Small MPU – Page 1115
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News
MMC joins H20 as co-producer of Stephen Frears' feature
Cologne-based MMC Independent has become a co-producer with Andras Hamori's H20 Motion Pictures on Stephen Frears' latest feature project Cheri which is currently shooting in France and will be moving to Germany at the end of May.A co-production contract will be officially signed by Hamori and Magic Media Company's (MMC) ...
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Bignardi to replace Mueller at Locarno
The Locarno International Film Festival has appointed Italian film critic Irene Bignardi as its new director, replacing Marco Mueller who quit at the end of this year's event in August. Bignardi, 57, currently works as a film critic and columnist for Rome daily La Repubblica. Until recently, she was also ...
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European Commission starts consultation on film policy
The European Commission has launched a public consultation on a possible future global programme for the audiovisual industries, including film.The aim is to develop a new programme, 'MEDIA MUNDIS', that will represent a commitment to effective multilateralism and engage with global partnersThe aim of the consultation is to gather information ...
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Venice to honour Italian master Ermanno Olmi
Venice is to honour one of Italy's most adventurous auteurs with a Golden Lion for his lifetime's work.Olmi has had a long and successful relationship with Venice dating back to the 1950s. Hewon the Golden Lion in 1988 for The Legend Of The Holy Drinker.His best-known film probably remains The ...
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Screen Opinion: 1968 and all that..
If you were putting together a fantasy protest group, you couldn't do much better than Godard, Truffaut, Malle and Polanski as your back four. All were involved in the demonstration that brought Cannes to a halt 40 years ago.The episode has become part of the hugely mythologised moment of French ...
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In Focus - the Cannes search for a new supply line
No-one would argue with New Line's worldwide distribution chief Rolf Mittweg when he says the demise of New Line's international sales operation 'leaves a major void in the international marketplace'.Not only was the operation, in the words of Mittweg, the executive who built it up during the late 1980s and ...
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Profile: The Film Department
For a while, people were starting to wonder if Mark Gill and Neil Sacker's finance and production company The Film Department would ever greenlight a film.There was a long gap between the announcement of the company last June and follow-up details about any productions. But as anyone familiar with the ...
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Profile: IM Global
Stuart Ford has a specific mandate at Los Angeles-based sales company IM Global. 'The primary goal of the business at the moment is to establish ourselves as one of the top-tier US sales agencies,' he says.'For now we're not focused on producing our own movies or financing movies and we're ...
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Profile: Intandem
Gary Smith of Intandem Films takes a three-pronged approach to the film business. 'Our take is very simple - you've got to have a relationship with producers for quality, commercial source material, a relationship with a wide range of financiers for our executive production and financing, and good relationships with ...
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Cannes profile: Enter The Protagonist
There will be many eyes on Protagonist Pictures as the company launches its first sales office at Cannes. Its three backers are well known - Ingenious, Film4 and Vertigo Films - and the industry is curious to see if their joint foray into sales will be a hit.Protagonist CEO Ben ...
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Cannes Buzz: The Competition
CompetitionBlindness (Can-Jap-US)Dir: Fernando MeirellesThe story: Blindness is based on the novel by Nobel prize-winner Jose Saramago in which a cataclysm of unknown origin sweeps through a city, rendering everyone blind. As society disintegrates, a small group struggles to hold on to the bond they have formed.The cast: A powerful ensemble ...
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Cannes Buzz: Directors' Fortnight
Each year, when the lights go down after every film at the Noga Hilton (now known as the Palais Stephanie), a history of Directors' Fortnight unfolds before your eyes.An inspirational montage of still photos and brief scenes skim through 40 years of talent discovery and championing of world-class film-makers.Key images ...
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EU confirms clearance of AOL-TW deal
As expected, the European Commission has cleared AOL's $135bn take-over of Time Warner after the two companies agreed to make concessions to ensure that they would not dominate Europe's fledgling internet music market.These include the agreement that Germany's leading media company Bertelsmann AG will "progressively exit" from its 50:50 joint ...
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Cannes Buzz: Hot Picks
FROM NORTH AMERICAMandate International will begin pre-sales on Drew Barrymore's comedy Whip It! starring Ellen Page as a beauty pageant regular who finds her true calling when she joins a female roller-derby team. The slate also includes the animated tale Alpha And Omega starring Justin Long and Hayden Panettiere as ...
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South Korea - Weeping all the way to the bank
An impressive 411 non-Korean films received certification from South Korea's Media Ratings Board for local release in 2007, compared with only 293 in 2006. But while some might see this as the flood gates opening to imports, local distributors believe it is just a temporary measure to fill space at ...
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Features
South Korea - Korea starts to act global
Even in the absence of a film the size of Oldboy or The Host, Korean sellers are discovering they are hardly back to square one."Korean cinema has established itself enough now that we have regulars who come to the markets with knowledge of Korean films," says Luna Choo, manager of ...
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Features
International - Iron Man shows its mettle
While Iron Man kick-started the summer season with a bang after taking nearly $100m across 56 territories in its opening weekend, a slew of Japanese films still accounted for 7.7% of the total revenue of international films.New entrant Partners: The Movie (Aibou) was the highest non-US opener this weekend, coming ...
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The critical view - Is niche cinema losing its hold on audiences'
Every so often we are told that audiences are ripe for a 'return to genre'. This is not just academic; genre-oriented production companies, such as Filmax in Spain, NoShame in Italy or Sahamongkol in Thailand, have money riding on our appetite for contemporary Euro-horror, hard-boiled Milanese crime classics or Muay ...
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Spielberg will shoot long-awaited Abraham Lincoln project after Tintin
Steven Spielberg's long-gestating project about US president Abraham Lincoln will be the director's next project after the first live-action Tintin film which goes into production this September.Spielbergsays he will begin shooting of the Lincoln biopic at the beginning of 2009 'so that it can also open in the same year ...
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Theatre networkclaims 2007 record for non-national European film
Europa Cinemas' figures reveal that 2007 was a record year for European films screened by its members beyond their national borders.They accounted for 39% of the films shown at the network's cinemas, up 3% on 2006.European film as a whole took 63% of admissions.Florian Henckel Von Donnsersmarck's phenomenal The Lives ...