Large MPU – Page 1997

  • News

    Hounsou to star in urban drama The Trunk

    2006-10-18T00:00:00Z

    Djimon Hounsou will star in urban drama The Trunk for the trio of Los Angeles-basedcompanies Melee Entertainment, White, and Bluvoma Inc.Brian White, Boris Kodjoe, and Thomas Krestchmann are alsoattached to the story of an inner city musical prodigy on the cusp of successwho discovers some of his closest friends will ...

  • News

    VOD service Eurocinema signs to handle First Run catalogue

    2006-10-18T00:00:00Z

    US video-on-demand service Eurocinema has signed an exclusive dealwith independent film distributor First Run Features to handle First Run'scatalogue of titles.Premiere First Run Features titles launching on Eurocinema inDecember include Claude Chabrol's Merci Pour Le Chocolat, Ludivine Sagnier's La Petite Lili, Dani Levy's Go For Zucker, and Ole Christian Madsen's ...

  • News

    Fire, Evil take audience awards at Mill Valley

    2006-10-18T00:00:00Z

    Phillip Noyce's Catch A Fire took home the audience award for best dramatic feature atthe Mill Valley Film Festival, which ran from Oct 5-15.Amy Berg's Deliver Us From Evil won corresponding honours in the documentarysection and Wolfgang Murnberger's Lapislazuli: In The Eye Of The Bear took the award for best ...

  • News

    Father wins China's first mobile phone movie awards

    2006-10-18T00:00:00Z

    The inaugural Mobile PhoneMovie Awards - organised by Beijing-based Zonbo Media, Xian city government andXian Hi-tech Industrial Development Zone - closed yesterday in China's Xian city with eight awards given out to youngshort filmmakers across the country.Father,directed by Qin Xiaopeng, took the top prize, the best film award, winning$1,265 (RMB10,000).Another ...

  • Reviews

    The Stone Council (Le Concile De Pierre)

    2006-10-18T00:00:00Z

    Dir: Guillaume Nicloux. Fr-Ger-It. 2006. 100mins.A French Da Vinci Code inwhich Catholic mystical hokum is replaced by Mongololianshamanistic hokum, Jean-Christophe Grange's Le Concille DePierre was a literary bestseller when it came out in France in 2000. Withits high-profile Bellucci-Deneuve pairing and lushproduction values, this $28m adaptation of the book is ...

  • News

    Asian Film Market has promising first edition

    2006-10-18T00:00:00Z

    The first Asian Film Marketwrapped today after a four-day run (Oct 15-18), concurrent to the 11thedition of the Pusan International Film Festival. The event was held mainly inthe Grand Hotel on Haeundae beach, with a total of 3,500 participants.The sales market was joinedby locations, production and post-production convention BIFCOM, and ...

  • News

    PUSAN: Asian Film Market deals round-up

    2006-10-18T00:00:00Z

    Cineclick Asia had a busymarket selling two horror titles to France's Wild Side Films - Hanzel And Gretel, directed by YimPil-sung (Antartic Journal), and Mommy's Risen, a co-production betweenCineclick and Blue Storm. Meanwhile, Thailand's J-bics picked up a package ofKim Tae-yong's quirky family drama FamilyTies; melodrama Love Me Not,starring Moon ...

  • News

    Pretty Pictures buys North Korean hit Schoolgirl's Diary

    2006-10-18T00:00:00Z

    French distributor PrettyPictures has bought North Korean hit TheSchoolgirl's Diary, marking the first commercial deal for a North Koreanfilm to a Western country in recent decades.James Velaise, president ofPretty Pictures, attended the Pyongyang International Film Festival inSeptember where The Schoolgirl's Diary,a local hit with 8 million admissions, was screened. Negotiations ...

  • News

    PUSAN: Pang's Ibrahim takes top prize at PPP

    2006-10-18T00:00:00Z

    The Pang Ho Cheung project, One Day Of Ibrahim, picked up the topprize at this year's Pusan Promotion Plan (PPP) - the $20,000 Busan Awardpresented by the Metropolitan City of Busan. The $2.2m project, about ayoung Kenyan boy's journey to find water, is set to be produced by the Hong ...

  • News

    Death Defying Acts wraps London shoot

    2006-10-18T00:00:00Z

    Gillian Armstrong has wrappedprincipal photography on Death DefyingActs, starring Guy Pearce, Catherine Zeta Jones and Timothy Spall. Thedrama, about Harry Houdini meeting a mysterious woman on tour, filmed onlocation in and around London.Tony Grisoni wrote thescreeplay with Brian Ward. Marian Macgowan produced forMacgowan Lupovitz Nasatir Films with Chris Curling for ...

