Film news from Michael Dwyer in Cannes
Citizen Cannes writes his biog
Festival de Cannes president Gilles Jacob, now 79, will sign copies of his memoirs, Life Will Pass Like a Dream, here tomorrow afternoon. The book, subtitled Citizen Cannes, charts his 32 years at the nerve centre of the festival.
Jacob recalls Emma Thompson flouting the strict dress code by "walking the red carpet barefoot, in jeans and a sweater", and Francis Ford Coppola bitterly remarking "I got a half- Palme" when Apocalypse Nowshared the 1979 Palme d'Or with The Tin Drum.
Jacob was berated by a French superstar for turning down the mediocre Unhook the Starsin 1996. "Gerard Depardieu yelled at me like I've never been yelled at before, even by own father," he writes.
Mona Lisa set for NYC remake
Neil Jordan has made three movies based on previously filmed material: We're No Angels, The End of the Affairand The Good Thief. Now Kidsdirector Larry Clark is remaking Jordan's Mona Lisa, which won Bob Hoskins the best actor award at Cannes in 1986 for playing the minder for a London prostitute (Cathy Tyson). Mickey Rourke and Eva Green take those roles in Clark's version, which shoots in New York in July.
Sam Riley ( Control) takes the lead in Rowan Joffe's new treatment of Graham Greene's novel Brighton Rock, as Pinky, the gangster Richard Attenborough memorably played in the 1947 version.
Hot on the heels of Nicolas Winding Refn's planned Jekyll and Hydemovie starring Keanu Reeves comes Abel Ferrara's rival version starring Forest Whitaker and Curtis Jackson aka 50 Cent. Werner Herzog's remake of Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant, with Nicolas Cage in the original Harvey Keitel role, has finished shooting.
And it was announced in Cannes that there will be a remake of the once- controversial 1978 horror movie, I Spit on Your Grave.
Women dominate jury panel
Isabelle Huppert, voted best actress at Cannes in 1978 and 2001, is president of this year’s jury, presiding over a panel where women are in the majority for the first time in Cannes history. Huppert is joined by four actresses (Shu Qi, Asia Argento, Sharmila Tagore and Robin Wright Penn) along with screenwriter Hanif Kureishi and directors James Gray, Lee Chang-Dong and Nuri Bilge Ceylan.
Only one woman has ever won the Palme d'Or: Jane Campion for The Pianoin 1993.
Unusually, three of the 20 competition films this year are directed by women: Campion's Bright Star,Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank,and Isabel Coixet's Map of the Sounds of Tokyo.
Ringu director to film Walsh play
Irish writer Enda Walsh has scripted the screenplay adaptation of his stage play Chatroom, which starts shooting next month with Hideo Nakata, the Japanese director of the original Ringumovies, at the helm. Chatroomfollows five teens who meet online and encourage each other's destructive behaviour.
Anyone for a vibrator movie?
Paris-based sales company Elle Driver (named after Daryl Hannah's character in Kill Bill) is in Cannes negotiating distribution rights to Hysteria, featuring Rupert Everett, Sally Hawkins and Jonathan Pryce. Based on a true story about the invention of the vibrator in Victorian England, Hysteriadescribed as a romantic comedy.
