All articles by Martin Blaney – Page 141
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Franka Potente to play Pope Joan
Germany's FrankaPotente is to play the lead in Volker Schloendorff's long-gestating adaptationof Donna Cross' novel Pope Joan.Cross'bestseller tells the story of Johanna von Ingelheim, who succeeded in enteringthe highest ranks of the Roman clergy disguised as a man and was elected Popein 853 - a story the Vatican claims is ...
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First sales for Golden Shell winner Half Moon
The Match Factory hasconcluded its first deals for Bahman Ghobadi's Golden Shell winner Half Moon, with sales to GolemDistribution (Spain), Providence Filmes (Brazil) and Cinemien (Netherlands,Belgium), while negotiations are underway for the UK, Scandinavian and LatinAmerican territories.In addition to winning theGolden Shell ex aequo, Half Moon hadreceived the San Sebastian ...
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Macedonia set to become Film City
Macedonia is to be established as a"one-stop shop" for the digital entertainment industry, according toplans by Collaborative Media Group (CMG) to create the Film City Macedonia with support from theMayor of Skopje, the Government of the Republic of Macedonia, and the United StatesAgency for International Development (USAID).CMGwas founded as an ...
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Bavaria takes on rights to Miguel & William
BavariaFilm International has picked up world sales rights outside ofSpain for Spanish director Ines Paris' Miguel & William, about a fictitiousencounter between Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare and their rivalryin love of a beautiful woman.Featuring Spain's European Shooting Star 2004 ElenaAnaya, the UK's Will Kemp, double Goya-winner JuanLuis Galiardo ...
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Macedonia submits Kontakt for Oscar race
Sergei Stanojkovksi'sfeature debut Kontakt has beensubmitted by Macedonia as its national entry for the Academy Awards' Best ForeignLanguage Film category.Starring Labina Mitevska and Nikola Kojo, the Macedonian-German co-productionbetween Skopje Film Studio and Busse & Halberschmidt Filmproduktion had itsworld premiere at last year's Manaki Brothers International CinematographersFilm Festival in Macedonia's Bitola ...
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Switzerland selects Murer's Vitus as Oscar pick
Switzerland has chosen its foreign-language Oscar candidate,Fredi M. Murer's Vitus. The veteran film-maker'sdrama is about a wunderkind dreaming of flying and having a normal childhood. The seven-person nationaljury said it made its decision based on "the film's quality, itscommercial success in Switzerland (so far 200,000 admissions), itsparticipation in more than ...
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Filmstiftung NRW backs Loach and Spottiswoode
International co-productionslead the line-up of new feature film projects backed in the latest $3.8m (Euros3m) funding round from Duesseldorf-based Filmstiftung NRW International.The regional public fund hasawarded backing to Ken Loach's next project TheseTimes, which is being written by his regular collaborator Paul Laverty andwill be co-produced by The Wind ThatShakes ...
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Austria submits You Bet Your Life for Oscar consideration
Antonin Svoboda'sdirectorial debut You Bet Your Life(Spiele Leben) has been submittedas Austria's submission for the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 2007Oscars.Starring Georg Friedrichand Brigitte Minichmayr, You Bet Your Life is the story of a gambler who quite literally begins to gamble his lifeaway and was shown at last ...
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Tykwer's Perfume scores more than 1m admissions in Germany
Despiteless than enthusiastic reviews from many German film critics, Tom Tykwer's $63.3m (Euros 50m) adaptation of Patrick Sueskind's bestselling novel Perfume - The Story Of A Murdererattracted more than 1m admissions on its opening weekend for distributor Constantin Filmverleih in Germancinemas.The1.04m admissions from 700 cinemas - with a screen average ...
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Lives Of Others chosen as German Oscar entry
Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's Stasi thriller TheLives Of Others (Das Leben DerAnderen) has selected by Germany as itssubmission for the Foreign Language Film Oscar next year.Commenting on its decision, the independent expert jurywho made the selection said that von Donnersmarck's film "intenselydescribes not only a chapter of the history of ...
