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Korean government to introduce completion bond scheme
The South Korean government has announced plans for an inaugural completion bond system in order to back the development of local cultural content. In a forum between the ruling Grand National party leaders and officials from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, it was decided that the government would ...
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SK Telecom, Hanaro invest in new production fund
South Korean mobile telecommunications operator SK Telecom, and its recently acquired subsidiary Hanaro Telecom, are investing $10m in the Benex Culture Contents Investment Fund. The new fund will invest a total of $25.1m in local films and TV drama series over seven years, starting this August.SK and Hanaro are putting ...
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Gael Garcia Bernal plans doc project on resistance
Gael Garcia Bernal is teaming up with director Marc Silver and the UK's Pulse Films on Resist, an ambitious feature documentary and web project.Described as Bernal's personal journey through the landscape of resistance, the film is in pre-production with shooting scheduled to take place in spring next year.Bernal will also ...
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Ward's Rain Of The Children wins at Era New Horizons
Poland's Era New Horizons Film Festival in Wroclaw has given its Grand Prix to Rain Of The Children.New Zealand director Vincent Ward's film is described as 'an intimate docufiction,' telling the story of the film-maker's own interest in the turbulent life story of an old Maori woman. Other films in ...
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Seoul's CinDi fest increases prize money, unveils line-up
The 2nd Cinema Digital Seoul Film Festival (CinDi 2008) has announced its full line-up which will include competition films from last year's top award-winners Yu Guangyi and Woo Ming Jin - each bringing their second and third films Survival Song and Days Of The Turquoise Sky, respectively. The Invitation Section ...
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Thai star Tony Jaa goes missing from Ong Bak sequel
Thai film studio Sahamongkol held a press conference in Bangkok on Friday (July 25) to confirm that Ong Bak star Tony Jaa has been missing for the past two months. The martial arts star was directing and starring in the sequel to 2003 hit Ong Bak when he disappeared. However, ...
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India's UTV crosses $5m in US market in first six months
UTV Motion Pictures has announced that it has entered the list of top 20 film distributors in North America in the first half of 2008, by becoming the first Indian film studio to cross the $5m revenue mark.The ranking is based on US box office figures for the first six ...
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Chaser takes top awards at Korea's PiFan fest
The 11th Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival (PiFan) awarded Na Hong-jin's serial murderer thriller The Chaser with its top Best of Puchon prize and the European Federation of Fantastic Films (EFFF) Asian Award. The film also took best actress for Seo Young-hee. 'We had great rains over the weekend and ...
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Oz filmmakers urged to seek different subject matter
Scripts must reflect big ideas that are unique and engaging, local distributors and potential overseas partners told the Australian and New Zealand filmmakers pitching projects as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival's financing market 37South. While hardly a new or surprising message, it is a crucial one at a ...
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Arranged wins best picture at Japan's Skip City fest
US-based directors Stephan Schaefer and Diane Crespo's Arranged has won best picture at the 5th annual Skip City International Digital Cinema Festival (July 19-27). The accolade also carried a $92,700 (Y10m) cash prize by fest sponsor Sony. Arranged tells the story of two female teachers in Brooklyn, one Jewish and ...
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Japanese box office plummets 13.7% in first half of 2008
Japanese box office earnings for the first half of 2008 totaled $743.54m (Y79.83bn), a 13.7% drop from the same period last year, according to figures reported by media trade publication Bunka Tsushin.The total comprises grosses of the the top 13 foreign and local distributors in the territory, representing approximately 95% ...
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Naked Of Defenses picks up top prize at Japan's Pia fest
Japanese director Masahide Ichii's Naked Of Defenses won the Grand Prix at the 30th edition of the Pia Film Festival (PFF), which ran from July 19 to 25 in Tokyo's Shibuya district. A total of 15 films, both feature-length and shorts, were selected to screen in competition from 601 submissions ...
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Melbourne fest's financing market and fund to continue
The government of the Australian state of Victoria brought a smile to the faces of filmmakers attending the opening of the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) tonight, by pledging $2.3m (A$2.4m) to extend the life of the festival's investment fund and financing market. 'We were not certain that funding would ...
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Hong Kong's Media Asia takes back Infernal rights
Hong Kong's Media Asia has announced that it has retrieved rights to seven films it had previously licensed to UK-US distributor Tartan Group, including its hugely successful Infernal Affairs trilogy. In a legal notice, the Hong Kong company said that, as of July 4, it has terminated all licence agreements ...
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Palador lines up October release for Tokyo Sonata
India's Palador Pictures is planning to release Tokyo Sonata by Japanese filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa in October this year. Palador picked up theaward-winning titlefrom Fortissimo Films at this year's Cannes. The Best Film Award in the Asian & Arab category bagged by Tokyo Sonata at the recently concluded Osian's-Cinefan film festival ...
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Korean film exportsup by37% in first half of 2008
The Korean Film Council (KOFIC) hasreported local box office and export figures for the first half of the year, which show that film exports bounced up by 37% to $10.2m, after steep declines since 2005. Sales to North America shot up by 1,740% from $154,500 to $2.84m, mostly due to ...
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PiFan's genre projects market has successful first edition
The Network of Asian Fantastic Films (NAFF)'s inaugural projects marketwrapped today (July 23), with participants agreeing that it had been an 'energy cluster' of an event. Running concurrently to the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival (PiFan), the four-day 'It Project'event isAsia's first projects marketto focus specifically on genre films.US director ...
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Studio Ghibli's Ponyo claims Japanese summer box office crown
As expected, director Hayao Miyazaki's latest animated feature Ponyo On The Cliff By The Sea claimed the number one spot atJapan's box office over the three-day holiday weekend (July 19-21), earning $14.84m (Y1.58bn) on 1.25 million (1,251,207) admissions Distributor Toho opened the Studio Ghibli film on 481 screens, the widest ...
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Kismat scores second highest opening of the year in India
UTV Motion Pictures release Kismat Konnection grossed $6.3m (Rs270m) worldwide on its opening weekend (July 18-20), including $4.9m (Rs208m) in India, which makes it the second biggest opener of the year in its home territory. Directed by Aziz Mirza and produced by Tips Production, the Hindi-language film was shot in ...
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Paramount sets up Acquisitions Group for International, Vantage
Paramount Pictures has created the new Paramount Worldwide Acquisitions Group (PWAG), a centralised acquisitions and local productions arm that will service Paramount Pictures International and its worldwide territories as well as US-based Paramount Vantage.PPI president Andrew Cripps and Paramount Vantage president Nick Meyer jointly announced the plans today.Matt Brodlie, Paramount ...