All articles by Martin Blaney – Page 164
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German funder dishes out Euros 4.2m to co-productions
A film about aclassical music love triangle and a feature about World War 1 nurses are among13 international co-productions awarded over Euros 4.2m in support byDuesseldorf-based Filmstiftung NRW in its latest round of funding.The largest amount - Euros 1m - went to HelmaSanders-Brahms' costume drama Clara about the love triangle ...
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GERMANY 22 SEPTEMBER
It was not surprising afterall the media buzz surrounding the portrayal of Hitler's last days in thebunker that Constantin Film's release of Oliver Hirschbiegel's The Downfall(Der Untergang) should come in at number one.The $ 4.3m four-day grossfrom 405 screens was the second strongest opening for a German film this yearfollowing ...
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ProSiebenSat.1 launches inhouse sales outfit
Germany'sProSiebenSat.1 group has launched an in-house sales outfit SevenOneInternational which will have its market premiere at the forthcoming MIPCOM(October 4-8).The new company will be headed by Jens Richterwho was managing director of KirchMedia's international sales operation BetaFilm from 2000 until May this year. Since leaving Beta Film, Richter has beenworking ...
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Senator unveils details of post insolvency plans
Senator Entertainment plans to focus its futureoperations on the core business of its three 100% subsidiaries Senator FilmProduktion, Senator Film Verleih and Central Film Vertriebs once it has beendischarged from insolvency proceedings.However, it will selloff its interest in LA-based international sales outfit Senator Internationalas part of the insolvency plan drawn ...
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Senator saved as creditors agree restructuring plan
The future of SenatorEntertainment has become much brighter after the producer-distributor's100-plus creditors agreed unanimously at a meeting in Berlin today (Wednesday)to accept the insolvency restructuring plan drawn up by the court-appointedreceiver Rolf Rattunde.Rattunde said that the plan meant that the filmconcern's existing range of services - encompassing production, distributionand world ...
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GERMANY 14 September
The first four days of M. Night Shyamalan's The Village was the strongest openingever for one of his films in Germany and the weekend's best screen average of$7,370. The Buena Vista release toppled the Vin Diesel vehicle The Chronicles Of Riddick which had onlyheld on to the top position for ...
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Record summer for German box office
Germany has witnessed a box office boom over the summermonths, with new figures showing admissions and takings to be at an all timehigh for the key May-August period.Box office takings of Euros 302.7m and admissions of 51.8mare more than 30% higher compared to the same period last year (Euros 216.6mand ...
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Revamp for Export-Union of German Cinema
The international representation of German filmsreceived a boost this week with the Export-Union of German Cinema opening itsdoors to six new shareholders in a revamped agency called German Films Service+ Marketing.The existing shareholders of the Association ofGerman Feature Film Producers, the Association of New German Feature FilmProducers, the Association of ...
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Swiss films target international audiences
At the beginning of thisyear, Andrea Willson, the head of former Deutsche Columbia PicturesFilmproduktion, was recruited by the Swiss rights trader/distributor FalcomMedia Group to manage the company's expansion into German language production.The plan was for Willson toconcentrate on the development and production of feature films for the Germanspeaking area and ...
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Mila From Mars delights Sarajevo
Bulgarian first-time filmmaker Sophia Zornitsa's Mila From Mars (Mila Ot Mars) was thesurprise winner of the Euros 25,000 Best Film Award at the Sarajevo Film Festival's Regional Competition, beating offopposition from the festival audience favourites of Albanian Gjergi Xhuvani's Dear Enemy (I Dashur Armik) and CroatianArsen Anton Ostojic's A Wonderful ...
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GERMANY 31 August
This year's top film so far - German blockbuster (T)Raumschiff Surprise - Periode 1 - mayhave clocked up over 1,000 more admissions than King Arthur but had to contend with second place based onbox-office takings. Six weeks into release for Constantin Film, the film parodyis still showing on 937 screens ...
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Bavaria takes on Midwinter sales
Bavaria FilmInternational (BFI) is to handle world sales on Serbian director GoranPaskaljevic's latest feature MidwinterNight's Dream which will be in competition at the forthcoming San SebastianFilm Festival.The disturbingand moving film about a man returninghome after ten years of absence to start a new life in today's Serbia starsLazar Ristovski who ...
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Lord Of The Rings parody starts Swiss shoot
Shooting has begun this week in Switzerland on The Ring Thing, a Swiss parody of the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, which will bereleased theatrically at Christmas in Switzerland by the local outpost of BuenaVista International (BVI).Speaking exclusively to Screendaily.com,Kristian Widmer of Condor Communications, which is producing the film with ...
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New film sales company opens in Germany
Germany's film sales community has a new player with thelaunch of Sola Media.Managed by Norwegian-born Solveig Langeland (pictured),Sola Media's initial sales line-upincludes Dito Tsintsadze's San Sebastian-winner Gun Shy (Schussangst), Pepe Danquart's latest feature film C(r)ook, Bernd Sahling's German FilmAward-winning children's film Blindflyers(Blindgaenger), the live-action/animation children's film Alby (Pumuckl) and Tony ...
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German DVD distributor moves into theatrical
Leading German DVD distributor e-m-s new media is to take amajority 52.38% stake in theatrical distributor 3L Filmverleih which was set upat the beginning of this year by e-m-s new media's Chairman and CEO WernerWirsing and his wifeIn a statement, e-m-s new media, which will finance itsstake by a capital ...
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Switzerland's national film fund to be reviewed
Pascal Couchepin, head of Switzerland's Federal Departmentof Home Affairs (EDI) has commissioned an independent report on the running ofSwitzerland's national film funding programme at the Federal Office for Culture(BAK).The report, to evaluate BAK's criteria for grantingsubsidies, comes after previous criticisms by Couchepin of "lack oftransparency" and "too large a bureaucracy" ...
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Cassel to head Oldenburg jury
Veteran American indie actor Seymour Cassel will serve asthe president of the International Jury for the German Independence Award -Best German Film to be presented for the first time at the forthcoming FilmfestOldenburg (Sept 8-12).Cassel and the other jury members - German PR and marketingexpert Heike Melba-Fendel, Spanish author and ...
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German cinema admissions leap in 2004
Germany's distributors and exhibitors have cause forcelebration as 1 million more cinema tickets were sold in the first half of2004 compared to the same period last year, according to official figuresunveiled by the Berlin-based German Federal Film Board (FFA).The FFA reported that 72.3m tickets were sold in the periodto June ...
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Reding re-selected for EU media job
Viviane Reding is to keep the audiovisual policyand MEDIA Programme portfolio in the new team of commissioners unveiled by JoseManuel Barroso, President-designate of the European Commission.Reding has been commissioner for Education,Culture, Youth, Media & Sport since 1999 and will now serve as theCommissioner for Information Society and Media. She will ...
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Upbeat Constantin raises targets for 2004
German producer-distributor Constantin Film hasraised its sales forecast for 2004 to at least Euros 200m.The move came after Constantin posted a 175%year-on-year increase in sales for the first six months of this year. In the period up toJune 30, the Constantin Group achieved sales of Euros 99m, compared to Euros36m ...