All articles by Geoffrey Macnab – Page 194

  • News

    ICA bags Cannes titles for UK

    2004-05-27T04:00:00Z

    Afterone of the busiest Cannes markets in recent years for UK independentdistributors, the ICA (Institute Of Contemporary Arts) has arrived back inBritain with four festival titles in the bag.The ICA acquired:*Kore-Eda Hirokazu's main competition title Nobody Knows,which was the surprise winner in the Best Actor category for 12 year-old YagiraYuya.*Antal ...

  • News

    Reding spells out Media Programme future

    2004-05-19T04:00:00Z

    "Filmeducation and training are to be put at the heart of the next version of theEuropean Union's Media Programme," said EU culture and education commissionerViviane Reding yesterday."Wewill not harmonise training. We will maintain national specificity. But we willput all the training programmes together in a new network with a new ...

  • News

    Salles to tackle football-themed film

    2004-05-19T04:00:00Z

    Walter Salles,whose Motorcycle Diaries screens incompetition in Cannes today, is to make a low budget football-themed film forDonald K. Ranvaud's new production and sales collective, Buena Onda.Salles willco-direct with Daniela Thomas with whom he made Foreign Land. The film, set in Sao Paolo, will tell of four youngbrothers from an ...

  • News

    UK Film Council eyes up Loach

    2004-05-19T04:00:00Z

    Is the UK Film Council rediscovering the auteur bug'Earlier this week, the UK public funding body announced itwould be pumping $483,000 into The PianoTuner Of Earthquakes, the new feature from animators The Quay Brothers.Now, sources at Cannes suggest that the UK Film Council is "desperate" tosupport British director Ken Loach ...

  • News

    Godard provokes at Cannes

    2004-05-19T04:00:00Z

    In Cannes yesterday, Jean-Luc Godard (unveiling hisnew film Notre Musique out ofcompetition) was in typically provocative and gnomic form. Asked to comment onMichael Moore's work, he compared it unfavourably to the "great movies" 25 years ago of Frederick Wiseman. "Ofcourse he (Moore) says he is attacking Bush but my feeling ...

  • Reviews

    The Edukators

    2004-05-19T00:00:00Z

    Dir:Hans Weingartner. Ger-Aust. 2004. 126minsThefirst German film to screen in competition in Cannes in a decade, HansWeingartner's second feature The Edukators is a fresh and likable taleof youthful idealism. Boosted by a standout performance by Daniel Bruehl (oneof Europe's fastest-rising stars), vigorously shot in a hand-held style - whichmight best ...

  • News

    Moore pressure on White House

    2004-05-17T04:00:00Z

    The White Houseput pressure on Mel Gibson's Icon not to back Farenheit 911, Michael Moore claimed yesterday.Moore, whosedocumentary premieres in Cannes, revealed that his agent received a call fromIcon boss Bruce Davey last year saying "I'm in a big jam here, you've got tohelp me. I know we have a ...

  • News

    Fangoria spills into US distribution with Last Horror

    2004-05-17T04:00:00Z

    Fangoria, thecult US horror magazine, is branching out into theatrical distribution. It isto handle the US release of Julian Richards' The Last Horror Movie. Thefilm will be rolled out in the States next month.Tartan ishandling the film in the UK, where it will be put out on approximately 40prints in ...

  • News

    Tarnation creates Cannes buzz

    2004-05-17T04:00:00Z

    JonathanCaouette's Tarnation, which isscreening in Directors' Fortnight, has emerged as one of the buzz titles ofthis year's festival. The film, handled by Wellspring Media, has been licensedby Optimum for the UK and Dendy for Australia.Tarnation, exec-produced by Gus VanSant and John Cameron Mitchell, received rave reviews in Sundance earlier thisyear, ...

  • News

    UIP boards Attenborough's Ring

    2004-05-17T00:00:00Z

    UIP has boardedRichard Attenborough's $20m Anglo-Canadian epic, Closing The Ring, it was confirmedat the launch of the new Northern Ireland Production Fund. The film isto shoot in the early autumn in Northern Ireland and Canada. It is receiving£500,000 from the new fund.The project,originally supported by Grosvernor Park, was one of ...

