All Screen articles in 9 March 2006
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Channel 4 wins UK bidding war for Fox films
Channel 4 has won a bidding war to secure a five year moviesupply deal with USstudio 20th Century Fox, understood to be worth as much as $260m (£150m).The deal gives C4 immediate access to the extensive Fox backcatalogue of over 1,500 films and upcoming slate of big budget theatricalreleases.Titles include ...
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Lionsgate UK acquires Richard E. Grant's Wah-Wah
Lionsgate UKhas acquired Richard E. Grant's Wah-Wah for UKdistribution. Grant, who has acted in films including Withnail & I and Gosford Park, made hisdirectorial debut with the drama, a semi-autobiographical portrait of hischildhood in Swaziland.Gabriel Byrne, Emily Watson, Julie Walters, Nicholas Hoult,and Miranda Richardson star. "We are thrilled to be ...
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Director Samantha Lang's project accepted into Aurora
Director Samantha Lang'sfourth feature may well be The RosevilleStory, following its acceptance into Aurora, a high-profile script hothouse run by the NewSouth Wales Film and Television Office (FTO). Lang made Cannes competition title The Well and the Monkey's Mask in Australia, and The Idolin France. Her actor/director husbandJeremy Sims is ...
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Bafta elevates video games industry on par with TV and film
The British Academy of Film andTelevision Arts (Bafta) has boosted its recognitionof the video games industry. Bafta has now made videogames equal to film and television, and will put increased emphasis on theBritish Academy Video Games Awards. The gamesawards will move to October 2006 to coincide with the London Games ...
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Sandrew Metronome picks up rights to Goodbye Bafana
Sandrew Metronome has bought the rights and closed the deal, which coversall the Nordic countries Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Iceland, with the film's co-producer Ilann Girard and his company ArsamGoodbyeBafana written by James Gregory and Bob Graham tells the true story of awhite South African racist whose life was ...
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Warp Films kicks off low-budget arm Warp X
UK production company WarpFilms has opened its new low-budget division Warp X, part of the new low-budgetfilm scheme started by the UK Film Council's New Cinema Fund and FilmFour, with funding from regional screen agencies EMMedia and Screen Yorkshire, and support from distributor Optimum Releasing.(Michael Kuhn's Qwerty Films is also ...
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Papandrea moves to LA to head London's Groundswell Productions
Bruna Papandrea has joinedMichael London's new financing company Groundswell Productions as president.Papandrea (pictured) moves to LosAngeles from New York City where she was previously at GreeneStreet Films; shepreviously worked in London as a creative executive for Anthony Minghella andSydney Pollack in their Mirage Enterprises.The Australian-born Papandreawill oversee creative operations for ...
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Universal promotes four key publicity strategists
UniversalPictures has promoted four key publicity strategists, with Los Angeles-basedAlissa Grayson and New York's Amy Thomases rising from vice president to seniorvice president, and Teresa Johnson and Amanda Scholer in Los Angeles jumpingfrom director to vice president.Grayson, Johnsonand Scholer will head up the three national publicity departments whileThomases will oversee ...
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MGM unveils revitalised domestic distribution operation
MGMhas confirmed its return to the North American theatrical distribution businessand unveiled an initial slate of 14 films from independent production companiesfor domestic release over the next year.Includedin the slate are Lucky Number Slevin, Clerks II and several other titles from The Weinstein Company;Mirage Enterprises' Breaking And Entering, directed by ...
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Weisbein's Green Room strikes sales deal on Orchestra Seats
Pierre Weisbeinand his LA-based company Green Room has struck a deal with producer ChristineGozlan and financier StudioCanal to handle all English- and Italian-speakingrights of Daniele Thompson's French hit Orchestra Seats (Fauteuils d'Orchestre) which has scored over one millionadmissions in France in its first two weeks of release.The film,released in France ...
