ROMAN POLANSKI

Started by modage, June 26, 2003, 01:44:22 AM

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

MacGuffin

Roman Polanski Will Next Direct an Adaptation of David Ives' Broadway Success 'Venus in Fur'
Source: IndieWire

Roman Polanski announced Thursday that before making his planned Drefyus affair drama "D.," he will direct an independently financed French-language adaptation of the David Ives play "Venus in Fur." He has set Emmanuelle Seigner and Louis Garrel to star and plans a November production start in Paris.

"I've been looking for a chance to make a film in French with Emmanuelle for a long time," said Polanski, who directed Seigner in "Frantic" (1988) and "Bitter Moon" (1992). "Reading 'Venus in Fur' I realized the moment had arrived. I got so fired up to put this brilliant black comedy on film that I decided to fit it in before 'D.,' whose screenplay and pre-production will demand a few more months."

"Fur" involves an actress performing a sexually charged audition for a gifted playwright, who has adapted the classic erotic novel "Venus in Fur." It has played both on and off Broadway, received a Tony nomination for best play and earned star Nina Arianda a Tony for best actress.

Polanski, who last directed an adaptation of the award-winning Yasmina Reza play "God of Carnage," which Sony Pictures Classics released in 2011, is adapting the "Fur" screenplay with Ives. Robert Benmussa and Alain Sarde are producing.

Seigner, who has two children with Polanski, recently starred in Francois Ozon's "In the House," which just had its premiere at the Toronto film festival, Dario Argento's 2009 thriller "Giallo" and Julian Schnabel's Oscar-nominated 2007 drama "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly."

ICM Partners is handling North American rights to the film, while Lionsgate/Summit International is repping international sales.

Polanski's co-writer on "The Ghost Writer," Robert Harris, is scripting the "D." project.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

polkablues

Quote from: MacGuffin on September 20, 2012, 03:48:24 PM
Polanski, who directed Seigner in "Frantic" (1988) and "Bitter Moon" (1992).

Smart not to bring up "The Ninth Gate".
My house, my rules, my coffee

Reel

I sold my copy of 'The Ninth Gate' today. I just can't have any of that rapists work residing in my house, sorry.

wilder

Roman Polanski's 'Venus' Heading To U.S. Via Sundance Selects
via IndieWire

Roman Polanski's "Venus In Fur" will head to the U.S. via Sundance Selects, it was announced today. The film -- which just had its world premiere in Cannes --  stars Polanski's wife and frequent collaborator Emmanuelle Seigner as Vanda, an actress who shows up late to an audition for Thomas (Mathieu Almaric), a writer-director with some sadomasochist issues.

The deal for the film was negotiated by Arianna Bocco, Senior Vice President of Acquisitions & Productions for Sundance Selects/IFC Films with Jeff Berg at Resolution on behalf of the filmmakers.

wilder

Christoph Waltz Will Solve 'True Crimes,' As Roman Polanski Eyes Directing
via The Playlist

Waltz is now aboard "True Crimes," a project his "Carnage" director Roman Polanski was kicking the tires on a couple years back. Based on a 2008 New Yorker article by David Grann, the true story kicks off in December 2000 with Dariusz Janiszewski found dead in the Oder River in Poland. Police investigated, but after six months the case ran cold and was presumed unsolved, until detective Jacek Wroblewski (Waltz's role) picked it up. He targeted Krystian Bala, a Polish intellectual for the crime, and the investigation grew more interesting when it was revealed that the murder had some eerie similarities with Bala's book "Amok." Soon Jacek "becomes entangled in the dark underworld of Poland's sex rings, prostitution and drugs" as he tries to solve the case.

Said to be in the vein of "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" (which every Euro thriller is compared to now), there's no director yet but apparently, Polanski is still interested. So we could see a little reunion here if that works out. Brett Ratner is one of the producers which is still mind boggling, and a distributor needs to be found.

wilder

Alexandre Desplat Reteams With Roman Polanski, Will Score Dreyfus Affair Drama 'D'
via The Playlist

Desplat is Polanski's go-to music guy at present, having done "Carnage," "The Ghost Writer" and even the documentary "Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir." "D," scripted by novelist Robert Harris, on whose novel Polanski's "The Ghost Writer" was based, is about the notorious Dreyfus affair (about which Harris has also just written a novel, "An Officer and a Spy"). The Dreyfus affair centered on a Jewish officer in the French army whose (blatantly fixed) conviction in 1894 for selling military secrets to Germany triggered years of political and cultural conflict in France and essentially drew the battle-lines along which the French left and right fought for most of the 20th century.

Mel

Director Roman Polanski, actress Mia Farrow and producer Robert Evans tell the story of bringing "Rosemary's Baby" to life.

