Small MPU – Page 255
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News
Vaines leaves TWC for LA job at King's GK Films
UK film veteran Colin Vaines has joined Graham King's GK Films as co-president of production, effective Oct 1. He arrives from The Weinstein Company (TWC) where he was executive vice president of European production.Reporting directly to King, he will work alongside Gail Lyon, the company's other co-president of production, in ...
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News
Stone sparkles at Amfar's Venice premiere
Sharon Stone was the undoubted star of the first ever amFAR benefit event to be held in Venice.Stone, in town to present Clint Eastwood with a Golden Lion, donated a leather vanity case that she had designed and produced by luxury luggage maker Louis Vuitton. The case was sold for ...
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News
Kosslick talks up Berlin in Babelsberg speech
Berlin-Brandenburg is currently dragging behind other German states as a production location, but will soon play catch-up, according to incoming Berlin festival chief Dieter Kosslick, who delivered the keynote speech at this week's Babelsberg 2000 producers' convention.Kosslick presented figures from a report by market research company FORMATT which showed that ...
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News
KirchPayTV offloads stake in BSkyB
UK satellite broadcaster BSkyB's shares slid to a three-month low yesterday after Germany's KirchPayTV sold its remaining 3.1% stake in the company for $862m (£594.5m).KirchPayTV, which houses digital platform Premiere World, acquired a 4.3% stakes in BSkyB last December. At the same time, the UK company bought a 24% stake ...
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Reviews
Beautiful Creatures
Dir: Bill Eagles. UK. 2000. 87 mins.Prod Co: Snakemen Productions for DNA. Int'l Sales: UPI (44) 20 7307 1300. Prods: Alan J Wands, Simon Donald. Exec prods: Duncan Kenworthy, Andrew McDonald. Scr: Simon Donald. DoP: James Welland. Prod des: Andy Harris. Ed: Jon Gregory. Main cast: Rachel Weisz, Susan ...
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News
Screen opinion - Festival dating game
The way films are bought and sold can seem quaintly archaic; we still drive our sheep to market in the Age of Wal-Mart. In the film industry, the 24/7 rat race one associates with other forms of trading is stuck in a choreographed series of events.At one level, this is ...
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News
In focus - 'What about the day job''
It feels like it has got a bit out of control. It feels like there are a lot of useless festivals,' lamented a US sales agent recently. It is hard not to sympathise. On the face of it, the festival calendar seems wildly overloaded. In early autumn, distributors, sales agents, ...
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Features
United States - The Focus Puller
It is a matter of pride for James Schamus, CEO of Focus Features, the specialised division of Universal Pictures, that he never misses a class at Columbia University, where he teaches film courses full-time in the autumn.Schamus paints a comic picture of himself this month, rushing back and forth from ...
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Features
Spain - Place at the top table
Gracia Querejeta was born in Madrid into a film family. Her father, Elias, has produced more than 40 films and has taken an active role in supporting Gracia's own film career, including her latest work, Seven Billiards Tables, which makes its world premiere at San Sebastian this week.Querejeta is no ...
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Features
Spain - Dangerous minds
Julio Medem is back with his first film in four years, Chaotic Ana, which is screening at San Sebastian this week. Charlotte Rampling (speaking Spanish) and newcomer Manuela Velles star in the film, which ventures into the troubled, psychotic world of a young woman named Ana.Following its world premiere at ...
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Features
United Kingdom - Joy Ride
Without any A-list stars or red-carpet posing, one of the hottest titles to emerge from the recent Toronto International Film Festival (Tiff) was music documentary Joy Division, which had its world premiere in Tiff's Real to Reel section (Endeavor is handling North American sales while Katapult is handling international).The band's ...
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Features
United Kingdom - Looking to the Future
UK outfit Future Films was created in 2000 to help producers put together financial packages for their films. That remit was soon expanded to include working as co-producers, and now the company is looking to be involved at every stage of a film's progress from development to international sales."I'm trying ...
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Features
Exhibition - Middle East - Gulf starts to widen
A new US-style mall opens every couple of months in the Gulf, most of them complete with a multiplex. Exhibitors in other territories, including Egypt and Lebanon, have ambitious plans to expand their reach but all battle with censorship and piracy and, outside the Gulf, with political and economic uncertainty."Last ...
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News
S.O.S. strikes twice at Norwegian Amandas
Thomas Robsahm's second Italian-language feature S.O.S. took home the Amanda Award for best Norwegian film at this year's Haugesund festival. Kjersti Holmen won best actress for both S.O.S and Sofie's World.Robsahm, who has been working for national broadcaster NRK since 1992, also wrote and produced the film for his own ...
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Features
Festival - Latin lovers
With its beautiful horseshoe bay, old-town tapas bars and laid-back Basque atmosphere, San Sebastian is a popular industry stop-off on the festival circuit. Despite the increasingly busy autumn calendar, the 54-year-old event is this year expecting more than 1,700 delegates, plus a further 1,500 press and a smattering of international ...
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Features
Festival - Buzz from the Basque country
Mataharis (Sp)Dir: Iciar BollainSpanish actor-turned-director Bollain returns to San Sebastian after winning several awards at the festival in 2003 for domestic violence drama Take My Eyes. Mataharis is a $4m drama that tells the stories of three female detectives trying to juggle their working and private lives.Bollain admits the "expectation ...
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Features
Festival - World premieres in Horizontes Latinos
Grandmother's Trip (El Viaje De La Nonna) (Mex)Dir: Sebastian SilvaSilva's directorial debut is a story about a forgetful grandmother whose family try to convince her that she has travelled to Italy. Silva has already worked on more than 20 films as assistant director or second unit director, including Babel, Before ...
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Features
Festival - Remaining films in Official Selection
Eastern Promises (US-UK, opening film)Dir: David CronenbergInt'l sales: Focus Features International, (44) 207 851 6500A Thousand Years Of Good Prayers (US)Dir: Wayne WangContact: CAA, (1) 212 277 9000Battle For Haditha (UK)Dir: Nick BroomfieldInt'l sales: HanWay Films, (44) 20 7290 0750Buddha Collapsed Out Of Shame (Iran-Fr)Dir: Hana MakhmalbafInt'l sales: Wild Bunch, ...
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Features
Festival - Building up a buyers' market
While San Sebastian director Mikel Olaciregui admits it can be difficult to attract major US buyers so soon after Toronto, the festival remains a busy sales event, with almost 100 international buyers scheduled to attend in 2007. These include Lionsgate, HBO, Warner Bros, DeA Planeta and Rezo Films."San Sebastian is ...
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Features
International - Korea ambitions
Three Korean films made a big impact on the international chart this weekend, and their collective total accounted for 5.4% of the international revenue from the top 40 films over the three-day period.Three new Korean openers - Kidnapping Granny K, Two Faces Of My Girlfriend and The Happy Life ...