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All articles by Sandy George – Page 51
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News
Oz producer of the year unveils The Wish
Steve Luby and Mark Ruse of Melbourne's Ruby Entertainment and UK producer Deb Balderstone from Haystack have started casting and financing the romantic comedy The Wish.News of the project came as the Screen Producers Association of Australia, at their annual conference, today declared Luby, along with Mick Molloy, as independent ...
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April strikes major Oz film financing deal
Sydney outfit April Films has struck an deal with investment bank Babcock & Brown to finance around two films a year for the next five to seven years. The films are likely to be in the US$5.7m-21.4m (A$8m-30m) budget range. The deal is highly significant for the cash strapped Australian ...
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Oz financing forum aims to usher in a new era
An Australian Film Financing Forum is to be held in Sydney on November 27. The forum is designed to arm potential film financiers with the knowledge they need to make more informed decisions - and to hook them up with key film industry players. Actor, producer and forum patron Bryan ...
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NEW ZEALAND
It is unusual to see as many as three openers among the top five films but that was the case on the weekend. The Matrix Revolutions was convincingly ahead of everything, grossing NZ$553,478 despite the 56% drop on the previous week. BVI's Seabiscuit, with NZ$109,682 from 52 screens, and 20th ...
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Oz production levels fall dramatically
Kim Dalton, chief executive of the Australian Film Commission (AFC), has expressed 'great concern' at new figures released today that indicate a dramatic fall in Australian production levels.The total number of features of all types made in the 12 months to June 30 fell to 26 from 39 in the ...
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AUSTRALIA
Three films that could not be more different from each other, Roadshow's star performer The Matrix Revolutions on 453 screens, Columbia TriStar's In The Cut on 56 screens, and Hopscotch's Spellbound on just 13 screens, were the stand-outs in terms of their screen average on the weekend. Each notched up ...
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Whale Rider dominates NZ nominations
There are no prizes for guessing which film has dominated the nominations in this year's New Zealand Film Awards. Whale Rider, which has grossed NZ$6.4m in New Zealand and NZ$60m around the world, is a finalist in 14 of the 15 categories. But the same two films sit alongside Whale ...
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Japanese Story sweeps Australia's IF Awards
Australia's key IF Awards announced last night (November 12) were like a re-run of the Film Critics Circle Awards of two weeks earlier with Gettin' Square earning David Wenham best actor and Japanese Story winning best film for Sue Maslin, best director for Sue Brooks, best actress for Toni Collette ...
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Hating Alison Ashley rises again
Scriptwriter Christine Madafferi's adaptation of Robin Klein's coming-of-age book Hating Alison Ashley is back on track, albeit with a new director, following yesterday's decision by Film Finance Corporation Australia to again back the project. Hating Alison Ashley was approved in May with LA-based expatriate Rod Hardy in the director's chair ...
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Osborne prepares Magic Fingers in NZ
Producer Barrie M Osborne, who relocated from the US to New Zealand to work with director Peter Jackson on The Lord Of The Rings, is set to continue his relationship with the country - and to keep putting myth and fantasy up on the big screen. He is now in ...
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NEW ZEALAND
The Matrix Revolutions blitzed the opposition in New Zealand as it did around the world, grossing a highly impressive NZ$1,266,716 from 77 screens for a screen average of NZ$16,451. Such was its power that it also pulled The Matrix Reloaded back into the chart in thirteenth spot, despite being on ...
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Good Woman starts shooting
Mike Barker's A Good Woman, billed as a scandalous but comic tale set in New York and Italy's Amalfi Coast during the 1930s, has begun principal photography on location in Sorrento.Helen Hunt, Scarlett Johansson and Tom Wilkinson star in the film, which is based on Oscar Wilde's classic play Lady ...
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Major boost for NZ film industry
An additional $6.2m (NZ$10m) is going to the New Zealand Film Commission (NZFC) for 2004, all government agencies are to be reviewed, and NZ$900,000 over two years has been provided for the establishment of an independent Screen Council and NZ$960,000 over two years for marketing body Film NZ.The additional NZ$10m ...
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AUSTRALIA
The Matrix Revolutions did an extraordinary A$8,011,504 in its first four-day weekend from a whopping 454 screens, giving it an enviable A$17,646 screen average. That meant Roadshow must have swept away with at least two-thirds of Australia's total gross, taking into account its other films on release. Intolerable Cruelty, in ...
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Bradley is appointed FFC chair
The Australian Government has named Graham Bradley as the new chair of the Film Finance Corporation Australia (FFC) board, effective from January 1 next year.For the eight years to September last year he was chief executive of Perpetual Trustees Australia Ltd, a publicly listed funds management and financial services group, ...
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NEW ZEALAND
Calendar Girls showed amazing resilience in its fourth weekend by reclaiming the top spot from S.W.A.T, which is on 13 more screens and only in its second week. The gap between them only amounted to NZ$5,000 but Calendar Girls' highest-in-the-chart screen average indicates there is a lot more life in ...
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Australia's Ocean splits in two
After three and a half years together as partners, Jonathan Shteinman and Emile Sherman are dissolving their Sydney-based sales agency and distribution/production outfit Ocean Pictures. Both of them are now setting up their own seperate distribution/production entities.The first film under the Sherman Pictures banner is likely to be theatre director ...
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AUSTRALIA
UIP's Intolerable Cruelty held on to the top spot in its second weekend and BVI's Kill Bill Volume 1, which has been on screens for three weekends, clawed its way back up to second position. That meant displacing Roadshow's Freddy vs Jason, which actually dropped two places to fourth position ...
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Oz cinemagoing habits revealed by new research
New research indicates that 70% of all Australians aged 18 years and over, or about 12.8m people, go to the cinema at least once a year. Over a half (56%) go more than five times and almost a quarter (23%) go more than 10 times.The research is part of a ...
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Australia singles out Japanese Story, Gettin' Square
Un Certain Regard film Japanese Story dominated the prizes at the 2003 Film Critics Circle of Australia Awards, held in Sydney on Friday night (Oct 31).Japanese Story won best film for producer Sue Maslin, best director for Sue Brooks, best actress for Toni Collette, best cinematography for Ian Baker, and ...