I saw Anna Broinowski’s Forbidden Lie$at True/False in 2008 and was blown away by the filmmaker’s fearless experimentation with construction and story structure. The film is a portrait of Norma Khouri, a Jordanian living in exile in Australia who became a literary star when she published a purported memoir of her best friend’s honor killing. The book was eventually revealed as mostly or entirely fabricated; Khouri admitted to embellishment but insisted that the core of the story was true. Broinowski followed the disgraced author back to Jordan in the name of clearing her name, but inevitably uncovered a massive web of lies. Khouri reveals herself as a con artist for whom publishing a fake memoir (and the year of adulation and celebrity that ensued) waas jsut one act in a life-long performance; Broinowski reveals just what makes that performance work, and how Norma gets away with it.
I named Forbidden Lie$ as one of the Best Undistributed Films of last year; now, thanks to Roxie Releasing, the film is opening at the Cinema Village in New York this Friday, and in Los Angeles on April 10. Via email, I talked to Broinowski about her ongoing relationship with her subject, the inherently artificial tropes of documentary, and the natural symbiosis between a filmmaker and a con artist.
How did you discover Norma’s story, and how many of its twists and turns were you aware of when you started working on the film?
I was aware of Norma when her book first came out and she was a Jordanian celebrity in Australia, having chosen to live in exile here with the help of the Australian government, who gave her a special protection visa to help her escape the blood-thirsty Muslim terrorists who had supposedly put a fatwah on her head. But I had no interest in buying Norma’s book because the whole thing stank of anti-Arab propaganda, at a time when we were being encouraged to support the illegal invasion of Iraq.
I became keenly interested in Norma about a year later, when journalist Malcolm Knox exposed her as a hoax and a Chicago fraudster on the run from the FBI. I was hooked: what kind of woman could be so brilliant that while on the run from the FBI she could reinvent herself as a 32 year old virgin from Jordan, write a “true story” that became a best-seller around the world, and go on a book promotion tour pretending to be seeing the West for the first time, convincing the best minds in publishing and the media that she was telling the truth?
That’s when I emailed her. I said I am a filmmaker and I want to hear your side of the story. Obviously she agreed.
Tom Cruise is potentially re-teaming with Valkyrie screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie on up to three projects, including another WWII flick that would put Cruise in the pilot seat again, Flying Tigers. Cruise is likely happy with the initial reception of Valkyrie, though sticking with McQuarrie for so long may keep him from diverse roles. The other two projects include the espionage drama The Tourist and the adaptation of the 60s TV show The Champions, which deals with super-powered spies.
Frank Miller is re-teaming with Odd Lot Entertainment for a dark Buck Rogers movie that he’ll write and direct. The announcement comes just in time, before an onslaught of bad reviews of The Spirit join Variety’s pan.
Stephen Chow will no longer direct but will still co-star in The Green Hornet. Apparently his creative differences don’t extend to his onscreen role of Kato. Maybe this is co-scribe and star Seth Rogen’s chance to try directing?
Is romance dead? David Carr seems to think so, at least in American cinema (both Hollywood and “Indiewood,” as he inclusively clarifies). While celebrating the subway station meet-cute from the beginning of Milk, a scene he claims to be of an increasingly rare sort, Carr states that American filmmakers “can do romantic pathology and entropy, but the kind of love for the ages, a big-movie kind of love? Not so much.”
If you agree with him, blame the back-to-back Best Picture winners Titanic and Shakespeare in Love for feeding us the kind of romance that’s so cheesy it clogs our arteries and gives us a coronary. Left with a burst heart and a lack of quality Nora Ephron movies, most of us have been cynics when it comes to love stories these past ten years. Yet cynics can still be swept off their feet, and American filmmakers have adequately supplied them with new kinds of love for the ages.
Just take a look at these ten films from the past decade. They may be full of cynicism, but they’re also filled with big-movie love, in their own way. If you can’t see the romance, then the problem is with you, not the movies.