Simple mind - simple pleasures...

wilder


wilder

Polish Judge Rejects Extradition of Roman Polanski
via The NY Times


The Polish filmmaker Roman Polanski, right, with his lawyer Jerzy Stachowicz in court last month in Krakow, Poland

KRAKOW, Poland — A judge in Poland on Friday turned down a request by the United States for the extradition of the filmmaker Roman Polanski, who is wanted over a 1977 conviction for having sex with a 13-year-old girl.

At a hearing in Krakow, Judge Dariusz Mazur ruled that turning over Mr. Polanski would be an "obviously unlawful" deprivation of liberty and that California would be unlikely to provide humane living conditions for the filmmaker, who is 82.

"I am very happy that the case is ending," Mr. Polanski said at a news conference in Krakow after the ruling, the latest development in a 38-year trans-Atlantic legal controversy. "This has been a tremendous burden on me and my family."

Mr. Polanski, a citizen of France and Poland, has been working on a film in Poland about Alfred Dreyfus, a French Army captain who was wrongly convicted of spying for Germany in 1894.

Over the years, prosecutors and judges in Los Angeles have said that Mr. Polanski must return to the United States to face sentencing. His lawyers have asserted that improprieties by the trial judge and others violated his legal rights.

Judge Mazur sided with Mr. Polanski's lawyers. "I'm terrified by the statements of some of my colleagues in the U.S.," he said, citing a report last year that a Los Angeles judge had planned to have Mr. Polanski "cool his heels in jail" if he returned to the United States by delaying a ruling on a proposed deal under which the judge would limit his sentence to 42 days served by the filmmaker in 1977-78. (The deal did not materialize.)

"If I were to behave like them, I'd lose the respect of all my subordinates here," Judge Mazur said. "I do not find any logical, rational explanation as to why the U.S. is pursuing the extradition."

Mr. Polanski did not attend the hearing but said afterward, "I am happy that I trusted the Polish justice system." He praised the judge as "incredibly well-informed," adding, "Frankly, I was moved."

Judge Mazur's ruling is not necessarily the final step in the Polish case; prosecutors could appeal. "We will wait until we get the full decision in writing before deciding whether to appeal," the regional prosecutor, Danuta Bieniarz, said after the ruling. (Complicating the matter, an influential politician in the right-wing party that drew the most votes in parliamentary elections on Sunday, Mariusz Blaszczak, has expressed sympathy for the American position.)

A lawyer for Mr. Polanski, Jan Olszewski, had argued passionately against the extradition, which the United States formally requested from the Polish government in January. "The victim in this case did not want jail time for Polanski," Mr. Olszewski said. "She forgave him. This is rare in this kind of case."

He added: "This is not a matter of justice. This is not about the victim. She said that the whole proceeding has harmed her more than what Mr. Polanski did to her."

Mr. Olszweski and another defense lawyer, Jerzy Stachowicz, repeatedly cited the 2008 documentary "Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired," which suggested prosecutorial overreach and judicial misconduct by officials in the United States. They argued that extraditing Mr. Polanski would violate the European Convention on Human Rights and his right to a fair trial.

In contrast, Ms. Bieniarz, the regional prosecutor, kept her argument brief. "In our opinion, there are no legal grounds to stop the extradition," she told Judge Mazur. "The case has not expired under American law, and we do not think that the extradition is unlawful, on the basis of Polish law. There is no proof that Polanski will be treated inhumanely in the United States."

Shiara Dávila-Morales, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office, said in a statement, "Our position on this matter remains the same." A spokeswoman from the Los Angeles County Superior Court declined to comment.

The legal decision in Poland follows Switzerland's refusal in 2010 to extradite Mr. Polanski. He had been arrested at the Zurich airport and held for about 10 months during a series of hearings similar to the ones in Poland.

In Switzerland, the authorities said that they had not been given enough information about the case to justify sending Mr. Polanski to the United States for sentencing. They pointed in particular to a failure by officials in Los Angeles to forward sealed testimony by Roger Gunson, a now-retired lawyer who originally prosecuted the case.

Mr. Gunson gave provisional testimony in 2009, when he was gravely ill, about a plan by the 1970s trial judge, Laurence J. Rittenband, to limit Mr. Polanski's sentence to a 90-day psychiatric evaluation, a portion of which Mr. Polanski served in Chino State Prison. Mr. Gunson's account was not provided to the Polish court.

Mr. Gunson is still alive, and the testimony has not been unsealed. Judge Rittenband died in 1993.

Mr. Polanski was first arrested in 1977 on charges that included the rape of the 13-year-old girl at the home of the actor Jack Nicholson. In 1978, he fled the United States on the eve of sentencing under an agreement by which he was to plead guilty to a count of statutory rape.

