All Screen articles in 23 March 2001
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News
Solomon restates TEAM's losses, takes equity stake
Michael J. Solomon, the company doctor attempting to resuscitate TEAM Communications, has taken an equity stake in the stricken US-German film and TV group and restated the losses incurred under the recently departed management.The moves come at the end of a week in which no less than seven law firms ...
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Reviews
Blame It On Voltaire
Dir: Abdellatif Kechiche. France.130mins.Honoured as the best first film atlast year's Venice Film Festival, Blame It On Voltaire is a flawed butaffecting account of an illegal immigrant's adventures in Paris. Though localfilms by and about North Africans (notably Algerians) have long been part ofthe French film scene, first-time writer-director Kechiche ...
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Guadalajara film festival
After AmoresPerros comes De La Calle. Thestory of a gang of street children, akin in style and subject to last year'slocal box-office sensation and international festival favourite, emerged as oneof the two buzz titles at the 16th Guadalajara Film Festival inMexico (Mar 9-16).Markingthe debut of Mexican film-maker Gerardo Tort, the ...
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Danish Film Institute banks on serious comedies
The Danish film industry is currentlychurning out comedies with a touch of seriousness, and with Lone Scherfig'sserious dogme comedy Italian For Beginners taking a Silver-Bear inBerlin, other producers are hoping to follow suit. Among the new (romantic) comedy projectsare veteran Gert Fredholm's One Hand Clapping from Zentropa and HellaJoof's feature ...
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Exit Wounds tops US box office, Enemy opens big
Two new entries performed well at the North American box office but for the second consecutive weekend, the market was down on the same period last year, this time by about 8%.Warner Bros and Village Roadshow Pictures opened their latest co-production, the Joel Silver-produced actioner Exit Wounds in 2,830 theatres ...
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Anders' Sun by-passes US theatres for Showtime
Allison Anders' emotionally-wrenching film about theconsequences of rape, Things Behind The Sun,will receive its first commercial outing later this year as a premiere on theShowtime pay-TV network despite winning widespread critical plaudits at thisyear's Sundance Film Festival.Unable to attract decent enough advances from domestictheatrical distributors, the film's investors appear to ...
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Ripoli prepares English Utopia for Alquimia
Director Maria Ripoll is preparing an English-language psychological thriller for new production company Alquimia Cinema.The film, Utopia, is being prepped for a summer shoot. The script was written by Curro Royo and Juan Vicente Pozuelo (The Art Of Dying). Madrid-based Mate Productions has already boarded the project, and Alquimia head ...
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Buskin gets Dynamic as part of new drive
One of Italy's fastest-growing sales companies, Buskin Film, has sold a five-film package to Panama's Dynamic Group including Peter Del Monte's Against The Wind, which screened recently at the Berlin Film Festival.Buskin, which specializes in Italian auteur cinema, also sold to Dynamic the four films that launched the company at ...
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Village Roadshow A$3.8m short after financial scam
Village Roadshow managing director Graham Burke has told the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) that Village Roadshow Ltd's (VRL) net loss is A$3.8m from a financial scam that saw nearly A$30m wrongly removed from company accounts in 1998 and 1999. Burke was speaking on the eve of Andrew Ross Henry, ...
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Industry veteran Thomas dies aged 85
Ralph Thomas, director of the long-running franchise of Doctor films, has died after an illness aged 85.Along with seven Doctor titles, which initially starred Dirk Bogarde, Thomas directed such stars as Peter Finch and Katherine Hepburn in films such as No Love For Johnnie and The Iron Petticoat. His son ...
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News
Canal Plus denies sale of Expand stake to RTL
An unsubstantiated report in French newspaper Le Figaro suggesting that Canal Plus is about to sell a stake in Expand, a leading French television production outfit, to Luxembourg's RTL Group has prompted vehement denials.Born of the merger between Ellipse Programmes and the Expand group, Expand is a European leader in ...
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Greenlight Media to launch second animation fund
Greenlight Media and the Dresdner Bank's investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein are to launch a second BAF Berlin Animation Film fund to raise in the region of $100m for the production of up to five international animation features.According to Greenlight's chief operating officer Nikolaus Weil, BAF II, which concentrates on ...
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Australian independent exhibitors push for change
Australia's independent cinema owners are planning to push through a number of changes in the code of practices between distributors and exhibitors. The code generated considerable controversy when it was introduced three years ago, but despite increasing transparency in the industry it has failed to satisfy many independents.The Cinema Owners ...
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Mar Del Plata triumphs despite troubles
The new Mar Del Plata festival administration led by National Film Institute (INCAA) director Jose Miguel Onaindia and artistic director Claudio Espana struggled against logistical problems that threatened to disrupt the otherwise successful event that wrapped on March 17.The festival boasted nearly 30,000 admissions sold during the first three days. ...
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Reviews
Bridget Jones's Diary
Dir: Sharon Maguire. UK. 2001. 90minsTBC.Bridget Jones's bestselling diaries made the fictional thirtysomething singleton Britain's most successful under-achiever of recent years, and the screen version of her intimate journal bears all the signs of becoming the UK's biggest film hit since Notting Hill. Domestically, massive advance publicity and media attention ...
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Filmax restructures Spanish animation division
Following the lead of its successful start-up genre division The Fantastic Factory, Spain's Filmax Group has initiated a restructuring of its animation division, newly dubbed Filmax Animacion.Under the direction of Paco Rodriguez, former head of Spanish rights and production house PPM Multimedia, Filmax's animation division will incorporate three main areas.The ...
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British Short Film Festival axed
The 14 year-old British Short Film festival is to close after the event's title sponsor, BBC Television, withdrew funding.The move comes as recently-installed BBC director general Greg Dyke is under pressure to cut costs from the government. The BBC has backed the annual event since it launched in 1987.Festival director ...
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Internet merger provides Giants with new beanstalk
Afterspending a year making a noise at international film markets through blanketadvertising campaigns and huge slate announcements, David Dadon's GiantsEntertainment has been sold to a tiny publicly-quoted Internet company that hasbeen operating until now as a minor-league entertainment-themed portal.The merger with Hollywood Partners.com Inc - no relation to the German ...
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Duke Nukem enters a new big screen Dimension
Duke Nukem is coming to a much bigger screen near you now that Dimension Films has acquired the movie rights to the video game phenomenon from Larry Kasanoff and his Threshold Entertainment. In his feature film debut for the Miramax genre label, Duke assumes the role of Earth's best defense ...
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First Run adds Fighter to arsenal of US releases
New York'sFirst Run Features has acquired the US rights to Amir Bar-Lev's Holocaust-themeddocumentary Fighter in a licensing agreement struck with The Independent FilmChannel's Next Wave Films. A theatrical release has been penciled in forthis autumn.Fighter has won awards at the leading festivals around the world, including the Hampton's Film Festival(Audience ...