VENICE CHIEF TALKS POST-PANDEMIC EVENT: The first COVID-era film festival has arrived with a number of health and safety protocols, but it’s still happening. Deadline chatted with Venice Film Festival director Alberto Barbera, and he said: “We worked under great uncertainty until at least the end of May. I was quite pessimistic about the possibility of arranging a festival. In June, the situation slowly improved and we started to imagine how we could manage it. In the beginning it was scary because I was told I couldn’t invite more than 25 films. I told them that didn’t make sense. We knew we didn’t want an online festival and we considered a hybrid festival but most producers and filmmakers told us they didn’t want that. Around mid-June we thought we could get to around 50 titles. In the end we managed to get around 65 films.”
MAISIE WILLIAMS TALKS THE OWNERS: After more than a decade on Game of Thrones, Maisie Williams is playing Mary in Julius Berg‘s The Owners, which explores a home burglary gone wrong. She told The Hollywood Reporter: “Although being part of a psychological thriller or a horror is always somewhat hyperreal, I did like that we didn’t have any green screens. A lot of the emotions are a lot more realistic and a lot more pared back. I had really missed that, and so I was glad to be able to just do a lot of really interesting dialogue scenes and see the power dynamics between two people and how that can play out when there aren’t any weapons involved.” She added: “We were trying to understand why Mary gets walked all over in this film. And it’s because she’s always on the back foot. Why is she always on the back foot? It’s because of Terry (Andrew Ellis). Terry is constantly slowing her down, and I think that’s an intentional thing that the Huggins (Sylvester McCoy, Rita Tushingham) do.” The Owners is out now on demand and in select theaters.
TORONTO SEEN AS OPPORTUNITY FOR BUYERS: With many theaters shut down in the U.S., dealmakers are seeing new opportunities at the Toronto Film Festival. “Look at the performances of films that have come out in these territories in Europe and Asia and you see that, for the right indie film, there is absolutely a market there,” says Sebastien Raybaud, CEO of European production and financing group Anton. “In the U.S. you have to be more creative and maybe a bit more cautious.” The usual U.S. first rollout has also been flipped in the pandemic. Greenland, Russell Crowe starrer Unhinged and even Tenet first bowed out-side the U.S. “I’m sure we’ll see it with many other films going forward,” says Raybaud. “We can definitely open a movie internationally right now, so that’s what we should be focused on.”
NICK CORDERO TRIBUTE: More than 150 friends paid tribute to the late Broadway star Nick Cordero, joining in Cordero’s video performance of the song “One of the Great Ones” from A Bronx Tale. Among the performers: Dashiell Eaves, Andy Karl, Katrina Lenk, Audra McDonald, Abby Mueller, Jessie Mueller, Orfeh, Chazz Palminteri, Ashley Park, Colton Ryan, Will Swenson and Karen Ziemba. The show is available on Broadway on Demand.