All News articles – Page 5421
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Mehta's Water off again following suicide attempt
Production on Deepa Mehta's Water has been halted again in the Indian city of Varanasi following a suicide attempt and further protests by local government. The controversial film, the third instalment in Mehta's Fire, Earth and Water trilogy, resumed filming last Thursday after India's federal government over-ruled protests by local ...
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Italian directors face blasphemy charges
The directors of Italian production Toto, Who Lived Twice are standing trial in Italy this week on charges of fraud and blasphemy which were brought against them by the state. The Palermo filmmakers, Daniele Cipri and Franceso Maresco, became local celebrities last year when their publicly-funded movie was banned by ...
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Entertainment gurus resurrect Hammer horror label
An investment consortium headed by leading lights in the UK film, music, publishing and advertising sectors has acquired classic British horror and genre franchise Hammer Film Productions.The group aims to boost sales on Hammer's library - which encompasses 179 feature films including The Curse Of Frankenstein and Dracula - plus ...
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Canal Plus snaps up six from Japan's Suncent
France's Canal Plus is acquiring worldwide rights, excluding Japan, to six pictures from Suncent CinemaWorks, the film production arm of Japanese satellite broadcaster WOWOW.The first film in the deal is Sogo Ishii's Gojo Reisenki, a lavishly produced period action film set for an autumn release in Japan. The film is ...
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Canadian exports break C$100m barrier
Canadian film and video exports surpassed the C$100 million mark for the first time in 1997-1998, according to a report from Statistics Canada.Sales agents' foreign sales of Canadian film and video productions reached a record C$101.2m ($70m). The figures excluded productions distributed directly by film and video producers.Meanwhile, the strong ...
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Toy Story 2 opens on digital high
The exclusive digital screening of Toy Story 2 at the Odeon Leicester Square, London raked in an impressive £150,000 ($240,000) in its opening three days. The highly-anticipated Walt Disney/Pixar animation, billed as one of the few sequels that is better than the original, is being projected using Texas Instruments' ...
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Fresh talent picks up Tigers at Rotterdam
Three fledgling directors from three different international territories walked away with a VPRO Tiger Award at the close of this year's International Film Festival Rotterdam on Saturday night. The winning directors were: China's Lou Ye for his Suzhou River; Argentinean Pablo Trapero's Mundo Grua (Crane World) and Katrin Ottarsdottir from ...
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Canal Plus reports 16% turnover increase
Canal Plus, the European pay-TV giant which has seen its shares more than double since November, reported 1999 turnover up by 16%.Driven by its international businesses and film division Le Studio Canal Plus, the group saw revenues for its majority owned operations hit $3.33bn (euro3.29bn), up from $2.78 in the ...
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FFC grants producers better terms of trade
The Australian Film Finance Corporation (FFC) has unveiled plans to guarantee producers overhead payments and give them greater access to the revenue streams generated by their projects. A group of 24 producers calling itself the Independent Producers' Initiative (IDI) emerged in November to force some action on terms of trade ...
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Telefonica gets approval for LatAm buy-outs
Shareholders of Spanish telecommunications giant Telefonica Friday approved a euro922m increase in capital to allow the conglomerate to follow through on plans to buy out 100% of four of its Latin American interests: Telesp and Tele Sudeste Celular of Brazil, Telefonica of Argentina and Telefonica of Peru. Telefonica will offer ...
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East Is East wins best film at British Film Awards
FilmFour's hit comedy East Is East won Best Film at the Evening Standard British Film Awards last night. Working Title Films' romantic comedy, Notting Hill, the most successful UK film worldwide, took the Peter Sellers Award for Comedy. Best actor went to Jeremy Northam for An Ideal Husband and The ...
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Scream 3 makes a killing at US box office
Scream 3, the long awaited finale in Wes Craven's Scream franchise, was an instant, not entirely unexpected, box office blockbuster over the weekend in North America. Grossing a whopping $35.2m, the film became in the process the biggest ever February opener, the biggest ever opener for its distributor Miramax Films ...
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Village Roadshow extends Warner co-financing pact
Australia's Village Roadshow Pictures Entertainment (VRPE) and Warner Bros have expanded their two year-old co-financing and co-production agreement which called for 20 pictures between 1998 and 2002, by adding 20 more films over the next five years (2000-2005). The deal extension means that VRPE will have invested more than $1 ...
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Sony takes domestic rights to Kitano's Brother
Sony Pictures Classics has acquired Takeshi Kitano's gangster picture Brother for distribution in the US and Canada, producer Jeremy Thomas has confirmed.The $10m production is seen as the cult Japanese auteur's potentially most commercial outing to date and marks his first film to be shot in America. The story, which ...
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Sky Box Office, FilmFour move to digital platform
Satellite broadcaster BSkyB's Sky Box Office pay-per-view movie service and UK broadcaster Channel 4's subscription service FilmFour are going digital.Sky Box Office and the FilmFour service will move exclusively to Sky's digital satellite platform in April. In a statement, the companies cited 'the rapid rate of digital take-up by former ...
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Clooney, Wenders in frame for Golden Cameras
Actor George Clooney and German director Wim Wenders are among the names who will be honoured at the 25th Golden Camera Awards (Feb 8), on the eve of the Berlin Film Festival (Feb 9-20).Wenders' film The Million Dollar Hotel is opening the 50th Berlin Film Festival, and also featuring in ...
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Salvadoran cinemas ignore Stigmata ban
Cinema chains in El Salvador have ignored a government order forbidding them to screen supernatural thriller Stigmata, arguing that the ban violated their freedom of expression.The Salvadoran Public Entertainment Directorate had previously approved the film for audiences over 18, but decided to ban its exhibition after it became a local ...
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Primedia restructure separates content, delivery
South African media group Primedia has announced the completion of a major 18-month restructuring programme that included the creation of two new divisions to separate content and delivery.Ferdi Gazendam, a former director of South African television hire company Teljoy, will head Primedia's newly created Media division, which includes the Ster-Kinekor ...
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Animation rules the school during Brazilian summer
The local children's film Xuxa Wiggles (Xuxa Requebra) is stealing the show at the Brazilian box office despite intense competition from big-budget animations Toy Story 2 and Pokemon (pictured). Xuxa, known as 'Queen Of The Littlies', opened six weeks ago in time for the Christmas and school summer holidays ...
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Deutsche Telekom, Kirch plan Internet alliance
Deutsche Telekom and the KirchGroup are planning an alliance for cable television and the Internet, according to a report in Sueddeutsche Zeitung. The newspaper stated that Deutsche Telekom was considering an investment of more than DM500m ($253m) for a 51% majority stake in Kirch's research and software subsidiary Beta Research, ...