All articles by Martin Blaney – Page 191

  • News

    Austria mulls Luxembourg-style tax scheme

    2003-04-14T04:05:00Z

    Austria's federal government has been urged to adopt Luxembourg's Audiovisual Investment Certificate Programme in a reform of national film policy to introduce tax incentives for private investment in film production.Luxembourg's tax scheme has been held up as an example to emulate by Andreas Mailath-Pokorny, Vienna's city councillor for arts, as ...

  • News

    21 young European producers selected for Cannes showcase

    2003-04-14T04:05:00Z

    Germany's Jakob Claussen (Distant Lights, Anatomie), the Czech Republic's Pavel Strnad (Year Of The Devil) and Antonio Saura (Semana Santa) are among 21 young European producers selected by the member organisations of the pan-European promotion body European Film Promotion (EFP) to take part in the "Producers On The Move" showcase ...

  • News

    International festival selectors could undermine new German Film Law

    2003-04-11T04:05:00Z

    Festival selectors for Cannes, Venice and Berlin could exert an unacceptable influence on future German film funding decisions under the proposed new German Film Law (FFG), according to Klaus Schaefer, managing director of the Bavarian Film & Television Fund FFF Bayern.The new Film Law proposes that producers could gather "reference ...

  • News

    Britspotting festival to honour Winterbottom

    2003-04-11T04:05:00Z

    Golden Bear-winning UK director Michael Winterbottom will be the subject of this year's retrospective at the British independent film festival "britspotting" in Berlin from April 24-30.The six-title homage will include Butterfly Kiss, Jude, Welcome To Sarajevo and Wonderland, while his 24 Hour Party People will be shown in the festival's ...

  • News

    Hope & Glory Pictures opens UK base

    2003-04-10T04:05:00Z

    Berlin production house Hope & Glory Pictures International (HGPI) has opened a London-based outpost."We have set up the office in London since 95% of our projects are in the English language. The move is also a reflection of the company's development over the last three years through our work with ...

  • News

    The Son wins three Belgian Oscars

    2003-04-10T00:00:00Z

    Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne's The Son (Le Fils) was the big winner at this year's Belgian Oscars, the Joseph Plateau Awards, taking the honours in three categories - Best Belgian Film, Best Belgian Director and Best Belgian Actor - after being nominated for five.The awards, which are organised by Ghent's ...

  • News

    Haffa brothers fined for misrepresenting EM.TV finances

    2003-04-09T04:05:00Z

    Former German stockmarket high flyers, brothers Thomas and Florian Haffa were found guilty yesterday (Tuesday) of misrepresenting their previous company, EM.TV's financial figures in 2000 in order to influence the share price.The Munich division for criminal matters imposed a fine of Euros 1.2m on Thomas Haffa and one of Euros ...

  • News

    German arthouse sector outperforms multiplexes

    2003-04-09T04:05:00Z

    Germany's arthouse sector reported a slight increase in admissions for 2002, according to an internal survey conducted by AG Kino, the trade association for specialist cinemas.The survey reported that admissions grew between 5%-8% in the cities, while admissions in smaller towns either remained stable or fell slightly. In comparison, German ...

  • News

    Baltic Films becomes member of European Film Promotion

    2003-04-08T04:05:00Z

    Baltic Films, the joint organisation of the Estonian Film Foundation, the Latvian National Film Center and the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture, has become the 22nd organisation to become a member of the pan-European promotional body European Film Promotion (EFP).Commenting on joining EFP's network, Karlo Funk, a board member of Baltic ...

  • News

    Constantin Film confirmed as Germany's top producer, distributor

    2003-04-07T04:05:00Z

    Constantin Film confirmed its leading position as Germany's top production house and distributor by walking away with almost a third of the Euros 22.6m retroactive "reference" funding handed out by the German Federal Film Board (FFA).The box-office success last year of such (co) productions as the Oscar-winning Nowhere In Africa, ...

