Wim Wenders Alongside filmmaking, Wenders works with the medium of photography, emphasizing images of desolate landscapes.[1][2] Early life[edit] Wenders was born in Düsseldorf into a traditional Catholic family. Set on making his obsession also his life's work, Wenders returned to Germany in 1967 to work in the Düsseldorf office of United Artists. Career[edit] Wenders' book, Emotion Pictures, a collection of diary essays written while a film student, was adapted and broadcast as a series of plays on BBC Radio 3, featuring Peter Capaldi as Wenders, with Gina McKee, Saskia Reeves, Dennis Hopper, Harry Dean Stanton and Ricky Tomlinson, dramatised by Neil Cargill. Wenders was collaborating with artist/journalist and longtime friend Melinda Camber Porter on a documentary feature about his body of work, Wim Wenders - Visions on Film, when Porter passed away - the film remains incomplete. Wenders is a member of the advisory board of World Cinema Foundation. Photography[edit] Selected exhibitions[edit]
As The World Ends, A Certain 'Melancholia' Sets In hide captionA bride (Kirsten Dunst, with Alexander Skarsgard and Charlotte Gainsbourg) battles depression — and the possible end of the world — in Melancholia. Magnolia Pictures A bride (Kirsten Dunst, with Alexander Skarsgard and Charlotte Gainsbourg) battles depression — and the possible end of the world — in Melancholia. Melancholia Director: Lars von Trier Genre: Drama, Sci-Fi Running Time: 136 minutes Rated R; for some graphic nudity, sexuality content and language With: Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Kiefer Sutherland (Recommended) Note: Contains language some may find offensive. Metaphors don't come balder than the one at the center of Lars von Trier's Melancholia. That prelude features birds dropping from the sky, Dunst in a wedding dress amid leaves and tendrils as if merging with the doomed planet, and other inexplicable but unnerving images. This part of Melancholia is like one of those nightmares in which time stretches maddeningly out.
Cannes Film Festival: David Cronenberg on Adapting Unadaptable Books Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty ImagesDavid Cronenberg, right, with Robert Pattinson at the premiere of “Cosmopolis” at the Cannes Film Festival. CANNES, France — The Canadian director David Cronenberg has a long and eventful history at the Cannes Film Festival: he has competed for the Palme d’Or three times and was awarded a lifetime achievement prize in 2006. He has also stirred controversy both as a filmmaker (presenting the divisive “Crash” in 1996) and as the president of a jury (in 1999) that was both applauded and attacked for its surprising underdog choices.
Vincenzo Natali Early life[edit] Natali was born in Detroit, Michigan, to a nursery school teacher/painter mother and a photographer father.[1] He is of Italian and English descent.[1] He moved to Toronto, along with his family, at the age of one. During his time in high school, Natali befriended British-born Canadian actor David Hewlett who has appeared in the majority of films that Natali has directed. Natali also attended the film programme at Ryerson University. Career[edit] Filmography[edit] References[edit] External links[edit]
Kirsten Dunst: Expressing Something Blue In Melancholia hide captionSomething New: As the world changes, Justine (Kirsten Dunst) starts to experience otherworldly phenomena. Magnolia Pictures Something New: As the world changes, Justine (Kirsten Dunst) starts to experience otherworldly phenomena. Lars von Trier's Melancholia stars Kirsten Dunst as a depressed woman on her wedding day, just before the end of the world. When it looks like Melancholia is going to destroy the planet, everyone around Dunst's character Justine panics. "Lars would always say to me, 'I think that Justine has strength at the end because when you're depressed, you're numb and you're fearless to major tragedy," explains Dunst. Melancholia premiered at the 64th Cannes Film Festival, where Dunst received the festival's award for Best Actress. "It's almost painful just to hear it especially because we're on the radio and he's a friend of mine," says Dunst. Dunst remembers trying to intervene at the press conference to stop von Trier, she says. Early Career
