All articles by Martin Blaney – Page 180
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News
FFA backs seven features in latest funding round
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 ...
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Korean film wins main Mannheim-Heidelberg award
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 ...
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France's Vladimir Perisic wins Festival of Film Schools' prize
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); ...
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Rebic's Donau, Duna... secures Sundance berth
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 ...
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Berlinale unveils Competition five
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 ...
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First-time directors line up for autumn shoots
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 ...
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German public embraces film piracy
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 ...
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Wachs joins Germany's Premiere in strategy role
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 ...
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Von Trier, Haim and Schipper win Filmstiftung NRW funding
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 ...
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New Line plunges back into German funds
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 ...
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Rosenstrasse producer joins Canada's True West
Germany's Henrik Meyer, one of the producers of Margarethe von Trotta's Venice prize-winner Rosenstrasse, has joined Elizabeth Yake's British Columbia-based production outfit True West Films as a vice president and partner.Speaking to ScreenDaily.com at this year's Mannheim Co-Production Meetings, Yake explained that they had both been looking for international partners ...
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Denmark's Ost takes trio from Brussels AVE
Danish distributor Ost for Paradis has picked up all rights to three titles handled by Belgian-based Brussels AVE, in a deal struck at this week's Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival.The films are Mannheim-Heidelberg's International Competition film I Always Wanted To Be A Saint (J'ai Toujours Voulu Etre Une Sainte) by Luxembourg ...
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Diagonale dismisses Austrian film curator
With just over three months to go, the beleaguered 'official' Diagonale 04 festival has given its Austrian films curator Wolfgang Ainberger his marching orders after his criticism of the festival's directors was made public in the Austrian media last week (ScreenDaily.com, 24 Nov 2003).In an official statement, the Diagonale's director ...
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News
Oz group plans Kieft & Kieft takeover
Australia's Amalgamated Holdings (AHL) is planning a complete takeover of Germany's largest exhibitor Kieft & Kieft.According to press reports AHL, whose subsidiary Greater Union has had a 50% stake in Kieft & Kieft since 1998, has issued a letter of intent indicating that it is interested in acquiring the remaining ...
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Koelmels face charges for bankruptcy delay
The spectre of the former Kinowelt's demise is coming back to haunt brothers Michael and Rainer Koelmel with news that Munich's public prosecutor's office may bring charges against the brothers for delaying the declaration of the bankruptcy of Kinowelt Medien.The prosecutor's spokesman Anton Winkler told the news weekly Focus that ...
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GERMANY
Finding Nemo exceeded even the wildest hopes of exhibitors, who are in desperate need of a good fourth quarter, by scoring over 2m admissions (without previews) and Euros 13.3m in box office takings from its 1,004 prints. Not only was the Buena Vista release the best opening of 2003 ...
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'Original' Diagonale squares up against 'official' Diagonale
The supporters of Austria's 'original Diagonale' have unveiled their plans for a four-day event in Graz between March 3-7, 2004 while the 'official' Diagonale O4 under the management of Tillmann Fuchs and Miroljub Vuckovic seems to be on the verge of imploding."The 'original Diagonale' will take place because it has ...
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German exhibitors rage at funding proposals
German exhibitors are considering taking legal action against the new Film Funding Law (FFG) which is set come into effect on January 1, 2004.The law means that cinemas will be obliged to contribute an average of 2.7% of their gross turnover to the financing of the Federal Film Board (FFA), ...
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Highlight figures paint mixed picture of Constantin takeover
Highlight Communications' takeover of Germany's Constantin Film has had mixed results, according to the Swiss media concern's nine-month figures.On the one hand, profits dropped. Highlight reported a 41% contraction in operating profit to $11.3m (CHF 14.7m) due to the net loss contributed by Constantin. Revenues, however grew. Following the takeover ...
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Germany rides DVD boom
Germany's home entertainment market has posted record results for the first nine months of 2003 thanks to the ever increasing popularity of the DVD.New figures published by the trade association BVV (Bundesverbandes audiovisuelle Medien) show overall turnover for the sector grew year-to-year by 10.4% from Euros 888.5m to Euros 981m.This ...