Joseph Fiennes, Blythe Danner and Robert Wagner are set to star in Ryan Murphy's FX project about a man who realizes he's a transsexual, reports Variety.

Fiennes will play Bob, a married man with two sons who undergoes the metamorphosis to eventually become a woman. Wagner will play Bob's father, Scotch, who shares a gynecological practice with his son; Danner is Bunny, Bob's mother.

FX and Murphy are still casting the wife and children roles. Production will begin at the end of October.

Murphy co-created the project with writer Brad Falchuk; Murphy executive produces with Brad Pitt and Dede Gardner.

(Source)

The film is called Against the Current and stars Joseph Fiennes as well as Mary Tyler Moore and Elizabeth Reaser, who is on the hit television show Grey's Anatomy. There are 35 cast and crew members in the production.

Fiennes' character in the film, Paul, struggles with his will to live after his pregnant wife is killed. Paul decides to swim the Hudson River from Troy to beyond the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge as a tribute to his dead wife.

Film producer Josh Zeman said the movie was being shot on a relatively modest budget of about $500,000. He said the filming will likely wrap up by the end of the month and that the movie will be completed in about a year, after which it will be shopped around to prominent film festivals including Sundance in Utah.

(Source and full article)

Casting News: Joseph Fiennes, Stuart Townsend and Naomi Watts

Joseph Fiennes, Stuart Townsend and Naomi Watts are the latest addition to the 6th Harry Potter movie Half-Blood Prince. Schedule for a late November 2008 release, the new Harry Potter movie will start shooting in September with the same main cast from the previous movies, which includes Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint.

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Filming began Monday on the first movie to be co-produced by Poles and Israelis, a story set against the background of the Holocaust.

British actor Joseph Fiennes, who starred in the Oscar-winning Shakespeare in Love and Enemy at the Gates, leads an international cast in Spring 1941, which tells the story of a cellist's return to Poland 30 years after World War II.

The trip forces her to recall the personal and historical turmoil she experienced as a young woman in the spring of 1941 after the Germans invaded Poland and started herding Jews into ghettos, producer Ewa Puszczynska said.

Israel's Uri Barbash directs the tale written by Motti Lerner and based on stories by Ida Fink, a Holocaust survivor who moved to Israel from Poland in 1957, but continued to write in Polish.

Filming is slated to finish Sept. 18.

(Source).

International producer and financier Future Films will back Hand Pick Films and Mechanik's production of Vivaldi. The film will shoot this fall with Celsius Entertainment on board as the sales agents, it was announced at Cannes today. To be directed by Boris Damast and co-written with Jeffrey Freedman, Vivaldi will star Joseph Fiennes as the famed composer, with Gerard Depardieu, Jacqueline Bisset, and Lena Headey co-starring. "We're delighted to be working with Joseph Fiennes again following his powerful performance in Goodbye Bafana, said Future Films' Stephen Margolis. Margolis will executive produce for Future with Ampersand's Marti Blumenthal, Carlos Mercer of Cima Capital and James Ordonez. Hand Picked Films' Michel Shane and Anthony Romano (Catch Me If You Can) will produce with Mechaniks' Andrea Kikok and Damast.

(Source)

HAY LITERARY FESTIVAL, Hay-on-Wye, Wales. Thursday, May 24 to Sunday, June 3.

The Bohemian London crowd are expected this year, including Joseph Fiennes, Laura Bailey and Gillian Anderson.
(Hay Festival)

BMG Foundation launches two high-profile charitable events this summer to forge networks between business and social leaders of the East and West. The world famous English Chamber Orchestra will perform the music of Arab composers at a unique concert in the City of London on June 19, followed by the charitable equestrian GCC Polo Cup on June 20.
[...]
Both events help enhance global perceptions of the Arab world by demonstrating the high art and sporting achievements of the region. Guests this year include Sir David Frost, Dame Helen Mirren, CNN's Chief Correspondent Christiane Amanpour and husband James Rubin former President Clinton representative, Joseph Fiennes, Oswald Boateng, Jermaine Jackson, global artist / music producer P.Diddy and James Bond Legend Pierce Brosnan. The funds raised by these two events, as well as the international recognition of the Middle East's gifted composers, will help uplift and create a better understanding between Arab and Western communities, not only in the region but also around the world.
(Source)

Fox Home Entertainment has officially announced The Darwin Awards which stars two-time Oscar-nominee Winona Ryder (Little Women, Reality Bites) and Joseph Fiennes. The disc will be available to own from the 31st July, and should retail at around $19.98. The film itself will be presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, along with an English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround track. Extra material will include a behind-the-scenes featurette, cast/crew interviews and trailers.
(Source)

Actors Joseph Fiennes and Brian Cox have wrapped up shooting on The Escapist in Dublin and moved the Rupert Wyatt movie to London for one final week of filming...

