Large MPU – Page 639

  • News

    Glen Basner leaves Focus Features

    2005-06-08T04:00:00Z

    Glen Basner has left hisposition as executive vice president of international sales and distribution atFocus Features. He has stepped down immediately from the company, although itis unclear as yet where he will land.Basner, one of themost accomplished sales executives in the business, had worked ininternational sales under David Linde at ...

  • News

    Koch Vision picks up Margaret Cho's Assassin

    2005-06-08T00:00:00Z

    Koch Vision has picked upNorth American home entertainment rights to Margaret Cho's one-woman show Assassin...aka...StateOf EmergencyKoch plans a Novemberrelease on the title, which will coincide with the publication of her novel "IHave Chosen To Stay And Fight" and follows the September broadcast of Assassin on the gay television network Here!Cho's ...

  • News

    Magnolia buys multiple territories from Miramax to Pulse

    2005-06-08T00:00:00Z

    Magnolia Pictures has pickedup all English-speaking territories as well as Mexico, Germany, Italy, Poland,and Spain on Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Japanese horror Pulse.The picture was acquiredfrom Dimension and Miramax, which still maintain an interest in the property asHarvey and Bob Weinstein recently began production on the remake based on ascreenplay by Wes ...

  • News

    Lin to direct Fast And The Furious 3 for Universal

    2005-06-08T04:00:00Z

    Justin Lin, the youngfilm-maker whose debut feature Better Luck Tomorrow was a hit at the Sundance Film Festival in 2002, haslanded the job as director of Universal Pictures' The Fast And The Furious 3 (tentative title).Neal H Moritz, who producedthe first two instalments in the series The Fast And The ...

  • News

    M:I 3 finally gets start date in July in Italy

    2005-06-08T00:00:00Z

    Mission: Impossible 3 will finally start principal photography on July 18in Italy, it was announced yesterday by Paramount Pictures chairman and CEOBrad Grey. The film will be shot on locations across Europe, the US and Asiaand will be released in US theatres on May 5, 2006.Tom Cruise will of coursestar ...

  • News

    Diller ends Vivendi feud with $3.4bn deal

    2005-06-08T00:00:00Z

    Barry Diller'sIAC/InterActive Corp. has agreed to sell its stake in Vivendi UniversalEntertainment (VUE) for $3.4 billion. The deal will see Diller handover his 5.4% stake in VUE to NBC Universal -a stake which has long been a bone of contention between Vivendi and Diller andwhich had threatened to derail Vivendi's ...

  • Reviews

    Habana Blues

    2005-06-08T00:00:00Z

    Dir:Benito Zambrano. Sp-Cuba-Fr. 2005. 110mins.Spanish director Benito Zambrano scored a surprise hit athome in 1999 with his first film, the intense mother-and-daughter drama Solas.Habana Blues is a very different product - a feelgood slice of raw Havanaenergy which uses its conventional but solid plot as a frame on which to ...

  • Reviews

    Invisible (Les Invisibles)

    2005-06-08T00:00:00Z

    Dir: Thierry Jousse.France 2005. 85mins.Sound, vision and obsession mix to stylish, provocativeeffect in Invisible, the debut film from former Cahiers Du Cinema editorThierry Jousse. The latest in a long line of that magazine's critics to turn todirecting, stretching from the nouvelle vague generation to the likes ofOlivier Assayas and Pascal ...

  • News

    Moscow festival unveils competition line-up

    2005-06-08T00:00:00Z

    The Moscow International Film Festival (June 17 - 26) hasunveiled its full competition programme, which includes features such as Thomas Vinterberg's Dear Wendy and Greek hit Brides.The festival now has two competition programmes: the MainCompetition section and Perspectives, which showcases directorial debuts andinnovative films.Jury members for the two competitions include ...

  • News

    Touching The Void producer drafts in Day

    2005-06-09T04:00:00Z

    Leading UK televisionproduction outfit Darlow Smithson Productions (DSP) has appointed Elinor Day,the former deputy head of production at FilmFour, to head up a new feature filmdivision specialising in documentaries and docu-hybrids.Factual specialist DSPenjoyed huge critical and box office success recently with theatricaldocumentary Touching The Void, which won a BAFTA for ...

