Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner in David Slade's The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (top); Daniel Stamm's The Last Exorcism (upper middle); Zohar Strauss, Ran Danker in Haim Tabakman's Eyes Wide Open (lower middle); Isabelle Huppert in Claire Denis' White Material (bottom)
David Slade's The Twilight Saga: Eclipse isn't included on the Los Angeles Film Festival's Thursday, June 24, schedule. Even so, the world premiere of Eclipse, starring pop idols Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, and Taylor Lautner, is the top Los Angeles movie attraction of the day — possibly of the year.
The world premiere of the third installment of the Twilight franchise — following Catherine Hardwicke's Twilight (2008) and Chris Weitz's New Moon (2009) — will be held at the Nokia Theatre in downtown L.A. on Thursday evening.
Eclipse also features Bryce Dallas Howard, Dakota Fanning, Xavier Samuel, Kellan Lutz, Nikki Reed, Ashley Greene, Elizabeth Reaser, Peter Facinelli, Jackson Rathbone, Daniel Cudmore, Jodelle Ferland, Julia Jones, and Booboo Stewart.
Also on Thursday at LAFF 2010:
Isabelle Huppert stars as a coffee plantation owner facing the onset of civil war in an unnamed African country in Claire Denis' White Material. Christopher Lambert co-stars.
Filmed in (faux) documentary style, Daniel Stamm's The Last Exorcism follows a con-artist/exorcist who may have discovered the real devilish thing while handling the case of a farm girl suffering from nightmares.
Haim Tabakman's Eyes Wide Open, which opens in Los Angeles this Friday, depicts the inner struggles of two male Israeli ultra-Orthodox Jews in love, while Christopher Morris' Four Lions is a comedy about bumbling terrorists out to ruin the London Marathon. Riz Ahmed (The Road to Guantanamo, Rage) stars.
In Freakonomics, Seth Gordon, Rachel Grady, Heidi Ewing, Alex Gibney, Eugene Jarecki, and Morgan Spurlock bring to life the socioeconomic theories found in authors Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner's bestseller.
And finally, La mano en la trampa / The Hand in the Trap, Leopoldo Torre Nilsson's 1961 International Critics Prize winner at Cannes, stars Elsa Daniel as a young woman who will stop at nothing to uncover her family's deep dark secret. Francisco Rabal, of Luis Buñuel's Nazarin and Viridiana, co-stars.
For more information or to buy tickets, click here.
Photo: LAFF