Large MPU – Page 238
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News
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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News
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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News
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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News
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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News
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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News
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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News
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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News
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 ...
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News
Cinema Expo leaves sour taste for concessions
Internet and telephone booking may have been heralded as a glorious new dawn for ticket sales, but delegates at Cinema Expo conference in Amsterdam were this week warned about its impact on concessions.Barry Jones, business development manager for Coca-Cola Greater Europe, pointed out that 40% of Swedish tickets are sold ...
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News
French TV cuts back on number of films aired
French terrestrial TV channels have cut back the number of feature films broadcast per year, airing 49 fewer titles last year than in 1999. This includes 31 fewer films broadcast in primetime, for a total of less than 800 films.According to the latest survey by French audiovisual industry watchdog CSA ...
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News
Buyers emerge for French studios group SFP
Two potential buyers - Daniel Lebard Management Development and facilities house Euromedia Television with Bollore Investissement - have emerged for ailing French state-owned studios and facilities group Societe Francaise de Production (SFP). Unless one takes over the massive organisation, the only other alternative appears to be a management buyout led ...
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News
Chow Yun-fat in Waiting for Chan's Applause
Chow Yun-fat, the Hong Kong superstar who headed the cast of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, is set to star in Waiting, a romantic drama set against the backdrop of the Cultural Revolution. The film is to be directed by Peter Chan for his novice production company, Applause Pictures.Waiting is based ...
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News
Cologne's TV and film fest announces prizewinners
Screenwriter Ruth Toma, Berlin-based production company moneypenny Filmproduktion and casting director Rita Serra-Roll were among the German film industry figures honoured at the end of the Cologne Conference's eleventh International Television and Film Festival during the Media Forum NRW.The casting award went to Munich-based Rita Serra-Roll, whose most recent credits ...
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News
Spanish films get export boost with new promo fund
Spanish producers can already begin tapping into a new promotion fund for films released abroad, thanks to an initiative launched by the state Ministry of Economy with support from the Spanish Producers' Federation (FAPAE). The fund is effective immediately.Juan Costa, Spain's secretary of state for commerce and tourism, announced yesterday ...
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News
Locarno shines spotlight on Asians in US cinema
The 54th editionof the Locarno International Film Festival (Aug 2-12) has unveiled a richsidebar on Asians in American Cinema, including films such as Emiko Omori's RabbitIn The Moon, StevenOkazaki's Days Of Waiting, Wayne Wang's Life Is Cheap But Toilet Paper Is Expensive and Frank Sinatra's soledirectorial effort, None But The ...
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News
Pay-TV channel launches for Germans living abroad
ChannelD, a German-language pay-TV service for ex-pat Germans and holidaymakers in Latin America, the Caribbean and the US East Coast, has been established by six multimedia companies.The partners expect ChannelD will go on air from September 1, 2001 with a mix of bought-in programmes from public and private channels, including ...
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News
German producers body adds Filmpool to books
Cologne-based production outfit Filmpool has been accepted as the 21st member of recently-launched German producers pressure group Film 20. Current members include Kinowelt Medien, Senator Entertainment, Producers AG, Claussen + Woebke Filmproduktion and Constantin Film.Filmpool has an annual output of more than 200 hours of television programming and won the ...
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German distributors get inaugural culture awards
Distributor Arsenal Filmverleih, Berlin's fsk Kino & Peripher Filmverleih and Rapid Eye Movies in Cologne have each been selected for the Germany government's 2001 Distributor Awards.The German ministry of culture will present the awards in Dresden in October. The prizes, each of which carries $94,000 (DM200,000), were launched by culture ...