RIP Edward R. Pressman

 

Edward R. Pressman Dies: Prolific ‘Wall Street’, ‘American Psycho’ & ‘Badlands’ Producer Was 79

 

DEADLINE

By Greg Evans

January 18, 2023

 

Edward R. Pressman, the prolific Hollywood indie producer behind Wall Street, Badlands, American Psycho, Das Boot and The Crow, among dozens of others, died Tuesday in Los Angeles. He was 79.

His death was confirmed to Deadline his company, Pressman Films.

With dozens of acclaimed and impactful films and TV movies stretching back to the late 1960s and including now-classics like Conan the Barbarian, Talk Radio, Bad Lieutenant and Brian De Palma’s 1972 Sisters, Pressman was noted for discovering talented directors early in their careers. In addition to Sisters he produced De Palma’s Phantom of the Paradise, and, with the acclaimed 1973 TV-movie Badlands, Terrence Malick. Jason Reitman made his directing debut in Pressman’s 2005 Aaron Eckhart starrer Thank You for Smoking.

An early collaboration with Oliver Stone on the 1981 drama The Hand paved the way for Talk Radio (1988) and the 1987 Oscar-winning Wall Street (which included an appearance by Martin Sheen, who had his breakthrough as the sociopathic killer of Badlands). He and Stone produced Kathryn Bigelow’s early film Blue Steel (1990).

Among the other directors with whom Pressman would forge early bonds were Alex Proyas (The Crow), Sylvester Stallone (Paradise Alley) and Sam Raimi (Crimewave).

Among his many other credits both domestic and international, either as producer or executive producer, are Fred Schepisi’s Plenty, starring Meryl Streep; Wolfgang Petersen’s Das Boot; Mary Harron’s American Psycho, with Christian Bale; James Toback’s Two Girls and a Guy; Harold Becker’s City Hall, starring Al Pacino; Danny DeVito’s Hoffa, starring Jack Nicholson; Charles Burnett’s To Sleep With Anger, starring Danny Glover; Barbet Schroeder’s Reversal of Fortune, starring Jeremy Irons in an Oscar-winning performance as Claus von Bülow; and John Frankenheimer’s The Island of Dr. Moreau, with Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer.

Pressman also earned Emmy and PGA Award nom as an executive producer of the 2018 HBO telefilm Paterno, and former longtime Penn State football coach Joe Paterno. The producer also was nominated for back-to-back Indie Spirit Awards in 1992 and ’93 for Homicide and Bad Lieutenant, respectively, and received Film Independent’s John Cassavetes Award in 1991. He also received a Tribute Award from the Gothams in 2003.

A native New Yorker and Stanford University graduate who also studied at the London School of Economics, Pressman has been honored by the French Cinematheque, The National Film Theatre in London, New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the Pacific Film Archives and the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Cinematék, among others.

Pressman is survived by his wife of 39 years, Annie McEnroe Pressman, and son Sam Pressman, who has worked for Edward R. Pressman Productions for the past decade and says he will continue producing films for the company in honor of his father. 

PRESSMAN, Edward R. (Edward Rambach Pressman)

Born: 4/11/1943, New York City, New York, U.S.A.

Died: 1/17/2023, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

 

Edward R. Oressman’s westerns – producer:

Cherry 2000 – 1987

Walker - 1987

RIP Simone Bär

 

The German Film Academy mourns the loss of casting director Simone Bär

 

Deutsche Filmakademie

1/18/2023

 

The casting of a film resembles a family constellation and Simone Bär was the congenial performer. The 57-year-old casting director Simone Bär died on 16 January 2023 in Berlin.

In her long, diverse casting biography, she has connected many actors and directors and thus very often given us the realization that the perfect casting of a film can change everything. Simone Bär has elevated casting to art, impenetrable for most, shaped by her unique feeling and curiosity about people, about life. She was one of the best judges of human nature in this profession, always looking for a new face, a new inspiration, always ready to throw everything overboard for the perfect group, for the perfect leading role.

