All articles by Martin Blaney – Page 171
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News
Faithless Games wins Plzen Czech film fest
Michaela Pavlatova's Faithless Games was the winner of the GoldenKingfisher Award for Best Feature Film at this year's Finale Festival of Czech Films in Plzen (29 March - 4 April)The festival's International Jury called Faithless Games "a well-crafted work reflecting the unpredictable aspects of everyday life." The film had previously ...
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Call to cancel Stuttgart film festival
The future of next year's Filmfest Stuttgart-Ludwigsburg looks uncertain after comments by Gabriele Roethemeyer, chief executive of the MFG Baden-Wuerttemberg fund and managing director of the festival's organising body.Speaking to the local newspaper Stuttgarter Zeitung on the eve of this week's International Animation Film Festival, Roethemeyer said that she wouldn't ...
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German network cuts acquisition spend, ups film support
ARD, Germany's public broadcasting network plans to cut its spending on film production and acquisition by Euros 100m over the next four years from 2005.Speaking to the German news agency dpa, Hans Wolfgang Jurgan of the film licensing subsidiary Degeto Film said that the present annual expenditure of Euros 240m-250m ...
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German p&a fund comes unstuck
The p&a fund model launched last year by Ideenkapital to raise investment for the marketing costs of three 20th Century Fox releases appears to have come unstuck.According to the Association of German Media Funds (VDM), the tax authorities in Munich at Finanzamt Muenchen III are not expected to recognise the ...
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Record year for Swiss video industry
The Swiss video industry posted record turnover in 2003 thanks to the rise in popularity of the DVD format and would have been even higher if it had not been for the problems of piracy and illegal parallel imports.According to the Swiss Video Association, the turnover in DVDs increased year ...
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Filmfest Dresden suffers unexpected funding cut
This year's Filmfest Dresden has been dealt a financial blow by the city hall just three weeks before the opening of the international festival of animation and short films on April 13.The City of Dresden has slashed its support for the 2004 edition by 40%, leaving the festival with a ...
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Germany's X-Filme scores double top
Berlin production powerhouse X-Filme creative pool and its distribution arm X Verleih have been named Germany's most successful production company and distributor of 2003 when the German Federal Film Board (FFA) handed out Euros 15.9m retroactive "reference" funding.The box-office success last year of Good Bye, Lenin!, Liegen Lernen and the ...
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Santiago cleans up at Fribourg
Peruvian director Josue Mendez was the big winner at this year's Fribourg International Film Festival, picking up four awards including the International Jury's Regard D'Or for his Dias De Santiago.The Jury, under Argentine filmmaker Eliseo Subiela, unanimously recognised "the cinematographic quality of this first work as well as the actor's ...
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Nowhere In Africa producer goes it alone
Peter Herrmann, producer of Caroline Link's Oscar-winning Nowhere In Africa has left MTM Medien & Television Muenchen to set up his own production outfit.The new company Peter Herrmann Filmproduktion (PHF), which plans to focus on producing German films with international financing, already has two projects in development.Herrmann acquired the ...
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Beta Film library sold to EOS Distribution
The insolvency administrator of KirchMedia, Michael Jaffe, has sold subsidiary Beta Film with its 15,000 hours of international film and television programmes to former Kirch Group manager Jan Mojto's rights trading operation EOS Distribution.According to Jaffe, it was "particularly pleasing that, apart from the assets, the whole company with all ...
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Return star signs for Polish Master
Russian actor Konstantin Lavronenko, who played the fatherin Andrei Zvyagintsev's award-winning The Return, has been cast to play the lead in Polish filmmakerPiotr Trzaskalski's next feature The Master.Trzaskalski's last film Eddie (Edi) registered over 400,000 admissions in Poland and wasthe official Polish submission for the Oscars in 2002 as well ...
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Bavaria looks to cook up sales for Dresen's Willenbrock
Bavaria Film International (BFI) is to handle internationalsales on Andreas Dresen's latest feature film Willenbrock, which finished shooting on location in Magdeburglast week.BFI previously handled sales on Dresen's Berlinalecompetition films Grill Point (Halbe Treppe) and Nightshapes (Nachtgestalten).Produced by UFA Filmproduktion, the Euros 3m project wasadapted by Dresen's longtime collaborator Laila ...
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Constantin bullish about future despite 2003 losses
Despite posting earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) of Euros -11.8m in the 2003 financial year, German producer-distributor Constantin Film is upbeat about its future performance and predicts sales growth of 55% for 2004.In its annual financial statement for 2003, Constantin reported a 13% decrease in consolidated sales from 2002's ...
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German DVD outfit wins backing to increase acquisitions
Leading German DVD company e-m-s new media has been granted a Euros 5m extension of its credit line by principal banker Dortmunder Volksbank. The money will help finance the acquisition of new film rights to add to its 400-title library.In addition, the previously short-term overdraft facility of Euro 3.5m has ...
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De Posch is new CEO at ProSiebenSat1
Following last winter's management reshuffle ProSiebenSat.1 Media's CEO Urs Rohner is leaving the company on April 30 to take up "a new professional challenge" at a multinational corporation in his native Switzerland. He was appointed CEO of ProSieben Media in 2000 and then became the CEO of ProSiebenSat.1 Media ...
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Daskalakis named as acting head of MEDIA Programme
Costas Daskalakis, the MEDIA Programme's head of Administration, Finance and Pilot Projects, is to become acting head of the unit when Jacques Delmoly leaves the post at the end of the month.Originally, Dr. Alain Dumort, head of the communication and youth department at the European Commission's Education and Culture Directorate ...
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Berlin winner Head-On hits Turkish box office jackpot
Turkish-Geman director Fatih Akin's Golden Bear winner Head-On(Gegen Die Wand) has hit the box-officejackpot in Turkey registering 65,547 admissions in its first week of release.The film is being distributed by RFilm through Warner Bros.Turkey on 55 prints in 10 cities such as Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir and smallercentres like Antalya, Bursa, ...
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German police swoop in massive anti-piracy raid
Germany's Federation Against Copyright Theft (GVU) has carried out the world's biggest ever anti-piracy operation.800 apartments, company premises and computer centres were raided in Munich, Frankfurt/Main, Bremen, Cologne and the Ruhr region on March 16 and 18.After two years of investigation, the GVU said it had exposed the activities of ...
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Senator admits it has no remaining share capital
The possibility ofinsolvency is no longer being ruled out at beleaguered Germanproducer-distributor Senator Entertainment after it admitted that its sharecapital has now been completely exhausted in writing off its film assets and investments.German press reports quotedSenator's head of investor relations/corporate communications Karl-W. Homburgas saying a decision on the concern's future ...