The Birthday Party

[BluBonnet]

‘The Birthday Party’: Heretic Wraps Production On Tycoon Family Drama With ‘Poor Things’ Star Willem Dafoe

Acclaimed actor Willem Dafoe, who recently starred in Oscar-nominated pic Poor Things and can next be seen in Tim Burton’s upcoming Venice opener Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, has just wrapped filming tycoon family drama The Birthday Party from Greek production house Heretic.

The project, which has been kept under wraps until now, is directed by Miguel Angel Jimenéz based on the novel of the same name by Panos Karnezis. Dafoe stars along side Emma Suarez, Joe Cole and Vic Carmen Sonne. Additional cast includes Christos Stergioglou, Carlos Cuevas, Antonis Tsiotsiopoulos, Fransesc Garrido, Maria Pau Pigem, Pelle Heikkilä and Elsa Lekkakou.

The story is set in the late 1970s somewhere in the Mediterranean where Marcos Timoleon, an Aristotle Onassis-like tycoon, is throwing a lavish, extravagant birthday party for Sofia, his daughter and sole heiress, on his exclusive private island. The party is a perfect excuse for various people in his life to approach him with their own agendas. But Marcos, who is used to ruthlessly controlling everything and everyone around him at whatever cost, is also secretly plotting a big decision on his daughter’s behalf.

Sofia, however, has come to share some important news of her own. As guests start pouring in and night falls, the party grows rowdier and more decadent, while the inevitable clash between Marcos and Sofia reaches a heartbreaking climax.

The Birthday Party is produced by Heretic’s Giorgos Karnavas, who co-wrote the script along with Jimenéz and Nicos Panayotopoulos. Co-producers are Adria Mones for Fasten Films, Erik, Glijnis and Leontine Petit for Lemming Film and Kurban Kassam for Raucous Pictures.

The project is a Greek-Spanish-Dutch-UK co-production and wrapped principal photography on August 17, after shooting in Corfu and Athens, Greece.

“It’s a story I’ve carried for almost 15 years so this fact speaks about what it meant to me,” said Karnavas of the film. “It’s been a super intense trip to get it made and I think we–our stellar cast and crew – all lived incredible moments during the making of this film. I am very proud of the way we walked this path with Miguel Angel and I truly hope all this energy is in the material.”

Jimenéz added: “I am incredibly proud and grateful to have worked with this exceptional cast and crew on this journey. Being surrounded by several languages, several ways of understanding life and acting during filming, amounted to an amazing experience of working on a collective set. I tried my best to create a house where one can feel at home even if they are very far away from it – a home where you are invited to participate and express your feelings. A home that I want to believe is cinema.”

The Birthday Party is funded by the Greek Film Center, ICEC, The Netherlands Film Fund and the Global Screen Fund BFI and backers are Kalamata Films, Eolo Films, Ekome, ERT, Hopeless Romantic, Osmyx Film Clinic and Frontstage Entertainment.

[An4h0ny]

This looks interesting.

At first I thought this was a thread about the documentary on rock band The Birthday Party.

The Birthday Party is funded by the

1. Greek Film Center
2. ICEC
3. The Netherlands Film Fund and the
4. Global Screen Fund BFI and backers are
5. Kalamata Films,
6. Eolo Films,
7. Ekome,
8. ERT,
9. Hopeless Romantic,
10. Osmyx Film Clinic and
11. Frontstage Entertainment.

That's a lot of different players. Is this a newer trend, I wonder? Or maybe that's just how it works sometimes.

[Gacivory]

Originally Posted by An4h0ny

This looks interesting.

At first I thought this was a thread about the documentary on rock band The Birthday Party.



That's a lot of different players. Is this a newer trend, I wonder? Or maybe that's just how it works sometimes.

I thought it was another adaptation of the play, The Birthday Party.

It’s been a trend for awhile.

[BluBonnet]

First look

[BluBonnet]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHTuFMtkfd8

[BluBonnet]

Willem Dafoe on His ‘Rich Portrait’ of a Megalomaniac, Self-Made Billionaire in Locarno Premiere ‘The Birthday Party’

Though long celebrated as one of our most versatile screen stars, four-time Academy Award nominee Willem Dafoe might not seem like the obvious choice to portray a swaggering, playboy billionaire modeled on Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis.

Just ask Willem Dafoe.

“Me? Playing a Greek shipping tycoon?,” the actor tells Variety on a recent visit to Athens. “I don’t think so.”

Dafoe is perhaps selling himself short. But for his latest film, “The Birthday Party,” which premieres Aug. 7 in the Piazza Grande at the Locarno Film Festival, the Wisconsin-born star takes on a new challenge, stepping into the exquisite loafers of a self-made Greek billionaire planning an elaborate birthday fete for his daughter.

Adapted from the novel by U.K.-based Greek author Panos Karnezis, the film is directed by Spain’s Miguel Ángel Jimenéz (“Ori,” “Chaika”) and produced by Greece’s Palme d’Or-winning production outfit Heretic (“Triangle of Sadness”), in co-production with Fasten Films (Spain), Lemming Film (Netherlands) and Raucous Pictures (U.K.). Heretic and Bankside are repping world sales.

Dafoe leads a star-studded cast that includes acclaimed Spanish actor Emma Suárez (“Julieta”), “Peaky Blinders” star Joe Cole, and Danish breakout Vic Carmen Sonne, coming off her scintillating performance in Magnus von Horn’s best international feature film Oscar nominee “The Girl With the Needle.”

At the helm is Dafoe as Marcos Timoleon, a shipping magnate and larger-than-life personality who decides to throw a lavish birthday celebration for Sofia, his daughter and sole heiress, played by Sonne. Set in the 1970s, “The Birthday Party” unfolds over 24 hours on the billionaire’s private island, with the celebration offering a perfect excuse for many of Timoleon’s associates and hangers-on to approach him with their own agendas.

The tycoon, who is used to ruthlessly controlling everything and everyone around him at any cost, is also secretly plotting a major decision on his daughter’s behalf. As the night goes on and the party grows rowdier and more decadent, the duo is set on a collision course that will inevitably lead to a shocking conclusion.

Paying homage to the memorable star turns of Marlon Brando in “The Godfather” and Burt Lancaster in Luchino Visconti’s “The Leopard,” Dafoe says he was taken by the “rich portrait” of the shipping magnate at the heart of “The Birthday Party,” and the film’s “examination of the toxicity of the kind of power, the kind of patriarchy” he embodies.

“While I don’t normally respond to family dramas, it’s more than that. It’s very much about family, but…it bites off quite a bit,” Dafoe says. “It’s [about] ambition, legacy. And the thing that makes the guy, it’s also the thing that’s going to take him down, which is such a telling and attractive and true story that I could never get enough of.”l

[BluBonnet]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeSzEsiVu4g