All articles by Jonathan Romney – Page 45
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German culture minister Naumann quits post
Michael Naumann, the German culture minister who oversaw the controversial departure of Berlin International Film Festival chief Moritz de Hadeln, has stepped down after just two years in the job.Julian Nida-Ruemelin, the City of Munich's Arts Officer, is to succeed him. Naumann, a former publishing executive in Germany and the ...
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ALCAS launches fund for Paramount quartet
German fund specialist ALCAS is offering the investing public a slice of four upcoming Paramount features including the next film in the Tom Clancy franchise, The Sum Of All Fears, and Ben Stiller comedy Zoolander.Investors are being invited to contribute at least $43,000 (DM100,000) to a $280m (DM650m) fund, which ...
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MBP backs Sides with second fund
German finance house MBP has launched its second tranche of investment, through which it will back Istvan Szabo's $10.5m Taking Sides amongst other projects. The Munich-based outfit plans to raise up to $42.7m (DM100m) from German individuals seeking to lessen their tax burden by the end of 2001. Taking Sides, ...
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Hannover Leasing throws $150m into Rings trilogy
Munich-based leasing company Hannover Leasing (HL) has established a $150m (DM350.5m) fund to finance the third installment in New Line Cinema's $270m The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, The Return Of The King, which Peter Jackson is directing.Private German individuals looking for a way to reduce their tax burden in ...
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Victory Media to finance EM.TV internet venture
Private German film fund Victory Media plans to co-finance EM.TV & Merchandising's proposed internet platform Junior Web through its 16th MultiMediaFonds.The fund, which plans to raise the necessary capital from private individual investors by mid-December, will channel about $29m (DM66m) into the web-site and about $25m (DM57) into co-producing nine ...
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Germany's NSF, MME unveil plans to float
Despite the stormy times currently besetting the capital markets, another two German production outfits - Me, Myself and Eye Entertainment (MME) and Neue Sentimental Film (NSF) - are planning to join the 30-odd media companies listed on Frankfurt's Neuer Markt exchange.Hamburg-based MME has employed Commerzbank to co-ordinate the flotation of ...
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Arranque pacts with Helkon subsidiary
Hamburg-based production outfit Arranque Film has concluded a first-look deal with KinoFilm Muenchen, a subsidiary of German production and distribution group Helkon Media.Arranque Film was founded by German actor Kai Wiesinger, his sister Kati Wiesinger and wife Chantal de Freitas in 1999 to develop projects for cinema and TV. This ...
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Dutch government extends tax incentive scheme
The Dutch government has extended tax measures, introduced in 1997 to encourage private investment in local film production, for another 12 months. The move is an interim measure until the government develops a new support system in which "film entrepreneurs instead of investors" will be the first in line to ...
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Verhoeven mulls shoot in native Holland
Director Paul Verhoeven, currently in Europe to promote his latest feature Hollow Man, has said he is considering two projects that would take him back to his native Holland: a Dutch-language thriller and an English-language adaptation of French author Guy de Maupassant's short story Mont Oriol.Former Endemol chief Joop van ...
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Dutch industry launches appeal to save Ketelhuis
A group of prominent Dutch film professionals have launched a campaign to rescue the Ketelhuis, the permanent showcase cinema for Dutch film in Amsterdam. Both the Dutch Council for Culture and the Amsterdam Arts Council are opposed to giving the cinema any further support as they have serious doubts about ...
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Belgian box office basks in summer high
Admissions in Belgium reached a record-breaking 2.25 million for the month of July, up 30% from the same month in 1999. This resulted in an unprecedented box office gross of more than $12m (BFr500m).Similar to southern European countries July and August are traditionally slow months in terms of cinema-going in ...
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Start-up outfit F.A.M.E. teams with Becker
F.A.M.E. Film & Music Entertainment - the latest German production outfit destined for the Neuer Markt - has sealed a three-year agreement with Australia's Becker Entertainment to jointly develop and produce a raft of features over the next three years. The first project under the agreement will be Esben Storm's ...
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Production report: HK strives for pan-Asian appeal
The running joke at the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum in April was that the only Asian country producing films of a lower quality than Hong Kong was Macau. The huge success at the Hong Kong box office this year of Nakata Hideo's Japanese psycho-horror Ring ($4m) and Kang Je-gyu's ...
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Swiss culture ministry's film coffers run dry
Switzerland's production community has been hit by the news that the Swiss culture ministry (BAK) has already committed its entire $4.7m (SFr7.6m) annual budget for film production and development funding only halfway through the year.BAK director David Streiff explained at press conference in Berne that the overspend is due to ...
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Tykwer, Szabo secure German public funding
Tom Tykwer and Istvan Szabo are amongst the film-makers to secure cash in the latest round of funding awards from financing body the German Federal Film Board (FFA).Tykwer won funding worth $700,000 for his next feature, Heaven, from a script by the late Krzysztof Kieslowski and Krzysztof Pieseiewicz. The Berlin-based ...
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Die Unberuehrbare wins big at German Film Awards
Oskar Roehler's drama No Place To Go (Die Unberuehrbare), which had its premiere in Cannes last month as part of Directors Fortnight, was the evening's big winner at the 50th German Film Awards in Berlin on June 16, winning the Best Film award, the DM1m ($494,000) Film Strip in Gold, ...
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Germany's IN-motion plans IPO
Frankfurt-based music and film production company, IN-motion movie & TV productions, has become the latest German media company to seek a listing on the Neuer Markt stock exchange.IN-motion's founders Michael Muenzing and Luca Anzilotti have been key players in the international music scene for the last 15 years, masterminding the ...
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American Psycho to open Fantasy Filmfest
Mary Harron's American Psycho, starring Christian Bale, will be the opening film at this year's Fantasy Filmfest in Germany.The peripatetic festival for genre and thriller titles, held from July 26 to August 23, will tour through Munich, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Cologne, Hamburg and Berlin. James Wong's darkly comic Final Destination closes ...
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Babelsberg production chief slams German tax laws
Studio Babelsberg's managing director for production, Rainer Schaper, called for changes to German tax legislation during a speech at this week's Media Forum NRW in Cologne.Schaper criticised current laws under which non-German talent is taxed when shooting in the country. Earlier this year, Schaper successfully beat off rival bids to ...
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Arndt takes producer prize at Cologne
Stefan Arndt has been awarded the Producer Prize at this year's Cologne Conference. The Casting Award went to Anja Dihrberg.Arndt is one of four partners, along with Tom Tykwer, Wolfgang Becker and Dani Levy, in hot Berlin production outfit X-Filme creative pool which has credits including Run Lola Run, Life ...