Small MPU – Page 1670

  • News

    Finnish Grand Prix goes to Australian Projectionist

    2003-03-11T04:05:00Z

    At the 33rd International Short Film Festival in the Finnish inland city of Tampere, the international jury awarded Michael Bates' Australian stop-motion film The Projectionist with the Grand Prix - out of the 75 shorts and documentaries from 36 countries in the international competition. The Finnish jury, headed by the ...

  • News

    Oscar-winning German producer dies

    2003-03-11T04:05:00Z

    Oscar-winning producer Manfred Durniok (Mephisto) died at the age of 68 at the weekend of a heart attack. Durniok, who had more than 600 cinema and television productions to his credit since 1957, produced Istvan Szabo's 1981 film Mephisto - which won the Foreign Language Film Academy Award, a BAFTA ...

  • Reviews

    PTU

    2003-03-10T00:00:00Z

    Dir. Johnny To. Hong Kong 2003. 85 min.Premiered in the Forum sidebar at Berlin before going back home to open the Hong Kong Film Festival in April (where Mei Ah releases it on April 10), Johnny To's new cops thriller is bound to please his admirers. However, its failure to ...

  • Reviews

    Monsieur N

    2003-03-10T00:00:00Z

    Dir: Antoine de Caunes. Fr-UK-South Africa. 2003. 129mins.French TV presenter and sometime journalist Antoine de Caunes takes on Napoleon, with decidedly mixed results for the historical thriller Monsieur N. The made-for-co-production story straddles two cultures, but despite this, Monsieur N will not easily sell to the English-speaking territories it hopes ...

  • News

    Warner celebrates fourth weekend atop German box office with Lenin

    2003-03-11T04:00:00Z

    Local language comedy Good Bye,Lenin! kept up the pace in Germany inits fourth weekend, holding on to top spot with a powerful $3.7m (Euros 3.4m)from 570 prints and dropping a mere 14.5% from last week. It finished ahead ofopener Maid In Manhattan by 44.6%and has an $18.4m (Euros 17.2m) running ...

  • News

    UK actor Harold Ayer dies in LA aged 86

    2003-03-11T04:00:00Z

    The screen,stage and television actor Harold Ayer, whose film credits included TheSting, The Third Man andTrip To Bountiful,has died from a stroke at the Motion Picture & Television Fund Hospital inWoodland Hills, California. He was 86.Born on August15, 1916 in London, Ayer was no stranger to the performing arts. His ...

  • News

    13 Moons to open Avignon/New York festival on April 5

    2003-03-11T04:00:00Z

    AlexandreRockwell's comedy 13 Moons will kick off the 9th annual Avignon/New York Film Festival,which features 18 American and French independent pictures and runs from Apr 5to Apr 13 in New York. 13 Moons will be introduced by Rockwell and the picture's lead actorSteve Buscemi.The festival,which each year showcases US and ...

  • News

    Major Russian movie retrospective unveiled for LA

    2003-03-11T04:00:00Z

    The first majorretrospective of Russian cinema is set to take place in Los Angeles from Apr17-24, featuring 100 years of film-making and more than 30 titles from theRussian archives comprising features, shorts, documentaries and animated films.The event willbe presented by the Russian Federation's Ministry of Culture and is beingcoordinated by ...

  • News

    Guirgis heads acquisitions job at Wellspring after Katsoolis exit

    2003-03-11T04:00:00Z

    Marie ThereseGuirgis has been named head of acquisitions at US independent distributorWellspring, where she will be responsible for acquiring films and programmingfor US theatrical and home video release and sourcing finished films forWellspring's worldwide sales unit, which will handle co-production projectsseparately.Guirgis willreport directly to Wellspring president and CEO Al Cattabiani, ...

  • News

    Lilo & Stitch has top 2-D animated opening for US film in Japan

    2003-03-11T00:00:00Z

    Buena Vista International (BVI)'s Lilo & Stitch grossed an impressive $2.8m on 481 screens in its pre-holiday Japanese opening over the weekend, raising the animated feature's international running total to $103m. The Japanese bow was the biggest ever traditional US-produced animated opening and the fourth biggest ever opening for a ...

  • News

    Mic Kramer gets senior vp stripes at Warner Bros

    2003-03-11T00:00:00Z

    Mic Kramer has been promoted to senior vice president of international publicity at Warner Bros Pictures, it was announced today (Mar 10) by Sue Kroll, the company's president of international marketing. Based in Burbank, Kramer will continue to report to Kroll and be responsible for creating and overseeing publicity campaigns ...

  • News

    Fox hits all-time bullseye with Bond's 20th film

    2003-03-11T00:00:00Z

    Fox International's Die Another Day has become the highest international grossing James Bond picture of all time with a $246.9m international cumulative score, overtaking the $242m set by GoldenEye.The 20th Bond title passed the record mark with a mighty opening in Japan over the weekend, taking $3.4m from 325 screens ...

  • News

    Cecile de France lands key female role in 80 Days

    2003-03-11T00:00:00Z

    Cesar award-winner Cecile de France (L'Auberge Espagnole) and Jackass star Johnny Knoxville have joined Jackie Chan, Steve Coogan and Jim Broadbent in Walden Media's Around The World In 80 Days, which is due to begin principal photography in mid-March in Thailand and Berlin.Frank Coraci, whose credits include The Wedding Singer ...

  • News

    Kusturica joins Chereau as Cannes jury president

    2003-03-11T00:00:00Z

    Emir Kusturica has been appointed president of the short film and Cinefondation jury for the forthcoming Cannes festival (Festival de Cannes). A Cannes regular, Kusturica is one of only a handful of directors who have twice won the festival's Palme d'Or - in 1985 for When Father Was Away On ...

  • News

    Warner Bros exits Australian exhibition joint venture

    2003-03-11T00:00:00Z

    Village Roadshow and Greater Union today announced plans to acquire Warner Bros.' one-third stake in their Australian multiplex joint venture for approximately $61m (A$100m).The original joint venture between the three companies opened its first multiplex cinema in Australia in 1988 and now operates 319 screens in 29 multiplexes across mainland ...

  • News

    Two Greek films share Thessaloniki documentary prize

    2003-03-11T00:00:00Z

    Two Greek documentaries, Men At Sea by Katerina Patroni and Are There Any Lions In Greece by Irina Boiko shared the top prize in the first competitive event for Greek films at the fifth Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival (Feb 28-March 9).In the festival's international section, Dutch production Ford Transit, ...

  • News

    Roissy to sell Bleating Of The Sheep

    2003-03-11T00:00:00Z

    Roissy Films will handle international sales on Gjergj Xhuvani's second feature The Bleating Of The Sheep which began shooting on location in Albania on March 3.The wartime story based on the real-life experiences of the director's grandfather will be distributed in France by Les Films de Tournelles and has been ...

  • Reviews

    Minor Injuries (Petites Coupures)

    2003-03-11T00:00:00Z

    Dir. Pascal Bonitzer. France/UK. 2002. 95mins.The old cliche of the French intellectual in crisis, talking himself silly as he rambles from one encounter or affair to the next, receives another lease of life in the third directorial effort from Pascal Bonitzer, the first of his films to be accepted in ...

  • Reviews

    Bringing Down The House

    2003-03-11T00:00:00Z

    Dir: Adam Shankman. US. 2003. 105mins.Built around the odd-couple pairing of Steve Martin and Queen Latifah, Bringing Down the House is a black/white culture-clash comedy with some broad - and a couple of quite sharp - laughs but an old-fashioned, at times even complacent feel. However, the formula has worked ...