Small MPU – Page 1737

  • News

    Wenders tipped to get back his old company

    2003-04-07T04:05:00Z

    Wim Wenders and Peter Schwartzkopff, who jointly founded Reverse Angle Production in Hamburg last autumn, are now favourites to retrieve Wenders' old production company Road Movies from the insolvent Das Werk group, according to Germany's Die Welt.The daily newspaper reported at the weekend that Das Werk's insolvency administrator Holger Lessing ...

  • News

    Constantin Film confirmed as Germany's top producer, distributor

    2003-04-07T04:05:00Z

    Constantin Film confirmed its leading position as Germany's top production house and distributor by walking away with almost a third of the Euros 22.6m retroactive "reference" funding handed out by the German Federal Film Board (FFA).The box-office success last year of such (co) productions as the Oscar-winning Nowhere In Africa, ...

  • News

    Italian festival set to withdraw invitations to 22 Chinese guests

    2003-04-07T04:05:00Z

    Italy's Far East Cinema Festival, one of the biggest Asian film events in Europe, is to withdraw invitations to 22 Chinese guests who were due to fly in to the country later this month, because of fears of the killer SARS virus. The festival, whose fifth edition will be held ...

  • News

    Infernal Affairs, Hero share honours at Hong Kong Film Awards

    2003-04-07T04:05:00Z

    The show went on at the Hong Kong Film Awards on Sunday night (April 6) despite the outbreak of atypical pneumonia in the territory. Box office smash Infernal Affairs and Zhang Yimou's Hero were the big winners, taking home seven awards apiece, although the latter scored mostly in the technical ...

  • News

    L'Homme Du Train joins Monsieur Hire for Leconte remake

    2003-04-07T04:05:00Z

    Not one, but two films by French director Patrice Leconte are set for English-language remake treatment. According to multiple US sources, Leconte's most recent effort, The Man On The Train (L'Homme Du Train) is poised to be set up via Warner Bros, while earlier drama Monsieur Hire is likely to ...

  • News

    Cohen remakes hardcore anime classic for Distant Horizon

    2003-04-06T00:00:00Z

    DirectorRob Cohen, whose recent filmmaking credits include the international hits XXX and The Fast And The Furious, is teaming up with Distant Horizon to rework the acclaimedbut controversial 1998 Japanese anime shocker Kite into a live action version that will water down theoriginal's explicit sexual content.Inaddition to signing on direct ...

  • News

    ICM to open new UK literary division in London

    2003-04-07T04:00:00Z

    International CreativeManagement (ICM), the LA talent agency is opening a new London office calledICM Books to be based in Soho Square. Not to be confused with the UK agency runby Duncan Heath, the new division of the Hollywood agency is designed to buildon its reach in the New York book ...

  • News

    Maid In Manhattan is J Lo's number one international movie

    2003-04-07T04:00:00Z

    Columbia TriStar Film Distributors International's (CTFDI) MaidIn Manhattan became thehighest grossing international film starring Jennifer Lopez over the weekend.The romantic comedy added $4.3m on 2,200 screens in internationalmarkets for a $45.3m running total, surpassing the star's previous best of$42.6m for 2000's The Cell.So far the film has reachednumber one in ...

  • News

    Fresh talent picks up Tigers at Rotterdam

    2000-02-07T13:27:00Z

    Three fledgling directors from three different international territories walked away with a VPRO Tiger Award at the close of this year's International Film Festival Rotterdam on Saturday night. The winning directors were: China's Lou Ye for his Suzhou River; Argentinean Pablo Trapero's Mundo Grua (Crane World) and Katrin Ottarsdottir from ...

  • News

    Phone Booth tops lacklustre box office

    2003-04-07T00:00:00Z

    The delayed Foxthriller Phone Boothrang up a modest $15m number one opening gross over the weekend as box officefigures were sluggish for the fourth weekend in a row. Despite two other largeopeners following close behind in second and third places, the general lack ofinspiring films compounded the "war effect" as ...