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Prosperous IMAX goes back on the block
IMAX Corporation, thepioneer of large-format filmmaking and exhibition, has announced it isexploring "strategic alternatives" that include a possible sale or merger. Thecompany has retained Allen & Company and UBS Investment Bank as itsfinancial advisors in the strategy. The announcement coincides with the company's2005 financial results.It's not the first time IMAXhas ...
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Familia wins Claude Jutra Award, C.R.A.Z.Y. gets Golden Reel in Canada
LouiseArchambault's Famillahas been named the winner of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television'sannual Claude Jutra Award for first-time filmmakers. The prize,sponsored by the National Film Board of Canada, will be presented at the 26thGenie Awards held on March 13 in Toronto. Written by Archambault and producedby Luc Dery, Familiais ...
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Arctic saga to break the ice at Toronto festival
The Journals Of Knud Rasmussen, Zacharias Kunuk's and Norman Cohn's follow-up to 2001 Camerad'Or-winning sensation Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, will have its world premiere at the TorontoInternational Film Festival, as its opening night gala on September 7. Set in the Canadian Arctic in 1922 against the backdrop ofan expedition of ...
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Anderson, Fraser, Levy, Goulet inducted into Canada's Walk Of Fame
Four Canada-born screenstars, Pamela Anderson, Brendan Fraser, Eugene Levy and Robert Goulet are amongthe 2006 inductees to Canada's Walk of Fame, a celebration of Canadiancontributions to the world of music, arts and entertainment. The ceremony, which includesa star-shaped dedication and the casting of the recipients' impressions inconcrete, will take place ...
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Gloomy MPAA data shows US 2005 admissions fell 8.7%
The Motion PictureAssociation Of America (MPAA) has announced its annual data on the year 2005.US box office, as widely reported,fell 6% and admissions were down 8.7% to 1.4 billion tickets generating $8.99billion in revenue.Worldwide box office,however, was down 7.9% to just under $23 billion, reflecting the slump ininternational theatrical performance.Meanwhile ...
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Palm picks up US rights to Babluani's 13 (Tzameti)
Palm Pictures has acquiredall US and Caribbean rights to 13 (Tzameti), the critically acclaimed French thriller directedby Georgian first-time film-maker Gela Babluani.The black-and-white film hadits world premiere in the Venice Film Festival last September where it won theDe Laurentiis Award for best first film, recently won the World Cinema grandjury ...
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James Hewison to head up the Australian Film Institute
James Hewison will move on to be chiefexecutive of the Australian Film Institute (AFI) in August once he wraps hisfifth Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF). He will be the third AFI chief in just over a year and replaces GeoffreyWilliams who left in January despite revitalising the 2005 AFI Awards ...
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Notro Films picks up Spanish rights to On Probation
Spanish distributor NotroFilms has picked up local rights to Argentinean feature On Probation ahead of its European premiere at the 9th annualSpanish Film Festival of Malaga (March 17-25).The film (Tiempo De Valientes) will inaugurate Malaga's newly created Latin American cinema competition, Territorio Latinoamericano.Damian Szifron directed theaction comedy starring Diego Peretti ...
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Scorpio East launches IPO
Singapore's leading home video distributor ScorpioEast has launched an IPO for a listing on the SESDAQ of the Singapore Exchangein a bid to raise approximately $2.5m (S$4.1m). Formerly known asGolden Mandarin Video, the company is a licensee of Hong Kong's TVB, China's CCTV and Singapore's MediaCorpStudios. It has recently branched ...
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Brisk sales continue for Golden Bear winner Grbavica
Michael Weber's salesoutfit The Match Factory has closed a raft of deals for Jasmila Zbanic's GoldenBear winning Bosnian drama Grbavica in addition to previous sales to Germany, Switzerland and Italy.TheAustrian-Bosnian-German-Croatian co-production has now been picked up by Golem(Spain), Cinemien (Benelux), Kinoswiat(Poland), Ost for Paradis(Denmark), Budapest Film (Hungary), Folkets Bio(Sweden), Providence ...