Latest – Page 507
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Features
International - UPI builds up a global village
David Kosse is now celebrating a full year as president of Universal Pictures International (UPI), and he will tell you it has been a challenging ride.While he is no stranger to the company - Kosse has been head of UPI's London operation since 2003 - this is the company's first ...
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Awards Countdown - Best Documentary - Rewriting the doc rule book
Michael Apted knew he was in for some flak when he went to meet the documentary film-making communities of Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco late last year.But the chairman of the documentary branch executive committee of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Ampas) thought the meetings ...
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Awards Countdown - People - Awards People
SARAH POLLEYThe Away From Her director talks to Peter Bowen about the film's long journey from story to screen.While making films seems second nature for Sarah Polley - she started acting at age six and making short films in her teens - she took more than six years to write ...
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International - Warlords on the rise
Chinese heavy-hitter The Warlords was this weekend's highest non-US entry to the international chart, helping boost the top 40 revenue by 17.3% week-on-week.The period epic, directed by Peter Ho-sun Chan (Perhaps Love, Three), opened at number five at the weekend with a $12.5m take, for a $14.4m total including previews. ...
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The International view - The wheel: re-invented
From the beginning, the film industry has revelled in reheating its past and serving it up again and again and again. Great film-makers from John Ford to Kon Ichikawa have remade their own films and sometimes that exercise has expanded or embellished on an original.There are literal remakes and sequels, ...
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Features
United States - Quarterlife change
I don't watch TV, I make TV," says Marshall Herskovitz. "I don't do what other people do. I do what I do and I do it the same way, whether it's film or TV or the internet."Herskovitz and partner Ed Zwick - who between them have writing, producing and directing ...
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United States - Slings and arrows
Writer-director Alex Holdridge has been on Hollywood's radar for several years, yet circumstances led him to shoot his third feature, In Search Of A Midnight Kiss, for just $12,000.Holdridge, who attended the University of Texas, was living in Austin when he was inspired to move into film by the early ...
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Features
United Kingdom - Off The Record
EMI has a long history as a record label - everyone from the Beatles to Coldplay - but its burgeoning film business owes much to two men and their motorcycles."Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman came to meet with us about a soundtrack, and we ended up doing the DVD release ...
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Awards Countdown - Screenwriting - Keeping To The Script
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY1. Tony GilroyMichael ClaytonGilroy, who wrote all three Bourne films, came up with one of the year's smartest original scripts in Michael Clayton, which also marked his directorial debut. If he is pushed out of the director category by heavyweight veterans, he will likely be the front runner for ...
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Marketing - How to win friends
The rise of MySpace has propelled social-networking communities into the web stratosphere. Launched in 2003 and sold to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation for $580m two years later, MySpace's early symbiosis between indie-rock bands and their fans - and the ability for users to personalise their pages - earned it a ...
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Features
Production - Joined up writing
In the beginning was the word. Then there was the motion picture. And now it is increasingly difficult to tell the difference.The film industry is going through a book adaptation frenzy. While this has been an important part of the inspiration for films since the industry began, today books are ...
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Features
International - Compass points up
While The Golden Compass was largely responsible for the 14.5% week-on-week increase in the international top 40, two new entries from France made their presence known taking a collective $4.3m.Roissy Films' comedy L'Auberge Rouge was the second highest new entry, coming in at number nine with a $3.1m take. The ...
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The critical eye - Tolly good show
I have a suspicion we're on the verge of a sub-prime crash in commercial film style. It's a crash that has been postponed by Hollywood's traditional strengths in the script and acting departments, not to mention the studios' marketing muscle and distribution leverage. But it seems to me that in ...
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United States - Syvan's secret
New York-based producer Lemore Syvan is gearing up for The Private Lives Of Pippa Lee, the next feature from director Rebecca Miller, which starts shooting in Connecticut in April.The movie, which stars Robin Wright Penn, Julianne Moore and Winona Ryder, marks Syvan's fourth collaboration with Miller, following the director's critically ...
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Features
China - Stone's man on a roll
In mid September in China's south-east coastal city Xiamen, Ning Hao was shooting his fourth feature, Silver Medalist. More than 50 Chinese reporters visited the set for interviews - just a year ago the 30-year-old film-maker could not have imagined his new film would attract so much attention.The reason for ...
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Features
Belgium - Extra dimension
Earlier this autumn, Summit Entertainment acquired North American distribution rights to 3D animated feature Fly Me To The Moon. Following three stowaway flies inside the helmets of lunar astronauts, the film was directed and produced by Ben Stassen, also co-founder of Belgium-based nWave Pictures. "It makes it easier to control ...
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United Kingdom - Outfoxing the Competition
"Sometimes I feel like a conductor in an orchestra," says Elizabeth Kesses, UK marketing director at Twentieth Century Fox. While she is not holding a baton, Kesses does have the constant challenge of creating standout marketing initiatives for Fox titles in what she calls "the most cynical" market for film ...
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Awards countdown - People - Awards people
NICOLE KIDMANThe star of both Margot At The Wedding and The Golden Compass tells Mike Goodridge how she tackled such dark roles.We may see her on red carpets looking every inch the style queen, but Nicole Kidman says her natural instincts are not to embrace the glamour. "I seek out ...
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Production - Festival focus - Dubai fest bids for star status
Now in its fourth year, the Dubai International Film Festival (Diff) has become a focal point for the Persian Gulf's growing interest in the film industry as an economic, cultural and PR platform.Festival chairman Abdulhamid Juma points out that until recently, the territory was known in the film world chiefly ...
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Production - Coming attractions - Drawing on history
Dhulm - Years Of Torment (Lib)Director: Najdat AnzourStatus: pre-productionBased on a treatment by Libyan president Muammar al-Gaddafi, who is also financing the $50m project, this historical epic was launched provocatively at a Rome press conference in October. The multi-linear drama, due to start shooting at the beginning of next year, ...