Mute Gets $25m Funding Plus New Dj Interview

He’s so war-torn and resigned, he can’t talk anymore…

Screendaily.com has reported that Duncan Jones is expecting a budget of around $25 million for his next film: the sci-fi movie, Mute. The film will be a UK-German co-production set in Berlin at a variety of locations, including at Studio Babelsberg..

Describing it as a ?thriller-mystery?, Duncan had this to say regarding the budget for Mute: ?It will definitely be bigger than Moon, probably something up to $25 million.? Not wanting to give too much away, he said: ?Moon is about alienation and isolation. The next one will have a different vibe. It?s not about one actor on their own, it?s an ensemble piece.?

MOON producer Stuart Fenegan of London based Liberty Films was less guarded: ?Mute is about a woman whose disappearance causes a mystery for her partner, a mute bartender. When she disappears, he has to go up against the city?s gangsters.?.

Shooting of Mute is expected to start early next year.

Jones and Fenegan will be hoping to replicate the success of MOON after it scooped the Michael Powell Award for the Best New British Feature at the closing ceremony of the Edinburgh International Film Festival last week. (06.28.2009 NEWS: MOON WINS BEST NEW BRITISH FEATURE FILM AT EIFF)

The pair are pictured above with Sir Sean Connery who presented the award. Fenegan said ?We?re incredibly pleased to have won the Michael Powell award. I?m hoping that it is the first step of recognition from the industry of what we?ve done and what we do next. I hope it highlights an interest in us.?

Speaking of the Edinburgh audience reaction to MOON, Jones said ?It was fantastic, our first screening was back in the UK. We have been to a lot of festivals in the US and we hadn?t had the chance to do anything in the homeland. It?s been an interesting summer for science fiction.?

Meanwhile, Duncan has contributed some great stuff to 7×7.com, from where, this excerpt…

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On the inspiration for Moon, which he co-wrote with newcomer Nathan Parker:

?Quite a few years ago I read Entering Space by the renowned astronautical engineer, Robert Zubrin. Zubrin put forward a wholly scientific and engaging case for why and how humanity should be colonizing our solar system. It was a nuts-and-bolts approach to space exploration, and took into account the fiscal appetites that would make space colonization attractive in our capitalist world.

?The book made a real impression on me. I couldn?t help thinking that that first step into space habitation, a step that would be made for profit rather than purely scientific reasons, was a fascinating conflict of interests. Companies by their very nature would seek to extract the maximum amount of raw materials from any endeavor, for a minimum outlay of costs. That?s just good business. But without any locals, without human rights groups or oversight to keep an eye on things, what might a company try to get away with? What might even the most benign, ?green? corporation be willing to do? What would they do to a lone, blue-collar caretaker on a base on the far side of the moon?

?These are some of the basic ideas that informed the science fiction setting of Moon, but this belies the root of the film: its human element. Moon is about alienation. It?s about how we anthropomorphize technology, it?s about the paranoia that strikes you when you are in a long-distance relationship, and it?s about learning to accept yourself. A lot to take on for a little indie film, but maybe that was the best place to try. It is ?only science fiction,? after all.?

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You can read the full thing here.

Moon Wins Best New British Feature Film At Eiff

Up where the MOON is shining so bright…

I’m sure you’ll want to join me in congratulating director Duncan Jones on the news that his debut feature MOON has scooped the Michael Powell Award for the Best New British Feature Film at this year?s Edinburgh International Film Festival.

The winners were revealed at the EIFF Awards Ceremony at Filmhouse this afternoon, and Festival Patrons, Sir Sean Connery and Seamus McGarvey, were among those presenting awards.

The Jury citation read: “We award Moon for its singular vision and remarkably assured direction as well as for the inspired manner in which it transcends genre. The central performance by Sam Rockwell embodies the film’s emotional complexity and compelling philosophical perspective.”

This year’s Michael Powell Jury were director Joe Wright (Atonement) who presided over the five-strong Jury: film critic Claudia Puig; actress Sacha Horler (My Year Without Sex); journalist and author Janet Street-Porter and Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon).

Earlier in the week Moon had also been leading the poll for the Standard Life Audience Award, but missed out to Tomm Moore?s animation The Secret Of Kells, at the last minute.

Well done to Duncan and Sam Rockwell and everybody else involved with making MOON such a success.

The 2009 EIFF prize winners

Michael Powell Award for Best New British Feature Film, sponsored by the UK Film Council
Moon ? Directed by Duncan Jones

PPG Award for Best Performance in a British Feature Film
Katie Jarvis ? Fish Tank

Best New International Feature Award
Easier With Practice? Directed by Kyle Patrick Alvarez

Standard Life Audience Award
The Secret Life Of Kells ? Directed by Tomm Moore

Best Documentary Award
Boris Ryzhy? Directed by Aliona Van der Horst

Skillset New Directors Award
Cary Joji Fukunaga ? Sin Nombre

The Rotten Tomatoes Critical Consensus Award
Humpday ? Directed by Lynn Shelton

UK Film Council Award for Best British Short Film
After Tomorrow? Directed by Emma Sullivan