  • News

    France, Germany, UK record declining cinema admissions

    2003-04-07T00:00:00Z

    France, Germany and now also the UK are seeing declining admissions in the first stages of 2003.France's national cinema federation, the FNCF, released figures for the first quarter of 2003, showing a 9% decrease in ticket sales compared to the same period in 2002. In February 2002, Asterix And Obelix: ...

  • News

    Las Palmas awards top prize to Mr & Mrs Iyer

    2003-04-07T00:00:00Z

    India's Aparna Sen (pictured) picked up the gold prize for best film for Mr & Mrs Iyer at the fourth annual International Film Festival of Las Palmas (March 28-April 5), which also hosted the first edition of the EuroForum Co-Production Market.Organisers of the first annual three-day EuroForum said that despite ...

  • News

    Italian Oscars organiser to get new name and awards location change

    2003-04-08T04:05:00Z

    Following an agreement with the EU Commission in Brussels, the Ente David di Donatello, the organisation that manages Italy's Donatello awards will be renamed 'Academy of Italian Cinema,' bringing it in line with the Cesars, the Goyas, the BAFTAS and the Academy Awards.It is hoped that the new name will ...

  • News

    Barbara Rudnik to head PLANET documentary prize jury

    2003-04-07T00:00:00Z

    German actress Barbara Rudnik (pictured) has been named chairperson of the international jury for the PLANET Documentary Film Prize 2004.The other members of the jury are Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker Christian Frei (War Photographer), European Film Award winner Andres Veiel (Black Box BRD) and veteran Polish filmmaker-writer Andrzej Titkow.The prize, which ...

  • News

    France resists TV advertising for films

    2003-04-08T04:05:00Z

    Convinced that television commercials for films in France would create a schism in the local marketplace, France's culture minister Jean-Jacques Aillagon met with EU commissioner Frits Bolkestein last week to make his case. Based on rules laid out in 1992, France retains an exception regarding television advertising for films, publishing, ...

  • News

    Casa Nova Films launched to develop US Hispanic market

    2003-04-08T04:05:00Z

    Two new players have launched LA- and Barcelona-based theatrical distributor and consultant Casa Nova Films, specialising in the US Hispanic market.Partners Joshua Gabel and Walter Cuculic, both experienced marketing and business management/development consultants, aim to build up to as many as eight Spanish-language releases per year for the Hispanic market, ...

  • News

    Malaga fest unveils 16 new Spanish films

    2003-04-08T04:05:00Z

    Pedro Olea's Tiempo De Tormenta is set to inaugurate the sixth annual Spanish Film Festival of Malaga (April 25-May 3).Starring Maribel Verdu (Y Tu Mama Tambien) and Dario Grandinetti (Talk To Her), Tiempo will open the official competition section, which also includes the following 15 new Spanish films:Dionisio Perez Galindo's ...

  • News

    Baltic Films becomes member of European Film Promotion

    2003-04-08T04:05:00Z

    Baltic Films, the joint organisation of the Estonian Film Foundation, the Latvian National Film Center and the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture, has become the 22nd organisation to become a member of the pan-European promotional body European Film Promotion (EFP).Commenting on joining EFP's network, Karlo Funk, a board member of Baltic ...

  • News

    Sweden's NonStop Entertainment takes on Comandante

    2003-04-08T04:05:00Z

    Swedish distribution company NonStop Entertainment has acquired all rights for Scandinavia and the Baltic countries to Oliver Stone's Comandante. For his first documentary, Stone has chosen a controversial subject: an intimate conversation between the director and Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.From three days of shooting in Cuba, Stone has edited down ...

  • News

    Daredevil has powerful $7.7m weekend for Fox

    2003-04-08T04:00:00Z

    Strong openingsin the major markets of Italy and Japan were the chief drivers in a $7.7mweekend for Fox International's Daredevil, which played on 4,337 screens in 43territories and raised its international running total to $55.8m.In Italy thesuperhero adaptation went straight in at number one, taking $1.3m on 249screens. In Japan ...