Matthew Macfadyen, Ripper Street: RomaFictionFest 2012 partners with BBC Worldwide for exclusive day of events Date: 21.09.2012Last updated: 21.09.2012 at 08.43 Category: BBC Worldwide

David S. Goyer, Gillian Anderson and Matthew Macfadyen to take part in series of panels, masterclasses and screenings in first ever BBC Worldwide day

David S. Goyer, Gillian Anderson and Matthew Macfadyen to take part in series of panels, masterclasses and screenings in first ever BBC Worldwide day

Taking place on Monday 1st October at the Auditorium Parco della Musica, the exclusive BBC Worldwide events will feature a masterclass, two panel sessions and drama premieres that will be open to attending industry and general public.

Steve Macallister, President and Managing Director Sales & Distribution, BBC Worldwide said:

“RomaFictionFest has established itself as a prestigious event in the television calendar. We are extremely honoured to be the first distributor to partner with the festival for a bespoke day and have lined up a fantastic schedule of events involving some of the most well-known and respected names from on and off the screen.  We’re really proud of our drama collection and are looking forward to sharing some of our flagship titles with everyone who attends the festival.”

Steve Della Casa, Festival Director, RomaFictionFest said: "It is a great honour for our international TV festival to partner with BBC Worldwide in our first ever cultural collaboration with a global distributor. We are also glad to present some of the most anticipated TV series for 2012/2013 and some of the most acclaimed international talent. During the BBC Worldwide Day different business models will be discussed at two panels demonstrating to industry attendees co-production processes and building fan engagement beyond the TV screen.”

Acclaimed writer David S. Goyer (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises) will present a masterclass on Da Vinci’s Demons, the eight-episode historical fantasy series produced by BBC Worldwide Productions for Starz Network and distributed by BBC Worldwide.

Gillian Anderson (Bleak House, The X Files) will be attending the Italian premiere of Great Expectations where she will receive the RomaFictionFest Excellence Award and Matthew Macfadyen (Pride and Prejudice, Spooks) will walk the red carpet at the premiere of new crime drama Ripper Street.

READ MORE: http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/worldwide/210912roma.html

Parade's End loved by critics - but viewers switch off Parade's End lost almost one third of its viewers when the acclaimed period drama returned for its second episode. (TELEGRAPH)

By Laura Donnelly7:20AM BST 02 Sep 2012

The first episode scored one of the highest BBC2 drama viewing figures in recent years, with 3.1 million viewers and 15 per cent of all viewers - double the channel’s usual share.

However, ratings figures show that when the series returned on Friday, almost one million people stayed away, with 2.2 million viewers in total.

On social networking sites there were complaints that the plot - which centres on a love triangle - left them confused, and that mumbling dialogue could not be understood.

White, best-known in Britain for Bleak House, the BBC’s Bafta-winning 2005 adaptation of Dickens’s novel, had warned that viewers might struggle to follow the plot, while promising that complex strands would fall into place.

Speaking before the first episode was shown, she said: “This is like Downton Abbey meets The Wire in some ways,” referring to the American television series set in the Baltimore drug world.

“There are bits of dialogue that at first sight you won’t understand at all,” she said. “But you’ll have to trust that it’s going to pay off. The effect is cumulative.”

A spokesman for the BBC said the figures for the latest episode were above the average audience for the time slot, and that the BBC was “incredibly proud” of the drama.

READ MORE: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/9514309/Parades-End-loved-by-critics-but-viewers-switch-off.html

Charles Dickens: World's oldest surviving Charles Dickens film from 111-years ago found after going missing for half a century, 31 yrs after his death. (DAILY MAIL)

Film made in 1901, 31 years after Dickens' death Thought to have been inspired by Dickens' novel Bleak House

By RACHEL RICKARD STRAUS PUBLISHED: 06:09 EST, 9 March 2012 | UPDATED: 19:04 EST, 9 March 2012

 The oldest surviving film based on the works of Charles Dickens has been discovered. The Death Of Poor Joe, inspired by Bleak House, dates back to March 1901 but lay unnoticed in an archive for decades. The minute-long clip, made by British film pioneer G.A. Smith, was given to the British Film Institute in 1954 by a collector, but was catalogued under the wrong name and date.


  


‘It’s wonderful to have discovered such a rare film so close to Dickens’s bicentennial,’ she said. ‘Not only does it survive, but it is the world’s earliest Dickensian film. It looks beautiful and is in excellent condition. 'This really is the icing on the cake of our current celebration of Dickens on Screen.' The film beats the previous record holder, Scrooge; or, Marley’s Ghost, by several months. It depicts the crossing-sweeper from Bleak House – played by Smith’s wife Laura Bayley – being found by a nightwatchman as she freezes to death in the winter snow.