Eric Fensler created one of the first viral video sensations when he overdubbed the GI Joe PSAs. He’s a rare artist who, like Andy Kaufman, is hard to describe in a sentence or two. One thing is certain, he’d rather not be called, “The GI Joe PSA guy.”
Listeners respond with what their families watched on Thanksgiving, while Karina Longworth was transfixed by Australia and Indecent Proposal over the holiday weekend.
Shia LaBeouf will take a pause from Transformer movies and unofficial Hitchcock remakes long enough to star in an adaptation of the new John Grisham legal thriller, The Associate. The film will be produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura, who oversaw past Grisham films The Client and A Time to Kill. Could this mean director Joel Schumacher will also be on board?
Peter Farrelly (one of the brothers) and producer Charles Wessler are putting together a comedic portmanteau (or anthology) film with 24 shorts utilizing the writing and/or directing talents of such vets as Brett Ratner, Todd Phillips, Mike Judge and potentially Josh Gordon and Will Speck. The sole Farrelly will direct two installments, but for some reason his brother Bobby is not involved with the project.
The media thrashing of Australiaincludes the film’s reception Down Under, where it isn’t being greeted as the national treasure Fox hoped it’d be. Sure, it didn’t open as big as Mamma Mia! there, but if you look at usual figures for Oz, a US$5.1 million opening is actually pretty good. Besides, did the studio really think Aussies would let it topple Crocodile Dundee for the title of national treasure?
Is Kung Fu Panda now the animated feature to beat at the Oscars? The film racked up more than double the amount of Annie Award nominations Wall-E received.
Blockbuster stores still exist? I guess the few still out there will now be making some side money through a deal to sell concert tickets via LiveNation. Wait, people still buy concert tickets in person?
Before getting to that supposed “disappointing” debut of Australia, let me first congratulate Milk for cracking the top 10 while opening on only 34 screens. The film’s five-day Thanksgiving Weekend total gross is $1.9 million, meaning its per-screen average was an unbelievable (and apparently record-breaking) $51,833. Meanwhile, fellow limited-release powerhouse Slumdog Millionaire was kept at bay at 11th place, though its per-screen average continues to amaze at more than $36,000.
Now for Australia: the film placed fifth for the holiday stretch, taking in less than half as much as box office winner Four Christmases ($46.7 mill.). However, its $14.8 million three-day take is a million more than that of the wide opening for Baz Luhrman’s previous film, Moulin Rouge. Also, its older audience, which had other, more familial commitments last week, will likely show greater interest as the film is out longer, especially if there’s good word of mouth. Most importantly, though, Australia at least didn’t perform as badly as Transporter 3.
Cheers couple Kelsey Grammer and Bebe Neuwirth will be reunited for MGM’s Fame remake. They’ll play employees of the performing arts high school alongside fellow TV vets Charles S. Dutton and Megan Mullaly, as well as original Fame student Debbie Allen.
Steve Buscemi and Kelly Macdonald are to star in Martin Scorsese’s new HBO project, Boardwalk Empire, which will depict the origins of Atlantic City.
I might as well get this out of the way first: I loved Baz Luhrmann’s epic Australia. I was on the fence about seeing this, especially once I heard about the 165 minute running time, but I gave in and boy was I glad. It’s a sprawling epic with nods to classic films of the 30s and 40s, and besides featuring the eye candy combo of Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, it also introduces Brandon Walters, who is possibly the cutest child actor alive. If there was some sort of scientific cuteness scale, he’d break it.
Despite the beautiful vistas and the sweeping storyline, not everyone is loving it. After the press screening I attended, a bunch of us gathered on the street outside the theater to debate reactions. It was oddly dividing: people either hated it or loathed it. I’d spent part of the week with a friend from Australia, and he’d denounced it as cheesy, because they have two Aussies in the lead roles: Jackman doing a faux “crikey!” Australian accent, while Kidman actually has a faux British accent. He said most of his friends in Sydney felt the same way.
Here in the States, Australia’s detractors are saying a lot of the same things. So, I’m taking the top five critiques of Australia and refuting them. I might not be able to change the critics’ minds, but I’m hoping you’ll at least give the movie a chance in theaters. Spoilers ahead!
