All News articles – Page 4499

  • News

    Stevens, Kushner launch production, sales venture

    2005-04-21T04:00:00Z

    Andrew Stevensand Donald Kushner have joined forces to launch the production and distributioncompany Focal Point Releasing and have lined up a debut slate for Cannes.The partnershave wasted little time in getting the operation off the ground, naming BarbaraMudge head of their international sales division, effective immediately.Titles inpre-production include Gray, a ...

  • News

    Breaking News: Cannes Critics' Week line-up unveiled

    2005-04-21T00:00:00Z

    Competition:The Great Ecstasy Of RobertCarmichael, dir Thomas Clay (UK)L'Orrizzonte Degli Eventi, dir Daniele Vicari (Italy)La Petite Jerusalem, dir Karin Albou (Fr)Me And You And Everyone, dir Miranda July (US)A Stranger Of Mine, dir Uchida Kenji (Japan)Grain In Ear, dir Zhang Lu (China/Korea)Orlando Vargas, dir Juan Pittaluga (Uruguay/France)Opening Film: Les Invisibles, ...

  • News

    Cannes Critics' Week unveils line-up

    2005-04-21T00:00:00Z

    International Critics' Weekartistic director Jean-Christophe Berjon has announced the selection for theupcoming 44th edition of the sidebar which runs during the CannesFilm Festival next month.Berjon, backed by members ofthe French Film Critics' Union, unveiled sevenfeatures which will vie for the top prize, worth Euros 5,000. The films selected are either ...

  • News

    THINKFilm takes North America on Fateless

    2005-04-20T04:00:00Z

    THINKFilm has picked up allNorth American rights to Lajos Koltai's Holocaust drama Fateless, which premiered in competition at Berlin and becomeHungary's biggest ever box office hit in its native country earlier this year,drawing more than 400,000 admissions.Based on Nobel Prize winnerImre Kertesz's screenplay from his own novel, Fateless chronicles the ...

  • News

    New US laws make illegal camcording a felony

    2005-04-20T04:00:00Z

    Members of theHouse of Representatives passed s.167 of the Family Entertainment and CopyrightAct of 2005, which among other provisions makes camcording a federal offenceand upgrades it from misdemeanour to the more serious criminal grade of felony.Multiple offenders face up to six years and/or a fine.Special immunityclauses mean that theatre owners ...

  • News

    Scott Rudin heads to Disney to feed all three studio labels

    2005-04-20T00:00:00Z

    New York-basedpower producer Scott Rudin is close to signing a five-year, first look dealwith Walt Disney Studios that would see him make features for the Buena Vista,Touchstone and Miramax labels.Whilecontractual terms and start date remain unclear - Rudin's deal with Paramountexpires in 18 months and he owes that studio two ...

  • News

    Crash, Mad Hot Ballroom bookend Newport Beach

    2005-04-20T00:00:00Z

    The US premiere of PaulHaggis' drama Crash and the WestCoast premiere of Marilyn Agrelo's documentary Mad Hot Ballroom bookend the sixth annual Newport Beach FilmFestival, which runs from Apr 21-30.Other line-up highlights include West Coast premieres for Matthew Vaughn'scrime thriller Layer Cake and Arild Ostin Ommundsen's Norwegian romance MonsterThursday, as ...

  • News

    World media reaches swift Cannes consensus

    2005-04-20T00:00:00Z

    Media outlets around theworld were quick to reach a near unanimous view about this year's Cannes FilmFestival line-up.Almost without exception,the press took note of this year's return to big name directors such as Larsvon Trier, Wim Wenders and Jim Jarmusch.Many compared this year'sauteur heavy line-up with last year's more controversial ...

  • News

    Vin Diesel's Pacifier takes pole position on int'l chart

    2005-04-20T00:00:00Z

    Continuingto follow in the career footsteps of Arnold Schwarzenegger, action star VinDiesel has made the successful transition to comedy with BVI's The Pacifiertaking the number one spot on the international chart.The film opened top in Germany, Austria, Switzerland,Hong Kong and Malaysia this week, held the lead in Australia in its ...

  • News

    Revelation delayed as lead actor breaks ankle

    2005-04-19T04:00:00Z

    The shooting schedule of Ana Kokkinos' TheBook of Revelation has had to be rapidly re-arranged after lead actor TomLong broke his ankle on Friday (April 15) while filming in Melbourne. The filmwas one week away from wrapping.The injury occurred when Long landed awkwardly during anaction scene in a nightclub setting. ...

