Exclusive: Michel Gondry’s Partizan and Rtg Features have tapped Christopher Makoto Yogi (I Was a Simple Man) to direct Merv and the Miracles, a feature-length doc that explores the legendary college basketball game between Chaminade and number-one ranked Virginia in 1982.
The film, currently in the early stages of production, is being co-produced and co-financed by Partizan and Rtg Features, with Julie Fong (Dave Chappelle’s Block Party), Brian Yang (Linsanity), and Justin R. Ching (Ritual) producing.
During the opening weekend of the 43rd annual Hawai’i Film Festival, Artistic Director Anderson Le will give attendees an early first look at the film during a panel conversation with Yogi, who is himself an Hiff alum. Pic will be one of two Hawaiian indies spotlighted during the 90-minute program taking place on Saturday, October 14th at Entrepreneurs Sandbox in Honolulu.
Merv and the Miracles picks up on December 23, 1982 with Coach Merv...
The film, currently in the early stages of production, is being co-produced and co-financed by Partizan and Rtg Features, with Julie Fong (Dave Chappelle’s Block Party), Brian Yang (Linsanity), and Justin R. Ching (Ritual) producing.
During the opening weekend of the 43rd annual Hawai’i Film Festival, Artistic Director Anderson Le will give attendees an early first look at the film during a panel conversation with Yogi, who is himself an Hiff alum. Pic will be one of two Hawaiian indies spotlighted during the 90-minute program taking place on Saturday, October 14th at Entrepreneurs Sandbox in Honolulu.
Merv and the Miracles picks up on December 23, 1982 with Coach Merv...
- 9/21/2023
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
Le Livre des solutions
More than seven years after the release of Microbe & Gasoline, Michel Gondry returns to features (he produced a lot of shorts in between) with a formidable cast comprised of Pierre Niney, Blanche Gardin, Camille Rutherford, Vincent Elbaz, Frankie Wallach and Françoise Lebrun. Production took place in June of last year in a Paris. Partizan Films’ Georges Bermann produced Le Livre des solutions.
Gist: This revolves around a director seeking to vanquish his demons which are stifling his creativity.
Release Date/Prediction: Berlinale might be a good first pit stop for the film.
…...
More than seven years after the release of Microbe & Gasoline, Michel Gondry returns to features (he produced a lot of shorts in between) with a formidable cast comprised of Pierre Niney, Blanche Gardin, Camille Rutherford, Vincent Elbaz, Frankie Wallach and Françoise Lebrun. Production took place in June of last year in a Paris. Partizan Films’ Georges Bermann produced Le Livre des solutions.
Gist: This revolves around a director seeking to vanquish his demons which are stifling his creativity.
Release Date/Prediction: Berlinale might be a good first pit stop for the film.
…...
- 1/10/2023
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
Screen Media Films has acquired U.S. rights to writer-director Michel Gondry’s Microbe & Gasoline, which bowed at the 2015 New York Film Festival. A July 1 release is planned in New York (the Landmark Sunshine Cinema) and Los Angeles (the Nuart Theatre) ahead of a platform release. The StudioCanal pic is about two young friends who embark on a road trip across France in a vehicle they built themselves. Ange Dargent, Theophile Baquet and Audrey Tautou star. Georges Bermann…...
- 4/26/2016
- Deadline
Antoine Bardou-Jacquet’s action-comedy stars Ron Perlman, Rupert Grint and Robert Sheehan.
Alchemy has acquired all North American rights to Moonwalkers.
Antoine Bardou-Jacquet’s action-comedy stars Ron Perlman, Rupert Grint and Robert Sheehan, and centres on the premise that Apollo 11 never made it, telling the story behind the hoax.
The film world premiered at SXSW on Saturday [March 14].
“Moonwalkers is a wildly imaginative, one-of-a-kind action movie,” commented Alchemy CEO Bill Lee. “Antoine Bardou-Jacquet has crafted something truly original that we look forward to bringing to a wide audience.”
The deal was negotiated by Alchemy VP of acquisitions Jeff Deutchman with Grégoire Melin and Ram Murali of Kinology and UTA Independent Film Group on behalf of the filmmakers.
Written by Dean Craig, Moonwalkers was produced by Georges Bermann (Partizan Films) and co-produced by Sylvain Goldberg, Serge de Poucques, Peter de Maegd, Tom Hameeuw and Melin.
