September 24, 2007

Goings on in Babelsberg.

Babelsberg Busy days for the studios that once saw the likes of Lang and Dietrich working here. Tom Tykwer has now begun shooting The International with Clive Owen, Naomi Watts and Armin Mueller-Stahl, reports the AP (in German).

Fatih Akin up following up his The Edge of Heaven (opening here in Germany on Thursday; it's Germany's pick for the Oscar race) with, would you believe, a Western, for which he's building a replica of Ellis Island in the studios (the story moves west after the immigrants arrive). The DPA (German Press Agency) reports.

And in Die Welt, Peter Zander's got a shamelessly speculative piece about what might happen when Nicole Kidman arrives in Babelsberg to begin work on Stephen Daldry's adaptation of Bernhard Schlink's The Reader. Tom Cruise, you see, will still be here, working on Valkyrie. Sheesh.



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Posted by dwhudson at September 24, 2007 7:58 AM

Comments

I want to know more about the new film fra Fatih Akin! (Sadly, I can't understand enough German..)

Posted by: Karsten at September 24, 2007 9:46 AM

Karsten, I saw your comment but had to run out a bit. Sorry for not replying earlier.

Unfortunately, I don't have the issue of Der Spiegel with the article this news item is based on. I don't know much more other than that, yes, he's serious, it's a Western, takes place in the US at the beginning of the 20th century (so it's a late Western) and yes, there will be Native Americans.

While looking for more, I stumbled across another interesting tidbit. Takva, a film Akin co-produced and which won an award at the Sarajevo Film Festival, is Turkey's choice for the Oscar race. So he stands a fairly decent chance of going to LA early next year, whether or not he wins anything.

The other night, btw, a German news channel ran a video diary Akin kept while making Heaven. Pretty engrossing, actually, particularly the phase in which he realizes his first cut is just wrong, wrong, wrong in all sorts of ways - so he and his editor, Andrew Bird, start from scratch.

Really looking forward to catching this film this weekend.

Posted by: David Hudson at September 24, 2007 11:22 AM