All articles by Martin Blaney – Page 138

  • News

    Senator acquires Weinstein films for Germany

    2006-12-19T12:00:00Z

    German producer-distributor Senator Entertainment has acquired a package of six films from The Weinstein Company, including the latest films by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez.'I am awfully pleased that we can release these films in the cinemas for Dimension in Germany,' commented Marco Weber, Senator's board member responsible for production ...

  • News

    Austria close to double-digit box office bounce back

    2006-12-17T18:00:00Z

    Austriancinemas are set to post an increase of 10-11% in admissions and gross boxoffice this year, according to Kurt Kaufmann of the exhibitors association FLA.Whilethe industry was unlikely to repeat the "miracle year of 2004" when19.38m tickets were sold, there were hopes that this year could see totaladmissions approach those ...

  • News

    German box office heading for 5-10% box-office recovery

    2006-12-17T18:00:00Z

    Germandistributors trade association Verband der Filmverleiher (VdF) is forecastingan increase of between 5-10% for admissions and gross box office in Germancinemas for 2006.Accordingto the VdF, the weekend figures (Thursday to Sunday) up to December 10 saw a10% increase over 2005, with admissions topping 85.3m and gross box officereaching $706m (Euros ...

  • News

    Arthur Penn to receive Berlin lifetime honour

    2006-12-15T12:30:00Z

    Veteran American director Arthur Penn will receive a Golden Bear for Lifetime Achievement at the forthcoming Berlinale (February 8-18, 2007) as part of a 10-film homage being held in his honour during the festival.The homage will include such classic titles as Bonnie And Clyde, Alice's Restaurant, and Little Big Man."Arthur ...

  • News

    German funds back new films by Khrzhanovsky, Madsen

    2006-12-13T12:29:00Z

    New featurefilms by Doris Doerrie, Esther Gronenborn, Ilya Khrzhanovsky, and Ole ChristianMadsen are among the projects supported with more than $5.3m (Euros 4m) by thethree German regional funds FFF Bayern, FilmFoerderung Hamburg and MDM at their last funding sessions for2006. The largestamount allocated by the Bavarian fund - $663,024 (Euros ...

  • News

    Vitus, Grounding and Fraulein up for Swiss awards

    2006-12-12T11:39:00Z

    Two of this year's localbox-office hits, Michael Steiner and Tobias Fueter's Grounding - The LastDays Of Swissair and Fredi M. Murer'sVitus, and Andrea Staka's GoldenLeopard-winning Das Fraulein areamong the films nominated for the 2007 Swiss Film Prize. A nine-person nominationcommission including Federal Office of Culture's Film Section head NicolasBideau, Locarno ...

  • News

    German film fund invests $9.3m in co-productions

    2006-12-11T18:00:00Z

    New feature films by Michael Glawogger, Ludi Boeken, Benoit Jacquot, Samuel Maoz and Tom Schreiber are among a raft of international co-productions supported in the latest round of funding by the German regional public fund Filmstiftung NRW, which distributed over $9.3m (Euros 7m) to 29 projects.The largest single sum - ...

  • News

    Estonian films boost local market share

    2006-12-07T04:00:00Z

    Estonian films are expectedto double their market share of the local box office to 10%, with over 120,000tickets being sold for national productions this year.Speaking to ScreenDaily.com at this year's Baltic Event, the Estonian FilmFoundation's information manager Eda Koppel explained that the Estonian-Latvianco-production Lotte From Gadgetville is the top local ...

  • News

    Swiss films local market share hits record 10%

    2006-12-04T13:54:00Z

    2006 isset to be the most successful year ever for Swiss cinema with local films'market share of the box office reaching an all-time high of 10%. This isalmost double last year's figure of 5.85% which had largely been the result ofonly one release - Michael Steiner's family adventure film Mein ...

  • News

    Austrian board backs biopic of popstar Falco

    2006-12-01T16:24:00Z

    Debut features by Serbianfilmmaker Stefan Arsenijevic and the Iranian-born video artist Shirin Neshatand a biopic on the life of Rock Me Amadeus singer, the Austrian pop star Falco,are among six new projects backed with a total of $1.75m (Euros 1.31m) by thejoint funding committee of the Austrian Film Institute and ...