Alchemy has acquired all North American rights to Moonwalkers.
Antoine Bardou-Jacquet’s action-comedy stars Ron Perlman, Rupert Grint and Robert Sheehan, and centres on the premise that Apollo 11 never made it, telling the story behind the hoax.
The film world premiered at SXSW on Saturday [March 14].
“Moonwalkers is a wildly imaginative, one-of-a-kind action movie,” commented Alchemy CEO Bill Lee. “Antoine Bardou-Jacquet has crafted something truly original that we look forward to bringing to a wide audience.”
The deal was negotiated by Alchemy VP of acquisitions Jeff Deutchman with Grégoire Melin and Ram Murali of Kinology and UTA Independent Film Group on behalf of the filmmakers.
Written by Dean Craig, Moonwalkers was produced by Georges Bermann (Partizan Films) and co-produced by Sylvain Goldberg, Serge de Poucques, Peter de Maegd, Tom Hameeuw and Melin.
- 3/16/2015
- by ian.sandwell@screendaily.com (Ian Sandwell)
- ScreenDaily
Microbe et Gasoil
Director: Michel Gondry // Writer: Michel Gondry
Though his last feature, 2013’s zany and effervescent Mood Indigo, had a tortured flight to the box office, the steadily busy Michel Gondry also released a documentary, Is the Man Who is Tall Happy?. Now, he’s reteaming with his Indigo star Audrey Tautou to headline a cast of newcomers with a roadtrip film that recounts the wild adventures of two teenagers who are somewhat marginalised: the tiny “Microbe” and the inventive “Gasoil”. As the summer holidays get ever nearer, the two friends have no intention of spending the two months with their families. So with the help of a lawnmower engine and various planks of wood, they decide to build their own “car” and set off on an adventurous road trip around France.
Cast: Audrey Tautou and a cast of first-time children actors.
Producers: StudioCanal, Partizan Films’ Georges Bermann (Dog Pound)
U.
Director: Michel Gondry // Writer: Michel Gondry
Though his last feature, 2013’s zany and effervescent Mood Indigo, had a tortured flight to the box office, the steadily busy Michel Gondry also released a documentary, Is the Man Who is Tall Happy?. Now, he’s reteaming with his Indigo star Audrey Tautou to headline a cast of newcomers with a roadtrip film that recounts the wild adventures of two teenagers who are somewhat marginalised: the tiny “Microbe” and the inventive “Gasoil”. As the summer holidays get ever nearer, the two friends have no intention of spending the two months with their families. So with the help of a lawnmower engine and various planks of wood, they decide to build their own “car” and set off on an adventurous road trip around France.
Cast: Audrey Tautou and a cast of first-time children actors.
Producers: StudioCanal, Partizan Films’ Georges Bermann (Dog Pound)
U.
- 1/6/2015
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Sundance Selects has picked up North American rights to Michel Gondry’s Is The Man Who Is Tall Happy? ahead of the world premiere screening as closing night at the 2013 Doc NYC Festival on November 21.
Georges Bermann, Gondry, Raffi Adlan and Julie Fong produced the film about the life of celebrated and controversial philosopher, linguist, anti-war activist and political firebrand Noam Chomsky.
Sundance Selects negotiated the deal with Wme Independent on behalf of the filmmakers.
Georges Bermann, Gondry, Raffi Adlan and Julie Fong produced the film about the life of celebrated and controversial philosopher, linguist, anti-war activist and political firebrand Noam Chomsky.
Sundance Selects negotiated the deal with Wme Independent on behalf of the filmmakers.
- 10/18/2013
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
Michel Gondry's Doc NYC Closer, an Animated Conversation with Noam Chomsky, Goes to Sundance Selects
Sundance Selects is acquiring North American rights to Michel Gondry’s animated conversation with philosopher and linguist Noam Chomsky "Is the Man Who is Tall Happy?" before it closes the Doc NYC festival. This animated documentary on the life and work of the controversial MIT philosophy and linguistics professor and political activist is directed by Gondry ("Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and "The Science of Sleep") and produced by Georges Bermann, Gondry, Raffi Adlan and Julie Fong. In the film Gondry conducts long complicated talks with Chomsky accompanied by Gondry's own illustrations. An early teaser trailer is here. Gondry described the long-in-the-works film before an MIT preview last February (via the Animated Matters): "My conversations with Professor Chomsky were lively, sometime complex, always very human. Through my illustrations, we follow the winding path of my halting and incomplete understanding. Noam is often patient, sometime less so....
