All News articles – Page 5237
-
News
Canal Plus confirms 200-plus jobs to go in France
Canal Plus has confirmed that it is to cut 217 jobs in France. The pay-TV operator, which is 49% owned by Vivendi Universal, said that it is restructuring its programming output in order to compensate for rising costs in its film and sports divisions.The French channel said yesterday that it ...
-
News
Norwegian festival snubs its own Cannes entry
The Norwegian short film festival in Grimstad (June 14-19) is coming under fire locally for having snubbed Norway's only official Cannes competition entry this year, Jens Lien's one minute short Natural Glasses. Festival officials have answered the criticism by urging the directors of the films refused to still bring their ...
-
News
Australia moves towards film-friendly tax rules
Taking a leaf out of film-friendly tax laws in countries such as Canada, Ireland and the UK, Australia has taken a first step towards film-specific legislation providing a clear-cut pathway for local taxpayers to invest in offshore films shooting in Australia. Australians, in theory at least, can invest in such ...
-
News
Das Werk raises TV stakes with company acquisition
German post-production specialist Das Werk is expanding is raising its stake in TV production outfit FFP Media by 30% to 81%.FFP, which specialises in handling programme commissions from German broadcasters, is working on four TV movie adaptations of novels by Rosamunde Pilcher and a TV movie based on a Barbara ...
-
News
China opens up local distribution to competition
China Film Group Corporation is to lose its dominant position in the handling of foreign-produced films in the People's Republic of China, opening up the local distribution system to internal competition.The move, announced by Yang Buting, chairman and chief executive of China Film, during the Shanghai International Film Festival, is ...
-
News
INTERNATIONAL
Despite dipping 50% in its second week in the US, Pearl Harbor has remained rather more buoyant in the UK in its second week, dropping only 21% with a three-day weekend gross of $2,863,772 on 455 screens. So far, the critically-panned Bay-Bruckheimer epic has grossed £8,913,994 in the UK.The Mummy ...
-
News
French films smash records with 54% market share
French films have carved out a massive 54% local market share in the first five months of 2001, according to new data released by the Centre National de la Cinematographie (CNC).The tally roundly beats the 34% recorded during the same period last year, itself well above the annual average market ...
-
News
Local films take 50% share as French BO grows
Admissions in France grew 12% in the first five months of the year, hitting 86.5 million spectators.According to the new data from the Centre National de la Cinematographie (CNC) there were some 11 million tickets sold in May, an increase of 11%. Lifted by films such as Amelie From Montmartre ...
-
News
UK film school unveils China fund
The UK's National Film and Television School (NFTS) has set up a new scholarship programme for Chinese students to study in Britain.The award, which was unveiled in Shanghai by NFTS director Stephen Bayly, is worth $21,000 ($15,000) and will allow a film student from China to attend a one-year Advanced ...
-
News
RKO plans to unfurl wings in China, Asia
RKO, the once glorious Hollywood studio, is planning to resurrect itself as a foreign-language producer with outposts in China and other parts of Asia.Speaking during the Shanghai International Film Festival, RKO president Ted Hartley said: "we aim to be involved with three or four pictures a year from China, the ...
-
News
Canadian cable operators get federal ruling boost
Canada's media sector is likely to see further consolidation following a federal regulatory decision to allow the nation's cable companies to control speciality television channels.Companies such as Alliance Atlantis, which controls several such channels and which will be launching the Independent Film Channel later this year, and Astral Media, which ...
-
News
James Cameron's TV debut screens at Cologne
Dark Angel, James Cameron's first work for TV, Sidney Lumet's 100 Centre Street and Antonia Bird's Care are among 20 international fiction and non-fiction programmes selected this year to compete in the Cologne Conference's television festival.Also screening in competition is Dutch documentary maker Jeroen Berkven's A Skin To Few. Apart ...
-
News
Australia's Southern Star posts 35% rise in sales
Australia's Southern Star Group registered sales revenues of $101m (A$193m) in the 12 months to March 31, a 35% rise over the previous year. The company's operating profit before tax and abnormals was $4.4m, double the previous result. Executive chair Neil Balnaves attributed the improvement to better cost controls, foreign ...
-
News
UK's Civilian cements TV aims by acquiring Isis
Civilian Content, the UK media concern which owns National Lottery franchise The Film Consortium and sales outfit The Sales Co, has cemented its move into TV by agreeing to acquire Isis Productions.Civilian is buying the production company, which specialises in music programming such as the Classic Albums series, from its ...
-
News
Italian arthouse buyer emerges from The Swamp
Confirming its position as one of the more adventurous Italian distributors of arthouse fare, Rome-based outfit Teodora Film has picked up Italian rights to controversial Berlinale prizewinner The Swamp (La Cienaga).Argentinian newcomer Lucrecia Martel's drama about two large families trying to cope with each other during a long hot summer ...
-
News
Miramax sues Abraham over remake rights
Miramax Films has filed a complaint in the New York District Court against English producer Eric Abraham, claiming that Abraham fraudulently inflated the prices for remake and/or sequel rights to 1995 foreign-language film Kolya and yet to be released Birthday Girl, starring Nicole Kidman."It has now become apparent," says the ...
-
News
DVD price probe stirs up Hollywood hornets' nest
Brusselsregulators are to investigate why European customers tend to pay more for thesame recent Hollywood movies on DVD than their counterparts do in the US andCanada. They are also opening a potential hornets' nest by questioning thepractice of charging full price for DVD re-issues of old catalogue titles.The EuropeanUnion probe, ...
-
News
Tartan's Teddy puts Bundy into production
Tartan Films, the production offshoot of UK specialist distributor Metro Tartan, is in production on Bundy, a biopic about the notorious mass-murderer. The film is backed by Overseas FilmGroup, which is also handling international sales. Bundy, currently shooting in California, will be the second instalment in Tartan Films' serial killer ...
-
News
Norway shuts door on Swedish exhibitor SF
Sweden's largest exhibitor, Svensk Filmindustri (SF), the exhibition arm of the media giant Bonnier Group, has been refused a licence to establish a multiplex in Norway's third largest city, Trondheim, by local authorities. The main argument of local politicians is that cinemas run by the municipality better serve the local ...
-
News
Krevoy to partner Germany's IWP on third project
US producer Brad Krevoy's feature project Basshole is being lined up as his third production to be backed this year by private German film fund IWP International West Pictures as part of its six/seven-picture production slate for 2001.Krevoy's Motion Picture Corporation of America (MPCA) has already partnered with IWP on ...