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Franco Zeffirelli apprenticed to Luchino Visconti, stage directed operas and directed several movie hits, the biggest of which was this exuberant, attractive Shakespeare adaptation, filmed like an opera with sumptuous sets and sunswept Italian locations. The novelty for 1968 was casting the Bard’s star-crossed young lovers with actual teenagers. Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting are attractive kids directed to give spirited performances; the critics may have had mixed reactions but the public received the film well. If memory serves, Criterion’s new remaster looks better than Paramount’s original release prints.

Romeo and Juliet

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 1171

1968 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 138 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date February 14, 2023 / 39.95

Starring: Leonard Whiting, Olivia Hussey, John McEnery, Milo O’Shea, Pat Heywood, Robert Stephens, Michael York, Bruce Robinson, Paul Hardwick, Natasha Parry, Antonio Pierfederici, Esmeralda Ruspoli, Roberto Bisacco, Roy Holder, Keith Skinner, Dyson Lovell, Richard Warwick, Laurence Olivier.

Cinematography: Pasquelino De...

Pippo Zeffirelli, the son of the late Italian director Franco Zeffirelli, has publicly criticized the two lead actors of his father’s 1968 Shakespeare adaptation Romeo and Juliet for their decision to sue the film’s producer, Paramount Pictures, for child abuse over a nude scene in the movie.

Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting, who were 15 and 16, respectively, when they shot the film, allege that Zeffirelli coerced them into doing a bedroom scene in the nude after they had originally agreed to wear flesh-colored body suits. The scene, which included images of Whiting’s buttocks and Hussey’s bare breasts, was highly controversial at the time.

Hussey and Whiting, both now in their 70s, recently filed a lawsuit in Santa Monica Superior Court, accusing Paramount of sexually exploiting them and distributing nude images of adolescent children. They claim the director, who died in 2019, warned them that “the film would fail” if...

Franco Zeffirelli’s son Pippo has hit out at the sexual exploitation lawsuit filed by Romeo and Juliet actors Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey.

The lawsuit filed against Paramount accuses the production company of sexual harassment, fraud, sexual abuse, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

It stems from a Romeo and Juliet nude scene involving Whiting and Hussey, allegedly filmed while they were minors.

The complaint also alleges that late director Franco told the lead actors that the 1968 film wouldn’t include nudity, but ended up going back on his word.

In an interview with The Guardian, Zeffirelli’s son Pippo called the lawsuit “embarrassing” and said that the nude scene at the center of the complaint is “far from pornographic”.

“It is embarrassing to hear that today, 55 years after filming, two elderly actors who owe their notoriety essentially to this film wake up to declare that they have suffered...

Haven’t yet seen all the best old-school vintage naval combat epics? This color & ‘scope thriller has a terrific cast of Brit stars and up-n-comers, can boast excellent visuals and is historically accurate. Alec Guinness captains a ship during the Napoleonic Wars, and finds his duty complicated by a psychopathic top officer (Dirk Bogarde) who usurps authority and sees the crew as fresh meat for his sadistic ideas about discipline. All the tech and art credits are top-tier, plus we get nice supporting perfs from the likes of Anthony Quayle, Nigel Stock, Maurice Denham, Victor Maddern, Tom Bell, and Murray Melvin.

Damn the Defiant!

Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] 136

1962 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 101 min. / Street Date June 29, 2022 / H.M.S. Defiant / Available from Viavision / Australian 34.95 / and Amazon US / 34.95

Starring: Alec Guinness, Dirk Bogarde, Maurice Denham, Nigel Stock, Richard Carpenter, Peter Gill, David Robinson, Robin Stewart, Ray Brooks, Peter Greenspan, Anthony Quayle, Tom Bell,...

Rising UK talent awarded £60,000 to support their careers.

Two UK directors with a disability are among the second round of the Film and TV Charity’s John Brabourne recipients for 2020.

The talent development grant, totalling £60,000, is presented to a 12-strong cohort of UK writers, directors, and producers.

See below for full list

The award, which runs twice a year, provides up to £5,000 to cover expenses ranging from development to training, production and living costs, and is aimed at helping upcoming talent overcome barriers, realise career-changing projects and take vital next steps in the industry.

Among the latest recipients is Bim Ajadi,...

Sundance, Iffr and Eave are partners on the Realness Institute initiative.

A new initiative to develop and empower African producers has selected its first intake of talent.

Seventeen producers have been selected for the inaugural Creative Producer Indaba scheme, which has been developed by Realness Institute in partnership with Sundance Institute, International Film Festival Rotterdam and European training outfit Eave.

The year-long training programme will include masterclasses and one-on-one meetings with assigned mentors to address topics such as project development, financing, marketing and advocacy. The first workshop will run online for two weeks from August 28.

The scheme has also selected...

Set Access consists of a rolling internship programme, and a development programme.

UK filmmaker Guy Ritchie has teamed up with representation organisation Creative Access to launch UK film talent development programme Set Access.

