AS THEY returned home from the Berlin Film Festival, four actors who play al-Queda suspects in the new docudrama The Road to Guantanamo were detained by police at Luton airport, along with two of the former terrorism suspects they portray in the film.
In a statement, actor Rizwan Ahmed said police swore at him and asked if he had become an actor to further the Islamic cause. He said he was at first denied access to a lawyer and was questioned about his views on the Iraq war by a policewoman.
The Road to Guantanamo, which took the Silver Bear award for best director (Michael Winterbottom) at the Berlin Festival last weekend, will be shown by Channel 4 on March 9th. The film deals with three West Midlands men who go to Afghanistan and end up being held for two years at Guantanamo Bay before being released without charge.
A spokeswoman for Bedfordshire police, who patrol Luton airport, said that none of the six men were arrested. "The police officers wanted to ask them some questions under the counter-terrorism act," she said. "All were released within the hour. Part of the counter-terrorism act allows us to stop and examine people if something happens that might be suspicious."
The Truman show x 2
When rival movie projects coincidentally tackle the same literary, legendary or historical subject, there is usually only one winner. In 1989, for example, the Stephen Frears film Dangerous Liaisons eclipsed Milos Forman's treatment of the same story in Valmont. Now, with Bennett Miller's acclaimed, Oscar-bound Capote opening here today, one wonders what fate awaits Infamous (aka Every Word Is True), which covers much the same subject.
Infamous, which is now completed, stars the relatively unknown English actor Toby Jones as Truman Capote, along with Sandra Bullock as Harper Lee and Daniel Craig as killer Perry Smith. The cast also includes Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Daniels, Sigourney Weaver, Isabella Rosellini, Hope Davis and Peter Bogdanovich.
The film, based on George Plimpton's 1997 book Have You Heard?, was written and directed by Douglas McGrath, who made Emma and Nicholas Nickleby.
Penguins helmer marches on
Director Luc Jacquet will follow his Oscar-nominated sleeper hit, March of the Penguins, with a narrative-documentary hybrid that has the working title The Fox and the Child. Production starts next month and will continue for a year in France, Italy and Romania.
"I have a lot of passion for this story as it is based on childhood memories," said Jacquet. "It's about a little girl on her way to school who encounters a fox. She gets access to this forbidden world and it's like falling in love.
"I want to tell the story from the point of view of the girl and the fox, and two separate crews will film the project. One will capture wildlife footage of wild foxes in their habitats, while the other will work with the actress and tamed foxes and focus on the narrative side of the story."
Teen sleuth in Tinseltown
Fictional teen sleuth Nancy Drew is returning to movies for the first time in over six decades. Created by novelist Carolyn Keene (a pseudonym for Mildred Wirt Benson, who died in 2002), Drew was the central character in four 1930s movies for Warner Bros. The studio is now producing Nancy Drew: The Mystery in Hollywood Hills, which stars 15-year-old Emma Roberts, daughter of actor Eric and niece of Julia.
Andrew Fleming, who made Threesome and The Craft, will direct the movie, in which Drew travels to Los Angeles with her father and solves the mysterious death of a movie star. Nancy's resourcefulness is put to the test when dealing with the self-indulgent world of Hollywood.
Advice for whingeing stars
Paul Walker, who stars in the current US box-office champion Eight Below, has advice for Hollywood stars who complain about becoming paparazzi targets. Walker, whose credits include The Fast and the Furious and Roadkill, told Complex magazine: "All these people who complain and bitch about it - move. Get the fuck out! You don't like the press, why the hell are you shopping on Rodeo Drive? Come on, it's easy to disappear if you want to."
