November 27, 2007
BIFA's 2007
We are off to London...
This week is the annual British Independent Film Awards and Hallam Foe is up for a few gongs.
Fingers crossed...
Posted by colin kennedy at 10:24 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 22, 2007
Dear Blog.... A Message From David Mackenzie
I have only just plucked up the courage to read these reviews. Wow they are really quite nice! I think that's the first time the Hollywood Reporter has said anything nice about one of my films. Phew!
This is of course the trade press. They are usually very pithy and aimed at the industry - and can be pretty swiping in their insults as I have learnt personally! Most of the normal press will hold back their opinions until the time comes to release the film.
Well Berlin was pretty intense! After a gentle warm up, we hit the day of the screening with a big wall of press and TV interviews. Some of them were what is called 'round robins', where you have 8 or so journalists sitting round with their microphones asking you questions, and some were one on ones. Most of these were video interviews. Jamie, Sophia and myself worked our way through each group or individual, getting circulated by our lovely PR folk (big thank you to the ever calm and sweet Matt Sanders) every 15 minutes or so.
I don't know what it is like for an actor - where lots of the questions are more personal and tabloidy - but I tell you it is pretty damned relentless and you start to lose all sense of what you've said before. I am so glad I decided to have an early(ish) night the day before because last time I did this with my previous film was on 1 hours sleep! Too painful to repeat.
While all this was happening, the film was being screened at the main press screening in the big Berlinale Palast cinema (1600 seats - only a few years old and one of the best cinemas in the world). Just as that was finishing we were whisked away to attend the press conference for people who had just seen the film. After a couple of well needed glasses of champagne, we went out to face the banks of photographers.
The experience of being almost blinded by the hundreds of flashguns is so intense - what it must be like for the big stars is unimaginable. For me it is almost overwhelming. But fortunately they were more interested in Jamie and Sophia, so I was able to sidle away after a short while to let them get on with it. Stepping back to watch, it was lovely to see the two of them together arm in arm with huge and genuine grins for the cameras - they looked so good together.
Then we had to face the press in a different room - by far the scariest part of the whole process for me. We walked out into this room with about 400 people in and sat down. They were clapping like mad - so maybe they liked the film , or maybe they were being polite. I hate all this stuff because I don't feel particularly articulate in that environment but the questions were not aggressive (they can be) and luckily Jamie was on top form and answered 80% of them. He was so funny and endearing and articulate (and I am not just saying that) that it all seemed easy.
Then time to prepare for the big premiere screening. Time to get the suit on (I had to pay for it btw - not one of those designer freebies that actors get to model! - ugly directors aren't going to sell any clothes) and head down to the prescreening drinks. Fantastically so many members of the Friends of Foe society had made it out to Berlin to be there for the film. It was lovely to be surrounded by so many friends for this brief moment of sanctuary.
Then the official world premiere of Hallam Foe! We had to get into cars to go to the red carpet - kind of odd considering it was less that 100m from where we had gathered, but I guess one has to arrive in style!! So we get out with the flashes and the bright light (so bright the flashes are kind of irrelevant) and walk the gauntlet of the red carpet and into the Palast.
In the press conference we had posed for big formal pictures and they were up on the walls of this enormous cathedral of cinema. We had to sign our pictures. (last time I was here I tried to thank Dieter Kossick who runs the festival in writing and I spelt his name wrong - I asked him how to spell it and he said like Pieter which of course is not like we spell Peter here, so it's only partly my fault. But I still cringe about it 2 years later) I decided to tread carefully and just signed my name in the bad scrawl that is my handwriting. Jamie meanwhile scrawled in huge lettering 'Hallam Foe was here' over his portrait.
We took our seats with big spotlights on us and enthusiastic applause and the film started. Help!!
The screen is huge and the print looked great, the sound was perfect and the audience laughed in all the right places and went silent in all the right places and the one and a half hours went by really smoothly and I only cringed a bit (I normally cringe a lot more which is a good sign). And then the last image of the film cut to black and the audience exploded into applause, cheers and whoops. We had to leave our seats in the middle of this and get ready to go on stage. The credits rolled (with the lovely Franz track going on) and when they were over more applause and I had to go on stage and introduce Pete Jinks (writer of the book), Matthew Justice (executive producer), Gillian Berrie (producer) and then my two stars Sophia Myles and Jamie Bell. The clapping was huge and felt great and someone came on with flowers for the girls.
But any thoughts I might have had about making a speech or thanking the Friends of Foe in the audience evaporated. I was like the proverbial rabbit in the headlights (as I always am in these scenarios - we should have had Jamie and Sophia do some talking, they at least know what to do in front of a crowd!). So we all gave a quick bow and modestly walked off with applause ringing in our ears.