Best International Short Film Award
Princess Margeret Bld ? Directed by Kazik Radwanski

Scottish Short Documentary Award supported by Baillie Gifford
Peter In Radioland – Directed by Johanna Wagner

McLaren Award for New British Animation in partnership with BBC Film Network
Photograph Of Jesus ? Directed by Laurie Hill

Dj Released 30 Years Ago Today Plus Remix Update

Time flies when you’re having fun…

DJ was the second single taken from David Bowie’s 1979 Lodger album and was the follow up to Boys Keep Swinging. (04.27.2009 NEWS: BOYS HAVE CONTINUED TO SWING FOR PAST 30 YEARS)

Backed by Repetition the single was released as a limited edition green vinyl pressing in the UK (below) and copies of this version are among the most sought after of all the Bowie commercial RCA 45s.

In fact, two copies of the green vinyl DJ 45 sold on eBay in February of this year, one for £104 GBP (approx. $171 USD) and then another a few days later for £83 GBP (approx. $136 USD).

While we’re on the subject, The Benassi v Bowie DJ remix which we first told you about in March, (03.09.2009 NEWS: BENASSI vs BOWIE DJ REMIX DUE PLUS EXCLUSIVE FIRST LOOK) was originally scheduled for a July 6th commercial release. This date has now been put back to Sunday July 19th and DJ will now be released as a digital bundle only.

We’ll let you know the final tracklisting as soon as we have it and we’ll be running a contest for physical promos around the same time.

Four Star Stortellers Review In Mojo

I’ll tell you a tale if you lend me an ear…

There’s a four-star Storytellers review by David Buckley in the August edition of MOJO magazine from which this excerpt…

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First, there’s Bowie himself. Then 52, with long, undyed hair, grey hoody and big trainers, he sings wonderfully, with a particular shiver when he soars to the high notes on Life On Mars. He also shows himself to be almost as good a stand-up as he is a singer, interspersing the eight featured songs with amusing and poignant anecdotes, including impersonations of Marc Bolan and Steve Marriott.

Second, there’s the surprise-laced setlist. There may be only eight songs (12 if you count the bonuses on the DVD), but they’re perfectly reconstructed for the intimate setting. Drive-in Saturday and Word On A Wing, neither at the time performed since the mid-’70s, precede a revved-up version of Bowie’s first-ever solo single, Can’t Help Thinking About Me, so old it sounds brand spanking new, and a brilliant reworking of the tale of near-suicide that is Low’s Always Crashing In The Same Car, here as a bonus track. The Storytellers exercise reminds us that very few artists have so malleable a catalogue.

Today as a Bowie live performance, it’s just great to have it. Many tours and concerts never made it onto DVD, so product-starved Bowie brethren will lap this up.

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Stay tuned for our any-day-now Storytellers contest for product-starved Bowie brethren everywhere…well, BowieNet members at least.

The Return Of The 80s And The Bowie Influence In Q

Down in space it’s always 1982…

There’s a four-page feature in the August edition of Q magazine regarding the proliferation of 1980s influenced bands with comparisons to the original groups and comments from both. Here’s an excerpt…

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And they all, without exception, rave about David Bowie. Bowie is the secret hero of this piece. No matter if you talk to the original ’80s pop stars or those referencing that era now, they all worship him.

Little Boots is partly basing her live set on his Glass Spider tour; La Roux is channelling his Ziggy style. Brown “first saw David Bowie when I was eight, in Labyrinth. I thought he was amazing; I became obsessed.” She moved quickly from the Goblin King to discovering his music, not least Ziggy Stardust.

Holly Johnson, of ’80s pop giants Frankie Goes To Hollywood, emphasises Bowie’s importance. “Frankie was actually my attempt to do Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars,” he says. “Sexually challenging, glamorous, ultimately exploding.”

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Well, that’s the 70s and the 80s belonging to Bowie…is it too early to start claiming the 90s yet?

Rare Bowie Shots At Npg Beatles To Bowie Exhibition

In the corner of the morning in the past…

The rare photographs of David Bowie above will be part of an exhibition, Beatles to Bowie: The 60s Exposed, at the National Portrait Gallery in London in October. Here’s the blurb…

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Beatles to Bowie explores the leading pop music personalities who helped create ?Swinging London’ in the 1960s. Bringing together 150 photographs, together with a range of memorabilia, the exhibition evocatively illustrates how image, music, fashion and performance combined to make these musicians the leading icons of their time and London the world’s most important cultural capital.

Highlighting key pop cultural figures from each year of this remarkable decade, the exhibition includes classic images of groups such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks and The Who as well as early portraits of singers such as Cliff Richard, Billy Fury, Marianne Faithful, Jimi Hendrix and David Bowie and 150 other items including record sleeves, illustrated sheet music and magazines and will feature more than 100 previously unseen images.

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The shot above left was donated to the NPG by photographer David Wedgbury, who I believe to be the uncredited Decca staff photographer responsible for the mono photo on the reverse of David’s 1967 album for Deram. I have a feeling the above shots are from the same session even though the front colour shot is obviously credited to Gerald Fearnley.

