Small MPU – Page 1287
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News
Columbia Tristar enters Korean film production
Columbia Tristar is to fully finance a major new Korean production directed by Cinema Service founder Kang Woo-suk. The $10m feature, titled Silmi Island, is the first instance of a Hollywood studio fully funding and taking on worldwide distribution rights for a Korean movie.The Korean-language film, which will be produced ...
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International appeal to save Buenos Aires festival
Jacques Gerber, assistant programmer of the Cannes Directors' Fortnight, has announced the Quinzaine's intention to launch an international appeal to rescue the Buenos Aires Independent Cinema International Festival, which has lost 80% of its funding. Over the last three years, director Eduardo Antin (Quintin) has developed the festival into the ...
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Ice Age rocks box office record book
One week before the AcademyAwards, 20th Century Fox, which has one of the lead contenders in MoulinRouge, celebrated a victory at theNorth American box office with Ice Age. The CGI animated comedy about a family of prehistoric beasts trying toreunite a human baby with its mother took a massive estimated ...
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75 lose jobs as Miramax cuts staff by 16%
Miramax Films, a division ofThe Walt Disney Co, laid off about 16% of its staff on Friday in a massiverationalization effort which stunned the industries in New York City, where thecompany is based, and Los Angeles, where it maintains a busy office. The cullcame just eight days before this year's ...
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Nanni Moretti to give lecture at Cannes
Last year's Palme d'Or winner, Nanni Moretti will return to the Croisette to give the Cinema Lesson (La Lecon Du Cinema) at this year's Cannes Festival.A Cannes regular, with films including The Son's Room (La Stanza Del Figlio), Dear Diary (Caro Diario), which won the directing prize, and Aprile ...
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Reviews
About A Boy
Dirs: Paul and Chris Weitz. UK/US. 2002. 100minsWill Britain's latest semi-confessional romantic comedy be the new Bridget Jones's Diary' It certainly has the right ingredients: a powerful combination of best-selling novelist Nick Hornby, Hugh Grant and the confident, commercial touch which co-producers Working Title have brought to this genre in ...
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Bolivar That's Me takes Mar del Plata crown
Jorge Ali Triana's Bolivar That's Me (Bolivar Soy Yo) won the Golden Ombu award for best film and the best Iberoamerican film prize at the Mar del Plata International Film Festival, Latin America's leading film event, on Saturday 16 March. The 59-year-old Colombian director's use of magical realism flew in ...
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Film buyers heading to Hong Kong Asia screenings
Film buyers from 15 countries, including the US, UK and Japan, have confirmed their attendance at Hong Kong's new film market, the Hong Kong Asia Screenings (HAS), which is set to take place April 2-4.Organised by the Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF) and Hong Kong industry association, the MPIA, ...
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Shochiku signs first-look deal with DiCaprio, IEG
Japan's Shochiku has signed a $5m three-year, first-look distribution deal with Leonardo DiCaprio's production company Appian Way.In return for Shochiku's $5m, to cover Appian's project development overhead costs, for the next three years it will have first negotiation rights to distribute Appian Way films in Japan.Appian Way was established in ...
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Kirch Group to unveil Premiereworld restructure
The Kirch group is expected to unveil plans to restructure Premiereworld, its loss-making pay-TV division. Premiereworld has cost Kirch billions of Euros and has seen a succession of chief executives. Today it is the turn of Georg Kofler, who was drafted in only a few months ago, to present to ...
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Danish film panned by critics, loved by audiences
Despite getting a critical mauling from the local press, Danish comedy, Polle Fiction, had the third highest ever opening in Denmark with 80,473 admissions, behind Anja & Viktor (157,000) and Olsen-Bandens Sidste Stik (100,000). The first ever feature based on a TV commercial concept, Danish comedy, Polle Fiction, has made ...
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Venice Int'l TV festival to launch this week
While Venice's Film Festival still awaits the official appointment of a new artistic director, the Lido is about to see the first Venice International Television Festival kick off in high style.The TV festival will open its doors to the industry and the public from March 21 to 25, in the ...
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Korea's film floatation boom yet to materialise
The phenomenally successful share floatation of Korea's CJ Entertainment earlier this year raised expectations of a film-fuelled boom reminiscent of Germany's Neuer Markt in the late 1990s.As the nation's first film-related company to issue an IPO, CJ Entertainment broke new ground. The company's share price at first doubled, with investors ...
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Denmark's NatFilm dedicated to Stroheim
This year's NatFilm Festival, the biggest film event in Denmark, will feature a special tribute to Austrian director and actor Erich von Stroheim (1885-1957). The non-competitive event, now in its 13th edition, runs from April 5-21 in Copenhagen and three other cities around the country and will present ...
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Three Cartoon Movie tributes awarded
Three European companies were awarded tributes at the closing event of Cartoon Movie, the forum dedicated to European animation feature films, which took place in the Babelsberg studios from 14 to 16 March. Of the seven nominees, the three winning companies were selected for being major initiatives or success stories.Cinelibre ...
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The clock is ticking for Venice film festival
The clock is ticking and the Venice Film Festival is still without an artistic director following the sudden withdrawal of Pierluigi Celli and Piera Detassis, who were both reportedly offered the top job last week. Although Celli had initially indicated his willingness to accept the position, he has since emerged ...
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Anger readies film of Crowley's Gnostic Mass
Cult film-maker, actor and author Kenneth Anger, who was honoured last week by the Mar del Plata Film Festival in Argentina, is readying a 40-minute film version of The Gnostic Mass, an occult ceremony set out by Aleister Crowley in 1910. Anger, who hopes to cast Chloe Sevigny as the ...
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Tenenbaums receive royal reception in UK
Director Wes Anderson's latest comedy The Royal Tenenbaums has recorded impressive figures on its opening weekend in the UK. Grossing $997,187 (£700,025) over its first three days, the film took fourth place in the chart. However playing at 159 sites, the least of any film in this week's top 10, ...
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Reviews
Bend It Like Beckham
Dir: Gurinder Chadha. UK. 2001. 110mins.Gurinder Chadha's high-spirited, unassuming comedy about a football-mad Indian girl living in London is a real charmer which should score with teenagers but also has strong crossover potential. In the UK it will coast on the successful new wave of popular Asian comedy of which ...
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Reviews
Stolen Summer
Dir Pete Jones. US 2002. 95 mins.The background story of how Stolen Summer was produced has been documented with step-by-step accuracy, healthy humour and a good deal of cynicism and self-importance in HBO's hit US TV series, Project Greenlight. Unfortunately, this high media profile overshadows and overwhelms the artistic merits ...