All Screen articles in 20 August 2008
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News
Judd Apatow & Seth Rogen on anew kind of comedy
Judd Apatow has produced 10 movies in the Hollywood studio system in the last five years. The films have grossed nearly $1.1bn worldwide and that excludes most of the revenues for this summer's releases Step Brothers and Pineapple Express which opened in North America this month. It is a dizzying ...
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Generator fires up with Freakdog, Cherrybomb
The low-budget genre boom is not just for newbies: take veteran producers Mark Huffam and Simon Bosanquet, who have founded new UK-based production company Generator Entertainment.'We hatched this idea a few years ago,' explains Bosanquet, whose credits include Wuthering Heights and Ripley's Game (Huffam has worked on the likes of ...
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News
Celestialsigns distribution deals withUS trio
Hong Kong's Celestial Pictures has signed distribution agreements with BCI, Media Blasters and Well Go USA to release Shaw Brothers martial arts titles on home video in the US and Canada. The three partners, which specialise in distributing Asian-language content, have licensed the rights to 45 martial arts titles from ...
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News
Is the slate deal going up in flames'
In a year rife with bad financial news, the film-finance world has seen its share of worrying portents. Though some financiers suggest that conditions have in fact been deteriorating for considerably longer, in the 12 months since the start of the global credit crisis the outlook has grown steadily worse ...
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News
Paula Wagner steps down as CEO of United Artists
Paula Wagner has stepped down as CEO of UA 21 months after she accepted the challenge of rebooting MGM's specialty label.Wagner, who took on the role of CEO and co-owner at the studio with her longtime business partner Tom Cruise, said she planned to return to a full-time producing role ...
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News
Hwang leaves Shanghai-based Meridian Pictures
Bill Hwang is leaving Shanghai-based Meridian Pictures Group after two-and-a-half years as the company's director of international distribution. A former executive of Korea's Tube Entertainment and Kang Jegyu Films, Hwang came on board the Shanghai-based company in March 2006. He will officially leave at the end of August. Meridian has ...
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Animation draws Toho towards record-setting year
Japan's Toho Studios is on track to reach its stated goal of Y60bn ($548.5m) in box office earnings this year, which would make it the most the successful year in the company's history. Toho announced that in the first seven months of 2008 its releases earned $333.9m (Y36.52bn), a 26% ...
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Reviews
Lezione 21
Dir: Alessandro Baricco. Italy, UK. 2008. 92 mins.As the title implies, this is at heart a lecture. In it, Alessandro Baricco, a former music critic and well-known novelist in Italy, gives his take on one of the greatest pieces of music ever written, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, through the device of ...
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News
Barbara Broccoli appointed to UK Film Council board
James Bond producer Barbara Broccoli has been appointed to the board of the UK Film Council by Culture Minister Margaret Hodge.Broccoli, also the chair of youth film-making initiative First Light Movies, will attend her first board meeting in September after the appointment effective Aug 4.At EON, Broccoli is currently producing ...
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Wide Management to handle Montreal and Venice premieres
French sales company Wide Management will handle the international distribution for two films having world premieres at the forthcoming Montreal and Venice film festivals.Produced by Louis Dussault's K Films America, Stephane Gehami's romance drama Straight To The Heart (En Plein Coeur), starring Julie Deslauriers, Pierre Rivard, Benedicte Decary and Patrice ...
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Locarno deals: Finecut goes Drinking, Autre Homme sells to India
Finecut has acquired the world distribution rights to the South Korean film Daytime Drinking by Noh Young-seok which was screened as an international premiere in Locarno's International Competition at the weekend.According to Finecut's senior manager EJ Cho, the company had received a 'good response and strong interest from festivals and ...
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NESTA helps Pact with tools for producers working across platforms
UK producers group Pact is working with NESTA (National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) to help film and TV producers work on convergent or 'multi-platform' projects.The tools the groups have worked on together include legal templates for multiplatform development, and a how-to guide for joint ventures.John McVay, chief ...
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Heineken to kick off Quantum Of Solace promotions in October
Heineken International will launch a worldwide promotional campaign for the forthcoming James Bond film Quantum Of Solace.The MGM/Columbia release of an EON production will hit cinemas in November 2008.This marks Heineken's fifth consecutive partnership with the Bond franchise.The campaign, featuring new Bond girl Olga Kurylenko, was shot using actual film ...
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Max & Co producers declare bankruptcy after megaflop
A dark cloud descended on Swiss cinema at this week's Locarno Film Festival with the news that Lausanne-based producers MAX-LeFilm and Cinemagination have been forced to declare bankruptcy after the flop of their $27.5m (CHF 30m) animation feature Max & Co. Billed as the most expensive Swiss film of all ...
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Vue readies $4m eight-screen multiplex in South Wales
UK exhibitor Vue Entertainment will open its new $4m (£2m) Merthyr Tydfil multiplex on Sept 26.The eight-screen, stadium-seating cinema in South Wales will make use of Dolby Digital Surround Sound and digital projectors.The site is also digital 3D enabled and will show 3D animated Fly Me To The Moon from ...
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Oberli's The Murder Farm to star Jentsch, Bleibtreu
German actress Julia Jentsch, the star of Malgoska Szumowska's Locarno competition film 33 Scenes From Life, is to appear with Monica Bleibtreu in Swiss director Bettina Oberli's next feature The Murder Farm (Tannöd), which begins shooting in the Sauerland and Eifel regions of Germany from September.The $5.6m (Euros 3.8m) co-production ...
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Tropic Thunder to strike in San Sebastian
San Sebastian has announced that Ben Stiller's film Tropic Thunder will be in official selection, out of competition, at this year's festival.Stiller and actor Robert Downey Jr. will be at the Basque festival to present the film, which is being released in Spain by Paramount Pictures Spain on Sept 26.Tropic ...
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Andrzej Wajda begins work on new film Tatarak
Polish auteur Andrzej Wajda began filming this week on a new feature, Tatarak.Producers told ScreenDaily.com that filming began on location in Grudziadz in northern Poland and will continue until the end of September.Wajda and Polish author Olga Tokarczuk have adapted the script from a novel by Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz and from ...
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Torresblanco to present film keynote speech at Strategic Partners
Frida Torresblanco, the New York-based producing partner of Alfonso Cuaron's Esperanto Films, will present the opening keynote speech at Halifax's Strategic Partners International Co-Production Market (Sept 12-14).Torresblanco's credits include Guillermo Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth, Neils Mueller's The Assassination of Richard Nixon and Sebastian Cordero's Cronicas. Presenting the television keynote speech ...
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TIFF adds 13 world premieres to Discovery, Vision and Vanguard
The Toronto International Film Festival added a further 13 world premieres to an already impressive line-up, as it completed the slates for the Discovery, Visions and Vanguard programmes. Among the seven Discovery world premieres announced are Brian Goodman's What Doesn't Kill You, starring Ethan Hawke and Mark Ruffalo as Bostonian ...