All articles by Jonathan Romney – Page 47
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Canary Islands gets second film commission
Tenerife's local government has formed a film commission to encourage international productions to shoot on the island.The Tenerife Film Commission (TFC) is 40% backed by private industry on the island but the local government controls 51% through the Society to Promote Foreign Tourism (SPET). The Canary Islands, of which Tenerife ...
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Germany's Primacom plans digital launch
Germany's third-largest cable operator Primacom is launching a digital pay-TV platform in May. The yet-to-be-named service will offer more than 80 channels, pay-per-view, internet and other services. Primacom currently serves almost 1.4 million households, mainly in the former East Germany, and claims just under 1 million active subscribers. The digital ...
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Intertainment signs $22m deal with Spain's Manga
Germany's Intertainment has signed a $22.4m multi-picture deal with Spanish distributor Manga Films. Under the terms of the deal, Manga takes Spanish first-run, free-TV rights to several Franchise pictures that Intertainment has co-financed or acquired through its output deal with the company, including Art of War, starring Wesley Snipes, the ...
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FFC, AtomFilms give shorts theatrical outing
Independent distribution outfit the Feature Film Company (FFC) has teamed up with Seattle-based Internet distributor AtomFilms to secure a number of short films a theatrical outing in the UK.The deal, sealed by overseas outpost AtomFilms Europe, is the first UK theatrical deal the Seattle outfit has secured for its short ...
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Filmax launches Galician animation studio
Spain's growing mini-studio The Filmax Group has joined with post-production laboratory Filmtel and a Galician capital risk fund to launch animation producer Bren Entertainment. The new outfit, which describes itself as an 'animation factory', will service both Filmax-originated projects as well as those from other producers from both Spain and ...
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Grade consortium buys Pinewood for $99m
After announcing yesterday that it has sold Odeon Cinemas to private equity financier Cinven, the UK's Rank group today confirmed the sale of British film studio Pinewood Studios to a consortium headed by former Channel 4 boss Michael Grade for $99m (£62m). The deal sees Grade become chairman of Pinewood ...
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Visionview taps Berliner Bank's Robbins
Veteran UK film and television financier Jim Reeve has ramped up his financing outfit Visionview with the appointment of Steve Robbins.Robbins joins Reeve's outfit from Berliner Bank where he has spent the last seven years, most recently as the bank's head of media finance.The duo will work side by side ...
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Rotterdam's CineMart sows seeds for Berlin
The Berlin International Film Festival and market may only have unfolded this week, but the mating game for development and production finance partners is already in full swing.It kicked off in earnest earlier this month at the International Film Festival, Rotterdam which staged the 17th CineMart gathering for financiers, talent ...
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Fresh talent picks up Tigers at Rotterdam
Three fledgling directors from three different international territories walked away with a VPRO Tiger Award at the close of this year's International Film Festival Rotterdam on Saturday night. The winning directors were: China's Lou Ye for his Suzhou River; Argentinean Pablo Trapero's Mundo Grua (Crane World) and Katrin Ottarsdottir from ...
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Artificial Eye unveils debut productions
UK specialist distributor Artificial Eye Film Company is kickstarting its long-planned move into production with Working Up To Winter, a contemporary road movie written and to be directed by Sarah Turner. The project, set to go into production this summer, was developed with support from FilmFour Lab, the experimental wing ...
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Belgium caught in funding war
An angry war of words has broken out among Belgium's regional and national governments over the thorny issue of funding policies for the audio-visual industry.The Walloon regional government unveiled plans this week to allocate an extra BEF400m (euro10m) each year to support the development of a local audio-visual industry. The ...
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Flanders chief plans Ghent film commission
Flanders International Film Festival director Jacques Dubrulle is drawing up plans that could lead to Ghent becoming the first Belgian city to launch a film commission. Dubrulle, who was approached by the Ghent city authorities to help with the project, put Ghent on the map as home for the Flanders ...
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Soccer pic producers score in battle against BSkyB
UK film-making duo Mary McGuckian and John Lynch have succeeded in their bid to prevent satellite broadcaster BSkyB from carrying the film Best on one of its movie channels.The duo secured a court injunction against the satellite powerhouse in the Royal Courts of Justice yesterday to prevent the film from ...
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Soccer pic producers take BSkyB to court
UK film making duo Mary McGuckian and John Lynch are applying for a court injunction to prevent satellite broadcaster BSkyB from carrying the film Best on one of its movie channels.Best, starring Lynch as Irish footballing hero George Best, is due to air on satellite before it has secured a ...