Jane Campion

The incredibly inane, but nevertheless mainstream representative, People's Choice Awards have nominated some impressive women and films in their categories this year;
Abbie Cornish, of Bright Star, for fave breakout star; Christine Jeffs' Sunshine Cleaning, Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker and Jane Campion's Bright Star for fave independent films; Catherine Hardwicke's Twilight as fave film; and the Barrymore-directed Whip It's Ellen Page, Eve and Kristen Wiig as best onscreen pairing. Not to mention the Charlaine Harris-created True Blood, the Eliza Dushku-produced Dollhouse, and female-watched Ghost Whisperer as fave sci-fi/fantasy shows. True Blood, not surprisingly, appears in the TV Obsession category.

Did you know YOU can vote right here? You're people, and you can choose stuff.

Jane Campion's gothic romance Bright Star has been nominated for the "Hollywood World Awards" to be given at The Hollywood Film Festival and Hollywood Awards on October 26, 2009.

The story, set in 1818, chronicles the love affair between romantic poet John Keats and 18 year-old Fanny Brawne, and Keats's eventual death. The award is a key predictor of foreign films that are set to receive kudos in the year's awards season. Qualifying films must have had their world premieres between Oct. 1, 2008, and Oct. 1, 2009, encompassing this year's crop from all the major film festivals.

Written and directed by Jane Campion
Featuring Abbie Cornish, Ben Winshaw, Paul Schneider, Kerry Fox

Jane Campion, we’ve missed you so. Her weird Australian/British/New Zealand movies that always have long boring stretches before some ungodly and violent act usually involving blood are so poignant. In the Cut, her last film, featured a full-frontal Meg Ryan and a decapitated Jennifer Jason Leigh. Campion’s Bright Star, a gothic romance about romantic poet John Keats and his relatively sexless but emotional affair with an 18-year-old girl-next-door named Fanny Brawne, isn’t as good as The Piano (no one’s fingers get cut off – but you can’t have everything) and is too long for the modern moron to appreciate. Still, you get languid death and depressing poems, which isn’t half bad...

There's finally a trailer for the Jane Campion (The Piano) written and directed gothic romance Bright Star, starring Abbie Cornish and Ben Whishaw, which chronicles the tragically doomed love affair between romantic poet John Keats and the young Fanny Brawne. Its like Jane Austen with less 'lame' and more 'Yay'.

Bright Star will be released on October 18th, 2009 in US theaters. Check out the trailer and the official synopsis below...

London-born Charlotte Gainsbourg won the best actress prize at the Cannes Film Festival tonight for her over-the-top performance as a grieving mother in the Lars Von Trier gorefest Antichrist.

British thriller Fish Tank directed by British film-maker Andrea Arnold shared a special jury prize. The film , set on an East London council estate is about a 15 year-old teenager who is excluded from school. Her life is turned upside down when her mother's handsome boyfriend, played by Michael Fassbender, moves in...

Check out this clip of Jane Campion's (The Piano, In The Cut) gothic romace Bright Star, the story of romantic poet John Keats and his doomed love for Fanny Browne:

As she was applauded after the recent Cannes screening of her gothic romance Bright Star, which tells of the romance between the 19th century romantic poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne, New Zealand director Jane Campion had a few things to say about how male-dominated Hollywood stinks. She's the only woman to have ever won the Cannes Palme d'Or for 1993's The Piano, and she's one of only 3 women directors who have films in competition at Cannes this year out of 20 (Andrea Arnold and Isabel Coixet are the others)

"The studio system is an old boy's system, and it's difficult for them to trust women to be capable," said Jane. "So good luck to my female friends in the competition. They represent half the population [who] gave birth to the whole world."

Bright Star, Jane Campion's latest movie (she directed In The Cut and The Piano), is in the competition at the Cannes 2009 Film Festival. The gothic romance is based on the three-year relationship between 19th century Romantic poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne, which was cut short by Keats' untimely death at age 25.

Out of competition is Marina de Van's latest psychodrama (she directed the gory In My Skin) about eerie physical experiences called Ne te retourne pas starring Monica Belluci and Sophie Marceau...

There are some poetic, gothic films being made (and have been many) about the lives of poets. Now, women seem to be hopping on that bandwagon! First we hear about director Jane Campion (In The Cut)'s production of Bright Star about romantic poet John Keats, and now Matthew Rhys plays the neurotic, death-obsessed Welsh poet Dylan Thomas in The Edge Of Love, with Sienna Miller as wife Caitlin, Keira Knightley as his muse and Cillian Murphy as her soldier lover. It was written by Sharman Macdonald, Kiera Knightley's mother...

Actress Holly Hunter recently opened up about working with horror directors Jane Campion (In The Cut) and Catherine Hardwicke (the upcoming Twilight) to Variety.

On The Piano (1993) - "Jane Campion remains one of the most formative people in my life. I really pursued that movie, felt that I was right for it (even when) no one else did. But Jane was enough of a true independent individual to keep an open mind regarding me. A lot of people would have said, 'She's just not right, I don't need to see her.' And Jane said, 'If she really feels this strongly, I'll be glad to see her.' She gave me the chance to change her mind."

On Thirteen (2003) - "I look back on it with nothing but great enthusiasm and love because of the voice that (writer) Nikki Reed and (writer-director) Catherine Hardwicke found together. They both wrote in this journal -- that was incredibly magical of Catherine to suggest she and Nikki do that. Nikki was an avid journal keeper well before then, so she already had the writing habit, and Catherine had the gift to see that it could be something they could do together."