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Australian Film, Television and Radio School
Australia’s preeminent screen arts and broadcast school benefits from a beautiful setting in one of the most pleasant parts of Sydney, as well as a wealth of industry lecturers and connections to the country’s working film and TV world. Notable alumni include last year’s Oscar best director nominee Jane Campion (Power of the Dog) and Black Widow filmmaker Cate Shortland, in addition to a slew of past Oscar nominees and winners in technical categories, like David White (sound editing for Mad Max: Fury Road), Andrew Lesnie (cinematography for The Lord of the Rings) and Tony McNamara (best original screenplay with The Favourite).
Centro de Capacitacion Cinematografica (Mexico)
Mexico’s most prestigious film school prides itself on the gender parity of its student body (a goal it first achieved in 2020) and its track record in turning out world-class professionals,...
Australian Film, Television and Radio School
Australia’s preeminent screen arts and broadcast school benefits from a beautiful setting in one of the most pleasant parts of Sydney, as well as a wealth of industry lecturers and connections to the country’s working film and TV world. Notable alumni include last year’s Oscar best director nominee Jane Campion (Power of the Dog) and Black Widow filmmaker Cate Shortland, in addition to a slew of past Oscar nominees and winners in technical categories, like David White (sound editing for Mad Max: Fury Road), Andrew Lesnie (cinematography for The Lord of the Rings) and Tony McNamara (best original screenplay with The Favourite).
Centro de Capacitacion Cinematografica (Mexico)
Mexico’s most prestigious film school prides itself on the gender parity of its student body (a goal it first achieved in 2020) and its track record in turning out world-class professionals,...
- 8/5/2022
- by Scott Roxborough, Etan Vlessing, Patrick Brzeski and Alex Ritman
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Daniel Walber's series on Production Design. Click on the images to see them in magnified detail.
Nearly 20 years on, Julie Taymor’s Frida remains both breathtaking (those Quay Brothers puppets!) and befuddling (why isn’t it in Spanish?). It holds up better as a visual experiment than as a biopic, despite the richness of Salma Hayek’s performance. Filmmakers have long struggled to bring the lives of visual artists to the screen in dynamic, resonant ways. Some fail.
When Frida does succeed, it’s largely due to its Oscar-nominated team of art director Felipe Fernández del Paso and set decorator Hania Robledo. Their work doesn’t simply represent the art of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, but interprets it. By transforming Kahlo’s paintings into the stuff of cinema, they directly engage with their meaning - or, rather, Taymor’s own interpretation of those meanings. The result is a film...
Nearly 20 years on, Julie Taymor’s Frida remains both breathtaking (those Quay Brothers puppets!) and befuddling (why isn’t it in Spanish?). It holds up better as a visual experiment than as a biopic, despite the richness of Salma Hayek’s performance. Filmmakers have long struggled to bring the lives of visual artists to the screen in dynamic, resonant ways. Some fail.
When Frida does succeed, it’s largely due to its Oscar-nominated team of art director Felipe Fernández del Paso and set decorator Hania Robledo. Their work doesn’t simply represent the art of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, but interprets it. By transforming Kahlo’s paintings into the stuff of cinema, they directly engage with their meaning - or, rather, Taymor’s own interpretation of those meanings. The result is a film...
- 6/3/2020
- by Daniel Walber
- FilmExperience
Disney+ finally launched in the UK during the last week of March with a fairly robust library that included a massive collection of The Simpsons from its recently-acquired Fox catalogue, but there was a little rough with the smooth, as the streaming service decided to include just two episodes of its flagship Star Wars live-action series, The Mandalorian, and there were some clear discrepancies between the bonuses of being a Us and UK subscriber – there hasn’t yet been a peep out of Disney+ on the whereabouts of Frozen 2, nor has there yet been any news of a premiere date for Pixar’s Onward or Lucasfilm’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
Also in the wind is the possibility that Marvel’s Black Widow, which has been removed from the theatrical release schedule due to the Covid-19 pandemic, might end up streaming on Disney+. As it stands, this...
Also in the wind is the possibility that Marvel’s Black Widow, which has been removed from the theatrical release schedule due to the Covid-19 pandemic, might end up streaming on Disney+. As it stands, this...
- 4/2/2020
- by Kirsten Howard
- Den of Geek
He may have just headed into the Wild West to judge "Chopped: Grill Masters" -- a five-episode offshoot of the Food Network favorite devoted to the temperamental art of cooking outdoors -- but the only person Aaron Sanchez is trying to wrangle when reached by phone is his driver.
