Small MPU – Page 1409

  • News

    Utopia Blues triumphs at Swiss Film Awards

    2002-01-18T15:45:00Z

    Utopia Blues was the big winner at this year's Swiss Film Awards.Directed by Stefan Haupt, the film took home the honours in the best feature and best actor categories at an awards ceremony held at this week's Solothurn Film Days. The film's star, Michael Finger, has also been selected as ...

  • News

    Gothenburg secures premieres, Berlin previews

    2002-01-18T15:47:00Z

    A host of international premieres, along with at least two titles destined to go on to Berlin, will get an airing this month at Scandinavia's largest film event, the Gothenburg International Film Festival.Titles in the Nordic competition section include Muraren, a portrait of Swedish actor Thommy Berggren by veteran director ...

  • News

    Rotterdam, Berlin launch production partnership

    2002-01-18T16:24:00Z

    The Rotterdam and Berlin festivals are to share projects from Rotterdam's Cinemart co-production market as the first step in a new round of co-operation. The initiative, labelled the Rotterdam-Berlinale Express, will see six of the 43 part-funded Cinemart features transferring to Berlin, which opens on February 6 only days after ...

  • News

    Shooting Stars assemble for Berlin festival

    2002-01-18T17:02:00Z

    Germany's Antonio Wannek, the UK's Lucy Russell and France's Rachida Brakni are among the up-and-coming actors and actresses being feted at the Berlin International Film Festival by the Shooting Stars initiative for promoting European talent.Oscar-winning director Istvan Szabo will introduce the 17 young actors and actresses to the press and ...

  • News

    101 Reykjavik director heads to Flach Pyramide

    2002-01-18T17:28:00Z

    French foreign sales house Flach Pyramide International has acquired The Sea, by 101 Reykjavik director Baltasar Kormakur.The $2.4m comedic family drama tells the story of the owner of an Icelandic fishery who decides to step down. Produced by Jean-Francois Fonlupt's Emotion Pictures and co-produced by Kormakur's own Blue Eye Production, ...

  • News

    Bavarian Film Awards honour Berlin competitor

    2002-01-20T18:19:00Z

    With less than three weeks to go to the Berlin International Film Festival, Official Competition entry A Map Of The Heart (Der Felsen) was amongst the main winners at this year's Bavarian Film Awards.Directed by Dominik Graf, the melodrama won the producer prize for MTM Medien & Television Muenchen, which ...

  • News

    Personal Velocity speeds to victory at Sundance

    2002-01-20T20:42:00Z

    Low-budget digital video films came out the big winners at this year's Sundance Film Festival with Rebecca Miller's female-slanted triptych Personal Velocity winning the Grand Jury Prize and Gary Winick's first love comedy Tadpole starring Sigourney Weaver cited for best direction in the dramatic competition. Both films were made under ...

  • News

    Australians rule Golden Globes

    2002-01-21T06:03:00Z

    Australia came up trumps at the 59th GoldenGlobes on Sunday night. Baz Lurhmann was one of five antipodeans to win awardsfor work in motion pictures and television. Lurhmann's Moulin Rouge wonBest Picture - Musical or Comedy, while Nicole Kidman won Actress - Musical or Comedyfor the same film. Russell Crowe ...

  • News

    Black Hawk Down seizes weekend with $29m gross

    2002-01-21T09:18:00Z

    Columbia Pictures and Joe Roth's Revolution Studios celebrated a huge triumph at the box office over the weekend as their expensive and epic actioner Black Hawk Down went wide onto over 3,000 screens and grossed a massive estimated $29m for the three days preceding Martin Luther King Jr holiday Monday.The ...

  • News

    Spanish production's 'endemic structural problems'

    2002-01-21T18:39:00Z

    Despite record production levels and a near-doubling of the domestic market share to 19%, a report on the Spanish film industry describes the production sector as suffering from "endemic structural problems" and an enormous gap between the haves and have-nots.In its annual report on the industry, the Spanish Film Academy ...

