Roth in talks with Franco – Film partnership

This news has been read 4822 times!

LOS ANGELES, Oct 26, (RTRS): Laurelled with big prizes at Berlin, Cannes and Venice — Mexico’s Lucia Films, co-founded by Michel Franco (“After Lucia,” “Chronic”), is in talks with Tim Roth for at least two films as Lucia also eyes its entry into TV production.

Rolling off the Franco-directed “Chronic,” a Cannes best screenplay winner, and Gabriel Franco’s Berlin Best First Feature winner “600 Miles,” both starring Roth, the alliance would see Roth boarding as a producer Franco’s next movie as a director, which is scheduled to roll in May. Ripstein, who produced “Chronic,” and Venezuela’s Lorenzo Vigas, whose “From Afar” took this year’s Venice Golden Lion, would also be involved in a production capacity, Franco said at Mexico’s Morelia Fest, where “Chronic” received its Mexico premiere.

Franco’s would then produce an upcoming movie directed by Roth, which Roth said he was keen to shoot in Mexico.

Given the largely femme cast of Franco’s next. Roth would not star in the film, he said at Morelia.

Established

“The collaboration with Tim Roth has taken me to places I didn’t expect to be so soon,” such as shooting a movie in LA,” Franco said, in reference to “Chronic.” “Without really looking for it, Lucia Films has established a foothold in the US, without leaving Mexico. That’s kind of where we’re going.”

Lucia’s Films “is like the French New Wave or the English group, which came forward with Ken Loach, for example,” Roth enthused.

Lucia Films aims to enter TV production. Franco said the first thing he would like to try is comedy. “The thing about drama is that TV series can end up being sophisticated soap operas. Most early approaches for TV production have come from US channels, Franco said Saturday in Morelia, where “Chronic” made its bow.

New feature films by Ripstein and Vigas are also in development.

Meanwhile, “The Heirs,” from Jorge Hernandez Aldana (“The Night Buffalo”), one of Lucia Films’ stable of directors, world premieres at Morelia, as does “Princess,” the first short helmed by Lucia Films producer David Zonana.

Just how these plans play out remains to be seen. They carry, however, a strong industrial logic.

Mexico can now bring real money to the table. Galvanized by Eficine 189 tax coin, and bulwarked by Imcine Mexican Film Institute investment coin via its quality (Foprocine) and more mainstream lines, state funding reached Pesos 810 million ($60 million) in 2014, per Imcine’s Statistical Yearbook of Mexican Cinema.

Limited

Movie audiences for such fiction are -arguably — limited. TV audiences — think “The Wire” — appear far larger.

Roth is one of Morelia’s high-profile guests of honor. He is also in town for the Mexican premiere of “Chronic” and a special screening of “600 Miles,” which Franco produced. “I think one reason Tim is attached to us, comfortable and happy to be making films with us, is that this is what Tim was doing making films in England even before going to the US,” Franco said.

While often socially minded, Lucia Films titles also place a large emphasis on entertainment.

“The first purpose of my films is to entertain, but to entertain clever audiences. And I want as a filmmaker to try to understand certain subject matters and for my films to have cinematographic depth,” Franco said at Morelia.

So its slate is packed with crossover titles. That can be taken geographically: “Chronic” was shot in the US in English, but financed out of Mexico and world premiered at Europe’s premiere promotion platform, the Cannes Festival.

Lucia Films’ “cinematographic vocabulary is quite extraordinary,” said Roth.

Tim Roth’s love affair with Mexico is just beginning. In Morelia, where he received a tribute, and to support the two notable Mexican films he stars in, Franco’s “Chronic” and Gabriel Ripstein’s “600 Miles,” Roth has announced plans to direct his own film in Mexico, in Spanish.

But he’s first producing Franco’s next film, in partnership with Lucia Films, the company founded by Franco with producer Moises Zonana, and where Ripstein is a creative partner. The location is to be decided, but Roth is pushing for it to be made in Mexico.

His admiration for Mexican cinema is passionate, to say the least: He compares it to France’s New Wave. Asked what he feels is special about the new wave of Mexican cinema, he says: “I think it’s the energy; there’s a whole new group of young filmmakers whose cinematic vocabulary is extraordinary.”

This news has been read 4822 times!