Still, he juggles shouting directions to his befuddled chauffeur and talking about the show with an expert cool that would make any "Chopped" contestant proud.
"Everyone thinks that cooking outside is grilling," Sanchez tells Zap2it, as car horns blare in the background, "but grilling is high heat and fast, and barbecuing is low and slow. What I think is so cool is about this series of 'Chopped' is that we're really making that clear."
Sanchez is also delighted that the series cut a wide swath in searching for its 16 smoke-happy competitors, tapping the traditional barbecue regions of Tennessee,...
Still, he juggles shouting directions to his befuddled chauffeur and talking about the show with an expert cool that would make any "Chopped" contestant proud.
"Everyone thinks that cooking outside is grilling," Sanchez tells Zap2it, as car horns blare in the background, "but grilling is high heat and fast, and barbecuing is low and slow. What I think is so cool is about this series of 'Chopped' is that we're really making that clear."
Sanchez is also delighted that the series cut a wide swath in searching for its 16 smoke-happy competitors, tapping the traditional barbecue regions of Tennessee,...
- 7/22/2012
- by editorial@zap2it.com
- Zap2It - From Inside the Box
Salma Hayek is too upbeat to let her latest failed romance get her down, according to her close pal, Felipe Fernandez Del Paso.
The director insists the actress is doing well, despite recently calling off her engagement to businessman Francois-Henri Pinault, the father of her daughter Valentina.
And Del Paso insists the split wasn't as shocking as the media suggested.
He says, "It came as a shock to you, but not to those who know her, and my friend is not depressed.
"They're (Hayek and Pinault) both very intelligent; they have a daughter together and they'll be able to work it out."
Hayek's publicist confirmed the split last week.
The director insists the actress is doing well, despite recently calling off her engagement to businessman Francois-Henri Pinault, the father of her daughter Valentina.
And Del Paso insists the split wasn't as shocking as the media suggested.
He says, "It came as a shock to you, but not to those who know her, and my friend is not depressed.
"They're (Hayek and Pinault) both very intelligent; they have a daughter together and they'll be able to work it out."
Hayek's publicist confirmed the split last week.
- 7/22/2008
- WENN
Salma Hayek has chosen not to baptise her baby girl after clashing with her own parents' religious beliefs when she was a child.
The actress' producer pal Felipe Fernandez del Paso recently spent Easter with the Frida star and has confirmed little Valentina Paloma won't be christened.
He tells PeopleEnEspanol.com, "The little girl is about to turn six months old. She's beautiful.
"Salma doesn't want her to be baptised because she just doesn't feel like it."
Hayek, 41, was raised in a strict Roman Catholic household in her native Mexico. Her parents sent her to a Catholic boarding school in Louisiana, where she was expelled for playing pranks on nuns.
The actress' producer pal Felipe Fernandez del Paso recently spent Easter with the Frida star and has confirmed little Valentina Paloma won't be christened.
He tells PeopleEnEspanol.com, "The little girl is about to turn six months old. She's beautiful.
"Salma doesn't want her to be baptised because she just doesn't feel like it."
Hayek, 41, was raised in a strict Roman Catholic household in her native Mexico. Her parents sent her to a Catholic boarding school in Louisiana, where she was expelled for playing pranks on nuns.
- 3/26/2008
- WENN
The lives of great artists are notorious for their resistance to the biopic treatment. The iconic Mexican painter Frida Kahlo proves no exception.
While this film dutifully chronicles her suffering, obsessions and battles with her own body, it stands in pale contrast to Kahlo's real biography, which is her amazing paintings.
In development for nearly a decade, battling rival projects and studio skittishness, "Frida" emerges as a fairly convention biopic rather than the artistic statement one might anticipate given director Julie Taymor's theatrical background and actress-producer Salma Hayek's passion for the role.
The film hues closely to the facts of Kahlo's life and her tempestuous relationship with world-famous muralist Diego Rivera, her mentor and husband. Taymor puts Frida's vivid and often disturbing art to sagacious use, slipping the famous images into scenes to reflect or comment on dramatic developments. But the film somehow misses the mark, having made rather tidy a messy and brutally painful life.
