All articles by Martin Blaney – Page 166
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Sales agents pick up Locarno features
Bavaria Film International (BFI) is to serve asthe world sales agent for Ayse Polat's En Garde which will screen incompetition at next week's Locarno International Film Festival (August 4-14) onAugust 6.Polat's second feature focuses on the friendshipbetween two girls in a Catholic reformatory, which veers dramatically out ofcontrol after one ...
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Euro producers lobby German finance minister
The European Motion Picture Producers' Association (EMPA) iscalling for Germany's Minister of Finance Hans Eichel to change the MediaDecree's regulations governing international co-productions as a matter ofurgency.According to EMPA, the Media Decree, as it now stands, makesit impossible for foreign producers to co-produce with Germany.While German producers participating in internationalco-productions ...
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Sarajevo festival confirms first competition contenders
The world premiere of Zornitza Sophia's MilaFrom Mars (Bulgaria) and international premieres of Arsen Ostojic's AWonderful Night In Split (Croatia) and Ljubisa Samardzic's Goose Feather(Serbia & Montenegro) are among the first titles confirmed for the SarajevoFilm Festival's Regional Programme competitionOther films lined up include the Europeanpremiere of Silvije Petranovic's Society ...
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Spelling sells ahead of Locarno world premiere
Paris-based sales agent Funny Balloons hasclosed its first deals on Jean-Jacques Zilbermann's Bad Spelling (LesFautes D'Orthographe) ahead of its world premiere as Locarno InternationalFilm Festival's opening film on the Piazza Grande on August 4.The coming of age story set in the 1960s,starring Carole Bouquet, Olivier Gourmet and rising star Damien ...
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GERMANY 27 July
While it didn't top HarryPotter And The Philosopher's Stone's opening record of 2.59m admissions,Michael 'Bully' Herbig's sci-fi spoof (T)Raumschiff Surprise - Periode 1can claim to have the all-time best opening weekend for a summer releasewith 2,164,000 admissions from 899 prints. In comparison, Herbig's previousblockbuster Manitou's Shoe clocked up945,000 admissions in ...
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Star Trek spoof smashes German records
(T)Raumschiff Surprise - Periode 1, Michael "Bully" Herbig's sequel to his2002 blockbuster Manitou's Shoe,has posted the best ever opening in Germany with over 625,000 admissions in thefirst 24 hours of release.The German produced film is asend up of the Star Trek series. Accordingto distributor Constantin Film, 164,000 cinema-goers had attended ...
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New Babelsberg chiefs outline studio strategy
International feature film production is toremain a top priority at the Babelsberg studios, the new owners Carl Woebckenand Christoph Fisser said yesterday.The pair were speaking at a press conferenceafter their first meeting with studio management and representatives of theworkforce.The two owners' first public appearance came asthe news broke that Gerhard ...
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Michael Koelmel avoids jail sentence
The court case against Michael Koelmel concluded thismorning (July 22), with the Kinowelt co-founder receiving a suspended sentenceof one year and ten months from Munich's District Court.The courtaccepted four counts of embezzlement and the claim that Koelmel wilfullydelayed the filing of insolvency. However, Koelmel was cleared of fraud.In addition to ...
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Michael Koelmel faces up to nine years in jail
Kinowelt co-founder Michael Koelmel faces apossible nine-year prison sentence for claims of embezzlement, fraud anddelaying the filing of insolvency.The case against Koelmel opened in mid-April inMunich's District Court, and centres on the bankruptcy of Kinowelt in 2001.In their closing speeches on Tuesday, publicprosecutors Markus Kammann and Mathias Buering called for ...
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Cinepool strikes first Schloendorff sales
Cinepool has concluded its first sales for Volker Schloendorff's TheNinth Day (Der Neunte Tag) ahead of its world premiere screening inLocarno's Piazza Grande open-air programme on August 5.Cinepool sales executive Wolfram Skowronnek-Schaer told ScreenDaily.comthat the moral drama has already been sold to Switzerland's Filmcoopi andHungary's Best Hollywood and "negotiations are ...