  • News

    Japan's Toho reports record box office results

    2002-01-21T18:41:00Z

    Toho, Japan's leading distributor, has reported $415m (Y54.8 billion) in total box office for 2001 - a 25% gain over the previous year and a company record. Toho had originally projected a $227m (Y30 billion) take for the year The biggest earner was Spirited Away, the Hayao Miyazaki animation that ...

  • News

    Fourth German film selected for Berlin competition

    2002-01-21T18:44:00Z

    German cinema is really being put in the spotlight at the upcoming Berlinale (February 6-17) with the news that a fourth local film - Andreas Dresen's Halbe Treppe - has been selected to screen in the festival's Official Competition section.This latest addition joins Tom Tykwer's Heaven, which will open the ...

  • News

    UK production continues despite actors' dispute

    2002-01-21T19:02:00Z

    The dispute over secondary payments for actors between UK performers' union Equity and UK producer's body PACT may be entering its eighth week, but as yet there is little sign of any ill-effects in the UK production sector.Equity has so far agreed 14 separate feature film strike waivers with producers, ...

  • News

    Pandemonium to remake Japanese horror film

    2002-01-21T21:24:00Z

    Kadokawa Shoten, a leading Japanese publisher with extensive media interests, has reached a agreement with Pandemonium, former Fox president Bill Mechanic's production company, to remake Dark Water, the latest film by horror-meister Hideo Nakata, who was responsible for the hit Ring series. The rights fee is reported to be $400,000, ...

  • News

    Mexican film picks up Trosmo's Aurora

    2002-01-21T21:27:00Z

    Alfonso Cuaron's Y Tu Mama Tambien from Mexico picked up top honours, the Aurora award, at this year's Tromso International Film Festival (January 15 - 20).The winner of the prize is guaranteed theatrical release in Norway. The Euros 9500 award, founded by the Norwegian Film Institute, goes to the Norwegian ...

  • News

    TV Loonland boosts US presence

    2002-01-21T21:31:00Z

    German integrated media group TV-Loonland has intensified its presence in the US market by forming a production alliance with Artists Management Group's (AMG) Animation & Family Entertainment department to produce a minimum of four animated television series over the next three years.Co-founded by former Disney president Michael Ovitz, Rick ...

  • News

    TRP teams with IAC for The Mammoth Hunters

    2002-01-21T21:38:00Z

    TRP Prodcutions, the production venture set up last year by former CLT/Ufa sales chief Heinz Thym and writer-director Stewart Raffill, has partnered with UK-based sales agency IAC Film on its debut picture, the tentatively titled $17 million prehistoric adventure The Mammoth Hunters.The effects-laden family film, which is to recreate the ...

  • News

    TRP teams with IAC for The Mammoth Hunters

    2002-01-21T21:41:00Z

    TRP Prodcutions, the production venture set up last year by former CLT/Ufa sales chief Heinz Thym and writer-director Stewart Raffill, has partnered with UK-based sales agency IAC Film on its debut picture, the tentatively titled $17 million prehistoric adventure The Mammoth Hunters.The effects-laden family film, which is to recreate the ...

  • News

    The Son's Room to open Belgrade festival

    2002-01-21T21:46:00Z

    Nanni Moretti's The Son's Room will open the Belgrade International Film Festival, kicking off a 30th anniversary edition that encompasses such high profile international fare as David Lynch's Mullholland Drive, Steven Soderbergh's Traffic and Baz Lurhmann's Moulin Rouge.Moretti's Palme d'Or winner will also open the festival's gala section, which houses ...

  • News

    Foreign production spend in UK down 57%

    2002-01-22T10:06:00Z

    Inward investment from overseas productions shooting in the UK collapsed last year by 57%, according to figures released by the British Film Commission.The commission, responsible for attracting US productions to the UK, said that inward investment plummeted from£539.44m ($771.6m) in 2000 to£230.46m ($329.6m) in 2001."The key factor for this downturn ...