All Screen articles in 24 May 2005 – Page 4

  • News

    LAFF gets its Happy Endings

    2005-05-23T00:00:00Z

    Rodrigo Garcia's all-star ensemble drama Nine Lives will be the Centerpiece Premiere and Don Roos' HappyEndings will close the 2005 Los AngelesFilm Festival, which runs from Jun 16-26.Festival organisers also announced that Don Cheadle, LisaKudrow, and Elijah Wood will serve as honorary festival chairs, with SydneyPollack named guest director and ...

  • News

    Executive director sought for San Francisco film festival

    2005-05-23T00:00:00Z

    The San Francisco Film Society is searching for a newexecutive director in the run-up to next year's 50th anniversary of the SanFrancisco International Film Festival following the departure of RoxanneCaptor.Captor joined the organisation in 2001 and has left to concentrateon developing her own film projects.Melanie Blum, president of the Society's ...

  • News

    Dark Hours sells well for Fabrication

    2005-05-23T00:00:00Z

    New Los Angeles-based sales company Fabrication Films closed astring of sales in Cannes on Paul Fox's thriller The Dark Hours, which received its first marketscreening on the Croisette.Splendid picked up rights for Germany, VideoFilmes forBrazil, Luxor for Russia, Hollywood Films for Scandinavia, and HollywoodEntertainment for Greece.The picture also went to ...

  • News

    Arclight to handle $20m Snow Goose

    2005-05-23T00:00:00Z

    Arclight Films has picked up international sales on The SnowGoose, a $20m WWII dramaset to begin production this autumn in Belgium, the UK and France.Gillies MacKinnon will direct Olivier Martinez, EmilyBlunt, Billy Connolly and Jenny Agutter in Paul Gallico's story of a growingfriendship between a social pariah and a young ...

  • News

    Un Certain Regard rewards Romanian Death

    2005-05-22T00:00:00Z

    Un Certain RegardRomanian film The Death Of Mr. Lazarescu took top honours in the Un Certain Regard sidebar onFriday night in Cannes. The road movie set in an ambulance was directed byCristi Puiu whose short film Cigarettes And Coffee won a prize at Berlin in 2004.American director Alexander Payne oversaw ...

  • News

    Young film-makers win funding at Cannes project market

    2005-05-22T00:00:00Z

    In its first outing, the Cannes Film Festival'sproject market for young film-makers - the Atelier - has had an impressive 50%success rate. Nine out of the 18 directors selected were able to completefunding for their projects which should begin shooting quickly.Budgeted between Euros 700,000 and Euros 1.73 million, thefast-tracked films ...

  • News

    Star Wars blasts international opening record

    2005-05-22T00:00:00Z

    The invasion of the international marketplace by FoxInternational's Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith produced amassive estimated gross of $144.8m over the weekend, making the Lucasfilmproduction the biggest international opener ever.The international haul came from more than 10,000 screens in113 markets in 104 countries, with the film, ...

  • News

    Belgian Child snatches Palme d'Or

    2005-05-22T00:00:00Z

    It was a mix of old and new at the awards ceremony for the58th Cannes Film Festival on Saturday night. Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre and LucDardenne (pictured here) walked off with the Palme d'Or for their gritty, bleak film TheChild (L'Enfant). At presstime, their film had yet to secure a North ...

  • News

    Star Wars explodes with $158m US debut

    2005-05-22T00:00:00Z

    Twentieth Century Fox's Star Wars: Episode III - Revengeof the Sith zoomed to the top of the North American box office chart overthe weekend with a record-breaking estimated four-day gross of $158.5m. The film's three-day weekend estimated gross was $108.5m, the second biggest of all time.After grossing a record $50m ...

  • News

    Star Wars explodes with $158m US debut

    2005-05-22T00:00:00Z

    Twentieth Century Fox's Star Wars: Episode III - Revengeof the Sith zoomed to the top of the North American box office chart overthe weekend with an estimated three-day gross of $108.5m, the second biggestthree-day opening of all time. After grossing a record $50m on its Thursday opening day,the final installment ...

