Small MPU – Page 137
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News
UIP seals distribution pact with Spain's Planeta
United International Pictures (UIP) has added a Spanish link to its rapidly growing chain of international distribution partners, striking a long-term pact with Planeta 2010, the start-up multimedia division of publishing company Grupo Planeta.UIP chairman and chief executive Paul Oneile confirmed that a deal has been concluded with the Spanish ...
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Features
Argentina - Father figure
Talented young Argentinian director Ariel Rotter premiered his first feature, Just For Today (Solo Por Hoy), at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2001.The Wong Kar-wai-influenced film quickly became a festival hit, won a string of local awards, and Rotter prepared to shoot his next feature, The Other.Financing problems set ...
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Features
United Kingdom - Mutual Benefit
With UK arthouse distributors bemoaning the tough market, it seems an odd time for a new player to enter the game.But Nick Crossley and Jono Stevens are keeping an open mind as they launch Diffusion Pictures. As Stevens says: "More people are watching films than ever. (The theatrical market) is ...
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Features
United Kingdom - History moves with the times
As the industry increasingly looks to take advantage of back catalogues, the world's largest and most valuable film archive is now being made available at the click of a button - for free.The Mediatheque room of the new BFI Southbank beneath London's Waterloo Bridge already has available 300 film and ...
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Entertainment Expo Hong Kong 2007
This year's edition sees many changes as Expo raises its profile in the international calendar. Filmart, HAF and Hkiff will start on the same day and work more closely to provide a platform to support the production and distribution of Asian and other international films.In addition, the opening night of ...
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Entertainment Expo Hong Kong - Power surge
HONG KONGIt has been a year of ironic contradictions for the Hong Kong film industry. Undeniably, local producers are still struggling with falling production levels, as investors put resources into fewer but larger films, and local box office for home-grown productions continues to shrink.Yet despite the gloom, Hong Kong talent ...
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New Chinese buyers - Slice of the action
Until recently, international sales companies were showing little interest in China. The market's rampant piracy and censorship were major turn-offs, as was the fact that unless a film is selected as one of China's 20 annual revenue-sharing imports, it can technically only be sold for a flat fee to state-owned ...
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Filmart - HK market stakes global claim
This year, many Asian sellers decided to skip Berlin's European Film Market in February and focus on the Hong Kong event (March 20-23) instead - a telling sign that the Hong Kong International Film & TV Market (Filmart) is raising its international profile.Indeed it looks like not one but two ...
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Hong Kong International Film Festival - Match makers
This year marks a radical shift in the ambitions of the 31-year-old Hong Kong International Film Festival (Hkiff). Although respected for the quality of its programming, the festival has traditionally focused on local audiences and has not had a high profile on the global film-festival circuit or been regarded as ...
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HAF 2007 - Invested interest
Co-production markets have become a must-have accessory at film festivals from New York to Tokyo. The Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF) is slightly different, however, in that it is a financing platform that was conceived independently and only later became attached to a film festival.Organised for the past two ...
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Features
Ask the audience
Last year at the ShoWest exhibition convention, Motion Picture Association of America (Mpaa) chairman Dan Glickman announced a study to try to pin down the truth about that mysterious animal, the movie-goer.While there was a sense of who comprises the cinema-going audience, there has been no hard and fast survey ...
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Features
Music and Lyrics hits the right note
Warner Bros is singing a sweet song as Music And Lyrics climbs up to the top spot internationally, after five weeks in the chart. The romantic comedy took $9.6m at the weekend after opening in an additional eight territories, including Germany, Mexico and Netherlands. Eddie Murphy comedy Norbit also saw ...
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Features
Market Focus - Commercial decisions
Distributors have long known that advertising in cinemas is an effective way to access audiences before the release of a film. But new UK research suggests audiences are more receptive to commercials shown there than to any other form of advertising.Research by TNS on behalf of the Cinema Advertising Association's ...
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News
Hot-zone Louisiana unveils its largest studio complex yet
Construction work will begin later this year on the $500m River Studios and FilmPort film and television studio on the Mississippi River in West Baton Rouge, Louisiana.The 925,000 sq ft complex is the largest studio project in the state and will offer one-stop studio services, product development, and distribution and ...
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Junior NASCAR doc revs up for Good
Production has begun in New York on the NASCAR documentary Racing Dreams from US media company Good.Marshall Curry is directing the film, which follows three young drivers aged 11-13 who race extreme karts in the World Karting Association's National Pavement Series, regarded as a feeding pool for future NASCAR talent.'The ...
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News
Gordon, Podeswa named as Film Independent teaching fellows
Film Independent has announced the fellows for its seventh-annual Directors Lab, which runs in Los Angeles until April 16.Keith Gordon, who directed the feature film version of The Singing Detective and also Waking The Dead, will teach the Lab along with The Five Senses director Jeremy Podeswa.Guests speakers include Bill ...
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News
Europeans dominate Mar del Plata prizes
European films dominated the awards at the 22nd Mar del Plata Film Festival, which closed yesterday with a record attendance of 190,000 spectators.Catalan film-maker Cesc Gay received the Golden Astor prize for Fiction, a drama about a director trying to finish the script of his next movie at a friend's ...
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300 powers into the top spot at international box office
Warner Bros Pictures International's violent epic 300 continues to indicate that it will be a worldwide phenomenon with a sensational $15.6m weekend in just 13 territories on 1,300 screens.It opened in Korea with a $6.3m five-day gross on 353 screens, it took $1.5m on 115 screens in Turkey, making it ...
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Spartans hold off domestic challengers
Like the formidable band of Spartan warriors that holds off a massive invading army in the film, Warner Bros' 300 resisted the advances of a wave of new releases to stay top and cross $125m. The effects-heavy action epic added an estimated $31.2m following last weekend's record March launch ...
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Bianca Taal takes over Rotterdam's Hubert Bals Fund
The International Film Festival Rotterdam has appointed Bianca Taal to lead the festival's Hubert Bals Fund, as current fund head Marianne Bhalotra steps down. Taal joined Rotterdam in 2000 working on both CineMart and the Hubert Bals Fund. She became a co-head of CineMart with Marit van den Elshout in ...