Entertainment Daily: Intimacy - British film showing real sex set for controversial release
TAPE: EF01/0552
IN_TIME: 13:39:16
DURATION: 4:03
SOURCES: APTN/Bac Films
RESTRICTIONS: No re-use/re-sale of film/video/tv clips without clearance
DATELINE: Park City, USA/Berlin, Recent
SHOTLIST
1. Film clip - "Intimacy"
2. SOT Patrice Chereau - "It's a story about a man who has a basement in London, a silent relationship with a woman that comes to him every Wednesday afternoon and they don't speak and they make love, they have sex. That was the key that could open to me the novel and I tried to mix the two stories. Probably in everything that I am doing one story is never enough to me. I need more."
3. Film clip - "Intimacy"
4. SOT Patrice Chereau -"They were fantastic because they gave me love, they were so generous with the project and they understood that the love scenes, the sexual part was not... it was relatively important, it was a part of the whole story."
5. Film clip - "Intimacy"
6. SOT Patrice Chereau - "Then appears the love feelings and then it's a trap because they don't talk and he does the worst he can do, he follows her to know more of her and when you follow somebody you are in love with it is very dangerous because you discover immediately something that you don't have to know."
7. Film clip - "Intimacy"
8. SOT Marianne Faithfull - "It's a tough film I know that. It will be hard for people. People like films to be better than reality, they want it to be like a dream, this isn't like that."
9. SOT Patrice Chereau - "I am not happy with the French cinema, it is very abstract and they speak about feelings only in complete abstract way, sometimes the English cinema can show us a very strong reality and social reality and I try to mix both."
10. Film clip - "Intimacy"
STORYLINE:
The most sexually explicit mainstream British film ever made, featuring the first uncensored scenes of oral sex, opens in British cinemas, Friday (27/07).
Intimacy, described by the British Board of Film Classification as 'strongly explicit', is certain to spark controversy.
French director PATRICE CH?REAU has created a tale of passion and obsession in 'INTIMACY'.
The controversial drama picked up the Berlin Film Festival's top prize, the prestigious Golden Bear Award, despite finding a mixed reaction among critics because of it's unglamorous and explicit sex scenes.
New Zealand actress KERRY FOX ('Shallow Grave', 'Welcome to Sarajevo') was also honoured at the festival, winning the Silver Bear for Best Actress for her role in the film.
She plays an amateur actress Claire, starring opposite MARK RYLANCE (Angels and Insects) as Jay, a man who has recently left his wife. The pair start a purely sexual relationship, meeting once a week in his seedy London flat.
The don't speak, they don't even know one another's name, but their need to connect with another person - or body - is compulsive.
One day Jay decides to find out more about his lover and follows Claire to a tiny suburban theatre. He finds out she is an actress, with a taxi driving husband and a son.
When Claire stops attending their Wednesday trysts Jay becomes obsessed with her and resorts to a foolhardy plan to win her back.
Director Chereau is best known for 1994's "La Reine Margot," a story of Catholic persecution of Protestants in France during the 16th century. "Intimacy," his first movie in English, is based on the eponymous novel by British writer and director Hanif Kureishi, and a short story called Nightlight.
"Both of them are richer at the end of this affair, because they have experienced something special," Chereau said.
He acknowledged the sex scenes had made it difficult to find two actors willing to play the main parts, but insisted the scenes are "not shocking for me."
Mark Rylance is well known for his work on the stage, having been involved in more than 50 plays as actor or director. He is creative director of Shakespeare's Globe theater in London. His big screen work has crossed genres including drama, avant-garde, fantasy, comedy and thrillers - from 'Love Lies Bleeding' to 'The Grass Arena'.
New Zealander Kerry Fox first appeared on screen in the late '80s. The star of Jane Campion's breakthrough film 'An Angel at my Table', as well as the huge Canadian hit 'The Handing Garden'. She has also worked with the Royal Court Theatre company, filmed 'To Walk With Lions' with Richard Harris, 'The Darkest Light' with Stephen Dillane and 'The Wisdom of Crocodiles' with Jude Law.
The movie also stars singer Marianne Faithfull and Timothy Spall (Topsy Turvy).
Critics from the right wing press have already turned their guns on the movie, attacking it as liberal smut. Chris Tookey, film critic of the influential Daily Mail, wrote: "It presents the sexual act in a relentlessly ugly and loveless light," and called for the film to be banned.
FILM CLIP DETAILS
Intimacy
BAC Films