All Screen articles in 20 January 2008 – Page 2
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News
Film4 and B3 Media's FeatureLab to nurture minority scripts
UK production company B3 Media is launching the B3 FeatureLab with backing from Film4, Binger Film Lab and Skillset.The initiative will nurture four feature film scripts from black and minority film-makers who have a track record in film, TV, radio, visual arts or new media.The programme, which runs throughout 2008, ...
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News
HBO Documentary Films buys Sundance doc The Black List
HBO Documentary Films has acquired domestic broadcast rights to portrait photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders documentary The Black List: Volume One, which gets its world premiere here on Jan 22.Film critic Elvis Mitchell interviews 20 high-profile African-Americans about their views on personal identity. Talking heads include Chris Rock, Toni Morrison, Colin Powell, ...
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News
Lakeshore pacts with Maximum for Canadian distribution
Maximum Films Distribution has signed a sub-distribution deal with Lakeshore Entertainment that will see the Toronto-based distributor release Lakeshore product across Canada. The all-rights deal was negotiated by Mark Musselman for Maximum and by David Dinerstein and Eric Reid for Lakeshore. Maximum has sub-distribution deals with Cinetic Media, IFC, Magnolia ...
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News
Zeitgeist buys US rights to Sundance doc Up The Yangstze
US distributor Zeitgeist Films has acquired Yung Chang's feature debut documentary Up The Yangstze in advance of its US premiere at Sundance. The film, which had its world premiere at the Vancouver International Film Festival in 2007, travels up the famed Chinese river to explore the end of a way ...
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News
DGA strikes tentative deal with AMPTP in just two weeks
The Directors Guild Of America (DGA) has struck a tentative deal for its contract renegotiation with studio representative the Alliance Of Motion Picture And Television Producers (AMPTP), putting pressure on the writers to resolve their ongoing dispute.In a typically early settlement for the directors thrashed out months before their contracts ...
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News
Writers' strike: are the Oscars threatened'
Last Friday, US TV network ABC Studios terminated more than 20 writer or producer deals, invoking the force majeure provision allowing termination of such deals six weeks into a strike.LastMonday, four other TV studios followed suit, saving tens of millions of dollars in the process.On February 24, ABC stands to ...
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Features
United States - Niche operator
Perhaps the biggest challenge Lisa Nishimura-Seese has faced, since relocating from New York to Los Angeles last October on joining Netflix, is that there are not enough hours in the day.In her newly created role of vice-president of independent content acquisition in a new department, she is charged with acquiring ...
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Features
United Kingdom - Next top model
It is looking like a good year ahead for the Bristol-based animation powerhouse Aardman. The company, formed back in 1976, had a notable 2007 after ending its relationship with DreamWorks and signing a first-look deal with Sony Pictures. Now the company behind Wallace and Gromit, Flushed Away and Chicken Run ...
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News
United Kingdom - The third word
Breaking into today's crowded industry calendar with a new event is a challenge. But when that event is aimed at screenwriters, it is a real achievement.The UK town of Cheltenham is preparing to host the third International Screenwriters' Festival (July 1-3), following two very strong opening years.To an extent, the ...
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Features
United States - Original intent
This week, Original Media, the New York-headquartered independent film and TV production company headed by former internet entrepreneur Charlie Corwin, is attending Sundance with what it hopes will be another buzz-generating festival film.In 2005, the then two-year-old company went to Park City as the primary backer of The Squid And ...
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Features
Rotterdam - History of a Project
A look at two recent projects to have been showcased at CineMart.COUNTRY TEACHERDirector: Bohdan SlamaProducer: Pavel Strnad, Negativ Film ProductionsCountry: Czech RepublicThis was the second time a project by Czech director Slama had been selected for CineMart. His second feature, Something Like Happiness, was presented in 2003 and had a ...
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Features
Fuelling Flemish Film
Pierre Drouot, the avuncular figure who took over as managing-director of the Flanders Audio-Visual Fund (VAF) in 2005, admits his vision for film in Flanders owes a lot to the example set by the Danish film industry.How does a small country devise a meaningful film policy' As head of the ...
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Features
United Kingdom - Making film history
He has been awake since 5.30am and is now, six hours later, roaring his lines for the 11th time in the marble-columned ballroom of Kedleston Hall in rural Derbyshire. Yet the delivery of his political monologue is flawless. UK actor Simon McBurney is the kind of supporting actor that big-budget ...
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News
Keeping Rotterdam on the festival map
The International Film Festival Rotterdam (Iffr) in the Netherlands has long held a reputation as a cinephile's delight. 'Rotterdam is one my favourite festivals for movies,' says James Schamus, head of Focus Features and one of its many illustrious supporters.The buzz filmsCinemart celebratesCinemart buzz filmsCase studies'They have the freedom to ...
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Features
Promotional Feature - Flanders finds its x factor
Flanders film was not quite in the doldrums when Pierre Drouot took over as managing director of the Flanders Audio-Visual Fund (VAF) in November 2005.Nonetheless, to outsiders, it was clear Flemish cinema was not prospering either. Few films from the Belgium region of Flanders achieved any visibility at all on ...
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Features
International - Independents' Day
The back end of the Hollywood winter blockbuster season is an opportunity for independents to make a significant dent in Screen's international box-office chart. And, following a hugely successful Christmas, it is the Italians leading the way with new entry L'Allenatore Nel Pallone 2, distributed by Medusa Films.Sergio Martino's football ...
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News
Screen Opinion - festival change is sign of success
Oh, for the certainties of yesteryear. There was a time when it was clear where you stood in the film festival world. Everyone knew their place and God was in his heaven, or at least in an arthouse cinema.The year was more or less happily divided between well-known events with ...
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Features
Rotterdam - CineMart Celebrates
Rotterdam is not the kind of festival to be big on celebrating numbers," says CineMart head Marit van den Elshout of the co-production market's 25th anniversary this week. "We'll do something but we won't be making a huge celebration."Still, this is an opportune moment to take stock, "to look back ...
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Features
Production - Mumbai Calling
One of the world's most crowded and at times dysfunctional cities, shooting in Mumbai is not for the faint-hearted. But it is also the centre of one of the world's largest film industries, with production costs around one-fifth of those in the West. For projects with a story set in ...
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Features
Rotterdam - CineMart Buzz
22nd Of May dir: Koen Mortier (Belgium, Ger-Neth)Mortier caused a stir with his debut Ex Drummer, in Rotterdam's Tiger competition last year. The film, dubbed by some as a Flemish Trainspotting, was distributed in Benelux by A-Film and was sold internationally by Loic Magneron's Wide Management. Now, Mortier is back ...