Small MPU – Page 1255
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News
Spain's Ensueno reveals grand co-production plans
Ensueno Films, the fledgling film division of Spanish free-to-air broadcaster Antena 3 Television, has confirmed plans to co-produce as many as ten feature films per year.So far this year, the company, which launched in November 2000, says it has invested more than $27.6m (pts 5,100m) in the co-production or acquisition ...
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News
Mediaset posts first half profit dip of 3.3%
Mediaset, the leading private Italian broadcaster founded by Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi, has posted first half losses in gross profits of 3.3% to Euros 450.3m. The company's consolidated balance, however, was up 6% to Euros 500.3m, with total turnover rising 6.5% to Euros 1.37 billion.Meanwhile, the broadcaster posted record audience ...
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News
Two Spanish festivals announce programmes
The Gijon International Film Festival (Nov 23-30) and the Valencia Mediterranean Film Showcase (Oct 18-25) have both unveiled the first details of their forthcoming editions.Continuing its focus on international independent cinema, Gijon is planning retrospectives of Spanish director Jose Luis Guerin, New York filmmaker Richard Kern and Japanese director Seijun ...
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BBC, BSkyB get development approval
The Independent Television Commission has given the go-ahead for BSkyB to offer a full range of multichannel TV service over networks in Britain, on top of its existing digital satellite service. BskyB's arrival into the UK TV market will significantly increase existing competition between existing operators like ITV Digital, owned ...
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News
Germany's VCL restructures subsidiary Scanbox
Germany's VCL Film + Medien has begun a finance restructuring of its subsidiary Scanbox Entertainment after talks with Danish banks to increase credit facilities ended without results. As a consequence, VCL and Scanbox's board agreed to transfer all operational assets of Scanbox into a new 100% subsidiary. An ad-hoc release ...
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News
The Hole attracts Italian audiences
UK production The Hole is turning heads at the Italian box office where it continues to perform well despite strong competition from Hollywood fare including Jurassic Park III, Heartbreakers and Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. After opening on August 31 for a debut weekend gross of $440,000 (L 944.7m), the ...
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News
London Film Festival secures major premieres
Robert Altman's Gosford Park will world premiere as opening night film at November's London Film Festival, while Iain Softley's K-PAX will close proceedings as an international premiere.Marking something of a coup for the festival, Gosford Park is the biggest budget film supported by Governement-backed UK support body the Film ...
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Reviews
Y Tu Mama Tambien (And Your Mother Too)
Dir: Alfonso Cuaron. Mexico. 2001. 105 mins. After working successfully for a decade in the US, Alfonso Cuaron returns briefly to his homeland, abandoning the highly crafted look of his two Hollywood studio features, A Little Princess and Great Expectations, to make a vibrant, gritty road movie which is also ...
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News
Bridget Jones's Diary crosses $200m worldwide
Bridget Jones's Diary was set to cross the $200m barrier in worldwide box office this weekend as it continues to pull in audiences across the globe. With an international running total of $125.4m to add to its $71.5m North American receipts, the romantic comedy needed to make just $3.05m internationally ...
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News
French box office heads for vintage year
2001 is looking likely to become a vintage year for the French cinema sector. Since January 1, admissions in the territory have reached 122 million, a 9.9% increase on the same period last year.According to estimates by the CNC (Centre National de la Cinematographie) French films have enjoyed a 42.5% ...
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News
Korean Film Commission awards production support
The Korean Film Commission (KOFIC) has announced the recipients of its second annual production support program for art and experimental films worth a total $1.6m. The program, which dispenses $320,000 each to three art films and $160,000 each to four experimental films, was inaugurated last year in an effort ...
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News
Post-tragedy schedules completely revised for TV
The tragedy that befell America last week has prompted TV and theatre owners around the world to pull potentially offensive or sensitive material from their schedules. A good example of the extent to which schedules have had to be altered out of sensitivity to events is found at the UK's ...
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News
Berlin Academy supplies 5th newcomer award winner
This year's $7,000 (DM 15,000) Studio Hamburg Newcomer Prize for Best Film was awarded to Hannes Stoehr's Berlin Is In Germany, making him the fifth graduate in a row from Berlin's German Film & Television Academy (dffb) to receive this top honour since the founding of the prize ...
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News
France's TF1 expects 2001 to see ad sales dive
TF1 is expecting its full year advertising sales to drop by up to 5% in 2001, with its net profits sliding up to 10% compared to last year. During the first half of 2001, TF1's advertising sales were relatively stable (a 0.2% rise, to Euros 834m) compared to the same ...
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News
Digi@ward line-up at Germany's Filmfest Hamburg
Dom Rotheroe's My Brother Tom, Dan Ying's Home Sour Home and Christine Lahti's My First Mister are among the twelve films using digital technology in this year's Filmfest Hamburg programme, which will be competing for the newly created $47,000 (DM 100,000) Digi@ward The full competition line-up is: Electric Dragon ...
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Reviews
From Hell
Dir Allan and Albert Hughes. US 2001. 120 mins.Neither chillingly hair-raising as a horror film, nor convincing as an intense psychological spin, Albert and Allan Hughes's From Hell is a rather conventional gothic yarn about Jack The Ripper, history's first, still most notorious serial killer, who terrorised the streets of ...
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News
Hardball
Dir: Brian Robbins. US. 2001. 106 mins. Set around a scruffy baseball diamond in a tough black neighbourhood of Chicago, Hardball is essentially a re-casting of seventies hit The Bad News Bears with less comedy and considerably more urban grit. As a family-oriented drama, it efficiently delivers its uplifting message ...
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News
3-way merger creates international PR powerhouse
Three of the UK's leading film public relations companies are merging to form an international publicity powerhouse with offshoots in Los Angeles and a new reach into television. Coming together under the new banner of Premier Public Relations are the well known Corbett & Keene, Falco Ink (London) and Joy ...
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News
Disney most bruised as media stocks get beaten up
Winchester Films has picked up international rights to New Best Friend, a college-age drama produced by Frank Mancuso Jr on which Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group has acquired domestic and Latin American rights. The film was formerly known as Mary Jane's Last Dance and was originally set domestically at MGM, ...
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News
Working Title eyes Daldry for Backpacker film
Working Title Films is believed to be courting Billy Elliot director Stephen Daldry for a drama about a group of young backpackers travelling abroad.Under the working title The Backpacker Movie, the picture would be the first to emerge from a three-year deal which Daldry signed with Working Title in November ...