german

Bono and The Edge from U2 delivered a tribute to the evenings Lifetime Achievement recipient and a powerful video featuring the work of J/P Haitian Relief Organization and the RWH Foundation, an opportunity to join both NGO's on humanity missions was later auctioned and sold twice garnering $150,000, followed by a riveting introduction by Edner Nonez brought the room to their feet as Founder and CEO of J/P HRO Sean Penn took the stage to accept his Lifetime Achievement Award.  Mr. Penn delivered a passionate speech encouraging us all to be heroes and calling for the sustainable development of Haiti stating that, "education is Haiti's current emergency and in the absence of a proper education dies the mind and the soul."  Mr. Penn acknowledged President Martelly as a potential hero indicating that "against all odds, the Haitian people were able to stand up and demand a clear and bold choice in the Presidency" stating further, "we really are at that point in Haiti where the dots are connecting, The IDB, The World Bank, the Government and so many NGO's are working together ... let's make now that shining moment for Haiti and an example of what we can do."

HAPPY HEARTS FUND NEMCOVA PENN Petra Nemcova, Founder & Chairwoman, Happy Hearts Fund; Sean Penn, Founder & CEO, J/P Haitian Relief Organization and Lifetime Achievement Honoree; Renee Haugerud, Founder & CIO, Galtere LTD. and Heart of Gold Honoree; Phillip Caputo, Executive Director, Happy Hearts Fund attend Happy Hearts Fund Land of Dreams: Haiti gala on Nov. 5, 2011 in New York City. (PRNewsFoto/Happy Hearts Fund) NEW YORK, NY UNITED STATES

Source: prnewswire

Sean Penn will direct the independent drama "The Comedian," with Robert De Niro and Kristen Wiig starring.

According to Variety, the script was written by Art Linson and Jeffrey Ross.

Art Linson, John Linson, Jon Kilik and De Niro are producing.

Production is set for next spring.

The film centers on a past-his-prime comic (De Niro) desperate to revive his career who, after being sentenced to community service for assaulting an audience member in the head with his microphone, meets a woman (Wiig) who changes his life.

Source: monstersandcritics


 

After being in Egypt and taking part in the "Friday Revolution Regaining" in Midan Al Tahrir, Sean Penn paid a visit to Libya.
Arriving on Wednesday, October 5th, Penn refused to disclose what he plans on doing in the capitol.
However, Sean gave a statement outside the hotel he was staying at, and said that he truly admires the courage that calls for freedom and described it as being extraordinary.
He also said that he believes in the power of Libya and the Libyans to shift to democracy, especially after the enormous price they paid, and thus he has no doubt that they will continue what they started until they get to what they want.

 
Sean Penn Visits Tripoli via associatedpress

Sean Penn as among the demonstrators at a protest in Egypt on Friday calling for a faster transition to democracy. The two-time Oscar winner arrived in north Africa at the invitation of Egyptian film star Khaled El Nabawy as part of efforts to show the country is once again safe for tourists following the revolution earlier this year that overthrew the regime of president Hosni Mubarak.

The rallies in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the centre for protests that forced Mubarak out of office in February, were held under the slogan Reclaiming the Revolution. Protesters are calling on the country's military leaders for earlier elections – currently planned for 28 November, two months later than promised after Mubarak's fall – and the repeal of emergency laws added to the statute book under the dictator that gave security forces powers to detain citizens and hold them in custody.

Penn was quoted on the live blog of the Egyptian daily Al-Ahram as saying: "The world is inspired by the call for freedom by the courageous revolution of Egypt for its freedom. Clearly that is not a completion overnight, there are still struggles forward, there are constitutional issues, there is … a transition of power from the military to the people. So in solidarity with our brave Egyptian brothers we are here to support their freedom."

Source: Guardian

Photos: AP

Oscar winner asked Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez to negotiate freedom for pair held in Iran on espionage charges.

Two-time Oscar-winner Sean Penn was involved in the release of the two American hikers held in Iran on espionage charges, according to Reuters.

Penn flew to Venezuela in the hope of convincing President Hugo Chávez to approach Tehran. Chávez is close to Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, while Penn has met the Venezuelan president on a number of occasions. Venezuela's deputy foreign minister, Temir Porras, told Reuters last week that an "American intellectual" had spoken to Chávez about the case of Joshua Fattal and Shane Bauer, who were freed on Wednesday after two years in custody. Penn's spokesman later confirmed that the intellectual in question was the star, who won Oscars for Mystic River and Milk.

