All Screen articles in 10 January 2003
View all stories from this month.
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NewsMemento takes on Directors’ Fortnight title ‘The Other Way Around’ (exclusive)
Source: Los Ilusos Films ‘The Other Way Around’ Memento International has boarded Spanish director Jonás Trueba’s eighth feature The Other Way Around set to world premiere at Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight sidebar. The relationship comedy is about a couple who decide to throw a party to celebrate their ...
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Curtain falls for last cinema in historic Venice
Venice may be home to the world's oldest film festival, but the island is now officially without a single cinema after it drew the curtains on its last two privately-owned screens due to a lack of profit and spectators."It's the end of cinema in Venice, the death of cinema in ...
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Mexican exhibitors and distributors protest at cinema levy
Major distributors and exhibitors in Mexico plan to file an injunction before the Supreme Court to contest the new public service fee of one peso (10 cents) levied on cinema tickets. Introduced by the country's Congress in an effort to raise funding for local film production, the fee has riled ...
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Lebanon hostage drama gets big screen treatment
UK production company Parallax Independent Production has started shooting Blind Flight, the story of the kidnapping and imprisonment in the Lebanon in the 1980s of Brian Keenan and John McCarthy.Based on the book An Evil Cradling, the production stars Ian Hart (Backbeat, Land and Freedom) as Keenan and Linus Roache ...
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Direction of Battle Royale sequel passes from father to son
Kinji Fukasaku, whose controversial dystopian thriller Battle Royale was one of the big local hits of 2001, died on Sunday Jan 12.Direction of the sequel has passed to his son Kenta .Fukasaku, 72, began principal photography of Battle Royale 2 in Tokyo on December 16, but soon after complained of ...
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The rise, fall and rise again of UK tax production funds
Even as the UK’s tax production funds are failing to attract enough investors to match their lofty ambitions, a new breed of internationally-oriented schemes are starting to emerge. While funds such Monument, which set out to provide 50% of budgets, have failed to materialise, tax specialists predict the growth of ...
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Cooper quits Artisan, relaunches Landscape
Robert Cooper isleaving his post as CEO of Artisan Pictures and vice chairman of parent companyArtisan Entertainment after just 15 months at the company. Cooper, who mergedhis Landscape Entertainment with Artisan in Sept 2001, is to relaunch LandscapePictures as an independent vehicle to produce films and TV programming.Cooper is acquiringthe ...
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Palm buys North America and UK rights to entire Cremaster Cycle
Chris Blackwell's Palm Pictures has acquired NorthAmerican and UK rights to Matthew Barney's Cremaster Cycle, five films, the last of which Cremaster 3 screens in the Frontier section of the Sundance FilmFestival next week.The films will be the first to be distributed by Palm'snew Arthouse Films label in North America ...
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Polish cinema admissions fall back in 2002
The Polish box office declined slightly in 2002, falling back by half a million compared to 26 million admissions in 2001.Some pundits have blamed the lack of big budget Polish productions for the decline. In 2001 the box office was driven by Quo Vadis with more than 4m admissions and ...
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Trumer takes over at UIP France
UIP's French outpost has announced the arrival of Camille Trumer as managing director. Trumer replaces former Polygram executive Jean-Paul Rougier who held the top spot at UIP France since July 2000.The newly-installed Trumer has a varied background including a stint at UGC during which he passed from director of UGC ...
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Fox's Just Married kickstarts the new year
Fox's slapstick comedy Just Married opened number one over the weekendon $18m, according to studio estimates released today (Jan 12). The lowbrowpicture's debut means the studio has already recouped its low budget productioncosts - which were in the region of $18m - and cocked a snoot at the criticsthat lambasted ...
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Chairman Case steps down at AOL Time Warner
Steve Case, the architect of the $106bn merger of AOL and Time Warner, is to stand down from the top job at the troubled media conglomerate.Succumbing to months of investor and media pressure to resign, Case said he would step down at the annual shareholders meeting in May. He will ...
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French director Maurice Pialat dies, aged 77
French filmmaker and actor Maurice Pialat, whose Under Satan's Sun won the Palme d'Or in 1987 (pictured), died on Saturday, aged 77.In a message of condolence, President Jacques Chirac called Pialat a "master of the cinematographic art" who "leaves a deep imprint on the history of French film." "Through his ...
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Zentropa pulls plug on internet outfit Tvropa
The dotcom ambitions of the low-budget mavericks at Denmark's Zentropa have finally hit the rocks.Internet outfit Tvropa filed for insolvency over Christmas after Zentropa and other investors had lost hundreds of thousands of dollars on the company, which launched in 2000 with plans to webcast 3-4 minute programmes about movies, ...
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Twilight Samurai scoops top Japanese film prize
Yoji Yamada's The Twilight Samurai has been voted the best Japanese film of 2002 by the Kinema Junpo critics' poll, while scooping five other awards.Considered the most prestigious honor in the Japanese film industry, the Kinema Junpo poll is now celebrating its 76th year. The best foreign film, according the ...
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Koelmels' Kinowelt takeover hits further delays
The takeover saga of the insolvent Kinowelt Group has continued into 2003, with news that brothers Michael and Rainer Koelmel have still not paid over the Euros32m agreed to acquire Kinowelt's core assets.Insolvency administrator Dr. Wolfgang Ott said that payment by the Koelmels' Neue Spielfilm Vertriebs- und Marketing GmbH ...
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Livolsi takes over as Cinecitta boss
Ubaldo Livolsi, financial partner of Rome-based producer Rita Rusic and head of Italian investment bank Livolsi and Partners, has been named managing director of Cinecitta Holding.Last month, veteran Italian director Pupi Avati was appointed president of the state-owned company. Cinecitta Holding is the parent of Rome's legendary studios as well ...
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Geopolitics set to shape Berlin festival
Against the background of a possible war in the Middle East in February, the forthcoming Berlin festival (Feb 6-16) looks to be shaping up as a selection of films about how individuals and humanity perform under pressure. While festival director Dieter Kosslick's official theme 'Towards Tolerance' may sound bland and ...
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Bangkok festival gets off to spirited, but shaky start
As the 2003 Bangkok International Film Festival (BKKIFF) gets underway this week (Jan 10-21), local hopes that it will become the premier southeast Asian platform for global filmmaking remain high. But a number of late-stage changes to the proceedings have given the festival a shaky start. Among the upsets are ...
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Italians laugh all the way to box office over bumper Xmas
Italian box office figures over the festive season - the single most lucrative period for the local industry - were up an impressive 14% to Euros78.83m on last year's Xmas results.Importantly, according to local data body Cinetel, homegrown films also beat out stiff competition from Hollwyood (including Harry Potter) to ...