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German fund to raise Euros 230m for Universal
Germany's Hannover Leasing(HL) is to partner again with Universal Studios on its second Montranus mediafund, which is to be launched this September to raise at least Euros 230m forinvesting in several feature films by the US studio.The first Montranus mediafund was, says HL, fully placed "within only a few weeks."To ...
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GERMANY 21 July
Germany was at last blessed withsummer-like temperatures, but this had a negative effect on cinema attendancesas shown by the 50%-plus slip in admissions for Spider-Man 2 and Shrek2. UIP's 252-print release of The Stepford Wives was the only othertitle apart from the Top 2 to pass the 100,000 admissions barrier, ...
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ProSieben strikes DreamWorks package deal
The ProSiebenSat.1 Group has secured the Germanfree-TV, first-run rights to all DreamWorks feature films and selected TVseries from 2006 to 2010 from Telepool.The deal with the Munich-based license traderextends the original agreement from 1997 when Telepool acquired the DreamWorkspackage of free-TV rights and sold on the rights to the ProSiebenSat.1 ...
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EC proposes Euros 1bn for MEDIA budget
The European Commission (EC) has adopted the plan for a newMEDIA Programme - entitled MEDIA 2007 - to run from January 1 2007 to 31December 2013 with a proposed budget of Euros 1.055bn, up from the currentProgramme's Euro 493m.In the seven-year budget breakdown, Euros 318m would beallocated for the improvement ...
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Dungeons & Dragons II rolls into Lithuania
Principal photography on thethird production from the Studio Hamburg WorldWide Pictures (WWP) fund, Dungeons& Dragons II: The Elemental Might, is scheduled to begin in Vilnius,Lithuania, on July 26.Zink Entertainment, adivision of Joel Silver's Silver Pictures, which produced the first film basedon the internationally popular role-playing game, is acting as the ...
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Babelsberg workforce protest at takeover
Studio Babelsberg's workforce has appealed toFederal Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to intervene following this week'sdecision by Vivendi Universal to sell the production centre to a German groupof investors.In an Open Letter delivered to Schroeder on Thursdayafternoon, works committee chairman Jans-Peter Schmarje described the choice ofthe group led by Carl Woebcken and ...
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Locarno names Swiss showcase titles
Filmsby veteran director Alain Tanner, documentary filmmaker Ulrike Koch andanimator Georges Schwizgebel are among the line-up for this year's"Appellations Suisse" showcase of new Swiss cinema to be presented atthe forthcoming Locarno International Film Festival (August 4-14).The complete line-up for the "Appellations Suisse"showcase, which is aimed primarily at international buyers and ...
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Locarno goes on 'journey of exploration'
Locarno's festival directorIrene Bignardi promises 'a journey of exploration' for this year'sInternational Competition line-up with films from France to Vietnam, fromKazakhstan to Belgium and from South Africa to India.'We chose the titleswhich had most to say about the tumultuous upheaval of the world today - andthe most pertinent, impertinent and ...
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Locarno goes on 'journey of exploration'
Locarno's festival directorIrene Bignardi promises "a journey of exploration" for this year'sInternational Competition (Aug 4-14)line-up with films from France to Vietnam, fromKazakhstan to Belgium and from South Africa to India."We chose the titleswhich had most to say about the tumultuous upheaval of the world today - andthe most pertinent, impertinent ...
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Vivendi Universal sells Babelberg studios
VivendiUniversal (VU) has sold the historic Babelsberg Studios to a group of Germaninvestors led by Carl Woebcken, managing director of Berlin Animation Film, andChristoph Fisser, managing director of the Munich studio facility StudioAtelierbetriebe Schwabing (SAS).VU sold the studios for the symbolic price of Euros 1. TheWoebcken-Fisser group will assume Euros ...