Small MPU – Page 34
-
News
Dinard to open British film festival with It's A Free World
Ken Loach's It's A Free World, which world premiered in Venice and will also screen here in Toronto, has been selected as the opening-night film at the Festival of British Film in Dinard. The closing-night film is L'Heure Zero by Pascal Thomas.The festival, Oct 4-7 in the seaside town in ...
-
News
Montreal's Park Ex readies Jacob Tierney's The Trotsky
Montreal-based Park Ex Entertainment, producer of Canadian smash Bon Cop, Bad Cop, is readying Jacob Tierney's follow-up to Twist.Written and to be directed by Tierney, The Trotsky dives into the mind of a 17-year-old high schooler who believes himself to be the reincarnation of Leon Trotsky. Twist producer Victoria Hirst ...
-
News
AFI FEST line-up include world premiere of Public Enemy doc
AFI FEST 2007 has unveiled 15 official selections for November including the world premieres of documentaries Public Enemy: Welcome To The Terrodome and 1,000 Journals. Robert Patton-Spruill's Public Enemy: Welcome To The Terrodome charts the 20-year history of the hip hop legends, while Andrea Kreuzhage's 1,000 Journals examines a ...
-
News
Opinion - The might of rights
A spoof radio news item from the surreal satirists at The Onion joked that a film studio had bought the movie rights to Allan Sherman's classic comic song Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh. That might have been funny once but the world of rights has already gone way past parody. In ...
-
News
Film Fund fires up German industry
In the battle to lure high-budget footloose productions to international production hubs, two of the most prized of this year's scalps have gone to Germany. Both Bryan Singer's Valkyrie for United Artists and the Wachowski brothers' Speed Racer for Warner Bros have shot in the territory, seduced in no small ...
-
Features
In Focus - German production - Keen on the kino
Finding crew members has not been an easy task this summer with local production booming throughout Germany. In an echo of the motto 'diversity is our strength' from the halcyon days of New German Cinema in the 1970s, German film-makers are trying their hands at a smorgasbord of genres.Following the ...
-
Features
United States - The Film's The Thing
I was at pains to try and make this not feel like a playwright's movie," says David Auburn, the award-winning playwright of Proof, whose directorial film debut The Girl In The Park has its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival this week. "I wrote it for the screen. ...
-
Features
United States - Writing Partners
The 3:10 To Yuma writers Michael Brandt and Derek Haas say their working relationship is "like a marriage", but that doesn't mean they share an antique writers' desk a la George Clooney and Grant Heslov on Good Night, And Good Luck."We work separately," Brandt says. "One of us writes a ...
-
Features
United Kingdom - Heart of darkness
Neil Marshall indulges his influences in Doomsday, the $30m follow-up to his acclaimed 2005 low-budget horror hit The Descent. "Raiders Of The Lost Ark was the film that made me want to make movies," Marshall says during a recent promotional trip to Comic-Con in San Diego.From the sound of it, ...
-
News
X-Men, Shanghai Noon top tepid weekend
The UK box office over the August bank holiday weekend was disappointing, with the aggregate gross around $1.5m lower than the same weekend last year. The major opener, Shanghai Noon (pictured), released and highly-publicised by Buena Vista International, grossed $1,095,159 (£744,631) over the three-day weekend taking second place in the ...
-
Features
United Kingdom - Laying down the law
Had David Alexander lasted more than a day studying to be a lawyer, he might not have been responsible for the award-winning short, Growing, or be on his way to the Talent Lab at the Toronto International Film Festival, where he is one of the first three international participants in ...
-
Features
Industry moves
HIGGINSON ON THE RISE AT FOX INTERNATIONALPaul Higginson has been promoted to senior vice-president of Europe Theatrical at Fox International, filling the post that will be left by the Universal-bound Christian Grass. Todd Huntley has been promoted to vice-president of Europe Theatrical. Both promotions take effect immediately. Higginson will remain ...
-
Features
Lebanon - Going for a song
Hany Tamba's 2005 short After Shave (Beyrouth Apres-Rasage) marked the Lebanese director out as a major talent. Stunningly shot, witty and poignant, it won the French Cesar for best short film in 2006. Tamba is now editing his first feature, a comedy about a one-hit-wonder French singer (played by Patrick ...
-
Features
Mexico - Duo draw on local inspiration
Young film-making duo Israel Cardenas and Laura Guzman are typical of a new generation of Latin American film-makers in their desire to portray the continent without resorting to stereotypes. Their debut feature, Cochochi, explores the life and culture of an indigenous Mexican tribe, the Tarahumaras, through two young brothers' search ...
-
News
Sequel opportunities - reviving franchises
With three sequels grossing more than $300m apiece at the North American box office and another half dozen passing $100m, summer 2007 proved the point yet again: sequels can be very big and very reliable business. No wonder the sequel rights market appears to be growing.By acquiring sequel rights to ...
-
Features
Production - How sequel rights work
Sequel and other derivative rights to a film - such as prequel, remake and TV or stage-adaptation rights - generally belong to the studio or production company that makes the film for the entire term of the copyright. Exceptions might occur when a script is written on spec or when ...
-
Features
Production - Upcoming sequels: old franchises with new homes
HalloweenReleased on August 31 in North America, the new Halloween is the ninth film in the series overall and the fourth since the franchise was acquired by the Weinstein Company's Dimension Films. Writer-director Rob Zombie (The Devil's Rejects) has described the film as part prequel to and part remake of ...
-
News
Marketing - Bollywood spreads the net
Bollywood's global reach has expanded rapidly in recent years with the development of solid theatrical markets across disparate territories. This expansion, combined with a range of demographics that now includes non-Indian audiences, means that international Bollywood and Indian film marketers need to be on the cutting edge.'The trend is now ...
-
Features
Marketing - Brand marketing - learning the hard sell
In India, the sight of Bollywood stars on posters or television promoting the biggest brands is an everyday occurrence. But despite their popularity now across the globe, it seems their brand appeal has yet to take off."We have a lot of brands tying up with the films and actors in ...
-
Features
Argentina - Chasing foreign interest
Directors Lucrecia Martel, Pablo Trapero and Daniel Burman were all key figures in the emergence of Argentinian cinema on the international scene a decade ago. All three are now in production on new projects, with an array of foreign partners."We have solid contacts with established companies in Europe," says rising ...