All News articles – Page 5342
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Gaumont joins loyalty card bandwagon
Sundance's Geoff Gilmore is held accountable every year - not just for which films are chosen or dismissed, but for the state of US independent cinema itself. Now he's rumoured to be about the leave to join one of the majors. Is he selling out' Colin Brown reports.From the moment ...
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Low budgets high on Edinburgh agenda
While the UK wrestles with how to channel National Lottery cash into bigger budget commercial pictures, a trio of low-budget titles stole the limelight at a high-profile "state of the nation" panel discussion at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.With panel chair and FilmFour chief Paul Webster inviting comments from the ...
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Foreign cash finds its way to Mosaic
More foreign money came flooding into Hollywood this week as Canada's Capital Communications CDPQ, a subsidiary of Montreal-based fund management giant Caisse de depot et placement de Quebec, announced that it will make a "major strategic investment" in Mosaic Media Group. Mosaic is the new name for the merged entities ...
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Morena, Cuatro Cabezas strike co-production deal
Spanish production house Morena Films has signed a TV co-production accord with Argentinean outfit Cuatro Cabezas which will likely grow to include feature films.The agreement originally spans two interview-format shows already popularised on broadcaster Telefe in Argentina and now adapted for the Spanish market. The weekly shows will premiere on ...
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San Sebastian unveils New Directors' line-up
Six Spaniards and only one American are among the 19, mostly European directors competing for the Euros150,000 New Directors' prize at this year's San Sebastian International Film Festival (Sept 21-30), the festival announced today.Three of the films will also compete in the Official Section. They are:Spaniard Salvador Garcia Ruiz's The ...
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Fintage House to make InternetStudios e-safe
UK-based Fintage House, which provides financial services to the entertainment industry, has reached an agreement with InternetStudios under which it will handle all financial transactions for the company's OnlineFilmSales web-site.Fintage's e-safe service, launched at Cannes, will handle all transactions resulting from sales and acquisitions of film and TV rights on ...
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AFC confirms Zeccola, Barron appointments
Australia's arts minister Peter McGauran has announced that Antonio Zeccola, who founded and owns local distributor Palace Films and co-owns Palace Cinemas with Village Roadshow, has been appointed to the board of the Australian Film Commission (AFC). He also confirmed that Southern Star executive Maureen Barron is to stay on ...
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Japan's Square to securitize Final Fantasy assets
Japanese games software company Square has announced a scheme to securitize cost overruns on the feature version of its Final Fantasy computer game which it is producing with Columbia Pictures. Though other securitization schemes have been devised for film production, Square's will be the first to offer shares to ordinary ...
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Smith, Coltrane join all-Brit Harry Potter cast
Warner Bros has confirmed that Maggie Smith, Robbie Coltrane, Fiona Shaw, Richard Griffiths and Ian Hart will star in its adaptation of JK Rowling's Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone. They join previously announced child actors Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson in the film's cast (Screendaily, August 18).At ...
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Norstar seals six-picture deal with New Legend
Toronto-based Norstar Filmed Entertainment has pacted with New Legend Media AG to co-produce six-pictures kicking off with The Fourth Angel starring Jeremy Irons, Forest Whitaker, Jason Priestly and Charlotte Rampling.The Fourth Angel is now configured as a co-production between Norstar, headed by Peter Simpson, Allan Scott's Rafford Films and UK-based ...
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Sundance launches Online Film Festival for 2001
The Sundance Institute yesterday unveiled The Sundance Online Film Festival, a showcase of new work specifically developed for the web, which will coincide with next year's film festival, Jan 18-28, 2001. The cyber-festival will launch on Jan 18 on www.sundance.org.The online film festival is open to mixed-media pieces that have ...
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Sapient to sponsor BAFTA LA's Britannia Award
Sapient - a leading creator of new economy businesses - has partnered with the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Los Angeles (BAFTA LA) to sponsor the 10th Annual Britannia Award - now called the Stanley Kubrick Britannia Award for Excellence In Film - which is this year being ...
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Rainbow/IFC buys 5% stake in website IFILM
Rainbow Media Holdings Inc, the Cablevision-owned outfit which manages US cable channel The Independent Film Channel (IFC), has acquired a 5% equity stake in entertainment website IFILM. Rainbow will provide IFILM with on-air promotional time on IFC and the two will exchange content and cross-promote through their web, television and ...
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Total Film Group buys Nebenzal's Lion Cult
Gerald Green's LA-based production outfit Total Film Group has acquired film rights to Harold Nebenzal's third novel The Lion Cult, a thriller set in Zurich about a group of foreign companies who all share a lake-front mansion who are thrust into danger by the greed of competing cartels, Swiss banks ...
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Liberty buys stake in Sony's Game Show Network
Liberty Digital, a subsidiary of the US' Liberty Media Corp, is acquiring a 50% stake in Sony Pictures Entertainment's (SPE) Game Show Network (GSN) for $275m. The two partners said they are joining forces to create what they describe as "the first game-based interactive TV network." The deal is expected ...
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Toei plugs New Year hole with Battle Royal
Japanese studio Toei has lined up Battle Royal, the latest film by veteran action director Kinji Fukasaku, for release in the New Year, after it realised that its big movie for the key New Year's season, Firefly (Hotaru), would not be ready in time.Starring Beat Takeshi, better known abroad as ...
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EC outlines concerns over AOL-Time Warner merger
The European Commission has sent out a formal set of objections to the proposed merger between America Online (AOL) and Time Warner and the linked merger between Time Warner and EMI.In June the Commission announced that it would launch full four-month investigations into the competitive effects of the two mergers. ...
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Intermedia pacts with Cage's Saturn
UK and US-based film packager and financier, Intermedia, has struck an first-look deal with Nicolas Cage and Norm Golightly's Saturn Pictures, which is expected to cover two films per year in the $30m-$60m budget range.Intermedia said that the exclusive two-year deal, which is currently at the detailed longform negotiation stage, ...
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Perfect Storm swells Spanish box office
Warner Bros' The Perfect Storm succeeded in pulling in a significant box office gross when it opened in Spain last weekend with $1.6m (PTS294.6m) from its super-wide release of 315 prints. The opening makes it the fifth biggest weekend opening in Spain this year, squeezing past Columbia TriStar's release of ...
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Copenhagen to host new children's film festival
A new children's film festival will take place in Copenhagen for five days from November 28. The Copenhagen International Children's Film Festival will screen more than 50 features from around the world and hand out a prize to the best film, the Buster Grand Prix.The festival is headed by Ola ...