Directed by GUS VAN SANT

PRESENTS

PARANOID PARK

Directed by GUS VAN SANT

FILM FESTIVALS

CANNES INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2007 – 60TH ANNIVERSARY AWARD

TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2007

NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL 2007

English – Color – 78 Minutes – 1:33 – 35mm & 8mm

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SYNOPSIS

Alex, a teenage skateboarder, accidentally kills a security guard in the vicinity of Paranoid Park, Portland's tough skate park.

He decides to say nothing.

INTERVIEW with GUS VAN SANT

By Antoine Thirion

What made you decide to adapt Blake Nelson's novel? How does the novel reflect your own interests?

It was a story set in Portland, which I always like. It was also about an amateur skateboarder who had a particularly stifling predicament, which was interesting.

Did you change the structure of the narrative?

I played with the story structure a lot. There aren’t many parts of the movie that are not from the book, but structurally it is quite manipulated.

Why did you choose to recruit your actors via a myspace page?

I think this is how all casting agencies should go about casting high schoolers, especially now that My Space is so prevalent. We were just trying to figure out the best way to get the word out to non-professional people to cast in the film.

Why did you decide to shoot in both Super 8 and 35mm?

Skate films are shot on super 8, and also video tape, and since we were using a little of this in our film, we shot some additional skate footage with super 8. It is a lot harder to hold a larger camera while you are riding a skateboard. Using 35mm is too expensive for skate shooters to be using. But the rest of our films is 35mm—the medium of choice for me.

Using cinematographer Christopher Doyle may strike some as a surprising choice, considering that your last three films used a lot of stable frames. Why did you choose him?

Yes, Chris is known for his very fast flying and free cinematography. Not known for what would be called stable frames. But I think maybe that is because of his Wong Kar Wai period of the nineties. When he first started to shoot with Kar Wai, they were quite stable, when they composed the framing, but got really loose as the films became less conservative. I did try and push Chris into non stable territory, and wide angle territory, in part because of these later Kar Wai films that I had seen, particularly Fallen Angels. But Chris was a bit wary, saying "Well, we don't want to repeat ourselves." So what we have here is a new piece that at times is unstable, as concerns the tripod, its handheld, but only sometimes. It has a lot of different styles in it. There is a lot of slow motion, which I also encouraged, and came from some of my knowledge of later Kar Wai films. But Chris also has made, among other things, LADY IN THE WATER which has very stable framing. The skate world, however, is not known for stable framing, because that world is on wheels.

I heard that some sequences, notably in Super 8, were to be longer at first. There is also a lot of work on the sound. What has post-production been like?

No, I think that the super 8 sequences were about the same as in the film, maybe a few more skate sequences. The sound, detailed as it may be, is mostly soundscapes by Sound/Music composers. The stuff that we have done as sound manipulators is pretty simple, but the

soundscapes, largely by Ethan Rose, are quite complicated. It is sometimes the equivalent of us playing records along with the movie, but the music is made of less traditional music. The post production was not that intensive, and was completed over a couple of weeks. Leslie Shatz is the sound designer.

Paranoid Park is your first movie produced my MK2, how did it change your work?

It was a really great experience working on the film with MK2 as the producer partner.

BIOGRAPHY

GUS VAN SANT, Writer and Director

Gus Van Sant has been winning over critics and audiences alike since bursting onto the scene with his widely acclaimed feature film MALA NOCHE (1985), which won the Los Angeles Film Critics Award for the Best Independent/Experimental Film in 1987. Van Sant’s body of work includes many hallmarks of 90’s independent cinema, notably DRUGSTORE COWBOY (1989), MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO (1991), and EVEN COWGIRLS GET THE BLUES (1993). Van Sant’s direction of Nicole Kidman in the black comedy TO DIE FOR (1995) won her a Golden Globe

Award and was screened at the Cannes and Toronto Film Festivals.

Van Sant received a Best Director Academy Award nomination for GOOD WILL HUNTING (1997), which received a total of nine Academy Award nominations (including wins for Best Supporting Actor Robin Williams and Best Original Screenplay by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck). Van San’st next film was the controversial remake of a Alfred Hitchcock’s classic thriller, PSYCHO (1998), which was the first shot-for-shot recreation of a film. The new millennium brought the release of the literary drama FINDING FORRESTER (2000), starring Sean Connery, Rob Brown, F. Murray Abraham and Anna Paquin. Van Sant returned to his indie roots with the beautiful and austere GERRY (2002), which he wrote with the film’s stars Matt Damon and Casey Affleck. The experience of making the improvisational GERRY influenced Van Sant’s next film, ELEPHANT (2003). ELEPHANT premiered in competition at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival, where it wan the Palme d’Or and Best Director prizes.