Read more:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2112542/Charles-Dickens-film-111-years-ago-going-missing-half-century.html

Carey Mulligan talks about her role in the brutal and powerful new film Shame (Liverpool Echo)

by Catherine Jones, Liverpool Echo

• Jan 6 2012

CAREY MULLIGAN as Sissy in SHAME released in the UK on the 13th January 2012

Catherine Jones on why Carey Mulligan chose such a controversial part

IT’S a long way from Pride and Prejudice’s sweetly innocent Kitty Bennet and the ingénue roles that first brought Carey Mulligan to the public’s attention.


On the way there’s been her Oscar-nominated turn as teenager Jenny in early 60s coming-of-age drama An Education, a girl bred for body parts in Never Let Me Go, and most recently as Irene in neo-noir crime thriller Drive opposite Ryan Gosling.

Now the 26-year-old is taking on her most demanding  and controversial – screen role yet, as Sissy, the wayward sister of sex addicted New Yorker Brandon (Michael Fassbender) in Shame, out next Friday.

The film, described as powerful, bold and disturbing, has already garnered the actress, whose dad Stephen hails from Liverpool, a string of awards and nominations.

And it’s vindication for Carey, who persuaded director and co-writer Steve McQueen to give her the role as opposed to “someone gritty and American”.

“We ended up talking about The Seagull, which is my big obsession,” she reveals of their pivotal meeting. “Playing Nina in The Seagull (at the Royal Court in London in 2007), I’ve never really recovered from it and I want to play Nina for the rest of my life, but I couldn’t find a film role that was on the same level, or as difficult or as interesting.

“Then when I read Shame I thought it was as difficult as Nina and that’s what I told him, to convince him to let me do it.”

Both Sissy and Nina, she believes, have an ‘uncompromising nature’ and the ‘ability to jump without a safety net’.

In Shame, Brandon is a 30-something living comfortably in New York, balancing a busy job and active social life.

But he also hides a dark secret. He’s a sex addict, controlling his life and searching all the time for something to make him feel whole.

When Sissy, who works as a singer, turns up at his apartment his carefully-managed lifestyle spirals out of control, with the brother and sister sparking each other’s destructive tendances.

Carey admits the role was ‘terrifying’.

She says: “If I’d been playing any kind of character, playing a tea lady, I would have been scared, because it was Steve McQueen and Michael Fassbender.

“The standards they set are so high, so that in itself was terrifying. Added to that the particulars about the character, the music and the singing and all that stuff, it was a pretty big leap.”

The actress has to tackle a full frontal nude scene – filmed on her first day on set, but says it was actually the singing that was more nerve racking.

“Steve always wanted it live and he wanted it in one take,” she explains.

“It was really fun to play. I had singing lessons and a singing coach, and she actually played the piano in the scene.”

Growing up, Carey sang in the school choir and in musicals. In fact, the first time she did a play it was a musical – The King and I.

The Mulligans, dad Stephen, mum Nano, older brother Owain, and Carey, moved to Germany when she was three when her father became manager of the European arm of Intercontinental Hotels.

The King and I was produced in Dusseldorf when Carey was six.

“I don’t think there was a light bulb moment when I thought of it as a career,” she says. “I just always thought that this was what I was going to do.”

Her first major professional role was as Kitty Bennet in the 2005 film of Pride and Prejudice, alongside Keira Knightley, later appearing as orphan Ada Clare in the BBC’s acclaimed Bleak House and as Elsie Kipling, the sister of Daniel Radcliffe’s title character in My Boy Jack. The cast also included Liverpool’s Kim Cattrall.

The 2009 drama An Education gained her Oscar and Golden Globe nominations, and won her a BAFTA.

Meanwhile she’s currently filming Baz Luhrmann’s new version of The Great Gatsby, playing Daisy Buchanan to Leonardo diCaprio’s Jay Gatsby.

“It’s amazing doing a period film and really walking into sets where the design is so grand,” Carey marvels. “It’s perfect. It’s accurate. It’s so intricate. It helps inform the role.

“It was the same in Shame. We were in a tiny apartment, and that confinement was so helpful.

“Michael and I played out scenes in one shot and it was really just the tiniest space and that made you feel claustrophobic.”

Shame opens in cinemas next Friday, January 13, and is certificate 18.


Read More http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/in-the-mix/2012/01/06/carey-mulligan-talks-about-her-role-in-the-brutal-and-powerful-new-film-shame-100252-30068363/2/#ixzz1inRIqg4l