All articles by Adam Minns – Page 31
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Saddam's Bombmaker is first acquisition for BBC Films' LA arm
BBC Films has optioned Saddam's Bombmaker, the autobiography of Khidhir Hamza, the former head of Iraq's nuclear weapons program who defected to the US in 1995. The project is the first acquisition made by BBC Films' new Los Angeles office run by Peter Kalmbach, who will oversee development and production ...
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Ken Loach, Rebecca O'Brien launch new production company
UK director Ken Loach and producer Rebecca O'Brien, whose Sweet Sixteen was confirmed for Cannes competition on Wednesday, are splitting from long-standing UK film co-operative Parallax Pictures to launch a new production company, Sixteen Films.Parallax Pictures is being dissolved next month, ending a partnership that has been prominent in UK ...
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Bernal turns revolutionary for Motorcycle Diaries
Rising Mexican star Gael Garcia Bernal is to play Che Guevara in Walter Salles' The Motorcycle Diaries.The white hot star of Y Tu Mama Tambien and Amores Perros will spend two months in Argentina this summer preparing for the production, which is being co-financed by the UK's FilmFour and Germany's ...
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Nina Sadowsky named president of production at Signpost Films
Stewart Till's Signpost Films has appointed Nina Sadowsky as its Los Angeles-based president of production.Sadowsky was president of Meg Ryan's Prufrock Pictures for five years and executive produced The Wedding Planner. Prior to joining Prufrock, she produced Sundance title Jumpin' At The Boneyard."Nina has all the attributes we were ...
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UK Government closes film tax relief loophole
Loopholes allowing TV productions to access UK tax relief for films are to be closed, the Government announced in its budget on Wednesday (April 17).The move is expected to stem a rash of TV projects that have accessed the UK's influential 100% tax write-offs under Section 48, leading to calls ...
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Parkhill has start date to dot the i for Summit
Summit Entertainment has scheduled April 21 to start production on dot the i, an urban love triangle story starring rising Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal, (Y Tu Mama Tambien, Amores Perros).Award-winning novelist and screenwriter Matthew Parkhill makes his writer-director debut on the project, from UK production company Arcane Pictures. The ...
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Verhoeven, FilmFour partner for historical epic
Paul Verhoeven, the Dutch director of such US blockbusters as Robocop, Total Recall and Starship Troopers, and the UK's FilmFour have partnered on an epic film adaptation of one of the most shocking episodes in Dutch history. The partners are to shoot a film about the murderous aftermath of the ...
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Signpost in tax deal with Atlantic Screen Capital
Stewart Till's Signpost Films has unveiled an exclusive deal with Andrew Somper's Atlantic Screen Capital to structure tax and European financing.Somper was previously managing director and chief operating officer of tax-based financier Grosvenor Park Media and head of the media finance group at law firm Berwin Leighton Paisner."This whole financial ...
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FilmFour options bestselling Vanity Fair expose
The UK's FilmFour has optioned How To Lose Friends And Alienate People, Toby Young's best-selling account of his time in New York on upmarket magazine Vanity Fair.Young will write the screenplay and act as associate producer on the project, which charts how the British journalist was fired after faux pas ...
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Stars, crew take $3m deferrals to save Cromwell
Stars Rupert Everett, Tim Roth, Dougray Scott and Olivia Williams have agreed to take deferments worth around $3 million to help save troubled period production Cromwell & Fairfax.The producers, crew and suppliers on the $20 million Natural Nylon production are also contributing to the deferrals after shooting ground to a ...
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UK horror Dog Soldiers wins at Brussels festival
Dog Soldiers, the UK werewolf film which became a surprise talking point last Mifed (see review, left), has won the top prize at the Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film.The international jury, presided over by actor Christopher Lee, presented the Golden Raven to the film at the event's closing ceremony ...
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Woody Allen's Hollywood Ending opens Cannes
Woody Allen's Hollywood Ending will mark the director's first trip to Cannes when it opens the festival out of competition, the event announced on Thursday.Publicity-shy Allen has shown Manhattan, The Purple Rose Of Cairo and Hannah And Her Sisters at Cannes, but has declined to attend the screenings. "The French ...
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Natalie Imbruglia stars in Working Title spy spoof
Pop star Natalie Imbruglia is making her film debut starring opposite UK comedian Rowan Atkinson in Working Title Films' spy spoof, Johnny English.The former Neighbours actress will play special agent Lorna Campbell, while John Malkovich will be the villain, a French megalomaniac called Sauvage. Atkinson, who appeared in Bond film ...
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San Francisco festival lines up star guests
Actress Mira Sorvino, director Arturo Ripstein and LucasFilm's Rick McCallum are amongst the guests at the upcoming San Francisco International Film Festival, which runs April 18 to May 2.Sorvino is on promotional duty for The Triumph Of Love, while Ripstein is in town with The Ruination Of Men. McCallum will ...
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UK release of France's Pornographer is
UK distributor Metro Tartan plans to place a card at the front of controversial French film The Pornographer stating that it has been "butchered" after UK certification body the BBFC demanded an 11-second cut.The BBFC objected to what it called "an unsimulated porn sequence in which a women is seen ...
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UK's ITV Digital calls in administrators
ITV Digital, the biggest pay-TV rival to UK satellite broadcaster BSkyB, has sought protection from its creditors by applying for administrators to run the business.The move comes after the cash-strapped broadcaster failed to renegotiate its payments for rights to broadcast matches from the English Football League. The service is co-owned ...
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Buena Vista rides with UK's Four Horsemen
Buena Vista has signed a three-year European distribution pact with Four Horsemen Films, the newly-launched youth and genre label of UK producer-financier Random Harvest.The US studio will have a first-look option for theatrical distribution and exclusive rights for video and television on 12 feature-length films from the UK outfit. The ...
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UK producers condemn SAG's Global Rule One
Plans that effectively forcenon-US productions to employ local talent under US union rules have triggeredprotests from UK producers body PACT.The body warned thatmounting pressure from US actors union SAG to use its so-called Global Rule One- whereby SAG members working overseas must use SAG contracts even if they hailfrom the ...
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UK's Mill launches New York effects operation
UK-based effects house The Mill is launching a New York arm, the company announced on Monday.The operation will focus on commercials work, although its UK parent has moved into features such as Gladiator, whose director Ridley Scott is a minority investor in the group. The venture is to be fully ...
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Lost In La Mancha finds UK distribution
UK distributor Optimum Releasing has picked up Lost In La Mancha, the acclaimed documentary about the so-called un-making of Terry Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote.Optimum is to give the film a theatrical outing this year after its success with audiences and critics at February's Berlin International Film Festival. ...