Large MPU – Page 421
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News
Suite Habana, Open Range bookend 51st San Sebastian
Cuban-Spanish co-production Suite Habana and Kevin Costner's Open Range will open and close, respectively, the 51st edition of the San Sebastian International Film Festival (Sept 18-27).Open Range will screen out of competition. James Ivory's Le Divorce will inaugurate the parallel Zabaltegi section, closing with Zhang Yimou's Hero.The festival also unveiled ...
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Vivendi mulls sale of UGC cinema stake
Vivendi Universal, the French group that earlier this week agreed to merge with NBC to create a $40bn media colossus, is understood to be planning to sell half of its stake in the UGC cinema circuit. A consortium of minority shareholders brought to the table by the Verrechia family, looks ...
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Fox turns searchlight on UK
Creating the most potent UK-based, studio-backed outfit in London after Working Title Films, Fox Searchlight Pictures and UK National Lottery franchise DNA Films have finally unveiled their $50m joint venture to make British films over the next five years.The deal marks an ambitious bid to turn DNA into a longterm ...
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...and behind the camera for InDigEnt
Wim Wenders will direct the 12th, as yet untitled, project forInDigEnt, the digital video collective created by New York-based IFCProductions' Jonathan Sehring and Caroline Kaplan, producer-director GaryWinick and Cinetic Media's John Sloss.Principal photography is scheduled to begin later this month inLos Angeles.This is the first time InDigEnt has teamed up ...
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Slamdance 2004 to expand films, add screening rooms
More films, new and improved screening rooms and a new jury formatare on the cards at the 10th Slamdance Film Festival, which will take placefrom Jan 17-24 2004 in Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah.Headquartered at the Treasure Mountain Inn on Park City's MainStreet, the event will boast four ...
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Miercourt moves from Myriad to Miramax as svp
David Miercort has joined Miramax Films as senior vice presidentof acquisitions and business affairs.Based in the company's Los Angeles offices, Miercort will beinvolved in day-to-day acquisitions activities from a business affairs andlegal perspective and will also work on Miramax's worldwide promotions.He will report to both Agnes Mentre, head of Miramax's ...
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Antidote plots Macbeth, Sarah
Jeff Levy-Hinte and Mary Jane Skalski's New York productioncompany Antidote Films has unveiled two new projects: Todd Louiso's Macbeth, which is to star Philip Seymour Hoffman, and StevenShainberg's Sarah, based on J TLeroy's acclaimed debut novel about West Virginia lowlifes.Louiso directed Love Liza, which starred Hoffman and earned the actor's ...
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LA launches new horror/sci-fi fest with world premiere of Monster Man
The world premiere ofLions Gate's Monster Man and theWest Coast premiere of Beyond Re-Animator are among the highlights of the inaugural ManiaFest sci-fi, fantasy andhorror festival, which runs in Santa Monica from Sept 18-21.The four-day event features classic screenings, panel discussions,a competition strand and panel discussions with Friday The 13th ...
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BVI passes the $1bn mark in 2003 - already
Buena Vista International (BVI) passed $1bn in internationaltickets sales at the weekend, the ninth consecutive time it has achieved thefeat - a record for any studio international arm. Fuelled by the success of Bruce Almighty, Pirates Of TheCaribbean, Jungle Book 2and Finding Nemo, BVIreached the milestone in record time.The chief ...
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Hugh Grant named 2003 Britannia Award winner by BAFTA/LA
Hugh Grant is to receive BAFTA/LA's Stanley Kubrick BritanniaAward for Excellence in Film at the 12th Annual Britannia Awards in Los Angeleson Nov 8"We are pleased to behonouring Hugh Grant, who is an accomplished stage and screen actor both in theUK and the United States," BAFTA/LA chairman Gary Dartnall said ...
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Finland's Ambush sweeps local Jussi Awards
Finnish box office smash Ambush, directed by Olli Saarela, swept seven of the Finnish Film Awards - the Jussi - last weekend taking prizes for best film, direction and cinematography as well as editing, music, sound and set design.The film, produced by Marko Rohr and Ilkka Matila for MRP Productions, ...
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Menemsha takes Weeping Camel, What The Eye...
Menemsha Entertainment's world sales division has acquiredworldwide rights to Byambasuren Davaa and Luigi Falorni's drama The Story OfThe Weeping Camel andFrancisco Lombardi's Peruvian thriller What the Eye Doesn't See (excluding Peruvian rights).Both films will premiereat Toronto and The Story Of The Weeping Camel has already been sold to German distributor ...
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Revolver turns to Sayles' Casa
John Sayles' drama Casa De Los Babys has been picked up for Italian release by new distributor Revolver.The film, which plays in Venice's Controcorrente or Upstream section, tells the different life stories of six American women holed up in a South American motel while they await the bureaucratic processes necessary ...
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FRANCE
Following what can only be termed a rotten summer for film-going in France, exhibitors are thrilled with the performance of Johnny Depp's Pirates Of The Carribbean, the first real summer blockbuster to show any legs. Also new this week and of note is Cannes competition film La Petite Lili. The ...
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Mexico's Mandoki returns for two
Mexican director Luis Mandoki is returning to his native country to shoot two films back to back. Mandoki, who has directed the likes of Kevin Costner, Jennifer Lopez and Meg Ryan, will first shoot a drama based on a true story, Casa De Carton, by first time Salvadorean writer Oscar ...
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Reviews
Gun-shy (Schussangst)
Dir. Dito Tsintsadze. Germany. 2003. 105 min.Gun-shy is a slow-burning yet always engaging psychological thriller that plots a merciless course to its devastating but inevitable conclusion. A story of compulsion leavened by surreal elements - there is dark humour but no quirkiness for quirkiness' sake - it should find a ...
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Reviews
The Saddest Music In The World
Dir. Guy Maddin. Canada. 2003. 99 min.Canadian auteur Guy Maddin is considered by many an unheralded cinematic genius. The Saddest Music In The World will change that at home: Canadian audiences will give this raucous comedy the art-house welcome it richly deserves. Abroad, it will test the ingenuity of international ...
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Bronfman: GE too big to beat
General Electric was too big and powerful to overcome in the battle for the entertainment assets of Vivendi Universal, beaten suitor Edgar Bronfman said in his first interview since losing the auction."Look, they were GE. We weren't. GE is the most powerful company in the world. They decided they wanted ...
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Reviews
Code 46
Dir: Michael Winterbottom. UK. 2003. 92 mins.The latest product to leave the non-stop assembly line of Michael Winterbottom and Revolution Films is that rarest of creatures, the all-British sci-fi movie. Code 46 is set in 'the near future', and its evocation of this desertified world, where genetic engineering and constant ...
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Reviews
In The Cut
Dir: Jane Campion. US/Fr. 2003. 113 mins.Describing Jane Campion's latest opus In The Cut as a serial killer thriller is as simplistic as calling The Piano a coming-of-age story. Yes, the skeleton of the film is a genre thriller about a woman caught among a string of suspects in a ...