Latest news with #FormaProFilms
See - Sada Elbalad
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- See - Sada Elbalad
Kristen Stewart's Directorial Debut "The Chronology of Water" Receives Warm Reception in Cannes
Yara Sameh Kristen Stewart's long-awaited directorial debut 'The Chronology of Water' premiered at the Cannes Film Festival to a just over four-minute standing ovation on Friday night — and left many in the crowd wiping their eyes. An emotional Stewart embraced her actors with hugs and high-fives as the ovation carried on. She later bounded across the auditorium to give Cannes head Thierry Frémaux a long hug. 'I don't have anything else to say; I left it all on the screen,' Stewart said. 'Just thank you all for being here. Seriously, we finished the movie five minutes ago — it's not even done. We got so lucky, and I'm so grateful to be here.' She then gestured to her star, Imogen Poots, to take the mic, saying, 'Truly, your body is the movie, I'm giving it to you.' An emotional Poots obliged, saying only, 'She's the best director, and I hope you all liked the movie.' Stewart's long-gestating project, adapted from Lidia Yuknavitch's bestselling 2011 memoir, went down well in the room, and Stewart was mobbed by her fans in the Grand Lumiere Theater, making it tough to get out of the venue. Stewart took screenplay co-writing credits with Andy Mingo on the pic, which stars Imogen Poots in the tale of turning trauma into art that's playing in the Un Certain Regard strand. The story follows protagonist Lidia from her earliest childhood memories in the Pacific Northwest, through explosive misfires and mistakes, children that almost-were, toxic relationships, art heroes, wins and losses. Jim Belushi and Thora Birch also star. Stewart told the Cannes Film Festival that the movie is 'about iteration. Getting up and trying again. Repossessing your body, your desires, your ambitions and your dreams. I wanted to create a form that was unruly and, again, hard to pin down.' She also said that the eight-year-in-the-planning project 'is about birth, death and rebirth, and we sort of followed that cycle. I think you can feel it in the result. At the time, it hurt a lot. The biggest wound of my 'creative' life so far. And by far my favorite scar.' Stewart is no stranger to Cannes, having starred in such films here as David Cronenberg's "Crimes of the Future" (2022), Woody Allen's "Cafe Society" (2016) and Olivier Assayas' "Personal Shopper" (2016) and "Clouds of Sils Maria" (2014). She won the Best Supporting Actress César Award for the latter. "The Chronology of Water" is produced by Charles Gillibert (CG Cinema International); Yulia Zayceva, Max Pavlov and Svetlana Punte (Forma Pro Films); Michael Pruss and Rebecca Feuer (Scott Free); and Stewart, Maggie McLean and Dylan Meyer (Nevermind Pictures) and Mingo. WME Independent is handling North American sales. Les Films du Losange has international sales and French distribution. read more New Tourism Route To Launch in Old Cairo Ahmed El Sakka-Led Play 'Sayidati Al Jamila' to Be Staged in KSA on Dec. 6 Mandy Moore Joins Season 2 of "Dr. Death" Anthology Series Don't Miss These Movies at 44th Cairo Int'l Film Festival Today Amr Diab to Headline KSA's MDLBEAST Soundstorm 2022 Festival Arts & Culture Mai Omar Stuns in Latest Instagram Photos Arts & Culture "The Flash" to End with Season 9 Arts & Culture Ministry of Culture Organizes four day Children's Film Festival Arts & Culture Canadian PM wishes Muslims Eid-al-Adha News Egypt confirms denial of airspace access to US B-52 bombers Lifestyle Pistachio and Raspberry Cheesecake Domes Recipe News Ayat Khaddoura's Final Video Captures Bombardment of Beit Lahia News Australia Fines Telegram $600,000 Over Terrorism, Child Abuse Content Arts & Culture Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban's $4.7M LA Home Burglarized Sports Former Al Zamalek Player Ibrahim Shika Passes away after Long Battle with Cancer Sports Neymar Announced for Brazil's Preliminary List for 2026 FIFA World Cup Qualifiers News Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouly Inaugurates Two Indian Companies Arts & Culture New Archaeological Discovery from 26th Dynasty Uncovered in Karnak Temple Business Fear & Greed Index Plummets to Lowest Level Ever Recorded amid Global Trade War
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Inside the Painstaking Restoration of John Woo's ‘Hard Boiled' Set for Cannes Classics Spotlight (EXCLUSIVE)
