All articles by Martin Blaney – Page 159
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Reelmachine sets slate with Emmerich
Germany'spowerful VIP media fund and Berlin Jury president Roland Emmerich have set thefirst four films to go in to production from their newly-formed Reelmachineoutfit.Emmerichwill direct the first: a UK-based film with an all-British cast called SoulOf The Age. Scripted by John Orloff and exploring the origins ofShakespeare's plays, it is ...
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Bavaria Film closes deals on Sophie Scholl
Bavaria Film International(BFI) has closed the first deals for Marc Rothemund's Sophie Scholl - TheFinal Days. The gripping drama on thelast six days of resistance figure Sophie Scholl has been sold to Japan(Kinetique), Spain (Lola Films), Scandinavia (Future Films), Mexico (QualityFilms), Portugal (Ecofilmes), former Yugoslavia (Discovery) and Peru (GatenoFilms).The UK, ...
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Germany moves forward with sale and leaseback plans
Germany's adoption of a UK-style sale and leaseback (S&L) fundingmodel has come one big step closer after a meeting between German filmproducers and Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder yesterday morning. According to one of the producers attending, a working group will becreated to draft a concept for a sale and leaseback ...
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Locarno to honour Jeremy Thomas
Britishproducer Jeremy Thomas will be presented with the Raimondo Rezzonico Prize forindependent producers at this year's Locarno International Film Festival (August 3-13).Commentingon the selection of the producer of such films as The Last Emperor, The Hitand The Sheltering Sky, Locarno's festival director Irene Bignardi said:"Jeremy is one of those producers ...
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X-Filme, Promedia toon up with Robbers
Berlin-based X-Filmecreative pool and private media fund manager Promedia have launched a newanimation company, Animation-X, with a full-length traditional animation calledThe Three Robbers (Die Drei Rauber), to go into production in July ofthis year.Animation-X plans to makebetween two and three projects a year, both traditional and CG animation.Animation-X has brought ...
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Meirelles to produce Brazilian football documentary
City Of God director Fernando Meirelles is producinga feature length documentary called Ginga, about the relationshipbetween Brazilians and football.The documentaryis being made through his company O2 Filmes as a co-production with Nike andWieden Kennedy Entertainment.Meirellles hassecured three directors to co-write and shoot the documentary: Marcelo Machado,Hank Levine and Tocha Alves ...
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Instant replay for German version of Finnish football film
In an unusual move,Hamburg's Wueste Filmproduktion will remake the Finnish football comedy FCVenus before the movie is even in theatres at home.Finnish production companyTalent House will start shooting the Joona Tena-directed Venus at theend of May, while the German remake, to be directed by Ute Wieland, will beginfilming at the ...
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Kinowelt acquires Warner titles from Epsilon
German distributor Kinowelthas taken rights to a package of films headed by Warner Bros titles MillionDollar Baby and Mr & Mrs Smith. Clint Eastwood'sOscar-nominated Million Dollar Baby has been widely advertised as beinghandled by Warner's German branch with a release date of March 3. Kinowelt'sBertil Le Claire said the company ...
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X-Filme launches in-house world sales division
Berlinproduction house X-Filme creative pool has set up an in-house world salesdivision to handle the international distribution of Dani Levy's box office hitGo For Zucker - An Unorthodox Comedy (Alles auf Zucker!). PreviouslyX-Filme's titles have been handled on a deal-by-deal basis by Bavaria FilmInternational and Beta Cinema, amongst others.X-FilmeWorld Sales ...
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Eichinger voted 'most important player' in German film
Producer-distributor Bernd Eichinger has been voted as themost important player in the German film business in an industry surveypublished on Sunday.Industry veteran Eichinger saw his production of OliverHirschbiegel's Hitler bunker drama Downfallreceive a nomination in the Academy Awards' Foreign Language Filmcategory last month.A jury of leading film critics, TV executives, ...
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Franka Potente readies directorial debut
Run Lola Run starFranka Potente, who is a member of the International Jury at this year'sBerlinale, is to make her directorial debut this spring with a 25-30-minuteshort film.Producer Stefan Arndt of X-Filme creative pool told ScreenDaily.com that Wer Die Tollkirsche Ausgraebt will be 'a really classical silent film likefrom the ...
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Studio Babelsberg prepares for flotation
Studio Babelsberg is planning to go public in the first halfof this year, according to managing director and co-owner Carl Woebcken.In an interview with the business newspaper Euro AmSonntag at the weekend, he revealed thatthe German film studios were 'in intensive talks' about an IPO whichwould be undertaken within the ...
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GERMANY 2 February
Despite a 58% week-on-weekdrop in box-office takings, Warner Bros.' Blade:Trinity held onto thetop spot for a second week with a $1.8m gross to bring its tally for the firsttwo weeks of release to over $ 7m.Last weekend saw threestrong new entries to the Top 10 with Lemony Snicket's A Series ...
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Demand heats up for Berlin market
The number of films submitted to Berlin's European Film Market (EFM) hasrisen by a third, underlining its growing importance as the first market of theyear following the AFM's move to autumn dates.Speaking to ScreenDaily.com,festival director Dieter Kosslick said that the market has seen "moredemand from all over the world, but ...
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Zglinski's Hiver wins Swiss Film Prize
Greg Zglinski's Tout Un Hiver Sans Feupicked up the Swiss Film Prize in the best film category at this week'sSolothurn Film Days.The prize for best documentary went to StefanSchwietert's Accordion Tribe - which had its world premiere at Graz'sDiagonale last year.Manuel Flurin Hendry's Straehl won threeprizes for best lead role ...
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Tout Un Hiver Sans Feu wins top Swiss Film Prize
Greg Zglinski's Tout UnHiver Sans Feu picked up the $51,000 (CHF 60,000) Swiss Film Prize 2005 forBest Feature Film at this week's Solothurn Film Days.Meanwhile, the prizes forBest Documentary went to Stefan Schwietert's Accordion Tribe - which hadits world premiere at Graz's Diagonale last year - while Best Short Film ...
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GERMANY 26 January
The third instalment of theWesley Snipes Blade franchise - Blade: Trinity - blasted intolast weekend's Top 15 with over $ 4.3m from 524 screens, followed by MartinScorsese's multi-Oscar nominated The Aviator which grossed over $ 2mfrom 318 prints to enter the chart at No. 2. Trinity's 512,540 admissions in its ...
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Diagonale names Dummies as festival opener
Joerg Kalt's Crash TestDummies will be the opening film at the first Diagonale - Festival ofAustrian Cinema (March 14-20) under new director Birgit Flos.Kalt's second feature, whichinterweaves the story of a Romanian couple who have come to Vienna to collect astolen car with a second story centring on a store ...
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GERMANY 18 January
Sony Pictures Releasingstarted the year well with Closer knocking Ocean's Twelve off thetop spot after four weeks with a screen average of $ 4,787 from 469 screens togross over $ 2.2m. But the weekend's highestscreen average was scored by the German arm of Turkish distributor MaxximumFilms with its latest release ...
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Hayat, Innocent Voices to launch Berlinale youth sidebars.
The Iranian film Hayatby Gholamreza Ramezani will open this year's Berlinale Kinderfilmfest onFebruary 11, with the 14plus youth film competition launched a day later by InnocentVoices (Voces Inocentes) by Mexico's Luis Mandoki.Speaking to ScreenDaily.comabout this year's line-ups, section head Thomas Hailer said that during theselection process for this year's 14plus ...