The Dima of the book is a brazen crook and philanderer, but also a wildly charming husband and loving father. In this short and amusing excerpt from a recent interview in the UK’s Sunday Telegraph newspaper, John le Carré reveals part of where the inspiration came from…

It was during a trip to Moscow almost 20 years ago that he came across the real Dima. He had told an old KGB contact that he wanted to meet one of the big time crooks and along with the hilariously named bodyguard Pussia (‘It was nice to have him there. Especially since he was a wrestling champion.’) he was told to turn up at the nightclub Dima owned in Moscow.

His instructions were to arrive at 2am and bring no weapons. ‘There were a flank of moody men with grenades strapped to their waists as we went in. It was a bit like a theatre with tables and a tiny dance floor.

‘After a long wait, Dima, flanked by a bevy of heavies and a posse of pretty, pouty, scantily clad young women, deigned to arrive. He was a big monster of a man who looked like Telly Savalas. Just as I describe him in the book.’

Eventually le Carré was told he could approach. ‘I walked over and the only way I could get near him was to kneel on the dance floor at his feet. It was like staring into the eyes of a tiger. There was nothing there behind the eyes. His people were very unsmiling and the girls were already bored with me. And I didn’t know what the hell to ask him. So I said: “They tell me you are a crook, a gangster.” He nodded. I said: “It must be very easy to be a gangster in this kind of economy, how much are you worth?” He just shrugged.

‘I said: “Ten million dollars?” He didn’t speak. “Fifty million?” Nothing. Then I told him that when the robber barons came into the United States in the Twenties they had people killed. They robbed. But then, when their children and grandchildren were born, they got out because the ripped-off society they had created was affecting their own. And I asked him if he was going to do something like that.

‘He bent down to my interpreter and spoke quickly in Russian. I was nodding like a fool, not knowing if he was angry or not. The interpreter looked at me in embarrassment and said: ‘‘Mr (le Carré), I regret to tell you that Mr Dima says: ‘Fuck off’.’’

What of the films? This year Cannes brought its A-team. Jacques Audiard, David Cronenberg, Leos Carax, Walter Salles, Alain Resnais, Christian Mungiu, Ken Loach, John Hillcoat, Wes Anderson, Matteo Garrone, Andrew Dominik and Abbas Kiarostami all had new work in competition.

Cannes 2012 will be remembered for relentless rain, and the biggest dealmakers in town were the street-side umbrella salesmen

‘Killing them Softly’ was a superbly pessimistic crime film that treats murder as a brutal, middle-management chore. It’s darkly comic, if at times a little heavy-handed, and Brad Pitt gets to utter a brilliant final line.

Marion Cotillard and Matthias Schoenaerts make a beautiful odd couple in Jacques Audiard’s ‘Rust and Bone’. It’s a modern day Beauty and the Beast story, stunningly acted and featuring the best version of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘State Trooper’ heard in a long time.

The real joy was Leo Carax’s ‘Holy Motors’. It’s beyond surreal, but there are moments of pure invention here that make you remember why you love film. Check out the way Denis Lavant smokes. You will want to light up.

The Palme d’Or went to Michael Haneke for ‘Amour’. This latest extreme examination of the human condition was a deserving winner. By the way, what better place is there than Cannes, the epicenter of the superficial, to watch a film by the master of all that is frighteningly real?

We leave you with a short interview with the great man himself (with thanks to cine-fils.com). This highlights some of his consistent themes and talks especially about his thoughts to the depiction of violence, which is interesting to hear these days.

