All Screen articles in 12 December 2001
View all stories from this month.
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News
Ottfilm snags Mostly Martha on the rebound
Sandra Nettelbeck's Mostly Martha has been picked up by Ottfilm for theatrical distribution in its native Germany. The film was originally included in Kinowelt's lineup for release this month.Kinowelt's mounting financial problems, however, persuaded producer Karl Baumgartner of Pandora Film to take back the film back to offer to other ...
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Canadians, Koreans check into Officers Ward
Mercure Distribution has sold Canadian rights to Cannes competition title The Officers' Ward (La Chambre Des Officiers) to Christal Films Distribution. With Cinema bagged South Korean rights.La Chambre Des Officiers (pictured), a World War I drama adapted from a novel by Marc Dugain and written and directed by Francois Dupeyron, ...
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Cecchi Gori in court over cash-for-votes flap
Embattled movie mogul and former senator, Vittorio Cecchi Gori is set to appear in court this week on corruption charges.He will answer questioning on charges of paying $9,000 (L20m) to a middle-man in the Sicilian town of Acireale in exchange for a package of political votes allegedly controlled by a ...
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Quiero TV shake-up likely after Auna stake sale
Telecom Italia looks set to finally sell off its 26.9% stake in Spanish telecoms operator Auna, majority backer of pay digital terrestrial pay-TV (DTT) platform Quiero TV.The Spanish shareholders Endesa, Fenosa and Banco Santander are understood to be paying an estimated Euros2bn (Ptas333bn) for the Auna stake. While the long-anticipated ...
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Haffa to stand down completely at Constantin
Former EM.TV & Merchandising chairman Thomas Haffa will leave the supervisory board of producer-distributor Constantin Film at the end of this year. Last April, Haffa stepped down as chairman of the board, a position then taken over by KirchMedia's Fred Kogel.As he no longer represents EM.TV it is not appropriate ...
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CinemaxX reverses sell-off policy, expands Denmark
German exhibition group CinemaxX, which embarked on a sell-off programme to ease its financial concerns, has done a policy U-turn and will now hold on to its Danish theatrical complexes.Indeed, the Danish circuit, now CinemaxX's only operation outside Germany, will now be expanded. When it opened last year, CinemaxX's 3,200 ...
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Celestial readies Hong Kong studio power-play
Hong Kong, whose once famous studios now lurk like decrepit ghosts, is about to take Asian film and TV on new thrill ride.Celestial Pictures, which will be a vertically integrated studio operation spanning production, distribution and broadcast, is poised to unveil its debut slate. A series of pan-Asian film channels ...
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Thompson confirmed as Channel Four chief
Channel 4 yesterday confirmed the appointment of Mark Thompson, currently BBC director of television, as its chief executive.Thompson replaces Michael Jackson, who left to become president and chief executive of USA Entertainment in October. He will leave the BBC after Christmas, but not take up his new job until March ...
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Country stars Collie & McCabe team for rom com
Country music stars Mark Collie and Coley McCabe have teamed to star in independently financed romantic comedy Roper & Goodie which has started principal photography in Alabama, US.Directed by commercial and documentary director Terry Moloney, the film is the story of a rodeo cowboy (Collie) who kidnaps a wealthy socialite ...
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AI wins Golden award from Japanese exhibitors
The Motion Picture Exhibitor Association Of Japan (MPEAJ) has given its Golden Box Office Gross Award to AI Artificial Intelligence, Steven Spielberg's film which was distributed by Warner Bros Pictures. The award recognises the highest grossing foreign film to be released in the territory.AI has grossed over $78m in Japan. ...
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Pearl Harbor video scores $130m in single week
Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor has become the highest week-one selling DVD of all time in the US, racking up over 3.7 million unit sales in the seven days following its Dec 4 release.Across the DVD and video formats, distributor Buena Vista Home Entertainment sold around 7 million units, with a ...
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UK BO climbs in Q3, despite terror, economy
Ronny Yu's The 51st State opened to a strong reception from UK audiences over the weekend. But it was unable to dethrone reigning box office king, Harry Potter.Leading this week's releases the action-comedy claimed second position in the chart with an impressive $1.3m (£913,239). Playing at 311 sites the film, ...
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Telefilm Canada appoints new chairman, CEO
Telefilm Canada has appointed Charles Belanger as chairman and RichardStursberg executive director.Belanger was president and CEO of the Broadcasting Group at CFCF,vice-president of CANCOM and vice-chairman responsible for broadcasting atthe CRTC, the federal broadcasting regulator. He served with the BCE groupas vice-president responsible for conventional and multimedia programmingservices, and for ...
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Intimacy wins prestigious Louis Delluc honour
Patrice Chereau's Intimacy, has been awarded the Louis Delluc prize. The film, adapted from a novel by Hanif Kureishi and Chereau's first English-language title, has already won Berlin's Golden Bear as well as a Silver Bear for female lead Kerry Fox and was lately nominated for the European Films Awards.Chereau ...
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Maipo opens new chapter on literary adaptations
The Norwegian production outfit Maipo Film hit gold with its first feature film production Elling with more than 740,000 local admissions - the highest figure in 25 years - and is now planning a run of literary adaptations.Veteran producer and head of Maipo Film, Dag Alveberg now has several other ...
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Kirch woes increase as bank recalls $400m loans
News Corp yesterday denied reports that it is planning a hostile takeover approach for Germany's Kirch group. But Kirch's problems increased when the Dresdner Bank group called in $410m (DM900m) of loans.Kirch is understood to be wallowing in nearly $3.56bn (Euros4bn) of debt, but Dresdner has said that it is ...
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French music house XIII Bis launches into pictures
XIII Bis Organisation, a leading French independent music group, is making its first foray into the film business, with Anima, a fantasy thriller written and to be directed by in-house artist and composer Christophe Pascal. The French-language film, set in France and The Netherlands, in the 17th century, involves a ...
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Warner Bros gets T3 for summer 2003
Warner Bros Pictures has acquired domestic distribution rights to Terminator 3: The Rise Of The Machines after a bidding war over the last week that saw every Hollywood studio chasing the film which stars Arnold Schwarzenegger.The deal was concluded between Warner and producers C-2 Pictures and Intermedia, which is financing ...
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Mechanic returns to Disney with five-year deal
After months of speculation about where he would land, Bill Mechanic's independent production company Pandemonium has signed an exclusive five-year co-financing, production and distribution deal with The Walt Disney Studios. Under the terms of the deal, Disney has domestic distribution rights (excluding free TV) to Pandemonium films as well as ...
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Alan Bates to get lifetime award at Palm Springs
Alan Bates will receive a career achievement award and a nine-film retrospective at the Nortel Networks Palm Springs International Film Festival next January (Jan 10-20, 2002).Entitled King Of Parts: The Film Characters of Alan Bates, the retrospective will be kicked off by a Technicolor Dye Transfer restored print of Women ...