So we will soon feel the tension between Bachmann and Frisch in "Ingeborg Bachmann – Reise in die Wüste" by Margarethe von Trotta. Experience whether "All Quiet on the Western Front" by Edward Berger with a stunning, completely new ensemble or "Tár" by Todd Field at the Academy Awards, where the new film by Christian Petzold's "Red Sky" takes us or how "Sisi and I" by Frauke Finsterwalder catches us.

Simone Bär cast "Babylon Berlin" for Tom Tykwer, Henk Handloegten and Achim von Borries, worked repeatedly with Christian Petzold, Matti Geschonneck, Florian Gallenberger, Robert Thalheim and Baran bo Odar and with Sherry Hormann for "Nur eine Frau".

In addition, she was an expert in major international arthouse cinema in collaborations with Stephen Daldry ("The Reader"), Quentin Tarantino ("Inglourious Basterds"), Steven Spielberg ("War Horse"), Jonathan Glazer ("The Zone of Interest"), François Ozon ("Frantz"), Martin Zandvliet ("Land of Mine") and Wes Anderson ("The Grand Budapest Hotel").

At the same time, she accompanied young filmmakers such as Ilker Çatak, Barbara Ott and Philip Koch on their first films with great enthusiasm, incorruptibly interested in the book and the collaboration with the artists.

Above all, the long-term nature of the cooperation, recurring and characterized by absolute trust, was significant. When asked what casting was for her, she replied: "Credibility, that it is coherent, ... for me the characters are tangible, that I am kidnapped, ... They enchant me. You can't generalize, you cast a comedy differently than a drama, but the actors have to convey the script as well as possible."

And she searched for these actors and found them congenial again and again, to find the finest nuances in the cast of the Netflix series "Dark" – to find in dialect adaptations of the older and younger players of a role – was a pleasure for her. Nina Hoss, Sandra Hüller, Paula Beer, Vicky Krieps, Peter Kurth, Christoph Waltz and many, many more have grown with the joint works.

Simone Bär has achieved world fame in her profession due to her precise eye and her high level of competence. She has cast films that have been awarded the most important prizes for their knowledge and feelings, including multiple Oscar winners and nominees, winners of the Golden Globe, the German Film Award, the European Film Award and Grimme winners.

Simone Bär has also been honored several times for this outstanding work, she is the winner of the German Casting Award and multiple winner of the German Acting Award in the field of casting. She has received numerous honours from her colleagues, such as the Angela Award at the Kilkenny Film Festival.

She was a Grimme Prize winner, a member of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as well as the German and European Film Academies.

Simone Bär will remain close to all of us, in the encounters we remember, in the films she worked on. No one will be like them.

BAR, Simone

Born: 1965, Konig’s Wusterhausen, Brandenburg, Germany

Died: 1/16/2023, Berlin, Berlin, Germany

 

Simone Bär’s westerns – script director:

Tom Sawyer - 2011

The Adventures of Huck Finn - 1972

RIP Jorge de Cominges

 

Writer and journalist Jorge de Cominges has died at the age of 78.

 

Social Bites

By Brandon

January 17, 223

 

This Jorge de Cominges, Barcelona-based writer, journalist and film critic. Director of the magazine ‘Qué Leer’ and editor-in-chief of ‘Fotogramas’, Died this Tuesday in the Catalan capital at the age of 78 from a serious illness. Family sources reported.

Openly, De Cominges’ death ‘Fotogramas’ reacted on social networks noting that he is “an important figure in the history of the magazine” and “one of its most beloved members”.

As a writer, he is the author of the novels ‘A carnation between the teeth’ (1989), ‘Tul ilusión’ (1993) or ‘Las Adelfas’ (1997) in which he portrays the high society and ruined characters of Barcelona. ‘A Very Intensive Course’ (1999) is a teen novel that he wrote with his daughter Clara.