  • News

    Bim takes Italian rights to Cannes contenders

    2005-04-19T04:00:00Z

    Italy's BimDistribuzione has acquired Italian distribution rights to Gus Van Sant's Last Days, which is tipped to play incompetition at next month's Cannes Film Festival.The picture, which is sold by HBO London, drawsinspiration from the last days in the life of Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain. Bim will releasethe film, ...

  • News

    Schamus named to board of Nantucket Film Festival

    2005-04-19T04:00:00Z

    Focus Features co-presidentJames Schamus has joined the Nantucket Film Festival board ahead of thefestival's 10th annual incarnation, which runs from Jun 15-19.Festival organisers alsoannounced they have teamed up with Kevin Spacey's online film-makers'collective TriggerStreet.com for a year-long screenplay competition that willculminate in a reading of the winning screenplay.Schamus earned best ...

  • News

    Khoo's Be With Me to open Directors' Fortnight

    2005-04-19T04:00:00Z

    Be With Me, directed by Singapore's Eric Khoo (12 Storeys),has been selected as the opening film for directors' fortnight at Cannes. The film weaves together threeinter-connected stories and is inspired by the life of Singapore's Theresa Chan- a blind and deaf woman.'It's almost a silent filmwith only five minutes of ...

  • News

    Cannes prepares to unveil competition choices

    2005-04-19T01:00:00Z

    The Cannes Film Festivalunveils the official line-up for its 58th edition in Paris today ata 9.30am (GMT) press conference.For the first time in many yearsthere are few certain front-runners for a berth. Paris based distributors andsales agencies - usually a strong bellwether for the films that will make thecompetition - ...

  • News

    Danes chew over Jensen's Apples

    2005-04-19T00:00:00Z

    AndersThomas Jensen's black comedy Adam's Apples scored a record opening inDenmark over the weekend.Theprolific Danish writer and director's film was released on 69 copies around thecountry and sold 58,214 tickets. It's a record opening for 2005 and the bestopening for a local movie in two years, according to Nordisk Film. ...

  • News

    Artistic director Fremaux explains Cannes selection

    2005-04-19T00:00:00Z

    Interview with Cannes artistic director Thierry Fremaux -abstracted from today's Cannes festival press statement.- As a first impression, could we say that the greatfilmmakers are back in strength''In Competition, yes, since there will be many experienced filmmakers at Cannes.If, last year, we seemed to concentrate more on new discoveries, thereturn ...

  • News

    Saint Ralph wins film nod at Canadian Screenwriting Awards

    2005-04-19T00:00:00Z

    Writer-director MichaelMcGowan's Saint Ralph won thefeature film prize at the ninth annual Canadian Screenwriting Awards. The award was presented Monday night in Toronto. Thebittersweet coming-of-age story recently won the Grand Arc Award at the FestivalParis Ile-de-France. One of the fewEnglish-Canadian films to land distribution abroad last year Samuel Goldwynpicked it ...

  • News

    Breaking News: Cannes competition line-up unveiled

    2005-04-19T00:00:00Z

    The Cannes Film Festival(May 11-22) unveiled its line-up this morning, with a string of establishedarthouse directors such as Wim Wenders, Jim Jarmusch, Gus Van Sant, DavidCronenberg and Lars von Trier set to compete for the Palme d'Or.Geographically, the competition selection is fairly widespread. Three films from France play in main ...

  • News

    Canada's Equinoxe scores Laroche, Poulin

    2005-04-19T00:00:00Z

    Montreal-based productionand distribution company Equinoxe Films has lured two local industry veterans to its executivesuite. Michele Laroche, who headed marketing and communications at Christal Films,has joined the company as director of theatrical distribution whileMarie-Claude Poulin, for three years a vice-president at TVA Films, will assistEquinoxe chief Michael Mosca in the ...

  • News

    Cannes Un Certain Regard line-up

    2005-04-19T00:00:00Z

    Sangre, dir:Amat Escalante (Mexico)Cinema, Aspirinas E Urubus, dir: Marcelo Gomes(Brazil)Schlafer, dir Benjamin Heisenberg (Austria)Falscher Bekenner, dir: Christoph Hochhausler (Germany)Down In The Valley, dir: David Jacobson (US)Tawa Dura Yanna, dir: Vimukthi Jayasundara (Sri Lanka)Voksne Mennesker, dir: Dagur Kari (Denmark)Yek Shab, dir: Niki Karimi (Iran)Hwal, dir: Kim Ki-duk (South Korea)Jewboy, dir: Tony ...