All Screen articles in 4 February 2008 – Page 8

  • News

    Bavaria Film to unveil four market premieres at EFM

    2008-01-28T18:08:00Z

    Bavaria Film International (BFI) will have four market premieres at the forthcoming European Film Market (EFM) in Berlin next week. These titles are in addition to the three films that the company has in Official Competition - Cherry Blossoms - Hanami, Restless and Black Ice.The four new titles showing at ...

  • News

    Hauer joins van Houten in cast of Smoke And Ochre

    2008-01-28T18:01:00Z

    Rutger Hauer and German actor Sebastian Koch have joined the cast of biopic Smoke And Ochre, to be directed by Dutch filmmaker Paula van der Oest. Dutch actress Carice van Houten plays the lead role of revolutionary South African writer Ingrid Jonker. Hauer will play her father while Koch will ...

  • News

    Invicta Entertainment sets up shop Berlin

    2008-01-28T17:49:00Z

    Production and financing outfit Invicta Entertainment has set up its headquarters in Berlin to produce films in the $1m-$10m range for the international market. With an in-house development team and access to private equity for development and production, Invicta will have the ability to acquire, develop and produce projects at ...

  • News

    Mei Ah Entertainment sells BIG stake to mainland investor

    2008-01-28T17:44:00Z

    Hong Kong producer-distributor Mei Ah Entertainment has sold a 21% stake in local production outfit BIG Media Group to Chinese investor Brandon Wen Rui Feng for $10.3m (HK$80m). Mei Ah bought a 44% share in BIG last year which was diluted to 23% following the placement of new shares. The ...

  • News

    Technicolor to move London West Drayton office to Pinewood Studios

    2008-01-28T17:23:00Z

    Thomson has announced that it will relocate Technicolor London from its West Drayton location (home for more than 70 years) to a new post-production facility at Pinewood Studios.The new Technicolor at Pinewood location will offer integrated film and front-end services, release printing, and digital cinema distribution services.Technicolor will host a ...

  • News

    EastWest takes on sales for Rotterdam title Worldrevolution

    2008-01-28T17:18:00Z

    Sales company EastWest Filmdistribution has acquired worldwide rights to Worldrevolution According To Drahdiwaberl.Klaus Hundsbichler's film looks at the life of Vienna-based punk musician Stefan Weber and his revolutionary band Drahdiwaberl, which has been together for almost 40 years.Hundsbichler worked on the film for more than eight years. 'My most important ...

  • Reviews

    Go with Peace, Jamil

    2008-01-28T17:14:00Z

    Dir: Omar Shargawi, Denmark 2008, 90 minutesHigh on testosterone and sweaty machismo, Omar Shargawi's debut feature is let down by a lack of subtlety and some shallow characterisation. This is a revenge thriller set in the immigrant Arab community in Copenhagen. Sunnis are pitted against Shias. Shargawi shows plenty of ...

  • News

    High Point expands with new Sydney-based operations led by Bowen

    2008-01-28T17:08:00Z

    UK-based High Point Media Group has expanded its operations to now include Australia and New Zealand.Producer/writer Adam Bowen will head up the Sydney-based operations to source films and TV projects from Australia and New Zealand.Bowen will work closely with High Point's head of productions and acquisitions Carl Simons and head ...

  • News

    EU report says legal framework for VoD not solidly defined

    2008-01-28T15:37:00Z

    The new legal framework for video-on-demand (VoD) services in Europe created under the European Commission's Audio Visual Media Services Directive may not be as solidly defined as expected. That is the conclusion of a report published today by the European Audiovisual Observatory. If true, it could open up a legal ...

  • Reviews

    The King of Ping Pong (Ping-Pongkingen)

    2008-01-28T14:35:00Z

    Dir: Jens Jonsson. Sweden. 2007. 107 mins.Growing pains in a cold climate: this formula has reaped handsome dividends for Nordic cinema in the past, most spectacularly for Lasse Hallström's My Life as a Dog, and more modestly for Dagur Kári's Icelandic art-house hit of 2003 Noi Albinoi. Swedish comedy-drama The ...