His last literary foray was ‘El astonishment’ (2009). A work in which the heroine, the daughter of the Catalan bourgeoisie, rebelled against her social origin by devoting herself to the field of film and theater production during the Transition period, closing the novel “quartet” dedicated to Barcelona. High society.

He also published a book of cinematographic memoirs called ‘My Cinema Years (1976-1979)’. Between description and ‘quality’ (2001) and his autobiography ‘Memories of a stranger’ (2004).

In the presentation of these memoirs, Jorge de Cominges admitted: From my attachment to a bourgeois family, then my work in cinema and then my work in journalism, I have always felt like an outsider, out of place. anyone”.

Born in Barcelona in January 1945, Jorge de Cominges graduated from the University of Barcelona in Law, although he did not practice law and worked as a film technician from 1968-1980.

Since 1976 he has been a film critic for publications such as Destino, El Noticiero Universal and El Periódico de Catalunya.

He joined Fotogramas magazine in 1981, where he served as editor-in-chief until 1996, when he took over the management of the literary magazine ‘Qué Leer’ in 1989.

In 1971 he married journalist Margarita Rivière, a reference to Catalan journalism and died in 2015, and they had two children, Clara and Hugo.

de COMINGES, Jorge (Jorge de Cominges Trías)

Born: 1/?/ 1945, Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

Died: 1/17/1923, Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

 

Jorge de Cominges’ westerns – script supervisor:

Stagecoach of the Condemned – 1970

Twenty Paces to Death (Saranda) - 1970

RIP Leon Dubinsky

 

'His music will live on forever': Iconic Cape Breton musician/artist Leon Dubinsky dead at 81

Dubinsky wrote Rise Again; helped create ‘Summertime Review’

 

Saltwire

By Shannon Lee

January 17, 2023

SYDNEY, N.S. - A Cape Breton artist and actor known for creating the unofficial anthem for Cape Breton Island died on Monday.

Leon Dubinsky, who wrote Rise Again, which has become synonymous with the resilience of the people of the island, was 81. 

The Sydney native also played with a popular local band called Buddy and the Boys and was a former artistic director of the Cape Breton Summertime Revue.

Longtime friend Stephen MacDonald described Dubinsky as being very passionate about his work.

“He was very interesting and full of life and full of music,” said MacDonald. “Leon was a brilliant songwriter and a good friend. He was very politically aware.”

Dubinsky grew up on the Esplanade in Sydney and spent his childhood and teen years with other artists. He attended Sydney Academy and co-wrote the All Hail Sydney Academy theme song.

“In the early days he was on the local folk music scene with his brother, Leslie, and they would perform when the coffee houses were big,” recalled MacDonald. “His family were all musical.

“He did a movie way back in the 70s called Life Classes – a Nova Scotia-based movie.”

Dubinsky, who played guitar and keyboard, wrote many popular songs including “One World” and “Oh Love.” He co-wrote All Hail Sydney Academy with Robert Angel and was awarded an honorary degree at Cape Breton University in May of 1997.

“Leon and I have been friends since we met in 1972,” recalled musician Max MacDonald. “We were co-founders of Buddy and the Boys Band, we worked together on Cape Breton Summertime Revue. We worked a lot together.

“It follows right on the heels of our mutual friend Ralph Dillon (who died last month) so it is a lot to process right now.”

Noted Cape Breton photographer Warren Gordon featured Dubinsky in a book.

“I was photographing notable musicians and, of course, I had to have Leon because he was and is an icon,” said Gordon. “That was about 30 years ago.”

“I think Leon was always looked upon as an icon. He was older than the rest of us by quite a bit but he just fit in. He was cool.”

Dubinsky’s work served as inspiration for many local artists and musicians.

“I was one of those kids coming through that was inspired by his music,” said Stephen Muise, who is now the musical director for the Men of the Deeps.

“I don’t think you can find a musician in Cape Breton or the East Coast of Canada who has not been influenced by his music. I think the musical community is going to miss him greatly.

“His music will live on forever.”

