Terry Gilliam’s ‘The Man Who Killed Don Quixote’ Cannes Premiere Might Still Be In Jeopardy

With the official announcement that Terry Gilliam’s “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote” would be part of the upcoming Cannes Film Festival, we foolishly assumed that the drama surrounding the film’s release was history. Well, according to the producer Paulo Branco and Alfama Films Productions, that’s not even close to the truth.

In a statement recently released, Alfama Films says that not only is ‘Don Quixote’ still mired in legal trouble, the film has yet another hurdle to jump over just to make that premiere at Cannes. “Alfama Films Production has been granted permission to obtain a writ against the Cannes Film Festival and will ask the president of the Paris District Court to impose a ban on the screening of the film by Terry Gilliam, ‘The Man Who Killed Don Quixote,’ due to the violation of its rights, rights which have been confirmed in three separate legal rulings,” the company said. “For legal reasons, this film cannot be exploited in any way without pre-agreement from Alfama Films Production.”

As we’ve covered numerous times in the past, the recent legal issues for ‘Don Quixote’ stem from a contract between Branco and Gilliam that said that Branco had the rights to the film in exchange for funding the project. Gilliam claims the contract is void because funding never came and Gilliam had to secure funding from other methods. Recently, Branco had stated that the film’s rights remain with him, and there is a suit currently being fought in court.

Now, Branco has gone a step further, demanding a hearing on May 7 (the day before Cannes begins) to settle the dispute over whether or not the film can premiere at the prestigious event.

So, it seems that the Terry Gilliam film, that has been 25 years in the making, has one final (hopefully) step before being shown to the public.

UPDATE:

Cannes has released a statement about the upcoming premiere, and like we assumed, they will follow the rule of the judge. So, it appears that May 7th is the date we will know for sure whether or not ‘Don Quixote’ will get that Cannes debut:

“Such legal disputes are not unusual. The Festival is regularly informed of them, but it is not in its remit to take a position on these sorts of matters. Therefore, after careful consideration and because it seemed possible the film would be released at the same time, we decided to feature this work in the Official Selection…The screening at the closing event of the Festival is subject to the decision of the judge at the hearing on May 7. “