All Screen articles in 25 January 2008
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News
Amid rising industry concern, British Council defends restructuring
Revelations that the British Council is reviewing its Arts Strategy and restructuring toward a 'multidisciplinary approach' in areas such as film, dance, and the visual arts, have caused uproar in the UK arts community.There is widespread concern that the Council will lose the sectoral expertise it has built up in ...
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Vertigo to produce Rupert Wyatt's Escapist follow-up The Trail
The UK's Vertigo Films has come on board for Rupert Wyatt's next feature The Trail, after already taking the rights to his debut feature The Escapist, which is world premiering in Sundance today.Vertigo will produce and take all UK rights to Wyatt's new project, and Vertigo's new partner sales company ...
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Reviews
Funny Games
Dir: Michael Haneke. US.111minsMichael Haneke's American remake of his 1997 Austrian acclaimed arthouse hit Funny Games, Funny Games US retains the emotional intensity, visceral impact and gripping hold of the original. Thefiercely-intelligent thriller about a family of three held hostage and tortured in their vacation home by two young psychopathsismasterfully-controlled, ...
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Carl Clifton promoted to COO of HandMade Films International
HandMade Films International has promoted Carl Clifton to chief operating officer, in addition to his existing duties as head of international sales.Clifton joined the revived HandMade in November 2006 and has worked on a slate of films including animated title Planet 51, thriller 50 Dead Men Walking, Eloise In Paris ...
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Cloverfield tears into January box office for Paramount
Paramount's monster movie Cloverfield delivered the first domestic hit launch of 2008 as it smashed through the competition to open top on an estimated $41m.The film, a Blair Witch-style first-person POV account of a monster attack on New York that was produced by JJ Abrams and directed by Matt Reeves, ...
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Warner continues to lead international box office with Legend
I Am Legend stayed on top of the international rankings for the fourth consecutive weekend and the fifth overall in its six-week run as an estimated $28.7m from 6,200 prints in 54 territories propelled the running total to $262.4m.The highlight of the new launches was a $4.1m (Ps 44.2m) number ...
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Sundance: Documentaries overshadow dramatic entries
Documentaries continued to overshadow early Sundance business as HBO Documentary Films took all US rights to Marina Zenovich's Roman Polanski: Wanted And Desired. Click here to see review.The high six-figure deal closed on Sunday a little over a day after The Weinstein Company pounced on international rights to the film, ...
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Mulroney, Davis to star in Driving Lessons
Dermot Mulroney and Hope Davis have signed on to star in the independent feature Driving Lessons that is scheduled to shoot in Los Angeles in March.Finland's Vivi Friedman will direct from a screenplay by Mark Lisson about an unhappy wife and mother who gets a second chance to save her ...
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US Humane Society announces increase in annual doc grant
The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) announced at Sundance [Jan 20] that it will increase its annual ACE/SilverDocs documentary grant to $25,000.The grant, which is part of The HSUS's Animal Content in Entertainment (ACE) programme, is designed to encourage the inclusion of animal issues in documentary film-making.The grant ...
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Robert Yu joins Porchlight as vice president of acquisitions
PorchLight Entertainment has named former Cinemavault Releasing International West Coast operations chief Robert Yu vice president of acquisitions.Yu is in Sundance to scout for rights for Porchlight and its non-family division Condor Releasing with president of worldwide distribution Ken DuBow.He will report to DuBow and senior vice president of home ...
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Digital distributor FilmCatcher.com launches with two deals
Digital distributor and online magazine FilmCatcher.com has launched at Sundance [Jan 20] with the aim of spotlighting quality films that slip through the traditional distribution net.The Filmcatcher.com website contains editorial and community oriented content and was co-founded by Trumbo producer Alan Klingenstein and Talking Pictures Company co-founders Alan Hruska and ...
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Shoreline picks up international on Ozzie comedy On Broadway
Shoreline Entertainment has acquired international rights to Dave McLaughlin's Australian comedy On Broadway.The story centres on a Boston playwright who stages a production of his work in the back of an Irish pub.Eliza Dushku, Will Arnet, Amy Poehler and Robert Wahlberg play supporting roles. Kris Meyer, Lance Green, Henry Bertolon ...
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Australian Directors Guild to wait before replacing Macrae
The Australian Directors Guild (ADG) is now without an executive director following the surprise departure of Drew Macrae but the organisation will not invite applications for the role until after the next board meeting in early February. 'We have been rebuilding for 18 months and are still in the process ...
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Rome Film Fest moves dates back to October 22-31
The Rome Film Fest has moved its dates for 2008 to Oct 22-31. The festival had been scheduled for Oct 2-12, which was just three weeks after Italy's other big festival, Venice, scheduled to run Aug 27-Sept 6.The 2007 festival ran Oct 18-27.Rome, now in its third year, will now ...
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Control Room director Noujaim heads Pangea Day film project
Jehane Noujaim, director of acclaimed 2004 documentary Control Room, is heading a unique project offering a global day of film.Pangea Day, which is scheduled for May 10, 2008, will be held in eight different cities: Cairo, Dharamsala, Jerusalem, Kigali, London, New York, Ramallah and Rio de Janeiro. The venues will ...
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EFM German showcase includes market premiere of Love Life
Fatih Akin's The Edge Of Heaven and Hans Weingartner's Reclaim Your Brain are among 17 titles selected by programmer Heinz Badewitz to screen in the European Film Market's German Cinema showcase.The 2008 lineup, which is targeted primarily at accredited distributors, buyers, journalists, and programmers from festivals and cultural institutions, also ...
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Reviews
Good Dick
Dir: Marianna Palka. US. 2008. 85mins. Good Dick opens as an angry young woman rents pornographic films from a local video store, setting the clerk who serves her on a love-struck pursuit. The comedy takes us once again down a familiar Sundance road of neurotic losers in love, complete with ...
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Reviews
The Yellow Handkerchief
Dir. Udayan Prasad. US. 2008. 103mins. The American debut of Udayan Prasad (My Son the Fanatic), The Yellow Handkerchief is a visually confident, emotionally bruising road movie about a trinity of lost souls haunted by their past and break free of their restricted lives. The writing never quite matches the ...
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Reviews
Ballast
Dir-scr: Lance Hammer. US. 2008. 96mins.Ballast reminds us that you can find poetry in the unlikeliest and the saddest of places. The grim, grey and impoverished Mississippi Delta in winter is the setting and, to a great extent, the subject of the feature debut of writer-director-editor Lance Hammer. The spare ...
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Reviews
Be Kind Rewind
Michel Gondry. US.2007. 101minsJean-Luc Godard's famous observation that the best film criticism is to remake the same film is given a deliciously inventive and stylistically daring treatment in virtuoso French director Michel Gondry's fourth feature Be Kind Rewind. It's a jaunty, outrageous and visually inventive fantasia that is wondrous, beguiling ...