Optimum Releasing

Theatrical Slate 2011

OPTIMUM RELEASING – 2011 TITLES
BIUTIFUL
Dir: Alejandro González Iñárritu
Cast: Javier Bardem, Maricel Alvarez, Eduard
Fernández
From Alejandro González Iñárritu (AMORES
PERROS) comes BIUTIFUL, an exploration
of one man's spiritual journey. Uxbal (Javier
Bardem NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN),
a conflicted man who struggles to reconcile
mortality amidst the dangerous underworld
of modern Barcelona. As fate encircles him
and thresholds are crossed, a dim,
redemptive road brightens, illuminating the
inheritances bestowed from father to child,
and the paternal guiding hand that navigates
life’s corridors, whether bright, bad – or
biutiful.
JAN 28
BRIGHTON ROCK
Dir: Rowan Joffe
Cast: Helen Mirren, Sam Riley, Andrea
Riseborough, John Hurt
Based on the 1938 British noir classic by
Graham Greene, Rowan Joffe’s BRIGHTON
ROCK is set in the mods and rockers era of
the 60s. It charts the the headlong fall of
Pinkie (Sam Riley CONTROL), a razor-
wielding disadvantaged teenager hell bent
on clawing his way up through the ranks of
organised crime. At the heart of the story is
Pinkie's relationship with Rose (Andrea
Riseborough NEVER LET ME GO), an
apparently innocent young waitress who
stumbles on evidence linking Pinkie and his
gang to a revenge killing.
FEB 4
ANIMAL KINGDOM
Dir: David Michôd
Cast: Guy Pearce, James Frecheville, Ben
Mendelsohn, Jacki Weaver
Following the death of his mother,
seventeen year old 'J’ (Frecheville) moves in
with his hitherto–estranged family, under the
watchful eye of his doting grandmother,
Janine Cody (Weaver), and her three
criminal sons – the Cody boys. Eldest son
and armed robber, 'Pope’ (Mendelsohn) is in
hiding from a gang of renegade detectives.
As tensions between the family and the
police explode, 'J' finds himself at the centre
of a cold–blooded revenge plot, throwing
him directly into the path of homicide
detective, Nathan Leckie (Pearce).
FEB 25
UNKNOWN
Dir: Jaume Collet-Serra
Cast: Liam Neeson, Diane Kruger, January
Jones, Frank Langella
Dr. Martin Harris (Neeson TAKEN) awakens
after a car accident in Berlin to discover that
his wife (Jones MAD MEN) suddenly doesn’t
recognise him, and another man has
assumed his identity. Ignored by disbelieving
authorities and hunted by mysterious
assassins, he finds himself alone, tired, and
on the run. Aided by an unlikely ally (Kruger
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS), Martin
plunges headlong into a deadly mystery that
will force him to question his sanity, his
identity, and just how far he’s willing to go to
uncover the truth.
FEB 25
OPTIMUM RELEASING – 2011 TITLES
SUBMARINE
Dir: Richard Ayoade
Cast: Paddy Considine, Noah Taylor, Sally
Hawkins, Craig Roberts, Yasmin Paige
British comic Richard Ayoade (IT CROWD,
GARTH MARENGHI’S DARK PLACE)
delivers his hotly-anticipated feature debut
SUBMARINE. Based on the novel by Joe
Dunthorne, it follows one 15 year old boy
who must fight to save his mother from the
advances of a mystic, and simultaneously
lure his girlfriend in to the bedroom armed
with only a vast vocabulary and near-total
self-belief. His name is Oliver Tate.
MAR 18
A TURTLE’S TALE:
SAMMY’S
ADVENTURES 3D
Dir: Ben Stassen
Cast: Dominic Cooper, Gemma Arterton, John
Hurt, Kayvan Novak, Robert Sheehan
A spectacular 3D animation of the wonderful
adventures of Sammy the sea turtle
searching the ocean for his one true love. As
he scrambles to the sea shortly after his
birth on a Californian beach, Sammy finds
and loses the love of his life, a pretty
hatchling called Shelly. On the epic journey
across the oceans, with the help of best
buddy Ray, Sammy dodges every danger in
the hope of meeting Shelly again.
