Small MPU – Page 3407
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News
Gail Lyon appointed president of production at Initial
Gail Lyon has been hired as president of production at Graham King's Initial Entertainment Group, effective immediately.Lyon, who most recently produced Disney/Spyglass' comedy Stick It starring Jeff Bridges, will report directly to King while working closely with vice president of development Grey Rembert and production executive Denis O'Sullivan.'Gail elegantly combines ...
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Studios offer triple punch of Ghost Rider, Good Shepherd and Hot Fuzz
A diverse trio of studio-distributed films make their international debuts this weekend, with Sony launching comic book-based action outing Ghost Rider and Universal opening spy drama The Good Shepherd and British comedy Hot Fuzz. Ghost Rider, with Nicolas Cage as the Marvel Comics title character, opens through Sony Pictures Releasing ...
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News
Meserve promoted to president of Wind Dancer
Dete Meserve has been promoted to president of Wind Dancer Films and will be based in the company's new Beverly Hills office.As president, she will oversee production, financing and distribution of Wind Dancer's film slate, continuing to manage the company's development fund and working with financiers to put films into ...
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Sundance Institute announces fellowships and grants
Sundance Institute has announced this year's annual Feature Film Program fellowships and grants for emerging independent film-makers.'We are thrilled to offer additional support to these uniquely talented and visionary artists,' Michelle Satter, director of the Feature Film Program, said.'We are committed to a year-round programme that provides our film-makers with ...
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World Cinema Fund casts its net wider
As of this summer, the Berlinale's World Cinema Fund (WCF) will be open to projects by film-makers from South East Asia and the Caucasus in addition to the existing focus regions of Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and Central Asia. 'After the positive development of the WCF in the ...
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News
Roadside picks up zen cooking doc
Roadside Attractions has acquired North American rights from Atrix Films to Doris Doerrie's documentary How To Cook Your Life.The film will open in the US this summer and profiles the SanFrancisco-based zen priest and master chef Edward Espe Brown as heoutlines zen and the art of culinary sustenance.Franz Xaver Gernstl ...
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Leslie Unger named new communications director at AMPAS
Leslie Unger will succeed the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences' longtime communications director John Pavlik after the 79th Academy Awards on February 25.Pavlik is stepping down after 15 years of service, in which time he has been the only communications chief in the Academy's history.He had earlier served ...
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Screenwriters festival launches script market
This year's international Screen Writers Festival is to launch a speculative script market.scriptMARKET offers writers the chance to send in a script for consideration by a panel of agents, producers, commissioners, developersand/or sales agents.The panel will meeet the top 30 at the festival in the UK town of Cheltenham on ...
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Features
Editorial - The future is now
An undercurrent at this year's Berlin International Film Festival was an uneasy feeling of a business in flux. It did not stop strong sales being made nor did it undermine the expansion of the European Film Market (EFM). Indeed, Wild Bunch, which had shunned the refurbished Martin Gropius Bau for ...
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News
Europe and the slate-finance boom
The idea that there might be another big wave of funding around the corner remains one of the big hopes for the European film industry. Those dreams have until recently revolved around the idea of the discovery of a new tax loophole, which might allow a return to the sale-and-leaseback ...
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Israel's Wolgin prize split between Besame, Sister
Josef Pitchhadze's Besame Mucho and Dan Wolman's Foreign Sister were jointly awarded the feature prize at this year's Wolgin Awards, a competition for domestic productions which runs as part the Jerusalem Film Festival (July 13-22).An additional script award went to The Investigation directed by Marek Rozenbaum from a script by ...
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News
Russian film - Eastern promise
While Europe may include a number of mature markets working at around their effective capacity, in the east there are opportunities for exponential growth. Most obviously there is Russia.But for all its explosive box-office growth, Russia remains a problematic market where DVD revenues are minimal and an impending law reducing ...
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Features
Just draw it
Dale Wahl is used to Laika Entertainment, the fledgling feature animation operation owned by Nike chairman and co-founder Phil Knight, being viewed sceptically by the Hollywood establishment."It's kind of expected," says Wahl, who 18 months ago became president and CEO of Laika Inc after a 16-year stint with Knight's giant ...
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Features
The showman
The omission of Bill Condon from the list of directing Oscar nominees was a shock to the growing legions of Dreamgirls fans across North America. Condon's DreamWorks and Paramount-backed production, which won the best picture (musical or comedy) Golden Globe, also faced a crushing shutout in the best picture Oscar ...
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Features
Shooting from the hip
The name Canana, which translates as "cartridge belt", has an almost revolutionary ring to it. That fits with the goals of the Mexican production house's founders Diego Luna, Gael Garcia Bernal and Pablo Cruz. "We want productions that give the world an insight into our reality," says Cruz, who runs ...
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Features
Industry moves
Wolf to leave Peace ArchPenny Wolf is leaving her post as managing director of Peace Arch Films in London, effective March 16. Wolf is attending the European Film Market in Berlin to meet buyers as a company employee, before going on to pursue new opportunities.New Kofic US office headSun-young Moon ...
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Features
Outsider's view
Fans of David Mackenzie's earlier films The Last Great Wilderness, Young Adam and Asylum will not be too surprised by his new feature Hallam Foe, he predicts. "I thought it was an opportunity to do something that goes with the general flow of my work," he says of the project, ...
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Features
United Kingdom - Filmworks' ethic
When broadcaster Sky and UK exhibitor Odeon joined forces in a 50-50 venture to create new distribution company, Odeon and Sky Filmworks, some eyebrows were raised. Why, observers asked, did the two companies want to venture into an overcrowded and overly competitive field such as theatrical distribution'Six months after its ...
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Features
The BAFTAs 2007 - Awards countdown - King and Queen crowned at BAFTAs
The signs may have pointed towards an outburst of flag-waving patriotic fervour at the Orange British Academy Film Awards last Sunday (February 11), but the Baftas failed to conform. Nine ground-breaking nominations for James Bond blockbuster Casino Royale resulted in just one win in the sound category and the compensation ...
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Features
The BAFTAs 2007 - Campaign watch
Both The Queen and The Last King Of Scotland ran expensive, committed campaigns and both reveal the importance of the autumn festival circuit in building towards Bafta success, also a factor for previous winners such as Brokeback Mountain (2005) and Vera Drake (2004).Helen Mirren's best actress prize at Venice in ...