From “Woman Under the Influence”
to “Once Upon a Time in the West”, Anton and Justin’s selections are nothing if not eclectic, with only one film on both lists. See if you agree…

ANTON CORBIJN

Currently in pre-production with The Ink Factory on “A Most Wanted Man”

Breathless – 1960 – Jean-Luc Godard
Kes – 1969 – Ken Loach
Mon Oncle – 1958 – Jacques Tati
Once Upon a Time in the West – 1968 – Sergio Leone
Raging Bull – 1980 – Martin Scorsese
Rear Window – 1954 – Alfred Hitchcock
Seven Samurai – 1954 – Akira Kurosawa
Stalker – 1979 – Andrei Tarkovsky
Strada, La – 1954 – Federico Fellini
Touch of Evil – 1958 – Orson Welles

Anton Corbijn: These are ten films that had an impact on how I look at moving images and on the way I make films. I have not seen nearly enough films to make a ‘best of’ list, hence this frame of reference

JUSTIN KURZEL

Currently casting his adaptation of John le Carré’s “Our Kind of Traitor” for The Ink Factory

Fargo – 1995 – Joel & Ethan Coen
Gallipoli – 1981 – Peter Weir
Godfather: Part I, The – 1972 – Francis Ford Coppola
Jaws – 1975 – Steven Spielberg
Raging Bull – 1980 – Martin Scorsese
Step Brothers – 2008 – Adam McKay
Wake in Fright – 1971 – Ted Kotcheff
Withnail & I – 1986 – Bruce Robinson
Woman Under the Influence, A – 1974 – John Cassavetes

Justin Kurzel: Jaws is still the reason I rarely go swimming. It put the absolute fear in me, especially living in Australia. I must have seen this 100 times, but I will always stop and watch it when it’s on. It’s a master lesson in how to create suspense on screen, even with a robotic shark

I saw Wake in Fright only recently after completing my first film, and suddenly everything really clicked for me in terms of where the tough, muscular, Aussie film came from. It’s a masterpiece, still as shocking and relevant today as it was back in the 1970s.

Gallipoli is a beautifully composed piece of filmmaking. One of the most emotionally engaging films I have ever experienced about what it is to be a man. Sophisticated, intelligent and as scary as hell, Hidden is directed by the one of the bravest and greatest living directors today.

The Godfather is a classic, but I never tire of it. The screenplay is just so watertight, and Michael’s journey is one of the best protagonist arc’s ever created.

Raging Bull is such a gutsy and muscular film, but also so beautiful and delicate. The editing is extraordinarily bold. I love how the camera is used to express point of view in the fight sequences. The film is just pure cinema.

Withnail and I is just the coolest film I have ever seen.

Marge in Fargo is such an original character, and I love that she doesn’t come into the story until 20 minutes into the film. Again, it’s one I must have watched a hundred times and will watch a hundred more.

I can still be walking down the street and think of moments and scenes in Step Brothers and burst out laughing. The improvisation is incredible, and Will Ferrell is a genius.

A Woman Under the Influence just has the most beautiful performances. Gena Rowlands is exquisite, the scenes with her kids are heartbreaking, but despite its toughness the film is so tender and hopeful”

We look forward to bringing you regular updates from the set of the film in our blog. In the meantime, here is the official press release.

Principal photography begins on A MOST WANTED MAN Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rachel McAdams, Willem Dafoe and Robin Wright star in Anton Corbijn’s adaptation of John le Carré’s worldwide bestseller

For Immediate Release: 25^th September 2012

Principal photography commenced yesterday in Hamburg on a major film adaptation of John le Carré’s worldwide bestselling 2008 novel A MOST WANTED MAN. Anton Corbijn (The American, Control) directs a cast led by Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Master, Capote), Rachel McAdams (Sherlock Holmes, Midnight In Paris), Willem Dafoe (Shadow of the Vampire, Platoon) and Robin Wright (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Moneyball).

When a half-Chechen, half-Russian, tortured half-to-death immigrant turns up in Hamburg’s Islamic community, laying claim to his father’s ill gotten fortune, both German and US security agencies take a close interest: as the clock ticks down and the stakes rise, the race is on to establish this most wanted man’s true identity – oppressed victim or destruction-bent extremist?

Poignant, compassionate and thrilling, A MOST WANTED MAN prickles with tension right through to its last heart-stopping scene. It is a cerebral tale of intrigue that is both contemporary and deeply human, touching on love, rivalry, politics and the world we live in.

