Small MPU – Page 3375
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News
Belgian film fund reports 18 film investment
Belgian media fund Motion Investment Group (MIG) raised $21.4m (Euros $16.5m) for 18 films in 2006, making it the country's biggest source of film finance.The company's end-of-year report shows MIG backed 13 features, four television productions and a documentary.Added to its foundation year of 2005, the company has now raised ...
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New Prescience venture aims to raise $10m
A new UK Enterprise Investment Scheme venture from Prescience Film Finance and tax specialist Chancery aims to raise around $10m (£5m) for UK film and television productions.Prescience Pictures' initial projects include a Bruce Beresford-directed film version of Oscar Wilde's A Woman of No Importance, to star Lindsay Lohan and to ...
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Grave Decisions and Four Minutes top Bavarian awards
Marcus H. Rosenmueller's Bavariancomedy Grave Decisions and Chris Kraus' prison drama Four Minutes werethe big winners at the weekend's Bavarian Film Awards in Munich. This year's top honour, the $260,000 (Euros200,000) Producers Award, went to Roxy Film, the producers of 2006'sbest film Grave Decisions, while feature debutant Rosenmueller - whosesecond ...
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Reviews
The Hitcher
Dir: Dave Meyers. US. 2007. 84mins.The recent assembly-line remaking of recognisable horror titles continues with The Hitcher, a dreary updating of the 1986 Rutger Hauer serial-killer hitchhiker thriller, which disregards character empathy in the pursuit of perfunctory scares. Produced by (among others) Michael Bay, this new version of The Hitcher ...
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Reviews
Zoo
Dir: Robinson Devor. US. 2007. 80mins.The much-awaited Zoo will draw enviable publicity (already evident at Sundance, where it premiered) because of the salacious nature of the story that inspired the film: the death from a perforated colon of a man who had sex with a horse in 2005 at a ...
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Sundance Film Festival 2007
Reviews (A-Z)(Click to go to review)An American Crime (Tommy O'Haver, US)Although excruciating to watch, Tommy O'Haver's real-life crime drama is so well-crafted and well-acted that it resonates long after the credits, says Mike GoodridgeCatch And Release (Susannah Grant, US)Susannah Grant's ambitious romantic comedy-drama is a jumble of tones unsuccessfully searching ...
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Little Miss Sunshine surprise win at PGA awards
The producers of Little Miss Sunshine were the surprise winners of the Producers Guild of America (PGA) theatical motion picture award.The winner of the award has matched the best picture at the Oscars for 11 of the last 17 years.Marc Turtletaub, David T Friendly, Peter Saraf, Albert Berger and Ron ...
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Stomp has second weekend at top of North American box office
Screen Gems' Stomp The Yard remained on top for the second consecutive while Fox's Night At The Museum held firm in second place and crossed $200m in its fifth weekend.Dance drama Stomp The Yard raised its tally by an estimated $13.3m to $41.6m while $13m eased Night At The Museum ...
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Little Miss Sunshine surprise winner of the PGA prize for best film
Fox Searchlight's Little Miss Sunshine trumped heavyweights Babel, Dreamgirls, The Queen and The Departed at the Producers Guild of America (PGA) awards in Los Angeles on Saturday [Jan 20].The comedy won the night's big prize, the Darryl F Zanuck award, in a result that recognised producers Marc Turtletaub, David T ...
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Vantage teams with Morgan Stanley for $150m financing fund
Paramount Vantage has set up a $150m film financing fund with Morgan Stanley called Marathon Funding, which will invest in the production of at least 15 films.The arrangement covers Babel, as well as the 10 films scheduled to open through Vantage this year. Titles include Paul Thomas Anderson's oil prospector ...
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Kasell steps down as executive director of Hamptons Film Festival
Denise Kasell is leaving her post as executive director of the Hamptons International Film Festival after nine years at the event.Board chairman Stuart Match Suna and the Hamptons board are searching for a replacement. Artistic director Rajendra Roy remains in place.'Denise's tenure has been a boon to the Hamptons Film ...
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Fox's Museum remains top in international with $14.4m gross
Night At The Museum continued to dominate the overseas arena as the family film added an estimated $14.4m from 3,400 screens in 35 markets through Fox International to raise the tally to $173.2m.The film scored the fifth biggest industry opening in Uruguay to take $38,000 from only 13 screens. It ...
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Sundance deal-making starts slowly, but finally takes off
After several days of toe-dipping, buyers in Park City finally took the plunge and closed a flurry of deals at the weekend.Corporate stablemates Picturehouse and New Line swooped on rights to Seth Gordon's Slamdance documentary The King Of Kong.The Weinstein Company paid in the region of $4m for worldwide rights ...
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Sakuran to premiere in Berlinale Special section
Mika Ninagawa's debut feature Sakuran will have its world premiere on Feb 9 as the opening film of the Berlinale Special section at this year's Berlin International Film Festival, distributor Asmik Ace has announced. It will be the only Japanese film to screen as an official selection at the festival. ...
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Diffusion gets all UK rights to Joachim Trier's Reprise
New independent distributor Diffusion Pictures has acquired all UK and Ireland rights to Joachim Trier's Reprise. Reprise stars Espen Klouman Hoiner and Anders Danielsen Lie in the story of two twenty -something friends who are struggling to write novels. It picked up awards at festivals including Toronto and Karlovy Vary ...
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British Film Office sends visual effects rep to LA
Meg Guidon has been appointed to the British Film Office in Los Angeles as its first visual effects sector representative.Guidon, who has worked with such post houses as Cinesite and Mill Film in London, will take up her position in August, working under the title of visual effects marketing executive.The ...
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Scalpel takes rights to Berlin-bound In Memory Of Myself
Pierre Menahem's Paris-based sales label Scalpel Films has picked up worldwide rights to Berlin competition title In Memory Of Myself (In Memoria Di Me), by Italy's Saverio Costanzo.Scalpel will also handle German title Hotel Very Welcome, by Sonja Heiss, at Perspective Deutsches Kino and Panorama title The Bubble, by Israel's ...
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Pathe Distribution acquires rights to UGC Films library
Pathe Distribution has acquired the library of defunct UK distributor UGC FIlms, including Walter Becker's Good Bye Lenin! and Francois Ozon films, including 8 Women and Swimming Pool.UGC Films UK was launched by French company UGC in 2001 and was hailedat the time as a big boost for arthouse cinema, ...
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Reviews
The Savages
Dir/scr: Tamara Jenkins. US. 2007. 113mins. The story of a brother and sister forced to care for their mentally diminished father, Tamara Jenkins's second feature The Savages examines with sensitivity, intelligence and jolting observation the vicissitudes of suffering, loss and human frailty. It's a serious work sharpened by prickly humour, ...
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Reviews
Year of the Dog
Dir/Scr: Mike White. US. 2007. 98mins. Mike White's outre wit and malicious satirical imagination is shown to sometimes spectacular effect in Year of the Dog. It is an alternately strange, puzzling and highly peculiar directing debut about a woman whose private trauma, coupled with her professional failure and romantic disappointment, ...