All articles by Martin Blaney – Page 170
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'Bully' tactics prevent film piracy
Constantin Film andHerbX, distributor andproducer of Michael"Bully" Herbig's currentbox-office hit (T)Raumschiff Surprise- Periode 1,have struck ablow against filmpiracy.Constantin hasreported that a special anti-piracystrategy - developed with HerbX - hasso far prevented any piratedcopies of (T)Raumschiff beingproduced from originalsource material. "Thisshows that throughthe massive reductionand checking ofcontacts in thearea of productionand ...
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French-German co-productions receive funding
New features by Cedric Kahn, Bourlem Guerdjou, Pan Nalin andEmmanuelle Bercot have been awarded over Euros 1m by the Franco-German FundingCommittee as part of the "mini-treaty" co-production fund.The largest amount - Euros 300,000 - was granted by the GermanFederal Film Board (FFA) to Nalin's ValleyOf Flowers which is a German ...
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Matsutani launches UK-based production outfit
German writer-director Rainer Matsutani has set up a newUK-based production house Red Sun Films.Speaking exclusively to Screendaily.com,Matsutani explained that the company's name was inspired by Terence Young's1971 East-meets-West western starring Charles Bronson, Alain Delon, UrsulaAndress and Toshiro Mifune.Matsutani's partners at the London-based outfit are UKproducer Tim Cranage (who worked at ...
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GERMANY 3 August
Although its takings slipped by 45% the scifi spoof (T)Raumschiff Surprise - Periode 1 heldonto the top spot with over 1.1m admissions to reach a total gross of $31.9m(Euros 26.5m).After (T)Raumschiff'srecord-breaking opening, another record was broken this week, but this timewith the entry of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit9/11 at the No. ...
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Locarno announces first Excellence Award
Russian actor Oleg Menchikov (pictured) is to be the first recipient of the Locarno Excellence Award, created by the festival to celebrate the work of an actor or actress.Born in 1960, Menchikov has worked in television and film on such productions as Burnt By The Sun, The Barber of Siberia, ...
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Berlin funding agency dishes out Euros 3m
New films by Andreas Dresen, Eoin Moore, Hans-Christian Schmid,John Stephenson and Sven Unterwaldt are among 12 projects backed with overEuros 3m by Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg in its latest round of funding.The largest amount - over Euros 1m - went to Constantin Film'sdrama Siegfried, to be directed by Sven Unterwaldt from a ...
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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 ...