Adapted for the screen by Australian writer Andrew Bovell (Lantana), the film is produced by Gail Egan (The Constant Gardener) and Andrea Calderwood (The Last King of Scotland) for Potboiler, Stephen Cornwell (screenwriter – Unknown) and Simon Cornwell for The Ink Factory, and Malte Grunert (Perfect Sense) for Amusement Park. Helge Sasse for Senator Film Produktion is Co-Producer and Senator Film Verleih will handle the German release. Executive Producers are John le Carré, Tessa Ross (Film4), Sam Englebardt and William D Johnson (Demarest).

Rounding out the cast are rising Russian star Grigory Dobrygin as the titular most wanted man, Turkish actress Derya Alabora, and the cream of German acting talent, including Nina Hoss, Daniel Brühl, Franz Hartwig, Kostja Ullman, Rainer Bock, Charlotte Schwab, Max Volkert Martens and Martin Wuttke.

Anton Corbijn is the director of two previous feature films: Ian Curtis biopic Control and European hit-man thriller The American, starring George Clooney.  He is also a very well established photographer, stage-designer, art- and music-video director. As a photographer he has published over 15 books and had major museum shows. Best known for his long associations with Depeche Mode, U2 and Tom Waits, he has worked with people as diverse as Miles Davis, Gerhard Richter, Patti Smith, Kate Moss, Lucian Freud, Frank Sinatra, Damien Hirst and Captain Beefheart.

Master spy novelist John le Carré is the author of 23 books. He first came to know Hamburg during the Cold War years of the early 1960s, when he was posted there as Political Consul while working for the British government, and returned there more recently to research and write A Most Wanted Man. Eight of his novels have so far been adapted for film, including Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Constant Gardener, The Russia House and The Spy Who Came In From The Cold.

The creative team behind A MOST WANTED MAN also includes Director of Photography Benoît Delhomme (Lawless), Production Designer Sebastian Krawinkel (Anonymous), Costume Designer Nicole Fischnaller (The Counterfeiters), Chief Hair and Makeup Designer Sharon Martin (Snow White and the Huntsman) and Editor Claire Simpson (The Constant Gardener).

FilmNation are handling international sales, and have already completed deals with Mars (France),  Senator Film (Germany), Aurum Producciones – an Alliance Films Company (Spain), Momentum Pictures – an Alliance Films Company (UK), Forum (Eastern Europe), Benelux and Canada (both Entertainment One), Spentzos (Greece), Sam Films (Iceland), LEV (Israel), Italia Film (Middle East), Lusomundo (Portugal), Svensk (Scandinavia), Elite Film (Switzerland), Aqua Group (Turkey), Sun (Latin America), HGC (China), Tomson (Hong Kong), Multivision (India/Pakistan), PT Amero (Indonesia), Cathay (Singapore), Studio Solution (Taiwan), Roadshow (Australia) and Ster Kinekor (South Africa).

The film is supported by production funding from the FilmFörderung Hamburg Schleswig Holstein, Medienboard Berlin Brandenburg and the DFFF.

For updates on the film during production and beyond, please visit The Ink Factory’s website or Potboiler Production’s website.

For further information, please contact:

PREMIER

Jonathan Rutter / Phil Cairns

Tel: + 44 20 7292 8330

firstname.surname@premiercomms.com

NOTES TO EDITORS:

POTBOILER PRODUCTIONS

Potboiler Productions, started in 2000, is an independent film and television production company, specialising in producing world class talent-based feature films and high end television series. The principals are Gail Egan and Andrea Calderwood. Between them Gail and Andrea have produced an eclectic, award-winning and commercially successful mix of feature films including a classic adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby directed by Doug McGrath; De-Lovely, a musical based on the life of Cole Porter; the rock epic Brothers of the Head; The Constant Gardener, which was directed by Fernando Meirelles and won Rachel Weisz the Best Supporting Actress award at the 2006 Academy Awards; The Last King of Scotland, directed by Kevin Macdonald, winner of three BAFTAs and the Academy Award for Best Actor for Forest Whitaker; and the multi-Emmy-winning Generation Kill, written by David Simon, for HBO.

