Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) has just announced Simon Helberg’s romantic comedy WE’LL NEVER HAVE PARIS, co-directed by Jocelyn Towne, as the Closing Night film at the 68th edition of the Edinburgh International Film Festival on Sunday 29 June. The Festival runs from 18 to 29 June 2014.
Released in the UK by Metrodome, WE’LL NEVER HAVE PARIS is written and co-directed by Helberg (The Big Bang Theory), who also plays the lead, and co-directed by actor/director Jocelyn Towne (I Am I). The film also stars Zachary Quinto (Star Trek), Alfred Molina (The Da Vinci Code, Spiderman 2), Melanie Lynskey (Up In The Air, The Perks Of Being A Wallflower), Jason Ritter (Parenthood, Joan Of Arcadia) and Maggie Grace (Taken, The Twilight Saga). WE’LL NEVER HAVE PARIS is produced by Robert Ogden Barnum (All is Lost, Lawless, Margin Call) and Katie Mustard (The Greatest, Night Catches Us), along with Helberg and Towne. International sales are handled by K5 International.
Chris Fujiwara, EIFF Artistic Director, said: “With WE’LL NEVER HAVE PARIS, a funny and very personal romantic comedy, we’ll be able to close this year’s festival on a real high note. It’s a film of great charm and considerable intelligence, and Simon Helberg is brilliant in it.”
WE’LL NEVER HAVE PARIS will receive its International premiere at Edinburgh’s Festival Theatre on Sunday 29 June with Simon Helberg in attendance, and will open nationwide in August 2014.
Simon Helberg, Director, said: “It is an unbelievable thrill to be picked as the coveted closing night film at such a legendary festival. We hope the people of Scotland will find our pain and suffering as funny as we do.”
Based on Helberg and Towne’s real life romantic history, WE’LL NEVER HAVE PARIS is a candid tale of a neurotic young man rattled by the sudden declaration of love he receives from an attractive co-worker (Grace) moments before he is about to propose to his girlfriend (Lynskey). Heartbroken, she flees to Paris, and he must now race across the Atlantic to win her back. But will he be too late?
As previously announced, this year will see a FOCUS ON GERMANY strand at the Festival which aims to shine a light on Germany’s most inventive filmmakers with screenings of new and retrospective films. In partnership with German Films, with additional support from the Goethe-Institut, EIFF will offer festival-goers the opportunity to sample a broad range of titles from the most intelligent and inspiring auteurs in German cinema.
Highlights of the programme include hard-hitting family dramas ‘Daughters’ by Maria Speth; ‘Parents’ directed by Robert Thalheim; and Edward Berger’s stirring tale of courage and responsibility, ‘Jack’. ‘Stations Of The Cross’ from Dietrich Brüggemann charts a teenage girl’s struggles with questions of life, death and faith, while ‘A House In Berlin’ directed by Cynthia Beatt explores a woman’s personal journey of self-discovery as she delves in to the history of 20thcentury Germany. The FOCUS ON GERMANY will also include expansive works such as Edgar Reitz’s historical epic ‘Home From Home – Chronicle Of A Vision’; Thomas Heise’s powerful documentary observing juvenile offenders in Mexico ‘Staedtebewohner’, Bruce LaBruce’sexperimental adaptation of Arnold Schönberg’s song cycle ‘Pierrot Lunaire’ and the UK premiere of Dominik Graf’s ‘Beloved Sisters’. Shorts programme ‘Small Revolutions’ will showcase four striking examples of short-form cinema from contemporary Germany.
In addition the FOCUS ON GERMANY will present ‘Secret Master: Dominik Graf and the Hidden History Of German Cinema’, a celebration of director Dominik Graf who has long been one of the best kept secrets in German-language cinema – mainly because he found his niche in television production. In his native country, Graf is a prolific and inventive filmmaker who is celebrated as the country’s foremost specialist in crime and melodrama. A special feature of the programme is a carte blanche of German TV thrillers which Graf himself, an ardent cinephile, has selected for EIFF.
EIFF is also proud to be working for the first time with Edinburgh-based events company Neu! Reekie! on ‘Achtung! Maybe!’ which will be held on 27 June at Summerhall in Edinburgh. Curators Michael Pedersen and Kevin Williamson will present a special German-themed Neu! Reekie! of Weimar Republic animation and films, accompanied by live music and performance adding a uniquely immersive element to the FOCUS ON GERMANY programme. Music includes new work from Edinburgh-based bands Found and Birdhead and will showcase previous winners of EIFF’s McLaren Award for Best British Animation.
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