All articles by Martin Blaney – Page 177

  • News

    Diagonale rebels win Euro festival support

    2003-12-08T04:00:00Z

    The organisers of the "original Diagonale" have been boosted in their resolve to stage an alternative event from March 3-7 by a wave of messages of solidarity from leading European film festivals, including Oberhausen, Karlovy Vary, and Leipzig. Lars Henrik Gass, director of the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen wrote ...

  • News

    Movienet takes Russian Return for Germany

    2003-12-08T00:00:00Z

    Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev's debut feature The Return (Vozvraschenie), which won the European Discovery 2003 Fassbinder Award in Berlin at the weekend, has been picked up by German theatrical distributor Movienet for release early next year.The story of two brothers whose lives are turned upside down by the sudden reappearance ...

  • News

    German media fund beefs up investment slate

    2003-12-05T04:00:00Z

    German media fund VIP 3, which has raised Euros 170m from private German investors to date this year, is to co-produce new features by Penny Marshall and Gregory Hoblit.The fund will serve as a production partner with Chris Sievernich's Armada Pictures International on Penny Marshall's comedy Family Of The Year ...

  • News

    Powell, Pons join European Pitch Point jury

    2003-12-05T00:00:00Z

    NFTS director Nik Powell and Spanish director Ventura Pons are among the five-person jury appointed for the next European Pitch Point (EPP) to be held during the Berlinale on 6 February, 2004.The other members of the jury are Berlin-based producer Judy Tossell of Egoli Tossell Film (Russian Ark), Swiss producer-director ...

  • News

    Carl Schenkel dies suddenly in Los Angeles

    2003-12-05T00:00:00Z

    Swiss-born writer-director Carl Schenkel has died suddenly in Los Angeles at the age of 55 from heart failure.He made his feature debut with Cold As Ice (Kalt Wie Eis) set in the new wave music scene in 1981 and then became one of the hottest properties in the German film ...

  • News

    Cannibalism feature set to challenge German tastes

    2003-12-04T04:00:00Z

    Maverick German filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim has announced plans for a film about cannibalism.The move comes in the same week that the trial of a man accused of killing, dissecting and eating another man opened in Germany, causing a sensation in the German media.Von Praunheim - whose credits include It's ...

  • News

    Kinowelt sales arm picks up Mondlandung

    2003-12-03T00:00:00Z

    Kinowelt's world sales arm Filmverlag der Autoren has picked up international distribution rights for film school graduate Till Endemann's debut feature Mondlandung, which received its world premiere at the International Hof Film Days at the end of October.Produced by the Baden-Wuerttemberg Film Academy with V-Max Media, Mondlandung (Moon Landing) follows ...

  • News

    GERMANY

    2003-12-02T00:00:00Z

    BVI's Finding Nemo may be available on pirate DVD, but it hasn't stopped cinema-goers rushing to see "the fish film", as some in the German industry have rather disparagingly called the blockbuster. Nemo's 1.3 m-plus admissions in the second weekend must seem like manna from heaven for the beleaguered ...

  • News

    Swiss Film Prize unveils nominees, major overhaul

    2003-12-02T00:00:00Z

    In an extensive reorganisation in its seventh year, the 2004 Swiss Film Prize will include new prize categories, distribute Euros 32,000 (CHF 50,000) more in prize-money and award Euros 180,000 (CHF 280,000) in newly created nomination premiums.The existing categories of Best Feature Film, Best Documentary and Best Short Film will ...

  • News

    German industry unites to fight piracy

    2003-12-01T04:05:00Z

    With illegal copying and downloading of feature films becoming ever more prevalent (ScreenDaily.com, 27 November 2003), the German film and video industries have joined forces to launch a campaign entitled "Raubkopierer sind Verbrecher - eine Initiative zum Schutz des Originals" ("Pirates are criminals - an initiative to protect the original")."We ...