MAR 25
JULIA’S EYES
Dir: Guillem Morales
Producer: Guillermo Del Toro
Cast: Belén Rueda, Lluis Homar, Clara Segura
Julia (Belén Rueda), a woman suffering from
a degenerative sight disease, finds her twin
sister Sara, who has already gone blind as a
result of the same disease, hanged in the
basement of her house. In spite of the fact
that everything points to suicide, Julia
decides to investigate what she intuitively
feels is a murder case, entering a dark world
that seems to hide a mysterious presence.
TBC
MOTHER’S DAY
Dir: Darren Lynn Bousman
Cast: Rebecca De Mornay, Jaime King
After a bank robbery gone wrong, three
brothers on the run from the law head for
home, only to discover that their mother lost
the house in a foreclosure. The new owners
and their guests, gathered for an ill-timed
birthday party, become the brothers'
unwitting hostages. Their mother and sister
arrive, and it soon becomes obvious that
Mother (Rebecca De Mornay) will do
absolutely anything to protect her children.
APR 1 TBC
OPTIMUM RELEASING – 2011 TITLES
ATTACK THE BLOCK SOURCE CODE
Dir: Joe Cornish
Cast: Nick Frost, Jodie Whittaker
From the producers of SHAUN OF THE
DEAD and SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE
WORLD comes ATTACK THE BLOCK, a
fast funny, frightening action adventure
movie that pits a teen gang against an
invasion of savage alien monsters. It turns a
London tower block into a fortress under
siege, and weapon wielding teenage thugs
into heroes. It’s inner city versus outer
space.
APR 8
Dir: Duncan Jones
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Vera Farmiga, Michelle
Monaghan, Jeffrey Wright
Directed by Duncan Jones (MOON)
SOURCE CODE centres on a soldier
(Gyllenhaal JARHEAD) who, as part of an
experimental government program to
investigate a terrorist incident, finds himself
in the body of an unknown commuter living
and reliving a harrowing train bombing until
he can find out who is responsible for it. Her father goes up to see what is going on
APR 22
THE SILENT HOUSE
Dir: Gustavo Hernández
Cast: Gustavo Alonso, Florencia Colucci, Abel
Tripaldi
Laura and her father settle down in a
cottage off the beaten track in order to
update it, since its owner will soon put the
house on sale. Everything seems to be
going smoothly until Laura hears a sound
that comes from outside, and gets louder
and louder in the upper floor of the house.
while she remains downstairs on her own
waiting for him to come down. Based on a
true story from the late 40's in a small village
in Uruguay.
TBC
ADELE BLANC-SEC
Dir: Luc Besson
Cast: Louise Bourgoin, Mathieu Amalric
The year is 1912. Adèle Blanc-Sec, an
intrepid young adventurer, will go to any
lengths to achieve her aims, including sailing
to Egypt to tackle mummies of all shapes
and sizes. Meanwhile, in Paris, a 136
million-year old pterodactyl egg on a shelf in
the natural history museum has mysteriously
hatched, and the bird subjects the city to a
reign of terror from the skies. But nothing
fazes Adèle Blanc-Sec, whose adventures
reveal many more extraordinary surprises…
MAY TBC
OPTIMUM RELEASING – 2011 TITLES
ALL IN GOOD TIME
Dir: Nigel Cole
Cast: Reece Ritchie, Amara Karan, Arsher Ali,
Meera Syal, Harish Patel
Adapted from Ayub Khan-Din’s critically
acclaimed West-End and Broadway
production. ALL IN GOOD TIME is a comedy
set in an immigrant Indian community in
Northern England, where two newlyweds
find it hard to consummate their marriage.
