Edinburgh International Film Festival, which opened with Away We Go, ended this weekend with its Awards ceremony. Duncan Jones’ debut feature Moon won the  Michael Powell Award for the Best New British Feature. But Focus Features Sin Nombre's director Cary Joji Fukunaga won the Skillset New Directors Award for "his stunning directorial debut." See the complete list here:

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In ScreenDaily, Director Sam Mendes talks to fellow Brit (and US Editor of Screen International) Mike Goodridge about making movies, Mike Leigh, and the managing expectations. On the making of Away We Go, Mendes recounts:

When we got to the focus group after our first preview, all 25 people said they liked Burt and Verona…That was when I thought the movie may be too long but it works. You like them, you engage with them. That was the big challenge on this film.

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New York Magazine's Vulture talked to Liev Schreiber at at party for Hamptons Magazines (of which Schreiber happens to be the latest coverboy).  in addition to chatting about the male need to cross dress––"Putting on women's clothing and acting like a woman is something that comes naturally to men"––Schreiber recounts his latest role as a gun-toting cross-dresser in Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock. How did he get the part?

He really did like my legs. When I went to his office, the first thing he said to me was, 'Wow, you have really nice legs.' I thought, 'This part is mine.'"

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While the Coen Brothers films are chock full of cinematic allusions (from film noir to Preston Sturges), they have only made one remake, their 2004 The Ladykillers (which updated Alexander Mackendrick’s 1955 British comedy staring Alec Guinness). But now as Coen Brothers prepare to release their new film A Serious Man with Focus Features this Fall, Chinese director Zhang Yimou will be remaking the Coen Brothers debut feature Blood Simple. The Associated Press reports that the film, the first since the director designed the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, started shooting on June 9. While the plot is not known, the title, according to the AP, “roughly translates as "The Stunning Case of the Three Gun Shots."

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The Los Angeles Times's slideshow/essay  "Ten Faces Igniting Movie Buzz" has put Taking Woodstock's Demetri Martin at the front of the list. In the accompanying bio, John Horn writes how the young comedian ended up in Ang Lee's film:

It was Martin's YouTube appearances that caught the eye of Taking Woodstock producer and screenwriter James Schamus. "I thought this was the most original, interesting comedy I'd seen in years," Schamus says. "And it wasn't mean."

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In this week’s Entertainment Weekly, Dave Karger looks at Maya Rudolph’s evolving career. Obviously there was a big shift from "Saturday Night Live" to Away We Go, but things have always been in flux with Ms. Rudolph. Karger writes:

From a young age, Rudolph has always juggled many creative interests. ''I wanted to make movies, I wanted to sing in a band, and make clothes on the side,'' she says of her childhood in Los Angeles. ''But the one thing that never waned was that I wanted to be on Saturday Night Live.''

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Park Chan-wook's much anticipated vampire film Thirst will be coming out in July from Focus Features. But some of the obsession is already begun. Get a taste from the video just released on IGN.COM.  Also check out the new poster at Ain't It Cool News.

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Audience members, of course, bring their own experiences to any movie they see. Bruce Sallan, who writes a nationally syndicated column called A Dad’s POV, saw Away We Go from the perspective of a dad. Writing at MomLogic, Sallan remarks, “this is a feel-good movie, in the truest sense of the words. It touches you, makes you think, and reminds us that parenting is important and serious business.”  Even more he suggests the film can be seen as the cinematic partner to a recent book:

Oddly enough, it feels like the movie companion piece to a book I reviewed for momlogic called American Parent by Sam Apple (check back tomorrow to read that one). That book was about a soon-to-be father's journey of discovery that began when his wife became pregnant. He researched various trends in parenting and giving birth, and approached it all with a healthy dose of wonder and are-you-kidding-me, particularly when he dealt with some of the fringe movements.

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James Longley, whose 2006 Iraq in Fragments gave a remarkable candid look inside Iraq, has recently been in Iran shooting a new documentary when he got caught up in the chaos of post-election protests. His email about his situation was sent to the blog Hot Splice  and has been picked up by news sources everywhere. It’s a harrowing tale of the perils of documentary filmmaking and the even more dangerous job of those who support filmmakers. The following is the initial few paragraphs written a few days ago:

About three hours ago I was interviewing people on the street in downtown Tehran with my translator, not far from the Ministry of Interior building.

There were some riot police about 100 meters away at the other end of the street.

A couple people spoke to the camera – one young woman was saying that “The riot police are beating people like animals. The situation here is very bad; we need the UN to come and help with a recount of the votes!”

At about that time a plain-clothes security guy started grabbing my arm, and together with several uniformed police they dragged me and my translator off to the Ministry of Interior building.

Read More

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Last Friday night designer, copy writers and assorted marketing executives gathered at Los Angeles Geffen Contemporary at MOCA for the Hollywood Reporter’s 38th annual Key Art Awards. Of course, The Hollywood Reporter provides a full list of winners. While The Dark Knight took the most honors, Focus Features pulled in two statuettes of note. Congrats.

THEATRICAL A/V -- DRAMA TRAILERS
Milk, Mark Woollen & Associates and Focus Features
Creative Director: Mark Woollen
Producer: Sohini Sengupta
Producer: Scott Mitsui
Editor: Margareta Schiappa
Editor: Chad Misner
Motion Graphics Designer: Ralf Leeb
SVP Creative Advertising: Myles Bender


THEATRICAL A/V -- TEASER TRAILERS
The Strangers
mOcean & Focus Features
Studio Executive: Myles Bender
Creative Directors: Myles Bender & Richard Redfield
Editors: John Lucanic & Jake York
Copywriters: Myles Bender & Richard Redfield
Graphic Designer: Russ Honican

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