All News articles – Page 5037
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One For The Road starts to roll
One For The Road, the UK's Film Council and FilmFour Lab-backed feature debut of writer-director Chris Cooke, has started production on location in Nottingham. A black comedy set on a rehabilitation course for drink drivers, the DV-shot film received£240,000 from the Film Council's New Cinema Fund, and is also backed ...
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The Pianist strikes a chord at the box office
Last weekend saw both a host of new European openings and a return to the top in Poland for this year's Cannes' Palme D'Or winner The Pianist. The Roman Polanski film launched in France and Belgium on Sept 25 and Switzerland on Sept 26 to strong scores.In France the film ...
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Achterbahn files for insolvency
Achterbahn AG, producer of the hugely successful animated Werner features, has become the latest in a long line of publicly listed German media companies to file for insolvency.In a statement the executive board said that it believed that there were possibilities to continue business activities after the insolvency proceedings.Founded in ...
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Germany's F.A.M.E. to be axed after shareholder vote
Film & Music Entertainment (F.A.M.E. AG) is to be dissolved after shareholders accepted management proposals to close the company.F.A.M.E.'s executive board argued that negative market conditions and the remote prospects of recovery in the media sector made liquidation necessary. The board said there was "no possibility to profitably continue ...
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Cinema Service boosts investment in Korean film industry
South Korean major Cinema Service is to boost its investment in local film production amidst what appears to be an exodus of venture capital from the industry. With industry sources predicting leaner times ahead for production companies, the increased spending by Cinema Service is expected to give it even ...
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Indie veterans Manne, Tait create Duopoly
Two veterans of the New Yorkindependent scene - Liz Manne andCatherine Tait - have teamed up to form Duopoly, a production andstrategy company which will executive produce "entertainment properties"as well as providing strategic services to production companies.Manne was most recentlyexecutive vice president, programming & marketing, for The Sundance Channelwhere she ...
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Latin American sizzle heats up foreign markets
In the fickle world of acquisitions, Latin America has a fair claim to being this week's hot new cinema. Boosted by Miramax's expected Oscar push for Brazilian sensation City Of God and a strong reception for Mexican Cannes title Japon, Wild Bunch director of acquisitions, Alain De La Mata was ...
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Prague slashes location shooting fees
Prague city council this week slashed location shooting fees in the Czech capital by 75%.The reduction effectively reverses a controversial location fee increase introduced in June, when shooting costs in the city's historic centre were raised fivefold from $0.32 to $1.62 per square metre - working out as an increase ...
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Caine gets AFI FEST tribute, Quiet American gets US premiere
AFI FEST 2002, the AmericanFilm Institute's Los Angeles film festival, will honour Michael Cainewith a special tribute at this year's event which takes place Nov 7 to 17this year. The tribute includes an on-stage interview with the double Oscar-winningactor (Nov 16) as well as a short retrospective of his films ...
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Norwegian sales agent backs two southern hemisphere projects
Norwegian sales agent BV International Pictures has penetrated yet another corner of the globe by signing for a film in Australia and another in New Zealand. The UK/New Zealand co-production Castle Of Lies starring James Caan and the Australian road movie/comedy Thunderstruck are both grounded in reality but there the ...
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Murdoch finally agrees Telepiu takeover terms
Rupert Murdoch's News Corp has agreed to buy the financially crippled Italian pay-TV operation Telepiu from Vivendi Universal through a cash-and-debt agreement worth Euros893 million.News Corp said it would pay Euros470 million in cash for Telepiu and will assume Euros423 million worth of the outfit's debt.The deal, which is expected ...
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Rialto and Arclight team for Roger Dodger
Rialto Entertainment, the only New Zealand company that distributes films in Australia, and Australia's newest sales agent, Arclight Films, have co-acquired what they describe as one of the few buzz films from the Venice and Toronto Film Festivals, namely the New York comedy Roger Dodger.The story of a schoolboy's attempt ...
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London's Imperial War Museum wins IDA preservation award
The Imperial War Museum(IWM) in London will receive the 2002 International Documentary Association(IDA) Preservation and Scholarship Award at the 18th annual IDADistinguished Documentary Achievement Awards on Dec 13 in Los Angeles. Themuseum's keeper of the film and video archives Roger Smither will acceptthe award.Founded in 1917, the IWM wasmandated by ...
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THINKFilm is Spellbound by spelling bee doc
One year-old domesticdistributor THINKFilm has acquired North American rights to the documentary Spellbound which recently played in the Toronto InternationalFilm Festival. The film, directed by Jeff Blitz and produced by Sean Welch,follows the real-life experience of the National Spelling Bee as seen throughthe eyes of eight, driven young spellers competing ...
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Benigni to record English-language version of Pinocchio
Roberto Benigni will use his own voice to dub the English soundtrack for the international version of his new film, Pinocchio, which is released this Friday in Italy and on Christmas day in the US.The comic's wife, Nicoletta Braschi, who plays the fairy godmother in Benigni's adaptation of the Carlo ...
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Sundance to champion European cinema
The Sundance Film Festival is set to become a platform for European filmmakers, according to festival director Geoffrey Gilmore, speaking at the Holland Film Meeting in Utrecht.While admitting that he only had "a modest goal" and was not intending to create "a European-focused festival per se", Gilmore declared that he ...
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China's film industry reforms stalled in run-up to Party Congress
With all policy decisions and initiatives on hold until after the Communist Party's 16th National Congress next month, it looks as if China's long-awaited second distributor won't be launched until the beginning of next year at the earliest.The new entity, which is set to break China Film Corp's monopoly in ...
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Paramount shifts The Core from Nov to March
Paramount Pictures has movedthe US release date of its sci-fi action thriller The Core from Nov 1 this year to March 2003, taking it out ofthe end-of-year holiday season which would have seen it up against I Spy, The Santa Clause 2 and 8 Mile as well as Harry Potter ...
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Two from Takashi Miike get US exposure through Vitagraph
Vitagraph Films, a USmicro-distributor affiliated with the LA-based American Cinematheque, hasacquired US rights to prolific Japanese bad-boy film-maker TakashiMiike's splatter musical The Happiness Of The Katakuris (2001) as well as his hyper-kinetic action picture TheCity Of Lost Souls (2000).Under president DavidShultz, Vitagraph has been buying movies for the last two ...