From the director of MADE IN DAGENHAM
and CALENDAR GIRLS.
MAY TBC
LARRY CROWNE
Dir: Tom Hanks
Cast: Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts
Until he was downsized, affable, amiable
Larry Crowne (Hanks) was a superstar team
leader at the big-box company where he’s
worked since his time in the Navy.
Underwater on his mortgage and unclear on
what to do with his suddenly free days, Larry
heads to his local college to start over. In his
public speaking class, Larry develops an
unexpected crush on his teacher Mercedes
Tainot (Roberts), who has lost as much
passion for teaching as she has for her
husband.
JULY TBC
ARRIETTY
Dir: Hiromasa Yonebayashi
Writer: Hayao Miyazaki
‘Tiny’ 14 year old Arrietty lives under the
floorboards of an old house with her father
and mother. Their peaceful life is
dramatically changed when the ever
curious Arrietty accidentally allows herself to
be seen by Sho, a sickly but well-intentioned
12 year old boy. The fledgling friendship
between the two lonely children causes
Haru the housekeeper to become aware of
the borrowers’ existence. The family are
forced to choose between staying in their
well-established home or leaving for the
uncertainty of the great outdoors.
SUMMER
SARAH’S KEY
Dir: Gilles Paquet-Brenner
Cast: Kristin Scott Thomas, Mélusine Mayance,
Niels Arestrup
Based on Tatiana de Rosnay’s best selling
novel, SARAH’S KEY tells the story of an
American journalist (Kristin Scott Thomas
NOWHERE BOY) on the brink of making big
life decisions regarding her marriage and
her unborn child. What starts off as research
for an article about the Vel’d’Hiv Roundup in
1942 in France ends up as a journey
towards self-discovery as she stumbles
upon a terrible secret and discovers the
heartbreaking story of a Jewish family forced
out of their home, a home that is now her
own.
SUMMER
OPTIMUM RELEASING – 2011 TITLES
BEL AMI
Dir: Declan Donnellan, Nick Ormerod
Cast: Robert Pattinson, Christina Ricci, Uma
Thurman, Kristin Scott Thomas
BEL AMI, based on the novel by Guy de
Maupassant, is an erotically charged tale of
ambition, power and seduction which
chronicles the rise of Georges Duroy
(Robert Pattinson, TWILIGHT) from poverty
into the 'beau monde' of 1890's Paris. Using
his wits and powers of seduction, Duroy
moves from a prostitute's embrace to
passionate trysts with wealthy beauties who
inhabit a world where sex is power and
celebrity an obsession.
AUTUMN
THE AWAKENING
Dir: Nick Murphy
Cast: Rebecca Hall, Dominic West, Imelda
Staunton
Set in post-World War I England in 1921,
THE AWAKENING follows a skeptical
woman (Rebecca Hall THE TOWN) who
travels to a countryside boarding school to
investigate rumours of an apparent
haunting. Just when she thinks she has
debunked the ghost theory, she has a
chilling spectral encounter which defies all
her rational beliefs.
AUTUMN
TYRANNOSAUR
Dir: Paddy Considine
Cast: Peter Mullan, Olivia Colman, Eddie Marsan
Tyrannosaur is the debut feature film from
award winning actor Paddy Considine
(DEAD MANS SHOES). Joseph, (Peter
Mullan) a man plagued by violence and a
rage that is driving him to self-destruction, is
spiraling into turmoil. A chance of
redemption appears in the form of Hannah
(Olivia Colman PEEP SHOW), a Christian
charity shop worker. Their relationship
develops to reveal that Hannah is hiding a
secret of her own, a secret with devastating
consequences for both of them.