  • News

    Baltic Event to host 12 pitches in Estonia

    2006-11-29T00:00:00Z

    Filmmakers from the Baltic states, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe and Russia are to pitch 12 new film projects to potentialpartners at the Baltic Event's second co-production market which will be heldin Tallinn, Estonia, next week (Dec 4-5) during the Black Nights Film Festival.This year's lineup includesLithuanian director Sarunas Bartas' $7.6m (Euros ...

  • News

    The One And Only takes Mannheim Grand Prix

    2006-11-27T11:38:00Z

    Belgian director GeoffreyEnthoven's The Only One (Vidange Perdue),a touching story of a second spring in the winter of old age, won the GrandPrix at this year's Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival.The international jury,which included Chinese filmmaker Lou Ye and Macedonian actress-producer LabinaMitevska, awarded the Rainer Werner Fassbinder Prize to Norwegian Erik ...

  • News

    Sony strikes North American deal for Vitus

    2006-11-27T04:00:00Z

    Sony Pictures has pickedNorth America rights to Fredi M. Murer's Vitus, which is Switzerland's official entry in theforeign-language Oscar race and was the winner of the audience award for bestfeature film at AFI Fest earlier this month. The film's sales agent MediaLuna Entertainment also sealed a deal at the AFM ...

  • News

    German films set new market share record

    2006-11-23T13:37:00Z

    German films have been sosuccessful with domestic cinemagoers this year that the 2006 market share forlocal production has already broken the record 24.5% posted two years ago. According to figurescollated by Nielsen EDI from Jan 2 to Nov 19, German films now have a marketshare of 25.7% thanks to the ...

  • News

    Apple comes on with Hob for Lukasiak feature

    2006-11-22T15:40:00Z

    Leading Polish productionhouse Apple Film has come onboard Polish-born filmmaker Agnieszka Lukasiak'sfeature debut Between TheFires which will be one of the first features to be handled by Swedishproducer Peter Kropenin's new production outfit Hob AB.Speaking to ScreenDaily.com at this week's MannheimMeetings where he was pitching Between The Fires to potential ...

  • News

    Hitler farce among new projects backed by Germany

    2006-11-22T12:50:00Z

    Swiss theatre and film director Urs Odermatt'sadaptation of George Tabori's stage farce MeinKampf about the creation of the 'monster Hitler', is among 12film projects and five screenplays backed with a total of $1.86m (Euros 1.45m)by Germany's State Minister for Culture Bernd Neumann.Odermatt's film will beproduced by the Berlin-based production outfit ...

  • News

    German-French funders back projects including new Denis film

    2006-11-20T16:52:00Z

    Three internationalco-productions have been awarded nearly $1.28m (Euros 1m) by the German FederalFilm Board (FFA) and France's CNC at thelatest sitting of the German-French Funding Committee.The largest amount - $576,787(Euros 450,000) - was given to Peter Sehr and Marie Noelle'sGerman-French-Spanish co-production DieFrauen Des Anarchisten which will be produced by Sehr ...

  • News

    Transilvania festival will expand to two cities in 2007

    2006-11-17T10:54:00Z

    Nextyear's Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF) will be held in twoRomanian cities - Cluj Napoca and Sibiu - in recognition of the latter's statusas a European Capital of Culture in 2007 along with Luxembourg.Speakingexclusively with ScreenDaily during the Connecting Cottbus market forum,TIFF's honorary director Tudor Giurgiu explained that the sixth ...

  • News

    Russian feature backed by German regional fund

    2006-11-16T04:00:00Z

    Russian director Ilya Khrzhanovsky's second feature Dau, which was pitched at last year's Connecting Cottbus market forum, is one of the new feature films to be backed by Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg in its latest round of funding.Khrzhanovsky's new project, which is based on the life of the great Russian physicist and ...

  • News

    Five films share World Cinema Fund awards

    2006-11-16T04:00:00Z

    The Berlin-based World Cinema Fund (WCF) has awarded a total of $288,000 (Euros 225,000) to five film projects from Peru, Chile and Jordan, chosen from 82 projects submitted from 27 countries.In the fifth round of funding, the WCF jury selected four feature films and one documentary (Recycle) for support:They are: ...