Javier Bardem and Marion Cotillard Join ‘The Turning Door’ as It Heads to TIFF

That is the kind of premise that can sound like a child’s storybook or a sales deck after three coffees. The reports do not tell us what the animation looks like, how the world works on screen or whether the film has found a tone beyond the nouns in its synopsis. The film has not been released, and none of the coverage describes finished scenes. We know the machinery of the pitch; we do not know the movie’s pulse.

The one genuine jolt is the music. The cast will perform original songs written by Bateman and Claire Givens, whose credits include Mother Mary and People Museum. An animated fantasy that asks Bardem, Cotillard and Redgrave to sing is at least making a clear wager. Whether that wager pays off is a question for the film, not the announcement.

Photos: Lyn Fairly Media · CC BY 3.0 · source; Mathis Desperrois · CC0 · source

Nicholas Ashe Bateman’s Happy-Dream Language

Bateman’s statement is where the project starts sounding like a committee in a room full of mood boards. He said he had spent years writing and dreaming of parts for great actors, called the performers “iconic artists,” and praised their talents, life experience and wish to make hopeful pictures for young people. He ended with the selling point: audiences will hear them sing.

The language is sincere, perhaps. It is also publicity language doing what publicity language does: turning a cast list into a moral event. The Hollywood Reporter, Variety and Deadline all carried versions of the same statement. The facts underneath are simpler. Bateman wrote and directed the film. Givens co-wrote the music. A group of high-profile performers agreed to lend their voices and songs to an animated feature still being made.

That is enough. The adjectives do not add a second film.

Photos: Mblegacy · CC0 · source; Lyn Fairly Media · CC BY 3.0 · source

TIFF Gets Footage; The Film Still Has No Date

Mister Smith is handling international sales and co-representing North American rights with After Hours, the production company tied to Christine D’Souza. Hunter Hall and Bateman’s Maere Studios are also producing, with Laura Rister producing for Esme Grace Pictures. Kharmel Cochrane cast the film.

TIFF: The Market gives The Turning Door a business appointment before it has a public release appointment. Buyers will see new footage, and the project will try to turn its cast and musical hook into distribution deals. That is the immediate consequence of the casting news.

The less glamorous consequence is the waiting. Production is underway. A release date has not been announced. The characters played by Bardem, Cotillard and Redgrave remain undisclosed. For now, The Turning Door is a box, an expanding door, a young heroine named Ariadlyn and a roomful of famous voices waiting to prove that the songs are more than a very expensive invitation to imagine them.

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