Nanni Moretti Giovanni "Nanni" Moretti (born 19 August 1953) is an Italian film director, producer, screenwriter and actor. The Palme d'Or winner in 2001, in 2012 he was the President of the Jury at the Cannes Film Festival.[1] Life and work[edit] In 1976, Giovanni's first feature film Io sono un autarchico (I am Self-Sufficient) was released. In 1978 he produced the movie Ecce Bombo, which tells the story of a student having problems with his entourage. It was screened at the Cannes Festival. He is not religious. Films directed by Moretti[edit] Films in which Moretti acted[edit] Awards[edit] Further reading[edit] Gus Van Sant Early life[edit] Van Sant was born in Louisville, Kentucky, United States (US), the son of Betty (née Seay) and Gus Green Van Sant, Sr; Gus Van Sant's father was a clothing manufacturer[1] and traveling salesman who rapidly worked his way into middle class prosperity. As a result of his father's job, the family moved continually during Van Sant's childhood. Early career (1978–1989)[edit] After spending time in Europe, Van Sant went to Los Angeles in 1976.[8] He secured a job as a production assistant to writer/director Ken Shapiro, with whom he developed a few ideas, none of which came to fruition. Mala Noche was made two years after Van Sant went to New York to work in an advertising agency. Van Sant moved back to Portland, Oregon, where he set up house and began giving life to the ideas rejected by Universal. Indie and arthouse success (1990–1995)[edit] Mainstream breakout (1997–2003)[edit] Return to arthouse cinema (2003–present) [edit]
Robert Siodmak Robert Siodmak (8 August 1900 – 10 March 1973) was a German-born American film director. He is best remembered as a thriller specialist[1] and for the series of Hollywood film noirs he made in the 1940s. Early life[edit] With the rise of Nazism he left Germany for Paris and then Hollywood. Siodmak arrived in Hollywood in 1939, where he made 23 movies, many of them widely popular thrillers and crime melodramas, which critics today regard as classics of film noir. Hollywood career[edit] Return to Europe[edit] Before leaving Hollywood for Europe in 1952, following the problematic production The Crimson Pirate for Warner Bros., his third and last film with Burt Lancaster, Siodmak had directed some of the era's best film noirs (twelve in all), more than any other director who worked in that genre. He often expressed his desire to make pictures "of a different type and background" than the ones he had been making for ten years. Later career[edit] Filmography[edit] References[edit]
Shinya Tsukamoto Shinya Tsukamoto (塚本 晋也, Tsukamoto Shin'ya?, born January 1, 1960) is a Japanese film director and actor with a considerable cult following both domestically and abroad. Biography[edit] Tsukamoto started making movies at the age of 14, when his father gave him a Super 8 camera. His cinematic influences included Akira Kurosawa.[1] He made a number of films, ranging from 10-minute shorts to 2-hour features, until his first year at college when he temporarily lost interest in making movies. Tsukamoto then started up a theatre group, which soon included Kei Fujiwara, Nobu Kanaoka, and Tomorowo Taguchi, all of whom would continue to work with Tsukamoto up through the filming of Tetsuo: The Iron Man.[2] One of their theatre productions at this time was Denchu Kozo no boken. Tsukamoto's early films, Futsu saizu no kaijin (A Phantom of Regular Size) and Denchu Kozo no boken (The Adventures Of Electric Rod Boy) made in 1986/87, were short subject science fiction films shot on colour 8 mm film.
James Wan Director[edit] 2000–2006: Stygian, Saw to Saw III[edit] Before his success in the mainstream film industry, he made his first feature length film, Stygian, with Shannon Young, which won "Best Guerrilla Film" at the Melbourne Underground Film Festival (MUFF) in 2000.[2] Since creating the franchise, Wan and Leigh Whannell have served as executive producers to the sequels Saw II, Saw III, Saw IV,[3] Saw V, Saw VI and Saw 3D: The Final Chapter. The release of Saw 3D, complete with its subtitle, was to signify the completion of the franchise; however, Costas Mandylor, an actor in the seventh instalment, revealed that multiple endings to the film had been shot and the series could continue depending on which was used. 2007–2009: Dead Silence, Death Sentence[edit] In 2007, Wan directed two feature films. It all started when James and I returned from the Sundance Film Festival, where we had screened 'Saw' to much success. 2010–2013: Insidious, The Conjuring, Insidious: Chapter 2[edit]
Alexander Mackendrick His films made a gradual decline after Ealing Studios closed and he returned to America to become a teacher of filmmaking. He was the cousin of the Scottish writer Roger MacDougall. Biography[edit] He was born on 8 September 1912 the only child of Francis and Martha Mackendrick who had emigrated to the United States from Glasgow in 1911. His father was a ship builder and a civil engineer. When Mackendrick was six, his father died of influenza as a result of an pandemic that swept the world just after World War I. Mackendrick had a sad and lonely childhood. At the start of the Second World War, Mackendrick was employed by the Minister of Information making British propaganda films. Post-war[edit] Return to the U.S. Mackendrick often spoke of his dislike of the film industry and decided to leave the United Kingdom for Hollywood in 1955. [1] When Ealing studios was sold, Mackendrick was cut loose to pursue a career as a freelance director, something he was never prepared to do: "At Ealing ...