As more than 100 published books concern Kahlo and Rivera, one should never underestimate the public appetite for this story. With a stellar cast -- Alfred Molina as Rivera, Geoffrey Rush as Leon Trotsky, Edward Norton as Nelson Rockefeller, Antonio Banderas as muralist David Siqueiros and Ashley Judd as photographer Tina Modotti -- along with a careful rollout and Miramax's marketing muscle, "Frida" does have potential as an art house hit. The outlook overseas and in ancillary markets is even more positive.
The movie begins on the day of Frida's one and only exhibit in Mexico, in the spring of 1953. Her health has deteriorated so greatly, the doctor forbids her to leave her bed. So she has her bed carted to the gallery. On the ride over, the movie goes into a flashback. Frida, a high-school tomboy, loves to get into mischief with a gang of boys. She sneaks into a school auditorium where the great Rivera is painting.
The movie quickly moves to the trauma that shapes her life: A trolley accident in 1925 leaves her impaled on a metal rod. So devastated is her body that it's a miracle she even lives, much less that she walks again. Lying in bed for months, bored and in pain, she takes up painting. Her parents (Roger Rees and Patricia Reyes Spindola) give her a special easel and canopied bed with a mirror above her so she can be her own model. A life of self-portraiture, of painting the inner and outer Frida Kahlo, thus begins.
The story of her event-filled life understandably moves swiftly. Yet the consequence is that the movie gives short shrift to Frida's recovery and the enormous will power she developed to tolerate pain and fatigue. Clearly, the drinking, smoking and drug use that come later help her to dull that pain.
The bond between Diego and Frida is handled with empathy. Molina captures Diego's bearish personality, his huge body, his embrace of sensual pleasures and his fierce commitment to leftist political principles. In one of the film's welcome flights of surreal fancy, Rivera is fittingly depicted, in cutout images, as King Kong atop the Empire State Building, batting at airplanes as he would his critics. Molina gets the essential goodness of the man, his firm belief in loyalty and a set of principles that sometimes gets overshadowed by his many adulterous affairs, the worst being with Frida's own sister (Mia Maestro).
Hayek learned how to paint and how to effect the outer Frida -- including her wearing of traditional Mexican clothing. Other than Frida's trademark thick, connecting eyebrows, though, she has not allowed the makeup artist to de-glamorize her. More problematic is the fact Hayek doesn't inhabit her character as Molina does his. She is playing a role while Molina is Diego.
The film neither makes too much nor too little of its protagonists' wild side -- their open marriage, where they even shared lovers, or Frida's bisexuality and her affair with Trotsky, which may have cost him his life. The only sugar-coating comes near the end: It's quite possible Frida took her own life but the film never hints of this.
Rodrigo Preito's colorful and appealing cinematography, designer Felipe Fernandez's period re-creations and Elliot Goldenthal's guitar-flavored music, picking up Mexican themes, make a tight budget go a long way.
FRIDA
Miramax Films
Miramax presents in association with Margaret Rose Perenchio
A Ventanarosa Production in association with Lions Gate Films
Credits:
Director: Julie Taymor
Writers: Clancy Sigel, Diane Lake, Gregory Nava, Anna Thomas
Based on the book by: Hayden Herrera
Producers: Sarah Green, Salma Hayek, Jay Polstein, Nancy Hardin, Lindsay Flickinger, Roberto Sneiders
Executive producer: Mark Amin, Brian Gibson, Mark Gill, Jill Sobel Messick, Amy Slotnick
Director of photography: Rodrigo Prieto
Production designer: Felipe Fernandez
Music: Elliot Goldenthal
Costume designer: Julie Weiss
Editor: Francoise Bonnot
Cast:
Frida Kahlo: Salma Hayek
Diego Rivera: Alfred Molina
Leon Trotsky: Geoffrey Rush
Nelson Rockefeller: Edward Norton
David Siqueiros: Antonio Banderas
Cristina Kahlo: Mia Maestro
Tina Modotti: Ashley Judd
Guillermo Kahlo: Roger Rees
Lupe Marin: Valeria Golino
Matilde Kahlo: Patricia Reyes Spindola
Alejandro: Diego Luna
Running time -- 119 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
While this film dutifully chronicles her suffering, obsessions and battles with her own body, it stands in pale contrast to Kahlo's real biography, which is her amazing paintings.
In development for nearly a decade, battling rival projects and studio skittishness, "Frida" emerges as a fairly convention biopic rather than the artistic statement one might anticipate given director Julie Taymor's theatrical background and actress-producer Salma Hayek's passion for the role.
