From Variety:

A well-known actor on the indie circuit, racking up well over a half dozen appearances in low-budget U.S. and European productions last year alone, Brady Corbet, who turned 27 in August, recently made his directing debut with “The Childhood of a Leader” – a film that last month caught the eye of Jonathan Demme’s Orrizonti jury, which awarded it the best director prize at the 2015 Venice Film Festival. Invoking the spirit of the young Orson Welles, Demme later described the film, which is repped by Protagonist Pictures, as “dazzling and exquisitely original” ahead of a one-off screening later this month at the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, New York.

Loosely inspired by the early childhood experiences of many of the most infamous dictators of the 20th century, “The Childhood of a Leader” stars Berenice Bejo and Liam Cunningham as an American couple settling into the French countryside at the end of the World War I, at which time the father is involved in the delicate peace negotiations surrounding the Treaty of Versailles. His wife is a devout Christian who struggles with the tantrums of their son (Tom Sweet), an angelic-looking boy whose behaviour becomes increasingly disturbing. Robert Pattinson and Stacy Martin also appear in the film, which also brought Corbet a cash prize in the form of Luigi De Laurentiis award for best debut

Variety: How would you describe your film, “The Childhood of a Leader”?

Brady Corbet: The film is a chronicle of the childhood experiences of a megalomaniac at the end of the first world war. We were not too interested in pointing at specific instances of cause and effect, however, so the film strings together a series of episodes that evoke the possibility of causality but is designed to leave viewers to identify their own prompting factors.

Variety: Is it a script you developed yourself? What was the process?

Corbet: I began writing a version of the script on my own ten years ago. I put it down because I was worried it was “too big” to make as a debut picture. My partner, Mona Fastvold, convinced me to pick it back up and she breathed new life into it. We finished it together

How exciting is this 🙂 So thrilled for all involved with the film, once again I say – cannot wait for this one. From the Lisbon & Estoril Film Festival site:

The festival runs from November 6 -15 & while there is no date for when the film will screen as yet, as always we will keep you updated. So jealous (in a good way) of all who will be able to attend.

Lucky people who can get to Pleasantville, New York and attend this screening at the Burns Film Centre at 5.00 pm on 25 October 2015.  And if it’s not great enough you can see the film, there’s a Q&A with Brady Corbet.  I’m not envious at all and I can’t think of a better way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

 

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Nonmembers can purchase your tickets here

The Writer’s Guild Italy spoke with Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold during Venice Film Festival.  The extracts about Rob are below.  Note there may be SPOILERS after the cut so don’t read if you want to remain *spoiler free* about The Childhood of a Leader.

“And with an actor as Robert Pattinson? I know he really looks forward films that are auteur movies, that offer something else out of the mainstream.

BC: Yes for sure, he is a real cinephile. There are so many actors that could use their celebrity in a really amazing way, like Will Smith or Tom Cruise – Tom Cruise Well … he does sometimes. There’s a lot of people who really do not take advantage … Like I can get somebody’s films made and they are gonna challenge me and we are gonna grow together.

Did he help in financing?

BC: Of course. Because the thing is funny at the time … he was cast several years ago, we had no idea how significant it would end up being. We had a lot of other fancy cast members at one point, but at a certain point he was the only way to get the film made, after many years was to have Rob involved. And we originally hired Rob because of the fact we wanted somebody really charismatic and really recognizable.

MF: We wanted to feel the right way character that this is very important.

BC: The great thing about Robert is that the less he does .. you can not take your eyes of the guy! Because he is genuinely beautiful to look at, it’s really like he draws you in, in a classic cold way. He is compelling.

How exciting, The Childhood Of A Leader will be screening at the 2015 Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival in the ‘New Waves’ section.  As you can see below, the film will be screening on Monday November 16, Wednesday November 18 & Sunday November 22. Lucky lucky all who can attend.

All the information about tickets is here.

Protagonist Pictures will have 2 screenings of The Childhood of a Leader during the American Film Market as you will see from the screencap below.  Wonder if any Rob scenes make their way through on the “exclusive new footage” promo reel, but then the distributors who are lucky enough to attend the screenings will see him anyway.  Praying that we get some solid confirmation post AFM that this movie has been picked up for distribution by more than just Greece and UAE:

 

And I noticed on Scope Pictures (one of the production companies) website that they’ve now included TCoaL and added this slightly different synopsis:

You can find all information about TCoaL on our film page, which also includes the teaser clip (no Rob though).