New Italian Media Company Be Water Announces Prestigious Partners, Takes Paul Schrader’s Cannes-Bound ‘Oh, Canada’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Often, the juries at the Cannes Film Festival will try to make a political statement in their choices for the winners of the world’s most famous film festival. Not this year. At least, not in the way they might have.

Refresh for latest…: The 77th Cannes Film Festival draws to a close this evening with the prize ceremony about to kick off inside the Grand Théâtre Lumière. The past 10 days have been building to this moment after a somewhat muted start that arrived under gloomy skies. The clouds have since cleared and several films have emerged as potential winners tonight. Scroll down for the list of laureates which is being updated as awards are announced.

Despite many of his generation taking time between films, Paul Schrader is a filmmaker who has kept working quite prolifically over the decades. Since 2002, he’s directed no fewer than 11 features.

Demi Moore‘s new horror film The Substance has landed a perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes after premiering at the Cannes Film Festival.The new film from director and writer Coralie Fargeat is a body horror that focuses on the titular product, which allows people to create a younger and more perfect alter ego.The movie, which also stars Margaret Qualley and Dennis Quaid, made its debut at the festival yesterday (May 19), and critics have shared their praise, with the film debuting with 100 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes.IndieWire called The Substance a “camp-adjacent instant classic [that] aspires to cast off with some of the most spectacularly disgusting body horror this side of The Fly or the final minutes of Akira.”Screen International said that “this potent body horror is executed with skill and compassion, bringing fresh insights alongside generous helpings of graphic gore”.“The Substance draws excellent performances from Demi Moore as a has-been Hollywood star and Margaret Qualley as the younger, prettier version she creates by injecting herself with the titular serum,” they added.Deadline suggested the film is like “David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive fused in a telepod with David Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers“, calling it “the perfect breakout genre movie of the year”.The ongoing Cannes Film Festival recently saw the premiere of Francis Ford Coppola’s long-awaited passion project Megalopolis, which has drawn a mixed reaction including some boos from the audience.The film, which stars Adam Driver as an architect-scientist who wants to improve a fictional version of New York City called New Rome, currently sits at 52 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes.The Guardian called the film “a passion project without passion”, though The

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent A new Italian distribution and international sales company called PiperFilm is launching in Cannes, having scored rights for Italy to Paolo Sorrentino’s Cannes competition title “Parthenope.” Former Vision Distribution managing director Massimiliano Orfei is president of PiperFilm, while Luisa Borella, who is also a former top-level Vision Distribution executive, serves as the new media company’s COO. PiperFilm is adopting an innovative distribution model by striking an agreement with Netflix under which the streaming giant will have the first exclusive post-theatrical window for Italy on their titles, while Warner Bros.

Paul Schrader hit Cannes this weekend with Competition title Oh, Canada, reuniting him with American Gigolo star Richard Gere in the role of a terminally ill documentarian who reveals secrets as his life nears its end.

Diaries are written in secrecy, free-flowing thoughts anchored to the page as if the ink could stop memories from vanishing through the hands of time. Filmmaker Paul Schrader understands the lingering, often quiet desperation of journaling like few filmmakers do.

EXCLUSIVE: Katie Holmes (Woman In Gold), Toby Kebbell (War For The Planet Of The Apes) and Oscar winner Al Pacino (The Irishman) have joined thriller Captivated, which International Film Trust is launching for sales in Cannes.

Paul Schrader revealed first details about his next feature project entitled Non Compos Mentis, at the press conference for his Cannes Competition title Oh, Canada on Saturday.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer The unstoppable Paul Schrader, the 77-year-old auteur who just brought his latest movie “Oh, Canada” to Cannes, has announced his next project. The director revealed he intends to start production this fall on “Non Compos Mentis,” a noir film he is currently writing.

