Latest – Page 505
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Features
International - A Slice of the action
While Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street was the highest entrant in this week's international box-office chart, there were a number of new European entries that catch the eye.The Warner Bros film, directed by Tim Burton, took $8,111,368 over the weekend, playing on 1,092 screens in five territories. ...
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Features
The international view - Going for Oscar gold
Predicting the Oscar nominations is not an exact science, not least because the arcane voting system tends to throw up left-field candidates.The window of opportunity for distributors to cash in on a nomination is also very limited. But over the years, it has been possible to see a big picture. ...
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Features
In focus - Bafta nominations - Big year for UK talent
The organisers of the Orange British Academy Film Awards, Bafta, are confident the February 10 event will not be caught up in the WGA strike turmoil."Neither Bafta nor our broadcaster (the BBC) is in dispute with the Writers Guild of America; while we hope for the sake of the whole ...
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United States - Original intent
This week, Original Media, the New York-headquartered independent film and TV production company headed by former internet entrepreneur Charlie Corwin, is attending Sundance with what it hopes will be another buzz-generating festival film.In 2005, the then two-year-old company went to Park City as the primary backer of The Squid And ...
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Features
United States - Niche operator
Perhaps the biggest challenge Lisa Nishimura-Seese has faced, since relocating from New York to Los Angeles last October on joining Netflix, is that there are not enough hours in the day.In her newly created role of vice-president of independent content acquisition in a new department, she is charged with acquiring ...
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United Kingdom - Making film history
He has been awake since 5.30am and is now, six hours later, roaring his lines for the 11th time in the marble-columned ballroom of Kedleston Hall in rural Derbyshire. Yet the delivery of his political monologue is flawless. UK actor Simon McBurney is the kind of supporting actor that big-budget ...
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Features
United Kingdom - Next top model
It is looking like a good year ahead for the Bristol-based animation powerhouse Aardman. The company, formed back in 1976, had a notable 2007 after ending its relationship with DreamWorks and signing a first-look deal with Sony Pictures. Now the company behind Wallace and Gromit, Flushed Away and Chicken Run ...
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Awards Countdown - People - Awards People
MICHAEL FINKThe senior visual-effects supervisor tells Jeremy Kay about the painstaking CGI work behind the creatures who populate The Golden Compass.One of the highlights of The Golden Compass is the extraordinary realism of the creatures that populate New Line's fantasy adaptation, a key focus for senior visual-effects supervisor Michael Fink."The ...
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Features
Rotterdam - CineMart Celebrates
Rotterdam is not the kind of festival to be big on celebrating numbers," says CineMart head Marit van den Elshout of the co-production market's 25th anniversary this week. "We'll do something but we won't be making a huge celebration."Still, this is an opportune moment to take stock, "to look back ...
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Rotterdam - History of a Project
A look at two recent projects to have been showcased at CineMart.COUNTRY TEACHERDirector: Bohdan SlamaProducer: Pavel Strnad, Negativ Film ProductionsCountry: Czech RepublicThis was the second time a project by Czech director Slama had been selected for CineMart. His second feature, Something Like Happiness, was presented in 2003 and had a ...
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Features
Rotterdam - CineMart Buzz
22nd Of May dir: Koen Mortier (Belgium, Ger-Neth)Mortier caused a stir with his debut Ex Drummer, in Rotterdam's Tiger competition last year. The film, dubbed by some as a Flemish Trainspotting, was distributed in Benelux by A-Film and was sold internationally by Loic Magneron's Wide Management. Now, Mortier is back ...
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Features
Promotional Feature - Flanders finds its x factor
Flanders film was not quite in the doldrums when Pierre Drouot took over as managing director of the Flanders Audio-Visual Fund (VAF) in November 2005.Nonetheless, to outsiders, it was clear Flemish cinema was not prospering either. Few films from the Belgium region of Flanders achieved any visibility at all on ...
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Features
Fuelling Flemish Film
Pierre Drouot, the avuncular figure who took over as managing-director of the Flanders Audio-Visual Fund (VAF) in 2005, admits his vision for film in Flanders owes a lot to the example set by the Danish film industry.How does a small country devise a meaningful film policy' As head of the ...
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Production - Mumbai Calling
One of the world's most crowded and at times dysfunctional cities, shooting in Mumbai is not for the faint-hearted. But it is also the centre of one of the world's largest film industries, with production costs around one-fifth of those in the West. For projects with a story set in ...
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Features
International - Independents' Day
The back end of the Hollywood winter blockbuster season is an opportunity for independents to make a significant dent in Screen's international box-office chart. And, following a hugely successful Christmas, it is the Italians leading the way with new entry L'Allenatore Nel Pallone 2, distributed by Medusa Films.Sergio Martino's football ...
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In focus - Korea on the World Stage
As much as the Korean film industry is dependent on theatrical profits, for several years it has also anticipated making money back on films from sales abroad - literally sending everything it produces to be sold internationally.But in the first half of 2007, Korean exports fell 57% year on year ...
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Features
The home run
As communist Vietnam opens up to foreign and diaspora film-makers, the state-driven local film industry is looking to benefit from exposure to foreign film crews and investment. Yet ghosts remain and US directors are often refused entry on arrival. Not so The Rebel director Charlie Nguyen, who grew up in ...
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France - Festival king
When he took over the organisation of the Marrakech International Film Festival four years ago, Bruno Barde and his 14-person team had just months to prepare.But that did not deter Barde, who was already responsible for programming five other festivals as well as the promotional activities of roughly 30 films ...
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Awards Countdown People - Awards People
JACK FISKThe production designer recreated the harshness of the frontier for There Will Be Blood. Patrick Z McGavin reports.On delivery of Paul Thomas Anderson's script for There Will Be Blood, production designer Jack Fisk also received an accompanying portfolio of around 150 black-and-white period photographs to begin filling out the ...
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Features
Sundance - The Shape of Things to Come - US Stars of Tomorrow
Each year thousands come to the mountain town of Park City, Utah, for the Sundance Film Festival. Some are here to see films, some to get rejected from overcrowded parties, and others to score goody bags. Many come to divine the future of independent film from the parade of new ...