Small MPU – Page 1450
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News
Two Australian production companies established
Two Australian companies, leading TV commercials producer Film Graphics and top visual effects outfit Animal Logic have simultaneously, but separately, launched into feature film and television programme production.And while each company's methods are different - Australian Rules producer Mark Lazarus has been appointed executive producer and head of development for ...
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Italy's Giffoni festival announces line-up to 1,000 school children
The Giffoni Film Festival, Italy's international youth-orientated event, has unveiled its full three-tiered competition line-up, which includes Ken Loach's Cannes prize-winner Sweet Sixteen, Chinese director Li Jixian's A High Sky Summer and Kirsten Sheridan's Irish hit Disco Pigs.Other hot titles to be judged by the 1,000 international school children ...
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News
Sitges to open with Darkness
Darkness, Jaume Balaguero's highly-anticipated follow-up feature to his award-winning debut The Nameless (Los Sin Nombre), is set to inaugurate the 35th edition of the International Film Festival of Catalunya, better known as Sitges (October 3-13).A co-production between Filmax's Fantastic Factory and Miramax, the English-language thriller stars Anna Paquin, Lena Olin ...
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Diamonds, Darwin among UK Film Council's development awards
New films from director Mike Newell and Gosford Park screenwriter Julian Fellowes are among the latest projects to receive development investment from UK support body the Film Council.The council's development fund is investing $25,800 (£16,433) in The Eustace Diamonds, written by Gosford Park Oscar-winner Julian Fellowes and based on the ...
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News
DVD piracy crackdown goes global
Asia, and in particular Hong Kong, has been targeted by the Motion Picture Association (MPA) as the main source of pirated DVDS and VCDS, costing the American film industry up to $3bn annually.With the recent discovery in Hong Kong of over 80 underground facilities replicating copies a new 'reward ...
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News
Hunter tracks down Harper for Prey
UK director Simon Hunter, whose debut film Lighthouse opens in London this week as an unusual double bill with horror classic Evil Dead, has teamed with producer Sara Harper on his next project, heist movie Prey.Prey, which Hunter also wrote, follows a group of criminals who kidnap a murderer by ...
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News
UK's Momentum boosts home video market share
UK independent Momentum boosted its video distribution market share to 6.88% for the second quarter of this year, compared to its entire year average in 2001 of 2.13%, according to the MRIB rental distribution tracker. The driving force behind this success was the Samuel L. Jackson's hit action comedy ...
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News
New chief financial officer for Vivendi Universal
Jacques Espinasse, previously CEO of the TF1-controlled digital satellite platform Television Par Satellite (TPS), has been named chief financial officer of beleaguered media and entertainment giant Vivendi Universal.Espinasse, who has held top positions at several French publishing groups (including Vivendi Universal subsidiary Havas) before joining TPS in 1999, replaces Guillaume ...
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News
France's TF1, M6 jointly acquire 25% of TPS
French private broadcasting groups TF1 and M6 have jointly acquired the 25% stake held by French utilities group Suez Lyonnaise in digital satellite platform Television Par Satellite (TPS).TF1, which previously held a controlling 50% stake in TPS, following the acquisition in December last year of the 25% stake jointly held ...
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News
Devdas expected to gross $10m in first week on release in India
Devdas has been declared a hit in India, with industry sources telling Screendaily that the film is expected to pass $10m at the box office by the end of its first week in the country. The film opened to capacity screenings at 300 cinemas across the territory, grossing nearly $50,000 ...
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News
Australian actors are getting behind the camera
Russell Crowe's mooted directorial debut, The Long Green Shore, is just one example of a host of Australian actors currently getting behind the camera with projects to direct or produce.Toni Collette is in the process of producing an adaptation of Luke Davis's novel Isabelle The Navigator alongside Icon Shanahan Productions' ...
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News
BAFTA moves UK awards in line with Oscars shift
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts is holding its film awards ceremony in 2004 two weeks early, the body announced this week.The move, which means the ceremony will be held Sunday 8th February, keeps the awards a month ahead of the Oscars, which have also moved two weeks.Next ...
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Norton promoted to head of production at Mill Film
UK-based effects house Mill Film has named Emma Norton as head of production.Norton, who takes up the position with immediate effect, worked her way up at the Mill from a production assistant to shoot coordinator and then on to a producing role. She reports directly to Mill Film's managing director, ...
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News
Bewkes named entertainment overlord at AOL Time Warner
HBO's top executive JeffBewkes has been put in charge of AOL Time Warner's entire entertainmentportfolio, including both Warner Bros and New Line Cinema, as part of amanagement re-shuffle that sees the back of the troubled media empire'schief operating officer Bob Pittman.Pittman, who becameincreasingly frustrated at being made the media scapegoat ...
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Packer nets $130m from sale of Cinemex exhibition stake
Australian entrepreneur Kerry Packer has sold his stake in Mexican exhibition company Cinemex to Canadian investment firm Onex and Los Angeles-based Oaktree Capital Management, netting a profit of $130m, according to local newspaper The Australian.Packer acquired the 35% stake in Cinemex in 1999 when his Consolidated Press Holdings bought ...
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News
Kismet announces Dog Soldiers sequel, boards two with Seven Arts
Kismet Entertainment Group, the LA-based production outfit behind British horror hit Dog Soldiers, has announced that it will produce Dog Soldiers 2 as well as two new pictures in alliance with Peter Hoffman's Seven Arts Pictures.Kismet, headed by entrepreneur David E Allen, first connected with Hoffman on the recently completed ...
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Legendary costumier Monty Berman dies aged 90
Monty Berman, the legendary British costumier, died in Monte Carlo on Monday after a short illness. Berman was head of the London-based costume house Berman's, which later became Berman's And Nathan's.His list of clients encompassed some of the biggest names in movies including Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Katharine Hepburn, Rex ...
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Reviews
K-19: The Widowmaker
Dir: Kathryn Bigelow. US. 2002. 138minsThe independently-financed submarine epic K-19: the Widowmaker is one of those rare breed of potential summer blockbusters that demands an investment of thought from its audience before the pay-offs kick in. It's set against the backdrop of Soviet Russia in 1961, features all-Russian characters, tells ...
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Reviews
Stuart Little 2
Dir: Rob Minkoff. US. 2002. 78mins. A summer sequel to a surprise Christmas smash, Stuart Little 2 takes its computer animated mouse hero and his idyllic human family out into the world with a story that touches on such contemporary issues as child empowerment. However, it comes off as a ...