The programme will consist of two elements: a rolling paid internship scheme on UK film productions; and a development programme for emerging talent.

The internship programme will be paid for by companies participating in the scheme, and aims to create a talent pool across multiple industry roles of at least 250 candidates from underrepresented backgrounds over a five-year period.

The opportunity will initially be open to young black candidates from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Set Access consists of a rolling internship programme, and a development programme.

UK filmmaker Guy Ritchie has teamed up with representation organisation Creative Access to launch UK film talent development programme Set Access.

The programme will consist of two elements: a rolling paid internship scheme on UK film productions; and a development programme for emerging talent.

The internship programme will be paid for by companies participating in the scheme, and aims to create a talent pool across multiple industry roles of at least 250 candidates from underrepresented backgrounds over a five-year period.

The opportunity will initially be open to young black candidates from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Film and TV Charity supports emerging industry talent with £60,000 in development awards.

Screen Star of Tomorrow Moin Hussain is among the first round of the Film and TV Charity’s John Brabourne recipients for 2020.

The talent development grant, totalling £60,000, is presented to a 12-strong cohort of UK writers, directors, and producers.

See below for full list

The award, which runs twice a year, provides up to £5,000 to cover expenses ranging from development to training, production and living costs, and is aimed at helping upcoming talent overcome barriers, realise career-changing projects and take vital next steps in the industry.

London-based writer-director...

The 12 recipients include UK writers, directors and producers.

Screen UK & Ireland Star of Tomorrow Benjamin Bee is among the second round of the Film & TV Charity’s John Brabourne recipients for 2019.

The talent development grant tis presented to a 12-strong cohort of UK writers, directors, and producers.

See below for the full list.

The £5,000 grant looks to provide “a safety net…giving talented individuals the resources they need to develop or complete projects and reach their full potential“, according to the Film and TV Charity.

Newcastle-based writer-director Bee was named a Screen Star of Tomorrow in July this year. After...

Palme d’Or winner ‘Shoplifters’ added to line-up.

UK independent chain Curzon Cinemas has joined Mubi Go, the new initiative which provides Mubi subscribers with a complimentary cinema ticket each week chosen by the streaming service.

Curzon’s involvement with the scheme will launch with Luca Guadagnino’s remake of horror classic Suspiria, which opens at Curzon venues and other participating UK cinemas on Friday November 16.

The selections available for Mubi Go are chosen by the company’s programming team, and are a mixture of UK releases and Mubi’s own distribution titles.

The most recently added is Hirokazu Koreeda...

The 12 emerging filmmakers receive £5,000 each.

UK screen support body the Film & Television Charity, formerly known as as the Cinema and Television Benevolent Fund, has unveiled the 12 emerging names to receive the second round of the 2018 John Brabourne Awards.

The list is of comprised of writers, producers, directors, a designer and a marketing and distribution Ma student.

Recipients include writer-director Scout Stuart, whose debut screenplay Mud was selected for the low-budget film initiative iFeatures in 2014; and TV drama writer-director Claire Elizabeth Alberie, whose Paper Dolls was selected for the Bafta Rocliffe Forum List 2017.

Each will receive up to £5,000 to help them...

Total of 9 individuals are the first to be supported since the charity relaunched in April.

The Film & Television Charity, recently relaunched from its former incarnation as the Cinema and Television Benevolent Fund, has announced the recipients of its 2018 John Brabourne Awards.

The nine awardees were selected from 127 applicants from an industry panel chaired by Film & Television Charity vice president Cameron Saunders. Each one will receive £5,000 to put towards development and post-production costs and Nfts course tuition fees.

Named in honour of producer John Brabourne, the awards were established in 2007 “to provide a stepping stone for individuals who are talented and driven,...

On Tuesday, Queen Elizabeth, Prince Philip and Prince Charles attended the funeral of Countess Mountbatten of Burma, who survived the Ira bomb that killed her father, Earl Mountbatten, and her teenage son in 1979.

Patricia Mountbatten died peacefully on June 13 at her home in Mersham, Kent. She was surrounded by her children, her family said in a statement. She was 93.

The great-great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria and cousin to Prince Philip was left devastated in August 1979 when the Irish Republican Army (Ira) blew up the family’s boat in Co Sligo, Ireland. Her father, Earl Mountbatten, Charles’s great-uncle and mentor, died instantly.

Betty Box and Peter Rogers Comedy Writing Programme launched in honour of the Doctor and Carry On series.

The Cinema and Television Benevolent Fund (Ctbf) has launched a comedy writing initiative in partnership with Loco London Comedy Film Festival and Big Talk Productions (Shaun Of The Dead, Scott Pilgrim vs The World).

Titled the Betty Box and Peter Rogers Comedy Writing Programme in honour of the legendary producers of the Doctor and Carry On series, the initiative will select four emerging writers, each of whom will receive £10,000 and participate in a personalised six-month programme of industry support as they develop a comedy feature screenplay or six-part comedy series for television.

