All News articles – Page 5284
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Grupo Boca adds thriller to expanding slate
Spanish production outfit Grupo Boca is seeking an Italian co-production partner on forthcoming thriller They're Watching Us (Nos Miran), to be directed by first-time feature director Norberto Lopez, from a script by Jorge Guerricaechevarria (Live Flesh, Common Wealth co-writer).The film, which is scheduled to start shooting next week, will star ...
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BBC Films ups Scoffield, appoints Bennette
The UK's BBC Films has revamped its production team, promoting Tracey Scoffield to executive producer and appointing Rachel Bennette as a producer.Scoffield, previously head of development, will executive produce projects as well as retain overall responsibility for BBC Films' development slate. Bennette was previously development executive at Uberto Pasolini's production ...
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Alliance Atlantis confirms domestic Maelstrom sale
Alliance Atlantis Communications has confirmed that Arrow Features has acquired US rights to Denis Villeneuve's Maelstrom, which world premiered at the Montreal Film Festival last year and screened last week at the Sundance Film Festival.The deal was announced by Patrice Theroux, president of Alliance Atlantis Motion Picture Distribution, and Dennis ...
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Kirch, Cologne Gemini buy into Prima Idee
One of Germany's leading independent producers, the Cologne Gemini Group, and Kirch Media's new subsidiary, Kirch Media Entertainment, have taken stakes in Berlin-based production outfit Prima Idee which specialises in TV entertainment format ideas and concepts. In addition to taking a 30% stake in Prima Idee, Kirch Media Entertainment, a ...
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KC Medien boards third Mandalay project
German film investment fund KC Medien has confirmed Reginald Hudlin's latest feature Servicing Sara, starring Liz Hurley, Matthew Perry and Bruce Campbell, as the third Mandalay Pictures project that it will co-finance.In the last year, KC Medien has put up part of the financing for Mandalay's production of Jean-Jacques Annaud's ...
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Battle Royale, Jalla! stir up Rotterdam
Japanese director Fukasaku Kinji's Battle Royale, Swedish debutant filmmaker Josef Fares' comedy Jalla! Jalla! and Juan Pablo Rebella's dry-humoured slacker drama 25 Watts from Uruguay are among the buzz films on festival guests' lips at the 30th Rotterdam International Film Festival this week."I received phone calls from Sundance from ...
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Chan's biggest opener in four years is no accident
Golden Harvest allowed no mishaps with the release of Jackie Chan's latest title, The Accidental Spy. Teddy Chan's US$25m action-comedy, which opened over the highly competitive Chinese New Year period on 49 screens, has proved Chan's biggest opener in four years, taking US$1.78m in its first week on release. January ...
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Billy Elliot, Gladiator, Chocolat lead SAG noms
The nominations were announced yesterday for the 7th annual Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards, set to take place on March 11 in Los Angeles. The nominees were chosen by 4,200 randomly selected SAG members and are dubbed the only acting awards voted on entirely by the actors' peers.In the five ...
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Irish cinema admissions up 18% in 2000
Cinema admissions in the Republic of Ireland leapt by 18% to 14.89 million in 2000, compared to 12.45 million in 1999 - the largest year-on-year increase on record - according to figures from Carlton Screen Advertising.The month of February, 2000 showed a massive 68% increase over the previous year to ...
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Gladiator leads nominations for revamped Baftas
Ridley Scott's Gladiator leads the race for the 2001 film awards of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, which are lent extra significance this year with a pre-Oscar date on February 25.Gladiator, which has grossed $444.7m worldwide, racked up 15 nominations, including film, original screenplay, cinematography, sound and ...
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Traffic speeds up at UK box office
Steven Soderbergh's critically-lauded Traffic opened on a high this weekend to take second position at the UK box office. The Entertainment release, which features celebrity couple Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones, as well as Golden Globe winner Benicio Del Toro, scored an impressive three-day gross of $1,813,539 (£1,244,088) for ...
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StudioCanal starts process to up share of Expand
France's StudioCanal has started a procedure to exercise its right to take a controlling stake in leading French television production and distribution group, Expand.The call right to the 20.4% stake, held by Finexpand, will give StudioCanal a controlling 53.7% stake in the company, formed in February 2000 by the merger ...
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Serbia names Branislav Lecic as culture minister
Branislav Lecic, one of Yugoslavia's most popular stage, film and TV actors, has been appointed minister of culture by Serbia's new democratic government.Former culture minister, Zeljko Simic, a tough dogmatic Marxist, had to resign last October along with the whole pro-Milosevic regime. Simic didn't pay much attention to the film ...
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Metrodome shares slide to 12-month low
The UK's Metrodome Group saw its shares hit a 12-month low on Tuesday after posting a loss of $908,000 for the six months ended 30 September 2000.The media group blamed higher than expected costs at direct marketing division Home Entertainment. The group's share price slumped to $0.53 on Tuesday, down ...
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Sweden's NonStop takes on Flickering Lights
Swedish sales agent NonStop Sales, launched last year at Cannes, has picked up a raft of hot Nordic titles headed by Danish feature Flickering Lights which has racked up admissions of 380,000 at the local box office.Flickering Lights, produced by Tivi Magnusson and Kim Magnusson's M&M Productions, features an all-star ...
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Montreal's Telescene saved by CineGroupe
Canadian film and television producer Telescene Film Group has been pulled back from the brink of bankruptcy (ScreenDaily, December 4), thanks to a joint venture with another Montreal-based industry player, animation house Cinegroupe Corp. Under the terms of the arrangement, CineGroupe will initially control 80% of the new company with ...
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Oscar-winner Zanetti lines up directing debut
Art director Eugenio Zanetti, who won an Oscar in 1996 for Michael Hoffman's Restoration, is set to make his theatrical directing debut with The Burning Tree, which has Anthony Quinn attached to play one of the leads.Los Angeles-based production company Esparza-Katz (Selena) will co-produce the project with Astrolabio of Spain ...
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Kinowelt bags $78m by offloading Alliance shares
German major Kinowelt has sold half of its shares in Canada's Alliance Atlantis Communications (AAC), but says that the strategic alliance between the two groups will continue.After the German stock market closed yesterday (Tuesday) Kinowelt announced that it had sold 6.3 million class B shares, its entire holding of the ...
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51st BERLIN FILM FESTIVAL COMPLETE LINE-UP
IN COMPETITIONBamboozled (US)Dir: Spike LeeLee's scathing satire on the portrayal of racial stereotypes on TV stars Damon Wayans, Savion Glover, and Jada Pinkett-Smith.Int'l sales: New Line International,(1) 310 967 6700 Beijing Bicycles (Ch)Dir: Wang Xiao-shuaiThe latest film by "sixth generation" Chinese film-maker Wang Xiao-Shuai whose So Close To Paradise was ...
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Berlin names competition jury
Italian horror king Dario Argento, veteran Brazilian director Hector Babenco and UK actress Jacqueline Bisset will be amongst the international jury members for the 51st Berlin International Film Festival. Also on the panel are German film-maker Fatih Akin, French actress Dominique Blanc and former San Sebastian International Film Festival chief ...