All articles by Leon Forde – Page 6
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Cinema Expo goes medieval over BVI's King Arthur
Buena Vista International's King Arthur was a last-minute addition to thescreening programme at the Cinema Expo exhibition conference in Amsterdam today(Wednesday).The studio only decided to screen the film in Amsterdam on Tuesdaynight, said BVI president Mark Zoradi, and digital files of the film werecarried overnight by hand from Los Angeles. ...
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UIP steals show at Cinema Expo
Cinema Expo, the annualtrade show and conference for the exhibition industry in Europe, kicked off onMonday (June 21) with a high profile presence from United InternationalPictures (UIP), and some tentative optimism about the rollout of digital cinema.Yesterday was dubbed"UIP day" by Cinema Expo and Jeffrey Katzenberg's attendancecertainly upped the executive ...
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Swipe Films takes Int'l sales on Sundance award winner
London-based Swipe Films has picked up international salesrights to Debra Granik's Sundance award-winner Down To The Bone.The digitally-shot film, which tells the story of a workingclass mother hiding a cocaine addiction from her family, won the DirectingAward and a special jury prize for lead actress Vera Farmiga at the festival ...
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UK production sector weathers the storm
Government crackdowns on UK tax relief earlier this year may have cast uncertainty over the production sector - and led to the high-profile collapse of productions such as John Madden's Tulip Fever - but the UK is as busy as it was at this time during its record year last ...
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Skillset, UK Film Council unveil $90m training strategy
Training agency Skillset and support body the UK Film Council have announced further details of their new £50m UK film skills strategy, which aims to revolutionise training and skills in the UK industry.A key component of the five-year strategy - called A Bigger Future - is a network of Screen ...
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Winterbottom signs on to shoot Goal!
Michael Winterbottom is set to direct Goal!, the first film in a trilogy that follows a Latino soccer player as he moves to the UK to play for one of the territory's top-flight Premiership teams.The second and third films in the trilogy will follow the player as he moves to ...
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Scott Free develops Elegance
Scott Free, the production company owned by Ridley and Tony Scott, has hired Christopher Monger to adapt Kathleen Tessaro's novel Elegance.Published in the UK by Harper Collins, Elegance follows an American woman in London who follows the advice in an old A-Z of etiquette and style by a renowned French ...
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UK production spend hits record level
Film production spend hit record levels in the UK last year, rising 113% on 2002 totals, according to new figures published by the UK Film Council.Production spend on films starting principal photography during 2003 stood at £1.17bn by year end - more than double the £550.45m spent in 2002.The Film ...
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Start-up UK production outfit to shoot William Blake biopic
Acclaimed British artist Sam Taylor-Wood is to make her feature directorial debut with Jerusalem, a film based on the life of William Blake starring Ray Winstone as the celebrated artist, poet and religious visionary.Jerusalem will be the first film from Flicks Productions, a new production company formed by agent and ...
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Bangkok unveils festival line-up
Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Volume 2 is to close the second edition of the Bangkok International Film Festival, held between Jan 22 - Feb 2 next year. The event, which will screen around 150 films, opens with a screening of Thai title Renaissance.Organised by the Tourism Authority of Thailand, the ...
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Cold&Dark start for Cornwall studio
Shooting started this week on Cold&Dark, a supernatural horror film about police vigilantism starring Luke Goss and directed by Andrew Goth (Everybody Loves Sunshine).The film, which is the first to use the newly opened South West Film Studios in Cornwall, tells the story of Detective Sergeant John Dark, a good ...
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Mission promotes Meyer to development chief
Mission Pictures has promoted Sophie Meyer to head of development in the UK.Previously development executive at the company, Meyer oversaw the development of Danny Boyle's Millions and comedy spoof Gladiatress. She is responsible for the development of a number of projects on Mission's slate, including a film written and to ...
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UK's Soda Pictures gulps down arthouse pair
UK distributor Soda Pictures has picked up UK rights to Guy Maddin's The Saddest Music In The World and Damian Kozole's Spare Parts.Maddin's film, which made its North American premiere at Toronto earlier this year, stars Isabella Rossellini as a legless beer baroness who holds a worldwide contest to perform ...
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McGuckian presses ahead with tabloid tale
Irish writer-director Mary McGuckian, currently in post on historical drama The Bridge Of San Luis Rey, will next direct Rag Tale, an $8.5m black comedy about Britain's tabloid newspaper culture.Following a week in the life of a tabloid newspaper as the editor tries to save his job, the film will ...
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Optimum stocks up with market titles
Independent UK distributor Optimum Releasing has acquired UK rights to anticipated documentaries from Michael Moore and Jonathan Demme, as well as Bob Smeaton's Festival Express and French horror Switchblade Romance. The company has also picked up UK rights to CJ Entertainment's detective thriller Memories Of Murder Currently in production, Fahrenheit ...
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Mayor boosts London Film Festival funding
Mayor of London Ken Livingstone has announced an increase of funding for the London Film Festival (LFF), held this year between Oct 22 and Nov 6. Working with the London Development Agency, the mayor's funding will begin next year, and will be channelled through Film London, which provides dedicated support, ...
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Foreign shoots 'little benefit' to local industry, say Moroccans
Morocco may be feeling the economic benefits of foreign productions coming to the country to shoot, but local film-makers this week voiced concerns that the influx of foreign money and crews was having no significant knock-on benefits to indigenous production.In a frank and wide-ranging round table discussion at the Marrakech ...
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Fuse lights up Marrakech jury
Pjer Zalica's Fuse was awarded the Golden Star (Etoile d'Or) at the third Marrakech International Film Festival, which wrapped yesterday(Oct 8. The Bosnian film also won the best actor prize for Bogdan Diklic's performance. Tom McCarthy's The Station Agent took the feature film Special Jury Prize, while Takeshi Kitano was ...
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Stone, Farrell push on in fierce Morocco desert
Oliver Stone and Colin Farrell made an appearance at the MarrakechInternational Film Festival today (Oct 6) to talk up Stone's Fidel Castrodocumentary Comandanteand his $150m historical epic Alexander, which has now entered the third week of production at asite 35km south of Marrakech.The pair were on ebullient form at a ...
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Stars express Marrakech support
The Marrakech International Film Festival (Oct 3-8) will likely move to November in 2004 to occupy a less crowded space on the international film calendar, and to avoid a clash with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.The festival, presided over this year by French actress Nathalie Baye, launched its third ...