All articles by Martin Blaney – Page 217
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Germany's Feardotcom acquired by Warner
Warner Bros. has picked up North American rights for William Malone's horror action thriller feardotcom, starring Stephen Dorff, Natasha McElhone, Stephen Rea and Udo Kier.The German-UK-Luxembourg co-production, produced by ApolloMedia's Frank Huebner, Quality International's Jan Fantl and Moshe Diamant, will be released by Warner Bros in the US on March ...
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Ottfilm snags Mostly Martha on the rebound
Sandra Nettelbeck's Mostly Martha has been picked up by Ottfilm for theatrical distribution in its native Germany. The film was originally included in Kinowelt's lineup for release this month.Kinowelt's mounting financial problems, however, persuaded producer Karl Baumgartner of Pandora Film to take back the film back to offer to other ...
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Haffa to stand down completely at Constantin
Former EM.TV & Merchandising chairman Thomas Haffa will leave the supervisory board of producer-distributor Constantin Film at the end of this year. Last April, Haffa stepped down as chairman of the board, a position then taken over by KirchMedia's Fred Kogel.As he no longer represents EM.TV it is not appropriate ...
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Melanie Griffith to star in Almost Japanese
Melanie Griffith has been cast to play the lead in Robert Allan Ackermann's provocative comedy Almost Japanese which is set to be backed by the Potsdam-based producer fund Vif International Films.Shooting on the love story between a lonely and inept American teenager and a Japanese conductor (to be played by ...
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Powell re-elected chairman of Euro Film Academy
UK producer Nik Powell has been re-elected by the general assembly of the European Film Academy (EFA) as the institution's chairman for another two years, with Berlinale director Dieter Kosslick and French producer Humbert Balsan also confirmed in their posts as deputy chairmen.The 15-person EFA board also welcomed three new ...
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Scorsese-backed one shot feature to film on Dec 23
December 23 has been set as the date for Alexander Sokurov's one-shot, 90-minute film Waterloo - The Russian Ark which will be filmed at original locations in the State Hermitage Museum of St. Petersburg, tracing.key events in the former Tsarist Empire from Catherine the Great to Nicolas II.German steady-cam ...
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New ACE fund to launch with 18-picture slate
New films by John Woo, Nick Hurran, John Milius and Jeremy Leven are among an 18-picture slate being lined up to receive backing from a new $250m German private investment fund which is to be launched in January 2002.The production fund ACE - Alliance Cinema Entertainment has been established by ...
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Zeal shows enthusiasm for Euro co-productions
The US production outfit Zeal Pictures Group, which was behind the 1998 feature Simpatico with Sharon Stone, Nick Nolte, Albert Finney, and Jeff Bridges, has launched a European production company, Zeal Pictures Europe GmbH & Co. KG, based in Berlin.The German outpost plans to develop international and European co-productions, as ...
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Berlin unveils Premiere First Movie Award
A new prize for first-time feature filmmakers is to be introduced at the forthcoming Berlin International Film Festival (February 6-17, 2002) in collaboration with the Premiere World digital pay TV platform.The "Premiere First Movie Award", which will given to the best debut film by a jury of five well-known international ...
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German film industry summit set for Dec 7
The film policy document presented last month by Germany's State Minister for Culture Julian Nida-Ruemelin on proposals for reforms to the film funding infrastructure will be at the centre of the fourth German "Alliance for Film" summit on Dec 7.The Alliance, at the Bavaria Film Studios in Munich, will be ...
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F.A.M.E. shuts Soundhouse post subsidiary
German media concern F.A.M.E. Film & Music Entertainment has closed its postproduction subsidiary F.A.M.E. Soundhouse, which has filed for insolvency. The parent company will also now cut back on its operations as a rights trader and expand activities in international co-production.In its report for the first nine months of 2001, ...
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Germany's VIP launches second media fund
Munich-based private media fund Film & Entertainment VIP Medienfonds is preparing to place its second fund with a volume of between Euros 10m and a maximum Euros 100m.Private individuals will be invited between December 15, 2001 and October 31, 2002 to invest a minimum of Euros 25,000 each into the ...
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Germany's Senator issues surprise profit warning
German market analysts have been caught unawares by Senator Entertainment's profit warning for the financial year 2001 - reducing its targetted revenues from Euros 197.1m to Euros 125m-130m and its EBIT from Euros 40m to Euros 2m-5m.As Markus Wallner and Marc Roehder of HSBC Trinkaus & Burkhardt observed, "the profit ...
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Bank files insolvency suit against Kinowelt
The embattled German media group Kinowelt Medien reported that the restructuring measures aimed at streamlining operations had an "adverse effect" on its results for the first nine months of 2001.In an official communique, the company reported that the termination of the Warner Bros film package deal this week had ...
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EM.TV re-enters programme production
Following its radical programme of restructuring under the new CEO Werner Klatten, EM.TV & Merchandising is now planning to re-enter the arena of production in the field children's and family programming.In future, the Munich-based company intends to be involved annually in up to six animated or live-action series geared to ...
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Amelie walks off with European film academy crown
As widely anticipated, Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amelie was the big winner at the 14th European Film Awards in Berlin's new Tempodrom venue on Dec 1, taking home four separate prizes, comprising: best European film, best director, cinematographer as well as the people's choice award for best director.Indeed, it was very much ...
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Loss of Warner films final straw for Kinowelt'
Less than 24 hours before Kinowelt's deadline (on November 28) to persuade ABN Amro Bank to retract its plan to call in loans totalling around $63.2m (DM 140m), what may be the final nail has been hammered into the beleaguered German company's coffin with the news that the 1999 ...
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EM.TV CFO exits after only three months
After just three months in the job as EM.TV & Merchandising's CFO Marius Schwarz (pictured) is exiting the company at the behest of CEO Werner Klatten and with the consent of the supervisory board.As of November 27, the executive board will consist of only two members - Klatten, who will ...
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Paramount taps latest German fund
Having already accessed German private film funds initiated this year by Alcas and Bayerische Immobilien-Leasing (BIL)/Deutsche Bank, Paramount Pictures is set to benefit from a new German private equity fund launched by SachsenFonds and EastMerchant.The Euros 52.7m MMP Investitions GmbH & Co. 2001 KG will be inviting private individuals to ...
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Mediability is first German film fund to collapse
Launched just five months ago, Mediability has become the first casualty among the recent wave of German private media funds; unable to raise sufficient cash from investors for its three proposed animation series: Frog, Thorgal,and Baron Muenchhausen, the Munich-based equity fund has now filed for insolvency.Ellipse Deutschland, the German arm ...