All articles by Geoffrey Macnab – Page 159
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News
TrustNordisk racks up sales for projects including Mammoth, Dark Floors
At its first Cannes as a joint operation, TrustNordisk has reported multiple sales on its Cannes slate. Deals closed include Dark Floors to Japan (Presidio Corporation) and Germany (MIG), Go With Peace Jamil to Portugal (Pantheon), The Green Butchers to Hungary (Cirko), and Heaven's Heart and Just Another Love Story ...
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Zentropa plans new features with Per Fly
Zentropa producer Ib Tardini is plotting two new features with Per Fly (the director of The Inheritance and Manslaughter). First off is $4m drama The Woman That Dreamed About A Man (working title.)Reflecting Zentropa's new-found European focus, it will shoot in Berlin, Paris and Warsaw. It tells the story of ...
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News
Bavaria Film International sales blossom
Bavaria Film International made Cannes sales on Doris Dörrie's Berlinale competition entry, Cherry Blossoms - Hanami was sold to Canada (Mongrel Media), Brazil (Mostra International de Cinema), India (Allience Lumière) and Russia (Maywin Media). Maywin Media also picked up Bavaria's second Berlinale competition entry, Restless by Amos Kollek as ...
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Hubert Bals future remains uncertain
Long-term funding arrangements for International Film Festival Rotterdam's prestigious Hubert Bals Fund (HBF) remain shrouded in doubt. The Fund supports filmmakers from developing countries. It currently has close to $1.9m (Eu1.2m) a year at its disposal. It has backed several films in official selection in Cannes this year.In 2006, the ...
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News
Telepool picks up The Volcano
Munich-based Telepool has acquired international rights to The Volcano, a joint production from the producers of teamWorx (Nico Hofmann) and RTL. Budgeted at $14m (9m Euros), the two-parter is the second joint project from RTL and teamWorx after Storm Tide, which attracted 11 million TV viewers in early 2006. Uwe ...
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News
A-Film on Cannes buying spree
A-Film Distribution has been on a Cannes buying binge. The Benelux Distributor, which is in the market again acquiting aggressively, has picked up a host of Cannes titles, including Milk (Gus van Sant, starring Sean Penn), The Other Man (Richard Eyre, starring Liam Neeson and Laura Linney), Mammoth (Lukas Moodysson, ...
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News
Zentropa launches Young Europeans production scheme
Danish powerhouse Zentropa has launched a new pan-European production initiative.Zentropa's partners are Young Europeans - as the initiative is called - aims to make eight films over a two year period. Budgets of each film will be in the $2.5m (1.5m Euros) range. The partners include IDTV in Holland, Slot ...
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News
Spike Lee shoots for Michael Jordan documentary
Inveterate sports fan Spike Lee is hatching a new feature documentaryabout basketball legend Michael Jordan. The project should be ready intime for next year's Cannes Festival.Lee's Jordan project is the latest in a line of high-profile auteurdriven sports docs, following on from James Toback's Tyson, about boxerMike Tysson, and Hand ...
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News
Juppiter back in business at Cannes
Italian production outfit Juppiter is back in business. Here in Cannes, the production outfit behind several classic Italian movies including key works by Ettore Scola and Tornatore has relaunched with a three film slate.Roberto Bessi, CEO of Juppiter Generale Cinematografica, is aiming to take advantage of new fiscal incentives likely ...
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News
Rome will go ahead after film fest head and Mayor
Following a meeting between the President of the Rome Film Fest Goffredo Bettini and the new Mayor of Rome, Gianni Alemanno, it has been confirmed that the third edition of the Rome Film Fest will go ahead as planned from October 22-31.This meeting follows the outspoken criticisms of the festival ...
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Cineart snaps up competition titles
Belgian arthouse distributor Cineart has been snapping up titles in Cannes official selection. New acquisitions include Waltz With Bashir (on The Match Factory's Cannes slate) and Korean title The Chaser (sold by Fine Cut.)Among the films it has already acquired are Brazilian competition title Linha De Passe from Walter Salles ...
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Entertainment One's RCV bags hot titles for Benelux
Entertainment One, the fast growing Canadian media group, has announced recently bought Benelux distributor RCV Entertainment has closed distribution deals on some of the most anticipated projects on this years market.RCV's managing directors Jan A. Kouwenhoven and Joke Wartenbergh confirmed a selection of the titles they have secured. Among them ...
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News
Hans Christian Schmid prepares $9m political drama
Hans Christian Schmid (the award-winning director of Requiem) is to start shooting a new, as-yet-untitled political drama in July. The $9m project starring Kerry Fox tells the story of Hannah Maynard, a prosecutor at The Tribunal in The Hague who manages to convince a young Bosnian woman to testify against ...
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News
A-Film still in the arthouse buying game
New A-Film boss Wilco Wolfers has arrived in Cannes in acquisitive mood and keen to dispel the idea that the Dutch distribution outfit is in a period of retrenchment and is moving away from releasing arthouse fare.New acquisitions include Pablo Trapero's competition title Lions Den (Leonera) and Gregor Jordan's thriller ...
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Troubled German VIP fund back in business
VIP Medienfonds, the financier of such hits as Monster, Black Book and Perfume, is back in the film production business, says Thierry Potok, who took over as CEO of the German private media fund at the beginning of this month.VIP has more than $31m (20m Euros) in funding from VIP ...
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Footage from Moodysson's Mammoth set for Cannes screening
Producer Lars Jönsson of Memfis Film has revealed further details of Swedish wunderkind Lukas Moodysson's $12m English-language debut Mammoth (on TrustNordisk's Cannes slate.) On Sunday, there will be a closed screening for selected distributors of the first footage from the film, which stars Gael Garcia Bernal and Michelle Williams. Veteran ...
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After box-office boost, Norwegian film looks to future
Norwegian films have reached a record high of 32% market share in the first quarter of 2008. The figure was announced in Cannes this week by Wiegard Harsvik, deputy minister in Norway's Ministry of Culture and Church Affairs. 'The first quarter was way beyond target,' Harsvig commented of figures that ...
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News
Ghengis Khan conquers new territories
Buyers are galloping after Oscar nominated Byambasuren Davaa's feature documentary The Two Horses Of Genghis Khan (on Atrix's Cannes slate). Spanish rights have now gone to Madrid-based Karma Films. Meanwhile, Benelux rights have gone to Contact Films.The film begins shooting in June in Mongolia and is set for a theatrical ...
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Features
United Kingdom - Hard truths, soft money
Earlier this spring, when the UK government clamped down on "sole trader" schemes, it seemed like the last hurrah for a gold rush era in UK film financing. The old Section 48 and Section 42 tax reliefs were no longer in place. A period in which hundreds of millions of ...
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Features
Germany - Funding station
Look, it's not Speed Racer. It's not Iron Man. But this is a quality film, it's really fun and it's an amazing cast," says Jens Meurer of Egoli Tossell, the German producer of Michael Hoffman's English-language The Last Station, now shooting in Cologne.Set in 1910, the film tells the story ...