A small film "Control" directed by Anton Corbijn is making a big splash at Cannes"Control"—the story of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis, who committed suicide at 23—marks the feature-film directing debut of rock photographer Anton Corbijn and features a star-making performance from British unknown Sam Riley…

Corbijn said he never considered shooting his Joy Division film in color.

"My whole memory of that period is black and white," he said. "There is basically no color photography of that band around. So it felt very proper to the project."

"That was hard," said Corbijn, "but it was my first movie, and people are often frightened of that. But it is a very English story, and it seemed appropriate to get funding from England ."

Sam Riley prepared for the role, he said, by looking at "as much original footage as I could find. I went to the National Society for Epilepsy to study the effects of epilepsy. And I spent a lot of time in the mirror doing dance moves."

"Sam Riley, who played Mark E Smith in [24 Hour Party People], is extraordinary in the title role," writes the Telegraph's Sukhdev Sandhu. "In the performance scenes he almost channels the singer, the way his eyes seem to be sinking under the heaviness of gravity, capturing his jerking, possessed movements that resemble those of an anorexic power-walker."
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