Small MPU – Page 220
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News
In Focus: Bill Plympton's 'Animation Lollapalooza'
The older couple was muttering. 'This isn't funny!' the husband said, shifting in his seat as animator Patrick Smith's Puppet - about a masochist, handcuffed by self-punishing sock puppets - played out on the tiny theatre's screen. What the couple expected was Looney Tunes. What they got was something else.'Animation ...
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News
In Focus: How To Lose Friends & Alienate People.
Journalist Toby Young has a reputation for being an obnoxious cad with few likeable qualities - this is a man who brought a stripper to the office on Bring Your Daughter To Work Day. So reinventing Young for a big-screen version of his memoirs How To Lose Friends & Alienate ...
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News
In Focus: The UK's micro wave
Just as the European Union apparently had its butter mountain and wine lake, since the early days of National Lottery funding for film in the mid-1990s, the UK has supposedly had its own surplus of unreleased movies, spurned by distributors and gathering dust on shelves. The production fever of the ...
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Features
Special feature - Dubai International Film Festival at five - The fifth element
"Just look around you," urges Dubai International Film Festival (Diff) chairman Abdulhamid Juma, gesturing from the window of his office in the glass-and-steel business district known as Dubai Media City. "Dubai is hungry for new things."It is the middle of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting. Arguably, Dubai should ...
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Features
Special feature - The Muhr Awards - Middle Eastern promise
For all the black-tie bacchanalia and glitzy galas, it is Diff's main competition which forms the central focus around which all other activities take place.The Muhr Awards for Excellence in Arab Cinema were introduced in 2006 as a way of drawing international attention to Arab film-makers (a 'muhr' is a ...
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Features
Special feature - Muhr winners
"For me, success in the Middle East is as important as success anywhere else," says Franco-Lebanese director Philippe Aractingi, whose second feature Under The Bombs - a heartfelt road movie featuring jarring images of Israel's recent war in Lebanon - won the Gold award in Diff 2007's Muhr Awards. "For ...
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Features
Special feature - Making the connection
In addition to the red-carpet appearances from George Clooney, Sharon Stone and co, one of the main attractions at last year's Diff was the establishment of the Dubai Film Connection (DFC), the first feature and documentary film co-production market in the UAE. It was the brainchild of Industry Office head ...
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Features
Special feature - Dubai Film Market - Bridging the sales gap
One of the most important additions to this year's Diff is the Dubai Film Market (DFM), an initiative set up to encourage regional and international film production and trade, as well as raising the profile of world cinema.Worthy aspirations, but does the world need another film market' Ziad Yaghi, director ...
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Features
International - Music to industry ears
Mamma Mia! The Movie's phenomenal run has led to an Indian summer at the box office. Screen's international top 40 chart was up 12.1% year on year, with the Abba musical making another big contribution.Universal's hit musical notched up another milestone, passing $350m gross since its initial international release in ...
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Features
Flying the flag for 3D
Only one in 10 digital screens is adequate for 3D screenings, pioneering 3D film-maker Ben Stassen has claimed.Stassen is CEO of Brussels-based nWave, which is behind a series of successful Imax projects and this year released 3D animation Fly Me To The Moon. But although he claimed 3D is the ...
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News
Crystal Sky, VCL, Cinetel coil around Viper
CineTel Films has teamed up with Steven Paul's Crystal Sky and Germany's VCL to produce the $5.2m action picture Viper starring Theresa Russell and Patrick Muldoon. CineTel's Paul Hertzberg and Lisa Hansen are producing the film, with Paul and VCL's Datty Ruth as executive producers. Jay Andrews, whose credits include ...
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News
Paramount signs two-picture deal with Padilha and Prado's Zazen
Paramount Pictures announced today a two-picture co-production deal with Jose Padilha and Marcos Prado`s film company Zazen Produções. Signed during Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival, the deal includes Nunca Antes Na Historia Deste Pais, the new feature film by Padilha, who won the Golden Bear in Berlin this year ...
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News
Mamma Mia! continues to sing with Italian opening this weekend
Universal's international champion Mamma Mia! has reached a staggering $361.9m through UPI and studio top brass will expect another command performance when the musical adaptation opens in Italy on October 3.However Mamma Mia! faces a strong challenge for its international crown from DreamWorks-Paramount's thriller Eagle Eye, which begins a major ...
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News
Mackiewicz joins Wright as co-president of Regent Worldwide Sales
Liz Mackiewicz has been named co-president alongside Adam Wright of Regent Entertainment's sale division Regent Worldwide Sales.Mackiewicz recently served as senior vice president of international sales at Morgan Creek International and will share with Wright oversight of all management and distribution initiatives as the ten-year-old company looks to expand.'We are ...
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News
Disney announce record advance bookings in UK for High School 3
Three weeks before its release of The Disney Channel adaptation High School Musical 3: Senior Year, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures UK has announced the film has recorded the biggest advance bookings for a film in the UK.As of October 1 cinemas across the UK have taken bookings valued at ...
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News
MK2 picks up Patrice Chereau's Prosecution
MK2 has announced the acquisition of Patrice Chereau's latest Prosecution.MK2 will handle international sales on the film which begins shooting in Paris next week.Romain Duris, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Jean-Hughes Anglade star in a story of 'crazy love and emotional persecution,' according to MK2. The film is from an original script ...
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News
Japanese anime focus for 2009 Locarno
The world of Japanese anime will be the subject of the retrospective for next year's Locarno Film Festival (August 5-15, 2009) which will also mark the last edition under artistic director Frederic Maire before he becomes head of the Swiss Cinematheque in Lausanne.The Manga Impact retrospective and exhibition will provide ...
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News
Japanese sellers premiere new titles at Asian Film Market
Japanese majors and independent production companies are kicking off sales of their latest titles at Pusan's Asian Film Market, which launched today. While many Japanese companies reserve full market screenings for the likes of Cannes and the Santa Monica AFM, they believe that Pusan's AFM is an important place to ...
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News
Singapore Film Commission awards $1.6m to new directors
Nine Singapore directors have each received $170,000 (S$250,000) to direct their first feature-length film under the Singapore Film Commission's New Feature Film Fund. Funding was granted on the basis that each project has the potential to carry a Singapore-made story to overseas markets.The projects include Japan-Singapore co-production Thunder Boys as ...
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Fox Walden restructure sees Godsick move back into Fox
Fox Walden chief Jeffrey Godsick is rejoining Fox Filmed Entertainment as executive vice president of marketing and digital content as Fox and Walden Media streamline the joint venture to take greater advantage of Fox's marketing expertise.Both Walden and Fox will continue to develop family films separately with the option of ...