Tag Archives: Juliette Binoche

Queen Latifah Teams Up w/ Juliette Binoche & Others To Launch Company To Empower Women In Entertainment

Queen Latifah has teamed up with actresses Jessica Chastain and Juliette Binoche, and Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke to launch a production company called We Do It Together (WDIT), which will focus on producing films and TV programming by and about women.

The non-profit company is planning to develop a number of “inspiring” films that they hope will help ensure future opportunities for known and emerging women voices within the industry.

The company’s first film will be announced in May at the Cannes International Film Festival.

WDIT will raise capital from grants, governments, corporate sponsors and individual donations to invest in the production of films. The proceeds will be reinvested in the company to create a self-sustaining organisation to invest in additional films.

The organisation is scheduled to participate at the United Nations’ Third Annual Power of Collaboration Global Summit on February 29.

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Kristen Stewart Blasts Sexism in Hollywood

Kristen Stewart has joined the ever-growing list of female celebrities who have been publicly calling out sexism in Hollywood of late. The Hollywood star also admits that she hates being famous, often pondering why anyone would aspire to be a star.

Fame is the worst thing in the world. Especially if it’s pointless. When people say, ‘I want to be famous’, Why? You don’t do anything.”

The actress, famous for her role in the Twilight series, and most recently starred in Clouds Of Sils Maria, where she played a personal assistant to a famous Hollywood celebrity – recently made history for becoming the first American actress to win France’s César award, speaks frankly about gender politics in a new interview with Harper’s Bazaar U.K.

40th Annual Cesar Film Awards Ceremony

Speaking to Harper’s Bazaar UK, she blasted Hollywood as ‘offensive’ and ‘disgustingly sexist’, Stewart has hit out at the industry which ‘makes women work harder’.

You don’t do anything. Women inevitably have to work a little bit harder to be heard. Hollywood is disgustingly sexist. It’s crazy. It’s so offensive it’s crazy. Women inevitably have to work a little bit harder to be heard. Hollywood is disgustingly sexist. It’s crazy. It’s so offensive it’s crazy.”

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The actress also discussed how she agonised over her sex scene with former boyfriend Robert Pattinson in the Twilight franchise – explaining she felt pressure to live up to what fans wanted to see in the vampire love scene, and it led to a few sleepless nights.

I only hate (sex scenes) when they’re contrived. That’s when it’s grotesquely uncomfortable. On Twilight we had to do the most epic sex scene of all time. It had to be transcendent and otherworldly, inhuman, better sex than you can possibly ever imagine, and we were like, ‘How do we live up to that?’ It was agony… I wanted it to be so good.”

The Twilight star plays a personal assistant to a big Hollywood star in new movie The Clouds Of Sils Maria, opposite Juliette Binoche.

Kristen Stewart Wins a César Award, France’s Version of the Oscar

On Friday, Kristen Stewart won a supporting-actress César for her work in Cloud of Sils Maria, making her the first American actress to ever take home France’s most coveted acting award.

In the drama from writer/director Olivier Assayas, Stewart plays a personal assistant to an aging film actress (Juliette Binoche) who is looking to make a career comeback.

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Accepting the prize, Stewart  said “OK. Here we go. I can’t even move my hands,” she said in English as she unfolded a piece of paper. “Je suis désolée, je ne parle pas Fren — uh, français, mais je promets de travailler — something like that”. Translation: “I am sorry I do not speak French, but I promise to work at it”.

Stewart gave the rest of her speech in English, where she was keen to praise her co-star – “Juliette, thank you, thank you, thank you. I’m standing in front of a room where I do not have to explain the power of Juliette”.

Stewart told journalists backstage,

“The reasons why people make films here in France are very different from the reasons why people make movies in Hollywood and I prefer it here a little bit.” According to the outlet, “she also revealed she will star in another French film but declined to reveal any further details.”

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There also was recognition for another American actor, Sean Penn, who was in attendance with Charlize Theron.

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Women Filmmakers Set To Shine At The Berlin International Film Festival

Berlin International Film Festival is Europe’s first major film festival of the year, and starts on Thursday.

Founded in 1951, The Berlin International Film Festival is one of the world’s leading film festivals and most reputable media events. Every year, the festival showcases up to more than 400 films across several genres, representing a comprehensive sampling of the cinematic world. Around 20 films compete for the top awards, called the Golden and Silver Bears. It’s also one of Europe’s three major film festivals, which also include the Venice International Film Festival and the Cannes International Film Festival.

Now in its 65th year, the festival will be showcasing a number of new movies, which will put women in the spotlight. A number of leading female actress, directors and producer are expected to be in attendance, premiering their latest films.

Dieter Kosslick, who has run the festival since 2001, told reporters that many of the more than 400 films that will screen focused on “strong women in extreme situations”.

Who to look out for…

The festival will begin with Oscar winner Juliette Binoche playing Josephine Peary, a woman who accompanied her explorer husband, Robert, on treacherous Arctic expeditions, in Nobody Wants the Night. The film is directed by Spain’s Isabel Coixet, only the second woman in the history of the Berlinale, as the event is known, to hold the coveted opening-night slot.

Nicole Kidman plays British adventurer and spy Gertrude Bell opposite former Twilight heartthrob Robert Pattinson as TE Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia, in German veteran Werner Herzog’s Queen of the Desert.

Two-time Oscar winner Cate Blanchett has two Berlin entries. She closes the festival as the wicked stepmother in Disney’s live action Cinderella and is featured alongside Christian Bale and Natalie Portman in Terence Malick’s long-awaited Knight of Cups.

Portman, now Paris-based with her choreographer husband Benjamin Millepied heading the Paris Opera Ballet, will visit Berlin for Knight and as executive producer of The Seventh Fire documentary about Native American gangs.

Lea Seydoux, the latest Bond girl in the British spy franchise, returns to Berlin with French director Benoit Jacquot in Diary of a Chambermaid, based on a novel already adapted by cinema greats Jean Renoir and Luis Bunuel.

British actress Helen Mirren stars in Woman in Gold, the true story of Holocaust survivor Maria Altmann who fought the Austrian government for nearly a decade for restitution of valuable Klimt paintings that the Nazis stole from her family.

Although the proportion of female directors has not yet taken a 50-percent stake, women are heavily featured in the 2015 festival, and the red carpet appearances of these female stars have been long anticipated by the public.

Official trailer for Clouds of Sils Maria – Juliette Binoche, Kristen Stewart, Chloë Grace Moretz

Clouds of Sils Maria is the hotly anticipated upcoming film drama written and directed by Olivier Assayas, and starring Juliette Binoche, Kristen Stewart, and Chloë Grace Moretz.

The Plot – Juliette Binoche headlines as Maria Enders, a luminous talent in early middle-age who once rose to fame playing 18-year-old Sigrid in a lauded lesbian drama. Now a new director wants to re-stage the play, this time casting Maria in the role of Helena, the bitter, brittle older lover. Maria is reluctant but the director insists. “Sigrid and Helena are one and the same person. And because you were Sigrid, only you can play Helena.” Enter Jo-Ann (Chloe Grace Moretz), a Hollywood starlet, fresh out of rehab o play Sigrid.

Yet, this story is not the focus of the film, the interest lies in the dynamics between Maria and Val (Kristen Stewart), the actor’s personal assistant. The relationship here is quite beautifully drawn, with Stewart again demonstrating what a terrific performer she can be away from the shadow of Twilight.

It is immediately apparent that these two women are close. Maria and Val love each other and live together, but their friendship has never been on an equal footing – and here is the twist….

Watch the Official trailer for Clouds of Sils Maria