All articles by Colin Brown – Page 3
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FeaturesOnline funding draws a crowd
How much impact can crowdfunding sites have on the $22bn global investment business? Colin Brown taps into the key sites
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FeaturesThe one to watch
Fuelled by a multiplex boom, the UAE box office is much bigger than previously believed. But market peculiarities and demographic quirks mean not all films perform as elsewhere.
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FeaturesArab talent in bloom
As political change and renewal sweeps across the Middle East, the film industry in the Arab world is also undergoing a transformation. In step with this week’s Doha Tribeca Film Festival, Screen profiles some of the region’s rising film-making and acting talent now stepping onto the international stage.
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FeaturesOn Egypt's front lines
Young Egyptian film-makers are emerging to portray their lives on the big screen. As Cannes prepares to pay tribute to Egypt as its first guest country, Screen asks if there is a market and finance for this new Arab generation
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FeaturesTarak Ben Ammar
Quinta Communications chief Tarak Ben Ammar talks about his role in the recent popular uprising in Tunisia and what he believes are the implications for the Arab entertainment business
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FeaturesThe war for the living room
Can the likes of Google and Apple overthrow the cable TV establishment by creating a simple way for customers to access content directly through web browsers? Colin Brown believes so
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FeaturesComcastic or Comcastrophe?
US cable giant Comcast has finalised its deal for ownership of NBCUniversal — will it damage independent film production or bring more diversity?
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FeaturesGary Winick: Ahead of his time
Colin Brown pays tribute to director and digital filmmaking pioneer Gary Winick, who pioneered ‘open-source filmmaking’ at InDigEnt.
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FeaturesThe future on demand
Online VoD is changing the face of film distribution — as seen by the huge growth of Netflix and Amazon’s recent acquisition of LoveFilm. Colin Brown explores the latest moves in the battle for the living room
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FeaturesPlexing muscle
The growth of a multiplex market and the expansion of digital cinema show India’s potential. But there are still hurdles along the way, reports Udita Jhunjhunwala
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News
Screen comment on US equity crisis: Monte Carlo And Bust'
Wall Street's death spiral has claimed its biggest victim so far with the collapse of investment bank, Bear Stearns. Like so many other financial institutions engulfed in the mortgage meltdown, Bear Stearns was also a film financer; as is its new owner, JP Morgan Chase. Now the question is when ...
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News
Screen Opinion: The Red-Stained Carpet
No matter which film walks home from Sunday's Oscar ceremony with the big prize, it will mark another victory for the US-centric studio apparatus otherwise known as Hollywood. Even at the more artistic fringes of the film-making spectrum, the big-six movie conglomerates still exert a gravitational pull on the marketplace ...
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Reviews
Trouble the Water
Dirs: Tia Lessin & Carl Deal. US. 2007. 90minsAlthough both productions document the same Hurricane Katrina that unleashed its fury on the US Gulf Coast in 2005, Trouble The Water could hardly be more different stylistically from Spike Lee's 2006 mini-series When The Levees Broke. If Lee's reverentially crafted ...
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News
Hollywood hope turns to Middle East petro-dollars
In their unending quest to spend other people's money, Western film producers and studios have spent the last couple of years becoming conversant in the languages of Wall Street and the hedge-fund world. Now, just as those wells become exposed to the sub-prime mortgage morass, these same producers are learning ...
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News
The Writer's Strike:Cloudy forecasts
The film and television industries represent collectively a $500bn global enterprise that attracts some of the keenest minds in business. And yet, judging by the high emotions evident at so many industry get-togethers these past six weeks, when talk turned invariably to the writers' strike, this is also a sector ...
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News
Editorial opinion: the gathering storm
By feeding the studios' hunger to greenlight every half-baked idea they possess, financiers are surely contributing to an even bigger cataclysm, argues Colin Brown.The US film industry is just months away from another talent strike. Unless there's a dramatic breakthrough in the studios' rancorous negotiations with the Writers Guild of ...
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News
Editorial opinion: talent to burn
In an unquantifiable business, backing talent is the best bet - provided you know where to look, says Colin BrownThere is a belief that all this new equity and debt financing that has gushed into the film industry over the past couple of years is somehow 'smart money'.Because the newly ...
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News
Russian film - Eastern promise
While Europe may include a number of mature markets working at around their effective capacity, in the east there are opportunities for exponential growth. Most obviously there is Russia.But for all its explosive box-office growth, Russia remains a problematic market where DVD revenues are minimal and an impending law reducing ...
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News
Wajda film throws spotlight on Polish film fund
The expected unveiling at this year's Cannes Film Festival of Andrzej Wajda's Post Mortem will also serve as the international launch party of Poland's generous but still largely unknown new film fund. Wajda, whose Man Of Iron won the top prize at Cannes in 1981, will be among the ...
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News
Russia not yet in from the cold
For all its explosive box office growth, Russia remains a problematic market where DVD revenues are minimal and an impending law reducing the amount of allowable TV advertising threatens to undercut film pre-sales by broadcast networks.This sobre assessment was provided by a panel discussion on the Russian marketplace at Screen ...