Small MPU – Page 118
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News
Traffic
After taking best movie cast and best actor awards at the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards last weekend, multi-Oscar nominee Traffic is proving that it has box office clout as well. The film, which has taken more than $115m worldwide so far, added several strong openings over the weekend.Topping the ...
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Reviews
Brotherhood Of The Wolf
Dir: Cristophe Gans. France. 2001. 143mins.Hailed as the prototype for a new genre-bending kind of popular European cinema, Brotherhood Of The Wolf is a crazy quilt of historical romance, horror movie, frontier saga, conspiracy thriller and martial arts actioner. One can only admire the sheer chutzpah of writer-director Christophe Gans, ...
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German film board awards production funds
New projects by Paul Anderson and Roman Polanski are among seven features which have received a total $3m (DM 6.42m) production backing this week from the Berlin-based German Federal Film Board (FFA). Anderson's Resident Evil, which has begun shooting at Berlin's Adlershof Studios with Milla Jovovich (The Million Dollar Hotel) ...
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Portugal Telecom posts results
Telecoms and media giant Portugal Telecom (PT) released its year-end financial results, which were highlighted by a 32.1% rise in consolidated operating revenues to Euros 4.19bn.The company pointed to investments in mobile phones, data and internet services as new high growth business areas which now account for as much of ...
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German Experiment pays off
Oliver Hirschbiegel's feature debut Das Experiment was the highest entry in this week's German box office chart with the highest screen averages for box office takings and admissions ($6,282 and 1,031) from its 229-print opening.The hard-hitting thriller about a group of volunteers agreeing to take part in a scientific experiment ...
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Beauty, Lights for Non Stop Films
The 52nd Berlinale has announced the names of the eight members of the Official Competition's International Jury which will be headed this year by Indian director Mira Nair.They are: film author Peter Cowie (UK), director Lucrecia Martel (Argentina), producer Claudie Ossard (France), director Oskar Roehler (Germany), film reviewer Kenneth Turan ...
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Ferry-Go-Round claims first Jameson award
Finnish director Aleksi Salmenperä's short Onnenpeli 2001 (Ferry-Go-Round) about love and relationships during a Baltic cruise has won the first Jameson Short Film Award presented at this year's Tampere Film Festival which wrapped on March 10.All fiction short films in the festival's national selection were eligible for the award which, ...
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News
Platnick to leave Mandalay
Adam Platnick, president of motion pictures at Peter Guber's Mandalay Pictures, is to leave the company when his contract expires this summer. In a press release, Platnick did not specify his future plans but said he is "looking forward to new opportunities." Until his contract expires, Platnick will continue work ...
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RCV's Buying Spree at AFM
RCV Entertainment's Dirk de Lille returned from the AFM with a full shopping basket, bolstering his move to buy more mainstream U.S. fare than RCV was previously known for before he came on board last year. Most notably, De Lille is buying into the Crouching Tiger effect - having acquired ...
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News
Eastwood gets Mystic River rights
Warner Bros and Malpaso Productions have bought movie rights to best-selling psychological suspense thriller Mystic River for Clint Eastwood to produce and direct. Eastwood is currently talking to writers about adapting the novel by Dennis Lehane but, according to a statement "has no immediate plans" to put the project into ...
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News
Village Roadshow exhibits downturn in profit
Australia's Village Roadshow suffered a 44% slide in first half net profits as its exhibition business suffered from poor product worldwide.Profits fell to A$22m, with cinema exhibition recording an A$11.8m loss. The cinema, theme park and radio group plans to reduce its operating territories to around nine from 18. The ...
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Future German co-production funding in doubt
Germany's status as a major source of funding for international co-productions could be a thing of the past thanks to new government legislation which threatens to curtail the country's involvement in such projects.A new Finance Ministry legislation could effectively halt the huge flow of money out of Germany into predominantly ...
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UK Film Council backs innovative, commercial slate
A combination of US and leading UK talent defines the debut slate of the UK Film Council's commercially-oriented Premiere Fund, while the support body's New Cinema Fund for low-budget projects aims to mix innovation with established names such as Alex Cox, Christopher Eccleston and Simon BeaufoyRobert Altman's Gosford Park has ...
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News
Danish box office
Following the international success of Lone Scherfig's Italian for Beginners it is no surprise that even after 14 weeks on release is still hanging on to the number two spot with a total of 740.305 admissions so far. At the top of the chart, Hannibal gave way to the very ...
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News
UK's Tiger Aspect eyes suitors
Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner's UK production outfit Working Title Films has emerged as a potential candidate to buy leading UK TV company Tiger Aspect Productions.Spokespersons for both companies confirmed UK press reports that a deal was being explored, although both stressed that talks were no more than exploratory at ...
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LA film festival offers 21 world premieres
Thirty-six films, including 21 world premieres, have been announced for the line-up of this year's Los Angeles Film Festival, run by non-profit indie filmmaker organisation IFP/West. The festival's opening night selection has yet to be revealed, but the West Coast premiere of Allison Anders' Things Behind The Sun has been ...
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Reviews
Blow Dry
Dir: Paddy Breathnach. US-UK. 2001. 91minsA large ensemble of talented actors, including Alan Rickman, Natasha Richardson and Rachel Griffiths, is totally wasted in the disappointing comedy Blow Dry, written by The Full Monty screenwriter, Simon Beaufoy. Meant to be a funny satire of an annual British hairdressing championship, Blow Dry ...
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News
No more Victory for EM.TV
German private media fund Victory Media has cancelled its five-year co- production agreement with EM.TV to put up $233m (DM 500m) for the production of 100 animation series for the international market with a total production volume of $700m (DM 1.5bn) over the next five years.Victory had planned to attract ...
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Babelsberg hosts first Cartoon Movie Tributes
The UK's Aardman Animation, Denmark's A.Film and Italian distributor Cecchi Gori are among the winners of the first 'Cartoon Movie Tributes' presented at this year's Cartoon Movie co-production market. While Aardman was honoured for the 'Best International Enterprise Strategy' in the making of Chicken Run, A.Film, producer of Help, I'm ...
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Danny Boyle calls for digital support
Director Danny Boyle has joined the growing number of mainstream film-makers keen to support the development of digital technology at grassroots level.Speaking to Screen International editor-in-chief Colin Brown during an on-stage Q&A at the Production Show in London on March 14, the director of Trainspotting and The Beach urged the ...