As previously mentioned, Freida Pinto, is currently back in India. She missed the world premiere of  Miral at the Venice Film Festival on Thursday night as she had to return home for an emergency. Here’s what her spokesperson had to say about it.

“Yes, Freida has come to attend to a personal matter. But she will attend the screening of the film at the Toronto film festival, which is later this month.”

I hope everything is okay with the Pinto family, and you can be sure that Freida Pinto Fan will cover the Toronto International Film Festival with info, photos, videos and more!

The world premiere of Miral was held yesterday at the Venice International Film Festival, and now the first reviews are here! It’s been given mixed-to-poor reviews by the US critics, saying that it doesn’t quite live up the high expectations everyone had after Julian Schnabel’s last movie The Diving Belle and the Butterfly. I’ve featured some of the reviews below.

Remember, these are only a first look at reviews for Miral, I will make another post of reviews where top industry critics are included closer to the release date.

While any film addressing the Israeli-Palestinian divide can expect a measure of controversy, few hearts or minds are likely to be stirred by Julian Schnabel’s inoffensive, well-intentioned “Miral.” Schnabel’s signature blend of splintered storytelling and sobering humanism feels misapplied to this sweeping multigenerational saga of four Arab women living under Israeli occupation, the youngest of which, Miral, emerges a bland totem of hope rather than a compelling movie subject. A year-end Stateside release date will raise expectations unlikely to be borne out by either passionate critical response or sustained arthouse biz.
[...]
Bound to raise perhaps the most criticism is the casting of Pinto, the Indian actress-model who came to fame in “Slumdog Millionaire,” in the role of an Arab Everygirl — an odd choice for a drama predicated on specifics of cultural identity. While Pinto looks appropriately willful, driven and occasionally fierce as Miral clashes with her loving guardians (and is later whipped in prison for her suspected terrorist involvement), neither she nor the material convincingly demonstrates why, of the countless stories that have been told about the conflict, this one was worth singling out.

• Justin Chang, Variety

Some of the dialogue in Miral is portentous in the extreme. Characters deliver lines like “this is a very crucial moment for our country – our people can’t take it any more” rather than speaking in anything that remotely resembles normal speech. There are distracting cameos from stars like Vanessa Redgrave and Willem Dafoe, who are on screen for a few moments and then disconcertingly disappear from the story without trace. Schnabel is covering three generations but his storytelling style is more cumbersome than nimble. At its most leaden, this is more like a school lecture in Middle Eastern history than it is a piece of drama. Newsreel footage is thrown into the mix in heavy-handed fashion and characters – as they age – suddenly go very grey. Quiet domestic scenes and climactic political moments are juxtaposed in seemingly random manner. Even so, it’s hard not to root for Husseini (played with great dignity by Abbass) as she tries to educate the orphan kids and thereby save them from a rootless existence in the refugee camps. Miral herself is played very engagingly by Freida Pinto as a mischievous and idealistic teenager with an acute sense of natural justice.

• Geoffrey Macnab, The Independent

(continue reading…)

According to Italian site MyMovies.it, Freida Pinto had to cancel her attendance at the Venice Film Festival last-minute. She was expected to attend the world premiere of Miral tonight, but an emergency caused her to return to India instead. We wish all the best to Freida and her family, and hope that everything is all right at home.

Freida Pinto Fan will still report from Venice with updates on how the movie’s being received by audiences and critics. Stay tuned for that!

Freida Pinto, Tahar Rahim, Mark Strong and Antonio Banderas are all in discussions to join Jean-Jacques Annaud’s 1929-set romantic drama epic set against the rise of the oil industry in the Middle East reports The Daily Mail.

Hans R. Ruesch’s 1957 novel South Of The Heart, a fictionalised take on the formation of Saudi Arabia, will form the basis of the story about a well-educated Arab prince who is married to a beautiful princess and “is confronted with the problem of what the discovery of oil will bring to the Bedouins” says producer Tarak Ben Ammar.

Rahim and Pinto would play the prince and princess in the film, described as a “big romantic story about oil, religion, tribes and tradition”. Shooting will take place in Tunisia.

Five new video clips from Miral have been released onto the web, thanks to French movie-site AlloCiné.com (click the link to view them all). Two of them feature Freida Pinto in her role as Miral, and both have been added to the video archive. Watch them here or after the cut. Miral will make its debut at the Venice Film Festival (on September 2) and Toronto International Film Festival (on September 13).

(continue reading…)

More awesome news! The line-up for the 67th Venice Film Festival has been announced and Julian Schnabel’s Miral is set to be screened! Freida Pinto stars as Miral in the movie, which is also set to play at the Toronto Film Festival later this fall.

The 67th Venice Film Festival runs September 1-11 this year. Freida Pinto Fan will have all the coverage for you when it happens.

Yesterday, Freida Pinto and James Franco was photographed on the set of Rise of the Apes. They held hands as they walked with Andy Serkins (playing a monkey) in a scene from the Planet of the Apes prequel. Can’t wait for more photos to become available as they continue filming; she looks stunning!

Update: The pictures have been deleted per request by Fox.

Yes, it’s really happening! Earlier today, the Toronto Film Festival announced the first big chunk of their 2010 lineup, including not one but two movies starring Freida Pinto! Both Miral and You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger are set to be screened at the film festival. This means that Freida is most likely to attend as well! Check out what the press release said of the two movies below.

Miral
Director: Julian Schnabel, UK/Israel/France, North American Premiere
A moving portrait of four Palestinian women since 1948, in the lyrical style Schnabel brought to “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.” Stars “The Visitor”’s Hiam Abbass and “Slumdog Millionaire”’s Freida Pinto.

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger
Director: Woody Allen, USA/UK/Spain, North American Premiere
Woody Allen’s latest comic ensemble piece follows a group of Londoners struggling with failing marriages, restless libidos, the perils of aging, and desires that drive a series of decisions with unforeseen consequences.

How excited are you for this?!

A brand new trailer from Woody Allen’s upcoming dramedy You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger has been released. This one’s in English, without foreign subtitles, for the US. It features a few new clips of Freida Pinto as Dia so it’s well-worth your look. Check it out below!

Variety is reporting that Tom Felton has joined the cast of Rise of the Apes. He will portray the son of Brian Cox’s character, who owns an ape facility. The film will be set in San Francisco and chronicles the events that leads to the apes to achieve dominance over the humans, which all stems from a series of genetic engineering experiments.

Rupert Wyatt is directing the film from Amanda Silver and Rick Jaffa’s script. The film will begin production sometime later this month.

Rise of the Apes comes to theaters June 24th, 2011 and stars James Franco, Brian Cox, Andy Serkis, John Lithgow, Freida Pinto and now Tom Felton.