From Participant Media and producer Lawrence Bender, who last teamed for the Academy Award® winning An Inconvenient Truth, COUNTDOWN TO ZERO is a stunning documentary about the escalating global nuclear arms crisis.

Written and directed by Lucy Walker (Waste Land, Blindsight), the film is a fascinating and frightening exploration of the dangers of nuclear weapons, exposing a variety of present day threats and featuring insights from a host of international statesmen and experts. Among the voices are President Jimmy Carter, Mikhail Gorbachev, Pervez Musharraf, Tony Blair, former CIA Operations Officer Valerie Plame Wilson, the Ploughshares Fund’s Joe Cirincione and Stanford political scientist Scott Sagan.

COUNTDOWN TO ZERO traces the history of the atomic bomb from its origins to the present state of global affairs: nine nations possessing nuclear weapons capabilities and others racing to join them, with the world held in a delicate balance that could be shattered by an act of terrorism, failed diplomacy, or a simple accident. It makes a compelling case for worldwide nuclear disarmament, an issue more topical than ever with President Obama and other world leaders working to revive this goal today.

Following its world premiere at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, COUNTDOWN TO ZERO was screened for attendees of this year’s Global Zero International Conference in Paris and the TED Conference in Long Beach, California. Magnolia Pictures will release the film in theaters in North America this July.

Credits
Lucy WALKER – Director
Nick HIGGINS – Cinematography
Bryan DONNELL – Cinematography
Gary CLARKE – Cinematography
Robert CHAPPELL – Cinematography
Peter GOLUB – Music
Brian JOHNSON – Film Editor
Brad FULLER – Film Editor

Actors
Bruce BLAIR
Joe CIRINCIONE
Mikhail GORBACHEV
Rolf MOWATT-LARSSEN
Pervez MUSHARRAF
Valerie Plame WILSON

Tags: COUNTDOWN TO ZERO, Mikhail Gorbachev, Pervez Musharraf, President Jimmy Carter, Tony Blair, Valerie Plame Wilson

• Cannes Film Festival 2010

Tags: Cannes 2010, Woody Allen

Tags: Michael Douglas, Money Never Sleeps, Oliver Stone, Wall Street

Tim Burton, President of the feature film jury, introduced the other members of this year’s jury. Among them British actress Kate Beckinsale (The Aviator, Pearl Harbor), alongside Italian actress Giovanna Mezzogiorno (Vincere), Alberto Barbera (Director of the National Museum of Cinema in Italy), director Emmanuel Carrere (La classe de neige), actor Benicio Del Toro (Che), director Victor Erice and Indian director Shekhar Kapur.

2010 FEATURE FILM JURY

Tim BURTON, President

Kate BECKINSALE, Actress, UK

Emmanuel CARRERE, Writer, Scriptwriter, Director, France

Benicio DEL TORO, Actor, Puerto Rico

Victor ERICE, Director, Spain

Alexandre DESPLAT, Composer

Giovanna MEZZOGIORNO, Actress, Italy

Alberto BARBERA, Director National Museum of Cinema, Italy

Shekhar KAPUR, Director, Actor, Producer, India

2010 OFFICIAL SELECTION IN COMPETITION

• ANOTHER YEAR directed by Mike LEIGH

• BIUTIFUL directed by Alejandro GONZÁLEZ IÑÁRRITU

• COPIE CONFORME directed by Abbas KIAROSTAMI

• DES HOMMES ET DES DIEUX (OF GODS AND MEN) directed by Xavier BEAUVOIS

• FAIR GAME directed by Doug LIMAN

• HORS LA LOI (OUTSIDE OF THE LAW) directed by Rachid BOUCHAREB

• LA NOSTRA VITA (OUR LIFE) directed by Daniele LUCHETTI

• LA PRINCESSE DE MONTPENSIER (THE PRINCESS OF MONTPENSIER) directed by Bertrand TAVERNIER

• LUNG BOONMEE RALUEK CHAT (Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives) directed by Apichatpong WEERASETHAKUL

• OUTRAGE directed by Takeshi KITANO

• POETRY directed by LEE Chang-dong

• RIZHAO CHONGQING (CHONGQING BLUES) directed by WANG Xiaoshuai

• SCHASTYE MOE (MY JOY) directed by Sergei LOZNITSA

• SZELÍD TEREMTÉS – A FRANKENSTEIN TERV (TENDER SON – The Frankenstein Project) directed by Kornél MUNDRUCZÓ

• THE HOUSEMAID directed by IM Sangsoo

• TOURNÉE (ON TOUR) directed by Mathieu AMALRIC

• UN HOMME QUI CRIE (A screaming man) directed by Mahamat-Saleh HAROUN

• UTOMLYONNYE SOLNTSEM 2: PREDSTOYANIE (THE EXODUS – Burnt by the sun 2) directed by Nikita MIKHALKOV

• His Art’s Desire
• Cannes Film Makers Dinner
• Cannes Film Festival 2010

Tags: Alberto Barbera, Benicio Del Toro, Cannes Film Festival, Ciné moi, Emmanuel Carrere, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Kate Beckinsale, Shekhar Kapur, Tim Burton, Victor Erice