All Screen articles in 9 March 2001

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  • News

    Italy's Film Exporters lobby for loans

    2001-03-09T18:29:00Z

    In a bid to give a major boost to the Italian film industry, Italy's National Film Exporters Union is appealing to the government to give more financial support to projects with significant international appeal.Roberto Di Girolamo, the president of Italy's Film Exporters, will ask the cultural ministry to evaluate screenplays ...

  • News

    Escapist collared by UGC International

    2001-03-09T18:11:00Z

    UGC International has boarded Gillies Mackinnon's The Escapist as worldwide sales agent.The film, currently in pre-production prior to shooting later this month, tells the story of a man who reinvents himself as a ruthless criminal so that he can get incarcerated in the same prison as the man who killed ...

  • News

    Planeta 2010 moves on education and Revelation

    2001-03-09T17:55:00Z

    Heralding the frenzied competition for content to feed Spain's expanding TV market, publishing giant Grupo Planeta's media entity Planeta 2010 announced it would invest a whopping $33m (pts6,000m) over the next five years in the production of a single thematic channel: interactive educational channel Beca TV.Beca, which offers traditional cultural ...

  • News

    Spanish fest to host Sundance script lab

    2001-03-09T17:08:00Z

    Spanish fest to host Sundance script labThe Spanish Film Festival of Malaga (June 1-9) will play host to the first Sundance Institute Scriptwriters' Lab to be held in Spain in conjunction with national authors and editors rights' organization SGAE.The lab will be held May 21-26, just prior to the fourth ...

  • News

    Sonet couples with Trust

    2001-03-09T17:00:00Z

    Denmark's Trust Film Sales has struck an output deal with prolific Swedish production and distribution outfit Sonet. The deal hatched on the eve of last month's AFM gives Trust, part of Denmark's Zentropa Entertainment empire, two more titles to add to its Cannes list. First up will be Home Sour ...

  • Reviews

    15 Minutes

    2001-03-09T16:40:00Z

    Dir. John Herzfeld. US. 2001. 120 mins.Andy Warhol's prophecy that everyone will one day achieve their own quarter-hour of fame gets yet another Hollywood workout in John Herzfeld's actioner, 15 Minutes - this time with two foreign criminals as media-hungry badasses. Robert De Niro, well-cast as a superstar homicide detective, ...

  • News

    Canal Plus claims bouyant financial health

    2001-03-09T15:18:00Z

    The Canal Plus group (which now includes Universal Studios) is expecting a substantial rise in its operating and net earnings as well as its subscription base in 2001. The pay-tv giant -- which will announce its 2000 results, along with Vivendi Universal's, today after the close of the Paris Stock ...

  • News

    Free digital conversion offer for US theatres only

    2001-03-09T12:30:00Z

    A joint venture of communications giant Qualcomm and film processors Technicolor this week unveiled an ambitious plan to kick-start the digital conversion of the exhibition industry by installing and maintaining the necessary equipment free of charge in a thousand US theatres. But, despite acknowledging the global dimension of the exhibition ...

  • News

    Fernan-Gomez awarded Gold Medal

    2001-03-09T11:52:00Z

    Spanish film legend Fernando Fernan-Gomez will add another notch to his belt this year with the receipt of the Spanish Cinema Academy's prestigious Gold Medal lifetime achievement award.The Academy this week unveiled Fernan-Gomez as the newest recipient of an award whose previous honorees include a long list of revered local ...

  • News

    Plural signs with New York Times TV

    2001-03-08T19:03:00Z

    New Spanish production outfit Plural Entertainment, a 100%-backed Grupo Prisa company with headquarters in Madrid and New York, has signed a landmark co-production agreement with the television filial of The New York Times.The accord, the first of its kind for The New York Times TV, will see the two firms ...

  • News

    Belgian fund boosts World Cinema

    2001-03-08T18:26:00Z

    After five years of lobbying, the organisers of the Bruges-based Cinema Novo fest for world cinema have secured commitment from the Belgian state to back the funding of films from the South (Africa, Asia, Latin America). On the back of Bruges' status as 2002 European capital, Cinema Novo will issue ...

  • News

    Warner signs free-tv deal with Greece's Star

    2001-03-08T17:57:00Z

    Warner Bros. International Television Distribution (WBITD) has signed a multi-year free television deal with Greece's Star Channel. The deal, which extends an existing relationship, includes the free television broadcast rights to feature films from Warner Bros.,HBO's cable mini-series The Sopranos and TV television series such as ER, and The West ...

  • News

    Astral acquires Family Channel for $82m

    2001-03-08T17:47:00Z

    Montreal based broadcaster Astral Media will take 100% control of specialty channel The Family Channel after agreeing to acquire the 50 per cent interest currently held by Corus Entertainment. The (US)$82m cash deal is subject to regulatory approval. The acquisition will also increase to 40% Astral's ownership of the Teletoon ...

  • News

    Resident Evil benefits from Constantin's credit

    2001-03-08T17:24:00Z

    Paul Anderson's Resident Evil ,the big-screen adaptation of the video game, is the first project to benefit from a $140m revolving credit line granted to Bernd Eichinger's Constantin Film by a bank consortium led by the DG Bank.The agreement between the consortium, comprising the DG Bank, Bayerische Landesbank Girozentrale, BHF ...

  • News

    Local films have legs, Hannibal has teeth

    2001-03-08T16:52:00Z

    Norwegian documentary Heftig Og Begeistret, directed by Knut Erik Jensen, continues to hold strong at the local box office, where the box office share of local films is one of the lowest in Europe (5-7%). It has grossed $1,023,922, achieving admissions of 169,464 to March 4, and after 7 weeks ...

  • News

    Intermedia shows excellent form, predicts better

    2001-03-08T15:08:00Z

    Intermedia has posted pre-tax earnings of Euros27.5m, 46% above the Euros18.8m forecast when the company floated on Frankfurt's Neuer Markt in May 2000 as Internationalmedia AG.Final net income for last year reached Euros19.7m, 99% above the Euros9.9m that the company projected when it floated. Intermedia's cash reserve was Euros191.3m at ...

  • News

    Advanced Medien shares rise as e-m-s adds to stake

    2001-03-08T13:13:00Z

    Reflecting e-m-s new media's role in determining the destiny of the troubled German media company Advanced Medien, the DVD specialist has decided to increase its stake in the producer-distributor to more than 25% thereby giving it a so-called blocking minority holding. Last December, e-m-s had come onboard the Munich-based company ...

  • Reviews

    See Spot Run

    2001-03-08T13:03:00Z

    Dir: John Whitesell. US. 2001. 94 mins.Aimed squarely at an audience of families with younger children, See Spot Run does not waste much effort on subtleties. The comedy is a mix of basic slapstick and potty humour, while the plot spins a sugary romance around a perky blonde, an orphaned ...

  • News

    Istituto Luce: Apocalypse Nuovo

    2001-03-08T12:42:00Z

    Confirming a new, more aggressive attitude at Italy's Istituto Luce, head of distribution Giovanni Tamberi says he is in talks to buy Italian rights to Francis Ford Coppola's expanded version of Apocalypse Now. Should Tamberi succeed in obtaining rights to the film, which will premiere at the Cannes International Film ...

  • News

    Studio Babelsberg mourns death of Schaper

    2001-03-08T11:03:00Z

    Less than four months after the death of Helkon Media's Werner Koenig, the German film industry has been dealt another blow with news of the untimely death of Studio Babelsberg CEO and Head of Production Rainer Schaper at the age of 50 from a heart attack last weekend. Schaper, who ...