Apparently the picture above left, taken by Fiona Adams on Kingly Street off Carnaby Street in the summer of 1965, is also one of the portraits on display. The pictures were just two of several taken for a Carnaby Street fashion spread special for Fabulous magazine.

You may remember that the shot became available to buy at the Redferns Pin-Ups exhibition back in 2005. (06.21.05 NEWS: DAVID BOWIE: PIN UP VIEW AND BUY ONLINE NOW)

Finally, the wonderful David Bebbington shot above is also one of the portraits on display.It seems that David Bowie is pretty well represented at this show.

Beatles to Bowie: the 60s exposed
15 October 2009 – 24 January 2010
Wolfson and Ground Floor Lerner Galleries

Tickets
Full price £11
Concessions £10 and £9
Free admission for Members and Gallery supporters

For more information, please visit npg.org.uk

Dragons' Den Back New Portelli Bowie Sculpture

We never bothered to scream, when your mask came off…

Some of you in the UK may have seen TV news reports regarding the private view for this exhibition. There were a few celebs there, including a few Dragons from the BBC’s Dragons’ Den, sponsors of the sculptor Guy Portelli. Guy’s latest work is the above Bowie sculpture, called Starman…for the time being at least.

I asked Guy what the inspiration behind the sculpture was…

“The inspiration came from the idea of a dressing table, with identities that could be applied. Within the base we have cast a latex skin that has been discarded, the Venetian mask is a theatrical tool to hide ones identity. The sculpture is nickel plated aluminium and mosaic and is aprox. 60 x 45 x 40cms and it’s an edition of 10.”


Guy is interviewed for TV surrounded by various Dragons and eco-friendly inventor Trevor Baylis.

The piece made it’s debut at aforementioned private view for The Golden Age Of The Pop Icon The Golden Age Of The Pop Icon exhibition at The Mall Galleries in London, where, aside from Guy’s numerous other Pop Icon sculptures, there are lots of photo’s and other memorabilia including the three Bowie album cover prints produced by St Pauls Gallery and Bowie photos from the likes of Terry O’Neil and others.

I did say that the Bowie sculpture is titled Starman at the moment. Stay tuned for a contest to rename it and win a pair of tickets for an upcoming charity bash at the exhibition.

The Golden Age Of The Pop Icon exhibition is on now through to July 3rd, go here for more.

Thanx to Neil Robinson from St Pauls Gallery for the exhibition pictures and also to his colleague Symon Bland just ‘cos he would get jealous if he didn’t get a mention too! 😉

Mosaic Legends Application Due For Iphone

I had to iPhone someone, so I picked on you…

We told you about Mosaic Legends back in November last year (11.02.2008 NEWS: MOSAICLEGENDS/MICK ROCK ZIGGY STARDUST MOSAIC) when we published details of a five foot high photomosaic print of 3,300 separate Mick Rock images of David Bowie, signed by David Bowie, Mick Rock and the mosaic’s creator, Craig Adam. As beautiful as this creation is it was financially out of reach for most Bowie fans I know.

But now Apple has come to the rescue with a new iPhone application that lets you zoom into each individual image of the mosaic with accompanying captions and introduction by Mick Rock and a piece by journalist Steven Stolder. You can even send each of the pictures to a friend directly from your iPhone.

Here’s a tiny excerpt from the conclusion of Mick’s intro: “People have often asked me, “You?ve photographed so many people, who are your all-time favorite subjects?” I normally have a glib answer and say, “Whoever I photographed yesterday.” But, in truth, David ranks right up there. Especially, of course, the magical Ziggy Stardust era, from which all of the photographs in this mosaic eBook are taken. It was an exhilarating and fascinating time.”

The app is due anytime now, but isn’t on iTunes just yet. We’ll let you know when we have a definite release date.

Moon At Edinburgh Film Festival In Uk Press

Moon shining down…

Following on from last week’s round-up (06.13.2009 NEWS: DUNCAN JONES INTERVIEWS ROUND-UP PLUS NFT SELLS OUT) there’s been a bit more press in the UK on the tail of MOON‘s premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. (06.18.2009 REMINDER: REMEMBER MOON IN JUNE)

It seems the media in the UK are more prone to ask the inevitable questions regarding Duncan‘s father, but there are a couple of interesting things said as a result of that.

Follow the links below…

BBC News – Bowie son lands Moon at festival By Neil Smith Entertainment reporter, BBC News, in Edinburgh

The Independent – Bowie’s son lands a man on the moon By James Mottram Moon, Edinburgh International Film Festival

The Observer – Introducing: Duncan Jones

Rotten Tomatoes – Edinburgh 2009: The Tomato Report ? Journey to Moon Duncan Jones hits town with his latest by Joe Utichi

Scottish Sunday Mail – New Moon movie by son of David Bowie blasts off at Edinburgh Film Festival

Btw, it looks like MOON now has a release date of 17th July in the UK following on from the screening at the NFT on 8th July. (06.09.2009 NEWS: DUNCAN JONES Q&A AND MOON PREVIEW AT THE NFT)

Thanx to Gae, Spaceface, Celine and me for the pointers.

Speaking of Father/Son relationships…