Soderbergh’s epic “Che” lands US distributor

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Soderbergh’s epic ‘Che’ lands US distributor

TORONTO — Steven Soderbergh’s Che Guevara film biography “Che” has found a U.S. distributor that will release it in theaters this December to qualify for the Academy Awards.

IFC Films announced Wednesday it acquired domestic rights to the two-part, 4½-hour saga, which stars Puerto Rican actor Benicio Del Toro as the Argentine doctor who became one of the heroes of Fidel Castro’s Cuban revolution.

The film will play a one-week qualifying run in Los Angeles and New York in December for Oscar consideration.

It will reopen in theaters in January and be available to cable and satellite subscribers through IFC’s movies-on-demand service.

“Che” earned Del Toro the best-actor prize in May at the Cannes Film Festival, where the film premiered.

The acquisition was announced at the Toronto International Film Festival, where “Che” also screened.

“‘Che’ is nothing less than the film event of the year,” said Jonathan Sehring, IFC Films president.

“By giving us the rise and fall of one of the great icons of history, Steven Soderbergh and Benicio Del Toro, who gives an incredible soulful performance, have humanized him and given audiences around the world something that will be discussed for years to come.”

Manu Chao y Maradona

This footage was filmed in Buenos Aires and is part of the Emir Kusturica documentary on the life of Diego Maradona.

80 Años

Benicio Del Toro wins Cannes’ Best Actor award as “Che”

Benicio Del Toro, ‘Latino Brad Pitt’, wins Cannes award as ‘Che’

by Claire Rosemberg

CANNES, France (AFP) – Oscar-winner Benicio Del Toro, the Puerto Rican-born star often dubbed the “Latino Brad Pitt”, won Cannes’ Best Actor award Sunday for his role as “Che” Guevara in Steven Soderbergh’s film on the revolutionary hero.

“I’d like to dedicate this to the man himself, Che Guevara,” said the actor, after accepting his second big award under the US director’s helmsmanship.

“I wouldn’t be here without Che Guevera, and through all the awards the movie gets you’ll have to pay your respects to the man.”

And taking one reporter’s question after Cannes’ red-carpet awards ceremony, all Del Toro saw was her “Che” T-shirt. “I like the shirt,” he said several times.

Del Toro, 41, transmutes into a larger-than-life Che in the marathon four-hours-plus movie.

“Che” charts two episodes in the life of the guerrilla hero — the late 1950s ouster of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista alongside Fidel Castro, and Che’s subsequent aborted bid to bring the Cuban revolution to Bolivia.

Some critics slammed the film shot in Spanish for its length and meticulous documentary-style presentation, as well as for failing to focus on the politically controversial aspects of the Cuban revolution.

Soderbergh needed to tighten it for average movie-goers, they said.

The US director back in 2000 propelled Del Toro into the movie limelight, when he bagged best supporting Oscar for his role as a restrained Mexican police officer walking the moral high ground in “Traffic”.

Del Toro, original name Benicio Monserrate Rafael Del Toro Sanchez, also played five years earlier in the blockbuster “The Usual Suspects”, where he was the mumbling gangster Fenster.

He has also been directed by the head of this year’s Cannes jury Sean Penn, in 1990 “The Indian Runner” and “The Pledge”, 2001.

Born in Puerto Rico to lawyer parents, he moved to the United States at the age of nine when his mother died and studied commerce before deciding, secretly, to change to acting.

Del Toro, who has a quiet but immensely strong presence, was involved from the start on the “Che” film, which took nine years of research and 60 million dollars to complete.

In Cannes for the screening, he recounted how like the average American he grew up with a bad guy image of Cuba’s hero until stumbling on a book on the guerrilla leader in Mexico.

“He had a really warm smile. I bought the book and then read more. The love people had for this man made me more interested,” he said.

Benecio Del Toro challenges Cannes with epic Che portrait

Del Toro challenge Cannes with epic Che portrait

CANNES, France — Unless it is one of his “Ocean’s Eleven” casino romps, Steven Soderbergh never makes things easy for an audience.

With his epic film biography of Latin American revolutionary Che Guevara, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, Soderbergh defiantly has made the story he wanted to see, one that will prove a very tough sell to some audiences.

The two-part saga runs four hours, 30 minutes. It is almost entirely in Spanish, a particular challenge for U.S. viewers who dislike subtitles.

It dispenses with many cliches of the biopic, offering virtually no insight into the origin of Che’s brand of humanism, instead presenting impressionistic glimpses of Che’s idealism in action during the Cuban revolution and his attempt to foment a similar transformation in Bolivia.

Soderbergh was prepared for reporters’ skepticism on all fronts at a Cannes news conference Thursday.

On shooting in Spanish:

“You can’t make a film with any level of credibility in this case unless it’s in Spanish,” Soderbergh said.

“I hope we’re reaching a time where you go make a movie in another culture, that you shoot in the language of that culture. I’m hoping the days of that sort of specific brand of cultural imperialism have ended.”

On the length:

“Just the further you get into it, it felt like if you’re going to have context, then it’s just going to have to be a certain size,” Soderbergh said.

On the unconventional structure:

“I find it hilarious that most of the stuff being written about movies is how conventional they are, and then you have people … upset that something’s not conventional,” Soderbergh said.