Throughout his career Van Sant has continued to make evocative short films, which have been winning awards at film festivals worldwide. These works include his 1982 adaptation of William S. Burroughs’ short story “THE DISCIPLINE OF DE,” a deadpan black-and-white gem shown at the New York Film Festival. In 1996 Van Sant directed Allen Ginsberg reading his own poem, “BALLAD OF THE SKELETONS,” to the music of Paul McCartney and Philip Glass, which premiered at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival. Other acclaimed shorts include FIVE WAYS TO KILL YOURSELF (1987), THANKSGIVING PRAYER (1991), a re-teaming with Burroughs, and EASTER (1999), scripted by Harmony Korine.

Born in Louisville, Kentucky, Van Sant earned a BA at the Rhode Island School of Design before moving to Hollywood. Early in his career he spent two years directing commercials for New York advertising agencies. Eventually he settled in Portland, Oregon, where in addition to directing and producing, he pursued his other interests – painting, photography, and writing. In 1995 he published a collection of photography entitled “108 Portraits” (Twelvetrees Press) and two years later published his first novel, “Pink” (Doubleday), a satire on filmmaking. A longtime musician himself, Van Sant has directed music videos for many top recording artists including David Bowie, Elton John, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Hanson.

FILMOGRAPHY

2007 PARANOID PARK

2005 LAST DAYS

2003 ELEPHANT

2002 GERRY

2000 FINDING FORRESTER

1998 PSYCHO

1997 GOOD WILL HUNTING

1997 BALLAD OF THE SKELETONS

1996 FOUR BOYS IN A VOLVO

1995 TO DIE FOR

1993 EVEN COWGIRLS GET THE BLUES

1991 MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO

1991 THANKSGIVING PRAYER

1989 DRUGSTORE COWBOY

1987 FIVE WAYS TO KILL YOURSELF

1987 MY NEW FRIEND

1987 KEN DEATH GETS OUT OF JAIL

1985 MALA NOCHE

BLAKE NELSON, Original Novel

Blake Nelson grew up in Portland, Oregon. Blake's first writing job was at Details magazine, where he wrote short humor pieces on the slacker lifestyle. His fiction remained unpublished until Sassy Magazine (cool girl magazine from the 90s) began publishing excerpts from his first novel. These excerpts generated enough response to get his first novel GIRL published by Simon and Schuster. GIRL (1994) has since been translated into six foreign languages and was made into a feature film. Blake Nelson published two more adult novels, EXILE (1997) and USER (2001). In 2003 he decided to try a Young Adult novel, (a book specifically for teens) and wrote THE NEW RULES OF HIGH SCHOOL. Since then he has published five Young Adult novels, NEW RULES, ROCKSTAR SUPERSTAR, PROM ANONYMOUS, GENDER BLENDER, and PARANOID PARK.

CHRISTOPHER DOYLE, Cinematographer

Born in 1952, Christopher Doyle left his native Australia at the age of 18 and made his filmmaking debut thirteen years later thanks to Taiwanese director Edward Wang, who gave him his first break with THAT DAY, ON THE BEACH. In fact, he learned Mandarin in Taiwan before moving to Hong Kong. He has worked regularly with Wong Kar-wai since the late 80s (from DAYS OF BEING WILD to 2046), and works in China with major directors including Chen Kaige (TEMPTRESS MOON) and Zhang Yimou (HERO), as well as in Thailand where he has worked twice with director Pen-Ek Ratanaruang (on LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE and INVISIBLE WAVES).

