All articles by Martin Blaney – Page 169
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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 ...
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Oh Happy Day to open Hamburg Festival
Hella Joof's Danish gospel comedy Oh Happy Day willbe the opening film of this year's Filmfest Hamburg (Sept 23-30).Oh Happy Day is beinghandled internationally by Nordisk Film International and will be released inGermany on December 30 by MFA.
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Leigh to nominate Katrin Cartlidge bursary recipient
UKdirector Mike Leigh will nominate the recipient of a bursary from the recentlyfounded Katrin Cartlidge Foundation at the forthcoming Sarajevo Film Festival.Leigh, who is serving as the president of the festival'sinternational jury this year, will announce his choice on August 24 before agala screening of his film Career Girlswhich featured ...
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German media funds look to local production
Germany's private media funds are showing increasinginterest in backing local feature production and dispelling the belief that theprivate equity they raise flows only as 'stupid German money' intoHollywood productions.As part of a move to work more closely on local features,Munich-based fund VIP Group has begun collaborating with the German DirectorsGuild ...
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Babelsberg management tipped to takeover studios
Studio Hamburg has dropped out of the bidding for the Babelsberg film studios, leaving the management buy-out team led by Studio Babelsberg Motion Pictures boss Thierry Potok as the most likely winner.Speaking to the Berlin daily newspaper Berliner Morgenpost, Studio Hamburg chief Martin Willich explained that he "didn't see any ...
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Docs join Sarajevo's Human Rights Award competition
Fernando Perez's melancholy portrait Suite Habana which is the talk of town in Cuba this summer, AndreiNekrasov's investigation into a 1999 apartment bombing in Moscow in Disbelief, and Jehane Noujaim'schronicle of Al Jazeera in Control Roomare among ten documentaries selected for the Panorama Documentary sidebar ofthis year's Sarajevo Film Festival.The ...
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Filmstiftung NRW bankrolls Euro co-productions
New feature projects byRaoul Ruiz, Michael Caton-Jones and Cedric Kahn are among several Europeanco-productions receiving production support from Filmstiftung NRW in its latestround of funding.A total of Euros 7.1m wasallocated to 36 projects. The largest amount - Euro 1m - was given to CedricKahn's Franco-German co-production L'Avion about a magical ...
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Hamburg gives into protests against funding cuts
Themonth-long wave of protests against the proposals by Hamburg's Culture SenatorKarin von Welck to cut funding for FilmFoerderung Hamburg (FFHH) by 50% has hadthe desired effect.Accordingto German press reports on Wednesday afternoon (July 7), the Senate forEconomics & Labour is to provide at least Euros 2m from its economicfunding budget ...
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GERMANY 7 July
The warm summer weather andthe competition from the Euro 2004 Championship final on Sunday evening clearlydidn't stop people going to the cinema as Shrek2's admissions of over 1.2m were over five times higher than Harry Potter's 243,431.Meanwhile, with the Tour deFrance cranking up last weekend, Pepe Danquart's documentary about thegruelling ...
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Eurimages bankrolls Kahn, Chereau features
New feature projects by Cedric Kahn, Jan Svankmajer andPatrice Chereau are among 12 European co-productions which have been awarded atotal Euros 4.64m by the pan-European co-production fund Eurimages.The largest single amount - Euro 600,000 - was given to byCedric Kahn's L'Avion, which explores a child's universe and starsIsabelle Carre, Vincent ...
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Sommersturm, Napola spark Munich buzz
Marco Kreuzpaintner's coming out tale Sommersturm and Dennis Gansel's World War II drama Napola, which received its world premiere in competition atKarlovy Vary on July 4 (Sunday), created a buzz among international buyersattending the Munich Previews during this year's Munich Film Festival.One Scandinavian distributor told ScreenDaily.com that the two films ...