All articles by Martin Blaney – Page 173
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Munich festival to honour Kaurismaki brothers
Filmmaker brothers Aki and Mika Kaurismäki are to be the subjects of this year's Retrospective at the Munich Film Festival (June 26 - July 3).Both directors are expected to accompany the retrospective in person.This year's festival, which is the first under the new management of director Andreas Stroehl, will see ...
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Kinowelt's Koelmel faces possible jail term
Kinowelt's Michael Koelmel will appear before Munich's District Court from today (Wednesday) to answer claims of embezzlement, delaying the filing of insolvency and bankruptcy.According to German press reports, the indictment against the media manager runs to 343 pages and the trial documents already fill some 100 files. The trial is ...
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Eight projects vie for co-production market
Projects by eight South-East European filmmakers are in the running to be pitched at the second CineLink co-production market to be held during the Sarajevo Film Festival in August in collaboration with Rotterdam's CineMart.The projects selected by the CineLink regional jury are:Albanian Tales - dir: Saimir Bajo (Albania)Gravity - dir: ...
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German box office down in first quarter 2004
Germany's box office saw a fall in admissions and revenuesfor the first quarter of 2004, according to figures collated by EDI Nielsen.Admissions weredown 6.4% from last year's 37.58m to 35.18m in the first three months, whilerevenues slipped 8.6% from Euro 225.68m to Euro 206.27m.Apart from the final part ofthe Lord ...
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Intertainment/Franchise trial is set to begin on April 20
After more than three years of delays, the claim for damages bythe German media company Intertainment against Franchise Pictures is set to goto trial on April 20 in Los Angeles.At a pre-trial conference on Good Friday, the judge in chargeannounced that the case will be heard by ten jurors. A ...
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Senator in 'takeover talks' with mystery investor
Troubled German producer-distributor Senator Entertainment is reportedly "negotiating with a strategic investor" to invest in the company.Berlin daily newspaper Der Tagesspiegel reported on Wednesday that Senator's executive board was "conducting takeover talks with a limited partnership active in the film fund business."It also quoted Bolko Hoffmann, CEO of Effectenspiegel which ...
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Germany's Senator files for insolvency
Beleaguered German producer-distributor Senator Entertainment filed for insolvency today (April 8) after failing to agree a rescue plan with its creditor banks and potential investors.The Berlin-based company said the filing affected parent company Senator Entertainment AG as well as the subsidiaries Senator Film Produktion GmbH, Senator Film Verleih GmbH and ...
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Sales agents win cash backing to market European films
With the aim of opening up new markets outside the European Union, the European Film Promotion (EFP) is to launch its new Film Sales Support (FSS) initiative at this month's Buenos Aires Film Festival (April 14-25).FSS offers financial support to sales companies and producers who promote and market European films ...
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Chancellor Schroeder to open Oberhausen short film fest
Germany's Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is to be one of the opening speakers at the 50th edition of the Oberhausen International Short Film Festival (April 29 - May 4)The opening event will also see filmmakers Wim Wenders, Soenke Wortmann, Romuald Karmakar and Eija-Liisa Ahtila presenting short films which were screened ...
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GERMANY
A ridge of high pressure over Central Europe brought a spate of unexpected warm spring weather over the weekend. Consequently, cinemagoers disappeared into the beergardens rather than the cinemas and the result was seen in the lower overall attendance.Disney's Brother Bear held onto the top spot for a third week ...
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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 ...