Large MPU – Page 1216
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News
AOL Time Warner, Toshiba unite for digital push
AOL Time Warner and Japanese electronics giant Toshiba are to team up to develop and push digital cinema distribution. Business daily Asahi Shimbun quoted Richard Parsons, co-chief operating officer of AOL Time Warner, as saying that they plan to distribute Warner Bros pictures worldwide via satellite using Toshiba technology. Parsons ...
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Spain's Jove festival honours young directors
Spain's youth-oriented International Cinema Jove Film Festival closed its 16th edition this weekend with top awards going to Iranian feature film Sanam and Danish short 2 Juledag.The festival, which takes place in the Mediterranean coastal town of Valencia, awarded the Valencian Moon prize and $16,500 (PTS3 million) to director Rafa ...
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MEDIA programme gets new admin body for funding
D&S Media Services is to handle applications for MEDIA programme development and training support after winning the contract to run the Technical Assistance Office (TAO) from Brussels.D&S co-founder John Dick will oversee main operations from Brussels. The TAO will continue to have an office for television distribution support located in ...
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Germany's Splendid to buy back 10% of stock
Shareholders of Splendid Medien, the German rights trader-producer behind Traffic and The Gangs Of New York, have given the company's board of management the green light for a stock repurchase programme of 890,000 shares.The repurchase, amounting to 10% of Splendid's capital stock, is seen as part of Splendid's strategy of ...
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Divided We Fall wins UIP prize at Sydney festival
Czech Director Jan Hrebejk's Divided We Fall was voted the inaugural winner of the UIP-sponsored Prix UIP for best European film at the Sydney Film Festival.The prize, awarded in the contemporary world cinema section, carries a cash prize of $12,930 (Euros15,000) for producers Ondrej Trojan and Pavel Borovan.Audiences also voted ...
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Meyer quits Studio Hamburg's Letterbox
German producer Henrik Meyer is to step down as one of the managing directors of Studio Hamburg's production arm Letterbox Filmproduktion from July 1. Meyer will have an exclusive deal with the outfit as a freelance producer for feature films and TV movies, focusing on developing screenplays with US writers ...
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Russia rejects limits to foreign media ownership
The Russian parliament has rejected a new draft law that would have limited foreign ownership of Russian media. The move means Russian media legislation will continue to be amongst the most liberal in the world in terms of foreign ownership, with overseas entities holding controlling stakes in more than 300 ...
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English-language Seagull finds Spanish director
Spanish director Enrique Gabriel (Fading Memories) has signed on to direct ambitious English-language project The Seagull.The project, billed as a "Mediterranean adaptation" of the classic Chekhov play, is in development at Barcelona-based start-up TSP. World rights excluding Spain have pre-sold to LA-based Independent Artists (IA) as part of a five-year ...
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Bollywood blockbusters slug it out in India
Two controversial Bollywood period films have been breaking Indian box-office records, despite playing at the same time.Land Tax (Lagaan) and Mutiny - A Love Story (Gadar-Ek Prem Katha) have been playing to full houses since both films opened 10 days ago. Box office for Lagaan is expected to increase as ...
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Italian financial regulators to search Mediaset HQ
Italy's Financial Guard has been issued a warrant to search the Milan headquarters of Mediaset, Italy's largest private broadcaster, as part of an investigation into possible wrong-doing during Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi's first stint as prime minister in 1994.The investigation, which the European Union Commission is also conducting, is focusing ...
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Jovovich to star in Chukrai's Red America
Milla Jovovich is to star opposite Russian star Vladimir Mashkov in Red America, a Russian-American co-production from Academy Award-nominated director Pavel Chukhrai.The $6m-$7m production will be produced by Peter Hoffman's Seven Arts with Front Line Entertainment. Shooting is to start in Russia and the US in autumn. The film marks ...
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Reviews
Strictly Sinatra
Dir: Peter Capaldi. UK. 2001. 97 mins.Peter Capaldi, an actor who made award-winning short film It's A Wonderful Life, makes an assured directorial debut with this darkly comic drama which he also wrote. Boosted by appealing performances by two of Britain's finest young actors, Ian Hart and Kelly Macdonald, and ...
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Reviews
Dr Dolittle 2
Dir: Steve Carr. US. 2001. 85 mins. It's been three years since Eddie Murphy and co successfully reinvented Dr Dolittle - the man who talks to the animals - for a modern film audience by using computer effects to allow the animals to talk, cheekily, back. Dr Dolittle 2 efficiently ...
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Artisan in talks to buy Lions Gate Entertainment
After a stormy year in which senior executives have left its ranks, a much-ballyhooed public offering failed to take off and it put itself up for sale, Artisan Entertainment has shifted strategy, taken itself off the block and begun negotiations to buy publicly traded Vancouver-based entertainment indie Lions Gate Entertainment ...
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TLA sets up US distribution label with First Run
Philadelphia-based US home video distributor TLA Entertainment Group has launched a new label for alternative films called TLA Releasing and teamed with theatrical distributor First Run Features to release the films theatrically in North America.The first films to be released by the label are Spin The Bottle, a US indie ...
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Shooting Gallery insolvent, leaves buyer on hook
New York-based production and distribution company The Shooting Gallery (TSG), producer of such films as Sling Blade and You Can Count On Me and domestic distributor of Croupier, is close to insolvency and may shut its doors. Less than two months after being purchased by Toronto-based new media incubator itemus ...
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StudioCanal and Germany's box! line up two titles
Fledgling Berlin-based production outfit box! Film & Fernsehproduktion has added two new German-language projects to its co-development and first look deal with StudioCanal.Producers Philipp Homberg and Andreas Eicher have commissioned author Horst Bosetzky to write a screenplay on the life of Berlin's record jailbreaker Eckehard 'Ecke' Lehmann. The project is ...
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Russia and Catalonia sign cultural pact
Russia and Spain's regional Catalan government have signed a two-year agreement to promote cultural interchange during the 23rd annual Moscow International Film Festival.The first concrete plan to emerge is the organisation of a week of Catalan cinema and literature to be held in Moscow every April. A parallel week of ...
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Germany's Senator questioned over TV dealings
Senator Entertainment chief executive Hanno Huth defended his company's sale of film rights to two unnamed intermediary rights dealers rather than directly to TV stations at this week's annual shareholders meeting in Berlin.Responding to queries from shareholders about reports in German weekly magazine Der Spiegel and daily national newspaper Die ...
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Shanghai set to expand theme park
The Shanghai Film Studio is pressing ahead with an expansion of its movie-driven theme park.By October, Shanghai will open the second part of a $72m three-phase film park at the old Chedun Film Studio, half an hour from the city centre in Songjiang. The current 17-hectare site already boasts street ...