Paul Schrader is reportedly done with Hollywood. His next film will be a Bollywood production titled Extreme City. The action pic will be a cross-cultural story, though probably more Bollywood-style than Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire; it won’t be a masala film but is likely to have a few more musical numbers.
In a much more respectable marketing tie-in, The Soloist has been connected to a food drive called Feed the Need, which will collect 1 million pounds of food by December 15 — four months before the film opens.
The moviegoing demographics for this week’s “stuffed” Thanksgiving schedule are to be as follows: older woman to Australia; younger women to Four Christmases; youngest women/girls to Twilight; all men to Transporter 3; kids to Bolt. And some lucky people in 19 cities who don’t mind sold out shows will go see Milk.
Oprah Winfrey can certainly create a best seller when it comes to books, and her pick of the presidential candidates is on his way to the White House. But can she get behind a movie and contribute to its success? 20th Century Fox seems to hope so, because the studio apparently allowed the talk show host to screen an unfinished cut of Australia in preparation for her November 10 show, which featured the film’s stars, Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, as well as a live-via-Skype call-in from filmmaker Baz Luhrman. Fortunately for Fox, Oprah raved about the film, and now the media has latched on to the endorsement, creating some much-needed positive buzz for the Oscar-hopeful. Yet there’s a big problem with all the excitement: Oprah’s film recommendations have hardly been sure-fire champs in the past.
I don’t get to see a lot of shorts programs at festivals. So, when I went to the Independent Film Festival of Boston, I indulged in their delicious menu of shorts. One of the audience favorites was a surprising little piece from Australia. A zombie flick that–unlike most zombie movies–truly transcended its genre. In honor of our Presidential Zombie Photoshop Contest going on until May 25th, I ask you undead to dim the lights, put on your headphones and place your fingernails between your teeth.
I’ve decided the most inspiring filmmaker since John Cassavetes is Rolf de Heer (Ten Canoes, The Tracker, Epsilon, Dingo). If there’s a filmmaker alive devoted to the belief that some films must happen and he/she is just a conduit for some bigger change, it’s de Heer. And the story behind Ten Canoes ( in theaters now) is remarkable.
It’s almost time for Filmmaker Independent’s 2nd annual Filmmaker Forum. The title of this year’s forum is “Make and Sell your Film Without Getting Screwed.” The graphic treatment is all two-by-fours and wood screws. It’s cute, but a bit cynical. It’s like a Lamaze class advertising, “How to deliver your baby without getting sliced open and dropped by your insurance.” The fear factor is put to work.
When it gets down to it, I’m not sure how many filmmakers out there look back at the early stages of their career and think about who screwed them over. I have, however, heard many tell stories of how naive they were about making and distributing films in the early days of their careers.
The most recent story is one I came across at Telluride. Rolf De Heer was there with Ten Canoes (now at the Chicago International Festival). For those of you who don’t know, Rolf De Heer is one of a few independents who made a film industry out of essentially nothing–in his case, he created the industry in Australia, where one didn’t exist. As a young director, De Heer’s first three films were commercial failures, not because they weren’t good, but because he just didn’t understand the Market. His first trip to Cannes was an eye opener and a turning point. He showed up with his film under his arm and quickly realized all the other films had booked screenings and parties six months in advance for the Industry folk. Nobody carrying any weight in the Industry even saw his film.
“I decided I was not going to do it [the traditional way] anymore. Each film takes a year or more and becomes the process of me living my life. If the process is miserable, then I’m throwing my life away. I am going to make the films I enjoy making… work closely with a few people rather than very many at a distance. And I prefer to be passionate about the subject matter because if the film goes nowhere it doesn’t matter.”
De Heer keeps his budgets low so investors don’t fear a huge loss. He’s built up his credibility with organizations offering production grants. He doesn’t stake his hopes, like so many other international filmmakers, on the American distribution deal. In so many words, he doesn’t get screwed because he doesn’t make decisions that place his love for filmmaking at the whim of somebody else. Is it really more complicated than that?
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
filmcouch-114
