Paquin Pelted

Accustomed to a slightly more cerebral response to celluloid, the Sundance Film Festival got its own share of controversy yesterday when all hell broke loose at a screening of the film Buffalo Soldiers - with actress Anna Paquin getting the rather painful brunt of it all. The story of corrupt, drug-dealing US soldiers in Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Buffalo Soldiers was denounced as anti-American and anti-army by a woman in the audience who screamed at the film's director, Gregor Jordan, as he took the stage to answer questions with one of the film's stars, Anna Paquin. Also blaming the festival for programming the controversial flick, to underline her point the vociferous female then lobbed a full plastic water bottle in the vague direction of the screen for it only to sock the X-Men actress roundly on the head. Needless to say, the woman was 'escorted' out while poor old Paquin nursed her bruised bonce. And it's just a response the film's distributors, Miramax, must have been dreading. Although the flick not only boasts the budding starlet Paquin but also the currently hotter-than-hot Joaquin Phoenix amongst its line up, Miramax have delayed its release for more than a year out of fear of offending the pro-American feelings that swept the US after September 11. Indeed, after this debacle, they must be kicking themselves even harder for buying the flick from producer Film Four in the first place