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Berlinale plans shorts, childrens changes in 2007
The Berlinale has announced two structural innovations for itsnext edition which will be held from Feb 8-18, 2007.Thefestival's Kinderfilmfest/14plus section will held in future under the name ofGeneration, with the two competitions renamed as Generation Kplusand Generation 14plus. 'Renaming the section in this way enables us tocommunicate and define our ...
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Strand shines on Lights
US distributor Strand Releasing has acquired Aki Kaurismaki's latest feature Lights In The Dusk, which premiered at Cannes and screens in Toronto as part of the festival's Masters section.Dusk, which premiered in Competition at Cannes in May, is being sold internationally by Michael Weber's The Match Factory.The film, which also ...
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Beta takes on sales for German hit Hui Buh
BetaCinema has taken on the international sales for Sebastian Niemann'sfamily entertainment film Hui Buh, which has been seen by 1.8m cinema-goers since Constantin Film released it in Germany in earlyJuly.The story about the lovable, bumbling castle ghost HuiBuh, played by Michael 'Bully' Herbig of Manitou'sShoe and Dreamship Surprise fame, also ...
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Berlin to launch $3.8m fund for regional films
The city ofBerlin is to launch a $3.8m (Euros 3m)Bank Fund to support the production and distribution of film productions fromthe region from 2007.Berlin's Governing Mayor Klaus Wowereit announced the new initiative at the beginning ofthis week's Medienforum Berlin-Brandenburg,explaining that the fund would be financed by the city of Berlin ...
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Berlin to launch $3.8m fund for regional films
The city ofBerlin is to launch a $3.8m (Euros 3m)Bank Fund to support the production and distribution of film productions fromthe region from 2007.Berlin's Governing Mayor Klaus Wowereit announced the new initiative at the beginning ofthis week's Medienforum Berlin-Brandenburg,explaining that the fund would be financed by the city of Berlin ...
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German box office up 8.9% over first half of 2005
Despite Germany's hosting ofthe World Cup and sweltering temperatures from late May, German cinemas havereported marked increases in box-office takings and admissions for the firsthalf of 2006 over the same period last year, according to figures collated bythe German Federal Film Board (FFA).The FFA reported that box-office takings had increased ...
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Bosnia puts forward Grbavica for foreign-language Oscar
Jasmila Zbanic's GoldenBear-winning feature debut Grbavica has been selected by Bosnia and Herzegovina as its official submission for the Foreign LanguageFilm category at the forthcoming Academy Awards.The co-production between Austria's coop99 Filmproduktion, Zbanic's own company Deblokada Filmproduction, Germany's Noirfilm Filmproduktion,and Croatia's Jadran Film has alreadybeen sold to more than 45 ...
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Match Factory takes on Half Moon and Takva
Germansales company The Match Factory will handle international sales onKurdish-Iranian filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi'slatest feature Half Moon and Turkishdirector Ozer Kiziltan's Takva - A Man's Fear Of God which are bothhaving their world premieres at the forthcoming Toronto International FilmFestival. Ghobadi's film, which is produced by his own companyMIJ Films with ...
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Germany's Schlingensief starts feature about Princess Di
German"enfant terrible" Christoph Schlingensief has grabbed the headlinesonce again, this time with the announcement that he plans to make a featurefilm about the last hour in the life of Diana, Princess of Wales. Speaking toGermany's leading tabloid Bildjust two days before the ninth anniversary of Diana's tragic death in Paris, ...
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Promising Romanian director killed in road crash
The Romanian film industry was in shock this weekend on hearing the news that director Cristian Nemescu, one of its most promising young filmmakers, had been killed in a traffic accident in Bucharest early on Friday morning.A graduate of the Romanian National Academy of Drama, 27-year-old Nemescu had directed several ...