All articles by Martin Blaney – Page 174
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Berlinale mourns passing of Werner Gondolf
The Berlinale is mourning the passing of Werner Gondolf, thefestival's chief programmer for over 30 years, at the age of 61 after a longillness.In a tribute, festival director Dieter Kosslick said Gondolfwas "an institution at the Berlinale and nobody knew its ins and outs aswell as he did. Respected by ...
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Intertainment, Franchise judgement expected next week
The final judgement in the damages lawsuitbetween Germany's Intertainment and Franchise Pictures is now expected to bemade sometime next week at the earliest.In a press statement, Intertainment explained thatquestioning of the witnesses had been completed on Tuesday (June 8) and thefinal summing up by the lawyers of both parties was ...
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Senator unveils details of bankruptcy rescue plan
The restructuring of German producer/distributorSenator Entertainment could be completed by the end of September, according toplans which will be presented at an extraordinary shareholders assembly nextweek by the court-appointed receiver Rolf Rattunde.The restructuring plan would, in a first step,see the shareholders agreeing to a capital reduction of 90% in order ...
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Schloendorff in favour of MBO option for Babelsberg
Former Babelsberg studio boss Volker Schloendorff has spokenout in favour of the bid by the current management under Thierry Potok for thehistorical production centre as talks continue with Vivendi Universal on thestudio's future.In an interview with the German daily newspaper Die Welt,Schloendorff expressed doubts about the feature film ambitions of ...
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GERMANY 9 June
Unsurprisingly, the third instalment of the Harry Potterfranchise had the best opening weekend of the year so far. Launched with 1,204prints, the film posted the sixth best-ever opening weekend and the best everopening outside of the months of November and December.Askaban's 2m-plusadmissions (including Wednesday evening screenings) were, however, some way ...
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Berlinale calls on film-makers to shoot football films
The Berlinale Talent Campus has launched a shortfilm competition - Shoot Goals! Shoot Movies! - for film-makers toillustrate their passion for the game of football as well as the fans and theculture it generates in their respective countries.According to the guidelines of the competition,submissions in either dramatic, documentary or animated ...
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Raggy Boy wins top Emden festival prize
Aisling Walsh's Song For A Raggy Boy was presented with theEuros 10,000 Bernhard Wicki Prize at this year's Emden-Aurich-Norderney FilmFestival in the north-western corner of Germany.Second and third prizes in this competition for feature films fromthe German-speaking countries and North-Western Europe went to Ben Sombogaart'sTwin Sisters and Paul Morrison's Wondrous ...
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Munich fest to open with Pearl Earring
Peter Webber's Oscar-nominated Girl With A Pearl Earringwill be the opening film at this year's Munich Film Festival which begins onJune 26.The eight-day festival, which is the first under the management ofAndreas Stroehl, will also include screenings in of such films as WalterSalles' The Motorcycle Diaries, Ivan Fila's King Of ...
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German distributors take Les Choristes, Kontroll
Germany's Constantin Film has acquired thetheatrical and DVD/video rights for Germany and Austria for ChristopheBarratier's French box-office sensation Les Choristes from veteranproducer Arthur Cohn.Constantin will release Les Choristesunder the German title of Die Kinder Des Monsieur Mathieu on August 26.Meanwhile, German rights trader Tiberius Filmhas picked up all German language ...
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GERMANY 3 June
German-born director Roland Emmerich's disaster epic The Day After Tomorrow became the secondrelease this year after Wolfgang Petersen's Troyto clock up over 1m admissions on its opening weekend as it entered at No. 1.The 20th Century Fox release, which was the only new entryinto the weekend's Top 15, posted over ...
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German producer urges local cinema to get global
Just three weeks before the German Film Awards on June 18,X-Filme creative pool's Stefan Arndt has called for German film producers toshow more self-confidence and a greater global approach.In a guest commentary for the Berlin daily newspaper DerTagespiegel, Arndt writes "producers are not particularly popular inGermany. The first larger financing ...
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German home entertainment market hits new heights
The German home entertainment market has postedrecord turnover in the first three months of 2004 thanks to the ever increasingpopularity of DVDs.According to GfK Panel Services ConsumerResearch, the turnover from the sale and rental of DVDs and video cassettessurpassed the previous record of 2003's Euro 334.3m by 8.1% with Euro ...
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Germany's Script House devises new East-West info exchange
The exchange of information between East and Western Europe on trends in film development, producing and marketing in their respective markets is to receive a boost through a new venture entitled Crossings, which has been devised by Berlin-based Script House and will be launched at next week's Transilvanian Film Festival ...
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Bavaria ships Whisky at Cannes
Bavaria FilmInternational (BFI) has concluded a raft of deals at the market in Cannes on Uruguayancomedy Whisky and Fridrik Thor Fridriksson's latest feature Niceland.Directorial duoPablo Stoll and Juan Pablo Rebella's film, which screened in the Un CertainRegard and was awarded the FIPRESCI Award and Prix Originale Regard, was soldto Japan ...
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Berlin's European Film Market switches to new venue
It's official: Berlin's European Film Market (EFM) will have a newvenue for 2006 at the Renaissance-style Martin Gropius Building, just fiveminutes from Potsdamer Platz. The market will be held inside the cramped Debis building forthe last time in 2005.The Martin Gropius Building has hosted several internationalexhibitions in the past - ...
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Palm takes US and UK rights to Nomi Song
Palm Pictures has picked up US and UK rights to AndrewHorn's music documentary The Nomi Song at the end of what sales agentMedia Luna Entertainment described as "a very busy Cannes market."MLE managing director Ida Martins told ScreenDaily.com thatsales were also concluded for the Russian film You I Love with ...
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GERMANY 25 May
While Wolfgang Petersen's Troy held on to the top spot with only a 9% drop in takings overthe previous weekend to gross over $19.9m, the local German film industry wasgiven a welcome boost by the strong opening of Tobi Baumann's Der Wixxer, a send-up of the 1960s EdgarWallace crime mystery ...
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Edukators picked by Delphi Filmverleih for Germany
Berlin-based distributor Delphi Filmverleih has acquired theGerman speaking rights for Hans Weingartner's Cannes Official Competition entryThe Edukators.Accordingto industry insiders, Delphi successfully fought off stiff competition fromsuch rival bidders as Constantin Film, X Verleih and Concorde Filmverleih. Itis also understood that sales agent Celluloid Dreams had set an asking price ofEuro ...
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German cinema admissions plunge
2.4m fewer tickets were soldat German cinemas in the first three months of 2004 compared to the previousyear, according to statistics collated by the German Federal Film Board (FFA).The Berlin-based institutionreported that box-office takings fell year-on-year by 9% to Euros 213.1m andadmissions by 6.2% to 37m, the lowest tally since ...
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GERMANY 12 May
The season of blockbustersopened in fine style with UIP's Van Helsing charging into the Germanbox-office chart at No. 1 with a whopping $ 9,813 screen average from its 742screens, while last week's top film, Columbia TriStar's 50 First Dates,was the only release to muster any competition with takings of around ...