Latest – Page 522
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Features
Editorial - Eyes of the world
US commentators on the 79th Academy Awards spent many column inches noting the international flavour of this year's event. And indeed there were a remarkable number of nominations in the main sections for Mexican film and film-makers.The strong presence again of the British - particularly Helen Mirren's regal procession to ...
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Features
United States - New road for Mandalay
This time last year, Cathy Schulman was basking in glory as one of the two Oscar-winning producers of surprise best picture choice Crash. Currently, her time is taken up with something perhaps less glamorous but still, she says, exciting: the "entrepreneurial re-building" of Mandalay Pictures.After more than a decade working ...
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Features
United States - Southern man
Jeff Nichols was two years behind writer-director David Gordon Green at the North Carolina School of the Arts. After Green made his auspicious feature debut in 2000 with the poetic George Washington, Nichols took particular notice of his professional advice."He told me, 'Go make a movie. The only way (the ...
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Features
United Kingdom - Shared vision
Three of the UK's top independent production companies - Ecosse Films, Recorded Picture Company (RPC) and Samuelson Productions - are working together to establish Visible Films, which will work as an Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) taking advantage of the UK government's new film tax credit.Peter Watson, CEO of RPC, says ...
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Features
United Kingdom - Hot spring
This spring will bring a bountiful crop of rising writers in the UK literary fiction landscape, many of whom have novels ripe for film treatment.Several have already been harvested by producers - Scott Rudin and Columbia Pictures have taken rights to Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns, the eagerly awaited ...
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Features
Industry moves
Wilkinson to leave UK exhibitors groupJohn Wilkinson, who has served as chief executive of the UK-based Cinema Exhibitors' Association since 1990, plans to step down. He will remain in place until a replacement is appointed.Locarno loses communications staffTwo communications department staffers have left the Locarno International Film Festival: Riccardo Franciolli, ...
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Features
Italy - The good, the bad and the awarded
Fresh from picking up his lifetime achievement Academy Award in Hollywood at the weekend, 78-year-old Italian maestro Ennio Morricone is still one of the busiest men in the business.In the weeks before the Oscars, Morricone's schedule was typically packed: flights to New York and London for concerts; performances in Italy; ...
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Features
Germany - Rebel Yella
Christian Petzold's feature Yella is his sixth collaboration with the Berlin-based production outfit Schramm Film Koerner + Weber, after successes including the German Film Award-winning The State I Am In (Die Innere Sicherheit), which premiered in Venice in 2000, and the Berlinale 2005 Competition film Ghosts (Gespenster)."For the first time, ...
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Features
European animation - Drawn to Europe
It may boast an abundance of talent, but European animation has always been little more than a cottage industry. And in a global market dominated by the likes of Disney and DreamWorks Animation, Europe's lack of marketing clout, branding and distribution is painfully obvious.But there are signs that European feature ...
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Features
European animation - Case Study: Arthur and the Invisibles - 'We had no clue how tough it was going to be'
In making Arthur And The Invisibles, Luc Besson (pictured) refused to accept the conventional wisdom that European animation was a cottage industry. It looks as if his gamble has paid off, with the film already scoring more than 6.2 million admissions in France. The aim now is to shoot the ...
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Features
European - Aardman animations - 'We feel liberated in a delightful way'
Peter Lord, a founder of Aardman Animations, is in optimistic mood following the company's recent divorce from DreamWorks."We just feel liberated in an incredibly delightful way," says Lord. "Many other people are interested in doing business with us, both within Europe and in the US. What it means creatively is ...
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Features
European animation - Territory Overview: Spain - 'Animation is in hot demand'
The 2001 animated feature The Living Forest marked a before and after in Spanish animation. Europe's first 3D computer animation, it was seen by more than a million viewers across the continent. Its success helped producer Dygra Films finance its $8m (EUR6.1m) Midsummer Dream, and grow its company with an ...
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Features
European - Selling European animation - Drawing the battle lines
Television looms large over European animation. "The biggest problem in selling animation in Europe is that the market is primarily for (TV) series - 30-minute episodes," says Czech-based producer and sales agent John Riley, who has sold the work of Czech master Jan Svankmajer.With bigger-budget Euro-animated features, sales agents need ...
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Features
European - Territory Overview: France - Highly visible success
French animation is enjoying a revival, with Luc Besson's Arthur And The Invisibles raking it in at the local and foreign box office and many other high-profile projects underway. But, just as in the US where an overstretched market is starting to buckle, France may not be able to sustain ...
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Features
European animation - Territory Overview: Germany - It's a family affair
German animations were traditionally targeted at children, but all that changed in the early 1990s when producers hit on 'adult' animation features with successful comic-book adaptations Werner - Volles Rooaaa! (2.7 million admissions) and The Little Bastard (three million). However, animation studios now tend to focus on fare for the ...
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Features
European - Case study: Max & Co - Puppet masters pull the strings
On paper, Max & Co looks like a big risk. Budgeted at $25m (EUR19m), the animated first-time feature from director brothers Fred and Sam Guillaume started out as a short. But as it evolved, and with input from producer Robert Boner, it became clear it would be better served as ...
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Features
European - Event: Cartoon movie - Forum for European animations
Cartoon Movie's annual Forum for European Animation Films is billed as "neither a fair nor a festival, but rather a co-production forum where European producers can negotiate the financing of their feature-length projects and provide support to international co-operation". It combines trailer presentations, business meetings and screenings with the chance ...
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Features
Language barriers
It is a longstanding tradition that the day prior to the Academy Awards, the directors of the films nominated in the foreign-language category take to the stage of the Samuel Goldwyn Theater and talk about their work and the state of international cinema.This year, the film-makers in question, Denmark's Susanne ...
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Features
Ghost Rider holds fire at the top
Ghost Rider holds on to the top spot this weekend, generating $16.9m after opening in an additional 17 territories across a further 1,291 screens. Fox's Night At The Museum was not far behind, raking in an impressive $14.2m in its tenth week, despite dropping from seven territories. French cinemas favoured ...
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Features
Data - Market focus - Turning tide in HK affairs
When William Monahan accepted his best adapted screenplay Oscar for The Departed, he thanked Felix Chong and Alan Mak, the writers of its source material, Hong Kong movie Infernal Affairs. But he could have also paid homage to Media Asia's chairman Peter Lam who greenlit the high-concept thriller.Infernal Affairs single-handedly ...