Le Havre (Aki Kaurismaki) was very well received at TIFF on Thursday evening. While the director was not there, the lead actor, André Wilms introduced the film and returned to the stage and the end for a highly entertaining Q&A. Some bits of information we garnered: - Kaurismaki shoots in two takes. More would cost money - He has no patience for actors' wanting to know their inner motivation or any such thing. He tells you to look up, look right and do this. - To change things up, he once whistled and mimed direction to the actor. - Kaurismaki brought his entire crew to Cannes (including craft services) on his own dime.

I don't know why the hard returns at the end of the list items were not accepted by the blog.

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen The crowd (at least 3/4 of which were over the age of 60) seemed to love this film. They didn't give it a standing ovation, at least not at the Sunday viewing, but the applause was quite generous. Overly generous in my opinion. The film starts off nicely and has quite a number of genuinely funny scenes (some of the dialogue is hilarious, especially that delivered by Kristen Scott Thomas), but what could have been a good film was ruined by two inane subplots that gush of cliches and sentimentality in the third act. Perhaps those subplots were in the book. Perhaps they were well incorporated in the screenplay and the problem was in the direction. But it was extremely disappointing to see such potential get sunk by that much saccharine.

Thanks, Lise, for these reports. Are you surprised that CBS Films paid $5M to acquire the rights to Salmon Fishing in the Yemen?

@Scott. Sorry for the delay--was at TIFF again without a computer. $5 mil seems a bit much for it but I'm not surprised it sold for 7 figures. A feel-good Disney-type movie based on a book with known actors should serve them well. I must admit I had no clue CBS got into the business.