All News articles – Page 3729
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India's NDTV Lumiere launches world cinema channel
After announcing its intention to launch a 24-hour world cinema channel earlier this year, NDTV Lumiere has given the channel a soft launch on October 10 and is gearing up for the official launch in late November or early December 2008. Established as a joint venture between broadcaster NDTV, Sunil ...
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Viacom's CEO Philippe Dauman urges content growth as MIPCOM opens
Despite the worldwide economic freefall, the annual MIPCOM TV market got underway on Monday expecting record attendance.Viacom president and CEO, Philippe Dauman, opened the event with a keynote speech on Monday evening during which he noted, 'We are the creators of escape; this may be the best time to be ...
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The Blue Tower takes top UK prize at Raindance
Writer-director Smita Bhide's feature debut The Blue Tower has been named top UK feature at indie festival Raindance. The Southall-set film stars Abhin Galeya, Alice O'Connell, Indira Joshi in an intriguing cross-cultural thriller.Marcos Jorge's Estomago Rio award-winning melange of food, sex and power took the top international prize.The prizes were ...
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Regent takes US rights from Fortissimo to The Song Of Sparrows
Regent Releasing has acquired US rights from Fortissimo Films to Iranian foreign-language Oscar submission The Song Of Sparrows from Majid Majidi.Regent plans a limited release in spring 2009 on the contemporary drama, which premiered at Berlinale last winter and tells of a poor man whose personality changes when he acquires ...
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Colin Stanfield takes over as executive director of Nantucket festival
Independent producer and festival veteran Colin Stanfield is taking the reins at the Nantucket Film Festival after founder and current executive director Jill Burkhart announced she was relinquishing oversight of day-to-day operations to chair the festival's board of directors.Stanfield will commence work immediately in advance of the 14th edition that ...
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Penelope Cruz to receive Santa Barbara's top award in Jan 2009
Penelope Cruz will receive the 24th Santa Barbara International Film Festival's (SBIFF) Outstanding Performer Of The Year Award on January 31, 2009.Cruz is currently filming Nine for the Weinsteins and starred this year in Woody Allen's comedy Vicky Cristina Barcelona and the Philip Roth adaptation Elegy.She was nominated for an ...
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Guillaume Depardieu dies tragically at 37 from pneumonia
Guillaume Depardieu, the actor son of Gerard Depardieu, died on Monday [October 13] in a French hospital from pneumonia. He was 37.Depardieu died at the Raymond-Poincare hospital west of Paris after he was flown back from Romania, where he contracted a pulmonary illness during filming.Despite winning the Cesar for the ...
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WBITV strikes licensing deal with On Demand Deutschland
Warner Bros International Television Distribution (WBITV) continued its expansion into subscription VOD today [October 13] with a licensing deal for On Demand Deutschland (ODD) to carry between Warner TV in Germany, Austria and German-speaking Switzerland.ODD, a joint venture between On Demand Group (ODG) and Tele Munchen Gruppe (TMG), will carry ...
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Screen Media Films takes domestic rights to Lymelife
Screen Media Films has picked up US rights to Derick Martini's drama Lymelife following its world premiere at Toronto last month, where it won the FIPRESCI Discovery AwardLymelife takes place in the 1970s in a Long Island community afflicted by an outbreak of Lime Disease. The ensemble cast features Alec ...
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MIPCOM focus: Is TV tuning back into film'
The relationship between Europe's film distributors and their local TV broadcasters is peculiarly vexed and complicated. It mingles dependency and resentment. Tensions were exacerbated around a decade ago, as the market for TV pre-sales for film contracted in an alarming fashion. The collapse of the Kirch media group in Germany, ...
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DreamWorks and Universal sign distribution deal
Universal and DreamWorks have signed a seven-year worldwide distribution deal in a much anticipated move that is understood to cover up to six films a year commencing sometime in 2009.Speculation had been rife in recent weeks as to which studio would distribute the DreamWorks slate following the recent departure from ...
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Russian cinema struggles to overcome arthouse stereotype
The international development of new Russian cinema is struggling to overcome the shadow of the great tradition of Soviet arthouse, according to leading Russian critic and FIPRESCI president Andrei Plakhov.Speaking at an Academia-Rossica roundtable at BAFTA in London, Plakhov warned there was a tendency to stereotype Russian film-making based on ...
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In Focus: Andrei Kravchuk's Admiral
Russia 's Channel One/Solyaris production and 20th Fox CIS distributor topped the Russian box office with Admiral following its world premiere last Monday.Having taken $11.3m in Russia alone, Andrei Kravchuk's biopic is now the biggest Russian opener of all time, beating the $9.6m first weekend record set by The Irony ...
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Thessaloniki selects 15 projects for festival's co-production forum
Fifteen projects from 11 countries have been chosen for the 3rd Crossroads Co-Production Forum at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival (TIFF) from Nov 14-23.Crossroads caters to projects from countries in the Balkan and Eastern Mediterranean regions, introducing them to a network of financiers, producers and leading industry specialists from across ...
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Oliver Stone's W to open 26th Turin Film Festival
Oliver Stone's George W. Bush inspired drama W will open the 26th edition of the Turin Film Festival.Turin's organisers also announced today that the film-maker would attend the festival to present the film in its Italian premiere.W is Stone's third examination of an American Presidency after JFK and Nixon.The film ...
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Icon buys UK rights to Fraser's Dean Spanley
Icon Films has signed for the highly imaginative and whimsical period film after seeing it last month at the world premiere in Toronto. Kathleen Drumm, head of sales agent New Zealand Film, says an offer for US rights is on the table but won't elaborate.Drumm negotiated the deal with head ...
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Evans, Jurjens launch sales outfit Tavix Pictures at AFM
Producer Casey Evans and director Brad Jurjens have announced they will launch the distribution company Tavix Pictures at AFM, which runs from November 5-12 in Santa Monica.The inaugural slate includes Jurjens' action thriller Hired Gun starring Michael Madsen, John W Kim's Hitchcockian thriller Blur and Michael O'Brien's baby boomer documentary ...
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Chihuahua bites $17.5m for number one spot at domestic box office
Historically American audiences have been happy to anoint talking animals as their champions and so it was little surprise that Buena Vista's Beverly Hills Chihuahua was the top dog in its second week of release.The family film added an estimated $17.5m to raise the running total to $52.5m and had ...
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Russia's Admiral has huge local bow for Fox International
A local Russian hit and a Hollywood paranoia thriller knocked Mamma Mia off its perch after a grand five-week reign as international champion.The Russian market has yielded mighty returns this year for local titles in particular and the trend continued as Fox International opened Channel 1/Solyaris' Admiral (Kolchak) in Russia ...
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Theresa Peters leaves WMA to become partner at UTA
United Talent Agency (UTA) has scored a coup and lured Theresa Peters following a 14-year stint at the William Morris Agency.Peters becomes the 18th partner and an agent in the UTA talent department and brings a client list that includes James McAvoy, Kirsten Dunst, Mads Mikkelsen, Mandy Moore and Hugh ...