AUTUMN
TINKER TAILOR
SOLDIER SPY
Dir: Tomas Alfredson
Cast: Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, Mark
Strong, Ciarán Hinds, Benedict Cummerbatch
TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY is based on
the John Le Carré Cold War spy novel. Set
in the 1970s, George Smiley (Oldman THE
DARK KNIGHT), a recently retired MI6
agent, is doing his best to adjust to a life
outside the secret service. However, when a
disgraced agent reappears with information
concerning a mole at the heart of the Circus,
Smiley is drawn back into the murky field of
espionage.
SEPT 16
OPTIMUM RELEASING – 2011 TITLES
POTICHE
Dir: François Ozon
Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Gérard Depardieu
Rich industrialist Robert Pujol runs his
umbrella factory with an iron hand. After the
workers go on strike and hold Robert
captive, his wife Suzanne ends up managing
the factory instead of her husband, who is
disowned by the staff. Distressed and in
poor health, Robert goes away for a while
and, to the surprise of most, Suzanne
proves to be an assertive woman of action
improving working conditions. But when
Robert returns from his trip in good health,
the situation gets complicated.
TBC
THE PRINCESS OF
MONTPENSIER
Dir: Bertrand Tavernier
Cast: Mélanie Thierry, Lambert Wilson, Grégoire
Leprince-Ringuet, Gaspard Ulliel
This full-blooded romance is set in the year
1567, while France is being ravaged by on
again, off again civil war. We witness the
intrigues of the royal court through the eyes
of two central figures: the Comte de
Chabannes, a world-weary man of learning
who has given up the sword after one too
many senseless deaths, and his pupil, the
Princess of Montpensier, a headstrong girl
who chafes against the arranged life
planned for her by the various men in her
orbit.
TBC
OUTSIDE THE LAW
Dir: Rachid Bouchareb
Cast: Jamel Debbouze, Roschdy Zem, Sami
Bouajila
After losing their family home in Algeria,
three brothers and their mother are
scattered across the globe. Messaoud joins
the French army fighting in Indochina;
Abdelkader becomes a leader of the
Algerian independence movement in France
and Saïd moves to Paris to make his fortune
in the shady clubs and boxing halls of
Pigalle. Gradually, their interconnecting
destinies reunite them in the French capital,
where freedom is a battle to be fought and
won.
TBC
CELL 211
Dir: Daniel Monzón
Cast: Carlos Bardem, Luis Tosar, Alberto
Ammann, Antonio Resines
In order to make a good impression, Juan
reports to his new job as a prison officer a
day early. His destiny is forever changed by
this fateful decision, as during his tour of the
prison, an accident occurs that knocks him
unconscious. He is then rushed to the empty
Cell 211. As this diversion unfolds, inmates
of the high security cell block break free and
hijack the penitentiary. Aware of the violence
that is to come, the prison officers flee,
leaving Juan stranded in the heart of the riot.
TBC
TBC
OPTIMUM RELEASING – 2011 TITLES
BABIES
Dir: Thomas Balmès
Producer: Alain Chabat
BABIES directed by Thomas Balmes and
produced by Alain Chabat, simultaneously
chronicles the lives of four babies from
different parts of the world, from their "first
breaths through their first steps." The babies
are Ponijao in Namibia; Bayarjargal in
Mongolia; Mari in Tokyo, Japan; and Hattie
in San Francisco.
TBC
I SAW THE DEVIL
Dir: Ji-woon Kim
Cast: Byung-hun Lee
Kyung-chul is a dangerous psychopath who
kills for pleasure, his victims ranging from
young women to children. The police have
chased him for a long time, but have been
unsuccessful. One day, Joo-yeon, daughter
of a retired police chief becomes his prey
and is found dead in a horrific state. Her
fiance Dae-hoon, a top secret agent,
decides to track down the murderer himself.
He will do everything in his power to take
bloody vengeance against the killer, even if
it means becoming a monster himself.