- 10/18/2013
- by Anne Thompson
- Thompson on Hollywood
- #82. Be Kind RewindDirector/Writer: Michel GondryProducers: Georges Bermann (The Science of Sleep), Julie Fong (Block Party)Distributor: New Line Cinema The Gist: The wacky premise sees Jack Black star as a loveable loser stuck in a life that's too small for his big dreams. But when he unintentionally erases all the tapes in a video store where his best friend works, he devises a plan to satisfy the store's few loyal customers by re-creating and re-filming every movie they decide to rent.Fact: This is technically Gondry's second film starring Mose Def - he was one of the artists jamming it up in Block Party. See It: Gondry is the Georges Méliès of the Y2K and despite that this has a solid chance at becoming Gondry's biggest box office take especially with the references to favorites such as The Lion King, Rush Hour, Ghostbusters, When We Were Kings,
- 1/28/2008
- IONCINEMA.com
Sundance Film Festival
PARK CITY -- After highly imaginative explorations of man's natural instincts (Human Nature) and the interplay of memory, dreams and personal relationships ("Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and The Science of Sleep), Michel Gondry has turned his playful gaze to film itself.
Be Kind Rewind wants to probe the interplay among films, their audience and the people who make them. It's an exuberant, fanciful fable set amid the scruffy outskirts of American society, where people's need for escapism coincides with their desire to participate in its creation.
For all of Gondry's undeniable talent, it would be hard to imagine him pulling off this delicate and even cornball conceit without his star, Jack Black. With irrepressible exuberance and going-in-five-directions energy, Black is the embodiment of Gondry's whimsical notion that a small-town Ed Wood could infect an entire downtrodden neighborhood with the filmmaking fever.
As with most Gondry films, Rewind is not for all tastes. Its good-natured sweetness will appeal to many; others may shun the fractured fairy tale altogether. Yet this French filmmaker has developed enough of an international fan base for his fanciful films to fully support this modestly budgeted effort. New Line releases the film Feb. 22.
Certain that microwaves from the power plant he lives near are killing him, Jerry (Black), a mechanic in the struggling New Jersey town of Passaic, tries to sabotage the plant. Only he gets caught in an electromagnetic field that leaves him dazed, confused and magnetized. He thus inadvertently erases every videotape in a rental store run by his childhood pal Mike (Mos Def) while its owner, Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover), is away.
When customer Miss Falewicz (Mia Farrow) wants to check out Ghostbusters, Jerry and Mike stall her until the end of the day. They spend that time making their own version of that film using a video camera, homemade props and playing all the roles themselves. Miss Falewicz, who has never seen the film, actually likes their version. So the two continue the ruse by making crude versions of Rush Hour, Robocop, Boyz N the Hood and The Lion King for loyal customers. Jerry calls the process of re-enacting these popular movies "sweding," though the reason for that term is a bit hazy.
Soon the customers themselves are participating in these "swedes." Productions get a bit more lavish for King Kong, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Carrie through the use of "special effects" and camera tricks. Then a Hollywood lawyer (a nicely imperious Sigourney Weaver) shows up with charges of intellectual property theft. She demands the tapes' destruction.
Gondry, who also wrote the script, keeps the focus on pop cinema. No one swedes a Bergman movie or Citizen Kane. (Which might have taken the humor in a very different yet interesting direction.) Consequently, the film doesn't go very far in its examination of film culture. Rewind can be read as a lampoon of indie filmmaking or the preposterousness of much of popular cinema or simply a gentle fable about the YouTube/MySpace generation's fascination with ego-centric creativity.
The climax -- in which the store's dilapidated building is threatened with demolition and everyone including Mr. Fletcher makes one final film supporting Fletcher's long-held claim that jazz legend Fats Waller was born in the location of the video store -- pretty much squeezes all the comic action that's left in this whimsy about sweding. The film may overstay its welcome by a good 10 minutes. But everyone has been such good company, it feels churlish to say so.
The real film crew, in this film about bad filmmaking, performs very well indeed.
