ManFromPlains Tagged Articles at Cinematical
TIFF Watch: 'Man from Plains' Wins Three Awards at Venice
Filed under: Documentary », Awards », Festival Reports », Politics », Toronto International Film Festival », Cinematical Indie », Venice Film Festival »
Jimmy Carter may not have gotten a lot of respect when he was president -- maybe the fact that he was called "Jimmy" had something to do with it -- but he's enjoyed a resurgence in recent years as his humanitarian efforts have reminded Americans what they liked about him in the first place. He's not a great politician, but he's an honest, good-hearted man with noble intentions. And now filmmaker Jonathan Demme (Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense, Neil Young: Heart of Gold) has scored with a documentary about him, called Man from Plains. Now playing at the Toronto International Film Festival, it was at the Venice fest, too, where it picked up three prizes last weekend.
The international critics' jury give the film its top award, while the Human Rights Film Network gave it a prize for best feature film. It also received the Collateral Award for Best Biography, which is presented by the Bologna Film Festival in conjunction with the Venice fest.
Sony Pictures Classics is releasing the film theatrically in October. It follows Carter on his recent tour for his book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, which caused a stir with its controversial subject matter.
Demme is perhaps best known as a director of fictional films, including Philadelphia and The Silence of the Lambs (for which he won an Oscar). But his documentaries have been widely acclaimed, too. Many people consider his Talking Heads and Neil Young movies to be among the best concert films ever made. So his portrait of Jimmy Carter promises to be interesting -- and apparently the people in Venice think so, too.
Sony Grabs 'Jimmy Carter'
Filed under: Documentary », Independent », Sony Classics », Distribution », Politics », Toronto International Film Festival », Cinematical Indie »
Those of us too young to remember Jimmy Carter the President will soon get to see Jimmy Carter the movie star. Of course, he's appeared in plenty of documentaries in the past, but the 39th President of the United States should receive his greatest cinematic distribution with Jonathan Demme's Jimmy Carter: Man of Plains. The doc, which we first heard about last December, has just been picked up by Sony Classics and is about to figure heavily in the festival season. It will definitely be shown at the Venice Film Festival, and then it will also be screened in Toronto, where Carter is expected to appear. Demme's last documentary, Neil Young: Heart of Gold, also received good distribution -- from Paramount Classics -- and went on to a domestic gross of about $2 million. Demme, who is best known as the Oscar-winning director of The Silence of the Lambs, has better luck with music documentaries than political (The Agronomist only broke a quarter-million). However, Man of Plains was produced by Participant Pictures, who gave us An Inconvenient Truth and Murderball, so hopefully it can follow up those hits with another. Man of Plains is a book-tour road-trip doc (think Michael Moore's The Big One), which follows Carter as he promotes his 2006 best seller Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. Via three months worth of radio, news and university appearances (though not Brandeis, which refused Demme's camera), the film features the former President speaking out about his quest for international peace and encouraging debate about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Like the book it showcases, the film should garner some controversy -- possibly even from former President Bill Clinton, who is one of the stronger critics of Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid (hopefully Demme got that important interview). Man of Plains features cinematography by Declan Quinn (Leaving Las Vegas) and editing by Kate Amend, who cut the Oscar-winning doc Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport. With this acquisition, Sony Pictures now has nine films playing at Toronto, including The Jane Austen Book Club and Persepolis.
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