All articles by Geoffrey Macnab – Page 164
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News
Live action and animation divideis blurring, says Sony digital boss
As audience demand for effects-driven blockbusters grows, the lines between animation and live-action, already blurred, will come close to disappearing.That's the prediction of Yair Landau, vice-chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) and president of its Sony Pictures Digital (SPD) division.'Visual effects and animation dominate the moviegoing experience like at no ...
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News
Vandierendonck steps down from Eurimages post
In a surprising move, Jan Vandierendonck has announced that he will be quitting his position as Executive Secretary of Eurimages. He is expected to step down in April or May. His replacement is likely to be confirmed by autumn 2008.Vandierendonck was appointed to the post of Eurimages Executive Secretary in ...
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News
UK film industry remains upbeat despite US strike worries
Leading figures in theUK film industryare remaining upbeat about the prospects for the territory despite theimpact oftheHollywood writers' strike on shoots.Ron Howard's Angels & Demons, Ridley Scott's Nottingham and the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced Prince Of Persia have either withdrawn from the UK or been postponed.The WGA strike is having an impact, ...
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News
Iain Smith plans $20m rugby drama The Originals
UK-based producer Iain Smith (Cold Mountain, Children Of Men) is in advanced development on The Originals, a Chariots Of Fire-style drama about the exploits of the famous 1905 New Zealand All Black rugby team during their tour of Great Britain. The team was known as 'The Originals.'Mark Joffe is to ...
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News
United Kingdom - English Patience
'When Paris sneezes, all Europe catches a cold,' Austria's Prince Metternich famously quipped in the wake of the French Revolution. When Hollywood sneezes, the global film industry catches a cold. That, at least, is the suggestion of British film commissioner Colin Brown as he surveys prospects for UK film production ...
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News
BAFTA organisers don't expect WGA strike chaos
In the wake of Monday’s announced cancellation of the Golden Globes big awards show, industry observers have been asking how other awards events, including the UK’s BAFTAS, will be affected.
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Features
United Kingdom - Coming up for chair
It is almost a decade since Colin MacCabe left his position as head of research and education at the British Film Institute (BFI). He is still an active producer - his latest project, Isaac Julien's Derek Jarman documentary, Derek, premieres in Sundance. Yet MacCabe cannot hide his dismay at what ...
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Features
2008 Preview - The future is rewritten
A Hollywood producer takes a shine to an up-and-coming European screenwriter. "I'm going to set you to work on the rewrite of my next film," the producer tells the writer. "Who wrote the first version'" the writer asks. "We haven't hired anyone yet," the producer replies.This story may be apocryphal ...
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Reviews
Caramel
Dir: Nadine Labaki. Lebanon-France. 2007. 96mins. Nadine Labaki's debut feature is an assured and wonderfully engaging romantic comedy. At times, its storytelling is soft-centred and self-indulgent, but there is enough barbed humour and ironic observation here to counterbalance the more syrupy moments. Caramel's status as festival crowd pleaser was quickly ...
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News
Brussels Fund starts $1.17m lab for maverick film-makers
In a move designed to ensure that maverick filmmakers do not slip through the net, Brussels-based VAF (The Flanders AudioVisual Fund) is setting up a new fund targeting new talent. The Filmlab, as the new scheme is called, will invest $1.17m (Euros 800,000) in supporting adventurous new film projects. This ...
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News
Colin McCabe demands end of 'tragic decade' for British Film Institute
Distinguished British academic and producer Colin MacCabe has today (Monday) publicly announced his candidature for the post of Chair of the British Film Institute (BFI).The current chairman Anthony Minghella is due to step down at the end of the year. Whether or not MacCabe’s application is successful, it is bound ...
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News
Free Roaming: UK producer Kevin Loader
Kevin Loader has an increasingly international outlook. The prolific UK producer (whose forthcoming credits include Good and Brideshead Revisited) is in post-production on The Oxford Murders, a co-production with Spain's Tornasol Films.Loader's Free Range Film is the UK partner on Alex de la Iglesia's $10m Spain-France-UK project. 'We had an ...
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Features
Belgium - Extra dimension
Earlier this autumn, Summit Entertainment acquired North American distribution rights to 3D animated feature Fly Me To The Moon. Following three stowaway flies inside the helmets of lunar astronauts, the film was directed and produced by Ben Stassen, also co-founder of Belgium-based nWave Pictures. "It makes it easier to control ...
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News
Participant, Magnolia back Gibney's new lobbying documentary
Participant Productions (the outfit behind Oscar winner An Inconvenient Truth) is partnering with US distributor Magnolia on Burning Down The House, a new Alex Gibney feature-documentary about the murky world of political lobbying.This is a subject that has caused huge controversy in the US since political lobbyist Jack Abramoff was ...
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News
Gonzalon Arijon's Stranded takes top prize at IDFA
Gonzalon Arijon's Stranded (France) has won the VPRO Joris Ivens award, the top prize at the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA).The award comes with a cash prize of Euros 12,500. The film, about the survival story of the Uruguyan rugby team after a plane crash high in the Andes, was ...
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News
Wide sells Sabine to a dozen territories including US, UK
Underlining that there is still an appetite among theatrical buyers for feature documentaries, Paris-based Wide Management has been racking up sales on two of its titles that screened this week at International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA).Sandrine Bonnaire's Her Name Is Sabine has been an especially strong draw for distributors. Bonnaire's ...
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News
After Bergman: the death of arthouse'
The American Film Market (AFM) has never been especially fertile territory for auteur cinema. This has always been a market for mainstream product and straight-to-video fodder, not arthouse titles. Nonetheless, one trait was very noticeable among independent sales agents in Santa Monica earlier this month. Companies which used to handle ...
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News
Profile: Philip Knatchbull, Curzon Artificial Eye
Philip Knatchbull, CEO of Curzon Artificial Eye, has a distinguished film background to live up to - his father, John Brabourne, produced the likes of Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo & Juliet and David Lean's A Passage To India.But Knatchbull has a different sort of film mission. He aims to grow Curzon ...
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News
Central Partnership sells Revenge, Wolfhound to Weinstein Company
Russian sales company Central Partnership has struck a number of deals in the wake of the American Film Market earlier this month. Titles that have lured buyers include thrillers Revenge and fantasy epic Wolfhound, already a substantial box-office hit in Russia. Revenge has been sold to North America/UK/Australia/New Zealand and ...