  • News

    Indian industry speaks out against film smoking ban

    2005-06-09T04:00:00Z

    Senior figures in the Indian film industry havespoken out against the government's plan to ban smoking scenes in films.Lastweek, the Indian government announced it would ban all scenes showing smokingor cigarette packs in films and TV programmes. The new law will apply to bothIndian films and to foreign films released ...

  • News

    EU approves Euros 18m Northern Ireland film and TV fund

    2005-06-08T00:00:00Z

    European regulators on Wednesday approved Euros 17.7m inU.K. state aid for the promotion of Irish language TV and film. The Northern Irish Language Broadcast Fund will receivethe funds over four years, ending in 2009. European Union law allows governments to back culturalprojects. 'I am happy to approve state aid which ...

  • News

    Bracewell wraps up London-set Gigolos

    2005-06-08T00:00:00Z

    Director Richard Bracewell'sfeature debut film The Gigolos has just finished editing.The Gigolos was shot in London in 2004 and is about two maleescorts (Sacha Tarter and Trevor Sather) who are searching for love andfriendship. "We follow the loves, lives and laughs of two gigolos as they dateprofessional women over 50 ...

  • News

    Oz's Roadshow, Becker unveil Cannes deals

    2005-06-09T04:00:00Z

    RoadshowRoadshow has joined the list of buyers attached to RomanPolanski's unfinished version of the Dickens classic Oliver Twist, oneof a trio of titles Australia's biggest independent theatrical distributor hasacquired from Summit Entertainment.Picked up from script is Tony Gilroy's directorial debut,Michael Clayton, regarded by managing director Joel Pearlman as aparticularly hot ...

  • News

    Sin City explodes onto international chart

    2005-06-08T00:00:00Z

    In its first weekin major European territories, BVI's Sin City exploded onto theinternational chart in second place with $11.7m. BVI will be aimingto do similar business to last year's Kill Bill Vol. 2 - and the firstmajor week for Sin City certainly looks good to head in that direction. Kill ...

  • News

    Paris Cinema launches festival programme

    2005-06-09T04:00:00Z

    Plans for the city's third Paris Cinema festival (June29-July 12) were unveiled today by Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe and ConstantinCosta-Gavras, who will be presiding over the event.Thisyear's festival, which was created by city hall after Delanoe becamedissatisfied with the now rival event, the Paris Film Festival, boasts no lessthan 400 ...

  • News

    Cruise to receive BAFTA/LA's Britannia Award

    2005-06-08T00:00:00Z

    The seemingly ubiquitous TomCruise is to be honoured with BAFTA/LA's Stanley Kubrick Britannia Award inNovember.Cruise will receive theorganisation's highest honour at the 14th Annual Britannia Awards on Nov 10 atThe Beverly Hilton Hotel.He joins an illustrious listof recipients that includes Tom Hanks, Dustin Hoffman, Martin Scorsese, MichaelCaine and the late ...

  • News

    Trimark to re-roll Cube

    2000-05-12T16:57:00Z

    Dir: James Ivory. US. 2000. 135 mins.Prod Co: Merchant-Ivory. Int'l Sales: TF1 International. Prod: Ismail Merchant. Exec prods: Paul Bradley, Richard Hawley. Scr: Ruth Prawer Jhabvala from the novel by Henry James. DoP: Tony Pierce Roberts. Prod des: Andrew Sanders. Ed: John David Allen. Mus: Richard Robbins. Main cast: Kate ...

  • News

    Hustle, Flowers join LAFF slate

    2005-06-08T00:00:00Z

    Los Angeles FilmFestival organisers have added Craig Brewer's rap drama and Sundance hit Hustle& Flow to theline-up and will screen the picture on Jun 17.Other additionsinclude two Cannes-flavoured events. Jim Jarmusch's Grand Prix winner BrokenFlowers will screen onJun 25, and Shane Black will discuss his noir romp and Croisette favourite ...

  • News

    Rodgers named director of RiverRun festival

    2005-06-08T00:00:00Z

    Andrew Rodgershas been named director of the RiverRun International Film Festival and willoversee all aspects of the event including programming, strategy, budgets,fundraising, and marketing and publicity.Rodgers, afestival veteran who began his career as a staff writer on the Chicago Tribune,will relocate to North Carolina in August in preparation for the ...