All Screen articles in 26 December 2007
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News
Argentinian cinema-going falls 2.5% in 2007
Cinema attendance figures in Argentina dropped by an estimated 2.5% in 2007. The period saw 34.5 million admissions as opposed to 35.4 million in 2006, according to provisional figures from Nielsen EDI and Dis-Service. Hollywood blockbusters took a 82.1% share of the market (79.3% in 2006), local productions logged 9% ...
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News
National Treasure: Book Of Secrets strikes box-office gold in US
Buena Vista's National Treasure: Book Of Secrets proved too strong for the competition in a crowded weekend and launched at number one withan estimated $45.5m. Nicolas Cage reprises his role as a treasure hunter who this time investigates the truth behind President Abraham Lincoln's assassination. Helen Mirren, Jon Voight and ...
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News
Seven number one openings for I Am Legend
I Am Legend consolidated on last weekend's promising launch in Asia with seven new number one debuts through Warner Bros Pictures International (WBPI) that contributed to an estimated $25.3m weekend haul from 15 markets.The sci-fi horror adaptation currently stands at $54.3m and is well poised to build throughout the holiday ...
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News
Hollywood hope turns to Middle East petro-dollars
In their unending quest to spend other people's money, Western film producers and studios have spent the last couple of years becoming conversant in the languages of Wall Street and the hedge-fund world. Now, just as those wells become exposed to the sub-prime mortgage morass, these same producers are learning ...
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News
Feng's Assembly enjoys strong opening in China
Feng Xiaogang's war movie The Assembly grossed $2.03m (RMB15m) on its opening day in China yesterday, according to producer and distributor Huayi Brothers Pictures. The figure equals the record set by Zhang Yimou's 2006 hit, Curse Of The Golden Flower. The film, which opened on Thursday (Dec 20), was released ...
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News
Eurimages supports 15 European co-productions
At its Dec 16-18 meeting in Paris, the Eurimages Fund board signed on to support 15 feature films for a total amount of $7m (Euros 4.925m). The projects getting funding are: Adalet - Ali Ozgenturk (Turkey, Hungary) Desert Flower - Sherry Hormann (Germany, Austria, France) Joueuse - Caroline Bottaro (France, ...
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News
Metrodome hands backUK rights to Haditha to HanWay
UK distributor Metrodome has agreed to hand back UK rights for Nick Broomfield's Battle For Haditha to sales company HanWay Films. Each company has released the other's obligation with immediate effect. The Channel 4-backed drama recreates a fight between US soldiers and Iraqi civilians in November 2005. Broomfield 's drama ...
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Reviews
Recycle (Ee'adat Khalk)
Dir/Scr: Mahmoud al-Massad. Jordan/Netherlands/USA/Germany 2007. 80mins.Recycle, a portrait of a disillusioned former mujahideen fighter who makes a living collecting scrap cardboard in Zarqa, his Jordanian hometown, is one of those subtle, taciturn, underplayed documentaries that forces its audience to work at teasing out meanings. It's Errol Morris, in other words, ...
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News
Telefilm backs 13 features including films by Mehta, McGowan
New films from Deepa Mehta and Michael McGowan are among 13 English-language features backed by Telefilm Canada in its latest funding round, the Canadian investment agency announced today. Several projects have already started production, including Vincenzo Natali's Splice, starring Adrian Brody and Sarah Polley, which received $2.5m (C$2.5m) in Telefilm ...
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News
New German fund to back Dunaway in Master Class
A new German private media fund Shalimah German Film Management is to be launched to attract investment for participation in a slate of Stateside projects and an in-house family production for the international market. The Shalimah fund will participate in Glenn M. Stewart's investment and financing company Sherezade Film Development ...
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News
US films' box office in China up by 37% in 2007
The box office revenues of US blockbusters continued to grow in mainland China in 2007. The combined grosses of the 20 revenue-sharing foreign films reached $158.87m (RMB1.17bn), an increase of 37.6% on 2006. Based on statistics which combine the Chinese Film Bureau's weekly box office figures and Screen International's own ...
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News
Thai interim parliament approves controversial film act
Thailand approved the controversial new Film and Video Act yesterday during the last days of the National Legislative Assembly (NLA), the interim parliament installed by the military junta until Sunday's general election. The new law will see the launch of a film rating system for the first time, which in ...
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Reviews
Loins of Punjab Presents
Dir: Manish Acharya India/USA 2007. 88mins.A mostly hilarious screwball comedy set around a New York talent contest for expat Indians - or 'desis' - Loins of Punjab Presents has an infectious energy that makes up for the occasional lapse into self-indulgent cliche. With its wacky ensemble cast and its affectionately ...
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News
Pursuit Of Happyness cleared for China release
Amid rumors of a prolonged black-out period on US blockbusters, Sony's Will Smith-starrer The Pursuit Of Happyness is now scheduled for release in China on Jan 17. Chinese film import officials confirmed the release date. The film will be released on a revenue-sharing basis but will be shown only in ...
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News
Juthamas resigns from PPP following bribery accusations
Former governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), Juthamas Siriwan, yesterday (Dec 20) tendered her resignation as deputy head of Thailand's Puea Padin Party following the revelation of a bribery scandal over the Bangkok International Film Festival (BKKIFF). The corruption link to Juthamas has been making top headlines all ...
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Reviews
St Trinian's
Dirs: Oliver Parker & Barnaby Thompson UK. 2007. 101 minsA modern make-over may have worked wonders for James Bond but it fails to rejuvenate another great British institution in the lacklustre return of Ronald Searle's unruly schoolgirls. The St Trinian's films were a commercially viable franchise for twenty-five years until ...
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Reviews
National Treasure: Book Of Secrets
Dir: Jon Turteltaub. US. 2007. 124mins.The first National Treasure reaped sizable international box-office fortunes with a loopy gee-whiz amalgam of Indiana Jones derring-do and Mission: Impossible-style set pieces. Three years later, the inevitable sequel, dubbed Book Of Secrets, is as derivative of its sources as it is of the first ...
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Features
United States - Water Works
Director Jay Russell has already brought two well-loved books to the big screen, in his 2000 family film My Dog Skip and in his 2002 fantasy Tuck Everlasting. But it took a leap forward in special-effects technology for him to pull off The Water Horse: Legend Of The Deep, based ...
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Features
Turkey - Road movies
For the last 13 years Basak Emre and Ahmet Boyacioglu have been bringing world cinema to the farthest corners of Turkey. Their European Film Festival on Wheels, running since 1995, starts in late autumn in Ankara, then, for the following month, stages repeat performances of the programme in at least ...
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Features
International - Warlords on the rise
Chinese heavy-hitter The Warlords was this weekend's highest non-US entry to the international chart, helping boost the top 40 revenue by 17.3% week-on-week.The period epic, directed by Peter Ho-sun Chan (Perhaps Love, Three), opened at number five at the weekend with a $12.5m take, for a $14.4m total including previews. ...