The news coincided with the announcement on Tuesday at the 59th Cannes Film Festival that France?s Clavis Films is releasing all of Tarr?s films on DVD with French subtitles. Already, Clavis has started selling Tarr?s ?Family Nest?, ?Almanac of Fall? and ?Damnation?, and ?Satan?s Tango? and ?The Prefab People? are soon to follow.
Tarr?s latest effort is a rendering of French crime writer Georges Simenon?s novel ?The Man From London?. The screenplay was written by Tarr and his long-time collaborator László Krasznahorkai, one of Hungary?s greatest living authors.
Shooting of the film came to a halt in March 2005, after the suicide of its French producer Humbert Balsan, whose production company Ognon was collapsing under debt. But the states of Hungary and France intervened, allowing shooting to continue under producer Paul Saadoun?s company 13 Production, backed with financing from Coficiné Bank. Saadoun also produced Tarr?s previous film ?Werckmeister Harmonies?.
In addition to the increased financing from the Hungarian state and public television broadcaster, the film received additional funding from several French sources: ARTE, the French and German cultural broadcaster, provided EUR 800,000, commercial broadcaster Canal Plus put up EUR 300,000 and the French National Film Centre (CNC) provided EUR 400,000.
CNC?s Francois Hurard noted that the centre considered it important to raise the French contribution in line with the increase in Hungarian support for the film in order to ?rescue? a work of art. The additional contributions add up to EUR 3.5 million, which, together with earlier financing, give the film a production budget of EUR 5.5 million
Tarr recently completed an eight-day shoot in Hungary and will soon start filming in Croatia. In October, the filming will move to Corsica, and a final 27-day soot will take place in France in November. One hour and ten minutes of the two-hour film have been shot so far.
Tarr expressed his delight that, in spite of the challenges faced when making the film, none of the actors or crew had left, and filming would finish with the same group of people with which it started. He thanked those that helped make the film and its sponsors for their solidarity as well as for not doubting the film would be completed.
Like Tarr?s earlier films, ?The Man From London? is filmed in black and white. The French-language film stars the Czech actor Miroslav Krobot and the UK?s Tilda Swinton. The film?s cinematographer is Fred Kelemen, and music for the film is composed by Tarr?s long-time collaborator Mihály Vígh.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
