The Beaver" Directed by Jodie Foster, the film opens in limited run March 23.
Summit Entertainment will release Jodie Foster's Mel Gibson topliner The Beaver in a limited U.S. run on March 23. The picture then expands April 8.
 
Foster, who directed the pic, stars opposite Gibson. Anton Yelchin and Jennifer Lawrence also star.
 
Summit had intended to release the film this year, but the controversy surrounding Gibson put off those plans.
 
The Beaver is a Summit and Participant Media presentation in association with Imagenation Abu Dhabi. Anonymous Content produced.

December 15, 2010 - [ Time ]

Highs: Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Davis Guggenheim received praise from both sides of the political aisle for his documentary on the troubled state of education in America, Waiting for Superman, which chronicles five students vying for a spot in high-performing charter schools over public schools. Guggenheim's film was a critical and box office success and led the conversation about the costs and benefits of charter versus public, the role of teachers' unions and the future of education in the United States.