Handsome actor Joseph Fiennes, better known for his roles in Shakespeare in Love and Enemy at The Gates, spent the last month in Dublin filming prison break movie 'with a twist' The Escapist along side Brian Cox, Damien Lewis and our own Liam Cunningham and Sheamus O'Shaunessy.

Fiennes, who has long purposely alluded Hollywood in favour of small independent films, kept a low profile whilst in the capital only venturing out to Lillies Bordello on one occasion and the launch of The Jameson Dublin International Film Festival in The Savoy last week.

We got the news last Friday that The Escapist production was finished shooting scenes in The John Player Theatre and Kilmainham Jail and moving to London to film exterior scenes. The movie is actually set in London but apparently there are no free jails in the UK so they had to film it in Ireland. Criminal!
(Source)

Thriller starts shooting in Dublin

A new prison thriller, The Escapist, has begun shooting in Dublin.

The film marks the feature directing debut of director and co-writer Rupert Wyatt and stars Brian Cox, Joseph Fiennes, Irish actor Liam Cunningham and City of God star Seu Jorge.

It tells the story of a life-serving prisoner (Cox) whose daughter is close to death; he decides to escape in order to make peace with her but needs the help of other inmates with his plan.

The film, which is set in the tunnels below London, will shoot for four weeks in Dublin and one week in London.

Among the Dublin locations are Kilmainham Jail, Connolly Station and the John Player Factory on South Circular Road.
(Source).

Warner flies with 'Baron'
German pic tracks career of flying ace

BERLIN - Warner Bros. has picked up German rights to The Red Baron, Niki Muellerschoen's English-language pic tracking the brief career of Germany's most famous flying ace.

Budgeted at Euros 18 million ($23 million), pic is one of the most expensive Teutonic films of all time and one of the rare local pics to be completely financed privately without subsidy coin.

Roland Pellegrino, Dan Maag and Thomas Reisser of Stuttgart-based Niama-Film produced the film, which stars local thesps Matthias Schweighoefer and Til Schweiger as well as Joseph Fiennes and Lena Headey.

The Red Baron is due to hit theaters this fall.

'Vivaldi' principals are Hand Picked
Shooting on Fiennes film scheduled for spring

Hand Picked Films principals Michel Shane and Anthony Romano and financier Carlos Melcer have come aboard to produce biopic Vivaldi along with Boris Damast and Andrea Kikot of Mechaniks.

Joseph Fiennes stars, with lensing scheduled to begin in the spring in Venice and Vienna. Damast is directing Jeffrey Freedman's script.

Hand Picked is overseeing distribution and financing. Melcer will exec produce along with Ampersand Management Group.

Story follows Vivaldi as a young, eccentric priest in the 1700s assigned to serve as music master of a school for the abandoned illegitimate daughters of Venice's courtesans. Malcolm McDowell, Lena Headey, Jacqueline Bisset, Gerard Depardieu and Elle Fanning also star.

Hand Picked's current projects include Buddha, with M Films, and a biopic on Nathaniel Sweetwater Clifton, the NBA's first black player, with Sunset Pictures and Martin Guigui directing. Shane and Romano were exec producers on I, Robot, Catch Me if You Can and Northfork, as well as the upcoming Triggerfish.

Another Vivaldi project is in development at Imagine Entertainment and Columbia.

Following Smilla's Sense of Snow (1997), two-time Oscar-winner Bille August will present his latest film, Goodbye Bafana, in the Berlinale Competition. The international co-production tells the true story of James Gregory (Joseph Fiennes), the white prison guard whose life is profoundly altered when he meets the prisoner Nelson Mandela, whom he ends up guarding for more than twenty years. Dennis Haysbert plays the ANC activist and later Nobel Peace Prize winner. James Gregory's wife Gloria is played by Diane Kruger. On February 11, 2007, it will be 17 years since Nelson Mandela was released from prison. (World Premiere)

Full press release

Celluloid Dreams has closed a couple of high profile deals with Hollywood studios. Paramount Pictures bought France, UK and Spain on Bille August's Goodbye Bafana [...].

