22/10/2003

The UK based sales arm of HBO Films is going to launch Bruce Beresford’s And Starring Pancho Villa As Himself, during its first attendance at MIFED. The film is a $25m action-adventure film starring Antonio Banderas, Jim Broadbent (Iris) and Alan Arkin (Catch 22).

The film is the true story of how Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa allowed a Hollywood crew to film in battle, altering the course of film and military operations.
HBO Films London’s managing director, Penny Wolf and Sales Executive, Lissa Lebel will also be proposing two other high profile, award winning films in Milan: the 2003 Palme d’or winner Elephant directed by Gus van Sant (set for a US release this Friday, through Fine Pine Pictures), and Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini’s American Splendor, which recently won the New Directors Award in Edinburgh and the International Critics Award in Deauville.
A promo-reel will be available on Stephen Hopkins’ The Life and Death of Peter Sellers starring Geoffrey Rush, Charlize Theron, Emily Watson, John Lithgow and Stephen Fry. The film is currently in post-production, and will be ready in March 2004. International distributors will also be able to start negotiations on Empire Falls, Fred Schepisi’s new film following Last Orders [+see also:
trailer
film profile]. Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Richard Russo, it tells the humorous story of a New England town and its inhabitants. The $26m film stars Ed Harris, Paul Newman, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Robin Wright Penn, Aidan Quinn, Helen Hunt and Joanne Woodward.

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