After the clapping subsided we gathered ourselves and went off to a small Berlin music dive bar called 8mm (appropriate name for our roots I think) to drink and be merry. Which we did!
But I think now is the time on this intimate little blog to do what I should have done on stage while the audience were cheering and clapping and thank all those people who made the film possible. And in particular on this occasion to that all those people who were with us that night who worked on the film.
Pete Jinks, writer of the book, Ed Whitmore, co-screenwriter, Tom Sayer, production designer, Campbell Mackintosh, gaffer, Sean Gascoine, my agent, Alexandra Ferguson, line producer, Neil Cairns our production accountant, Jeremy Gawade, our lawyer, Alastair Mackenzie, (my beautiful brother and) exec producer, Matthew Justice, exec producer, - as well as just about all the films financiers - Peter Carlton and Katherine Butler from Film 4, Peter Touche from Ingenious, Carol Sheridan from Scottish Screen, Lenny Crooks (formely) from Glasgow Film Finance (And Hamish Walker) and the entire team of our sales agents Independent, Luc Roeg, Ana Ayesta, Andrew Orr, Sarah Godwin and our UK distributors BVI led by Robert Mitchell with Lee Jury and Charlotte Tudor. Jonathan Rutter and Matthew Sanders from Premier PR, Bart McDonagh, Clare McKinney and all the Domino Records team, Nick McCarthy and Alex Kapranos from Franz as well as Anna Duffield and Brian Coffey from Sigma, Tiernan from Film City Glasgow, Colin Kennedy, Lee Thomas and many of our long suffering partners (plus anyone who I have been stupid enough to forget - sorry)
Thank you guys for being there and for being part of the team Hallam. Sorry I was too tongue tied to say so when I was on stage, but I was enjoying the clapping. Thank you very, very, much.
'It really is all glamour!' as my brother used to say when we were picking up cigarette ends off the wet ground on our first jobs in the industry as runners.
David Mackenzie
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February 11, 2007
Woo Hoo!!!!!
The title says it all, Andrea Arnold walks away with a BAFTA under her arm, the Carl Foreman award 2007 is hers and presented by Jamie Bell to boot.
I have just had a text from Gillian Berrie - our producer on Hallam Foe and exec producer on Red Road. By the sounds of her short but sweet message she's pretty happy. And why not, life is good, stressful but good. Congratulations Red Road team, tonight you received an accolade well deserved, the film is amazing.
Posted by colin kennedy at 11:42 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
BAFTA Gongs
Roll out yet another red carpet, cue the ubiquitous fanfares and unload a glut of stars and cognescenti on to the flashbulb gauntlet...
...it's BAFTA time.
Now, we are not in the running for a BAFTA with Hallam Foe but Andrea Arnold is up for a gong so Sigma Films are in the picture, this is a quote from the BAFTA press site:
Andrea Arnold (Red Road), Julian Gilbey (Rollin’ with the Nines), Christine Langan (Pierrepoint), Gary Tarn (Black Sun) and Paul Andrew Williams (London to Brighton) have been nominated for The Carl Foreman Award for Special Achievement by a British Director, Writer or Producer in their First Feature Film.
Jamie Bell
The amusing and serendipitous aspect to Andrea's nomination is that the category (The Carl Foreman Award) is being presented by our leading man, Jamie Bell alongside Emily Watson. How coincidental is that? or maybe they are a bit smarter in the organisation department than I think and married up the two deliberately. Either way, it makes those few minutes of the ceremony quite a Sigma-fest, and we're fans of that.
Fingers crossed x
Posted by colin kennedy at 12:36 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
December 6, 2006
BIFA
Time for another awards update for Red Road. Not content with scooping up all five of the film categories at the Scottish Baftas last week Kate Dickie and Tony Curran were up for best actress and actor at the BIFAs (British Independent Film Awards, not to be confused with the British International Freight Association).
And the nominees were:
Best Actor
Tony Curran (Red Road)
James McAvoy (The Last King of Scotland)
Cillian Murphy (The Wind That Shakes The Barley)
Peter O'Toole (Venus)
Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland)Best Actress
Juliette Binoche (Breaking and Entering)
Frances de la Tour (The History Boys)
Kate Dickie (Red Road)
Helen Mirren (The Queen)
Robin Wright Penn (Breaking and Entering)
And the winners were:
Best Actor Tony Curran
Best Actress Kate Dickie
Hallam Foe, a film by David Mackenzie starring Jamie Bell
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