Up-n-coming, 6/7.

Emir Kusturica, whose Promise Me This was pretty much met with a weary chorus of ho-hums at Cannes last month, returns to France and perhaps happier Cannes memories, reports the Frankfurter Rundschau. On June 26, an opera he's directed based on Time of the Gypsies, the film that scored him a Best Director award at Cannes in 1989, will open at the Opéra national de Paris. "I think I'll leave off cinema and only direct operas from now on," he says. "Opera allows a leap into the abstract, so it fits better with my artistic concepts. I feel right in this abstract world."

Sam Raimi will be producing a film based on Priest, a manwha (roughly, a Korean equivalent of Japanese manga) by Hyung Min-woo, reports the Korean Film Council's Yi Ch'ang-ho.

"Ken Loach has made his first foray into radio with a documentary about Blackpool in its 1940s heyday for BBC Radio 3." And the BBC reports.

At indieWIRE, Jason Guerrasio checks in on five independent films currently in production.

"Matt Damon is looking to reteam with Paul Greengrass on an adaptation of Imperial Life in the Emerald City," reports Variety's Diane Garrett. Also: "Naomi Watts is attached to star in the adaptation of We Are All the Same for the Bureau of Moving Pictures."

In the Independent, Geoffrey Macnab looks ahead to what we might expect from Ealing Studios' revival of the St Trinian's franchise: "Directors Oliver Parker and Barnaby Thompson have assembled an intriguing cast, complete with supermodels (Lily Cole), Bond girls (Caterina Murino) film stars (Rupert Everett) and such cherished household names as Stephen Fry."

"One of the most bizarre forthcoming movie projects sees British director Roland Joffé about to helm a film about defunct Russian pop band Tatu," notes the Guardian.

Vincent Bugliosi's Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F Kennedy is headed for the miniseries treatment. Variety's Michael Fleming has the details. Related: Ron Rosenbaum in Slate on this 1600-page tome and on David Talbot's Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years; Bugliosi and Talbot on the Leonard Lopate Show.

Variety's Dade Hayes looks ahead to a very crowded fall season, a "traffic-jam of pedigreed films," as the New York Post's Lou Lumenick puts it.

Posted by dwhudson at June 7, 2007 2:16 PM