“The bottom line is we’re just trying to give you a sense of what it was like to hang out around this person. That’s really it. And the scenes were chosen strictly on the basis of, ‘Yeah, what does that tell us about his character?’”

Starring Benicio Del Toro, the Oscar-winning co-star of Soderbergh’s “Traffic,” as Guevara, the two films were shot as “The Argentine” and “Guerrilla.”

The cast includes Franka Potente, Catalina Sandino Moreno and Demian Bichir as Fidel Castro. Soderbergh buddy Matt Damon, part of the star-studded “Ocean’s Eleven” ensemble, makes a brief appearance.

“The Argentine” juxtaposes Guevara and Castro’s late 1950s triumph in Cuba with flashbacks to their early planning days in Mexico and Che’s visit to New York City in the mid-1960s, when he was greeted with condemnation and death threats over the Castro regime’s iron-fisted rule.

“Guerrilla” follows the downfall of Guevara as his grass-roots campaign in Bolivia degenerates into a handful of scraggly, starving rebels on the run from vastly superior government forces in the jungle.

Che was executed in Bolivia in 1967. Much of the world now has only a superficial grasp of Che as a symbol of revolution from T-shirts and posters depicting his boldly smiling face.

While it may be hard to persuade audiences to see it a first time, the story requires repeated viewings to really appreciate it, said Del Toro, also a producer on the project.

“It reminds me of the painter who did a portrait of this lady, and when he gave it to the lady, the lady said, ‘That portrait doesn’t look anything like me.’ And the painter said, ‘Oh, it will,’” Del Toro said.

“I really think that eventually, those people, when they see the movie for the third time, they’ll start seeing things, they’ll start seeing dimensions and angles, maybe a look or a smile or the use of this or a character here and there. … I know them very well, but I’m still finding stuff.”

The films were presented as one entry at Cannes under the name “Che.” They played without credits, the way Soderbergh would prefer to see it initially released to general audiences.

“Here’s what I would like to do is, every time it opens in a town, let’s say, that for a week, you can see it as one movie for the first week, and then you split it off into two films,” Soderbergh said.

“That’s what I would like to do is have a sort of roadshow engagement, no credits … a printed program that comes with the movie. To me, that would be an event.”

How the films actually will play in the U.S. and other countries will depend on deals Soderbergh strikes as he shops it around to distributors at Cannes.

“Che” is competing for the top prize at Cannes, the Palme d’Or, which Soderbergh won with his feature debut, “sex, lies and videotape,” in 1989.

While Soderbergh talked seriously and passionately about his desire to make the films, he also had a ready wisecrack for his motivation:

“It’s all a very elaborate way for us to sell our own T-shirts,” Soderbergh said.

Maradona: Larger than life on Emir Kusturica documentary

This documentary should be quite interesting, as anything related to Diego usually is. Hopefully, it’ll be released in the US. A movie about his life was supposedly in the works with Benicio Del Toro a while back but I don’t know if its going to be released or if it’s even in production.

A great movie about his extraordinary life, on and off the field, needs to be made.

Maradona: Larger than life on Emir Kusturica documentary

The Associated Press
Wednesday, May 21st 2008, 4:00 AM

At last, he says, someone has his story right.

The hard-living, larger-than-life Argentine hero was at the Cannes Film Festival on Tuesday for the premiere of “Maradona by Kusturica,” by Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica (“Underground”), the film world’s counterpart to the over-the-top Maradona.

The movie puts a spotlight on the cult of personality around the 47-year-old Maradona, who led Argentina to the 1986 World Cup title and the final in 1990.

Hilarious footage shows followers of the “Maradonian Church” formed by worshipping fans, who sing his name to the tune of “Ave Maria,” build religious shrines to him and even celebrate a wedding in his honor.

It also explores Maradona’s past cocaine use, his relationship with his two daughters and his political side.

On screen, Maradona shows off his tattoo of Fidel Castro. He says he would never shake hands with Prince Charles. And he calls President Bush a “piece of human garbage.”

Off screen, he’s just as outspoken.

“It seems that when you become a well-known figure you aren’t allowed to talk about the United States or Bush,” Maradona told reporters.

“There are a lot of subjects that you aren’t allowed to talk about anymore. But Emir showed me the respect that every human being deserves. Even if you’re a soccer player, you have the right to express your opinions about somebody who’s a murderer.”

While Maradona’s rivalry with Brazilian great Pele doesn’t come up in the film, it did at the Cannes news conference, where Maradona insisted he was the greater player — a viewpoint disputed by many soccer fans.

“I promised my daughters that I wouldn’t talk about Pele, but well, I can’t prevent myself — I regret it for him,” Maradona said.

“If I hadn’t done all the bad things that I’ve done in my life, Pele would never have been able to come along as No. 2 behind me, because he used to go to bed at 10 o’clock at night, whereas I was still out on the tiles until 5 o’clock in the morning. That’s the big difference between us.”

Maradona, who gamely dribbled a ball and balanced it on his head like a seal for Cannes paparazzi, said his wild past was behind him.

“I’ve abandoned all those bad habits,” a slimmed-down, cleaned-up Maradona said. “Now I have a different life. And above all I’m not living at 100 miles an hour as I used to. I enjoy life.”

Maradona, who cooperated with Kusturica on the project, said the movie is the first about him that he’s ever appreciated.