THE INK FACTORY

A Most Wanted Man is the first film to go into production for The Ink Factory, a film, television and digital content production company based in London and Los Angeles.

The company was founded in 2010 by Stephen Cornwell (writer of the 2011 hit Unknown) and his brother Simon, who were joined at the inception of the company by Rhodri Thomas (formerly VP, Production and Development at The Weinstein Company, where his key successes included The King’s Speech, Nowhere Boy and The Reader).

The Ink Factory believes in quality entertainment for a broad audience, and collaborates with storytellers and filmmakers who inspire, challenge and innovate. One of those collaborators is the author John le Carré, with whom the company has a close relationship.  The company is working on a number of film and television adaptations of his work.

Forthcoming projects for The Ink Factory include Our Kind of Traitor, directed by Justin Kurzel (Snowtown) and adapted by Hossein Amini (Drive) from the novel by John le Carré; an untitled action thriller written by Stephen Cornwell and his writing partner Oliver Butcher, to star Vin Diesel; and White Ghost Girls, a luminous coming-of-age story based on the critically-acclaimed novel by Alice Greenway.

Visit inkfactoryfilms.com for regular updates on projects and creative partnerships.

AMUSEMENT PARK

Amusement Park was founded in 2009 by Malte Grunert, formerly head of features at Studio Hamburg. To date, Malte has produced seven feature films, including Perfect Sense, directed by David Mackenzie, starring Ewan McGregor and Eva Green, and The Cry of the Owl, based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith, directed by Jamie Thraves and starring Paddy Considine and Julia Stiles.

Amusement Park is based in Berlin and Hamburg and aims to create quality projects with commercial appeal for an international audience. The company makes films in both English and German. The current development slate includes new projects from directors David Mackenzie (Hallam Foe) and Lone Scherfig (One Day).

It’s not a long book, but by the time you put it down you feel as though you have looked into the soul of America. Through the eyes of its narrator, the reader is shown the truth behind every American institution; sports, entertainment, business, religion, war.

The novel presents a huge challenge when it comes to turning it into a film. It takes place over one day, in one main location and doesn’t have a conventional narrative arc. Now if there is one thing that Simon Beaufoy seems to enjoy it’s a challenge. He is one of the greatest screenwriters working today and certainly the most daring adapter around. We could’t be happier to have him on board.

So, time for you to get to know Billy Lynn and his creator, Ben Fountain. Here (with thanks to the Huffington Post) we republish an interview between Ben and the author, Teddy Wayne.

Ben Fountain rose to critical acclaim with his 2006 debut collection of short stories, Brief Encounters with Che Guevara, which netted the Dallas-based author a raft of honors, including the PEN/Hemingway and a Whiting Writers’ Award. His first novel, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk (Ecco), time-warps back to the excesses of the Bush administration in following the titular protagonist, and the seven surviving members of Bravo Squad, for one afternoon as they receive a heroes’ welcome during the Dallas Cowboys’ Thanksgiving Day football game. Written with Fountain’s characteristic blend of humor, pathos and both psychological and cultural insight, it has been hailed as “the Catch-22 of the Iraq War” by Karl Marlantes and received stellar advance reviews. I spoke with Fountain about the inspiration behind the novel, the arduous path to its publication, and why he hopes to connect with Oliver North.

WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO WRITE THIS NOVEL?
The initial impulse came from watching the halftime show of a Dallas Cowboys Thanksgiving Day game in the mid-2000s. The show was very much like the one I describe in the book, this surreal and patently insane — to me, anyway — mash-up of militarism, pop culture, American triumphalism and soft-core porn. At one point during the show the camera flashed on a group of soldiers who were marching along with everyone else down on the field, and they looked like actual combat soldiers. They were in desert camo, and looked lean and tan; my sense was that they’d been over there fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan. And I wondered what it would do to your head, to have been over there immersed in daily life-or-death situations, then you return to the U.S. and get plunked down in the middle of this very artificial situation. How, in other words, would you keep from going crazy? Watching that halftime show seemed to crystallize a lot of things I’d been feeling and thinking up to that point. I was confused; I didn’t have a clue about why America is the way it is, this place where I was born and had spent my entire life. I didn’t understand my own country. In some ways, writing Billy Lynn was an attempt to make some kind of sense of the place, or at least to put a frame around my fundamental confusion.

