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May 12, 2005

One Movie Trying To Fight Its Way To A Cannes Sale

What first caught my eye was a press release by Soleil Film headed, "Soleil Film Increases Equity Interest in Feature Film "All That I Need" by 100%"

I read the press release, wondering whether a company had indeed doubled its investment in a film I had never heard of and why they were announcing it publicly. In the release it calls, "All That I Need, a reality documentary movie in the spirit of Super Size Me." It also states, "We are extremely pleased about the opportunity to acquire an increased equity share in the feature,' commented CEO, Kenneth Eade, 'and are even more pleased that the screening room at Cannes has been filled to capacity with major distributors who have confirmed their attendance for our May 13th screening."

This is a May 12 press release.

On May 2, it turns out, there was a release (picked up by Yahoo! FInance) stating that there was a 75% increase in Soleil's equity position on this same film, not May 12th 100%.

And have I mentioned, the film is not a documentary like Super Size Me? It is a fake documentary starring the director.


A little more investigation turns up another press release (May 10) in which Paramount Classics' Susan Wrubel passing on the film. Yet Soleil takes the doubly surprising step of positioning that as a win and of quoting a distribution exec's position on a film publicly. Wrubel is quoted as caling the film "'incredible material,' comparable to Lord of The Flies." The release continues... "Although Paramount chose not to purchase distribution rights for the film, Susan Wrubel, Vice President of Acquisitions and Co Productions for Paramount commented, 'You have something interesting here, with some incredible material. I'm sure you will be able to sell this film at Cannes, just on concept alone.'”

Oy. Quoted while letting someone down easy...

A trip to the Soleil Films website, which is still headered as "Signature Films," will get you a link to the All That I Need website... which is a work in progress, apparently... though Revolution Studios and Columbia Pictures will be as surprised that they are already attached to this film as the MPAA will be that it's already rated. (Click on "The Movie" to see the non-existent trailer.)

I'm not writing this to give this tiny company (which trades as an over-the-counter stock) too much grief for this goofy behavior. But it does seem to be a good example of the smoke and mirrors than Cannes inspires in hungry production companies.

Posted by poland at May 12, 2005 11:58 AM

Comments

cannes is just a show and more publicity than good film festival

Posted by: bicycle bob [TypeKey Profile Page] at May 12, 2005 12:40 PM

Cannes is a beautiful city. They get a little too into their film festival though. But it is fun.

Posted by: Terence D [TypeKey Profile Page] at May 12, 2005 01:32 PM

It is more of a show and a celebrity sighting event than a film place. Which isn't too bad.

Posted by: Mark at May 12, 2005 02:14 PM

Speaking of Cannes... did anybody know that DAVID LYNCH HAS A NEW FILM PREMIERING THERE?!?!

The IMDb (the place with all the facts, obviously) is saying that it stars Laura Dern, Harry Dean Stanton and Jeremy Irons and that it's a mystery about a girl and that's all Lynch will say. And he's being SO secretive about it that he won't even allow the film's poster to be revealed until the film has been shown.

I found this odd, especially coming from the IMDb, because there is not a single word about this project anywhere on the site apart from that one news column. Not on Lynch's page or Dern's page or... you get the drift.

Did anybody know about this? Cause I sure as hell didn't. Does this mean we have another auteur for this year! Von Trier, Van Sant, Kar-Wai, Egoyan, Cronenburg, Jarmusch and many others.

Awesome!

"http://www.imdb.com/poll/results" - have a squiz at that link.

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