A source told Reuters: "Penn was very committed to the case … He flew to Caracas several months ago to raise it with Chávez and he kept on it."

Fattal and Bauer were arrested in July 2009 on the border with Iraq, where they said they had been hiking.

Penn is well known for his political activism and has spent time in both Venezuela and Cuba visiting Chávez and Raúl Castro. He was a fierce critic of George W Bush during the latter's time in office. He made a visit to Iran just before the 2005 presidential election as a journalist on an assignment for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Source: Guardian UK

 

"Actually, Mick Jagger sang with me." Time to get a little taste of Sean Penn in drag. Our friends at Twitch have uncovered the first trailer for This Must Be The Place, directed by  Italian filmmaker Paolo Sorretino, starring Sean Penn as a "bored, retired rock star" who hunts the US to find the ex-Nazi war criminal who killed his father and "track down and confront his father's nemesis."

Watch the first trailer for Paolo Sorrentino's This Must Be The Place

This Must Be The Place is written and directed by Italian filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino, making his English language debut after directing One Man Up, The Consequences of Love, The Family Friend and Il Divo previously. The screenplay was co-written by Sorrentino and Umberto Contarello (The Missing Star, A Question of the Heart, The Passion). This first premiered at the Cannes Film Festival this year. Trinity Entertainment will be bringing This Must Be The Place to theaters, but hasn't set an official release date yet.

Source: http://www.firstshowing.net

Hal Holbrook was honored with the Julie Harris Award at the Actor's Fund 15th Annual Tony Award Viewing Party in Los Angeles on June 12, 2011. Previous recipients of the award have included Julie Harris, Rita Moreno, James Earl Jones, Lauren Bacall and Liza Minnelli.

The star-studded fundraising event was held at Skirball Cultural Center and was the only approved simulcast of the Tony Awards. The gala was hosted by Marilu Henner with guest appearances by Brian Stokes Mitchell, Martin Sheen and Sean Penn.

Penn, who previously directed Holbrook in Into the Wild, presented the award to the 86-year old actor in front of friends and family members at the sold-out gala dinner.

"Hal always got it on the first take, but you wanted to make him do it again, just so you could watch him work," Penn said.

The Actors Fund was established in 1892 and is a four-star rated human services charity for anybody who has made a living in show business, according to Chairman of the Board, Brian Stokes Mitchell.

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

Actor Sean Penn accepts the "Guy Movie Hall of Fame" award for the movie "Fast Times at Ridgemont High"
from actor Robert De Niro at the 5th annual Spike TV's Guys Choice awards in Culver City, California June 4, 2011.

Sean Penn, Forest Whitaker, Judge Reinhold, Robert Romanus and director Amy Heckerling all took the stage. Sean Penn even dusted off his Jeff Spicoli voice, saying, “Aloha, Mr. Hand” at the end of his speech!

 

 

 

May 30, 2011 - "The Gangster Squad" recruits Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling & Josh Brolin

Negotiations have begun between Warner Bros. and Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling, and Josh Brolin to star in the action-crime drama The Gangster Squad.

Directed by Zombieland helmer Ruben Fleischer, the project, previously known as Tales From the Gangster Squad, centers on a special unit of the Los Angeles Police Department in the 1940s that was tasked with ridding the city of gangster Mickey Cohen and his crime operation.

Penn is reportedly in talks to star as Cohen, while Ryan Gosling and Josh Brolin will play two of the elite cops charged with the duty of arresting the associate of Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel.

While it isn't clear when The Gangster Squad will go into production, if all three of these actors come on board it is a testament to Will Beall's strength as a screenwriter, and could work in the favor of Fleischer's next film—30 Minutes or Less (out August 12).

The Gangster Squad shoots its way into theaters on 2013.

Source: www.complex.com

Source: www.jaunted.com

As one of the main hosts of the charity dinner "Sean Penn & Friends" on the 18th May 2011, Salus Alpha donated in favor of Sean Penn´s charity organization J/P HRO. This event took place in the Carlton Hotel in Cannes and attracted high-profile stars. Guests like Uma Thurman, Jane Fonda, Faye Dunaway, Naomi Campbell, Robert de Niro & Leonardo DiCaprio made the evening unforgettable and contributed significantly to the success of this charity dinner.

