Bleiberg sees Oscar for Goldblum

Bleiberg sees Oscar for Goldblum
Distributor launches campaign for 'Adam' star
By MICHAEL JONES

While self-distribution is usually the last resort for indie film, the producers of "Adam Resurrected" have gone a step further. Not content with a simple specialty release, they're paying handsomely for an Oscar campaign around star Jeff Goldblum.
Paul Schrader directed the adaptation of Yoram Kaniuk's novel about a former circus performer and Holocaust survivor stuck in an Israeli mental institution.

While Goldblum's perf was hailed at the Telluride, Toronto and Mill Valley film fests, producer Ehud Bleiberg didn't like the offers they were getting -- namely the proposed release dates. Distribs told him they had too much kudos bait already.

"Why would we screen the film at Telluride and Toronto and release it a year later?" Bleiberg asks.

Bleiberg is no stranger to Oscar nom drama. His last film -- the Israeli hit "The Band's Visit" --seemingly auto-qualified for Oscar consideration after winning the top Israeli Film Academy award. It was later disqualified for having too much English in it.

With "Adam Resurrected," he got a lot of advice from high-profile admirers, including George Lucas, to go DIY. So Bleiberg and co-producer 3L Filmproduktion have committed "a substantial amount" to the pic's award campaign for a shot at best actor.

Full-page ads, 20-plus screenings in N.Y. and L.A., plus 5,000 screeners have been the first salvo, with more to come, Bleiberg promises.

In March, he'll release the pic himself, accompanied, he hopes, by a little Oscar heat.

"There are hardly any specialty companies in L.A. anymore," he says. "We have no choice to but to take our destiny in our own hands."

SOURCE