news

Directed by Academy Award winner Paul Haggis, the short film is the first global campaign for luxury outerwear brand Canada Goose. Produced by Saville Productions.

Link to Adweek.

Netflix and other digital platforms are attracting huge audiences who wish to watching film and tv without disruptive tv commercials. As customers migrate to these platforms, it’s necessary for a brans to integrate themselves into these new programming opportunities.

Director Martin Campbell twice relaunched the Bond franchise, first with Pierce Brosnan in GoldenEye, and again with ‘Casino Royal’. He also transformed his classic 1985 BBC eco-thriller ‘Edge of Darkness’ into a big-budget Hollywood movie starring Mel Gibson.

In discussion with Rupert Maconick, Martin shares his experiences of telling stories in an established fictional universe working with Bond and Zorro. Hear about the challenges involved in incorporating real life brands into the rarefied world of Bond, and how popular stories are re-purposed and updated for modern audiences.

The talk will take place at The Palais 2, Inspiration Stage on Friday June 24th at 2pm.

Saville x CANNES Entertainment Poster

On the fine line separating the fearless from the reckless is where you’ll often find Werner Herzog. Again and again over his five decades in film, the German director has turned his lens on figures who walk that tightrope, frequently in exotic landscapes – the bear-obsessed loner of “Grizzly Man,” the Irish rubber baron who wanted to build an opera house in the Peruvian jungle in “Fitzcarraldo,” the oddball Antarctic poets of “Encounters at the End of the World.”

Such characters seem to be both reflections and projections of the director himself, who has become legendary for real-life episodes of derring-do in the execution of his professional duties, though Herzog recounts them almost nonchalantly.

He’s been detained during a coup attempt in Africa (“a case of mistaken identity – they were looking for a guy named Hertz,” he explains with a wave of the hand). He was shot in the crotch near Lookout Mountain in Los Angeles, not far from his home, during an interview with the BBC (“a minor wound,” he demurs, with a twinkle in his eye).

Perhaps most infamously, one of Herzog’s local crew members sawed off his own foot deep in the South American jungle to save himself from a poisonous snake bite. (“It was the right thing to do, because he survived,” Herzog intones matter-of-factly, his Bavarian accent still strong despite decades in America.)

But at 73, Herzog insists he remains firmly on the sane side of the line.

“I was always, not without fear, but from a certain point in my life, [fear] is not even in my vocabulary anymore,” said Herzog last week at the Shanghai International Film Festival, where he premiered his latest film, “Salt and Fire.” “But it’s not stupid fearlessness. There’s such a thing as heroic stupidities, and there are some sort of grotesque stupidities, and there are such a thing as stupid stupidities, and I’m not into that… none of those categories.”

Continue reading at LATimes.com.

Werner Herzog’s new documentary, unsurprisingly, offers a very different perspective on the internet. Yes, the filmmaker talks to former hacker Kevin Mitnick and other early adopters of the web, but he also talks to cosmologists, families who think the internet is “evil,” and even Elon Musk, who he asks to take him to Mars. The Grizzly Man director examines smartphone usage, artificial intelligence, and tweeting monks, too. Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World is, in other words, a Werner Herzog documentary—and very much lives up to its name. Check out the new trailer for the doc, which hits theaters and VOD from Magnolia Pictures and Netscout on August 19.

Watch the trailer on Wired.com.

Emmy-winning documentarian Judd Ehrlich has mastered the craft of exposing compelling and honest stories not just centered around high school athletics, but around whole communities who find themselves misunderstood. His ability to pick apart the intricacies of race, socio-economic status, and spirituality within the confines of sports is unparalleled. It’s why his 2014 film “We Could Be King,” which followed two Philadelphia rival football teams who were forced to merge as one after a drastic budget crisis, won him an Emmy for Outstanding Sports Documentary.

Ehrlich’s same directorial finesse can be seen in “KEEPERS OF THE GAME,” his TriBeCa film that highlighted the intense gender and spiritual divide that the girls of the Akwesane lacrosse team face. Lacrosse was born in Akwesasne Mohawk Territory as a sacred game, traditionally reserved for men. But just off the reservation at Salmon River High in Fort Covington, NY an all-Native girls lacrosse hopes to bring home a Section Championship while at the same time dealing with the increasing tension in their own community. With more than just the championship on the line, the girls fight to blaze a new path for the next generation of Native women, while still honoring their people’s tradition in a changing world.

The film debuted at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival to an overwhelming positive response. As Ehrlich notes, “It’s the most important moment, to see how the people in the film respond to their portrayal, and we got overwhelmingly positive feedback that night from both the team and the audience. The girls got an extended standing ovation, which was incredibly moving to witness.”

“KEEPERS OF THE GAME” is proving to be one of the most important films to watch this season — sports fanatic or not. Ahead of the film’s premiere on ESPN2 on May 30th at 11 p.m. EST, we spoke with director Judd Ehrlich about what he learned from the project, how he immersed himself into the girls’ culture, and more!

Continue reading on Aol.com.

Tuesday marks the world premiere of “Keepers of the Game” as a part of the Tribeca/ESPN Sports Film festival. The documentary, from award-winning director Judd Ehrlich, chronicles the journey of the girls’ lacrosse team at Salmon River High in Fort Covington, New York. Just before their season starts, their funding is cut. For these athletes, however, the challenges facing them are not only monetary. They are an all-Mohawk team from the Akwesasne Mohawk Territory. Akwesasne is where the game of lacrosse originated, but since it is traditionally considered a game for men and boys, the girls face additional challenges from family, friends and neighbors as they seek to play. Ultimately they learn to reclaim the sport for themselves.

