Latest – Page 916

  • News

    French music house XIII Bis launches into pictures

    2001-12-11T22:59:00Z

    XIII Bis Organisation, a leading French independent music group, is making its first foray into the film business, with Anima, a fantasy thriller written and to be directed by in-house artist and composer Christophe Pascal. The French-language film, set in France and The Netherlands, in the 17th century, involves a ...

  • News

    Melanie Griffith to star in Almost Japanese

    2001-12-11T02:37:00Z

    Melanie Griffith has been cast to play the lead in Robert Allan Ackermann's provocative comedy Almost Japanese which is set to be backed by the Potsdam-based producer fund Vif International Films.Shooting on the love story between a lonely and inept American teenager and a Japanese conductor (to be played by ...

  • News

    Asif Kapadia considering gunslinger project

    2001-12-10T18:52:00Z

    Having transplanted the spaghetti Western to India with Miramax Films pick-up The Warrior, UK director Asif Kapadia is considering swapping the deserts of Rajasthan for the real Wild West on St Agnes' Stand.Kapadia is being wooed to direct the story of an injured gunslinger on the run for Nik Powell's ...

  • News

    Total, Titan to re-make Sex, Shame & Tears

    2001-12-10T17:58:00Z

    Brazil's Total Entertainment and Mexico's Titan Prods, which signed a co-production pact in September, are poised to make a Brazilian version of the highest grossing Mexican film of all time, Sex, Shame And Tears (Sexo, Pudor Y Lagrimas) . The battle-of-the-sexes comedy grossed $12.4m in Mexico. Fox Film Brazil will ...

  • News

    Fox signs Indian feature co-production deal

    2001-12-07T01:42:00Z

    Rupert Murdoch's 20th Century Fox has developed a deal with Pritish Nandy Communications (PNC) to produce English-language movies in India. The agreement, of which details have yet to be disclosed, includes the co-production of English as well as Hindi language films to be made in India. PNC's credits include high-profile ...

  • News

    Everett set to be crowned king in Cromwell biopic

    2001-12-05T02:28:00Z

    Rupert Everett is in final talks to play King Charles I, the despotic British monarch who ill-fatedly believed in the "divine right of kings", in Mike Barker's English Civil War story Cromwell And Fairfax.Everett joins Tim Roth and Dougray Scott in the $23m IAC Films project that is thought ...

  • News

    Prague Studios, Barrandov attracting new projects

    2001-12-04T19:14:00Z

    Czech upstart Prague Studios unveiled its refurbished stages last week, just in time for filming to start on Vin Diesel actioner XXX, with Rob Cohen becoming the latest director to take advantage of low production costs in the Czech Republic. At the same time, it was confirmed that Children Of ...

  • News

    Breillat's Scenes Intimes pre-sold before finished

    2001-12-04T19:09:00Z

    Catherine Breillat's latest project, Scenes Intimes, which started shooting on Nov 19, has already attracted the attention of foreign distributors on the strength of the successes of Romance and A Ma Soeur! (Fat Girl).Scenes Intimes - produced, like Romance and Fat Girl , by Flach Films and starring Anne Parillaud ...

  • News

    75th Eurimages supports nine new features

    2001-12-04T00:11:00Z

    At its 75th meeting held on 26-28 November 2001 in Strasbourg, the Council of Europe Eurimages fund agreed to support nine feature films for a total amount of Euros 2.7m.The feature films are :Scheme 1 - Assistance awarded mainly on the basis of the project's circulation potentialKedma, Vers l'Orient - ...

  • News

    Kastner, Michael team for MiKast Movies

    2001-12-04T00:06:00Z

    Milica Kastner, formerly at Helkon SK, has teamed with Yvonne Michael, previously at Phantom Pictures, to form London-based production company MiKast Movies.The company has a debut slate including a remake of the 1969 film Royal Hunt Of The Sun and Darkness Visible, a contemporary thriller set in Hawksmoor's London.Additionally, Traffic ...