WHY DID YOU MAKE THE NARRATIVE DECISIONS TO SET NEARLY THE ENTIRE BOOK OVER THE COURSE OF A SINGLE AFTERNOON AND, FOR A WAR NOVEL, TO OMIT ALMOST COMPLETELY ANY “ACTION” DESCRIPTIONS OF LIFE IN IRAQ?
Fair question, and one that I don’t really have a decent answer for. I was improvising, basically. A lot of possibilities were bouncing around — that I’d do set-piece flashbacks to Iraq, or that the novel would continue past Thanksgiving and follow Bravo back to Iraq. But as the writing progressed it just felt right to have it all take place during that one day. Get in, get out, and try to get maximum effect in the short amount of time portrayed. There is one extended flashback that depicts Billy’s visit home, and bits and pieces of flashback to Iraq. But to do long, involved flashbacks to Iraq — that just felt kind of corny and predictable to me.

THE PROSE REMINDED ME OF DAVID FOSTER WALLACE, IN ITS BLEND OF HIGH-LITERARY MAXIMALISM AND COLLOQUIALISMS. WOULD YOU CITE HIM AS AN INFLUENCE, OR ARE THERE ANY OTHER DIRECT ANTECEDENTS YOU SEE TO THIS NOVEL?
I’m ashamed and embarrassed to say that I’ve read very little of David Foster Wallace’s work. It’s a huge gap in my education, one of many. After Bush was elected in 2004 — please note that I didn’t say “re-elected” — and I was walking around in my befuzzed state of confusion and low-grade depression, I set out more or systematically to read writers who’d grappled with that fundamental question of what America is, why it is the way it is. The collective psyche of the place, so to speak. I found myself reading a lot of Norman Mailer, Joan Didion, Robert Stone, Dennis Johnson. So I suppose you could say those were my models or guides in this project that eventually led to Billy Lynn.

THE PATH TO PUBLICATION FOR BILLY LYNN HAS BEEN QUITE CIRCUITOUS, IN THAT YOU WROTE ANOTHER NOVEL, THE TEXAS ITCH, THAT YOU AND YOUR EDITOR DECIDED NOT TO PUBLISH. WAS IT DIFFICULT TO PUT THAT ASIDE? AND DID YOU SALVAGE ANYTHING FROM THAT BOOK FOR THIS ONE, OR IF NOT, DO YOU SEE SOME OVERLAP IN THE THEMES?
Hah hah. Was it difficult to put aside? Oh, let’s say it was the approximate writerly equivalent of feeding my arm into a wood-chipper. My friend Jess Walter has this mantra he employs to bring himself back down to earth whenever he starts angsting about his professional arc, he calls it MGLC, My Grubby Little Career. Well, putting away The Texas Itch was one of the dark nights of My Grubby Little Career, and while it hurt — it hurt a lot — there was also this sense of, fuck my “career.” I’m not in this for a “career,” I’m in it to try write something hopefully honest and genuine about the experience of being a human in a particular time and place. And even though the Texas Itch crashed and burned, I was still in a position to keep trying to do that kind of writing. So fuck it, was the feeling that gradually asserted itself. I can keep writing, and I want to keep writing, so I’ll just keep writing.

I suppose there is a fair amount of overlap in the themes. Money, family, lust, love, the general insanity of American life, you’d find all of that in The Texas Itch as well as in Billy Lynn, though the situations are quite different. So nothing overt was salvaged from the Itch for use in Billy Lynn.

