All News articles – Page 5040
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Magdalene Sisters to open Cork festival
In a year when Dublin, the country's capital, appears to have lost its film festival, the Cork Film Festival is consolidating its position with its 47th annual appearance from October 6 to 13.A total of 1,300 Irish and International shorts films were submitted to Cork's competitive shorts competition this year. ...
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Alain Chabat launches US company, signs with Endeavor
French actor, writer,producer and director Alain Chabat has signed with Los Angeles talent agencyEndeavor for all areas of representation in the US. Chabat, along with partnersAlex Berger of Content Participations and Amandine Billot who works with Chabatin his French company Chez Wam, has recently launched a US company Wamericaheaded by ...
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First Look takes North America to Czech favourite Autumn Spring
First Look Pictures hasacquired North American rights to Vladimir Michalek's Czech drama AutumnSpring, which recently screened atthe 2002 Toronto and Montreal film festivals. The deal was negotiated betweenMJ Peckos, president of First Look, with Neil Friedman of MenemshaEntertainment with a price tag in the mid-six figure range.First Look plans to ...
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Bodrov Jr and film crew still missing after Russian avalanche
Sergei Bodrov Junior (pictured) and 49 members of his film crew are still missing, one week after a major avalanche hit a valley in Southern Russia where he was directing his latest film.Rescue workers are continuing to search for survivors from the avalanche which may have claimed as many as ...
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Beyond, MBP relationship sours
The partnership between German investor MBP (Medienbeteiligungs-und-Produktions Gesellschaft MBH & Co KG of Munich) and Australia's Beyond International, parent company of sales agent Beyond Films, seems to have soured. Beyond has asked the Supreme Court of New South Wales to make a judgement on whether MBP Medien AG is obliged ...
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French loyalty cards plateau at 6% market share
The market for France's various cinema loyalty card schemes has reached a plateau just two and a half years after their introduction.Loyalty passes have seen little growth in the French exhibition market last year, accounting for 11 million admissions (5.9%) out of a total 186 million tickets sold, according to ...
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Russia's Three T announces plans for new national cinema chain
Russian film director Nikita Mikhalkov has announced plans for a new $40m chain of cinemas backed by Russian metals and banking mogul Vladimir Potanin. Potanin, one of Russia's richest men, heads the financial conglomerate Interros group, and already has interests in cinema via his company Profmedia. The new national chain ...
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Norwegian film fund banks on Elling prequel
The Norwegian Film Fund is to back Maipo Film's follow-up to last year's local box office phenomenon Elling. The new film, Mother's Elling is a prequel, dealing with the title character's adventures at a Spanish holiday resort with his elderly mother. As with the first film, the script is by ...
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Vivendi Universal outlines debt reduction strategy
Vivendi Universal aims to reduce its debt by at least Euros12bn within 18 months through a drastic asset disposal plan which includes Canal Plus group's activities outside of France as well the sale of several non-core businesses. "The Board has noted with satisfaction the decisive progress made during the past ...
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Sun shines at San Sebastian
Monday night's applause-filled screening of Spanish director Fernando Leon de Aranoa's competition entry Mondays In The Sun (Los Lunes Al Sol) marked the halfway point of Spain's San Sebastian International Film Festival, which runs September 19 to 28.But in some ways the screening represented a climax for the festival, even ...
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Vivendi's Telepiu sale delayed again
Vivendi Universal was forced into retreat again today when chairman and chief executive Jean-Rene Fourtou had to admit that the sale of Italian pay-TV operation Telepiu to News Corp had been delayed.Only yesterday, as part of a major strategy announcement, Fourtou had proclaimed the sale for Euros1bn, a price already ...
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Asterix on a Mission at international box office
Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra continued its triumphant international run this week, opening in Italy for a three-day gross of $1.18m (Eu1.2m). Playing on 280 screens the film, which features Italian-born actress Monica Bellucci as Cleopatra, scored a good average of $4,221 for distributor BVI. However the film did have ...
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Hamburg festival cheers on Beckham
Josef Wutz's final outing as director of the Filmfest Hamburg (Sept 23-29) was kicked off in fine form on Monday (Sept 23) with the world premiere of local filmmaker Fatih Akin's Italian immigrant family drama Solino, plus a gala screening of Mike Leigh's All Or Nothing.The real highlight of the ...
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Brett Ratner moves from Hannibal Lecter to Superman
Brett Ratner has signed on to direct the new live action feature film version of Superman for Warner Bros Pictures, the studio announced yesterday. The new version, long in gestation with McG, Tim Burton attached to direct at various times, comes 25 years after Richard Donner's blockbuster version Superman - ...
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Germany's Neuer Markt to close
Once home to a dozen upstart media companies which brazenly thought they could challenge the might of Hollywood, Germany's Neuer Markt is to close next year. The closure decision is part of a wider re-organisation of Germany's stockmarkets and comes too late to make much difference to anyone. The stockmarket ...
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Creative Financing For European Films
Lobby group, the European Film Companies Alliance (EFCA) this week published Creative Financing For European Films, a booklet containing papers and conclusions from its high-level conference on European cinema funding which took place in Cannes this year. The conference was partially-funded by the European Commission. Screen International ...
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Box office giants square off for round 2
As the summer season draws to a close, industry eyes are now turning to the other bastion of bumper box office: the Thanksgiving/Christmas season. And based on previous performance, the big hitters will run a close race for the ultimate box office glory - with the outcome determined by the ...
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Tony Blair unwittingly boosts Thornton Wilder adaptation
When Tony Blair chose the closing paragraph of an obscure 1927 novel called The Bridge Of San Luis Rey to read at a memorial service last year for the victims of September 11, he did not know that UK producer Pembridge Pictures had already spent close to ten years prepping ...
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Columbia TriStar takes Spanish rights to Mexican hit Father Amaro
Columbia TriStar Film Distributors International has picked up Spanish rights to Mexican hit The Crime Of Father Amaro (El Crimen Del Padre Amaro) following the company's move last week to take up its first-look option to distribute the film worldwide outside North America and Mexico.The deal was negotiated at the ...