In the late 90s, Du Ke-feng – his Eastern name, meaning Like the Wind – made a brief stopover in Hollywood to shoot the remake of PSYCHO by Gus Van Sant. One year later, he made his directorial debut with AWAY WITH WORDS (with Tadanobu Asano) and, in 2005, he directed one of the 20 segments in PARIS, JE T’AIME, a film composed of various sketches by different directors. Multiple-award winner at major film festivals in the East (Hong Kong Film Awards, Golden Horse Awards, Golden Bauhinia, Thailand National Film Association Awards…) and West (Cannes Film Festival, New York Film Critics Circle Awards, National Society of Film Critics Awards, Online Film Critics Society Awards, San Diego Film Critics Society Awards, Venice Film Festival, Chicago Film Critics Association Awards…), Christopher Doyle has lived between Hong Kong, China, England, Australia and the United States for the past three years.

CAST

ALEX GABE NEVINS

DETECTIVE RICHARD LU DAN LIU

JARED JAKE MILLER

JENNIFER TAYLOR MOMSEN

MACY LAUREN MC KINNEY

CAL OLIVIER GARNIER

SCRATCH SCOTT GREEN

CHRISTIAN WINFIELD HENRY JACKSON

HENRY DILLON HINES

JOLT BRAD PETERSON

SECURITY GUARD JOHN “MIKE” BURROUWES

PAISLEY EMMA NEVINS

PAUL JOE SCHWEITZER

UNCLE TOMMY CHRISTOPHER DOYLE

ALEX’S MOM GRACE CARTER

ALEX’S DAD JAY “SMAY” WILLIAMSON

CREW

DIRECTOR, WRITER, EDITOR GUS VAN SANT

PRODUCERS MARIN KARMITZ NATHANAËL KARMITZ

HEAD OF PRODUCTION CHARLES GILLIDERT

PRODUCTION NEIL KOPP

DAVID CRESS

CASTING LANA VEENKER

BERNEY TELSEY CSA

DAVID VACCARI

PRODUCTION MANAGER BRETT CANFORD

CINEMATOGRAPHER CHRISTOPHER DOYLE

RAIN KATHY LI

FIRST ASSISTANT DIRECTOR JONAS SPACCAROTELLI

FIRST ASSISTANT CAMERA CHRISTOPHER BLAUVELT

SOUND DESIGNER LESLIE SHATZ

SOUND MIXER FELIX ANDREW

COSTUME DESIGNER CHAPIN SIMPSON

ART DIRECTOR JOHN PEARSON-DENNING

MK2 PRODUCTIONS

Since 1973, Marin Karmitz has produced over 100 films, many of which have won awards at festivals worldwide including Krzysztof Kieslowski’s trilogy and films by Claude Chabrol, Abbas Kiarostami, Alain Resnais, Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Doillon, Lucian Pintilie, Michael Haneke, Bartabas, Raphaël Nadjari, Hong Sangsoo, etc.

This year, Marin Karmitz and Nathanaël Karmitz are particularly proud to present two productions in Cannes: the Gus Van Sant film PARANOID PARK – in the Official Selection and entirely financed by MK2 – and the second film by Lebanese director Danielle Arbid, A LOST MAN, which is in the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs.

They are currently producing the upcoming films CATHARS by Jean-Pierre Denis, with Benoît Magimel, and Rumba, a comedy by the Franco-Belgian-Canadian trio Gordon-Abel-Romy, who made ICEBERG. He is also co-producing Jalil Lespert’s debut film 24 MEASURES, with Benoît Magimel and Sami Bouajila (with WY Productions), THE TRUE STORY OF PUSS ’N BOOTS by

Pascal Hérold and Jérôme Deschamps (with HeroldFamily) and Israeli film ZION AND HIS BROTHER Eran Merav.

ABOUT IFC FIRST TAKE AND IFC ENTERTAINMENT

IFC First Take is the day and date distribution arm of IFC Entertainment. First Take releases twenty-four films a year, theatrically across the country and simultaneously on VOD through IFC IN THEATRES. Reaching over 40 million homes, IFC In Theaters is available on demand nationally with Comcast, Cablevision, Time Warner, Cox, insight and on PPV through DIRECTV.

IFC Entertainment also consists of IFC Films, a traditional distribution company, and the new IFC Center in Greenwich Village. IFCE is a Rainbow Media company. Recent and upcoming IFC First Take films include: Shane Meadow’s THIS IS ENGLAND, Christophe Honoré’s DANS PARIS, Joe Swanberg’s HANNAH TAKES THE STAIRS, Jeff Garlin’s I WANT SOMEONE TO EAT CHEESE WITH, and Larry Fessenden’s THE LAST WINTER.

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