All articles by Martin Blaney – Page 212
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Kirch Group faces insolvency proceedings
The crisis-ridden Kirch Group is considering instituting insolvency proceedings for its core business division KirchMedia following the failure of the Group's creditor banks and investors to agree to a bridging loan of Euros 150 million, according to German press reports on Monday.Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation and Silvio Berlusconi's holding groups ...
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IN-Motion faces Neuer Markt termination
The German Stock Exchange has warned it plans to terminate trading on the Neuer Markt of shares in the IN-Motion Group, parent of Kirk D'Amico and Philip von Alvensleben's Myriad Pictures, within weeks.The company was informed over the weekend that the Exchange planned to terminate trading in the company's shares ...
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Schloendorff project faces up to rival Pope Joan
Volker Schloendorff's upcoming production of Pope Joan is heading for a clash with a rival TV project, it emerged last week.Schloendorff is adapting US novelist Donna Woolfolk Cross' book about a woman who disguised herself as a man and sat on the papal throne for two years in the 9th ...
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Kinowelt sells more cinemas, production arm
Debt-laden Kinowelt is close to completing its withdrawal from the exhibition sector having sold the Kinopolis multiplex chain. It now expects to dispose of its 25% minority holding in a clutch of Village Roadshow-controlled complexes by the end of this month.The group, which is in insolvency discussions, said that it ...
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Constantin unveils first fruit of RTL distrib deal
German distributor Constantin Film and private broadcaster RTL Television have unveiled the first three titles to be released under a deal struck last September. Constantin will handle theatrical distribution of US teen comedy Van Wilder, to be released on July 4, the Alicia Silverstone/Woody Harrelson-vehicle Scorched and Chen Kaige's erotic ...
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Advanced Medien's financial statements exposed
Auditors have exposed 'dubious' transactions within Germany's Advanced Medien's financial statements for 1999 and 2000, rendering them 'ineffective' and according to some analysts, potentially fraudulent.In an ad-hoc statement, the Munich-based concern declared that, "as part of the required corrections, the sale of film rights with a total volume of Euros ...
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Germany's Premiere unveils low-cost package
Leo Kirch's beleaguered pay TV platform Premiere is to launch a new "taster" package from May 1 as part of managing director Georg Kofler's plans to make savings of around Euros 500m each year from 2003 and reach a positive operating result (EBITDA) a year later.In his business plan, which ...
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Mojto to unveil new German production company
Veteran KirchGroup programming executive Jan Mojto is expected to launch his own German film production company at the forthcoming MIP-TV market in Cannes in April. According to the German media journal Der Kontakter, Mojto, who had been deputy chairman of KirchMedia executive board until late last year, is to set ...
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KirchMedia, ProSiebenSat.1 merger cancelled
Germany's KirchMedia and ProSiebenSat.1 have cancelled their planned merger which was to take place this June.In an official communique stating that the merger would be "not feasible in the foreseeable future", the two indicated that they would nevertheless "continue to work together, as they always successfully have been doing, to ...
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Bertelsmann opts against RTL share offering
Germany's Bertelsmann has decided not to proceed with a voluntary public offer for minority shares in the RTL Group not already held by the media concern or its affiliates.In December 2001, Bertelsmann had purchased Pearson's 22% stake in the Group and investigated whether a voluntary public offer of Euros 44 ...
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Cartoon Movie tribute nominations announced
Seven European companies have been nominated for this year's Cartoon Movie Tributes which will be awarded to three players who have had a positive and dynamic influence on the European animation feature film industry.The final three winners will be voted on by the animation industry professionals attending the 4th edition ...
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Wachs joins Senator Entertainment board
German industry association, Producers AG, is to lose its chief executive Dr. Friedrich-Carl Wachs (pictured), who is to become the fourth board member of Senator Entertainment from April 1.Wachs, who had headed up the producers group since September 2000, will assume the post of chief operating officer (COO) and deputy ...
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Fribourg fest fetes Latin America, Asia and Africa
Prominent figures of Afro-American cinema such as Charles Burnett (Killer of Sheep), Billy Woodberry (Bless Their Little Hearts) and Haile Gerima (Bush Mama), and the South American documentary filmmakers Marta Rodriguez (Colombia), Vladimir Carvalho (Brazil) and Mario Handler (Uruguay) are among 50 directors who will be attending the 16th Fribourg ...
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Record number of submissions for Animation fest
A record 1,000 entries from more than 40 countries were submitted for the 11th International Animation Film Festival Stuttgart which will be staged from March 22-27 showing a total of 425 films with enlarged competition sections and a more international slant.This year, four competitive sections - International Competition, Young Animation, ...
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Bavaria Film completes Grill Point, Tattoo sales
In spite of an overall quiet AFM, Bavaria Film International (BFI) completed sales on the Jury Grand Prix/Silver Berlin Bear winner Grill Point (Halbe Treppe) and newcomer Robert Schwentke's thriller Tattoo. Only three weeks after the premiere of Andreas Dresen's film in the Berlinale official competition, BFI has already sold ...
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German producer and sales co to release Felsen
Medien & Television Muenchen (MTM), producer of the Berlinale competition film Der Felsen (A Map Of The Heart), and the film's sales agent Bavaria Film International plan to release Dominik Graf's film themselves theatrically in Germany."We are going to try an experiment", explained executive producer Andreas Bareiss of MTM. "Since ...
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Kirch joins with Arcor for German VOD pilot
Leo Kirch's embattled pay-TV platform Premiere is seeking to increase business by joining forces with Arcor Online to launch a six-month video-on-demand (VOD) pilot to download feature films via broadband networks. After registering at the Arcor platform, participants will be able to order feature films to view on their computer ...
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Intermedia crash has Splendid knock-on effect
Internationalmedia's cancellation of its proposed merger with Spyglass Entertainment has had a "knock-on" effect for rival German listed media company Splendid Medien, which saw its stock price plummet over 23% in trading on Wednesday morning.Splendid ended trading on Frankfurt's Neuer Markt at Euros 2.50 on Tuesday evening (March 5), but ...
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Two Euro training programmes launched
The Brussels-based Cartoon initiative and the German Federal Film Board (FFA) have joined forces to launch the Cartoon Movie Coaching Programme at this year's Cartoon Movie co-production market for animated feature films in Babelsberg from March 14-16.The Coaching Programme is designed to introduce up-and-coming producers and students of animation to ...
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Sex Up to become Columbia Germany's sixth
Florian Gaertner's screwball teenage comedy Sex Up will be the sixth local feature to be produced by Deutsche Columbia Pictures Filmproduktion GmbH (DCPF), the German production arm of Columbia TriStar Film.DCPF's production partner on the project, which is being scripted by Gaertner with Jakob Hilpert (Kleine Kreise), will be Berlin-based ...