All News articles – Page 5114
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Queensland launches Gold Coast film festival
The Gold Coast City Council is one of the main drivers behind the launch this year of a film festival that it hopes will draw attention to the filmmaking capabilities of the region, and boost economic development. Over $54,000 (A$100,000) has already been raised from government sources.Queensland's Gold Coast, south ...
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German banks provide KirchMedia with Euros 100m
German banks Commerzbank, HypoVereinsbank, Bayerische Landesbank, and DZ Bank have reportedly agreed to provide the crisis-ridden KirchGroup's KirchMedia with Euros 100m working capital to enable the company, which filed for Chapter 11 at the beginning of last week, to continue operations as a going concern. This cash boost will also ...
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Icon adds Bend It Like Beckham to Oz release line-up
Icon Film Distribution Australia has acquired the rights to UK soccer hit Bend It Like Beckham, directed by Gurinder Chadha. The tentative release date is July in Australia and August in New Zealand. It is generally acknowledged that British films can work as well in the Australian marketplace as US ...
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Turkish website protests against Egoyan's Ararat
A Turkish website is protesting against Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan's new film Ararat claiming it distorts history and misrepresents Turkish actions. Tipped to premiere in competition at Cannes, the film tells the story of a present-day ethnic Armenian director filming an historical drama about the 1915 uprising of Armenians and ...
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MIP-TV receives general approval from mixed market
The MIP-TV market (Apr 14-18) drew to an effective close yesterday as buyers scurried out of town and deal announcements dwindled from a trickle to something closer to a drip feed. But most participants gave the impression of having had a more useful market than they had envisaged.Statistics from MIP-TV ...
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Japanese distributor launches international film production arm
Japanese film distributor Klockworx is entering the international film production business with the unveiling of its first project, Meher Grougian's Citizen Zero, due to start shooting in Los Angeles in December. Budgeted at $1m, the SciFi thriller about a man who has lost his identity, will be the director's first ...
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Australia to get its first competitive film festival
Sydney Film Festival director Gayle Lake has confirmed that the festival will become a competitive event from 2003, the year it celebrates its 50th birthday, with filmmakers' first or second feature films being eligible. Australia does not currently have a competitive festival.A new directors program was introduced in 1999 and ...
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Spanish film industry holds breath as pay-TV sector wavers
The Spanish film industry is up in arms over what is seen as a halt in acquisitions at pay TV platforms Via Digital and Canal Plus/Canal Satelite Digital, two of the most important financing sources for Spanish producers and distributors.While the rumours about a stall have been circulating since early ...
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Brown steps into vacated SPAA exec director job
Geoff Brown has been appointed executive director of the Screen Producers Association of Australia (SPAA) following the sudden resignation of Joanne Yates who joined only six months ago. Brown, already involved with the organisation as policy manager in an acting capacity while the incumbent was on maternity leave, is a ...
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Venice film festival selects Buschmann for German liaison
Venice Film Festival's new director Moritz de Hadeln has named filmmaker/producer Christel Buschmann as the festival's correspondent for Germany to liaise with German producers wanting to place their films in Venice.Buschmann - who Gibbi-Westgermany (1980), Comeback (1982) and Ballhaus Barmbek - Let's Kiss And Say Goodbye (1988) - is no ...
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Vivendi and Kirch troubles impact int'l film sales business
Industry executives around the world were this week weighing up the impact of the unfolding crisis at Vivendi Universal. The ousting of Canal Plus boss Pierre Lescure and the management turmoil at parent company Vivendi Universal has thrown into doubt the ability of Europe's most diverse pay-TV group and the ...
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Cinemas face cost of Disability Discrimination Act
While the international exhibition industry has always aspired to keep ahead of government regulations, especially those regarding access and facilities for the disabled, the Disability Discrimination Act of 1995 has given rise to a new and challenging set of issues that could prove costly to resolve.In what many will hope ...
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German animation studio to close after just two years
After just two years in the German market, animation production outfit Ellipse Deutschland Film und Fernsehproduktion has shut up shop following the decision by its French parent Expand to pursue a course of consolidation after group losses last year. Despite Ellipse Deutschland's success with the setting up of the international ...
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New controversy erupts over Italian TV appointments
New controversy has erupted over the control of Italian state broadcaster RAI after the parties in media mogul and prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's coalition were awarded the coveted top managerial jobs at RAI1 and RAI2 as well as their influential news programmes.Coming almost two months after the Italian Parliament appointed ...
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UK Government closes film tax relief loophole
Loopholes allowing TV productions to access UK tax relief for films are to be closed, the Government announced in its budget on Wednesday (April 17).The move is expected to stem a rash of TV projects that have accessed the UK's influential 100% tax write-offs under Section 48, leading to calls ...
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Constantin takes majority stake in Rat Pack
Germany's Constantin Film has added to its portfolio of 'satellite' production houses by taking a 51% majority stake in Christian Becker and Anita Schneider's new outfit Rat Pack Filmproduktion The new film and TV production company, in which director Sebastian Niemann and writers Juergen Egger and Alexander Ruemelin hold minority ...
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The Garden Of The Finzi Contini to be remade
A new version of Oscar-winning classic The Garden Of The Finzi Contini is to be produced by top Italian producer Carlo Degli Esposti under his Palomar label.The new film is not intended as a remake of Vittorio De Sica's 1970 masterpiece, but is rather a new adaptation of Giorgio Bassani's ...
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Morocco to get two new film production studios
The Moroccan film industry is set to for a major boost with the announcement of ambitious plans for two studio complexes at Ouarzazate, a town 200 kilometres south of Marrakesh, at the foot of the Atlas Mountains. Dagham Film, owned by Moroccan-born businessman Mohamed El Asli, who spent 25 years ...
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Hollywood Ending gets its international fest premiere before Cannes at San Francisco
Woody Allen's latest comedy Hollywood Ending will close the San Francisco International Film Festival on May 2, two weeks before it opens the Cannes Film Festival. It's unusual for Cannes organizers to allow a film to play at another international film festival before it is unveiled on the Croisette but ...
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Universal completes three-territory deal on Gosford Park
Universal Pictures has completed its acquisition of rights in Germany, Japan and South Africa to Robert Altman's Academy Award-winning Gosford Park from Capitol Films. USA Films, now ironically again a part of the Vivendi Universal media empire, had domestic rights to Gosford Park and grossed over $40m from it.Other distributors ...