Small MPU – Page 1766
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News
Solo grabs MDP pair for Germany
Solo Film has bought German rights to two films from MDP Worldwide - 11:14 starring Hilary Swank and The United States Of Leland produced by and starring Kevin Spacey. The deals were negotiated by Mark Damon of MDP with Peter Heinzemann and Marcus Shofer of Solo Film.Cannes is the third ...
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News
Wong's 2046 still in Venice contention
Despite having to shift his final shooting location - either to Macao or Australia - because of SARS fears in Shanghai, Wong Kar-Wai's 2046 is still on course for a October 1 platform release in China, confirmed Fortissimo Film Sales yesterday The prospect of completion raises the possibility that Wong's ...
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Reviews
Swimming Pool
Dir: Francois Ozon. France. 2003. 102minsNobody is better qualified than Francois Ozon to speculate on the sources of an artist's creativity. Six features in as many years have made him one of the most prolific and admired of European young guns. Swimming Pool is an entertaining and initially intriguing exploration ...
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Reviews
Young Adam
Dir: David Mackenzie. UK, 2003. 93mins.Scottish director David Mackenzie recently divided British critics with the release of his first feature, the rough-and-ready digital drama The Last Great Wilderness. His follow-up, Young Adam, is a more rigorous proposition that amply confirms Mackenzie's promise. A powerful, disturbing adaptation of the novel by ...
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News
Franchise Pictures targets the UK
Franchise Pictures is going to London. Elie Samaha's LA-based production and financing outfit is launching a UK distribution outfit, hiring London-based production executives and teaming with tax and finance specialist Invicta Capital for co-production and tax finance structuring on the new venture.Samaha and partner David Bergstein are ten days away ...
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News
HBO Films picks up El Deseo title
HBO Films London has made its first pick-up, acquiring international rights to Lucrecia Martel's The Holy Girl from Pedro and Agustin Almodovar's El Deseo. The film is Martel's first film since La Cienega, the 2001 festival hit about two women and their families in a small town in Argentina.The Holy ...
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News
United Artists strikes Korean pact
Korean mini-major Mirovision has taken an important step towards expansion of its distribution division thanks to an output deal sealed with United Artists. The unusual deal is expected to see four to five pictures per year handled by Mirovision and start with Nicholas Nickleby, Assassination Tango, Pictures Of April and ...
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News
Spanish producer eyes gross-out teen market
Spanish producer Morena Films has opened feature film production label 'Happy Hour Films' dedicated to raucous teen flicks as part of a brimming slate of new projects for 2003-2004.Happy Hour Films is an intentionally low-brow label conceived as the Spanish equivalent for Hollywood fare like American Pie. "There's no we ...
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News
Icon signs with Turturro's comic musical
Icon Entertainment International has boarded Romance & Cigarettes, a darkly comic musical starring Kate Winslet, James Gandolfini and Susan Sarandon, directed by John Turturro and executive produced by the Coen brothers.MGM/UA will release the film - the latest musical offered on the Croisette after Phantom Of The Opera and ...
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News
Refn continues dark American vein with St John
After the successful collaboration with cult favourite author Hubert Selby Jr. on Fear X, Danish writer-director Nicolas Winding Refn is now turning to another scribe specialising in the seamier side of the American underbelly: Abel Ferrara's longtime screenwriting collaborator, Nicholas St. John.Billy's People follows a idealistic and ambitious female undercover ...
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News
Hunter S Thompson doc gets world premiere at CineVegas
The CineVegas International Film Festival in Las Vegas (June 13 to 21) will host the world premiere of Breakfast With Hunter, a feature length documentary starring the outlaw journalist Dr Hunter S Thompson. Directing by Wayne Ewing, the documentary chronicles Thompson's attempt to avoid being placed in the system by ...
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News
Sophie Marceau flies on Indo-Italian ticket
India has signed a new agreement with Italy that will see the two countries co-produce three major pictures this year, including a new movie with Sophie Marceau.Named Lezioni di Volo (Flying Lessons), the film is due to start shooting this autumn in Italy and India with Sophie Marceau in the ...
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News
Myriad sells out on Jeepers Creepers 2
Myriad Pictures has sold out major territories on Jeepers Creepers 2, the sequel to the United Artists (UA)/American Zoetrope box office hit which was financed by Myriad and UA, which is planning to release the film in August and has also acquired four further territories - Japan, Italy, France and ...
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News
Yari funds William Morris indie financing arm
Real estate tycoon Bob Yari has teamed with WMA Independent, the independent finance and packaging arm of The William Morris Agency, to form El Camino Pictures, a dedicated film financing fund for WMA packages which will be run by WMA Independent co-chiefs Cassian Elwes and Rena Ronson.The first film under ...
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News
Oz studio plans fail to attract cash
The ambitious plan to build a third major film studio in Australia - with the backing of US giant Viacom - is floundering because of a complete lack of interest from institutional investors.The public float has now been abandoned and the retail precinct shaved off the development to bring the ...
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News
Israeli film fest to screen thirty-three titles
Thirty-three films representing some of the most recent offerings from Israeli cinema will screen in Los Angeles at the 19th Israeli Film Festival, including Erez Laufer's documentary Mike Brant: Laisse Moi T'Aimer, a profile of the celebrated Paris-based pop singer that receives its world premiere at Cannes.The event, which runs ...
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News
Regis Wargnier finds his missing link
Kristin Scott-Thomas will star in an epic 19th century adventure about the origin of the human species to be directed by Regis Wargnier, the French filmmaker perhaps best known for Indochine and East-West. The film is one of two big-star vehicles being prepared by French sales house Wild Bunch.The Euros ...
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News
Focus extends Mira Nair ties
Focus Features is in final talks to close a one-year, first-look deal with Mira Nair's production outfit Mirabai Films encompassing films she will both direct and produce. The agreement comes as Focus starts selling Nair's Vanity Fair in Cannes; yesterday a deal was closed for Australia with Icon Entertainment.Focus has ...
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News
Flach Pyramide on a roll with Arcand's Invasions
Denys Arcand's competition film The Barbarian Invasions (Les Invasions Barbares) has opened strongly in its native Quebec, notching C$1m in its first six days of release on a 120 print release handled by Alliance Atlantis Vivafilm, and giving a further boost to sales agent Flach Pyramide International (FPI).Indeed, Arcand's latest, ...
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News
Disney buys French animation Renaissance
Emerging French production house Onyx Films has scored a notable coup with the sale of its first animated project Renaissance to Buena Vista for US distribution.The deal was brokered by leading independent producer Jake Eberts. Theatrical and video release in France is to be handled by Pathe Distribution, with which ...