Small MPU – Page 1518
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News
Polish government steps in to bail out struggling film industry
Poland's new culture minister Waldemar Dabrowski unveiled a government backed bail-out package for Poland's beleaguered film industry at last week's annual Festival of Polish Feature Film in the Baltic seaside resort of Gdynia. At a special industry forum of Polish filmmakers Dabrowski said that the government had agreed to a ...
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Box office giants square off for round 2
As the summer season draws to a close, industry eyes are now turning to the other bastion of bumper box office: the Thanksgiving/Christmas season. And based on previous performance, the big hitters will run a close race for the ultimate box office glory - with the outcome determined by the ...
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Reviews
Common Places (Lugares Communes)
Dir: Adolfo Aristarain. Arg-Sp. 2002. 113mins.A graceful, intelligent and humorous portrait of a sixty-something couple forced to rebuild their lives, Common Places (Lugares Communes) confirms the director-actor team of Adolfo Aristarain and Federico Luppi as San Sebastian favourites. Very warmly received at the festival, the film, which opened in Argentina ...
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Reviews
Mondays In The Sun (Los Lunes Al Sol)
Dir: Fernando Leon de Aranoa. Sp-Fr-It. 2002. 113mins.A bittersweet comedy about men facing unemployment led by a barnstorming central performance from Javier Bardem, Mondays In The Sun (Los Lunes Al Sol) looks like another decisive critical and popular hit for one of Spain's most hotly tipped new young talents. Fernando ...
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European media shares take a heavy pounding
Even before a shot has been fired in what looks increasingly like Gulf War II, European media stocks have been taking a shelling. In the US, Disney, AOL Time Warner and the cable companies Adelphia and Charter have been featured in bleak headlines, but their shares have dipped only modestly. ...
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News
Natural Nylon team unravels as founder producer Bryant exits
Natural Nylon founder Damon Bryant is exiting the company he launched with leading British actors Ewan McGregor, Jude Law and Jonny Lee Miller and fellow producer Bradley Adams.Bryant is taking two projects with him which were developed at Natural Nylon under its first-look arrangement with Alliance Atlantis. John Maybury (Love ...
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News
Tony Blair unwittingly boosts Thornton Wilder adaptation
When Tony Blair chose the closing paragraph of an obscure 1927 novel called The Bridge Of San Luis Rey to read at a memorial service last year for the victims of September 11, he did not know that UK producer Pembridge Pictures had already spent close to ten years prepping ...
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News
Columbia TriStar takes Spanish rights to Mexican hit Father Amaro
Columbia TriStar Film Distributors International has picked up Spanish rights to Mexican hit The Crime Of Father Amaro (El Crimen Del Padre Amaro) following the company's move last week to take up its first-look option to distribute the film worldwide outside North America and Mexico.The deal was negotiated at the ...
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News
Leconte, Besson top Cesar nominations
Patrice Leconte's La Fille Sur Le Pont and Luc Besson's The Messenger: The Story Of Joan Of Arc are joint favourites in the nominations for this year's Cesars - the French equivalent of the Academy Awards.Leconte's black-and-white romantic drama has racked up eight nods, including best movie, best director, best ...
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News
KWA picks up worldwide rights to Spanish language trio
Madrid-based sales house Kevin Williams Associates (KWA) has picked up worldwide rights to three new films - The Blue Room (La Habitacion Azul), The Suit (El Traje) and November (Noviembre) - the company announced at the San Sebastian International Film Festival (Sept 19-28).The trio of pick-ups link KWA directly to ...
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News
Wedding makes big fat impression at UK box office
The UK box office continued to be dominated by Buena Vista International's Signs last weekend but saw two high-profile entries vying for audience attention as My Big Fat Greek Wedding launched nationwide and Road To Perdition debuted in London.Signs dropped off just 23% from its opening three-day weekend to take ...
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News
Focus sells out its territories on Far From Heaven
Focus International hascompleted sales of English-language territories on Todd Haynes' periodmelodrama Far From Heaven,closing deals with Entertainment Film Distributors in the UK, Icon FilmDistribution in Australia/New Zealand and Ster-Kinekor in South Africa. FocusFeatures will distribute the film in North America, although Focus inheriteddomestic rights from USA Films which was merged ...
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News
Greenwald commits to film while mentoring its writer
Maggie Greenwald hascommitted to direct her next picture, a romantic comedy script Rose OfSharon by Thomas Simmons - aproject with which she became familiar while mentoring new writers includingSimmons at the Hamptons International Film Festival in Long Island, New York,last week.The director of Songcatcher, The Kill-Off and The Ballad Of ...
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News
Full listing of AFMA's newly elected board of directors
The 2003 boardof directors for AFMA was elected at the annual membership meeting of theindependent film association yesterday, according to a statement from AFMAchairman Kathy Morgan. Morgan stressed AFMA's increasing internationalprofile, with 40% of member companies now headquaretered outside the US includingUK executives Jane Barclay, Nicole Mackey, Michael Ryan and ...
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News
First participants confirmed for German sales & distribution market
Germany's Bavaria Media, the Czech Republic's Space Film, Norway's BV International Pictures and the UK's Indyuk Films are among over 20 European arthouse sales agents which have already registered for the first 'Sales & Distribution Market' to be held by the Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival from November 12-14.A sales and ...
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News
Vivendi Universal sells Canal+ Technologies to Thomson Multimedia
Vivendi Universal today (Wednesday, Sept 25) sold Canal Plus Group's 89% stake in set-top decoders company Canal Plus Technologies to French group Thomson Multimedia for Eu190m.The cash deal is part of Vivendi Universal's Eu10bn assets disposal programme and may not be the only one announced today. It is widely expected ...
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Reviews
Jet Lag (Decalage Horaire)
Dir: Daniele Thompson. France-UK. 2002. 91mins.There could be no more marketable French film than Jet Lag (Decalage Horaire), Daniele Thompson's romantic comedy starring Juliette Binoche and Jean Reno. First of all, it is a classic formulaic romantic comedy with none of the introspection or intense drama traditionally associated with French ...
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Reviews
Open Hearts (Elsker Dig For Evigt)
Dir: Susanne Bier. Denmark. 2002. 113 mins. Just when you thought the Dogme 95 movement was out of fashion, Susanne Bier (The One And Only, Once In A Lifetime) delivers Open Hearts, a knockout adult drama made according to the controversial Danish manifesto. Eliciting painfully true insights into human ...
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News
Russia's Three T announces plans for new national cinema chain
Russian film director Nikita Mikhalkov has announced plans for a new $40m chain of cinemas backed by Russian metals and banking mogul Vladimir Potanin. Potanin, one of Russia's richest men, heads the financial conglomerate Interros group, and already has interests in cinema via his company Profmedia. The new national chain ...