31/03/2006

The 47 year-old Scottish filmmaker made famous with his 1989 feature debut Scandal is in the full glare of the media spotlight with the release of his two latest films in the UK and Ireland today: Shooting Dogs [+see also:
trailer
film profile], distributed by Metronome on 18 screens and Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction, released nationwide by Entertainment Film Distributors.

These two films, shot back to back in 2005, couldn’t be more opposite in style and content. Shooting Dogs is a £4m harrowing drama about the Rwandan genocide, shot entirely on location in Kigali. The UK/German co-production between Cross Day Production and Egoli Tossell Film was co-financed by BBC Films, the UK Film Council, Invicta Capital and Filmstiftung NRW.

Shooting Dogs premiered last Monday in a Kigali football stadium before 50,000 people, including thousands of local extras who worked on the film and Rwandan president Paul Kagame. Caton-Jones, who has made most of his films in Hollywood, said that he decided to make Shooting Dogs to reconnect with his inner self and to get back to “more important” filmmaking. In contrast, Basic Instinct 2, the sequel to Paul Verhoeven’s 1992 hit, starring Sharon Stone once again, was made “for the money” partly provided by US studio MGM.

Eight other new films are being released today, including three European co-productions: The White Countess is a new historical drama by James Ivory, starring Ralph Fiennes and Natasha Richardson. The UK/US/German/Chinese co-production released by Sony Pictures in the UK is the last film Ivory made with his life-long production partner Ismael Merchant, who died last May.

Tommy Lee Jones’ acclaimed directorial debut The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, a French/US co-production, is being distributed by Optimum Releasing on 16 screens, and Lionsgate UK (formerly Redbus) is platforming the UK/Canadian documentary Diameter Of The Bomb by Steven Silver and Andrew Quigley on only one London screen.