The scheme aims to discover original, exciting voices by offering a unique launching pad to those passionate writers who are in need of financial and industry support, and who may not otherwise have a chance to develop their craft and careers.

The selected...

Even Queen Elizabeth II can't resist a good wedding. The Queen and other members of the British royal family attended the wedding of Alexandra Knatchbull, daughter of Lord and Lady Brabourne and great-granddaughter of the late Lord Mountbatten, and entrepreneur Thomas Hooper on Saturday. Prince Charles even gave the bride away since his friend Norton Knatchbull (Lord Brabourne) was too ill to do so. This isn't the first time the two families have served important roles in each other's weddings. Charles served as the best man at Lord Brabourne's wedding in 1979. Lord Brabourne is also Prince Philip's godson while Charles' late ex-wife,...

Nine recipients, including the editor of The Goob [pictured], to receive financial boost.

The Cinema and Television Benevolent Fund (Ctbf) has revealed the recipients of the annual John Brabourne Awards (JBAs), dedicated to providing invaluable financial assistance to individuals that have faced difficulties in progressing their career.

The 2014 awardees will be honoured during a formal reception at BAFTA this evening.

A record 184 entrants applied for consideration, a 50% uplift on 2013, with the successful candidates receiving a grant ranging between £1,000 and £5,000 towards the development of their careers in the film and TV industries. Nine awards were made this year, with an industry committee finalising the list of recipients.

Awardees being recognised at tonight’s reception at BAFTA include: Charlotte Hudson, a comedy writer with a number of film and TV projects in development, and one half of the double act, Two Left Hands; Adam Biskupski, an award-wining shorts editor whose debut feature The Goob recently premiered at Venice Film Festival...

(Sidney Lumet, John Guillermin, Guy Hamilton, 1974-82; StudioCanal, PG)

The production partnership of John Brabourne (the Eton-educated seventh Baron Brabourne) and Richard B Goodwin (who started out as a teenage tea boy with the Rank Organisation) is one of the most interesting in the British cinema. Its highlights include David Lean's A Passage to India and the two-part Little Dorrit, but its most popular works were the period Agatha Christie pictures that brought all-star casting and unfashionably high production values to the whodunit and set new standards for the string of TV productions that followed. Brabourne's father-in-law Lord Mountbatten helped secure the rights from Dame Agatha, and the three best are the Hercule Poirot mysteries in this Blu-ray set. Ustinov plays the Belgian sleuth both in John Guillermin's Death on the Nile (1978), scripted by Anthony Shaffer and superbly photographed by Jack Cardiff, and in Guy Hamilton's bland...

David Cronenberg, Ralph Fiennes to Become BFI Fellows. [Right: Bette Davis.] The list of those who have received a British Film Institute Fellowship since it was first handed out in 1983 is quite extensive. [See below.] BFI Fellows include not only Britishers, but also numerous foreigners who have somehow or other been associated with either the film world or the BFI itself, among them directors (Michelangelo Antonioni, Marcel Carné), producers (John Brabourne, David Puttnam), film executives (Harvey Weinstein, Sidney Bernstein), editors (Thelma Schoonmaker), cinematographers (Jack Cardiff), actors (from Alec Guinness to Bette Davis, from Jean Simmons to Isabelle Huppert), writers (Graham Greene), critics (Dilys Powell), and philanthropists (J. Paul Getty). There are a number of puzzling omissions, however. For instance, the following are a few British actresses who have left an indelible mark on world cinema: Anna Neagle (left out perhaps because she died in 1986), Margaret Lockwood, Julie Andrews, Julie Christie, Lynn Redgrave, and Greer Garson.

LONDON -- An all-new awards program in memory of producer John Brabourne has been created here with the aim of helping "disadvantaged young people to enter the film and television arena," organizers said Tuesday.

The Cinema and Television Benevolent Fund launched the new awards Tuesday with backing from a host of leading industry figures including David Puttman and reps from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Sony and Buena Vista International.

One of the U.K.'s most prolific film producers, Brabourne's credits include "Murder on the Orient Express", "Death on the Nile" and "A Passage to India". He died in 2005.

"The difficulties young people face trying to get into the industry was a huge concern of John's," Puttnam, vice patron of the CTBF, said at the launch.

The awards pool has received financial backing from companies such as ITV and Kodak and in its inaugural year will give out £25,000-£30,000 ($49,729-$59,675) in assistance, the CTBF said.

Throughout his career, Brabourne, a knight of the realm, championed the need to support young people and was very active in creating initiatives to help young talent get a foot in the door.

LONDON -- A memorial service for film producer John Brabourne (Murder on the Orient Express, A Passage to India, who died at 80 on Sept. 22, is to be held on Nov. 15 at the Guards Chapel in London. Lord Brabourne, who was married to Patricia, daughter of Earl Mountbatten of Burma, was a director of Thames Television and Thorn EMI, and a founder of Satellite Television Ltd., which became BSkyB.