  • News

    Wenders tipped to get back his old company

    2003-04-07T04:05:00Z

    Wim Wenders and Peter Schwartzkopff, who jointly founded Reverse Angle Production in Hamburg last autumn, are now favourites to retrieve Wenders' old production company Road Movies from the insolvent Das Werk group, according to Germany's Die Welt.The daily newspaper reported at the weekend that Das Werk's insolvency administrator Holger Lessing ...

  • News

    Barbara Rudnik to head PLANET documentary prize jury

    2003-04-07T00:00:00Z

    German actress Barbara Rudnik (pictured) has been named chairperson of the international jury for the PLANET Documentary Film Prize 2004.The other members of the jury are Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker Christian Frei (War Photographer), European Film Award winner Andres Veiel (Black Box BRD) and veteran Polish filmmaker-writer Andrzej Titkow.The prize, which ...

  • News

    German broadcasters to double film funding

    2003-04-03T04:05:00Z

    Germany's public and private broadcasters have agreed to double their financial contribution to the German Federal Film Board (FFA) to Euros 22.4m from 2004, State Minister for Culture Christina Weiss (pictured) announced on unveiling the draft German Film Law (FFG) on Wednesday (April 2).While public channels ARD and ZDF will ...

  • News

    European Film Promotion to tour Argentina

    2003-04-03T04:05:00Z

    Pan-European promotional body European Film Promtion (EFP) will presenting a touring programme of new European films through Argentina in May and June as part of a first collaboration this year with the Buenos Aires V Festival Internacional de Cine Independente (BA FICI) (April 16-26)Organised under the banner 'New Directors/New Directions', ...

  • News

    Germany's Constantin Film reports increased sales

    2003-03-31T04:05:00Z

    Germany's leading independent distributor-producer Constantin Film posted a 3% year-on-year increase in sales to Euros 131.2m "in spite of the continuing crisis on the German media market last year", according to figures for the 2002 fiscal year.Constantin reported that it had reached the targets set at the beginning of 2002 ...

  • News

    Blue Moon wins Grand Prize at Diagonale

    2003-03-31T04:05:00Z

    Andrea Maria Dusl's feature debut Blue Moon was the winner of this year's Euros 19,000 Grand Prize at the Diagonale Festival of Austrian Cinema which closed in Graz on March 30. Meanwhile, the Diagonale's Euros 10,000 Prize for Innovative Production was shared ex aequo by Nikolaus Geyrhalter Filmproduktion (for Elsewhere) ...

  • News

    Slovenia joins EU MEDIA Programme

    2003-03-28T04:00:00Z

    Slovenia has become the seventh Central and East European country to become a member of the European Union's MEDIA Programme following Poland, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.The association treaty, which is back dated to January 1 2003, was signed on March 25 and sees Slovenia committing an ...

  • News

    Das Werk sold to German production outfit

    2003-03-28T04:00:00Z

    Huerth-based production outfit Media Select has acquired the core activities of the insolvent Das Werk postproduction group, in the face of stiff competition from a number of rival bidders from Germany, Europe and the USA. According to an official statement, the new owner plans to run Das Werk's regional operations ...

  • News

    Saban completes takeover of KirchMedia film library

    2003-03-28T04:00:00Z

    As planned following the purchase of the majority of ProSiebenSat.1 Media on March 17 (Screendaily, March 17), US media mogul Haim Saban has now concluded a deal with insolvency manager Michael Jaffe and the KirchMedia management to acquire the film library of 18,000 films and TV series and the film ...

  • News

    Oberhausen engulfed in Iraq war ban controversy

    2003-03-28T04:00:00Z

    The International Short Film Festival Oberhausen (May 1-6) has become embroiled in controversy after announcing that it intends to ban official representatives of the US, UK, Spanish and Italian governments from attending the festival following their policy on Iraq.In an official statement, the festival said that "the world's oldest and ...