The main initiators of the evening, who generously supported Sean Penn´s charity project, were Oliver Prock from Salus Alpha, Jaka Bizilj from Cinema for Peace, Ella Krasner, Roberta Armani and Maybach.

During the evening Mr. Sean Penn held an emotive speech, pointing to Haiti´s ongoing catastrophic conditions at the same time providing the guests with first positive results of the reconstruction efforts.

CANNES, France — A quick onstage chat at the closing night of the Cannes Film Festival launched Sean Penn and director Paolo Sorrentino on a trek that brought them back to the world's most prestigious showcase.

Penn and Sorrentino's first collaboration, the comic drama "This Must Be the Place," premiered Friday at Cannes, where three years earlier the actor headed the awards jury that gave the director's Italian political saga "Il Divo" the festival's third-place jury prize.

Sorrentino and Penn recalled meeting onstage after awards were handed out. Penn had been impressed enough with Sorrentino's work that he made an open-ended pledge about working together.

"I think it was a photo at the end, where everyone gets on stage for the group photo, and I said something to him like, 'Anytime, anywhere,' and next I knew, he had this script," Penn said at a press conference. "He went ahead and wrote the script, and then about a year later, he called me up."

"This Must Be the Place" casts two-time Academy Award winner Penn as a childlike ex-rock star who leaves behind his life of seclusion in Ireland for a trek across America in pursuit of his late father's Nazi tormentor from the Holocaust. With long locks of hair and heavy makeup, including lipstick, Penn bears some resemblance to rocker Ozzy Osbourne, but the actor said he had not been patterning his character at all on the heavy metal icon.

Penn's character ponders if he's suffering from depression, and his journey to fulfill his father's quest plays out as a road trip in which he rediscovers America and a sense of his rocker's spirit.

"Rock 'n' roll is a place that is very important, because it counters what I think has become kind of the disease of a polite society," Penn said. "So that this movie taking on the matters of one's own purpose and soul and history and compromises, and in some kind of pursuit to break through a depression, that's what rock 'n' roll always has been."

The film co-stars Frances McDormand, Kerry Condon, Harry Dean Stanton, Judd Hirsch and Eve Hewson, daughter of U2 singer Bono. Talking Heads leader David Byrne provides music and plays himself in the film for a performance of the title song.

Sorrentino has become a Cannes regular, "This Must Be the Place" marking his fourth film in the festival's main competition since 2004.

"It's no coincidence that Paolo's movies are systematically finding themselves embraced by a festival where the bar is so high and multicultural. It's where I first found out about his magic hand," Penn said, turning to address Sorrentino beside him at the press conference. "So I hope for you that they have the discernment to once again celebrate your work."

"This Must Be the Place" is one of 20 films competing for Cannes main prize, the Palme d'Or, which will be handed out Sunday night.

Source: www.desertnews.com

May 16, 2011 - "Tree of Life" Premiere in Cannes with Sean Penn 

Riding a tidal wave of anticipation, Terrence Malick’s coming-of-age epic, The Tree of Life, finally made its premiere at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. The film, which Malick has reportedly been working on for close to four decades, tells the story of a father (Brad Pitt) and mother (Jessica Chastain) who struggle to raise young boys in 1950s Texas. One of them grows up to become a sad, disillusioned man, played by Sean Penn. The film, billed as a spiritual journey, reportedly incorporates the evolutionary spectrum, from the cosmos to dinosaurs and beyond. While The Tree of Life garnered some boos after the screening, the film nonetheless impressed critics. Variety called it “extraordinary,” but also an “inescapably divisive picture,” while The Guardian, in its five-star review, deemed it a “mad and magnificent film.” Movieline was less impressed, remarking how Malick’s film “is a gargantuan work of pretension and cleverly concealed self-absorption.”

Source: thedailybeast

 

MAY 16: Actors Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain and Sean Penn attend 'The Tree Of Life' premiere during
the 64th Annual Cannes Film Festival at Palais des Festivals on May 16, 2011 in Cannes, France.

 

Cannes Film Festival trailer for “Tree of Life.”