ARE YOU WORKING ON ANYTHING NEW?
I am. It started out as I didn’t know what, maybe a long story or a novella, but it seems to be turning into a novel. It’s set in the 1980s, in the context of the circumstances that came to be known as Iran-Contra. When it’s done I hope to get a snappy blurb from that great American hero, Oliver North.

Our love of a good story, and uncompromising commitment to great craftsmanship, have found a natural partner in the inspiring world of quality gaming.

More than any other artistic director working today, Matt Nava has been celebrated for a mature and distinctive aesthetic vision. His work on Flower and Journey is proof that games can be more than something that you play, and their reception has been unprecedented. The worlds of his design have been singled out as offering a whole new level of immersive, emotional, engagement, normally associated with the highest examples of art and film.

A BAFTA for Flower (Artistic Achievement, 2010) has been followed by Journey dominating the awards show this year with eight nominations and five wins, including Artistic Achievement, Game Design and Best Online Multiplayer. As Sony’s highest-selling downloadable title ever, with over seven Game of the Year awards, and multiple honours for Best Art Direction, Journey is testament to Matt’s ability to drive innovative and successful content that resonates with a large audience. Here are experiences to be shared and appreciated by a different kind of gamer, while at the same time appealing to the medium’s broad and loyal audience, hungry for new forms.

He will be joined by the composer Austin Wintory, whose contribution to Journey earned him a Grammy nomination, a first for any video game score. Nicholas Clark, the designer and engineer from the same original team, will add to the continuity of expertise in a senior advisory position. Together they have expanded both the possibilities of the medium, and the range of people that it touches. We are proud to be a part of this exciting development in the Zeitgeist.

Combining The Ink Factory’s passion for narrative, with the best artistic minds in the games business, we are confident that Giant Squid will expand on our promise to challenge, innovate and inspire. As in film, as in television, we are dedicated to the same core conviction that audiences both demand and deserve more.

Work is already under way on our first project. You can follow our progress online at Giant Squid Studios and on twitter @GiantSquidology.

The Ink Factory is proud to be bringing John le Carré ‘s 23rd novel to the screen, both as a forthcoming feature-film, and in this evocative book trailer, co-produced with Somesuch & Co.

As reported in Screendaily and Deadline, The Ink Factory is in advanced talks with Oscar® winning screenwriter, William Monahan (The Departed), to write the feature film adaptation of A Delicate Truth. The film will be produced by The Ink Factory and developed with BBC Films.

The story opens with a classic le Carré set-piece. A counter-terror operation, codenamed Wildlife, is being mounted on the rock of Gibraltar. Its purpose: to capture and abduct a high-value jihadist arms-buyer. Its authors: an ambitious Foreign Office Minister, and a shady private defence contractor. So delicate is the operation that even the Minister’s Private Secretary, Toby Bell, is kept out of the loop.

Suspecting a conspiracy, Toby attempts to forestall it, but is promptly posted overseas.  Three years on, summoned by a retired British diplomat to a decaying Cornish manor house, Toby must choose between his conscience and his duty to the Service. How long can he keep silent?

Drawing from key scenes from the novel, the short gives clues about the conspiracy at the heart of the story, whilst delivering an impressionistic portrait of the writer and his creative process. Conjuring the atmosphere and suspense of the book, without taking anything away from the reader’s imagination, was a challenge embraced by the film-makers.

Director Kim Gehrig says:

‘John le Carré has been innovating in his writing for fifty years, and I wanted to carry this spirit forward into the film by pushing the concept of a book trailer. My desire was to make something that draws you in and gives you an indelible sense of the world of the novel. At the same time, I wanted to preserve the experience of reading the book itself.’

To render the distinctive mood and setting, an award-winning team was assembled, including James Foster (Art Director on Skyfall), Andy Shelley and Stephen Griffiths (Sound Editors on Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) and Mark Paterson (Oscar-winning Sound Mixer on Les Miserables).

For more information on the latest novel, and to read the first chapter for free online, see the John le Carré website.