All Screen articles in 16 March 2007 – Page 2
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News
Hong Kong International Film Festival - Match makers
This year marks a radical shift in the ambitions of the 31-year-old Hong Kong International Film Festival (Hkiff). Although respected for the quality of its programming, the festival has traditionally focused on local audiences and has not had a high profile on the global film-festival circuit or been regarded as ...
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Features
In Focus - UK TAX - Feeling the squeeze
I think it's going to get worse before it gets better," admits John Woodward, chief executive of the UK Film Council of the current state of UK film finance.For the world's third-biggest producer of films, the idea that the situation will get worse will not surprise many people. But local ...
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News
Exhibitors: windows on the world
John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theatre Owners, told this week's ShoWest that release windows are the industry's top priority. He speaks for the majority of exhibitors in his alarm that the average window between theatrical and home release slipped last year by 10 days, to four months ...
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News
Entertainment Expo Hong Kong - Power surge
HONG KONGIt has been a year of ironic contradictions for the Hong Kong film industry. Undeniably, local producers are still struggling with falling production levels, as investors put resources into fewer but larger films, and local box office for home-grown productions continues to shrink.Yet despite the gloom, Hong Kong talent ...
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Features
United States - Feeding the distribution machine
In the third-party acquisition business, Sony has long been one of the most active and innovative of the Hollywood studios. Its commitment goes back to the 1980s, when, among other projects, it co-financed Steven Soderbergh's groundbreaking indie film sex, lies and videotape.Now the studio has revamped its acquisition team with ...
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Features
Denmark - Overthrowing the old guard
Based on the memoirs of James Gregory, Goodbye Bafana tells the story of the white South African who guarded Nelson Mandela on Robben Island. But while it is a South African story, the $20m project is directed by a Dane, Bille August, and has an international flavour in terms of ...
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News
First look dealer
These are challenging times for First Look International (FLI) president Stuart Ford, one of the participants at Screen International's US financing summit in London. Several months after Ford launched FLI's London office to handle sales and source acquisitions and co-productions, the UK Treasury announced it was effectively closing the door ...
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Features
Market Focus - Commercial decisions
Distributors have long known that advertising in cinemas is an effective way to access audiences before the release of a film. But new UK research suggests audiences are more receptive to commercials shown there than to any other form of advertising.Research by TNS on behalf of the Cinema Advertising Association's ...
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News
Filmart - HK market stakes global claim
This year, many Asian sellers decided to skip Berlin's European Film Market in February and focus on the Hong Kong event (March 20-23) instead - a telling sign that the Hong Kong International Film & TV Market (Filmart) is raising its international profile.Indeed it looks like not one but two ...
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Features
United Kingdom - Mutual Benefit
With UK arthouse distributors bemoaning the tough market, it seems an odd time for a new player to enter the game.But Nick Crossley and Jono Stevens are keeping an open mind as they launch Diffusion Pictures. As Stevens says: "More people are watching films than ever. (The theatrical market) is ...
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Features
Ask the audience
Last year at the ShoWest exhibition convention, Motion Picture Association of America (Mpaa) chairman Dan Glickman announced a study to try to pin down the truth about that mysterious animal, the movie-goer.While there was a sense of who comprises the cinema-going audience, there has been no hard and fast survey ...
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Features
Argentina - Father figure
Talented young Argentinian director Ariel Rotter premiered his first feature, Just For Today (Solo Por Hoy), at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2001.The Wong Kar-wai-influenced film quickly became a festival hit, won a string of local awards, and Rotter prepared to shoot his next feature, The Other.Financing problems set ...
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News
New Chinese buyers - Slice of the action
Until recently, international sales companies were showing little interest in China. The market's rampant piracy and censorship were major turn-offs, as was the fact that unless a film is selected as one of China's 20 annual revenue-sharing imports, it can technically only be sold for a flat fee to state-owned ...
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News
Entertainment Expo Hong Kong 2007
This year's edition sees many changes as Expo raises its profile in the international calendar. Filmart, HAF and Hkiff will start on the same day and work more closely to provide a platform to support the production and distribution of Asian and other international films.In addition, the opening night of ...
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News
HAF 2007 - Invested interest
Co-production markets have become a must-have accessory at film festivals from New York to Tokyo. The Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF) is slightly different, however, in that it is a financing platform that was conceived independently and only later became attached to a film festival.Organised for the past two ...
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News
D-Street, Volkswagen team on US release of Summer
Fledgeling US distributor D-Street Releasing has partnered with Volkswagen AG to support the marketing of the upcoming domestic release of Andreas Dresen's Summer In Berlin.The deal is part of an ongoing collaboration between D-Street and Volkswagen to promote and celebrate international film in the US market. The German film opens ...
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News
Capri taps Mongrel for Canadian co-release pact
Toronto-based distributors Mongrel Media and Capri Releasing have entered into a national co-distribution agreement that will see Mongrel handling Capri's theatrical releases going forward as well as DVD. The deal follows the departure earlier this year of Capri Releasing vice-president Robin Smith.Mongrel president Hussain Amarshi told Screen International that the ...
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Reviews
Blackbird
Dir/scr: Adam Rapp. US. 2007. 108 minutes. Screening in the Narrative Features Competition at Austin's SXSW Festival, this depressing film treads a well-worn path. Its familiar story features a 32-year-old heroin-addicted Marine veteran named Bayliss (Sparks) who meets another addict, a 16-year-old runaway from Detroit named 'Froggy' (Jacobs) at the ...
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News
Jan Sverak's Empties fills coffers at Czech box office
Empties (Vratne Lahve), the new film from father-and-son team Jan and Zdenek Sverak (Kolya) drew more than 110,000 viewers its opening weekend. The Sveraks' film just broke the record set earlier this year by Jiri Menzel's I Served The King Of England.'Young people are going to see it and they ...
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News
Piedmont announces new $33.1m (Euros 25m) film fund
Italy 's Piedmont region announced the inception of the Piedmont Film Company and the details of its new $33.1 million (Euros 25m) film fund to a packed press conference that was attended by industry insiders, cultural politicians and directors including Gabriele Salvatores and Mario Martone. Piedmont region President Mercedes Bresso ...