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3 articles from 2009

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What's Different About Two New Studio Heads?

8 October 2009 7:45 AM, PDT | Movieline | See recent Movieline news »

Amid all the recent turbulence and turnover afflicting Universal and Disney, a few interesting milestones were reached. For starters, Disney's new boss Rich Ross (pictured at left) became the first openly gay man selected to run a Hollywood studio. Across town, new Universal co-chair Donna Langley is the first British woman appointed to a similar post, and only the second Brit ever (after Columbia chairman David Puttnam 20 years ago) to oversee a major. Congratulations to both -- and don't screw this up. [Lat, The Guardian] »

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Puttnam Urges Filmmakers To Make A Difference In British National Party Battle

23 June 2009 6:30 PM, PDT | WENN | See recent WENN news »

David Puttnam has urged British moviemakers to find ways of making positive films about integrity and life lessons in an effort to thwart growing film propaganda funded by hardline members of the British National Party.

As part of his keynote address at the Edinburgh Film Festival in Scotland on Sunday, the revered film producer, aka Lord Puttnam of Queensgate, Cbe, insisted more arts cash and private funding had to be made available for stirring message-laden films like his acclaimed projects The Killing Fields, The Mission and Chariots of Fire.

He said, "I’m not naive enough to pretend that on its own cinema can cut through, let alone solve significant social or cultural problems; but through illuminating the sometimes very different lives and experiences of others... it can help create that vital context of understanding within which the type of change that sometimes looks impossible begins to look at least possible.

"If we ever cease to believe that we will also cease to make movies. In a tiny way it’s what I was trying to do in the films I produced that dealt with factual or historical events; most obviously in The Killing Fields, The Mission and Cal, but also in their own ways, Chariots of Fire, The Duellists and even Local Hero.

"In every case I tried to produce films that adhered to some definable concept of cultural integrity.

"We desperately need some of our most talented filmmakers to find ways of helping to ensure that the insidious propaganda of (BNP leader) Nick Griffin and his gang of thugs fails in its attempt to capture impressionable young minds in some of our more vulnerable communities.

"If the BNP are allowed to get away with exploiting complex issues to their own God knows what ends, then we have stepped on to a very slippery slope indeed." »

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Puttnam: 'The Killing Fields Helped Prevent Civil War In The Ukraine'

23 June 2009 3:00 PM, PDT | WENN | See recent WENN news »

British movie mogul Lord Puttnam Of Queensgate is convinced of the power of film after learning The Killing Fields helped thwart a civil war in the Ukraine.

Shortly after the powerful 1984 movie, about the harsh realities of the Cambodian War, won big at the Oscars, producer Puttnam was asked to screen the film in the Ukraine, as part of a British cultural week in Kiev.

Delivering the keynote address at the Edinburgh Film Festival in Scotland on Sunday, Puttnam explained how impactful that screening was.

He said, "The British Film Council felt it was appropriate to screen the movie there (Kiev) and it didn’t take long to realise that I'd been rather badly briefed about the Ukraine - I had no understanding at all of the tensions that existed: political, religious, economic and cultural.

"We ran the film on a Saturday morning, in a huge cavernous cinema, to an audience of mostly young people - about 2,000 of them. After the screening, in an otherwise terrific question and answer session, no one mentioned Cambodia. All of the talk was of the Ukraine and its problems, and whether any such series of events (chronicled in the film) could possibly happen to them."

Unbeknown to Puttnam, the film was subsequently pirated and became a must-see for Ukranians. And the Brit learned of the full impact of the movie upon meeting the then-new Ukranian President Viktor Yushchenko.

The moviemaker explained, "I heard one of the interpreters mention that I was the producer of The Killing Fields, at which point he grabbed me and excitedly explained that shortly after my visit the film had begun to circulate among their schools and colleges.

"Apparently lots and lots of VHS copies of The Killing Fields were shown in schools all over the Ukraine. In fact as far as I could make out, every kid in the Ukraine has at some point seen the movie. He asked me if I’d ever noticed that during the Orange Revolution (post-election protests of 2004 and 2005) there was never any discussion, at any point at all, about the possibility of a civil war breaking out.

"He said, 'Because of your film we understood all too well what civil war did to a nation. We saw what happened in Cambodia, and determined that it was not going to happen in Ukraine.'" »

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2009 | 2008 | 2005 | 2002 | 2000 | 1999 | 1998 | 1997

3 articles from 2009

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