TBC
RUBBER
Dir: Quentin Dupieux
Cast: Thomas F. Duffy, Ethan Cohn
RUBBER follows a car tyre named Robert
that rolls through the Southwest desert using
its strange psychic powers to blow up birds,
bunnies, human beings and more. But when
Robert spies a gorgeous woman motoring
down the highway, he decides to follow her
and take a chance on love.
TBC
THE GUARD
Dir: John Michael McDonagh
Cast: Brendan Gleeson, Don Cheadle
Sergeant Gerry Boyle (Gleeson IN
BRUGES) is a small-town Irish cop with a
confrontational personality, a subversive
sense of humour, a dying mother, a
fondness for prostitutes, and absolutely no
interest whatsoever in the international
cocaine-smuggling ring that has brought
straight-laced FBI agent Wendell Everett
(Cheadle HOTEL RWANDA) to his door.
TBC
OPTIMUM RELEASING – 2011 TITLES
BRUC
Dir: Daniel Benmayor
Cast: Juan José Ballesta, Vincent Perez
Based on a script by Jordi Gasull and Patxi
Amezcua, BRUC stars leading Spanish
actor Juan Jose Ballesta as a Catalan
drummer boy who retreats to the high sierra
to escape Napoleon’s army, but then
manages to almost singlehandedly defeat
them, bringing hope to the rest of Europe.
TBC
MAGIC BUS
Dir: Alex Gibney
Cast: Ken Kesey
Ken Kesey’s original Magic Bus made an
epoch-defining, LSD-fuelled trek across
America in 1964, and was immortalised in
Tom Wolfe’s book Electric Kool-Aid Acid
Test. He also documented the journey on 40
hours worth of 16mm film footage. Director
Alex Gibney (MY TRIP TO AL-QAEDA)
presents and explores Kesey’s magnificent
travels.
TBC
L’AMOUR FOU
Dir: Pierre Thoretton
Cast: Yves Saint Laurent, Pierre Bergé
L’AMOUR FOU recounts the love story
between Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre
Bergé, a glamorous tale of infatuation (and
sometimes torment) beginning in 1958, and
culminating in a French civil partnership
shortly before the designer's passing in
2008.
TBC
OPTIMUM RELEASING – 2011 RE-ISSUES
APOCALYPSE NOW
Dir: Francis Ford Coppola
Cast: Marlon Brando, Martin Sheen, Robert
Duvall
During the on-going Vietnam War, Captain
Willard (Sheen THE DEPARTED) is sent on
a dangerous mission into Cambodia to
assassinate a renegade Green Beret
(Brando THE GODFATHER) who has set
himself up as a God among a local tribe.
APR 15 TBC
KIND HEARTS AND
CORONETS
Dir: Robert Hamer
Cast: Alec Guinness, Dennis Price
KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS is a deft
and dark comedy with Alec Guinness in
superb form as he plays eight different
members of the D'Ascoyne clan. Louis
(Dennis Price), the black sheep of the
wealthy family, must murder all the heirs in
order to inherit the D'Ascoyne fortune.
TBC
MANHUNTER
Dir: Michael Mann
Cast: William Petersen, Brian Cox, Joan Allen,
Kim Greist, Dennis Farina
Detective William Graham (William
Petersen) reluctantly comes out of
retirement to help the FBI catch a serial
killer, dubbed “The Tooth Fairy”, who kills
entire families. Graham, who has the ability
to empathise with sociopaths, eventually
seeks advice from Dr. Hannibal Lecktor
(Brian Cox) – the last serial killer that
Graham caught. Based on Thomas Harris’
novel Red Dragon.
TBC
HEARTS OF
DARKNESS
Dir: Fax Bahr, George Hickenlooper, Eleanor
Coppola
HEARTS OF DARKNESS is a documentary
film about the making of APOCALYPSE
NOW. Using behind the scenes footage, and
narrated by Eleanor Coppola, it chronicles
how production problems including bad
weather, actors' health and other issues
delayed the film, increasing costs and nearly
destroying the life and career of Francis
Ford Coppola.
BTBC
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