Is ‘The Master' Heading To Venice?; Harvey Weinstein Talks Working With PTA

Over the weekend, The Playlist came across upon an Italian newspaper called La Repubblica who ran down a preview of the Venice Film Festival (August 29-September 8) festival which included several notable titles like the new Terrence Malick film "To The Wonder," "A Place Beyond The Pines" and most notably "The Master." We pegged the fest back in March as a possibility for a premiere and heard as recently as May that they were actively pursuing the film. While nothing is confirmed yet (the lineup isn't announced officially until July 26) it does seem like it's a strong possibility. Whether the film will make a showing at TIFF or NYFF is still unknown as well but those should also firm up their selections in the next month or so.

Update: On the latest episode of "The Treatment with Elvis Mitchell" podcast, Harvey Weinstein stopped by to promote his latest box office smash, the French production "The Intouchables" and towards the end of the episode got into some other films he's got on tap for later this year which led to "The Master."  (via xixax)

Elvis Mitchell: You’ve got a really big year coming up. You’ve got films from two of the most important auteurs in the business: you’ve got Paul Thomas Anderson’s “The Master,” which is a look at religion that is sure to stir up a few picketers in theaters when it plays and you’ve got “Django Unchained” from Quentin Tarantino.

Harvey Weinstein: Which will do the same.

Elvis Mitchell: Yes it will do the same. Neither of these films are musical comedies so they won’t stir the kind of laughs that “The Intouchables” will. But these are the kinds of films that in some way feel like they’re getting back to this need to stir up controversy that I associate with what you’ve done in the past.

Harvey Weinstein: It isn’t the need to stir up controversy, it’s the need to support filmmakers who want to have a voice and they want an unfiltered, uncensored voice. You know, I’ve always wanted to work with Paul Thomas Anderson but I don’t think there’s any accident why we got together on this. Megan Ellison is a brilliant producer but I think the themes of this movie and the subject matter, you need somebody who is going to step in front of this and be fearless about it. And I think that’s a calling card that we fit as a company. And that’s in our DNA; be it Miramax or The Weinstein Company. We are them. And I think in Quentin’s situation, [the film is] wildly entertaining but I think Quentin’s dealing with a lot of political issues and doing master work. You know, people talk about a Golden Age of cinema. Throw David O. Russell in there with “The Silver Linings Playbook,” which is such a wonderful movie, [he’s] a great auteur, or Andrew Dominik [director of “Killing Them Softly”], the most stubborn Australian filmmaker ever, but talented nonetheless. Really talented. And [John] Hillcoat’s “Lawless,” we have a number of great auteurs.

We also noticed that it's been about a month since the last teaser for "The Master" was released (6/19), which was almost exactly a month since the one prior (5/19). Might we see a third teaser sometime this week? Only time will tell. We're getting very close now, just 88 more days until the film's US release.

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