All articles by Martin Blaney – Page 194
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Disney back in the frame for the Jim Henson Company
Walt Disney has reportedly come back into the picture as a possible bidder for The Jim Henson Company (JHC) after a US investment group terminated its non-binding letter of intent with JHC's current owner Germany's EM.TV & Merchandising for the partial sale of 49.9%.EM.TV announced that the negotiations would continue ...
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Rotterdam fest acts to avoid Berlin date clash
A potentially damaging head-to-head clash between the Rotterdam and Berlin film festivals over the dates for their 2004 editions has been nipped in the bud.Following Berlin's announcement this week that its 54th festival will be held from Feb 5-15 (the earliest start for the German festival since its move to ...
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Latin American films dominate Fribourg competition
More than half of the feature films showing in the competition of Germany's 17th Fribourg International Film Festival (March 16-23) come from Latin America.Brazil is represented by two films - Jorge Furtado's Two Summers and Eliane Caffe's The Story Tellers - while Argentina has four pictures: Luis Ortega's Black ...
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Cartoon Movie tribute nominees announced
France's MK2, Sweden's Folkets Bio and Spain's Grupo Filmax are among seven companies or individuals who have been nominated for Cartoon Movie Tributes in recognition of their contribution to the success of feature animation in Europe.The full line-up of nominees are:Didier Brunner (France), 'for producing the greatest number of auteur ...
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Germany's RTL Group names new CEO
Gerhard Zeiler has been named chief executive Germany's RTL Group following the exit of Didier Bellens.Zeiler (pictured) will take up his new responsibilities immediately, but will also continue in his current position as CEO of RTL Television, a 100% subsidiary of the RTL Group. Commenting on his appointment, Zeiler ...
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German film fund awards more than $5m to new projects
New features by Dennis Gansel, Sherry Hormann, Ben Verbong and three graduation films by students of Munich's Academy for Television & Film (HFF) are among the film projects receiving over Euros 5m from Bavaria's regional film fund FFF Bayern.Olga Film's production of Dennis Gansel's historical drama Napola about the ...
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German actor Horst Buchholz dies, aged 68
The German film industry is mourning the passing of actor Horst Buchholz at the age of 68.After appearing at Berlin's Schiller Theatre, Buchholz was discovered by director Julien Duvivier who gave him his first film role in Marianne De Ma Jeunesse in 1955. In the same year, he appeared in ...
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The end of the road for Wim Wenders & Road Movies'
The final chapter in the history of Road Movies may have been written with the news of the firing of Wim Wenders as managing director from the company he founded with partners in 1976 to make such classics as Paris, Texas, Wings Of Desire and Buena Vista Social Club.A second ...
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Forced exit for Tobis distribution head
Marlies Weber, head of distribution at Berlin-based Tobis Film, has been forced to vacate her position as of today.Speaking to Screendaily.com, Weber (pictured) said that she was "not going of her own free will" and does not yet have anything else lined up.Meanwhile, Magnus Vortmeyer, Tobis Film's head of press ...
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New films by Rohmer, Akerman and Fridriksson get Eurimages cash
New feature films by Eric Rohmer, Chantal Akerman and Fridrik Thor Fridriksson are among nine projects awarded over Euros 3.3m by Eurimages.Two projects were backed in the funding category for larger projects with commercial promise: Euros 700,000 for Didier and Thierry Poiraud's French-German-UK co-production Le Retour De James Bataille and ...
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German politician urges Jackass boycott
On the eve of its German opening, a Bavarian politician has called on cinema-owners to drop Jackass - The Movie from their programmes.In a statement, Markus Soeder, who is chairman of the of the conservative Christian Social Union party's Media Committee, said that "the series and film contain repulsive and ...
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Audiovisual Eureka to close by end of June
The European Union's enlargement eastwards and changes in its membership have resulted in Audiovisual Eureka deciding to close down in June, leaving Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and states of the former Yugoslavia without a broad support programme.In a statement, the Brussels-based body explained the context for the decision: "the geopolitical developments ...
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German Film Academy launches international exchange programme
German Film Academy Baden-Wuerttemberg, whose graduates Chris Stenner, Heidi Wittlinger, Georg Gruber and Arvid Uibel have been nominated for an Academy Award with their animated short Das Rad, has launched an international student exchange programme.The new venture is aimed primarily at students attending foreign film schools and universities and wishing ...
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French projects set to animate Cartoon Movie market
Reflecting the strong French animation market, over a quarter of the 47 animation feature projects looking for financing or distribution at this year's Cartoon Movie market in Babelsberg (March 13-15) have been initiated by French animation studios. Among the 13 French projects, four are from Les Armateurs (Crossroad - The ...
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New proposal to stem the flow of German tax money to Hollywood
Ahead of next week's 'Alliance for Film' industry gathering in Cologne, producer-director and fund initiator Uwe Boll has added his voice to the debate about German media funds by proposing the adoption of the Canadian tax credit points system for the tax assessment of German funds.As Boll pointed out, "in ...
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Producers team for Nettelbeck's Helen
Sandra Nettelbeck's next feature Helen is to be produced by MTM Medien & Television Muenchen's Andreas Bareiss and co-produced with Pandora Film's Karl Baumgartner, who produced her international hit Mostly Martha.Helen, which will be shot in English, centres on a law professor fighting to save her life and her family ...
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Sarajevo film festival launches Balkan script development project
The Sarajevo Film Festival (SFF) has attracted support from Rotterdam International Film Festival's Hubert Bals Fund and the Dutch foundation HIVOS for a "Regional Script Development Project" which aims to support film production in Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia. SFF director Mirsad Purivatra announced that the new venture will be launched ...
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Good Bye, Lenin! - success at home and abroad
Wolfgang Becker's Good Bye, Lenin!, this year's winner of the Berlinale's Blue Angel award for the best European film, has become the top German opener at this year's local box-office and has been sold to more European territories by sales agent Bavaria Film International (BFI).Becker's tragi-comic farce starring Daniel Bruehl ...
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New kind of tax-based German production fund proposed
German feature film producers could receive an injection of Euros 70m-80m worth of fresh cash from an unexpected source - the pay-TV platform Premiere.The offer came after Premiere CEO Georg Kofler criticised the different VAT rates which apply in Germany for those subscribing to pay television (16%) and taking out ...
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Cyprus becomes MEDIA Programme's 25th member
Cyprus has become the 25th member of the European Union's MEDIA Programme following the Slovak Republic which signed its association agreement on January 10. Both agreements have been back-dated to January 1, 2003.While the Slovak Republic has committed to pay Euross 160,000 annually as its financial contribution towards the MEDIA ...