Paul Schrader had a special job on the set of his latest film, “Oh, Canada”: drawing on the jockstrap that Jacob Elordi wears in one of the Vietnam War drama’s pivotal scenes. There’s a choice at the heart of “Oh, Canada,” when the fictional filmmaker Leonard Fife (played as a young man by Elordi, and older man as Richard Gere) dodges the Vietnam draft and escapes to Canada. The script leaves breadcrumbs as to what exactly happens until very late in the film, but finally Elordi is seen reporting for an Army physical.

Paul Schrader shed tears as his new film “Oh, Canada” earned a four-minute standing ovation at Cannes Film Festival on Friday night. Jacob Elordi was notably absent from the premiere, possibly because he is filming Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein,” in which he stars as The Monster. After the ovation finished, Schrader addressed Elordi not being there, saying: “I’m very happy with Richard, Uma, Jake — not here with us –and it all worked out.

Richard Gere poses for a family photo while attending the 2024 Cannes Film Festival premiere of his upcoming film Oh, Canada held at Palais des Festivals on Friday (May 17) in Cannes, France.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic Straying from the hotheaded “Taxi Driver” style that has dominated much of his career, Paul Schrader pays ruminative and respectful tribute to his late friend, novelist Russell Banks, who gave the writer-director the raw material for one of his best films, “Affliction” — and now, for one of his best films in years. Adapted from Banks’ “Foregone” (and given the title the author told Schrader he wanted for the book), “Oh, Canada” presents a dying artist’s final testimony as a multifaceted film-within-a-film, honoring Banks while also revealing so many of Schrader’s own thoughts on mortality.

EXCLUSIVE: Whitney Peak (Hocus Pocus 2, Molly’s Game, Gossip Girl) has been cast in Aisling Walsh’s Ethel, alongside the previously announced cast of Shira Haas and Sarah Paulson. Bankside Films first launched the title, which is currently in pre-production, earlier this year and has completed a number of international pre-sales in Cannes. 

Angelique Jackson Richard Gere and Jacob Elordi star in Paul Schrader‘s latest, highly anticipated film ‘Oh Canada,’ which premieres at the Cannes Film Festival on Friday. Based on the late Russell Banks’ 2021 novel “Foregone,” the film centers on Gere’s Leonard Fife, an acclaimed filmmaker and “one of sixty thousand draft evaders and deserters who fled to Canada to avoid serving in Vietnam, shares all his secrets to de-mythologize his mythologized life.” Elordi plays the younger version of Leonard. In this first-look clip, Gere’s Leonard speeds up to someone’s home, gets out of a car and walks toward the gate.

Uma Thurman has been to Cannes more times than she can remember, either to pledge support for the glamorous annual charity event amfAR or with films as diverse as the genteel Merchant-Ivory period film The Golden Bowl (2000) and Quentin Tarantino’s ultraviolent Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004), in which she reprised her badass role as The Bride. The film that propelled her to stardom, Pulp Fiction, won the Palme d’Or there, and Thurman hasn’t forgotten what it did for her. This year, she’s back with Paul Schrader‘s Oh, Canada, the kind of smart, character-based indie on which she earned her spurs.

Gregg Goldstein These auteurs are ready for their close-up. When Quentin Dupieux’s comedy about an ill-fated film set, “The Second Act,” opened the Cannes Film Festival May 14, it will be just one of several movies about filmmaking and filmmakers to touch down on the Croisette. After all, directors Christophe Honoré, Paul Schrader and Josh Mond are among the other prominent filmmakers who are ready to premiere semi-autobiographical stories.

EXCLUSIVE: Veteran producers Frida Torresblanco (Pan’s Labyrinth) and Frank Murray (First Reformed) have teamed up to launch Hangtime International Pictures, a new transatlantic production company headquartered in London and New York.

Alex Ritman Bill Murray has joined the cast of “Riff Raff,” the upcoming crime comedy from director Dito Montiel set to feature Jennifer Coolidge (“The White Lotus”), Ed Harris (“Love Lies Bleeding”) Gabrielle Union (“The Inspection”), Lewis Pullman (“Top Gun: Maverick”), Emanuela Postacchini (“Robots”), Miles J. Harvey (“American Vandal”) and Pete Davidson (“The King of Staten Island”).