Living up to its name, Stuart Townsend’s “Battle in Seattle” and its stars Charlize Theron and Martin Henderson will kick off the 34th Seattle International Film Festival on May 22 at Seattle Center’s Marion Oliver McCaw Hall.

The sprawling fest, which will screen 418 films during the course of 25 days, will run through June 15. The closing-night gala, set for June 14, is Randall Miller’s “Bottle Shock,” set in California’s wine country and starring Alan Rickman, Bill Pullman and Chris Pine, which will screen at the Cinerama Theatre.

“This year’s SIFF is fiercely independent with wide-ranging opportunities for people to explore new ways to look at the world through cinema,” SIFF artistic director Carl Spence said. “Seventy percent of the films in the program are currently without U.S. distribution.” Almost half of the features in the lineup come from first- or second-time directors.

The June 6 centerpiece gala will feature “The Great Buck Howard,” directed by Sean McGinly and starring Colin Hanks and John Malkovich.

Other presentations include the world premiere of “Jolene,” directed by SIFF co-founder Dan Ireland, and screenings of Sergei Eisenstein’s 1938 historical drama “Alexander Nevsky,” accompanied by the Seattle Symphony playing Sergei Prokofiev’s original score.

Source: hollywoodreporter.com

A big “thank you” to Philipp from MovieSet.com for sending me this link to the ‘Battle in Seattle’ trailer they have available on their site. They also an interview with Charlize there, just scroll through the additional videos beside the trailer and click to view it. Happy viewing.

Source: seattlepi.com

Oscar-winner Charlize Theron played the role of supportive girlfriend during her visit to the Sarasota Film Festival..

Her longtime boyfriend, Stuart Townsend, wrote and directed his first film, “Battle in Seattle,” which was to be shown in back-to-back screenings Sunday night.

Though she took center stage as an award recipient at the film festival ball Saturday night, she tried valiantly to downplay her presence and to promote Townsend and the film.

She did the same thing during an often serious, occasionally banter-filled conversation with Townsend and co-stars Martin Henderson and Michelle Rodriguez Sunday afternoon.

Townsend talked about the difficulty of writing his first script for the film about the riots that erupted during the World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle in 1999.

“I take my hat off to him,” Theron said. “When you’re lucky enough to witness somebody, and in this case somebody I love, go through an experience like this, it’s wonderful.”
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‘Battle in Seattle’ will be premiering at the Sedona International Film Festival in February 2008. The festival runs from February 27 - March 8, 2008, with opening night previews on February 25th and 26th, in Sedona, Arizona. For more information and to purchase tickets to the festival, please visit sedonafilmfestival.com.

Charlize Theron has heaped praise on her “incredible” boyfriend Stuart Townsend after watching him toil over his first movie script. The Oscar-winning actress reveals Townsend wrote the screenplay for Battle in Seattle at the home the couple shares in Los Angeles - and suffered the rejections and nerves as her partner attempted to shop his script around Hollywood. She says, “The amount of passion, of time and effort that he committed to writing that script really blew me away. “When you love somebody and you’re that close somebody, we always expect the worst because he had never written a script before, but we’re very good at kind of separating our work from our relationship so, as a work colleague, when he gave me the script and I read it I wanted to be as honest as I possibly could. “I’ll never forget the day when he gave it to me and the paper was still hot from coming out of the printer and I was in the kitchen. “He left because he was nervous and disappeared for three hours. I sat in the kitchen and I couldn’t stop reading it. “Then I saw him go through the struggle that a lot of first time filmmakers go through when they have a great piece of material but it’s original and it’s different. “I tip my hat to this guy because what he did was really incredible.” Theron was so impressed with the Irishman’s efforts, she insisted on taking a lead role, opposite Ray Liotta, Andre Benjamin, Woody Harrelson and Michelle Rodriguez.

Source: contactmusic.com

On December 10, 2006, singer-actor André Benjamin of Outkast fame donned a cardboard turtle suit and joined a group of fellow “protesters” on the streets of Seattle. Seven years before, tens of thousands of real demonstrators had descended upon the Seattle Convention Center and surrounding hotels to protest the actions of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The turtle-clad demonstrators — whose costumes highlighted the plight of turtles killed by shrimp nets — joined other anti-globalization vocalists and rallied against the leaders of the WTO, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank in sometimes violent clashes with police. Benjamin’s participation in the re-enactment of the events of November 30, 1999, was for Battle in Seattle, a feature film by first-time helmer Stuart Townsend (perhaps best known for his role as Lestat in Queen of the Damned that stars an ensemble cast including Woody Harrelson, Michelle Rodriguez, and Martin Henderson, as well as Townsend’s long-term girlfriend, Academy Award–winner Charlize Theron.

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ThinkFilm has won the battle for “Battle in Seattle,” acquiring all U.S. rights for about $2 million.

“Battle,” which sports an all-star ensemble led by Charlize Theron, had its world premiere Saturday night at the Toronto International Film Festival and marks Stuart Townsend’s directorial debut. The film is set amid the protests and riots that surrounded the World Trade Organization’s 1999 meeting in Seattle.

The deal was ThinkFilm’s second buy at Toronto this year. It scored the biggest sale of the fest’s opening days when it picked up “Then She Found Me,” Helen Hunt’s directorial debut, taking U.S. distribution rights for slightly less than $2 million.
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I finally found the ‘Battle in Seattle’ portraits from the Toronto Film Festival on September 9th and they are now available in the gallery (please be sure to register/log in to view). I’m sure you’re probably all seen them somewhere online by now, but if not, you have to check them out because they are gorgeous.

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Photos of Charlize, Stuart and Woody Harrelson at the ‘Battle in Seattle’ press conference the Toronto Film Festival yesterday have been added to the gallery. Enjoy!