All News articles – Page 5138
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Veteran Colom quits Spain's Via Digital
Spanish industry veteran Ramon Colom has resigned from his position as head of contents and programming at Spanish digital satellite platform Via Digital. His resignation, the latest in a series of high-level personnel shuffles at the various holdings of Admira, Telefonica's media subsidiary, is unlikely to come as a surprise. ...
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Germany's Helkon must release titles through BVI
The German office of Buena Vista International (BVI) has obtained a temporary injunction from a Munich regional court preventing Helkon Media from distributing The Musketeer or Rollerball either directly in-house or through third party distributors. In January, Helkon had announced that it was terminating its agreement with BVI for handling ...
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Cash crunch hits Portugal's producers
The Portuguese film industry is beginning to feel the effects of the growing financial difficulties within the nation's broadcasters. The global slump in advertising has hit this corner of Europe particularly hard, with one Portuguese television executive estimating a 40% drop in the market in recent months.Pedro Berhan da Costa, ...
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Singapore box office exclaims I Not Stupid
The Singapore comedy I Not Stupid outclassed its box office rivals during Chinese New Year to become not just the top grossing film over the competitive holiday period, but in record time, also the fourth highest grossing local film ever.Released wide by UIP on 30 prints, the comedy pulled in ...
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Japan's Toei to focus on DVD business
Toei, Japan's leading video rental distributor, is to follow the example set by Blockbuster last year (Screendaily Sept 12, 2001) and shift its focus to DVDs.The company plans to release 30 classic film titles on DVD and place them, along with its existing DVD library in 4,000 rental outlets by ...
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Monsters, Inc. fights off Ali and Ocean's 11
The UK chart saw two strong openings over the weekend but neither could challenge computer-animated holdover Monsters, Inc. for the top spot.Michael Mann's Ali, distributed by Entertainment, launched on a limited release of 17 sites to land twelfth position with $179,904 (£125,573). No doubt boosted by its two acting Academy ...
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Bullish MDP Worldwide posts records results
MDP WorldwideEntertainment, Mark Damon's production and sales outfit which is listedon the Toronto Stock Exchange, has reported its highest ever financial resultsfor the year ending Sept 30,2001. MDP reports a net profit of $3.6m onoperating revenues of $53.6m, a rise of 427% from the previous fiscal year.Earnings pershare were up ...
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Harry Potter is the number two movie of all time
Harry Potter & TheSorcerer's Stone officiallybypassed Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace over the weekend to become the number two movie ofall time after Titanic. TheWarner Bros movie, known in many territories as Harry Potter & ThePhilosopher's Stone, has nowgrossed a worldwide total of $926.1, eclipsing the $922.8m ...
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Mimi Steinbauer is new sales head at Franchise
Following the departureof Lisa Wilson to join Splendid Pictures, Franchise Pictures has hireddistribution veteran Mimi Steinbauer as its new president of internationaldistribution. She will be responsible for selling territorial rights for all ofFranchise's films as well as films produced by the company'sarthouse label Franchise Classics.She will alsooversee the company's delivery ...
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Deakins wins ASC award for Man Who Wasn't There
Roger Deakins won theAmerican Society Of Cinematographers (ASC) Outstanding Achievement Award in thefeature film category for his work on The Man Who Wasn't There, the sixth film by the Coen brothers which Deakinshas shot. It was also his sixth ASC nomination and his second award after TheShawshank Redemption in 1994.He ...
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Vortex acquires Emmett's Mark with Roth, Byrne
Vortex Pictures, the newinternational sales outfit run by Nicolas Chartier and Dean Shapiro, has pickedup international rights to Emmett's Mark, a psychological thriller starring Scott Wolf, TimRoth and Gabriel Byrne. WMA Independent is representing North American rightson behalf of the film-makers, writer/director Keith Snyder and producers BradFuller and Graham Taylor.The ...
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New Zealand mourns actor Kevin Smith
New Zealand is mourning the untimely death of local actor Kevin Smith, who died in a Beijing Hospital as the result of a fall. At the time of the accident he had been preparing to return home and begin preparation for Man Of War with Bruce Willis, a role many ...
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Two major Nordic industry events join forces
The Nordic region's two major festival and market events have joined forces to increase their international profile. The two festivals, in Gothenburg (Sweden) and Haugesund (Norway), have long been the favourite meeting places for the Nordic industry, but in recent years have also succeeded in attracting buyers and festival programmers ...
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World's largest film studio to be built in Quebec
Two weeks after the announcement of plans to build a massive studio in Toronto, another facility is going forward in the province of Quebec. The backers of Studio Bromont plan to convert a 1.2 million sq. ft automobile plant north of Montreal into the largest film production studio in the ...
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Oliver Stone to interview Castro for Cuba project
Spanish producers MediaPro, Morena Films and Argentina's Esperanza Films have joined Madrid-based Pentagrama Films to produce a documentary about Cuba for director Oliver Stone.Provisionally titled Looking For Fidel, the documentary is based on an original idea by Pentagrama producer Jose Ibanez exploring the history and future of the island. Production ...
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Grill Point's international sales heat up
Even before the audience's rapturous applause at the announcement of Grill Point (Halbe Treppe) being awarded the Jury Grand Prix, Silver Bear at the Berlinale on Sunday (Feb 17), Andreas Dresen's bittersweet comedy had already impressed a host of international film buyers.Bavaria Film International (BFI) closed a number of sales ...
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Sweden's Film I Vast lines up topnotch local slate
Film I Vast, Sweden's successful regional film fund, which celebrated its 10th anniversary in January, has lined up another busy schedule, including highly anticipated new films from Jalla! Jalla! director Josef Fares, Executive Protection's Anders Nilson and Dan Ying (Home Sour Home).Fares will shoot his as yet untitled action comedy ...
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Germany's Helkon raises Euros 20m loan
Ahead of its AGM on Feb 19, German license trader-producer Helkon Media has announced that its credit lines with the Hamburg-based Vereins- und Westbank AG and Cologne's Stadtsparkasse Koeln has been transferred into a syndicated loan giving the company additional funds of Euros 20m.The new arrangement is part of ...
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UK cinema admissions continue to rise
Having recorded the highest admissions last year (156 million) since 1972, the upward trend in UK cinema attendance and box office takings looks set to continue in 2002.Figures for January 2002 show that the month's box office figure of£59.6m is a year-on-year rise of 25% over the same period in ...
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Cannes to subsidise festival attendees
The Cannes film festival is to subsidise the attendance of more than fifty young French film-makers at this year's festival, with the initiative expanding to include European film-makers next year.With the support of the Cannes hotel and restaurant owners' unions, the film-makers only have to pay Euros 115 towards ...