OCTOBER 2010

THE PRESS ROOM BULLETIN – OCTOBER 2010

At the time of writing this, it is barely scratching into August, but we’re already gearing up for our end of year releases.

In one fell-swoop, we have the critically-acclaimed sensation ANIMAL KINGDOM, a 2010 Oscar®-winner in THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES and the word-of-mouth guerilla hit, EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP. And, it’s a cliché, but that’s literally just the beginning…

ANIMAL KINGDOM (DVD & BLU-RAY)

A powerful crime drama with a stellar cast and set in the notorious Melbourne underworld – ANIMAL KINGDOM is the film everybody is talking about, and it’s coming to DVD and Blu-Ray this month with a host of special features and extra material.
 
Following the death of his mother, seventeen year-old Joshua ‘J’ Cody (newcomer James Frecheville) moves in with his hitherto-estranged family, under the watchful eye of his doting grandmother, Janine ‘Smurf’ Cody (Jacki Weaver), and her three criminal sons – the Cody boys, ‘Pope’ (Ben Mendelsohn), Craig (Sullivan Stapleton) and Darren (Luke Ford).

When J finds himself at the centre of a cold-blooded revenge plot and with only a family in tatters to turn to, he is thrown directly into the path of senior homicide detective, Nathan Leckie (Guy Pearce) and is forced to choose his place in this brutal life inside the animal kingdom. Will he be one of the strong ones, or will he be one of the weak ones?

Release Date: 13th October, 2010

THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES

Winner of this year’s ‘Best Foreign Language Film’ Oscar®, amongst many other international awards, THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES, is a powerful, multi-layered and poignant thriller.

Former criminal court investigator Benjamin Esposito (Ricardo Darin – NINE QUEENS, THE AURA) decides to write a novel based on a twenty-five year old case, the brutality of which still haunts him. Sharing his manuscript with Irene (Soledad Villamil), the beautiful woman who was his superior during the investigation, Benjamin cannot shake his memories from a quarter of a century earlier – of the camaraderie with his partner Sandoval, his growing feelings for Irene, and the general unease of life under military dictatorship.

But Benjamin’s search for the truth soon puts him at the centre of a judicial nightmare, as the enormity of the crime continues to unfold in the present, testing the limits of a man seeking justice and personal fulfillment at last.

Release Date: 13th October, 2010

EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP

EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP chronicles the strange, true story of Thierry Guetta, a French entrepreneur with a compulsion to capture the guerilla world of street art on film. Over the course of several years, Thierry notches up the most infamous figureheads of the culture with his camera like so many baseball cards – all but the elusive Banksy,
that is…

In Banksy’s directorial debut, introduced with some level of caution by the man himself, we trace Thierry’s efforts to locate and befriend Banksy, only to have the artist turn the camera back on its owner with spectacular results.

EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP is an incendiary true story of low-level criminality, companionship and incompetence – ingredients which combine to make the world’s first street art disaster movie.

Release Date: 13th October, 2010

ART + SOUL

From award-winning director, Warwick Thornton (SAMSON & DELILAH), ART + SOUL is a major three-part television series, undertaking a personal journey of discovery into a world of ideas and the imagination, featuring artists from around Australia, and revealing their work as a reflection of individual experience and an expression of contemporary cultural diversity.

ART + SOUL is written and presented by Hetti Perkins, Senior Curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and sister to acclaimed director Rachel Perkins (FIRST AUSTRALIANS, BRAN NUE DAE).

The series will be broadcast on the ABC in October, 2010. A companion book will also be available from Melbourne University Press in the
same month.

Release Date: 22nd October, 2010

MERANTAU

MERANTAU introduces us to Iko Uwais – up and coming martial arts star, and true contender to the throne of Tony Jaa!

Yuda (Iko Uwais) is a skilled practitioner of Silat – a very deadly Indonesian martial art. It’s now time for him to make the time-honoured pilgrimage from his farming village to the bustling city of Jakarta – a journey known as “Merantau”.

A chance encounter in the city leads Yuda to save Astri and her younger brother from a human trafficking ring. The leader of the gang now seeks bloody retribution. With the gang chasing their every step and with escape seemingly beyond their grasp, Yuda has no choice but to face his attackers in an adrenaline charged, jaw-dropping finale.

Release Date: 13th October, 2010

DIARY OF A CHAMBERMAID (Luis Buñuel)

When Célestine (Jeanne Moreau, TOUCHEZ PAS AU GRISBI) goes to work as a chambermaid in a crumbling Normandy estate, she becomes privy to the sexual appetites, fetishism, embittered repression and other personal details of the household. But when two unexpected and shocking events take place in the quiet country community, Célestine suspects that a fascist farm labourer is involved, and does everything in her power to make him confess.

