All articles by Melanie Rodier – Page 10
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Berlusconi plans RAI privatisation
SilvioBerlusconi's government has announced that Italian state broadcaster RAI willbe partly privatised before the end of the year."RAI'sprivatisation is something positive. It will help propel forward therestructuring of the company, which is already underway," said ItalianTreasury minister Domenico Siniscalco. He added: "It is also a guaranteeagainst political interference." Siniscalcorecommended that ...
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Venice set to honour Miyazaki and streamline festival
Hayao Miyazaki will receive a career Golden Lion at thenext Venice Film Festival, which will take place from August 31-September 10.Itis the first time the award will be handed out to an animation filmmaker."HayaoMiyazaki is the giant who knocked down the walls which enclosed Japaneseanimation," said Venice artistic director Marco ...
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ITALY 9 February
BVI's Finding Neverlandwas the clear winner at the weekend, as it shot straight to the top of theItalian box office and rallied $2,120,139 from 269 screens for an impressiveaverage of $7,875 per screen.The Johnny Depp vehiclepushed The Aviator down into second place, with the Martin Scorsesepicture shedding a huge 44% ...
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Italy unveils Festa del Cinema cut-price tickets
The Italian film industry isto introduce its first ever three-day Festa del Cinema in April, when it willoffer cut-price tickets and is expected to heavily promote summer releases.The Festa del Cinema will take place between April 25 - anational holiday - and April 28. Spectators who buy one full price ...
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TFI International takes on sales for Cattleya trio
TF1International has taken on international distribution rights to Italiandirector Cristina Comencini's La Bestia Nel Cuore, a new production fromRome outfit Cattleya.Backed by RaiCinema, La Bestia Nel Cuore is a family drama adapted from Comencini's ownnovel about a woman who was abused by her father as a child. The film iscurrently ...
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Amelio unlocks top Italian film prize with Keys
Gianni Amelio scooped Italy'sprestigious Nastro D'Argento prize as best director for The House Keys, during a ceremony held on Friday night in Rome'sAuditorium.Adapted from author GiuseppePontiggia's autobiographical novel, Born Twice, about a father's relationship with his severelydisabled teenage son, The House Keyscaused a furor among local critics when it walked ...
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Cecchi Gori may form new partnership with Medusa
According to local reports,Cecchi Gori could soon enter into a new partnership with Medusa, Italy'sleading film producer and distributor.The Cecchi Gori Group willhold a board meeting on February 4, Italian financial daily Il Sole 24 Orereported. Its agenda is expected to include discussing a partnership proposalwhich was put forward by ...
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ITALY 1 February
The Aviator soared to the top of the Italian box office on itsopening weekend, on the back of its freshly announced 11 Oscar nominations.The Leonardo Di Capriovehicle earned $2,759,240 for 01 Distribution from 438 screens, registering astrong average of $6,300 per screen.At the same time, WarnerBros's Alexander, currently playing on ...
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Wertmuller lines up Loren for tsunami feature
Veteran Italian film director Lina Wertmuller is lining up afilm about the South-East Asia tsunami, which is set to star Sophia Loren.In an interview with Italian daily Il Corriere della Sera, Wertmuller said she plans to shoot the film in thebeach resorts that have been destroyed by the tsunami. The ...
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Italy pledges Euros 74m for local film-making
Silvio Berlusconi'sgovernment has announced that it will hand out around Euros 74m to the localproduction sector in 2005. Local producers now hope that the government promisewill finally put an end to a crippling two-year freeze in state subsidies.Around Euros 54m will beawarded to support feature-length films that are deemed of ...
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Giffoni chief named general director of Italy's AIP
Giffoni Film Festival chief Claudio Gubitosi has been namedgeneral director of AIP, the Italian film organisation which overseespromotional body Filmitalia as well as the Mifed film market.Envisaged as an outfit similar in scope to Frenchpromotional body Unifrance, AIP was created in 2003 by Cinecitta Holding andFiera di Milano.As well as ...
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ITALY 26 January
Although six new titles werereleased in Italy last weekend, the country's top three releases remainedunchanged for the second week running.Warner Bros's Alexanderheld firmly onto its number one position, with a strong screen average of$6,100 and an impressive running gross of $7,663,628. UIP's Bridget Jones:The Edge Of Reason grossed an extra ...
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Italy's Nastri d'Argento nominations announced
Gianni Amelio's The HouseKeys and Paolo Sorrentino's The Consequences Of Love have receivedthe lion's share of nominations for Italy's Nastri d'Argento, the country'ssecond biggest awards.Amelio's film, which isItaly's foreign Oscar candidate, and Sorrentino's film, which premiered inCannes last year, each earned eight nominations - including for best director,best producer and ...
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De Laurentiis, Cinecitta acquire Moroccan studio
Legendary Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis and Rome's CinecittaStudios are teaming up as joint owners of a sprawling new studio facility inOuarzazate, in southern Morocco.Standing over 371 acres of land, the studio will be one of theworld's largest, with two shooting stages of 19,380 square feet each. The DinoDe Laurentiis-Cinecitta ...
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Cecchi Gori wins Euros 160m lawsuit against Merrill Lynch
One-time Italian movie mogul Vittorio Cecchi Gori has won a legal battle against Merrill Lynch, which now must return Euros 160m it had seized from the producer's coffers to cover alleged debts.Merrill Lynch had seized the money from Cecchi Gori's holding company, Fin.Ma.Vi, to pay back creditors, in a case ...
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ITALY 18 January
Warner Bros's Alexanderstormed into to the Italian box office at number one, taking $3,708,917. TheColin Farrell vehicle was released on 446screens and took a strongaverage of $8,316 per screen. Bridget Jones: The EdgeOf Reason continued its strong run,earning a further $4,851,395 on its second weekend, which brings the romanticcomedy's running ...
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Ferrara sued for alleged breach of contract on Tales
Abel Ferrara, the cultdirector of Bad Lieutenant, has been served with an Euros 6m lawsuit forallegedly breaching his contract with Istituto Luce, the Italian state-ownedproduction and distribution outfit, and independent local producer Gam Film.Ferrara was allegedly due tostart shooting a Euros 4m screwball comedy entitled Go Go Tales,"between December 13, ...
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ITALY 11 January
Bridget Jones: The Edgeof Reason shot to the top of theItalian box office last weekend, with a huge gross of $4,291,627. The UIPromantic comedy opened on 399 screens and earned an outstanding average of$10,756 per screen.01 Distribution's horrorflick, The Grudge, also opened strongly, landing in second place with atotal gross ...
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Italy pins hopes on local directors for 2005
While the run-up to Christmas has once again been boosted by the releaseof blockbuster Italian comedies, only a handful of homegrown films have managedto gross more than Euros 1m - which is considered the benchmark for a strongrun at the box office - since September. Nevertheless, the local industry isconfident ...
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Italian producers take legal action against cultural ministry.
Some members of the Italianfilm industry have taken legal action against the Italian government afterwaiting for over a year for public funds that had been awarded to theirprojects.Producers of 20 emergingwriters and directors who won a public competition at the end of 2003, have nowtaken legal action to freeze the ...