  • News

    Japanese uber-producer lines up Kurosawa remakes

    2005-05-20T04:00:00Z

    Kadokawa Haruki Jimusho, thecompany of uber-producer Haruki Kadokawa, has acquired the remake rights to theAkira Kurosawa classics Yojimbo and Tsubaki Sanjuro from KurosawaProduction. The purchase price, asannounced by Kadokawa Haruki Jimusho, is $2.8m (Y3000m).The company has indicatedthat, after it remakes the films for the Japanese market, it may makeadditional versions ...

  • News

    Trust Film Sales whips up Storm sales

    2005-05-20T04:00:00Z

    The promo of Swedishthriller Storm directed by MansMarlind and Bjorn Stein is selling quicker than most finished films on theTrust Film Sales counter. Thailand (Pacific Marketing), Mexico (Mandala), Brasil(California Films) and Estonia (Estin Film) have all fallen for Storm aftertwo screenings.Meanwhile,Greece's Rosebud and Italy's Theodora Film have picked up the ...

  • News

    Fortissimo scores flurry of Snow Cake deals

    2005-05-20T04:00:00Z

    Fortissimo Filmshad a busy Cannes closing deals with several distributors the company hasn'tworked with before including Svensk which took Scandinavian rights to MarcEvans' Snow Cake.The company alsosold The Night Listener,starring Robin Williams, to Italy's Videa and Tsui Hark's martial arts epic SevenSwords to Filmax inSpain. Snow Cake and The Night ...

  • News

    Korean industry abuzz as top production houses set to merge

    2005-05-20T04:00:00Z

    Sidus Pictures and Fun &Happiness, two of South Korea's most successful production companies, arepreparing to merge in an unexpected move that has set the local industrybuzzing. Sidus Pictures, launched in1995 as Uno Films under CEO Tcha Seung-jai, is widely considered Korea'sstrongest production house, having released 31 features including ChristmasIn August ...

  • Reviews

    Three Times

    2005-05-20T00:00:00Z

    Dir: Hou Hsiao-Hsien Taiwan.2005. 120minsTaiwanese director HouHsiao-Hsien is in the mood for love with Three Times, a tryptich ofromantic stories in which the same actors (Shu Qi and Chang Chen) playdifferent characters in 1966, 1911 and the present day. An ambitious notionresults in a slight, wisp of a film that ...

  • Reviews

    Free Zone

    2005-05-20T00:00:00Z

    Dir. Amos Gitai.Fr-Is-Jor-Bel. 2005. 94mins.Even his detractors would have to agree that Free Zone,the Cannes competition entry from Amos Gitai, is his most satisfactory picturesince Kippur. The first Israel-Jordan co-production on record, his roadmovie, which features three women each representing a facet of the Middle Eastconflict, is less ideologically insistent ...

  • News

    Pretty Pictures falls for The Great Ecstasy

    2005-05-20T00:00:00Z

    Paris-based distributor Pretty Pictures has taken Frenchrights on controversial Critics' Week title, The Great Ecstasy OfRobert Carmichael. The Thomas Clay directedfilm has shocked viewers thanks to a graphic gang rape scene, although reviewshave been generally positive. French sales and finance outfit Wild Bunch is representingthe film internationally.The UK film should ...

  • Reviews

    Don't Come Knocking

    2005-05-20T00:00:00Z

    Dir: Wim Wenders. US.2005. 122mins.Reunited for the first timein 20 years, Wim Wenders and Sam Shepard fail to rekindle the magic of theircollaboration on Palme D'Or winner Paris, Texas. Don't Come Knockingis a film of striking compositions and telling moments that never achieves thetender depths of emotion that distinguished its ...

  • Reviews

    The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada

    2005-05-20T00:00:00Z

    Dir: Tommy Lee Jones. US.2005. 120mins.A lone quest for justice becomes an ode to friendship andthe common ground between different cultures in The Three Burials OfMelquiades Estrada, a thoroughly respectable feature-length directorialdebut from Oscar-winning actor Tommy Lee Jones.An actor who believes thatless is more, Jones brings the same approach to ...

  • News

    Weinsteins sign finance deal, add three more to slate

    2005-05-20T00:00:00Z

    Harvey and Bob Weinstein have reached agreement on an equityinvestment and a debt financing commitment for their new multi-media companyfrom New York investment bank Goldman, Sachs & Co. In the latest of a string of announcements from the CannesFilm Festival, the Weinsteins also revealed a strategic relationship with TarakBen Ammar's ...