Funeral arrangements have not yet been announced.

DUBINSKY, Leon

Born: 7/4/1941, Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada

Died: 1/17/2023, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada

 

Leon Dubinsky’s western – actor:

Pit Pony (TV) – 1999-2000 (Cap McKenzie)

RIP Piers Haggard

 

Piers Haggard, ‘Pennies From Heaven’ Director Who Worked With Liza Minnelli, Dies at 83

 

Variety

By K.J. Yossman

January 17, 2023

 

Director Piers Haggard, best known for his film “Pennies From Heaven” and for establishing directing guild Directors U.K., has died. He was 83.

No cause of death was given but in a statement his agents at Casarotto said he “died peacefully” on Jan. 11. “He is deeply missed by his family, friends, colleagues, and the industry at large,” the statement said.

“[He was] a warm-hearted and generous man, full of energy, whose family was a large part of his life as both a husband, father and grandfather,” the statement continued. “Piers’ other great passion was as a campaigner of the rights of his fellow directors. He was instrumental in helping to create the Directors Guild of Great Britain and Directors and Producers Rights Society, which today form Directors U.K., an organisation Piers remained deeply involved with up until his passing.”

Haggard’s career spanned over five decades and a variety of industries, including film, television and theater. His mini-series “Pennies From Heaven” featured Bob Hoskins as a travelling music salesman and won a BAFTA for Most Original Programme in 1979.. Haggard also worked with stars including Liza Minnelli, Vanessa Redgrave, Helen Mirren and Maureen Lipman.

Haggard was born in London in 1939 to Morna Gillespie and actor, poet and novelist Stephen Haggard. He began his career as an assistant director at the Royal Court and moved into television in 1965, directing shows including the BBC’s “Thirty Minute Theatre.”

He later moved into film, directing features including 1970’s “Wedding Night” and “The Blood on Satan’s Claw.”

Haggard was also integral in the fight for directors to secure rights and recognition, establishing and serving as chairman of the Directors Guild of Great Britain (now Directors U.K.) among other organizations. He finally stepped down from the board of Directors U.K. in 2017.

He also served as vice president and chairman of the Federation of European Film Directors from 2009-2013. He was awarded an OBE in 2016 for services to film, television, and theatre.

Haggard is survived by his four children from his first marriage to Christiane Stokes, his second wife Anna Sklovsky and their two children as well as thirteen grandchildren.

HAGGARD, Piers (Piers Inigo Haggard)

Born: 3/18/1939, London, England, U.K.

Died: 1/11/2023, U.K.

 

Piers Haggard’s western – director:

Four Eyes and Six Guns (TV) - 1992

RIP Gino Landi

 

The choreographer Gino Landi, collaborator of Federico Fellini and Nino Rota, dies

 

Swiss info

January 17, 2023

 

Rome, Jan 17 (EFE) with artists of the stature of Nino Rota and Federico Fellini.

Landi died at his home, where he was receiving treatment for various health problems, according to what his regular collaborator and choreographer Cristina Arrò revealed to the newspaper La Repubblica.

Born in Milan on August 2, 1933, Landi began in the world of dance as a dancer until he decided to dedicate himself to devising choreographies.

His first jobs were with the actor and comedian Fanfulla, but he soon made the leap to the national theater circuit and to Italian television, where he took on the direction of several editions of the Sanremo Festival, the longest running musical event in Europe, precursor to the Eurovision Song Contest.

Landi came to collaborate with icons of Italian culture such as composer Nino Rota, filmmaker Federico Fellini and screenwriter Ennio Flaiano, co-author of the screenplays for "La Dolce Vita" (1960) and "8½" (1963).

In the choreographic section, Landi directed operas such as "Les contes d'Hoffmann" by Offenbach, "La Rondine" by Puccini and "Il mondo della Luna" by Paisiello.