  • News

    Prolific slate for post-Troy Kruger

    2004-05-14T04:00:00Z

    Fresh fromplaying Helen of Troy, the face that launched 1000 ships, in WolfgangPetersen's $200 million epic, Troy, German-born actress Diane Kruger isto appear alongside Ed Harris in Agnieszka Holland's low-budget, US independentfilm, Copying Beethoven. "I think this year I'm going to try to dosmaller films and more character work," Kruger ...

  • News

    The Football Factory

    2004-05-14T00:00:00Z

    Dir: Nick Love. UK 2004. 90minsNick Love's low-budget, digitally shotadaptation of John King's novel is an energetic and creditable addition to whatseems to what seems to be blossoming into a mini-genre in its own right - thefootball hooligan film. Other forthcoming additions to the genre include TheYank, with Elijah Wood ...

  • News

    Enjoy Cinemas dives into diva material

    2004-05-13T04:00:00Z

    EnjoyCinema, the UK distribution outfit set up by former HanWay executive SimonGosling earlier this year, has caught the diva bug.Enjoyhas taken UK rights to Callas Forever, Franco Zeffirelli's biopic ofopera star Maria Callas, starring Fanny Ardant and Jeremy Irons, from Capitol.In collaboration with EMI who've licensed all of Maria Callas's ...

  • News

    Enjoy Cinemas dives into diva material

    2004-05-13T04:00:00Z

    EnjoyCinema, the UK distribution outfit set up by former HanWay executive SimonGosling earlier this year, has caught the diva bug.Enjoyhas taken UK rights to Callas Forever, Franco Zeffirelli's biopic ofopera star Maria Callas, starring Fanny Ardant and Jeremy Irons, from Capitol.In collaboration with EMI who've licensed all of Maria Callas's ...

  • News

    Troy director lays siege to US foreign policy

    2004-05-10T04:00:00Z

    On the eve of the worldwide release of his $175 millionepic, Troy, German director WolfgangPetersen has waded into the dispute over current US foreign policy in Iraq bydrawing some provocative comparisons between the behaviour of Agamemnon, theGreek tyrant who launched the assault on Troy 3000 years ago, and contemporaryworld leaders."History ...

  • News

    Last King Of Scotland gathers momentum

    2004-05-07T04:00:00Z

    Andrea Calderwood's London-based Slate Films is at lastmaking headway on its long-gestating project, Last King Of Scotland.Oscar-winning director Kevin Macdonald is attached to direct the film, which isnow being fast-tracked. Calderwood will co-produce with Lisa Bryer of CowboyFilms.Slate's partners on the project are FilmFour, with whom the project wasoriginally set ...

  • News

    Elstree studios lease goes up for auction

    2004-05-06T04:00:00Z

    The turbulent history of the UK's Elstree studios, wherefilms from Star Wars to Indiana Jones have been filmed, is set totake another dramatic turn. Earlier this week, a public meeting was held todiscuss the future of the studio site, currently owned by Hertsmere BoroughCouncil, who bought the freehold studios in ...

  • News

    Perry quits The Works for independent career

    2004-04-25T04:00:00Z

    The Works' chief executive,Aline Perry, is to leave the company to pursue an independent career in theindustry, it was announced yesterday. The surprise move comes only a few daysafter the Cannes world premiere of Olivier Assayas's prize winning Clean, which headed up The Work's Cannes slate."My departure couldn'tbe more amicable ...

  • News

    London acts to tackle shooting 'nightmare'

    2004-04-23T04:00:00Z

    At a swanky reception in the heart of London's financial district, Film London yesterday announced a range of measures designed to turn the new film and media agency into a body with the same scope and power as the New York Film Commission."It has been a nightmare trying to make ...

  • News

    Rotterdam, IDFA expansion plans quashed by Dutch review

    2004-04-20T04:00:00Z

    There were mixed fortunes for the Dutch film industry yesterday as the Government's advisory council, the "Raad voor Cultur", announced its spending recommendations for 2005 to 2008.Events such as The Rotterdam Film Festival, the Dutch Film Festival and IDFA received a qualified thumbs up, but while their funding will remain ...