The film hues closely to the facts of Kahlo's life and her tempestuous relationship with world-famous muralist Diego Rivera, her mentor and husband. Taymor puts Frida's vivid and often disturbing art to sagacious use, slipping the famous images into scenes to reflect or comment on dramatic developments. But the film somehow misses the mark, having made rather tidy a messy and brutally painful life.
As more than 100 published books concern Kahlo and Rivera, one should never underestimate the public appetite for this story. With a stellar cast -- Alfred Molina as Rivera, Geoffrey Rush as Leon Trotsky, Edward Norton as Nelson Rockefeller, Antonio Banderas as muralist David Siqueiros and Ashley Judd as photographer Tina Modotti -- along with a careful rollout and Miramax's marketing muscle, "Frida" does have potential as an art house hit. The outlook overseas and in ancillary markets is even more positive.
The movie begins on the day of Frida's one and only exhibit in Mexico, in the spring of 1953. Her health has deteriorated so greatly, the doctor forbids her to leave her bed. So she has her bed carted to the gallery. On the ride over, the movie goes into a flashback. Frida, a high-school tomboy, loves to get into mischief with a gang of boys. She sneaks into a school auditorium where the great Rivera is painting.
The movie quickly moves to the trauma that shapes her life: A trolley accident in 1925 leaves her impaled on a metal rod. So devastated is her body that it's a miracle she even lives, much less that she walks again. Lying in bed for months, bored and in pain, she takes up painting. Her parents (Roger Rees and Patricia Reyes Spindola) give her a special easel and canopied bed with a mirror above her so she can be her own model. A life of self-portraiture, of painting the inner and outer Frida Kahlo, thus begins.
The story of her event-filled life understandably moves swiftly. Yet the consequence is that the movie gives short shrift to Frida's recovery and the enormous will power she developed to tolerate pain and fatigue. Clearly, the drinking, smoking and drug use that come later help her to dull that pain.
The bond between Diego and Frida is handled with empathy. Molina captures Diego's bearish personality, his huge body, his embrace of sensual pleasures and his fierce commitment to leftist political principles. In one of the film's welcome flights of surreal fancy, Rivera is fittingly depicted, in cutout images, as King Kong atop the Empire State Building, batting at airplanes as he would his critics. Molina gets the essential goodness of the man, his firm belief in loyalty and a set of principles that sometimes gets overshadowed by his many adulterous affairs, the worst being with Frida's own sister (Mia Maestro).
Hayek learned how to paint and how to effect the outer Frida -- including her wearing of traditional Mexican clothing. Other than Frida's trademark thick, connecting eyebrows, though, she has not allowed the makeup artist to de-glamorize her. More problematic is the fact Hayek doesn't inhabit her character as Molina does his. She is playing a role while Molina is Diego.
The film neither makes too much nor too little of its protagonists' wild side -- their open marriage, where they even shared lovers, or Frida's bisexuality and her affair with Trotsky, which may have cost him his life. The only sugar-coating comes near the end: It's quite possible Frida took her own life but the film never hints of this.
Rodrigo Preito's colorful and appealing cinematography, designer Felipe Fernandez's period re-creations and Elliot Goldenthal's guitar-flavored music, picking up Mexican themes, make a tight budget go a long way.
FRIDA
Miramax Films
Miramax presents in association with Margaret Rose Perenchio
A Ventanarosa Production in association with Lions Gate Films
Credits:
Director: Julie Taymor
Writers: Clancy Sigel, Diane Lake, Gregory Nava, Anna Thomas
Based on the book by: Hayden Herrera
Producers: Sarah Green, Salma Hayek, Jay Polstein, Nancy Hardin, Lindsay Flickinger, Roberto Sneiders
Executive producer: Mark Amin, Brian Gibson, Mark Gill, Jill Sobel Messick, Amy Slotnick
Director of photography: Rodrigo Prieto
Production designer: Felipe Fernandez
Music: Elliot Goldenthal
Costume designer: Julie Weiss
Editor: Francoise Bonnot
Cast:
Frida Kahlo: Salma Hayek
Diego Rivera: Alfred Molina
Leon Trotsky: Geoffrey Rush
Nelson Rockefeller: Edward Norton
David Siqueiros: Antonio Banderas
Cristina Kahlo: Mia Maestro
Tina Modotti: Ashley Judd
Guillermo Kahlo: Roger Rees
Lupe Marin: Valeria Golino
Matilde Kahlo: Patricia Reyes Spindola
Alejandro: Diego Luna
Running time -- 119 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 8/30/2002
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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