All articles by Patrick Frater
-
News
Spike Lee readies Brazilian music documentary
Spike Lee is to turn documentarian for his next venture behind the camera. Lee is to direct Fusion, a music picture being billed as the director's answer to Buena Vista Social Club.The picture, which will go before the cameras in late May and early June, is a highly polished coverage ...
-
News
MTV, A Film strike Asian film deal
MTV and leading Dutchdistributor A Film have struck a wide-ranging licensing and co-branding dealcovering Asian films.The deal sees MTV in theNetherlands and Flanders buy rights to a slate of some 50 Asian genre titlesfrom A Films and has the music channel adopt Asia Mania, a home entertainmentlabel spanning the catalogues ...
-
News
French, Chinese film-makers eye closer co-operation
Searching for a new sort of entente cordiale betweenfilmmakers from France and China was at the heart of "French Day" at HongKong's Entertainment Expo.The day kicked off with a seminar on the common groundbetween the two industries. Interestingly, the lingua franca was English, withall six panellists from France, Hong Kong ...
-
News
Darclight Films picks up kung-fu drama SPL
Darclight Films, the genre division of Australian-US saleshouse Arclight, has picked up international sales rights outside Asia to WilsonYip's forthcoming SPL.The$3.8m police kung-fu action drama is recently completed and was picked up byDarclight's Gary Hamilton on the eve of Hong Kong Entertainment Expo, the newevent which encompasses FilMart and the ...
-
News
Quinta names Alatan as head of development
Tarak Ben Ammar's rapidlyexpanding group Quinta Communications has appointed Faruk Alatan as its head ofdevelopment. Industry veteran Alatan, who isbased in Rome, will continue in his present roles as head of film acquisitionfor Medusa and senior advisor to Mediaset's Film trade arm.The move underlines thebusiness development and film distribution ambitions ...
-
News
Wedding flies off with Polish Eagles
Wojtek Smarzowski's The Wedding(Wesele) and Kyzysztof Krauze's MyNikifor were the big winners at last weekend's Polish Eagle film awards. Distributed and co-produced by SPI InternationalPoland, The Wedding picked up six official awards including best filmand also picked up the audience prize.Polish EagleAwards 2005Best Film: The Wedding (Wesele)Best Directing: Wojciech Smarzowski ...
-
News
Stelios' easyCinema unveils DVD rental service
Stelios Haji-Ioannu'seasyCinema has launched what it claims is the UK's cheapest postal DVD rentalservice.The service, operated oneasyCinema's behalf by Video Island, will charge a DVD rental rate of £1.99 perfilm and allow customers to keep the film for up to three weeks. The pricecompares favourably with the average rental store ...
-
News
France gears up for Printemps cinema promotion
France's annual springpromotional effort, the 'Printemps Du Cinema" is expected to beat lastyear's record attendance figures.Thethree day event, running from Sunday 20 to Tuesday 22 March, sees the country'sentire 5,300 cinemas slash their prices to a flat-rate Euros3.50 per ticket.Last year it lifted spectator numbers to 2.5 million, approximately double ...
-
News
EU waves through ContentGuard acquisition
The European Union (EU) today agreed to the takeoverof anti-piracy software firm ContentGuard by Microsoft, Time Warner andFrance's Thomson.The company, currently owned by Rank Xerox, producesdigital rights management (DRM) technology. That enables media companies tocontrol and monitor use of digital content in order to collect due royalties. The EU launched ...
-
News
Investors tune into Premiere's German flotation
Shares in Premiere the German pay-TV operator startedtrading today on the Frankfurt stock exchange at a healthy premium to the offerprice.The strength of investor demand suggests that analystssee the business continuing to grow, a prospect which could rub off on thelocal film industry.The company yesterday announced that it would sell ...
-
News
Cannes launches project workshop for young directors
In a new initiativeCannes is to launch the "Atelier Du Festival" a project workshop designed tohelp young film-makers get their films off the ground.The festival willthrow a large amount of resources at the Ateliers to help match the 18 projectsinitially selected with financiers and distributors."They will be given a personalised ...
-
News
Universal Japan leads buyer rush for April Snow
Koreanproduction house Show East has licensed its now-in-production melodrama AprilSnow acrossAsia, including a key sale to Universal Pictures Japan. Theraft of deals should ensure that the Hur-Jin-ho-directed picture gets aday-and-date release across the Asian region.Inaddition to the sale to Universal, the film was licensed to Golden Scene for Hong Kong, ...
-
News
Bavaria Film closes deals on Berlinale prize-winner Sophie Scholl
Bavaria Film International(BFI) has closed further deals for Marc Rothemund's prize-winning Berlincompetition film Sophie Scholl - The Final Days. Deals were closed in Italywith Istituto Luce, Benelux with Cinemien, Hungary with Best Hollywood, Poland withKino Swiat, and Brazil with Imovision.Earlier, during the EFMitself Bavaria closed Japan (Kinetique), Spain (Lola Films), ...
-
News
Korea's LJ Film aspires to international market
LJ Film, the productionhouse behind Sundance and Forum title This Charming Girl, is positioningitself as the gateway between the Korean and international production sectors. Korean films have undergonea massive turnaround in the last five years, achieving a more than 50% share oftheir local market and seeing exports rise exponentially. But, ...
-
News
UPI to set up operations in Russia
Universal PicturesInternational (UPI) is taking its home entertainment operations into Russia, acountry widely seen as one of the major sources of video piracy.It has set up a wholly-ownedaffiliate covering Russia and the CIS that will handle all the titles that werepreviously distributed through licensees. The operation is headed bymanaging director ...
-
News
Bielinski's Aura shines on Celluloid
France'sCelluloid Dreams has picked up international sales rights to The Aura (ElAura), the latest film by Fabian Bielinsky, the Argentinian director ofbreakout hit Nine Queens. Nine Queens and Son Of The Bride star RicardoDarin plays a taxidermist whose fantasies about setting up the perfect crimecome unexpectedly to life. The film ...
-
Reviews
The Works ties up Berlin deals
The Works licensed PawelPawlikowski's My Summer Of Love to Brazil's Europa. Tara Road was soldto Svensk for Scandinavia, Cinearts bought festival title Tickets forBenelux, while Dongsong bought it for Korea. Israel's Orlando Films boughtcompetition film The Sun for Israel. Off market title The AlzheimerCase was sold to Media Soso for ...
-
News
Films Distribution lives well with Live And Become
Radu Mihaileanu's LiveAnd Become (Vas Vis Et Deviens) which screened in Panorama was a bigseller for Films Distribution. The film, about Jews airlifted from Africa byIsrael, was sold to Golem for Spain, Seville for Canada, Cinestar for Austria,Telepool for Germany, Artfilm for Brazil, Cine TV Y Video for Mexico, Hopscotchfor ...
-
News
Turtles to fly at Mar Del Plata
Bahman Ghobadi's TurtlesCan Fly has been set as the opening film at the massively expanded Mar DelPlata festival (10-20 March). The festival has risen from160 films last year to 320 to celebrate its 20th edition. In addition to themain competition there are 14 sections and five tributes dedicated toArgentina's cinematic ...
-
News
New Line, CJ pact for Shadowless Sword
Korea'sCJ Entertainment and New Line Cinema have struck a pioneering co-productiondeal for The Shadowless Sword. The period action film is written anddirected by Kim Jung-joon and is billed as a sequel to breakout internationalhit Bichunmoo. The$6.5m Troy-like film, set in 800AD, began 15 weeks of production inChina on Wednesday (16 ...