All articles by Geoffrey Macnab – Page 174
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Features
Germany - Enduring labour of love
Philippe Bober's sales, financing and production outfit The Coproduction Office is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. The company was set up in 1987 in Berlin with the aim of supporting maverick auteurs with strong personal visions. Over the last two decades, Bober has championed the work of (among others) ...
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Features
Germany - Enduring labour of love
Philippe Bober's sales, financing and production outfit The Coproduction Office is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. The company was set up in 1987 in Berlin with the aim of supporting maverick auteurs with strong personal visions. Over the last two decades, Bober has championed the work of (among others) ...
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News
UK tax breaks:a cultural revolution
As producers begin to grapple in earnest with the UK tax incentives, the local industry is eyeing the new system with a mix of anticipation and trepidation. Most acknowledge the credits will not compensate for the investment lost to the UK film industry following the scrapping of Section 48 and ...
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News
Industry has mixed reactions to HanWay-Celluloid merger
The announcement yesterday of the merger between HanWay Films and Celluloid Dreams to create a new combined company, dreamachine, has provoked a mixed response from the European film industry. Some have welcomed the consolidation of the two companies. For example, Tartan Films founder Hamish McAlpine applauded the move. 'Hanway and ...
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Reviews
Sunshine
Dir: Danny Boyle. UK-US. 2007. 107mins. The sun is dying. Eight astronauts, 55 millions miles from Earth, are on a mission to re-ignite it and thereby save humanity. Thus begins Danny Boyle's highly impressive sci-fi thriller Sunshine, a work that combines eye-popping visuals with an eco-conscious screenplay and several striking ...
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News
Malta: inward production
In recent years, Malta has successfully attracted some ambitious projects, such as Troy and Munich. The Mediterranean island may offer tax credits, ocean-side water tanks, sunshine and plenty of spectacular locations but the challenge now is to lure big US projects in the face of heavy competition from Eastern European ...
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News
Film commissions: friends in hired places
What is a film commissioner' 'On one end of the spectrum, they can be basically not much more than civil servants allocated film as part of their portfolio but they can also be people who have worked in the industry and know how we think and what we need. The ...
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News
Potboiler to follow Gardener with Le Carre's Mission Song
Following its successful adaptation of John Le Carre's The Constant Gardener, Simon Channing Williams and Gail Egan's London-based Potboiler Productions is preparing a new film based on Le Carre's latest book, The Mission Song. Joe Fisher, writer of acclaimed TV drama Soundproof and of 1998's The Tichborne Claimant, is scripting ...
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Reviews
As You Like It
Dir: Kenneth Branagh UK-US. 2006. 127mins. Kenneth Branagh's fifth Shakespeare adaptation (after Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet and Love's Labour's Lost), As You Like It is a curiously undercharged affair. Handsomely and fluidly shot and intelligently performed, it nonetheless lacks spark. What should be a playful and magical ...
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News
Pinewood Shepperton sees turnover up 22% in 2006
Pinewood Shepperton today released its preliminary results for the year ended Dec 31 2006. It was a robust year for the company, with turnover up 22% at $80m (£40.7m) and operating profit 'before exceptional items' up 70% at $17.9m (£9.1m).The company's increasing diversification into television also seems to be bearing ...
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Features
United Kingdom - Soho story
Sam Garbarski freely admits that his second feature, Irina Palm, is a cosmopolitan endeavour.He is a Pole, born in Germany and based in Brussels. His backers come from all over Europe. His initial plan was to shoot the film, which he describes as "a non-politically correct, romantic black comedy", in ...
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News
War Is Hell - interview with Mark Munden
When Channel 4 broadcasts Marc Munden's The Mark Of Cain, British audiences are likely to be startled by the film's frank depiction of UK soldiers humiliating and bullying Iraqi prisoners. Audiences may also be surprised by the way British senior officers are shown trying to avoid responsibility for events that ...
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News
Pinewood Studios stage rebuilt and ready for Bond
Less than a year after the fire last July that destroyed the celebrated 007 stage at Pinewood, the stage has been fully rebuilt and is back in action. The news comes as Pinewood makes its case to keep the next 007 film, Bond 22, in Britain. The studio is already ...
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News
Gurinder Chadha in pre-production on Full-Frontal Snogging
The hunt is on for a teenage actress to star in Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging. Casting is getting underway in London this week on the $18 million adaptation of the first in UK author Louise Rennison's best-selling Confessions Of Georgia Nicolson series about adolescent angst. It has now been ...
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Features
Denmark - Overthrowing the old guard
Based on the memoirs of James Gregory, Goodbye Bafana tells the story of the white South African who guarded Nelson Mandela on Robben Island. But while it is a South African story, the $20m project is directed by a Dane, Bille August, and has an international flavour in terms of ...
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News
Princess Of The Sun to become first film screening at Pyramids
French animated feature Princess Of The Sun is to receive its world premiere tomorrow at a special outdoor screening in Egypt, at the bottom of the pyramids of Giza. This is the first time the Egyptian Government has sanctioned such a screening. The Egyptian premiere is the brainchild of French ...
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Reviews
Gone (aka Middle Of Nowhere)
Dir: Ringan Ledwidge. UK-Aust. 2006. 88mins Young British travellers should steer well clear of the Australian Outback. Having suffered at the hands of a deranged and sadistic bushman in Greg McLean's ferociously unpleasant Wolf Creek, the Brits Down Under are again put through the wringer in Gone. Like Wolf Creek, ...
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Features
European animation - Drawn to Europe
It may boast an abundance of talent, but European animation has always been little more than a cottage industry. And in a global market dominated by the likes of Disney and DreamWorks Animation, Europe's lack of marketing clout, branding and distribution is painfully obvious.But there are signs that European feature ...
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Features
European animation - Case Study: Arthur and the Invisibles - 'We had no clue how tough it was going to be'
In making Arthur And The Invisibles, Luc Besson (pictured) refused to accept the conventional wisdom that European animation was a cottage industry. It looks as if his gamble has paid off, with the film already scoring more than 6.2 million admissions in France. The aim now is to shoot the ...
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Features
European - Selling European animation - Drawing the battle lines
Television looms large over European animation. "The biggest problem in selling animation in Europe is that the market is primarily for (TV) series - 30-minute episodes," says Czech-based producer and sales agent John Riley, who has sold the work of Czech master Jan Svankmajer.With bigger-budget Euro-animated features, sales agents need ...