LANDI, Gino (Luigi Gregori)

Born: 8/2/1933, Milan, Lombardy, Italy

Died: 1/17/2023, Rome, Lazio, Italy

 

Gino Landi’s western – choreographer:

Another Try, Eh Providence? - 1973

RIP Brian Tufano

 

British cinematographer Brian Tufano who shot Trainspotting, Billy Elliot, Quadrophenia and Kidulthood dies aged 83 as BAFTA lead tributes

 

The Daily Mail

By Harry Howard

January 16, 2023

 

The British cinematographer behind films including Trainspotting, Kidulthood and Billy Elliot has died aged 83.

Film industry veteran Brian Tufano had a 50-year career that saw him work on dozens of productions, which also included Blade Runner, East is East and Quadrophenia. 

He was described by the Daily Mail in 1977 as the 'most celebrated TV cameraman in Britain'.

Leading tributes, Bafta Scotland said: 'We are saddened by this news - Cinematographer Brian Tufano shot some of Scotland's most iconic films: Trainspotting, Shallow Grave and Late Night Shopping.'

Quadrophenia's director, Frank Roddam, told MailOnline that Tufano was a 'brilliant' and 'lovely' man who brought 'great experience'. 

Announcing news of his passing on Twitter today, Tufano's former colleague at the UK's National Film and Television School said: 'Very sorry to have to share that Cinematography legend and former @NFTSFilmTV Head of Department Brian Tufano has died.

'He shot so many amazing films and did so much to champion new talent, in particular female DPs. We loved him and will REALLY miss him.'

Fim producer Jessica Levick said: 'So sorry to hear this and love to all his family. If there was one person I was in total awe of at @NFTSFilmTV when I was there, it was Brian Tufano, for DPing some of my absolute favourite films so brilliantly.

'He was amazing.'

Filmmaker Chris Atkins said: 'Brian Tufano shot Trainspotting and was a titan of cinematography, sorely missed.'

Born in Shepherd's Bush, West London, in 1939, Tufano entered the film industry in 1956 as a pageboy at Lime Grove Studios.

He then embarked on an apprenticeship at the BBC and went on to spend more than 20 years working with directors including Ken Loach and Stephen Frears.

Tufano's first prominent film role came on Quadrophenia, which was released in 1979 and became a cult classic.

The film is set during the violent era of rivalry between 'Mods' and Rockers'.

Quadrophenia's director Mr Roddam told MailOnline: 'When I did my first ever film at the BBC, a documentary, there was a system where you had a pool of cameramen.

'You could get very unlucky and get a terrible one. There were certain stars in the group and Brian was one of those. He was much revered.

'On my first documentary, I got him. Years later, I pulled him out of the BBC to make Quadrophenia.'

He added: 'He brought great experience. He was a very experienced cameraman. He was a bit of a classicist.

'It is very important to maintain a tone when you're making a film, he was a very good moderator of the tone.

'We had that language between us.

'He would have a clear memory of the transitions. A brilliant man. And a lovely man to work with.'

The cinematographer went on to form a fruitful partnership with director Danny Boyle, working on four films with him.

The first - Shallow Grave - was released in 1994 and starred Ewan McGregor, Christopher Eccleston and Kerry Fox. 

Trainspotting, which was released two years later, proved to be another classic, with McGregor starring as Mark Renton.

Tufano then worked with Boyle on A Life Less Ordinary - released in 1997 - and Alien Love Triangle, which hit cinemas in 2008.

Earlier in his career, he worked as a photographer on 1982 film Blade Runner, which received rave reviews from critics and viewers.

Billy Elliot, released in 2000, made star Jamie Bell a household name and netted Tufano the Television Craft award from Bafta.

The film was also nominated for the Best Cinematography award.

For the last decade, Tufano has been semi-retired, with his last credit coming on Gymnast, a documentary that followed the British gymnastics athletes who went to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

TUFANO, Brian

Born: 1939, Shepard’s Bush, West London, England, U.K.

Died: 1/16/2023, U.K.

 

Brian Tufano’s western – cinematographer:

War Party - 1988