Small MPU – Page 128
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News
Sale-and-leaseback funding caught in UK tax clampdown
The UK government will make no exception for sale-and-leaseback funding arrangements under new tax rules, it was confirmed today.On Friday, a Treasury briefing effectively closed the door on so-called GAAP finance schemes, which some estimates suggested could have raised up to $3.5bn this tax year. Click here to see Revenue ...
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News
New projects backed by Austrian Film Institute for $3.15m
New feature films by Michael Glawogger, Benjamin Heisenberg, Simon Aeby and Goetz Spielmann are among a raft of projects backed with over $3.15m (Euros 2.4m) by the Austrian Film Institute (OFI).However, due to the funding body's current budgetary situation there was only around $1.3m (Euros 1m) available at this session ...
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Reviews
Happy New Life (Boldog Uj Elet)
Dir/scr: Arpad Bogdan. Hung. 2007. 81mins There is nothing happy, little new and almost no life in Arpad Bogdan's debut feature Happy New Life. A moody piece shot mostly in saturated colours, with sporadic flashbacks in lighter tones, it showcases a distinct visual talent, a strong tendency for use of ...
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Reviews
Celebration
Dir: Olivier Meyrou. Fr. 2007. 74mins. A fashion-world documentary resolutely stripped of frills, Olivier Meyrou's Celebration is a portrait of haute couture legend Yves Saint-Laurent unplugged, as it were - some might even say, unstitched. Perhaps too distant from its subject to qualify exactly as a warts-and-all portrait, Meyrou's film ...
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News
Pathe restructures under joint team of Ivernel and Lacan
Pathe has restructured its UK and French divisions so that its arms of Pathe Renn Production, Pathe Distribution and Pathe's UK units will be led by a management team comprised of Francois Ivernel and Marc Lacan. Pathe's production and distribution operations will be jointly managed by Ivernel, who will head ...
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Reviews
Iska's Journey (Iszka Utazasa)
Dir/scr: Csaba Bollok. Hung. 2007. 94mins.Built around the innocently luminous face of Maria Varga, Csaba Bollok's drama Iska's Journey often has the weight of a painful, heartbreaking documentary. While some of the last act scripting tends to mar the earlier authenticity, it is still powerful enough to justify its Berlin ...
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Reviews
The Lark Farm (La Masseria Delle Allodole)
Dirs: Paolo Taviani, Vittorio Taviani. It-Bul-Sp-Fr. 2007. 117mins. It's a shame that the first straight historical feature to deal with the Armenian genocide of 1915 is such a poor film. The theme (already dealt with in several documentaries and Atom Egoyan's tricksy Ararat) deserves a better platform than this melodrama ...
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News
Hausfater quits Disney for Intermedia
Jere Hausfater, one of the most well-known studio buyers on the international film circuit, has ended his near 13 year run at The Walt Disney Co and found a new home at independent giant Intermedia. Hausfater has joined Intermedia, which in May floated on the German stock market with an ...
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Reviews
Men In The Nude (Ferfiakt)
Dir/scr: Karoly Esztergalyos. Hung. 2006. 94mins. A gay affair between an aging writer and a streetwise hustler who exploits him, Men In The Nude is a midlife crisis drama that seems tailored for the gay market but is not quite certain how comfortably it will fit in this niche. Old-fashioned ...
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News
Mar Del Plata introduces Latin American competition, fund plans
The 22nd Mar del Plata Film Festival will kick off Thursday with plans to show more than 300 features and shorts. The major addition to this year's edition is a Latin American competition reserved for 16 first and second features and documentaries, most making their world premieres. They will compete ...
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News
Film-making looks less risky in 2007,with 37 countries safer
Film-making became slightly less risky across the globe, according to the 2007 Risks in Global Filmmaking Map from risk broker and insurance company Aon/Albert G Ruben. Of the 207 countries measured, overall risk for film-makers in 37 countries decreased slightly from 2006 to 2007. The annual map measures the threats ...
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Reviews
Gone (aka Middle Of Nowhere)
Dir: Ringan Ledwidge. UK-Aust. 2006. 88mins Young British travellers should steer well clear of the Australian Outback. Having suffered at the hands of a deranged and sadistic bushman in Greg McLean's ferociously unpleasant Wolf Creek, the Brits Down Under are again put through the wringer in Gone. Like Wolf Creek, ...
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News
Sogepaq closes US deals on Sanchez-Arevalo, Lazaro features
Spain's Sogepaq has closed all-rights deals for distribution in the United States on Daniel Sanchez-Arevalo's DarkBlueAlmostBlack to Strand Releasing and on Emilio Martinez Lazaro's The 2 Sides Of The Bed to Here! Films. Mongrel Media took Canadian rights to both films in deals that were all closed at the European ...
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Reviews
Becoming Jane
Dir: Julian Jarrold. UK-US. 2007. 120mins Fact proves just as charming as fiction in Becoming Jane, a beautifully crafted biography of Jane Austen that will hold an irresistible appeal to global audiences who swooned over big screen adaptations of Pride & Prejudice (2005) and Sense & Sensibility (1995). Charting the ...
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News
MPAA's overall 2006 grosses highlight global, international records
MPAA chairman and chief executive officer Dan Glickman hailed a 'bullish' 2006 box office that generated a record $25.84bn in worldwide ticket sales and an above-par $9.49bn domestic haul, and predicted bigger things to come in 2007.Speaking to reporters during a conference call ahead of next week's annual ShoWest industry ...
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News
Picture This! takes Taiwan's Eternal Summer to North America
Picture This! Entertainment has picked up North American rights from Taiwan's Three Dots Entertainment to Leste Chen's gay-themed drama Eternal Summer (Sheng Xia Guang Nian).The distributor plans to play Eternal Summer in US and Canadian festivals before taking it on general release later in the year.Eternal Summer follows the longstanding ...
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News
Film Movement takes domestic rights to Finnish Mother
Film Movement has acquired domestic distribution rights to Klaus Haro's 2006 Finnish foreign language Oscar submission Mother Of Mine from Nordisk Film Sales.The film recounts little-known events of the second world war, when more than 70,000 children were evacuated to Sweden, Denmark and Norway.Topi Majaniemi, Maria Lundqvist, Marjaana Maijala, Michael ...
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News
IN THE HOT SEAT - JUAN VILLALONGA
The following profile is taken from the weekly print version of Screen International. Also in this week's Screen:NEWS:Long-shot hits survive indie box office slumpDespite the success of Paramount Classic's Sunshine and The Shooting Gallery's Croupier, indie films are having as hard a time of it as studio product at the ...
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News
Laroque, Modine star in romantic comedy The Neighbour
Production has begun in Los Angeles on Eddie O'Flaherty's romantic comedy The Neighbor starring Michele Laroque and Matthew Modine.Karen S Shapiro and Michel Rampal are producing the story of two individuals with complicated private lives who find love after they become neighbours.Ed Quinn, Ann Cusack, Gina Mantegna, Meredith Scott Lynn, ...
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News
Genghis Khan conquers Japanese box office
Shochiku's Genghis Khan - To The Ends Of The Earth And Sea secured the top position at the Japanese box office on its opening weekend, earning $1.6m (Y195.8m). It knocked last week's number one, Dreamgirls, out of pole position, while newcomer Ghost Rider rode into the number four slot. The ...