14/05/2005

Pathe International is selling exciting new films from established British filmmakers KenLoach and Stephen Frears along the much-anticipated BBC documentary The Power of Nightmares.
Ken Loach’s new film The Wind That Shakes The Barley [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ken Loach
interview: Rebecca O’Brien
film profile] is a €7m co-production between Rebecca O’Brien’s Sixteen Films in the UK and Ed Guiney’s Element Films in Ireland. The Irish war of independence drama starring Irish actors Cillian Murphy (Batman Begins) and Liam Cunningham (Dog Soldiers), will start shooting in Ireland later this month.

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Alison Thomson, Head of Pathe International is also starting negotiations in Cannes on Stephen Frears’ new project The Queen, while continuing discussions on the director’s Mrs Henderson Presents with a promo-screening at the Market. The talented veteran filmmaker Frears will make The Queen for Pathé Pictures Production and Granada Screen. The film scripted by Peter Morgan, is set during the week between Princess Diana’s death and her funeral. It will explore the particular relationship that tied UK Prime Minister Tony Blair to Queen Elizabeth II as the Queen was unable to comprehend the level of public mourning. Although casting is not confirmed yet, Helen Mirren is tipped to play the British monarch. The film will start shooting next September.

To complement its rich and varied Cannes line-up of 9 titles on sale, Pathe International also picked up for world-wide sales Adam Curtis’ BBC documentary The Power of Nightmares, screening in Official Selection out of competition in Cannes this Sunday. The 3 hours TV film cut by half an hour for a feature version, shows how fear has come to dominate politics in America, Britain and around the world, and that much of that fear is based on an illusion.