The U.S. filmmaker, whose latest drama The Tree of Life earned the top honour at the prestigious French film fest in May, will be celebrated with retrospectives in Toronto and Vancouver. The two events come immediately ahead of the Cannes-winning film’s debut in each city.

The Toronto International Film Festival Group begins a series titled New Worlds: The Films of Terrence Malick on Saturday. Running through June 15, the series will screen his four previous movies Badlands, Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line and The New World.

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Fox Searchlight’s recent Cannes Film Festival Palme D’Or winner The Tree Of Life from filmmaker Terrence Malick and starring Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, and Jessica Chastain, broke records this weekend with every prime and evening show sold out in all locations (2 in NY and 2 in LA). It grossed grossed $352,320, with a theater average of $88,080. This will be the highest opening average of any Fox Searchlight film — even ahead of Black Swan’s $80,000 per theatre. The grosses are even more impressive when you consider the film is 2½ hours long (and therefore gets significantly fewer showings). Playing in the Arclight in Hollywood, the Landmark in West LA, as well as the Lincoln Plaza and the Sunshine in New York, the film had a very traditional art house roll out. Next weekend, it will open in exclusive engagements in an additional 8 cities while adding just 3 additional theaters in both New York and Los Angeles. Expansions are planned and booked for the succeeding four weeks when the film will reach its national release on July 1. Malick’s signature imagery and complex storyline in this fifth film earned a 92% rating on both Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic. But its rollout indicated more interest than just cinephiles.

Read more/discuss. Thanks Gabriella.

In other news, producer Wilson Yuloque of local film company Pioneer Films hinted at the possibility of award-winning Hollywood actor Brad Pitt visiting Philippines soon to promote his 2011 drama film, “The Tree of Life.” Pitt both starred in and produced the said movie, while Pioneer Films is its local distributor.

“We can invite him to come here for the festival. He’s the producer so he’s excited and he wants more people to see the movie,” Yuloque told GMA News on Tuesday, referring to this month’s 16th French Film Festival where he said the movie will be screened as the closing film.

The Festival will have its run at Shangri-la Plaza Mall from June 8 to 19; at Ayala Center Cebu from June 23 to 25; and at the UP Film Institute in Quezon City from June 28 to July 2. However, the film is yet unlisted in the 2011 festival line-up released by FrancoPhil, Embassy of Ftrance in the Philippines and Alliance Francaise de Manille during the media screening on May 31.

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NPR News’ Rachel Martin interviewed Brad on Sunday, May 27. Thanks Lynn!

Brad Pitt Interviews with NPR Radio

There will be few halfhearted reactions to Terrence Malick’s grandly ambitious new film, “The Tree of Life,” which last week was awarded the Palme d’Or, the Cannes Film Festival’s highest prize.

Partisans of the director, one of American film’s few genuine visionaries (“Days of Heaven,” “The New World”), will see it as a deeply moving, poetic meditation that addresses classic spiritual and philosophical questions with sublime images and minimal dialogue. Viewers of a different temperament will find it self-important and arty in the worst way.

The cast includes Brad Pitt as the authoritarian father, Bay Area native Jessica Chastain as his wife and Sean Penn as the grown-up son. Chronicle Movie Critic Mick LaSalle calls Pitt’s performance one of the actor’s finest.

Pitt spoke by phone from Los Angeles.

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It’s been one of the bigger cinematic mysteries ever since buzz around the movie intensified last year — just what exactly is “The Tree of Life” about? Terrence Malick’s new film, as those of us who saw it in Cannes described, grapples with many subjects — love and family, nature and religion, sadness and suffering. In this new exclusive video, actors Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain, along with the film’s producers, walk us through clips and moments in one of the spring’s most anticipated films.

Snapshot: An unseasonably hot May night in New York, 1991. The feminist road movie “Thelma & Louise” has just had a splashy premiere, with an after-party at a Mexican restaurant. A 27-year-old actor named Brad Pitt, who started the night as an unknown, has emerged from the screening as the breakout story. At the party, he and his girlfriend, Juliette Lewis, greet well-wishers at their table — not a crush of fans, mind you, but the kind of high-energy scrum that announces to everyone present: From now on, this young man will be a star.

A friend and I happened to witness the transformation firsthand that night. But as we watched the blond, baby-faced actor throw back beers with his posse, we weren’t entirely sure whether Pitt knew that his life had irrevocably changed.

“I remember that night,” he said in a call from Los Angeles last week. “But I was absolutely naive and was not prepared for what it would mean. I just wanted to be in movies, I wanted opportunities, and that’s what I saw from that.”

Read more. Really nice interview. Btw, I also updated BP Press, go have a look.

In his latest movie, The Tree of Life (opening in New York and Los Angeles May 27, and nationwide soon after), Brad Pitt plays the domineering father of three young sons in 1950s Texas – a small-town setting that hit close to home, he says.

Pitt, 47, says he was reminded of his own boyhood in Springfield, Mo., while making the film, in which Sean Penn plays his grown son.

“We were out running around until dark, chasing fireflies with tennis rackets, up to all sorts of mayhem,” Pitt recalls of his childhood.

These days, the actor is raising six kids of his own (three adopted, three biological) with partner Angelina Jolie, while roaming the world on movie shoots and humanitarian missions.

Read more. Thanks marypoppinsmyass. (Updated with some more bits)

Thanks also Carole.

U.S. director Terrence Malick’s long-awaited film “The Tree of Life” won the Palme d’Or prize for best picture at the Cannes film festival on Sunday.

Tree of Life Premiere
Date: Tuesday May 24th
Attending: Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and many more
Location: Grauman’s Chinese Theatre 6925 Hollywood Blvd, in Hollywood (Cinema (TBC)
Time: Probably starting Between 5:00pm-7:00pm

Thanks Debra.