Goodbye Bafana, directed by Bille August and starring Joseph Fiennes, Dennis Haysbert and Diane Kruger, is a South Africa-set drama about Nelson Mandela's relationship with his white prison guard. The deal was negotiated by the studio with Celluloid and co-producer Ilann Girard of Arsam.
(Source)

Years after he broke through with Shakespeare in Love, Joseph Fiennes is getting ready to take on another awards-baiting flick based on a creative legend. So what's the first step in his training to play 18th century Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi? "I guess it will start with the old fiddle," said Fiennes, admitting that he's not very musically inclined himself. "No, that's my one regret. I wish I could pick up an instrument and be a rock star like Vivaldi. That is something I have got to work on." The film will co-star Malcolm McDowell, Jacqueline Bisset and Gérard Depardieu, and Fiennes compared it to the recent Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line as a movie about Vivaldi's early years. "It's coming along," Fiennes said. "I'm working with the director and the script. I knew nothing about [Vivaldi] and I read this script and there is this amazing early part of his life where he works in Venice with disenfranchised youths, and that was fascinating to me." The movie, about the man who began studying for the priesthood at age 15 and eventually composed the classic Four Seasons concerto, will film in Venice and Vienna next year.

Annette Bening received a dashing escort from her husband of 14 years Warren Beatty when she attended the premiere of her latest movie in Beverly Hills. The award-winning actress has enjoying the plaudits of critics and fans alike for her performance in the new comedy-drama Running With Scissors. [...]

British favourite Joseph Fiennes [...] also looks set to enjoy critical acclaim for his portrayal of a gay schizophrenic in the flick. A handlebar moustache and shaggy hairdo make the actor virtually unrecognisable on screen, but he was back to his usual handsome self when he made his entrance at the screening.

The Tinseltown press is predicting the movie - which was produced by Brad Pitt and also stars Gwyneth Paltrow, Brian Cox and Alex Baldwin - will make quite an impression at next year's award ceremonies.
Full article.

Last seen giving into his Shakespearean impulses for The Merchant Of Venice, Joseph Fiennes will switch gears to music for a biopic of composer Antonio Vivaldi.

Boris Damast is directing the film from Steven Freedman's script. The writer has spent more than 20 years researching Vivaldi's life, and has produced a screenplay that follows him from his days as a young priest assigned as music master at a school for abandoned, illegitimate daughters in Venice. He soon wins over his charges, and his musical prowess lands him a concert performance for the pope.

The likes of Malcolm McDowell, Gerard Depardieu and Jacqueline Bisset are co-starring. And if Damast makes this film half as much fun as his episode of The Tick… Well, lots of classical music lovers will be confused and fans of quality telly comedy will be delighted.

Sony Pictures Classics' (SPC) co-presidents Michael Barker and Tom Bernard will receive the Hollywood Leadership Award at the Hollywood Film Awards on Oct 23 in Los Angeles.

Running With Scissors director Ryan Murphy will collect the Hollywood Breakthrough Director of the Year Award.

Barker and Bernard formed SPC with Marcie Bloom 15 years ago and their releases have included Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Howard's End, Run Lola Run, Central Station, Spider, Capote and Volver.

Barker and Bernard were co-founders of Orion Classics and previously served as executives at United Artists, where they released films by Akira Kurosawa, RW Fassbinder, and Francois Truffaut.

Murphy's Running With Scissors will open through TriStar on Oct 22.
(Source).

It was probably one of the hottest races so far this year with temperatures climbing towards the 35 degree mark, so one might have expected the well-known and famous to be elsewhere. But on the contrary - VIPs kept flocking into the paddock at the German Grand Prix. Here is what just a few of them had to say.

Hollywood actor Joseph Fiennes is about to star as Arthur Roy Brown, the nemesis of Manfred von Richthofen, aka WW1 fighter pilot the Red Baron, in the film of the same name. In town attending the Hugo Boss-McLaren 25th anniversary bash, he was keen to get a closer look at some machines that fly a little bit closer to the ground: "Unfortunately my time was limited, but from what I saw during my brief stay - the paddock with these amazing motorhomes, the professionalism of the people involved, the emotion that is attached with it, and, yes, the cars - it convinced me to come again and spend much more time."

Joseph Fiennes has signed up for a role in a new historical drama entitled The Red Baron.

The film will chronicle the life of the infamous German military figure Manfred Von Richthofen, known as the Red Baron. The Enemy At The Gates actor will play Roy Brown, the Canadian World War One pilot thought to have shot down the Baron, Variety reports.

Written and directed by Nikolai Muellershoen, filming has already commenced in Prague.