11 July, 2007
By Denis Seguin in TorontoSource: Screen Daily
The new Gala titles are:
Michael Clayton, the debut of screenwriter Tony Gilroy (The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy) who also penned this legal drama starring George Clooney as a burned out corporate attorney who confronts the greatest moral challenge of a hitherto immoral career. Tilda Swinton, Tom Wilkinson and Sydney Pollack co-star. Produced by Pollack, Jennifer Fox, Steven Samuels and Kerry Orent, the film is a Mirage Enterprises/Section Eight production backed by Warner Bros in association with Samuels Media and Castle Rock.
Rendition, from Tsotsi director Gavin Hood, features Reese Witherspoon as the wife of an Egyptian American who disappears at the hands of the CIA. Jake Gyllenhaal plays a CIA analyst who questions his masters’ methods. Meryl Streep, Peter Sarsgaard and Alan Arkin co-star. Produced by Steve Golin and Marcus Viscidi from a screenplay by Kelly Sane, the film is backed by New Line.
The new Special Presentations are:
Neil Jordan’s The Brave One features Jodie Foster as the victim of a horrendous crime who turns vigilante and galvanises New York with her exploits. Terrence Howard plays the NYPD detective hot on her heels. Naveen Andrews, Nicky Katt and Mary Steenburgen also star. The film is backed by Warner and Village Roadshow.
Peter Greenaway’s Nightwatching, a UK/Poland/Canada/Netherlands co-production imagines the Dutch master (Martin Freeman) executing his most celebrated painting The Nightwatch as a kind of cryptic explanation of a mysterious murder. ContentFilm has sales.
Nothing Is Private marks the director debut of Six Feet Under creator and American Beauty screenwriter Alan Ball. Aaron Eckhart, Maria Bello and Toni Collette star in a story of sexual politics and racial bigotry in suburban Houston during the run-up to the first Gulf War. Based on the novel Towelhead by Alicia Erian. Dreamachine is handling sales.
Before The Rains, Indian auteur Santosh Sivan’s English-language debut. Set in 1930s India, this US-India co-production follows the growing turmoil as a married British colonialist (Linus Roache) is caught having an affair with his housemaid (Nandita Das).
The Diving Bell And The Butterfly, by Julian Schnabel, stars Mathieu Amalric in the true story of Jean-Dominique Bauby, whose imagination isn’t dulled when he has a stroke. Pathe is handling sales on the French-language project and a number of territories closed after Cannes.
Reservation Road from Hotel Rwanda director Terry George features Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Connelly and Mira Sorvino as two couples whose lives tragically converge with the death of a child. John Burnham Schwartz adapted his novel. From Focus Features.
