The Rhode Island Film and TV Office and the Newport International Film Festival have announced a special screening of Focus Features’ Evening during the festival on June 9, 2007 (both closing night screenings of “Evening” have sold out already). “Evening”, which was filmed in Newport, was directed by Lajos Koltai and stars Claire Danes, Toni Collette, Vanessa Redgrave, Patrick Wilson, Hugh Dancy, Natasha Richardson, Mamie Gummer, Eileen Atkins, Meryl Streep, and Glenn Close. Many members of the star-studded cast are expected to attend the screening at the festival, which will be held June 5-10, 2007. Learn more about the Newport Film Festival by visiting their Official Website.

In an interview with the French press to promote “The Devil Wears Prada” last week, Meryl Streep talked about her upcoming role in “Evening”: “I’m making a very small film. I just decided to do it last week and I’m doing it next weekend. I play a very old woman, a friend of Vanessa Redgrave in a movie called “Evening”. My best friend is dying… it’s about an older woman, Vanessa, looking back at her life and it’s a wonderful cast, including… my daughter who is playing me – younger. She has the big part – I have a litte part”.

Uniting a stellar cast, Evening begins filming in Rhode Island this week for Focus Features. The Hart Sharp Entertainment production, adapted by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Cunningham from Susan Minot’s best-selling novel of the same name, is directed by Lajos Koltai. The cast of Evening includes Claire Danes, Toni Collette, Vanessa Redgrave, Patrick Wilson, Hugh Dancy, Natasha Richardson, Dame Eileen Atkins, Mamie Gummer, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Glenn Close, and two-time Academy Award winner Meryl Streep. The drama explores the romantic past and emotional present of Ann Grant (played by Redgrave) and her daughters, Constance (Richardson, who is also the real-life daughter of Redgrave) and Nina (Collette). As Ann lays dying, she remembers, and is moved to convey to her daughters, the defining moments in her life 50 years prior, when she was a young woman (played by Danes). Gummer and Streep, who are mother and daughter in real life, are portraying Ann’s college friend Lila as a younger and older woman, respectively. Click here to read the complete article.