BE KIND REWIND
New Line
Partizan Films
Credits:
Screenwriter-director: Michel Gondry
Producers: Georges Bermann, Michel Gondry, Julie Fong
Executive producers: Toby Emmerich, Guy Stodel
Director of photography: Ellen Kuras
Production designer: Dan Leigh
Music: Jean-Michel Bernard
Co-producer: Ann Ruark
Costume designers: Rachel Afiley, Kishu Chand
Editor: Jeff Buchanan
Cast:
Jerry: Jack Black
Mike: Mos Def
Mr. Fletcher: Danny Glover
Miss Falewicz: Mia Farrow
Alma: Melonie Diaz
Running time -- 100 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
PARK CITY -- After highly imaginative explorations of man's natural instincts (Human Nature) and the interplay of memory, dreams and personal relationships ("Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and The Science of Sleep), Michel Gondry has turned his playful gaze to film itself.
Be Kind Rewind wants to probe the interplay among films, their audience and the people who make them. It's an exuberant, fanciful fable set amid the scruffy outskirts of American society, where people's need for escapism coincides with their desire to participate in its creation.
For all of Gondry's undeniable talent, it would be hard to imagine him pulling off this delicate and even cornball conceit without his star, Jack Black. With irrepressible exuberance and going-in-five-directions energy, Black is the embodiment of Gondry's whimsical notion that a small-town Ed Wood could infect an entire downtrodden neighborhood with the filmmaking fever.
As with most Gondry films, Rewind is not for all tastes. Its good-natured sweetness will appeal to many; others may shun the fractured fairy tale altogether. Yet this French filmmaker has developed enough of an international fan base for his fanciful films to fully support this modestly budgeted effort. New Line releases the film Feb. 22.
Certain that microwaves from the power plant he lives near are killing him, Jerry (Black), a mechanic in the struggling New Jersey town of Passaic, tries to sabotage the plant. Only he gets caught in an electromagnetic field that leaves him dazed, confused and magnetized. He thus inadvertently erases every videotape in a rental store run by his childhood pal Mike (Mos Def) while its owner, Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover), is away.
When customer Miss Falewicz (Mia Farrow) wants to check out Ghostbusters, Jerry and Mike stall her until the end of the day. They spend that time making their own version of that film using a video camera, homemade props and playing all the roles themselves. Miss Falewicz, who has never seen the film, actually likes their version. So the two continue the ruse by making crude versions of Rush Hour, Robocop, Boyz N the Hood and The Lion King for loyal customers. Jerry calls the process of re-enacting these popular movies "sweding," though the reason for that term is a bit hazy.
Soon the customers themselves are participating in these "swedes." Productions get a bit more lavish for King Kong, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Carrie through the use of "special effects" and camera tricks. Then a Hollywood lawyer (a nicely imperious Sigourney Weaver) shows up with charges of intellectual property theft. She demands the tapes' destruction.
Gondry, who also wrote the script, keeps the focus on pop cinema. No one swedes a Bergman movie or Citizen Kane. (Which might have taken the humor in a very different yet interesting direction.) Consequently, the film doesn't go very far in its examination of film culture. Rewind can be read as a lampoon of indie filmmaking or the preposterousness of much of popular cinema or simply a gentle fable about the YouTube/MySpace generation's fascination with ego-centric creativity.
The climax -- in which the store's dilapidated building is threatened with demolition and everyone including Mr. Fletcher makes one final film supporting Fletcher's long-held claim that jazz legend Fats Waller was born in the location of the video store -- pretty much squeezes all the comic action that's left in this whimsy about sweding. The film may overstay its welcome by a good 10 minutes. But everyone has been such good company, it feels churlish to say so.
The real film crew, in this film about bad filmmaking, performs very well indeed.
BE KIND REWIND
New Line
Partizan Films
Credits:
Screenwriter-director: Michel Gondry
Producers: Georges Bermann, Michel Gondry, Julie Fong
Executive producers: Toby Emmerich, Guy Stodel
Director of photography: Ellen Kuras
Production designer: Dan Leigh
Music: Jean-Michel Bernard
Co-producer: Ann Ruark
Costume designers: Rachel Afiley, Kishu Chand
Editor: Jeff Buchanan
Cast:
Jerry: Jack Black
Mike: Mos Def
Mr. Fletcher: Danny Glover
Miss Falewicz: Mia Farrow
Alma: Melonie Diaz
Running time -- 100 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
- 1/21/2008
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
New Line Cinema has picked up domestic rights to writer-director Michel Gondry's newest project, Be Kind Rewind. Jack Black is attached to star in the film, which is being produced by Georges Bermann, Gondry's partner in Partizan Prods. Black will portray a junkyard worker who attempts to sabotage a power plant that he believes is melting his brain. But when his plan goes awry, the magnetic field that he creates accidentally erases all of the videotapes in a local video store where his best friend, Mike, works.