  • Reviews

    Transsiberian

    2008-01-28T11:29:00Z

    Dir: Brad Anderson. US. 2008. 111 mins.The latest entry in Brad Anderson's increasingly fascinating oeuvre is an ambitious thriller set on the Transsiberian train from China to Moscow which recalls train-set thrillers from the 1970s like Silver Streak, The Cassandra Crossing and Murder On The Orient Express, not to mention ...

  • Reviews

    The Great Buck Howard

    2008-01-28T10:34:00Z

    Dir: Sean McGinly. US. 2008. 87 minsThe Great Buck Howard is a well-made character piece which is so slight, good-natured and ever so slightly bland that it is likely to land in a commercial no man's land somewhere between the mainstream and the arthouse. Produced by Gary Goetzman and Tom ...

  • Reviews

    Donkey Punch (2007)

    2008-01-28T10:31:00Z

    Dir. Olly Blackburn, 2007, UK, 90 minutesDonkey Punch, in young male slang, is a term for a hard blow to the back of the neck during sex, which produces a clench that gives pleasure to at least one person in a couple. This act kills a vacationing girl from Leeds ...

  • Reviews

    The Escapist

    2008-01-28T10:16:00Z

    Dir: Rupert Wyatt. UK/Ireland. 2008. 105mins.In his debut feature The Escapist director Rupert Wyatt animates the virtues of the B-movie thriller - direct expression, taut construction and a stripped down psychology-with a more conceptually unorthodox narrative design that collapses time and space.In the script he wrote with Daniel Hardy, Wyatt ...

  • News

    Fortissimo and Circe Films team up for art titles

    2008-01-28T06:49:00Z

    Dutch based film company Fortissimo and Amsterdam-based production outfit Circe Films are teaming up to producea series of European arthouse titles. They announced their new partnership in Rotterdam.The first co-produced feature will be Face, the next project of Tsai Ming-Liang, initiatied by French JBA Productions.Fortissimo has taken salesrights to previous ...

  • News

    Day-Lewis, Christie win top film honours at SAG Awards

    2008-01-28T05:14:00Z

    The 14th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards crowned Daniel Day-Lewis and Julie Christie king and queen of the acting world on Sunday [Jan 27] and positioned the pair at the forefront of the race for the lead actor Oscars next month.The jovial ceremony at the Los Angeles Shrine Exposition Center ...

  • News

    SPC buys The Wackness, Frozen River as Sundance ends

    2008-01-28T02:47:00Z

    Sony Pictures Classics (SPC) has paid low seven figures for North American rights to Jonathan Levine's The Wackness, which won the 2008 Sundance Film Festival's Audience Award: Dramatic prize on Saturday [Jan 26].The deal marked SPC's third pick-up following Courtney Hunt's dramatic grand jury prize winner Frozen River and Mark ...

  • News

    New Year Parade, Song Sung Blue take Slamdance top prizes

    2008-01-28T02:29:00Z

    Tom Quinn's The New Year Parade won the 14th Annual Slamdance Film Festival's Grand Jury Award for Best Narrative Feature and Greg Kohs' Song Sung Blue took corresponding documentary honours at the weekend.The Grand Jury Award For Best Animated Short went to Andrew McPhillips's Blood Will Tell, the Grand Jury ...

  • News

    Second AFI Dallas festival to open with The Last Lullaby

    2008-01-28T02:03:00Z

    The World Premiere of Jeffrey Goodman's noir thriller The Last Lullaby starring Tom Sizemore and US premieres of the music documentaries Glass: A Portrait Of Philip In Twelve Parts and Sonic Youth: Sleeping Nights Awake are among 15 titles named in this year's AFI Dallas 2008 International Film Festival line-up.Additional ...

  • News

    Magnolia to distribute ten Oscar-nominated shorts in US theatres

    2008-01-28T02:00:00Z

    Magnolia Pictures and Shorts International have announced they will partner for the third year running to bring the 10 Oscar-nominated live-action and animated short films to US theatres on Feb 15 prior to the awards ceremony on Feb 24.The Oscar Shorts programme will at first open in approximately 50 cities ...