  • News

    UK tax credit stranded while Europe ponders approval

    2006-10-19T00:00:00Z

    Screen International's UK Film Financesummit meets today amid growing evidence that the European Commission may be uncomfortable with aspectsthe UK's new film tax plans. The UK's new tax credit was announced in March this year,further clarified in April, and has been approved by the UK parliament. UK government bodies had ...

  • Reviews

    Gangster High (Pokryok Sekkeul)

    2006-10-18T00:00:00Z

    Dir/scr: Park Kihyung. Korea, 2006. 102mins.An exceedingly violent high-school rumpus that deterioratesinto warfare, with dead and wounded left on the battlefield, Park Kihyung's GangsterHigh is the kind of picture no young teen will be allowed to see, should censorshave any say in the matter.Park Ki-hyung,whose disappointing family horror film Acaciaclosed ...

  • Reviews

    Before We Fall In Love Again

    2006-10-18T00:00:00Z

    Dir/scr: James Lee. Malay-HK-Chi. 2006. 99mins.Husbands and their wives' lovers have never hit itoff as well as they do in Before We Fall In Love Again, a strange and tightly controlledMalaysian romantic drama. Granted, it would have gained much by being shot onfilm, but even in its digital form it ...

  • News

    London's 50th festival opens with Last King Of Scotland

    2006-10-19T03:00:00Z

    The Times BFI London FilmFestival opened Wednesday night with the European premiere of Kevin Macdonald'sThe Last King OfScotland.Guests at the Odeon Leicester Square included the film's stars Forest Whitaker, JamesMcAvoy, Kerry Washington and Gillian Anderson along with director Macdonald, writer Peter Morgan and the novel's author Giles Foden.Other attendees for ...

  • News

    Vanaprashtham feted at India's Film Awards

    2000-07-06T19:11:00Z

    Shaji N Karun's Malayalam title Vanaprashtham picked up the best film award at India's 47th National Film Awards which were announced today. The film also won the best actor award for Mohan Lal's performance.The best director award went to Buddhadev Dasgupta for his Bengali film Uttara and Kiron Kher won ...

  • News

    ContentFilm on board for Barker's Outpost

    2006-10-19T03:00:00Z

    ContentFilm Internationalhas acquired worldwide rights to and will co-finance the new action horror filmOutpost.Steve Barker will direct theproject for producers Black Camel Pictures and Matador Pictures. The film, written by RaeBrunton, is set in an unnamed Eastern European country, where battle-wornmercenaries are hired by a mysterious businessmen forhis own special ...

  • Reviews

    The Sakai's Happiness (Sakai-ke No Shiawase)

    2006-10-18T00:00:00Z

    Dir/scr: O Mipo. Jap. 2006. 102mins.Debut film-maker O Mipo mayfind that The Sakai's Happiness, herlaudably understated approach to family life in a provincial town, will findfavour with critics but alienate many potential audiences. Keeping at all timeswithin the boundaries of low-key drama, it's the sort of feature that mightstrike impatient ...

  • News

    Tornatore film boasts sales to seven countries at Rome

    2006-10-19T06:00:00Z

    Giuseppe Tornatore's La Sconosciuta (The Unknown) has been sold to seven countries at the inaugural Rome festival.The film, which marks the director's return to film-making aftera six-year hiatus, closed the Premiere section of the festival.Based on a storythe Sicilian director clipped from a newspaper years ago, the film was shot ...

  • News

    Sao Paulo boasts best of Brazil alongside wide world programme

    2006-10-19T06:00:00Z

    The 30thedition Sao Paulo International Film Festival (Oct 19 - Nov 2)is to screen more than 360 films from more than 50 countries. The event willopen with the documentary The US vs John Lennon, by David Leaf and John Scheinfeld, andclose with the restored version of Macuna'ma (1969), by Joaquim ...

  • News

    Breaking And Entering to open, Rescue Dawn to close Denver Film Festival

    2006-10-19T00:00:00Z

    Anthony Minghella's London-set drama Breaking And Entering and Werner Herzog's Vietnam POW thrillerRescue Dawn bookendthe 29th Starz Denver Film Festival (SDFF29).Minghella will receive the Mayor's Career Achievement Awardfollowing the opening night screening on Nov 9.Breaking And Entering stars Jude Law, Juliette Binoche, Robin Wright Penn, Ray Winstoneand Martin Freeman and ...