- 5/17/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
NEW YORK -- Jack Black is set to star in Michel Gondry's eccentric comedy Be Kind Rewind, playing a junkyard worker whose brain is magnetized, destroying every tape in his friend's video store and forcing the pair to remake the lost films. Focus Features International has nabbed international sales rights to the under-$20 million Partizan production, which begins a two-month shoot Sept. 6 in New York. In the film, Black plays Jerry, a man whose headaches lead him to believe his brain is melting. His brain is magnetized, leading to the unintentional destruction of movies in his friend's store. In order to keep the store's one loyal customer, an elderly lady with signs of dementia, the pair re-creates a long line of films including The Lion King, Rush Hour, Back to the Future and Robocop. Producer Georges Bermann of Partizan said Gondry, who has partnered with Partizan since 1989, came to him in November with several ideas. "Michel is a super-fast writer," Bermann said. "He handed in a draft three weeks. Focus was interested the second they heard the pitch and made the deal within a week."...
NEW YORK -- Jack Black is set to star in Michel Gondry's eccentric comedy Be Kind Rewind, playing a junkyard worker whose brain is magnetized, destroying every tape in his friend's video store and forcing the pair to remake the lost films. Focus Features International has nabbed international sales rights to the under-$20 million Partizan production, which begins a two-month shoot Sept. 6 in New York. In the film, Black plays Jerry, a man whose headaches lead him to believe his brain is melting. His brain is magnetized, leading to the unintentional destruction of movies in his friend's store. In order to keep the store's one loyal customer, an elderly lady with signs of dementia, the pair re-creates a long line of films including The Lion King, Rush Hour, Back to the Future and Robocop. Producer Georges Bermann of Partizan said Gondry, who has partnered with Partizan since 1989, came to him in November with several ideas. "Michel is a super-fast writer," Bermann said. "He handed in a draft three weeks. Focus was interested the second they heard the pitch and made the deal within a week."...
PARK CITY -- Warner Independent Pictures jumped into the big-buy arena Monday at Sundance with the $6 million acquisition of all North American and U.K. rights to writer-director Michel Gondry's The Science of Sleep. WIP moved swiftly to buy the visually dazzling fantasy starring Gael Garcia Bernal and Charlotte Gainsbourg right after its 9:30 p.m. screening Sunday and closed the deal with Gaumont and Partizan Films at 3 a.m. Monday. "There were six of us who saw it," WIP president Mark Gill said. "We never agree on anything, but we all loved this film. It's breathtakingly original." Science of Sleep is produced by Georges Bermann and Frederic Junqua and marks WIP's first Gaumont film. WIP plans to release the film in the second half of the year.
- 1/24/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
PARK CITY -- Warner Independent Pictures jumped into the big-buy arena Monday at Sundance with the $6 million acquisition of all North American and U.K. rights to writer-director Michel Gondry's The Science of Sleep. WIP moved swiftly to buy the visually dazzling fantasy starring Gael Garcia Bernal and Charlotte Gainsbourg right after its 9:30 p.m. screening Sunday and closed the deal with Gaumont and Partizan Films at 3 a.m. Monday. "There were six of us who saw it," WIP president Mark Gill said. "We never agree on anything, but we all loved this film. It's breathtakingly original." Science of Sleep is produced by Georges Bermann and Frederic Junqua and marks WIP's first Gaumont film. WIP plans to release the film in the second half of the year.
- 1/24/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The Motorcycle Diaries star Gael Garcia Bernal is revving up for Michel Gondry's new project, The Science of Sleep. Bernal, who is generating buzz for his role as Ernesto "Che" Guevara de la Serna in the Focus Features release, has signed on for Gondry's Sleep alongside Charlotte Gainsbourg and Alain Chabat. Preproduction is under way, with shooting pegged to start by year's end in France. Georges Bermann is producing. Gondry penned the script, which is being revised. The logline is being kept under wraps because of the changes in the script, but it is known to switch back and forth from dreamlike sequences to reality. Gondry is repped by UTA and Donna French in the United Kingdom. Bernal is repped by Endeavor. He also stars in Pedro Almodovar's Bad Education, from Sony Pictures Classics.
- 10/24/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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