 

 

Read More:

  Cannes Report: "Malick's beautiful, booed 'Tree of Life' "

  Variety: " 'Tree of Life' Review "

  Hollywood Reporter: " 'Tree of Life' Review "

 

April 12, 2011 - "The Last Photograph" adds Sean Penn and Christian Bale

Christian Bale and Sean Penn are both circling the war project The Last Photograph for Warner Bros. and director Niels Arden Oplev.

We first reported on this project back in March 2009, when Mongol director Sergey Bodrov was attached to the project. Now Niels Arden Oplev, who directed the original Swedish version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, is on board to direct.

Kurt Johnstad (300) wrote the screenplay based off an original idea by Zack Snyder. Christian Bale is looking to play a war correspondent who witnesses a brutal attack on American soldiers in Afghanistan, and is the only survivor. Sean Penn will portray an ex-soldier who returns to Afghanistan to find the kidnapped family member, who teams up with the war journalist to identify the captors.

The project was originally set up at Warner Bros., although it will likely move to Dark Castle with producers Joel Silver and Andrew Rona. Warner Bros. will still distribute The Last Photograph, with Dark Castle financing the movie.

Production is being eyed for a 2012 start.

Source: http://www.movieweb.com

 

April 14, 2011 - Sean Penn in the "Real Man" Campaign

 

Join the Real Men Don't Buy Girls Campaign to take a stand against child sex slavery.
Spread the word & create your own video on our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/dnafoundation

 

 

 

 

February 16, 2011 - Cinema for Peace Honorary Award 2011 for Sean Penn in Berlin

Sean Penn was awarded with the Cinema for Peace Honorary Award 2011 on February 14 at a Gala held at the Konzerthaus Am Gendarmenmarkt in Berlin which was attended by Sir Bob Geldof, Jeanne Marine, Bianca Jaggar and Nastassja Kinski. Bianca Jaggar and Nastassja Kinski presented Sean Penn with the Cinema for Peace Honorary Award for his humanitarian efforts in Haiti after the earthquake which ravaged the area in 2010.

The Cinema for Peace is an international charity organization which holds an annual gala and uses the event as a platform for peace and increasing tolerance. The organization started in 2002 and has members from the international film community. The gala event is held every year in Berlin and honors film work that focuses on values, social issues, political issues and peace.

Sean Penn, although well known for his acting career, is also an activist for the environment and politics. He has done extensive humanitarian work in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and now he is known for the work he has done in 2010 to help the people of Haiti after the earthquake.

Sean Penn recently told Vanity Fair of his mission: ” “[Haiti has] returned to me something I lost – my humility.”

The day before, Sean Penn, Sir Bob Geldof and Astronaut Buzz Aldrin attended a press conference for the Cinema for Peace.

Source: examiner

 

 

Citation delivered by Guido Westerwelle, on the presentation of the Cinema for Peace Honorary Award to Sean Penn Berlin

 

 

 

January 23, 2011 - Sean Penn accepts Kramer Award

On January 22 Sean Penn received the prestigious Stanley Kramer Award by Major Brian Woolworth, a fellow veteran of the Haitian relief effort.

 

 

 

January 7, 2011 - PGA honors Sean Penn with Kramer Award

The Producers Guild of America has selected Sean Penn to receive its Stanley Kramer Award -- marking the first time the kudo has gone to an individual.

Award will be presented to Penn at the 22nd annual Producers Guild Awards ceremony on Jan. 22 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

The PGA established the Kramer Award in 2002 to honor an achievement or contribution that"illuminates provocative social issues in an accessible and elevating fashion." Previous recipients include pics "The Great Debaters," "An Inconvenient Truth," "Hotel Rwanda," "Innocent Voices," "In America," "Antwone Fisher," "Precious" and the 2002 winner "I Am Sam," starring Penn.

"Sean is a committed activist who has used his extraordinary talents and influence to shed light on powerful stories, causes and individuals -- through film, journalism and global humanitarian organizations," said Paula Wagner, chair of the awards.

The PGA noted that Penn's humanitarian work has found him in New Orleans in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and more recently in earthquake-ravaged Haiti. In January 2010, Penn founded the J/P Haitian Relief Organization, which focuses on medical aid, protection and relocation.

Source: variety

 

 

January 7, 2011 - "The Tree of Life" - First Trailer

 

 

 

News-Archive 2010    

Join Sean Penn on Facebook