09-15-2006, 10:25 PM
By Gregg Goldstein
Reuters
TORONTO (Sept. 12) - Newmarket Films has picked up all U.S. rights to "Death of a President," the most controversial film at the Toronto International Film Festival because of its realistic depiction of an imagined assassination of President Bush. The distributor paid $1 million for the film, and Maple Films paid $500,000 for all Canadian rights. Assassination Film Controversy
Talk About It: Post Your Thoughts
Newmarket is expected to give "President" a wide release within the next few months. It will air on U.K. television next month. Foreign sales, totaling around $3 million, have been signed for such countries as France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland.
Director Gabriel Range's faux-documentary mixes real footage and dramatized segments to depict the aftermath of an October 2007 Bush assassination and its impact on U.S. civil liberties. The director was reportedly the subject of death threats just days before its Sunday world premiere, though sources close to the production said the reports were exaggerated.
Audiences at its packed premiere screening reacted with applause and a few audible hisses at the end of the film, made in the style of an investigative documentary attempting to clear the name of a wrongly convicted Syrian man.
Range, who interviewed intelligence officials in researching the film, said in a Q&A session: "I think it's very important that Bush is a sitting president. If it was a fictional president, the reaction would be completely different, like watching '24,' and would have undermined the entire idea. I wanted it to feel like it's about the world we live in now."
The director used a similar approach in his 2003 mockumentary "The Day Britain Stopped," which imagined the aftermath of his country's transit system shutting down. "I lived in New York briefly after 9/11," he said, "and it struck me that an event as horrific as this could serve as a dramatic device for looking at how our civil liberties could be threatened."
Newmarket Films co-founder Chris Ball, who released Mel Gibson 's "The Passion of the Christ," said, "I came (to see the film) with a preconceived notion of what this film would be about and was shocked to discover that 'Death of a President' is first and foremost a riveting and commercial political thriller that in no way sensationalizes anything or advocates violence."
Other films expected to sell to distributors soon at Toronto include the decidedly less controversial "Black Sheep," a comic horror film from New Zealand depicting killer sheep; the Alzheimer's disease-themed drama "Away From Her"; the female ensemble road movie "Bonneville"; and another politically themed film, "The Prisoner or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair."
http://news.aol.com/entertainment/movies/articles/_a/bush-assassination-film-set-for-us/20060912065409990001?cid=445
Reuters
TORONTO (Sept. 12) - Newmarket Films has picked up all U.S. rights to "Death of a President," the most controversial film at the Toronto International Film Festival because of its realistic depiction of an imagined assassination of President Bush. The distributor paid $1 million for the film, and Maple Films paid $500,000 for all Canadian rights. Assassination Film Controversy
Talk About It: Post Your Thoughts
Newmarket is expected to give "President" a wide release within the next few months. It will air on U.K. television next month. Foreign sales, totaling around $3 million, have been signed for such countries as France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland.
Director Gabriel Range's faux-documentary mixes real footage and dramatized segments to depict the aftermath of an October 2007 Bush assassination and its impact on U.S. civil liberties. The director was reportedly the subject of death threats just days before its Sunday world premiere, though sources close to the production said the reports were exaggerated.
Audiences at its packed premiere screening reacted with applause and a few audible hisses at the end of the film, made in the style of an investigative documentary attempting to clear the name of a wrongly convicted Syrian man.
Range, who interviewed intelligence officials in researching the film, said in a Q&A session: "I think it's very important that Bush is a sitting president. If it was a fictional president, the reaction would be completely different, like watching '24,' and would have undermined the entire idea. I wanted it to feel like it's about the world we live in now."
The director used a similar approach in his 2003 mockumentary "The Day Britain Stopped," which imagined the aftermath of his country's transit system shutting down. "I lived in New York briefly after 9/11," he said, "and it struck me that an event as horrific as this could serve as a dramatic device for looking at how our civil liberties could be threatened."
Newmarket Films co-founder Chris Ball, who released Mel Gibson 's "The Passion of the Christ," said, "I came (to see the film) with a preconceived notion of what this film would be about and was shocked to discover that 'Death of a President' is first and foremost a riveting and commercial political thriller that in no way sensationalizes anything or advocates violence."
Other films expected to sell to distributors soon at Toronto include the decidedly less controversial "Black Sheep," a comic horror film from New Zealand depicting killer sheep; the Alzheimer's disease-themed drama "Away From Her"; the female ensemble road movie "Bonneville"; and another politically themed film, "The Prisoner or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair."
http://news.aol.com/entertainment/movies/articles/_a/bush-assassination-film-set-for-us/20060912065409990001?cid=445