Written by Buñuel and Jean-Claude Carriere, and based on the novel by notorious provocateur Octave Mirebeau, DIARY OF A CHAMBERMAID is an intelligent consideration of political, social and sexual mores in relation to the perversity of human desires.

Release Date: 13th October, 2010

LOLA MONTÉS (Max Ophuls)

The film über critic, Andrew Sarris has called “The greatest film of all time“, LOLA MONTÉS is Ophuls’ lavish, extravagant and dazzling take on the tragic tale of the famous dancer and courtesan – Lola Montez, played by Martine Carol.

In his first colour film, Max Ophuls charts the course of Montès’s scandalous past through the invocations of a ringmaster (Peter Ustinov) at the circus where she now performs. Ophuls’s final film, LOLA MONTÉS is at once a magnificent romantic melodrama, a meditation on the lurid fascination with celebrity, and a one-of-a-kind movie spectacle.

Release Date: 13th October, 2010

JONATHAN CREEK: THE JUDAS TREE
(2010 EASTER SPECIAL)

David Renwick (ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVE) revives the inimitable Jonathan Creek (Alan Davies) in this 2010 feature-length special.

Following the grisly death of her employer’s wife, all the evidence suggests that assistant housekeeper Emily Somerton is guilty of the crime. Ghostly visions, death threats she cannot remember writing, and the final, accusing words of the victim herself convince Emily she is losing her mind.

Once again it is up to Jonathan Creek to dig deep and look beyond the paranormal for an explanation. Using his powers of analysis and deduction he and Joey (Sheridan Smith, GAVIN & STACEY) find themselves in a race against time to solve a mystery which leads, finally, to the eerie, isolated Judas Tree… and a solution more shocking than anyone could have imagined.

Release Date: 29th September, 2010

AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS

History books traditionally depict the pre-Columbus Americas as a pristine wilderness where small native villages lived in harmony with nature. But scientific evidence tells a very different story: when Columbus stepped ashore in 1492, millions of people were already living there. America wasn’t exactly a “New World,” but a very old one whose inhabitants had built a vast infrastructure of cities, orchards, canals and causeways.

Release Date: 13th October, 2010

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC: STRESS: PORTRAIT
OF A KILLER

Over the last three decades, science has been advancing our understanding of stress – how it impacts our bodies and how our social standing can make us more or less susceptible. From baboon troops on the plains of Africa, to neuroscience labs at Stanford University, scientists are revealing just how lethal stress can be. Research reveals that the impact of stress can be found deep within us, shrinking our brains, adding fat to our bellies, even unraveling our chromosomes. Yet understanding how stress works can help us figure out ways to combat it and how to live a life free of the tyranny of this contemporary plague.

In STRESS: PORTRAIT OF A KILLER, scientific discoveries in the field and in the lab prove that stress is not a state of mind, but something measurable and dangerous.

Release Date: 13th October, 2010

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC: MY BRILLIANT BRAIN

Do differences in gender, brain size and brain hemisphere dominance enable individuals to excel far beyond their peers? Or, can education and environment help fuel intelligence and enable anyone to become a prodigy, if given the opportunity? Using CGI, brain scans and expert testimony, MY BRILLIANT BRAIN unlocks some of the brain’s biggest mysteries.

Release Date: 13th October, 2010

THE BUSY WORLD OF RICHARD SCARRY: WELCOME TO BUSYTOWN (VOL.1)

This fully animated series is based on the books by Richard Scarry which parents worldwide rely on to teach valuable lessons.

Busytown is an enchanting place that’s abuzz with energy and life. Young audiences love to sing and laugh along, as Huckle Cat and Lowly Worm make their way through the day. Always concerned for each other, the residents of Busytown make time for a song and a smile.

Release Date: 29th September, 2010

TITAN MAXIMUM – SEASON ONE

From the creators of ROBOT CHICKEN, comes this claymation comedy of giant robot proportions!

One hundred years in the future, our solar system is protected by Titan Force Five, a squadron of crack pilots whose spaceships combine to form the giant robot Titan Maximum. After years of peace, the inactive team must hastily reassemble to square off against the biggest threat humanity has ever faced – but before they save the day, this new version of Titan Force Five must overcome their astounding incompetence.

Release Date: 13th October, 2010

EDEN OF THE EAST – TV SERIES COLLECTION (DVD & BLU-RAY)

On November 22nd, 2010, ten missiles strike Japan. Known as “Careless Monday,” this attack does not result in any apparent victims, and is soon forgotten by almost everyone. Then, three months later… Saki Morimi, a young woman visiting Washington D.C. on her graduation trip, is saved by a mysterious man who has lost his memory and has nothing in his possession except for a gun and a phone with 8.2 billion yen in digital cash.

Release Date: 13th October, 2010

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