Large MPU – Page 506
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News
Williamson to team with Big Beach for Sunshine Cleaning
Former Focus Features production chief and now independent producerGlenn Williamson (whose latest film Hollywoodland received its world premiere in Venice yesterday) is to partnerwith Big Beach, the outfit behindbox-office hit Little Miss Sunshine,on Sunshine Cleaning.BigBeach is fully financing the project, with a budget of about $7m. Shooting isdue to begin ...
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News
Aardman launching mobile channel with Orange
Aardman Animations, producers of hits including Wallace & Gromit, is launching itsown mobile channel on the Orange TV service.The Aardman Animations channelwill run a video loop of content which will be refreshed weekly. The channelwill include Aardman's own work plus otherinternational animated content. The mobile content will be created in-house ...
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News
News Corp buys stake in Indian portal
Rupert Murdoch's News Corp has acquired a 15% stake in Indian technology portal ITSpace.com, managed by network computing company Microland, for an undisclosed price"We found the web-site a potentially valuable and viable business proposition for the information technology community. It is managed by the Microland Group and has strong revenue ...
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Films Distribution on board for new Hou Hsiao-Hsien film
Heading into the autumn festival season, French sales house FilmsDistribution has acquired three new projects at script level.The first is the next film up from Hou Hsiao-Hsien called Le Ballon Rouge.Starring Juliette Binoche,the film is about a mother who can't cope with her child and the nanny shehires from Taiwan. ...
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Reviews
Infamous
Dir/scr: Douglas McGrath. US 2006. 117mins.To make another TrumanCapote biopic may be regarded as a misfortune; to make another Truman Capotebiopic about exactly the same period of the writer's life looks likecarelessness. But this classic industry no-no could play out, paradoxically, infavour of Douglas McGrath's nuanced take on the US ...
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Reviews
Syndromes And A Century (Sang Sattawat)
Dir/scr: Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Thai-Fr-Aust. 2006. 105mins.Unconventional enough toplease fervent admirers of his previous work like Blissfully Yours and TropicalMalady, Apichatpong Weerasethakul'sSyndromes And ACentury is, even more than its precedents, a visual notebook that resistsall temptation to opt for a narrative, instead staying faithful to itsenigmatic title.Divided into almost equalhalves and ...
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News
Strand takes US rights to Bourdieu's Poison Friends
Strand Releasing hasacquired all US rights to Emmanuel Bourdieu's Poison Friends from Les Films du Losange.The picture, which will playin official selection at the 44th New York Film Festival, follows a group ofcollege intellectuals who fall prey to a charming pathological liar. It starsDominique Blanc and Natacha Regnier among others.Strand ...
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News
Fur hits Telluride six weeks before 'world premiere' in Rome
Steven Shainberg's Fur starring Nicole Kidman as the celebratedphotographer Diane Arbus has been lined up as a world premiere at thisweekend's Telluride Film Festival in Colorado, some six weeks ahead of its officialworld premiere as the opening night the inaugural Rome Film Festival.The screening of Fur once again raises the ...
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News
Pirates shoots for ninth week at top and $1bn
Buena Vista International(BVI)'s Pirates of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest will still be the one to beat as it bears down on$1bn in global ticket sales and attempts a ninth consecutive weekend as theinternational box office champion.The adventure sequel thusfar stands at $976m of which $566.8m was taken at the ...
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News
Focus joins One Ton on Wisit's Armful
Hong Kong's Focus Films is teaming up with Singapore-based OneTon Cinema to co-produce Thai director Wisit Sasanatieng's upcoming film Armful. The Chinese-languagestylised tragicomedy will feature a pan-Asian cast, most likely from Hong Kong, China, Singapore and Thailand. Set in 1970s South-East Asia, the film's influences range from Chinese martialarts films ...
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News
Pretty Pictures gets French rights to The Old Garden
Paris-based distributor Pretty Pictures has announced the acquisition ofa new work by Korean director Im Sang-soo along with three titles from Alejandro Jodorowsky.Im's The Old Garden, which will play in competitionin San Sebastian, was acquired from Cineclick andstars Ji Jin-Hee and Yeom Jeong-A. The story is toldfrom the point of ...
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News
Robert Carlyle signs on for 28 Weeks Later
Robert Carlyle, Rose Byrne,Catherine McCormack, Jeremy Renner, Imogen Poots, Idris Elba and 12-year-oldnewcomer Mackintosh Muggleton have been cast in 28 Weeks Later, the sequel to DannyBoyle's 28 Days Later, which beganshooting yesterday in London.Spain's Sogecine and KoanFilms and the UK's Figment are producing for DNA Films and Fox Atomic. Shooting ...
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News
San Sebastian reveals line-up for Latin Horizons competition
The Donostia-SanSebastian International Film Festival (Sept 21-30) has released the line-up ofits year-in-production Latin Horizons dual showcases of Spanish cinema, Made inSpain, and Latin American films, Horizons Selection.The competitive Horizons sectionhas a best film prize, which comes with a purse of $23,100 (Euros 18,000).Sixteen films have been selected, including 10 ...
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Reviews
A Few Days In September (Quelques Jours En Septembre)
Dir/scr: Santiago Amigorena. Fr-It. 2006. 110mins.After some 30 odd scripts for French cinema and fournovels of his own, Argentinian writer Santiago Amigorena has finally movedbehind the camera and treated himself to a peach of a screenplay. A smartly writtenspy yarn built around 9/11, A Few Days InSeptember has the look ...
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News
Gil Rossellini plans two romantic comedies
Italian film-maker GilRossellini, whose latest film Kill GilII premiered in Venicethis week, is hatching two new feature projects. RaiCinema has already committed to boarding romantic comedy Once Upon A Time In Parma, set in the communitywhere parmesan cheese is produced. Rossellini is co-writing and will alsoproduce. It is yet to ...
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News
Nordisk to handle sales for Boe's Offscreen
Nordisk Film is to handle international sales on Camera D'or WinnerChristoffer Boe's latestfilm Offscreen,it has just been announced in Venice.Offscreen received its internationalpremiere in Venice Days earlier this week. The story of a man obsessed withputting his life on camera, the film was produced by AlphaVillePictures Copenhagen with support from ...
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News
Oliver Stone and Spike Lee get political in Venice
It was a day of fiery pressconferences in Venicewith Oliver Stone, Paul Verhoeven and Spike Lee allpresenting new films. A belligerent and upbeat Stone, on the Lido with World Trade Center, surprised onlookersby attacking the "cultural problem" of violence in US movies,chastising films such as Black Hawk Down and Pearl ...
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News
Truly Indie to handle US release of 51 Birch Street
MarkCuban and Todd Wagner's independent label Truly Indie will handle the UStheatrical release of Doug Block's autobiographical documentary 51 BirchStreet.Thefocus of the story centres on the truth behind the seemingly idyllic 54-yearmarriage of Block's parents. When his mother dies and his father announcesseveral months later that he is leaving town ...
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News
Chartier steers Voltage through changing international landscape
Headof fast-growing 18 month-oldfinancing & sales company Voltage Pictures Nicolas Chartier talks to Jeremy Kay about the newgeneration of film financiers and international distributors.Aveteran of such companies as Arclight Films and Myriad Pictures, VoltagePictures co-head Nicolas Chartier (pictured) is the kind of go-to guy in theinternational sales business ...
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Reviews
The Queen
Dir: Stephen Frears. UK2006. 97mins.The British have been making films about their RoyalFamily almost since cinema began. What is so distinctive about Stephen Frears' brilliant new feature The Queen is that it is unfolds only a few years ago - in 1997 atthe time of Princess Diana's death - and ...