  • News

    FFA backs seven features in latest funding round

    2003-12-01T04:05:00Z

    New features by Helmut Dietl, Marco Kreuzpaintner and Didi Danquart are among seven projects which received Euros 2.9m from the German Federal Film Board (FFA) in its latest round of funding.The largest sum - Euros 700,000 - was awarded to Dietl's melodramatic comedy update of the story of Orpheus and ...

  • News

    Korean film wins main Mannheim-Heidelberg award

    2003-12-01T04:05:00Z

    Korean filmmaker Eo Il-seon's first full-length feature, the quietly poetic melodrama Plastic Tree won the Main Award of Mannheim-Heidelberg at this year's International Film Festival Mannheim-Heidelberg (20-29 November)..The International Jury gave its Special Prize to Sweden's Daniel Lind Lagerloef for his bizarrely comic and moving love story Miffo, while the ...

  • News

    France's Vladimir Perisic wins Festival of Film Schools' prize

    2003-12-01T00:00:00Z

    Vladimir Perisic of France's FEMIS won the VFF Young Talent Award for his 31-minute short Dremano Oko at this year's International Festival of the Film Schools in Munich (November 27-30).The other awards included: the Student Camera Award for Dutch DoP Martijn van Broekhuizen's cinematography on Jiska Rickels' Days Under (NFTA); ...

  • News

    Rebic's Donau, Duna... secures Sundance berth

    2003-12-01T00:00:00Z

    Goran Rebic's waterborne road movie Donau, Duna, Dunaj, Dunav, Dunarea has been invited to screen in the World Cinema section of next year's Sundance Film Festival (Jan 15-25).Starring Otto Sander and Robert Stadlober, the co-production by Austria's Lotus Film and Wega Film has previously been shown at San Sebastian and ...

  • News

    Berlinale unveils Competition five

    2003-12-01T00:00:00Z

    Romauld Karmakar, Ron Howard, Annette K. Olesen, Vinko Bresan and Manuel Gutierrez Aragon have seen their latest films chosen by The Berlinale to play in its official Competition - a full two months before the festival starts (5-15 Feb, 2004).The initial five films, which run the gamut from tragic love ...

  • News

    First-time directors line up for autumn shoots

    2003-12-01T00:00:00Z

    For full current listings click here A host of projects by first-time directors went before the camera this autumn. For a start, Tatiana Brandrup has just returned from three weeks of shooting in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi for her feature debut Caucasian Business (Kaukasischer Coup) with Italian For ...

  • News

    German public embraces film piracy

    2003-11-27T04:00:00Z

    The illegal copying of feature films onto CDs and DVDs or by downloading from the Internet is becoming more acute in Germany, according to a new study commissioned by the German Federal Film Board (FFA).5.1m people burnt approximately 30.1m feature films onto 63m blank CDs and DVDs in the first ...

  • News

    Wachs joins Germany's Premiere in strategy role

    2003-11-27T00:00:00Z

    Former Senator Entertainment executive Friedrich-Carl Wachs is to head up the newly created division of strategy and planning at Germany's pay TV operator Premiere from Dec 1. Wachs will be responsible at Premiere for project management and will coordinate the collaboration of all of Premiere's business divisions on important ...

  • News

    Von Trier, Haim and Schipper win Filmstiftung NRW funding

    2003-11-27T00:00:00Z

    New features by Lars von Trier (Manderlay), Philippe Haim (The Daltons/La Vraie Vie Des Daltons) and Sebastian Schipper (Ein Freund Von Mir) are among the film projects awarded over Euros 3.8m by Filmstiftung NRW in its latest round of funding.The largest sum - Euros 1,858,970 - was allocated to Haim's ...

  • News

    New Line plunges back into German funds

    2003-11-26T04:00:00Z

    New Line Cinema has again joined forces with German private fund specialist Hannover Leasing (HL) to raise up to Euros 100m for a raft of international English-language features.The latest fund, MERADIN Produktions GmbH & Co. KG, which is being co-initiated by HL with the Stuttgart-based financial investment company DaimlerChrysler Services ...