Festivals - Gerardmer 2022 : Focus on the two guests of honor Nicholas Meyer and Edgar Wright

By Mulder, 13 january 2022

This year the festival will pay a tribute to Nicholas Meyer (director, screenwriter and writer) and Edgar Wight (director, screenwriter & producer).

Nicholas Meyer:

"I am interested in people and characters. But I want to be able to care about the people first before I go any further. And I don't care if they're from another planet." - Nicholas Meyer

Born in New York City, Nicholas Meyer attended the University of Iowa where he studied theater and directing. His work as a writer and director for film and television, as well as a novelist, spans more than five decades.

He made his debut behind the camera in 1979 with the feature film It was tomorrow, for which he also wrote the screenplay. This first science fiction film, in which he directs Malcolm McDowell, Mary Steenburger and David Warner, tells the story of how novelist H. G. Wells pursues Jack the Ripper through time. It won numerous awards that year, including the Grand Prix at the Avoriaz Film Festival.

In 1982, Nicholas Meyer wrote and directed the second installment of the adventures of the crew of the spaceship USS Enterprise, Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, then his sixth, Star Trek VI: Unknown Earth (1991). He also wrote for the cinema the comedy Always Ready (1986) with Tom Hanks and John Candy, the thriller The Impostors (1988) with Pierce Brosnan, and the crime comedy Company Business (1991) with Gene Hackman.

As a screenwriter for others, he wrote Jon Amiel's drama Sommersby (1993), starring Richard Gere and Jody Foster, as well as the film adaptation of two Philip Roth novels: Robert Benton's The Color of a Lie (2003), starring Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman, and Isabel Coixet's Elegy (2008), with Sir Ben Kinglsey and Penelope Cruz. He also participated in the writing of Adrian Lyne's Liaison fatale (1987) and the animated film The Prince of Egypt (1998).

Nicholas Meyer also works for television. The Day After Tomorrow, which he directed in 1983 for the American network ABC, is the most watched TV movie to date with more than 100 million viewers during its first broadcast. This drama, which shows the devastating effects of a nuclear attack in the United States, was nominated fourteen times for an Emmy Award. In 1999, he directed for HBO the drama Vendetta, starring Christopher Walken. In 2014, he signed Houdini, the Illusionist, a two-part miniseries based on the biography of his father Bernard C. Meyer and starring Adrien Brody in the title role. Nicholas Meyer is also the co-creator of the Netflix series The Medici: Masters of Florence, starring Dustin Hoffman, and is working on the television series Star Trek: Discovery for CBS Access.

Nicolas Meyer is also the author of numerous novels, including "The Seven Percent Solution" (1974), in which Dr. Watson, concerned about his friend Sherlock Holmes' cocaine use forces him to travel to Vienna to consult with the young Sigmund Freud, who puts the detective through a detoxification program. The novel is listed on the New York Times bestseller list for forty weeks and sells over two million copies. It won the British Gold Dagger, a British literary award given annually to the best crime novel of the year by the British Crime Writers' Association.

In 1976, he signed the screenplay for the adaptation of his novel under the title of Sherlock Holmes Attacks on the Orient Express. The film, directed by Herbert Ross and starring Nicol Williamson, Robert Duvall, Alan Arkin, Vanessa Redgrave and Laurence Olivier, received two Academy Award nominations, including Best Adapted Screenplay for Nicholas Meyer.

He also wrote the novels "The Lost Honor of Sergeant Rollins" (1974), "Confessions of a Homing Pigeon" (1981) and three other Sherlock Holmes adventures: "The Horror of the West End" (listed as a New York Times bestseller in 1976), "Sherlock Holmes and the Phantom of the Opera" (1993) and most recently "The Adventure of the Peculiar Protocols" (2019). His memoirs, "The View from the Bridge: Memories of Star Trek and a Life in Hollywood", were published in 2009. His latest book, "The Return of the Pharaoh from the Reminiscences of John H. Watson", a new adventure of Sherlock Holmes, has just been published in the United States by Minautor Books.

The following three films by Nicholas Meyer will be presented during the Festival:
1979 Time After Time
1982 Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
1991 Star Trek VI: Unknown Land

The Festival will also present the documentary Television Event by Jeff Daniels, which recounts the shock created by the broadcast in the United States of Nicholas Meyer's The Day After Tomorrow in 1983.

Edgard Wright: 

"A horror film has to have something that disturbs you, it has to strike at the heart of your intimacy to work. - Edgar Wright

Edgar Wright grew up in the UK and began developing his inimitable visual style by making Super 8 films with his classmates. At the age of 20, he directed A Fistful of Fingers, a Western with a microscopic budget that was released in a very limited number of theaters, but allowed the budding director to work for television. He signed several episodes of comedy series, including the two seasons of the series Les Allumés, which quickly became cult. He begins his fruitful collaboration with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, actors in the series, but also with his producer Nina Park who will follow him on all his future projects.

In 2004, the series gave birth to the feature film Shaun of the Dead. This horror comedy was a box-office success, became a critical darling and created legions of fans. The absolute master of the genre, George Romero, even confided that it was his favorite zombie movie. Edgar Wright then directed the police comedy Hot Fuzz (2007) and the horrific comedy The Last Pub Before the End of the World (2013). Shaun of the Dead and these 2 films get the appellation of "Three Flavor Ice Cream Cone Trilogy" and are all written by Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg. Edgar Wright is also attached to direct the adaptation of the famous graphic novel Scott Pilgrim (2010), which he also co-wrote and produced.

In 2017, the filmmaker changes the register with Baby Driver, an action film mixing speed, crazy love and offbeat playlist, in which he directs Ansel Elgort, Kevin Spacey, Jon Hammn Jamie Foxx and Lily James, among others. The film grossed over $220 million worldwide and received three Oscar nominations and two BAFTA nominations, winning the BAFTA for Best Editing. His passion for cinema also led him to collaborate with other great directors. He directed the fake trailer called "Don't" in Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's diptych Grindhouse, and co-wrote Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn for producer Peter Jackson. In addition, the filmmaker supports the new generation of filmmakers and produces the British films Attack the Block by Joe Cornish (2011) and Tourists by Ben Wheatley (2012). In 2018, he founded the production company Complete Fiction Pictures with his long-time collaborators Nitra Park, Joe Cornish and Rachael Prior.

His first documentary film, The Sparks Brothers, which covers the 50-year career of the California pop group Sparks, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and will hit theaters in the summer of 2021. In his spare time, Edgar Wright regularly programs at the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles, the Bloor Cinema in Toronto, BAMcinématek in New York, the Prince Charles Cinema, Picturehouse Central and the British Film Institute in London.

His last feature film, the horrific drama Last Night in Soho, screened at the Venice and Toronto Film Festivals, was successfully released last year. Edgar Wright's next four films will be shown at the Festival:
2004 Shaun of the dead
2010 Scott pilgrim
2013 The last pub before the end of the world
2021 Last night in Soho

A conversation with Edgar Wright, open to the public, will take place on Saturday, January 29th.

(Source : press kit)