All articles by Martin Blaney – Page 163
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Germany's X-Verleih earns exhibitor wrath
Germany's exhibitorassociations HDF and AG Kino have criticised distributor X Verleih for planningto release Dani Levy's comedy Alles Auf Zucker! on free-TV station WDRjust three months after its Jan 6 theatrical premiere.AG Kino said it feared that 'a precedent' wasbeing set to undermine release window dates. Earlier in the year, ...
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New Line pair win German funding
Two New Line Cinema films - Craig Gillespie'scomedy-drama Mr. Woodcock and Liam Lynch's Tenacious D in The Pick OfDestiny - have won backing from a film fund run by Germany's ALCAS/KGAL.According to ALCAS/KGAL, the fund's investorsdecided at their assembly in Munich last week to invest in the LandscapePictures production of ...
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Wargnier's Man To Man to open Berlinale
The world premiere of French director RegisWargnier's anthropological epic Man To Man will be the opening film ofthe Berlin International Film Festival(Feb 10-20).Starring Joseph Fiennes, Kristin Scott Thomas,Iain Glen, Hugh Bonneville and Flora Montgomery, the film is set in SouthAfrica in the 1870s and follows the search for the so-called ...
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Kinderfilmfest reveals first competition titles
The Berlinale'sKinderfilmfest has announced the first titles selected for its competition forthe Crystal Bear prize and for the 14plus section introduced at the festivallast February.Already lined up for theKinderfilmfest competition are Torun Lian's tale of first love in The ColorOf Milk (Ikke Naken, Norway); LiisaHelminen's Pelicanman (Pelikaanimies,Finland) about a music-mad ...
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ZDF steps into Berlinale sponsorship breach
German public broadcaster ZDF has stepped into the breachleft by SAT.1 as the new media partner for the 2005 edition of the Berlinale.In addition to providing extensive coverage of the festival,ZDF and its partner channel 3sat will be responsible for organising and stagingthe opening gala, the award ceremony and other ...
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Kloiber buys back control of Tele Muenchen Group
Tele Muenchen Group's (TMG) Herbert Kloiber has taken fullcontrol of the German media conglomerate after buying back the 45% shareholdingwhich he sold to EM.TV in 1999.Kloiber founded the group in 1970 and created a portfolio ofcompanies covering license trading, theatrical and home entertainmentdistribution (Concorde Filmverleih, Concorde Home Entertainment), production(Clasart and ...
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VIP backs three more Hollywood projects
Leading German private mediafund VIP Medienfonds is to invest in new features by Steven Zaillian, BruceBeresford and Paul McGuigan - in addition to its joint venture with RolandEmmerich.The VIP 3 and VIP 4 fundswill be partnering Columbia Pictures for Zaillian's $74m All The King's Menwhich is being produced by Mike ...
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Film Commissions to launch European network in Berlin
Plans for a new"European Film Commissions Network" (EFCN) are to be unveiled at aone-day symposium of film commissions from all over Europe on the eve of theforthcoming Berlinale on February 9.Hosted by the German FilmCommissions, the "2nd European Encounter of Film Commissions"symposium will be opened by Berlin's Governing Mayor Klaus ...
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Head-On star boards Holocaust Train drama
Head-On star Sibel Kekilli is to play the female lead of ayoung Jewish woman in veteran producer Artur "Atze" Brauner'sHolocaust drama The Last Train (Der Letzte Zug) about Jews being sent tothe concentration camp in Auschwitz in early 1943.The film will be directed by actor Armin Mueller-Stahl. Speakingto ScreenDaily.com, 86-year-old ...
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GERMANY 14 December
Bridget Jones only lasted one week at the top before Disney's TheIncredibles stormed the German box office with over $5.7m from 1,003prints. The film's opening performance of 750,000-plus admissions made it thefourth most successful for a CGI animation film after Finding Nemo (2m),Ice Age (1.5m) and Shrek 2 (1.3m).The only ...
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German fund to bankroll Mann's Miami Vice
Three high profile big budget feature projects fromMichael Mann, Sam Mendes and Gary Ross have been shortlisted for considerationby the investors of Hannover Leasing's (HL) second Montranus media fund at ameeting in Munich next week (December 17).After consulting with film industry experts, theMunich-based fund has put forward three projects with ...
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GERMANY 8 December
National Treasure lasted only one week at the top spot before beingousted by Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason which clocked up over $4.2min its first four days and the weekend's top screen average of $ 5,864.The 500,282 admissions werealmost 50% up on the opening performance of the first Bridget ...
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Flightplan takes off in Berlin
German director Robert Schwentke begins shooting thethriller Flightplan in Berlin today (Dec6) with a cast including Jodie Foster, Peter Sarsgaard, Sean Bean and KateBeaham.The film is billed asclaustrophobic, Hitchcockian thriller. A bereaved woman and her daughterfly home from Berlin to America. At 30,000 feet the child vanishes and nobodyadmits she ...
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Swiss Film Prize embraces animation
The 2005 Swiss Film Prize has introduced a new prizecategory for Best Animation Film which will be awarded every two years from2005.Five animation films, including Georges Schwizgebel's L'HommeSans Ombre, which won the Prix'Regards Jeunes' at this year's Cannes Film Festival, were nominated.The nominees for Best Feature Film are: Bettina Oberli's ...
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Senator picks up German rights to Rings parody
Germany's Senator Film Verleih has picked up theGerman rights for the Swiss Lord Of The Rings parody, The Ring Thing,ahead of its world premiere in German-speaking Switzerland by the local outpostof Buena Vista International (BVI) on December 16.According to the film's producer Kristian Widmerof Condor Communications, which produced the film ...
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Six-way co-production for Austrian Headsman
As so often in the Austrianfilm scene, the idea for the medieval adventure story Henker(provisionally known in English as The Headsman) was born in a Viennacoffee house when screenwriter Susanne Freund pitched the story idea toproducer Helmut Grasser of Allegro Film 4-5 years ago.Once a treatment had beenprepared, they started ...
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German funder calls for change in French co-prod rules
At a time when co-productionregulations across Europe are coming under close scrutiny, it was suggestedthis weekend that France should loosen its requirements on shooting in theFrench language,The proposal, made only daysafter Jean-Pierre Jeunet's A Very Long Engagement was disbarred fromqualifying for French subsidies and French prizes, was made at the ...
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Slovenian filmmakers receive CineLink awards
Slovenian filmmakers HannaSlak and Damjan Kozole have each been awarded one of the Euros 25,000 CineLinkAwards donated by the Sarajevo Film Festival, Kodak and Austrian film labSynchro.The international jury ofPhilippe Bober, Hashemian Behrooz and Cedomir Kolar chose Slak's Teabecause it "carries a distinct author's style and exudes freshness andcreative energy. ...
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GERMANY 1 December
After four weeks at the top,the German comedy 7 Dwarfs was knocked off its perch by BVI's NationalTreasure which opened with over $ 4.3m from 765 screens.Adding another $ 2.3m lastweekend to its overall gross of $ 44m, 7 Dwarfs is the second most successfullocal film after (T)Raumschiff Surprise - ...
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Mannheim fetes Norwegian comedy Chlorox
Norwegian filmmaker Mona J. Hoel's comedy Chlorox,Ammonia And Coffee (Salto, Salmiakk Og Kaffe!) won the Main Award ofMannheim-Heidelberg at this year's International Film FestivalMannheim-Heidelberg (18-27 November).The International Jury gave its Special Award to threefilms: David Lanzmann's Doo Wop, Annette Sjursen's My Jealous Barber(Min Misunnelige Frisor) and Nathaniel Geary's On The ...