#OnTheBigScreen: Pirates, Rock and Roll and Unrequited Love

Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar's Revenge
Thrust into an all-new adventure, a down-on-his-luck Capt. Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) finds the winds of ill-fortune blowing even more strongly when deadly ghost pirates led by his old nemesis, the terrifying Capt. Salazar, escape from the Devil's Triangle, determined to kill every pirate at sea including him. Capt. Jack's only hope of survival lies in seeking out the legendary Trident of Poseidon, a powerful artefact that bestows upon its possessor total control over the seas.

Directed by the Norwegian directing team of Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg (Kon-Tiki and the Netflix series Marco Polo), from a screenplay by Jeff Nathanson (Catch Me If You Can, Indiana Jones and the Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull).

“The ‘Pirates’ franchise is very tricky,” says Nathanson, “because it combines huge action with supernatural suspense, romance and comedy. It’s also a highly-researched pirate epic that attempts to stay very true to the period. The key is to balance it all while telling an emotional good story, and finding ways to use these characters in ways we’ve never seen before.”

Confesses Rønning says the Pirates films remind him about the kind of movies that inspired him to become a filmmaker when he was a kid. “Now that I have kids of my own, it’s great to make a movie that they can watch, too. It’s a true family movie.”

Song to Song

A new love story from filmmaker, Terrence Malick set against and inspired by the Austin, Texas rock and roll scene.

The film follows four interconnected lovers as they tumble and clash in both their roller coaster musical careers and rule-breaking intimate lives. Amid a world driven by youth, passion, lust, drugs and creativity, the story hones in on one couple who find in each other a way to bust through all the wild distractions of our modern lives and seek satisfaction in a new way.

Two entangled couples – struggling songwriters Faye (Rooney Mara) and BV (Ryan Gosling), and music mogul Cook (Michael Fassbender) and the waitress (Natalie Portman) whom he ensnares – chase success through a rock 'n' roll landscape of seduction and betrayal. It was filmed throughout Austin and at its world-famed music festivals by three-time Academy Award winner, Emmanuel “Chivo” Lubezki.

Though renowned for visually arresting storytelling, Malick has always been drawn to that most classic subject of all: love – especially love that mirrors or cuts through life’s illusions. Song to Song continues a career that began with the dark romance between two 1950s Midwestern killers on the run in Badlands; explored the early days of America through Captain Smith and Pocahontas' affair in The New World; and twined the overwhelming emotions of parental love with a story of creation in The Tree Of Life.

Malick and his small, nimble crew filmed at Austin’s three largest festivals: Austin City Limits Festival, inspired by the long-running PBS live music show of the same name, which runs every summer; South by Southwest, the massive (and massively influential) multi-media festival featuring music, movies and interactive arts that has taken place in March since 1987; and the indie-oriented Fun Fun Fun Fest, known for discovering emerging talent.

Unforgettable

What lengths would you go to for love? For director/producer Denise Di Novi, that is the question at the heart of her new suspense thriller. Tessa Connover (Heigl) is barely coping with the end of her marriage when her ex-husband, David (Stults), becomes happily engaged to Julia Banks (Dawson)—not only bringing Julia into the home they once shared but also into the life of their daughter, Lily. Trying to settle into her new life, Julia believes she has finally met the man of her dreams, the man who can help her put her own troubled past behind her. But Tessa’s jealousy soon takes a pathological turn until she will stop at nothing to turn Julia’s dream into her ultimate nightmare.

“The story intrigued me because it’s about two very different women thrown into a complicated blended family relationship. They each feel tremendous pressure—one to create the perfect life, the other to hold on to it. That pressure drives one to madness, while the other is forced to find the strength to fight for her life. I thought that would make for a very intense thriller.”

Twelfth Night

The acclaimed production of Shakespeare’s classic comedy of mistaken identity – filmed live at the National’s Olivier Theatre in London – is the next National Theatre Live broadcast on the big screen and will be screened at Ster-Kinekor’s Nouveau cinemas from Saturday, 27 May, for limited screenings.

Viola (Tamara Lawrence) is washed ashore after her ship crashes on the rocks. Determined to survive on her own without her twin brother Sebastian (Daniel Ezra), she steps out to explore a new land. So begins a whirlwind of mistaken identity and unrequited love.

The nearby households of Olivia and Orsino are overrun with passion. Even Olivia’s upright housekeeper Malvolia (Greig) is swept up in the madness. Where music is the food of love, and nobody is quite what they seem, anything proves possible.

This joyous new production is directed by Simon Godwin (NT Live’s Man and Superman, The Beaux’ Stratagem), with Olivier Award-winning actress Tamsin Greig (Friday Night Dinner, Black Books, Episodes) as a transformed Malvolia in this new twist on Shakespeare’s play.

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