Chow Yun-fat's bullet ballet is reloaded and ready to fire again on the Croisette. As John Woo's landmark 1992 action spectacle 'Hard Boiled' prepares for its spotlight screening at this year's Cannes Classics, Variety has uncovered the blood, sweat and digital wizardry behind saving the bullet-riddled masterpiece from cinematic extinction. More from Variety Kristen Stewart's Latvian Partner Forma Pro Films Ups Co-Pro Stakes (EXCLUSIVE) New Genre Label Chroma Launches, Partners With Fantastic Fest on Fantastic Pitches, Offering $100,000 to Winning Pitch Team (EXCLUSIVE) Filmax Rolls Out Cesc Gay's 'My Friend Eva,' Closing Italy, Germany (EXCLUSIVE) The Chow Yun-fat starrer, which had long been unavailable due to rights issues, comes to the Croisette with new revelations about the technical challenges faced during its meticulous preservation. In the film, a hard-boiled cop (Chow) who loses his partner in a shoot-out with gun smugglers goes on a mission to catch them. To get closer to the ring leaders, he joins forces with an undercover cop (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) who's working as a gangster hitman. Together, they use all means of excessive force to find them. The film also stars Teresa Mo, Philip Chan, Philip Kwok, and Anthony Wong. ''Hard Boiled' and all 156 films in the Golden Princess library have been largely unavailable outside of Asia because those rights have long been owned by Hong Kong property developer Kowloon Development Company,' explains Jordan Fields, senior VP acquisitions and originals at Shout! Studios, which spearheaded the restoration effort. 'KDC was not focused on the film business after the demise of Golden Princess Film Production in 1995.' Now, for the first time, restoration specialists have detailed the extensive work required to bring this cornerstone of action cinema back to its intended glory. The original negative, sourced from the Hong Kong Film Archive and digitized by Interface Video Production Ltd in Hong Kong, presented significant challenges. 'It was in poor condition, showing significant signs of age and wear,' reveals Michael Coronado, film restoration specialist at Duplitech. 'The most noticeable damage included frequent film tears throughout multiple reels. The iconic one-take hospital action sequence was notably marred by accumulated dust and deep vertical scratches that disrupted the visual clarity and intensity of the scene.' 'The element exhibited noticeable frame shifts and occasional warping, due to shrinkage,' he adds. The restoration team employed a sophisticated combination of Filmworkz Phoenix and Pixel Farm's PF Clean technologies. The process began with Phoenix DVO Frame Lock to stabilize the image before addressing flicker and warping issues. Among the most illuminating revelations is the extent of manual intervention required. 'One of the challenges in restoring 'Hard Boiled' was the film's intense action sequences characterized by explosions, gunfire, and rapid motion, which significantly limited automated dirt removal,' Coronado notes. 'These scenes required careful, frame-by-frame manual restoration.' A particularly challenging section emerged at the end of the fourth reel. 'Our team encountered a significant tear that had split the image across the frame,' Coronado discloses. 'To restore this section, our skilled restoration artists used clone-painting techniques by overlaying adjacent frames to repair the damaged footage.' The color grading process presented its own set of challenges. ''Hard Boiled' contains over 2900 shots throughout its 128 minute runtime, including many optical shots that had to be corrected with dynamic keyframes,' reveals supervising colorist Blake David-Blasingame of Duplitech. 'The negative was very inconsistent and had to be re-timed scene by scene, sometimes shot by shot, to maintain consistency.' The restoration culminated in a Dolby Vision HDR master, with all versions, including the P3 Digital Cinema version that will screen at Cannes, derived from this source. Henry Weintraub, restoration supervisor at Shout! Studios, describes the emotional investment in the project. 'Restoring the film was both a challenge and a labor of love,' he says. ''Hard Boiled' means a lot to so many people, myself included, and I wanted to be sure we did it justice. It was important to preserve the original look and sound design of the era, while also enhancing both to bring out their full potential.' Director John Woo has already given his stamp of approval. 'He said he was very happy with the restoration — which was incredibly rewarding to hear, especially given how personal the film is to him,' Weintraub confirms. The restoration's selection for Cannes Classics represents a fitting homecoming for a film widely considered one of the greatest action movies ever made, finally allowing new audiences to experience Woo's balletic violence and technical virtuosity on the big screen as originally intended. Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week Emmy Predictions: Talk/Scripted Variety Series - The Variety Categories Are Still a Mess; Netflix, Dropout, and 'Hot Ones' Stir Up Buzz Oscars Predictions 2026: 'Sinners' Becomes Early Contender Ahead of Cannes Film Festival
