Penelope Cruz To Lead Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia
In October of last yearLars von Trierrevealed his next movie,Melancholia, a ‘psychological disaster film’ with sci-fi overtones. In true von Trier fashion he revealed little else about the movie, promising only “no more happy endings!” If you’ve seenAntichrist, or any of his other films, you know that a von Trier happy ending might just mean that one character suffers a bit less than the others.
Now it seems thatPenelope Cruzwill be doing the suffering inMelancholia. Hey, suffering won Charlotte Gainsbourg a best actress nod at Cannes last year, so why not?
According to acoupleof Europeanreports, dug up byThe Playlist, Cruz is who the director had in mind from the beginning, and she has been cast to lead the mysterious film.
All we really know beyond that is that the film will shoot later this year in Germany and Sweden, with an eye towards a Cannes 2011 debut. Budgeted at $5m, this won’t be any Cameron sort of sci-fi, and probably not any Duncan Jones sort of sci-fi, either. While the title evidently refers to a looming planet called Melancholia, expect to see most of the action taking place on earth, as the film explores the “psychology view of a disaster.”
Meanwhile,Antichristdid quite well at the Film Academy of Denmark awards, which were given out on Sunday. It won Best Picture, Lars von Trier won Best Director and Best Screenplay; Anthony Dod Mantle was honored for cinematography, Anders Refn for editing, Kristian Eidnes Andersen for sound design and Fabian Grobholz, Dennis Kron, Erik Zumkley for special effects. Quite a haul. No acting awards went to Willem Dafoe or Charlotte Gainsbourg; Lars Mikkelsen won forHeadhunterwhile Paprika Steen won forApplause. Incidentally,Uptook the award for best U.S. film. [Variety]
