Small MPU – Page 1307
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News
Two Hong Kong film companies plan Growth Enterprise Market floatations
Two Hong Kong film companies - production house Milkyway Image and distributor Panorama International Holdings - plan to float on Hong Kong's Growth Enterprise Market (GEM) in the next few months.Milkyway - which is 50% owned by Hong Kong producer-director Johnnie To - is understood to be seeking a listing ...
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Spain's Via Digital re-asserts commitment to (fewer) Spanish films
Telefonica-backed digital satellite platform Via Digital publicly responded Thursday to growing concern in the Spanish film industry about the pay-TV sector's steep reduction in financing for both local productions and foreign acquisitions.At a press conference given at the Spanish Film Festival of Malaga to announce Via's and sister broadcaster Antena ...
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European production, admissions & BO market share unite in growth
The European film industry "flourished" last year on a number of levels, including an average 9% hike in local market shares for European films, according to new research. The findings were published by the European Audiovisual Observatory (EAO) in data that measured feature film output, box office and market share ...
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Spider-Man: flash in the pan or franchise in the making'
As the world waits for this weekend's release of Spider-Man, the question of whether it will outperform last year's $68.1m opening for The Mummy Returns, will soon turn into whether it will deliver a sustainable and lucrative franchise. Screendaily.com looks at the legacy of comic-book adaptations.Internet movie box-office spread betting ...
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Universal buys Good Machine and merges it with USA Films
The independent filmmakingworld has been shrunk yet again as Universal Studios announced it is acquiringGood Machine with immediate plans to elevate the sassy New York production and saleshothouse into an autonomous Miramax-style specialty film unit that will absorball the existing assets of USA Films. To be called Focus, theautonomous operation ...
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Rivett & Wilson get promotions at Alliance Atlantis
Alliance Atlantis has promoted two executives to the top marketing-publicity positions in its Entertainment Group. Gail Rivett has been named senior vice president, marketing and publicity, and Pam Wilson has been named senior vice president, publicity. Rivett, based in Toronto, will oversee all functions of the Entertainment Group's marketing and ...
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Ortenberg, Pasoernek and Block sign onto multiyear deals at Lions Gate
Lions Gate Entertainment has signed its senior managers to long-term contracts and appointed James Keegan to the new position of chief administrative officer.The company has re-signed Lions Gate Films Releasing President Tom Ortenberg, Lions Gate Films president of production Michael Paseornek and Lions Gate Home Entertainment and acquisitions president Peter ...
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Movie Day offers industry advice at London's Production Show
Tiger Aspect's Peter Bennett-Jones, PACT's Bertrand Moullier, the National Film and Television School's Stephen Bayly and Oscar-winning director-actor Peter Capaldi are among the panellists for the Movie Day at the Production Show on May 23 at Olympia in London.This year's Movie Day will address the ever-present problems newcomers face trying ...
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Reviews
The Repentant (La Repentie)
Dir: Laetitia Masson. France. 2002. 125minsLife is a lie. History is what you make it out to be. And so is this film. Seemingly created for and by Isabelle Adjani, La Repentie is either a triumphant return to the cinema for the enigmatic French screen goddess, after three years of ...
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Reviews
Deuces Wild
Dir: Scott Kalvert. US. 2002. 97minsDeuces Wild is a throwback. Not just because it is set in the world of gang wars in 1950s Brooklyn, but because it so happily recalls those dated rumble movies of the early 1980s like The Outsiders and Rumble Fish. Matt Dillon even shows up, ...
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News
Warner France increases investment in local comedies
Warner Bros. Pictures France has signed an exclusive distribution deal with French production house Les Films Christian Fechner for four upcoming comedies. 'We're excited to be in business with a film-maker of Christian's stature as we continue our in-country local-language production and distribution initiative,' said Francis Boespflug, managing director, Warner ...
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Hong Kong's Celestial Pictures builds team for vertical integration
Fledgling Hong Kong studio Celestial Pictures has appointed industry veteran Gordon Cheung as executive vice president of distribution.Cheung was formerly executive vice president of Hong Kong digital effects house, Centro Digital Pictures, where he was responsible for sales and distribution of the company's own productions. He also spent 10 years ...
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Jannike Ahlund appointed new director of Sweden's Goteborg Film Festival
Jannike Ahlund has been appointed director of Sweden's Goteborg Film Festival, the annual focus of the Nordic film industry which celebrated its 25th anniversary in January.She replaces Gunnar Bergdahl, who stepped down earlier this year after 15 years with the festival. Ahlund has a 20-year association with the festival, but ...
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Malaga festival's best film award-winner pulled from screenings
The Other Side Of The Bed and Julio Wallovits' and Roger Gual's low-budget debut feature Smoking Room shared the top awards at the fifth annual Spanish Film Festival of Malaga (April 26-May 4). Inexplicably, however, co-producer Telecinco pulled multiple-award winner The Other Side Of The Bed from the screenings, leaving ...
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Spider-man spins web of records in 17 territories
Spider-Man's historic US opening was mirrored by some record international bows over the weekend, with $13.3m from 700 prints in 17 territories across Asia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Columbia's comic book adaptation, which was directed by Sam Raimi and stars Tobey Maguire as the web-slinging superhero, scored ...
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Spider-Man makes history: $114m in three days annihilates all-time record
The all-time box office opening record was obliterated over the weekend as Spider-Man from Columbia Pictures took an estimated $114m, becoming the first movie to pass the magical $100m mark in its opening weekend. It beat the previous record-holder Harry Potter & The Sorcerer's Stone by an astonishing $24m.Naturally it ...
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Ullmann withdraws as director from $9.5m Nordisk biopic
Actress-turned-director Liv Ullmann has withdrawn from the $9.5m historical biopic on Ole Bull, a Norwegian violinist and composer who died in 1880, which is currently in pre-production at Nordisk Film. The high-profile production based on a script by local author Ketil Bjornstad and backed by Norway's most famous violinist Arve ...
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Tomorrow La Scala! for UK's Portman Film
The UK's Portman Film has picked up Francesca Joseph's Un Certain Regard film Tomorrow La Scala! for international sales.The low budget comedy - made for around£500,000 - is about an ambitious young director staging a musical of Sweeney Todd in a maximum security prison. Joseph, who makes her feature debut, ...
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News
TIME media law division expanded by DLA & Partners
Major European law alliance DLA & Partners (D&P), who established an international law alliance with one of Scandinavia's largest law firms Lindh Stabell Horten (LSH) last May, is to expand LSH's media arm, TIME, to include European and Asia clients. TIME, (Tele-communication, IT, Media and Entertainment), has been one of ...
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Transylvania launches first international film festival
Transylvania will host its first international film festival between June 3-9 in the city of Cluj, with a competitive strand for first and second features. The competition program comprises twelve titles, including: Peter Callahan's Last Ball (USA) Sean Garrity's Inertia (Canada)Cristi Puiu's Marfa Si Banii (Romania)Eric Assous' Sexes Tres Opposes ...