  • News

    South African producers team to form D-V-8

    2001-12-03T23:57:00Z

    Independent South African producers Jeremy Nathan of Avatar Digital, Joel Phiri of ICE Media and Kobus Botha of Ballistic Pictures have formed an alliance to make up to eight feature films to be produced on digital over the next two years. The alliance, called D-V-8 Films, announced last week that ...

  • News

    UK production trend develops into horror

    2001-11-29T18:29:00Z

    Don't look now, something spooky is occurring in the UK's development vaults. Elisabeth Murdoch's Shine Entertainment this month unveiled a slate of low-budget horror suspense titles with The Hole director Nick Hamm, while rising new directors such as Ratcatcher's Lynne Ramsay and Sexy Beast's Jonathan Glazer are bringing their own ...

  • News

    Grammy plans trans-sexual kick-boxer biopic

    2001-11-28T11:49:00Z

    GMM Grammy, Thailand's largest entertainment conglomerate, is to bankroll a biopic of Parinya Charoenphol, a trans-sexual whose career started with kick-boxing and ended with night club singing. Singapore-based stage director Ekachai Uekrongham will make his feature film debut as director. Casting is now underway with a view to film early ...

  • News

    UK's Film Council backs French-language title

    2001-11-26T23:59:00Z

    The UK's Film Council's Premiere Fund for commercially-oriented films is pumping $700,000 (£500,000) into its first foreign-language production, French director Patrice Leconte's L'Homme Du Train.Pathe will distribute the comedy drama in the UK, while Pathe International is handling international sales. Shooting started this month in France, with Philippe Carcassonne producing ...

  • News

    Assumption Of The Virgin becomes doubtful

    2001-11-21T21:32:00Z

    Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella's Mirage Enterprises is battling to save Assumption Of The Virgin, one of the highest-profile UK productions on the market, after being forced to shelve plans to start production in March. The Benicio Del Toro-Juliette Binoche drama, which Mirage developed with BBC Films and Intermedia, first ...

  • News

    O'Sullivan's Heart Of Me set to roll in UK

    2001-11-19T21:55:00Z

    The Heart Of Me, a drama set in 1930s London starring Helena Bonham Carter, Olivia Williams and Paul Bettany, starts production this week in the UK.Directed by Thaddeus O'Sullivan, the film tells the story of two sisters, one of which has an affair with the other's husband. Years later the ...

  • News

    Hong Kong's Singing Horse springs into production

    2001-11-18T23:17:00Z

    Leading Hong Kong comedy director Joe Ma has set up a new production label Singing Horse Productions to deliver a slate of youth-oriented pictures. The company is jointly owned with Thomas Leong's talent agency International Pacific Artists (IPA) and Ivy Kong, former managing director of Mei Ah's production arm B.I.G. ...

  • News

    Fry, Winterbottom projects on Revolution's slate

    2001-11-14T19:54:00Z

    The UK's Revolution Films is developing a slate of new films including actor Stephen Fry's directing debut, Bright Young Things, which Fry is adapting from Evelyn Waugh's classic novel, Vile Bodies, as well as a Michael Winterbottom project about the conflict in Afghanistan.The Fry project is part of a concerted ...

  • News

    Tom Cruise warms to Minghella's Cold Mountain

    2001-11-13T06:21:00Z

    Anthony Minghella will directTom Cruise in a screen adaptation of the US Civil War bestseller ColdMountain next summer, producerSydney Pollack reportedly confirmed from Australia this morning. The film is a co-production betweenMGM and Miramax Films.Cruise would take the lead roleof Inman, a wounded confederate soldier who embarks on a long ...

  • News

    Hotshot trio make pan-Asian history

    2001-11-12T17:59:00Z

    Billed as a step up in pan-Asian co-operation, Fortissimo Film Sales unveiled details of Three, an omnibus film featuring three of the region's most commercially successful directors.Nonzee Nimibutr, director of Thailand's Jan Dara and Nang Nak, Korea's Kim Jee Won, who previously directed The Foul King, and Hong Kong-based Peter ...