Keepers of the Game” is the second collaboration among Ehrlich, the Tribeca Film Festival and Dick’s Sporting Goods, which funded the film through the Sports Matter campaign from its foundation. Ehrlich won a Sports Emmy Award for a previous film, “We Could Be King.”

Ehrlich sat down with espnW to talk about the film and the importance of storytelling.

Continue reading the interview on espn.go.com.

A new film about the bespectacled plasterer from Gloucester is being billed as ‘an inspirational story’. And, for once, Hollywood has got it spot on.

The eccentric sports psychologist Willi Railo used to like to take interviewers to the top of the 90-metre high ski jump tower overlooking his home town of Oslo. Up there, the man who forged the sporting philosophy of Sven-Goran Eriksson among generations of Scandinavian winners, would smile at their jelly-kneed vertigo and make them stand at the very point of take-off. There he would ask them what they thought his words of advice would be to any jumper about to head down the vertiginous ramp into the gloaming far, far below.

“I would tell them if they had an ounce of sanity remaining in their tiny little brain they should turn round and go straight back down in the lift,” he would say. “But they are not listening. They are all mad. Quite insane.”

And you would have to be. As you stand at the top, the superstructure swaying alarmingly in the wind, the very thought of sliding off, attaining speeds of up to 70mph before flying from the end in the vain hope that you might land in a smooth open snow bowl so far away it appears to be in a different postcode, is enough to turn the most robust of stomachs.

That was the sight that greeted Michael “Eddie The Eagle” Edwards when he first climbed a 90m tower. But Edwards, who is now the subject of a major feature film starring Hugh Jackman and Christopher Walken, did not turn around. He clipped on his skis, adjusted his glasses, pulled down his goggles, slid off and flew. And the thing was, the first time he went up a tower of that scale was not when conducting an interview with a Norwegian psychologist. It was to compete at the Olympic Games.

Continue reading on Telegraph.co.uk.

No one wins any medals inpete hammond review badge Eddie The Eagle. In fact, Michael Eddie Edwards, a young British man with an Olympic dream, managed to come in dead last in both ski-jumping events he entered at the 1988 Calgary Olympic Games. But as I say in my video review above, somehow he stole the show, and now the movie that has been made about this feat of just getting to compete will be stealing a lot of hearts — and laughs — along the way.

Taron Egerton (Kingsman: The Secret Service) stars as Edwards, an awkward young Brit who has dreamed of being an Olympian his entire life. Only problem is there really isn’t much of a sport he excels at, and when he does go out for Britain’s downhill ski team, he gets cut. With his dream looking like it has been shattered, he discovers that no Brit has made the Olympics as a ski jumper since 1929, so he takes that up as a novice hoping to make the select British team that way. He does, kinda by accident, and it’s off to Calgary. Along the way he is befriended by a “coach” played by Hugh Jackman who was once a promising ski jumper himself, but blew it and spends most of his days now drinking. But he does, for whatever reason, see in Edwards the spirit he lost and helps him achieve his dream. One particularly funny sequence has the coach comparing taking flight on a slope to having sex with Eddie’s favorite movie star, Bo Derek. In fact, there is a lot of humor throughout the film, which despite slightly racy scenes like that, is really a perfect family movie.

Continue reading on Deadline Hollywood.

EXCLUSIVE: After launching the Taron Egerton-Hugh Jackman-starrer Eddie The Eagle with a sneak Sundance screening, 2oth Century Fox is going all in with a spot to play during Super Bowl 50. Even though The Eagle sometimes crashed after he soared, Fox marketing president Marc Weinstock said the film’s subject personifies themes that are completely relevant to Sunday’s gridiron match. “Eddie The Eagle is the underdog movie that has moved everyone who’s seen it with its story of perseverance, passion, drive and never giving up on your dreams,” Weinstock said. “We were confident that it would strike a chord with these particular athletes, who were all underdogs themselves at one point. Perhaps because of their own personal stories and how many people they’ve inspired, they responded incredibly well to the movie and are the perfect champions for it.” The Dexter Fletcher-directed film bows Feb. 26. Here’s an exclusive first look at Sunday’s Super Bowl spot, and if you look hard you might recognize NFL QBs Russell Wilson, Drew Brees and Kurt Warner.

Watch the spot on Deadline.

Magnolia Pictures has remained relatively quiet at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, but the company has finally made a move by picking up worldwide distribution rights to Werner Herzog’s “Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World.” Mostly praised by critics after its world premiere at Sundance, the movie finds the iconic director exploring the past, present and constantly evolving future of the Internet. Interviewees include PayPal and Tesla co-founder Elon Musk, Internet protocol inventor Bob Kahn and famed hacker Kevin Mitnick.

The official synopsis reads: “In ‘Lo and Behold,’ the Oscar-nominated Herzog chronicles the virtual world from its origins to its outermost reaches, exploring the digital landscape with the same curiosity and imagination he previously trained on earthly destinations as disparate as the Amazon, the Sahara, the South Pole and the Australian outback. Working with NetScout, a world leader in real time service assurance and cybersecurity, Herzog leads viewers on a journey through a series of provocative conversations that reveal the ways in which the online world has transformed how virtually everything in the real world works – from business to education, space travel to healthcare, and the very heart of how we conduct our personal relationships.”

Continue reading on Indiewire.