All articles by Martin Blaney – Page 213
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Utopia Blues triumphs at Swiss Film Awards
Utopia Blues was the big winner at this year's Swiss Film Awards.Directed by Stefan Haupt, the film took home the honours in the best feature and best actor categories at an awards ceremony held at this week's Solothurn Film Days. The film's star, Michael Finger, has also been selected as ...
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German crits awards snub triple nominees
Christian Petzold's The State I Am In and Achim von Borries' England! picked up two awards each in this year's round of honours by the German film critics association Verband Der Deutschen Filmkritik. Andreas Dresen's The Policewoman (Die Polizistin) and Ben Verbong's family film The Slurb (Das Sams) both came ...
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Premiere World adds Kofler, loses Liberty
German entrepreneur Dr. Georg Kofler (pictured) has been enticed back into the Kirch empire to head up the debt-ridden digital pay TV platform Premiere World. At the same time, US cable operator Liberty Media has surprisingly withdrawn an application submitted to the German cartel office for clearance to take a ...
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Helkon severs ties with Buena Vista International
German media concern Helkon Media has severed its last link with the local outpost of Buena Vista International (BVI) by ending its booking and billing arrangement for the German theatrical release of its films after ending its TV output agreement with BVI at the end of last year.In future, Helkon ...
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Venture capitalist funds EM.TV share acquisition
Dutch venture capital company Constant Ventures is to finance EM.TV board chairman Werner Klatten's acquisition of shares in the company.In an agreement signed on Jan 14 with Klatten's company: WKB Beteiligungsgesellschaft, Constant Ventures will secure finance for WKB to acquire 36.16m EM.TV shares. On the basis of the current ...
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Berlinale Panorama: two thirds confirmed
New films by Lynne Stopkewitch, Mika Kaurismaki, Monica Treut, Ventura Pons and Marius Holst are among the films which have been confirmed so far as two-thirds of the line-up for the Berlinale's Panorama section.26 nations will be participating with films in the Panorama's main programme and the Panorama Dokumente and ...
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Policewoman, Slurb rule German Critics nominations
Andreas Dresen's The Policewoman (Die Polizistin) and Ben Verbong's family film The Slurb (Das Sams) have each bagged three nominations from the German critics association (Verband der Deutschen Filmkritik) for this year's German Film Critics Prize Both films are nominated in the Best Film category along with Oliver Hirschbiegel's The ...
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IM profit warning clouds Spyglass deal
Neuer Markt-listed Internationalmedia's (IM) announcement that it will miss its 2001 targets has clouded analyst enthusiasm about the Spyglass takeover deal and sent shares falling by over 20% to Euros 18 by mid-afternoon Monday (Jan 14).In an ad.hoc announcement for the Spyglass transaction, IM also declared that "according to first ...
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Hamburg's public film fund under threat
The German city of Hamburg's status as a film and TV production location is under serious threat following plans by the new Senate to slash almost $915,000 (DM 2m) from the 2002 budget for the city's public FilmFoerderung film fund.Until now, the city's cultural and economic senates had each contributed ...
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Three KirchGroup companies renamed
The KirchGroup's three holding companies are to be renamed as a consequence of the planned merger of ProSiebenSat.1 and KirchMedia this June.Thus, KirchHolding will then be known as TaurusHolding, KirchPayTV as Premiere Medien, and KirchBeteiligung as TaurusBeteiligung, while the name KirchMedia will be retained for the new merged company.Commenting on ...
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Wim Wenders produces Berlin cinema
Film director Wim Wenders has joined forces with distributor Christoph Ott of ottfilm and exhibitors Gerhard Gross and Burkhard Voiges of the Hackesche Hoefe cinemas to re-launch one of Berlin's oldest cinemas, the KANT Kino, which first opened its doors in 1912.Most recently, the cinema in Berlin's Charlottenburg district had ...
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Euro MEDIA Programme supports 36 initiatives
Three industry events at the forthcoming Berlinale (February 6-17) are among 36 initiatives which have been awarded over Euros 2.8m by the European Commission's MEDIA Programme as part of its support for promotional measures and film festivals.The Berlin-based events are: the European Film Promotion's (EFP) Shooting Stars showcase of rising ...
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Graz fest highlights three filmmakers
Filmmakers Heddy Honigmann, Gustav Deutsch and Alexander Hammid are the subject of special sidebars being staged at this year's Diagonale showcase of Austrian cinema in Graz from March 18-24, 2002.Dutch filmmaker Honigmann will attend the festival's homage of her oeuvre, while a tribute is being dedicated to filmmaker and artist ...
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UIP retains German box office crown
UIP held onto pole position at the German box office in 2001 with a 20.5% market share, according to ACNielsen/EDI figures, but Warner Bros. was the year's big winner as it more than doubled its share of the market from 2000's 8.3% to 18.8.% thanks in particular to the end-of-year ...
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ApolloProMedia fund to back Borderline
Evelyn Purcell's psychological thriller Borderline, starring Gina Gershon (Driven) and Chris Noth (Sex And The City), is to be backed by the German ApolloProMedia private film fund.This is the second feature to be backed by the new fund after it committed to back Michael J. Bassett's Untitled Great War Project ...
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Catherine Buresi named chief exec of EAVE
Catherine Buresi has been named the successor to Raymond Ravar as chief executive of the MEDIA Programme-supported, Brussels-based European producers training programme EAVE (Les Entrepreneurs De L'Audiovisuel Europeen).A graduate herself of EAVE's 1995 session, Buresi was in charge of the audiovisual policy of the City of Strasbourg and head of ...
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Germany's Red Beat announces 10-picture slate
Berlin-based production house Red Beat Pictures has announced an ambitious slate of ten feature projects after almost two years dedicated to project development since its launch in April 2000 by partners Herbert Gehr, Michael Helfrich and Ali Eckert.This year should see a May start on production at locations in Berlin, ...
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Berlin reveals competition, world premiere titles
The first round of competition titles to be announced for the 2002 Berlin International Film Festival (6 - 17 February) includes six world premieres and a strong European slant.The world premieres lined up for the official competition section include:Heaven by Tom Twyker (opening film)Amen by Constantin Costa-GavrasDer Felsen (A Map ...
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Germany's Senator welcomes Fabritius
After months of speculation as to his next destination, former Arthaus Filmverleih managing director Juergen Fabritius has been appointed as one of the managing directors at Senator Film Verleih with responsibility for marketing and distribution for releases in the German language area.According to a German press report, Bernd Tietze will ...
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Bertelsmann increases RTL Group shareholding
Germany's Bertelsmann is to increase its current 67% majority shareholding in the radio and television holding RTL Group by acquiring the 22% stake held by the Pearson Group. The remaining11% is held by the public as free-float.As part of the purchase agreement, Pearson will be paid Euros 1.5bn for its ...