All articles by Martin Blaney – Page 140
-
News
Piaf biopic La Vie En Rose to open Berlinale
The world premiere of Olivier Dahan's Edith Piaf biopic La Vie En Rose will open this year's Berlinale on Feb 8 as part of the Competition section of films vying for the Golden Bear and Silver Bears. Writer-director Olivier Dahan, whose last film was 2004's Crimson Rivers II, has assembled ...
-
News
Beta Cinema picks up controversial Hitler comedy
Beta Cinema has picked up the international sales rights to Dani Levy's hotly debated new comedy Mein Fuehrer - The Truly Truest Truth About Adolf Hitler which X Verleih is opening with 250 prints in German cinemas on Jan 11. The Y Filme production has already aroused considerable interest internationally ...
-
News
Big-spending Dubai and Rome festivals under fire from Berlinale
New kids on the film festival block such as those in Rome and Dubai have been criticised by Berlinale festival director Dieter Kosslick for 'buying stars with big money' and 'running through Hollywood with a cheque book.' Speaking in an interview with the Berlin-based media journal Promedia, Kosslick observed: 'I ...
-
News
German box-office revived in 2006, led by Fox
Germany's box-office fortunes were revived in 2006 after a devastating 2005 with a year-on-year increase in takings of 9.6% and admissions rising by 7.9%, according to figures from Nielsen EDI. In data collected from Jan 2 to Dec 31 2006, box-office revenues amounted to $1.02bn (Euros 789.3m), compared to $936.6m ...
-
News
Slovenian producers face government funding problems
Slovenian producers arefacing a bleak future at home following radical changes in the film supportpolicies at the country's Ministry of Culture.The new harsher climate wasushered in with the dismissal of the Slovenian Film Fund's director IreneOstrouska with immediate effect for allegedly not coming up to the Ministry'sexpectations.In addition, funding hasbeen ...
-
News
Berlinale selects first six titles for Perspektive Deutsches Kino
New films by BastianGuenther, Ben von Grafenstein, and Julia von Heinz are among six titlesconfirmed so far for the Berlinale's Perspektive Deutsches Kino sidebar whichshowcases young and up-and-coming German filmmakers with fresh ideas,approaches and talent.Among the films selected isBastian Guenther's feature debut Autopilotswhich is comprised of four interwoven episodes taking ...
-
News
German tax credit approved by Europe
Germany'sState Minister for Culture Bernd Neumann has received the green light from theEuropean Commission in Brussels for the new film production incentive scheme tocome into effect as planned on January 1, 2007.Commentingon the Commission's swift processing of the German proposal, Neumann said:'This is a great negotiated success. The path is ...
-
News
German home entertainment company takes over media fund
One of Germany's leading home entertainment companies VCL Film + Medien has taken over the Munich-based media fund Equity Pictures Medienfonds.Throughthe acquisition by its recently established subsidiary, Allied Film Management,VCL will be expanding its activities from the core operations of homeentertainment to include the management of film funds.It will be ...
-
News
Rise in Competition entries gives Berlinale welcome problem
The Berlinale's selectors are spoilt for choice for the line-up of the 2007 Competition thanks to the festival's increasing popularity with film-makers from around the globe.Speaking to ScreenDaily, festival director Dieter Kosslick said: 'There are many more films which are wanting to come to Berlin this year. There is a ...
-
News
Berlin World Cinema Fund receives extra funding
The German Federal Culture Foundation has agreed to extend funding for the Berlin-based World Cinema Fund (WCF) for another two years.Support will now run for 2008 and 2009, having initially been planned for just three years from 2005-2007. But there will be a reduction in contributions to $395,000 (Euros 300,000) ...
-
News
Senator acquires Weinstein films for Germany
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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 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
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 ...