All articles by Geoffrey Macnab – Page 191
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News
Funds dry up at Euro Media Programme
The Media Programme'sdistribution support system appears to be in a state of disarray. Speaking inBerlin on Sunday, Raymond A. J. Goverde confirmed that the budget for 2004 ranout in mid-November and that no distributors have received the money they werepromised since then.Goverde (Head of MonitoringTeam at Media) said that the ...
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News
Gavin Films strikes US deal for Mothers And Daughters
Bill Gavin's Gavin Films hassold North American rights to Mothers And Daughters to SalonEntertainment.The US distributor isplanning a theatrical release for the low-budget British comedy, written,directed and produced by actors Hannah Davis and David Conolly exploring thetangled love lives and family relationships of middle class Londoners."Salon is making a verysignificant ...
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News
European Shooting Stars hit Berlin
"Listen to directors anddon't dream of being a star'do your job, be yourself, and it will work out inthe end." That was Man To Man directorRegis Wargnier's advice to the 21 fresh-faced actors and actresses from aroundEurope chosen for the 8th Shooting Stars initiative last week.Around 40 European castingagents are ...
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News
Obituary: Humbert Balsan
TheBerlinale began under a cloud with the news of the sudden death yesterday ofFrench producer and European Film Academy chairman Humbert Balsan. "We have lost one of our dearest friends and we willl miss him terribly," said festival director Dieter Kosslick.In a long producing career, Balsan worked with directorsof the ...
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News
Mackenzie readies post-Asylum projects
Rising young Scottish director David Mackenzie,whose latest film Asylum screens in Berlin's main competition, ishatching two new Scottish-based projects. Through Glasgow-based Sigma Productions,Mackenzie is set to direct an adaptation of Peter Jinks' novel Hallam Foe.A dark tale of an adolescent whose pet hobby is voyeurism, the film promises tobe in ...
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News
Michell set to embark on London Marathon
In Rotterdam last week for the festival screening of EnduringLove, British director Roger Michellrevealed further details of two future projects he is working on with WorkingTitle.Michell is about to take the leap into producing with theWorking Title backed Marathon, aportmanteau picture about six people competing in the London Marathon, one ...
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Reviews
06/05
Dir: Theo van Gogh. The Netherlands, 2004. 120 mins06/05 has considerable, albeit morbid, fascination as thelast feature of the Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, who was killed by an Islamicextremist in November 2004. There are uncanny parallels between Van Gogh's owndismal fate and the events he depicts in the film. ...
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News
Sokurov's Sun to shine with The Works
In advance of what looks bound to be the busiest Berlinalefor British sales companies in recent memory, London-based The Works hasannounced it is handling international sales on Alexander Sokurov'sBerlin competition entry, The Sun. Set in occupied Japan at the end of the Second World War,the film examines the events surrounding ...
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News
Hanks options Cold Feet writer's Understudy
Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman's Playtone Productions hassnapped up film rights to The Understudy, the second novel from Britishwriter David Nicholls who is best known for his work on hit TV series ColdFeet. The Understudy is a romantic comedy about a failedactor and Nicholls is to write the screenplay himself. ...
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News
Fellowes to adapt best-selling novel Snobs
Oscar-winning British writerJulian Fellowes (Gosford Park) is to adapt his best-selling novel Snobsfor UK television - having been commissioned by the BBC's Gareth Neame.The novel, published lastyear, is a comedy about a middle-class woman on the make, trying to gatecrashinto high society circles. It is likely to be made into ...
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News
Random Harvest teams with Hammer, Winston on horror deal
In a move underliningthe growing market for quality, low-budget horror, British production andfinancing outfit Random Harvest is starting a new Enterprise InvestmentScheme (EIS) Company, Harvest PicturesIII, with Hammer Films and LA-based Stan Winston Productions.Harvest Pictures IIIwill back new horror films from Hammer, Stan Winston and Four Horsemen Films(Random Harvest's genre ...
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News
2004: A taxing year in the UK
It has been a taxing year. The Treasury's February'bombshell' outlawing tax partnerships such as Ingenious'Inside Track and Grosvenor Park's First Choice knocked a hole through thefinancing of many productions.In the wake of that decision, the emphasis was on damagelimitation. Though few could work out how the government's much-vaunted20% tax credits ...
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News
Marrakech mulls film market launch
The Marrakech International Film Festival is likely to setup its own market, artistic-director Bruno Barde has told ScreenDaily.com."We will organise a small market for theArabic countries," Barde said, but declined to give further details ofwhat form such a market might take.Put together in frantic haste in a littleunder three months, ...
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News
Alexander doesn't fit Hollywood formula, says Stone
Despite Alexander's failure to conquer the US,writer-director Oliver Stone was in bullish mood at the Marrakech Festival,where his three hour sword and sandal epic was presented earlier this week.Stone told the press that the film would nothave been possible to finance or shoot in the US. 'The script was just ...
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News
The Moon shines at IDFA
Despite the cloud cast over proceedings by the murder offilmmaker Theo Van Gogh earlier this month, the mood as the 17th InternationalAmsterdam Documentary Festival (IDFA) drew to an end at the weekend was upbeat.Audience figures were up to 120,000 (from 116,000 last year) and moreinternational visitors (2300) were in town ...
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News
IDFA debates free speech in wake of Van Gogh killing
IDFA, the world's biggest documentary festival, began on Thursday with a rousing address from festival director Ally Derks addressing the recent murder of the filmmaker Theo Van Gogh."Here in the Netherlands, we have been overwhelmed with disbelief," Derks said. Van Gogh's killing has caused a ferocious debate about freedom of ...
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News
...as 43 projects are presented at IDFA pitching market
Legendary US documentary maker Albert Maysles (Gimme Shelter) is among the 43 filmmakers presenting new projects at the Forum, the "pitching market" which starts today at the Amsterdam Documentary Festival (IDFA).120 commissioning editors representing 63 broadcasters are in attendance at the event.Maysles' project Hand-Held and From The Heart is a ...
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Reviews
A Way Of Life
Dir: AmmaAsante. UK. 2004. 91mins.A bruisingdrama in social realist mode, writer-director Amma Asante's A Way Of Lifetackles racism and anti-Muslim prejudice in a deprived town in South Wales.Asante's protagonists are disaffected teenagers, badly educated, strugglingwith poverty and unemployment, who blame a Turkish neighbour for theirpredicament.The film beginsin brutal fashion, with ...
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News
London Film Festival wraps on a high
Asthe London Film Festival closed last night with a screening of David O.Russell's I Heart Huckabees, the festival organisers were claiming thatthis has been the best attended LFF yet.There were around 150 sell-outs and ticket sales, at over 102,000, were up 3% on last year's figures. LFF artistic director Sandra ...
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Reviews
Frozen
Dir: Juliet McKoen.UK-Den. 2004. 90minsWintry and melancholic, writer-director Juliet McKoen'sdebut feature is a mood piece, exploring loss and obsession. Despite somestarkly beautiful imagery, it's a strangely cumbersome affair which soon beginsto sink under the weight of its own symbolism.McKoen has an eye for apoetic shot but is dragged down by ...