Mr. Polanski left the country after learning that Judge Rittenband had decided to revise his plan to limit his sentence.

The victim in the case for which Mr. Polanski was convicted, Samantha Geimer, who revisited the legal proceedings in a 2013 memoir, wrote on her Facebook page on Friday: "If they were smart, they'd stop trying to bring him back. If they ever do, the truth about the corruption in the D.A.'s office and court will finally be known."

In December, Judge James R. Brandlin of the Los Angeles County Superior Court dismissed a motion in which Alan M. Dershowitz, who then represented Mr. Polanski, argued that prosecutors had provided false information to the Swiss authorities. The motion also cited internal court emails that Mr. Dershowitz contended were evidence that a Superior Court judge in 2009 unethically prejudged issues related to the case.

In 2009, a California appeals court panel suggested that Mr. Polanski could be sentenced in absentia, opening the way to possible resolution of the long standoff. But that suggestion was rejected by the Superior Court.

Mr. Polanski is now represented in the United States by Harland W. Braun, a defense lawyer whose celebrity clients have included the actors Robert Blake, Gary Busey and Roseanne Barr. After the retirement of Mr. Polanski's longtime lawyer, Douglas Dalton, Mr. Braun was recruited for the job by the Hollywood filmmaker and power broker Brett Ratner.

In an email, Mr. Braun noted that the Polish judge had cited emails that "had been hidden for many years" in announcing his decision. Mr. Braun urged that the case be removed from the Los Angeles court system and that Mr. Polanski "be sentenced in absentia as suggested by an appellate court many years ago."

Since 2012, Mr. Polanski has talked of directing the film about Captain Dreyfus, whose 1894 trial stirred accusations of anti-Semitism and polarized France. Mr. Polanski has said he views the film, of which Mr. Ratner is a producer and an investor, as a way to teach lessons about official misbehavior.

wilder

Roman Polanski To Direct Olivier Assayas Penned 'Based On A True Story'
via The Playlist

Never quite free of his legal problems, and continuing to be something of a divisive figure in the industry, director Roman Polanski has in recent years been on something of a hot streak, in particular knocking out "The Ghost Writer," "Carnage," and "Venus In Fur" in quick succession. But three years have passed since the latter, and while at one point it looked like his $40 million biopic about Alfred Dreyfus was good to go to start filming in Poland, that quietly went away. But now it looks like there's another potential film on his plate.

Allocine reveals that Polanski will direct an adaptation of the French fiction bestseller "Based On A True Story" by author Delphine de Vigan. Intriguingly, Olivier Assayas ("Clouds Of Sils Maria," "Personal Shopper") will be penning the script for this one, which tells the story of a writer, going through a rough period after the release of his latest book, who gets mixed up with an admirer.

wilder

Quote from: wilder on February 26, 2014, 12:52:06 PM
Alexandre Desplat Reteams With Roman Polanski, Will Score Dreyfus Affair Drama 'D'


Roman Polanski To Begin Work On His Next Film With Star Jean Dujardin Attached
via The Playlist

Allocine is reporting that Polanski will shortly begin production on his next film, "J'accuse." The film is expected to tell the story of the famous Dreyfus affair, which was a political scandal that rocked France in the late 19th century. The scandal included a Jewish man being wrongfully convicted of treason, even after there was irrefutable evidence showing someone else was the culprit.

Polanski has long been in development of a film surrounding this topic but admitted multiple times that it was going to be a costly project and would have to land a major star to secure funding. Well, the report states that the filmmaker found that star in Jean Dujardin.

Dujardin, for those unfamiliar, is a major French actor, best known around the world for his Oscar-winning performance in "The Artist." The actor has a long filmography of French films, including the acclaimed 'OSS 117' films. He's also shown up in several US productions, such as "The Monuments Men" and "The Wolf of Wall Street."

Alethia

Nice, any new Polanski release is exciting for me.

wilder

July 28, 2020

The Tenant aka Le locataire (1976) on blu-ray from Scream Factory



An apartment with an unhappy past sets the stage for filmmaker Roman Polanski's riveting psychological suspense thriller, The Tenant. Polanski stars as Trelkovsky, a quiet, timid file clerk increasingly overshadowed with dread and fear after he moves into his new apartment. Adding to his paranoia are the building's other occupants, who do nothing to alleviate his growing obsession with the untimely, tragic fate of the apartment's previous tenant. Is Trelkovsky's dread truly justified – or is it simply the result of his seemingly disintegrating mental state?

Alethia


wilder

July 13, 2021

The Pianist (2002) on blu-ray from Shout Factory



A Polish Jewish musician struggles to survive the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto of World War II.