All articles by Martin Blaney – Page 181
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News
Balsan takes over from Powell as EFA chairman
After eight years in the post, the UK's Nik Powell is handing over the reins of the chairmanship of the European Film Academy (EFA) to French producer Humbert Balsan.Speaking at the European Film Awards ceremony, Powell quipped that he expected Balsan - who has been one of the EFA deputy ...
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Koltai, Golan ready WWII dramas
Oscar-nominated cinematographer Lajos Koltai (Taking Sides, Malena) and veteran Israeli producer-director Menahem Golan have both announced feature projects about the devastating impact of the Nazis on Jews in Europe.Koltai will be making his directorial debut with adaptation of Nobel Prize winner Imre Kertesz's novel Fateless which will begin an 11-week ...
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Manderlay wins lion's share of Eurimages funding
Lars von Trier's Manderlay, Philippe Haim's La Vraie Vie Des Dalton, Lajos Koltai's Fateless and Lieven Debrauwer's Confituur are among 11 European co-productions to share Euros 4.1m production support from Strasbourg-based Eurimages in its latest round of funding.Manderlay received the largest amount - Euros 725,000 - as one of four ...
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Belgian exhibitor goes digital
Belgian exhibitor Kinepolis is planning to equip another ten of its cinema screens with the Barco DLP digital projector in addition to the existing four screens already converted to digital projection. According to Kinepolis, the decision was taken because of the exceptional demand for these screenings in Belgium: the children's ...
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GERMANY
Columbia TriStar's release of the Colin Farrell/Samuel L. Jackson police actioner S.W.A.T. stormed the German box office at No. 2 with an impressive $ 4,125 screen average from its 609 prints to take $2.5m on its first weekend (without previews), but was still eclipsed by Buena Vista's Finding Nemo ...
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Good Bye, Lenin! sweeps European Film Awards
Christmas came early this year for the Good Bye, Lenin! team when they picked up six of 16 awards at the European Film Awards (EFA) held in Berlin's Arena on Saturday evening (6 Dec).The tragicomedy, which already won nine Lolas at the German Film Awards last June and is Germany's ...
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Diagonale rebels win Euro festival support
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 ...
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Movienet takes Russian Return for Germany
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 ...
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German media fund beefs up investment slate
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 ...
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Carl Schenkel dies suddenly in Los Angeles
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 ...
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Powell, Pons join European Pitch Point jury
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 ...
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Cannibalism feature set to challenge German tastes
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 ...
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Kinowelt sales arm picks up Mondlandung
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 ...
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Swiss Film Prize unveils nominees, major overhaul
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 ...
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GERMANY
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 ...
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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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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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German industry unites to fight piracy
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 ...
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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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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 ...