Small MPU – Page 3523
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News
Revolver, Warp, Metrodome selected for $1m digital scheme
The National Endowment for Science, Technology & the Arts (NESTA) and the UK Film Council have selected the 12 UK businesses to participate in the new Digital Innovation in Film initiative.The $1m programme, announced in March, is jointly run by NESTA and the UKFC and will help small film companies ...
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News
Schmid stirs up Storm with Berlin shoot starting today
Shooting begins in Berlin today for German filmmaker Hans-Christian Schmid's first major international English-language project Storm (Sturm) [working title] with a cast including Kerry Fox, Anamaria Marinca, Stephen Dillane, Rolf Lassgard and Alexander Fehling.Fox plays a prosecutor at the war tribunal for ex-Yugoslavia in The Hague who is trying to ...
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News
Intermedia gets first-look at Kassar, Vajna's C-2
Intermedia has confirmed it has struck a first-look pact with Mario Kassar and Andy Vajna's US production company C-2 Pictures, kicking off with sequels to the blockbusters The Terminator and Basic Instinct.Both films are to feature their original stars Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sharon Stone. Intermedia, which floated in Germany in ...
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Gael Garcia Bernal plans doc project on resistance
Gael Garcia Bernal is teaming up with director Marc Silver and the UK's Pulse Films on Resist, an ambitious feature documentary and web project.Described as Bernal's personal journey through the landscape of resistance, the film is in pre-production with shooting scheduled to take place in spring next year.Bernal will also ...
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News
Czech box office slumps heavily in first half of 2008
Czech admissions in the first half of 2008 are down 21% year on year, with sales down nearly 20%, despite a 4.5% increase in the number of screenings and a whopping 35% market share for local films.According to new figures released by the Czech Film Distributors Union, admissions in the ...
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News
Apice promoted in creative services at Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures' worldwide creative services group has promoted Matt Apice to vice president of digital production.Apice continues to report to the group's executive vice president Dan Wolfe and assumes a brief that includes co-ordination of post-production operations with other departments and identifying emerging technologies.'As a former editor, Matt has become ...
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News
Dark Knight's international weekend even bigger than estimates
The Dark Knight grossed $2m more at the weekend in international markets than initially thought as $67.7m and more than 8.7m admissions from 7,135 screens in 51 markets raised the running total to $128.3m.Click here to see full international weekend reportWarner Bros Pictures International (WBPI) executives announced the actual results ...
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News
Lionsgate secures five-year $340m revolving credit facility
Lionsgate has secured a five-year $340m revolving credit facility with JPMorgan and Wachovia Bank that replaces the previous $215m facility with JPMorgan.'This new facility is another component of Lionsgate's strong balance sheet, a key driver of our growth in the future,' Lionsgate vice chairman Michael Burns said.'With $371m in cash ...
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News
Film Movement acquires Under The Bombs, The Trap
Film Movement has acquired Philippe Aractingi's Lebanese drama Under The Bombs and Srdan Golubovic's Serbian film noir The Trap.Aractingi shot Under The Bombs during the Lebanon-Israel conflict in 2006 and the story centres on the understanding that develops between a Christian taxi driver and his fare, a Shiite woman from ...
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News
North American VOD service Eurocinema lands on DIRECTV
Eurocinema, the VOD service that offers international features and shorts to the North American market, has signed a carriage deal with DIRECTV.Under the agreement Eurocinema will make its debut on the DIRECTV-on-Demand platform on August 1.Eurocinema's stable of films includes work from Pedro Almodovar, Roman Polanski, Ari Kaurismaki, and Jean ...
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News
US-Korean co-production The Wedding Palace to shoot in Oct
Arclight Films has acquired international sales rights to the US-South Korea family comedy The Wedding Palace, which is set to begin filming in Koreatown, Los Angeles, and Seoul, South Korea, in October.USC Cinema School alumnus Christine Yoo makes her directorial debut on the project, which is backed by official sponsorship ...
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News
Relativity Media acquires rights to fantasy novel Acacia
Relativity Media has acquired the rights to David Anthony Durham's fantasy novel Acacia: The War With The Mein.Andrew Grant will adapt the first title of a planned trilogy in the vein of The Lord Of The Rings about children of an ousted king who return to save their land from ...
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News
SK Telecom, Hanaro invest in new production fund
South Korean mobile telecommunications operator SK Telecom, and its recently acquired subsidiary Hanaro Telecom, are investing $10m in the Benex Culture Contents Investment Fund. The new fund will invest a total of $25.1m in local films and TV drama series over seven years, starting this August.SK and Hanaro are putting ...
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News
Local film dishes up Australian record
Rob Sitch-directed The Dish has crashed through the record barrier with the highest weekend opening gross for an Australian film at the local box office. The Roadshow release grossed $1.56m (A$2.985m) from 281 prints on its four-day opening weekend - more than any other Australian film in history. Including its ...
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News
Korean government to introduce completion bond scheme
The South Korean government has announced plans for an inaugural completion bond system in order to back the development of local cultural content. In a forum between the ruling Grand National party leaders and officials from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, it was decided that the government would ...
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News
Venice competition includes Aronofsky, Arriaga, Kitano, Ozpetek
The 65th Venice Film Festival has unveiled its programme this morning.CompetitionThe Wrestler, dir. Darren Aronofsky (US)The Burning Plain, dir. Guillermo Arriaga (US)Il papa di Giovanna, dir. Pupi Avati (Italy)BirdWatchers, dir. Marco Bechis (Italy)L'Autre, dirs. Patrick Mario Bernard & Pierre Trividic (France)The Hurt Locker, dir. Kathryn Bigelow (US)Il seme della discordia, ...
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Reviews
The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor
Dir: Rob Cohen . US. 2008. 107 mins.Nine years have passed since The Mummy, a moderately-charming period action-adventure yarn starring Brendan Fraser, but it seems even longer after viewing Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor, a dispiritingly witless sequel with very little personality but a lot of frenetic comic banter and ...
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Locarno adds new films from Francois Rotger, Sean Baker
New films by Francois Rotger and Sean Baker have been added to Locarno's official selection a week before the festival opens on Aug 6 with Brideshead Revisited on the Piazza Grande.Rotger's French-Canadian co-production StoryOfJen, starring Laurence Leboeuf, Marina Hands and Tony Ward, will screen as a world premiere in the ...
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Reviews
Swing Vote
Dir. Joshua Michael Stern, US, 2008, 120 minutes.Swing Vote is a motivational effort whichlurches between homespun sentimentality and topical satire, with the moral that echoes the American mythology that one vote can make a difference, even if it is cast by a beer-drinking boob who has just been laid off ...
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Nigel Osner to start The Tale Of Reverend Jones Aug 11
Nigel Osner plans an Aug 11 start of shoot in Swansea and Gower for his film The Tale Of The Reverend Jones. Osner also wrote the screenplay, about a Welsh vicar who takes on the Church of England over its views on homosexuality.Jakob Esposito of Welsh Dragon Pictures will executive ...