Mary Tutwiler

"In the Electric Mist" straight to DVD

If your film doesn’t make the short list for the Cannes Film Festival, why not roll out the red carpet in New Iberia? That’s the current word on the long overdue screening of In The Electric Mist, the film adaptation of novelist James Lee Burke’s mystery, In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead. According to the Daily Iberian, the film, starring Tommy Lee Jones as detective Dave Robicheaux, will go straight to DVD and Blue Ray, with a scheduled March 3 release date. But before the DVD hits stores, distributor Image Entertainment is finalizing a Feb. 27 screening at The Grand 10 in New Iberia.

Most of Burke’s Robicheaux stories are set in New Iberia, where the author lives half the year. The film crew took over New Iberia for nearly four months in 2007, filming scenes in downtown and at swamp locations in Catahoula. French director Bertrand Tavernier originally hoped for a 2008 screening at Cannes, but the film was withdrawn, and missed several projected release dates in 2008. In the Electric Mist may play for a week in New Iberia, giving locals, many of whom were extras, an opportunity to see themselves on the big screen, before the film fades to smaller screens everywhere.