Small MPU – Page 3941

  • News

    Mira Nair hatches film deal with Indian poultry giant

    2004-04-07T00:00:00Z

    Mira Nair's Mirabai Films has announced a partnership with Indian poultry giant Balaji Rao's Bala Entertainment to establish a film production company that will create independent Asian cinema for the world market.The new production company, International Bhenji Brigade, is looking at producing three South Asian or Asian diaspora films over ...

  • News

    Malaysia cracks down on film piracy

    2004-04-08T04:00:00Z

    Malaysia scored a major crackdown on piracy on 1 April when $1.3m worth of illegal DVDs and VCDs and replicating equipment were seized from a single syndicate. Some of the discs were for distribution to India.The seizure is the biggest this year: together with 18 CD burners, more than 800,000 ...

  • News

    Top producers launch Indian awards ceremony

    2004-04-07T00:00:00Z

    Indian producers body the Film Producers Guild of India is to launch its own awards ceremony next month.The nominees for the first Apsara FPGI Awards will be announced on May 5 with prizes to be unveiled at a ceremony in Mumbai on May 29.The 50-year old Guild has 153 by-invitation-only ...

  • News

    Grosvenor Park's Taylor to spearhead TriMedia feature push

    2004-04-08T04:00:00Z

    DanielTaylor, managing director of UK tax financier Grosvenor Park, is joiningTriMedia Entertainment, the entertainment company of 90s rap mogul ChrisSchwartz, to spearhead a push into producing youth-oriented, music-drivenfeatures with European music stars.Taylortakes up the post of president at TriMedia in addition to his Grosvenor Parkduties. The two companies are hatching ...

  • News

    Mira Nair serves as guest director for LAFF

    2004-04-08T04:00:00Z

    Film-maker Mira Nair is toserve as guest director for the 2004 Los Angeles Film Festival. In this role,she will host a two-day film-maker retreat, programme a sidebar of films thathave inspired her work and attend opening night festivities.The tenth annual Los AngelesFilm Festival runs from June 17 to June 26. ...

  • News

    Slamdance turns to US distribution, talent managing

    2004-04-08T04:00:00Z

    The founder ofthe Slamdance Film Festival Peter Baxter has teamed up with film and TVproducer and manager Robert Schwartz and Cleveland-based businessman GeorgeKetvertis to launch Slamdance Media Group, a new US distribution and talentmanagement outfit based in Los Angeles.The company hasalready closed a home entertainment output deal with Ventura Entertainment, ...

  • News

    Passion poised for more gold over Easter weekend

    2004-04-08T04:00:00Z

    Easter weekend sees somewide studio offerings hit the markets, while other pictures already in themarket, most notably The Passion Of The Christ will be looking for holiday audiences to bump theirgrosses.Most notably, The Passion opens in Italy on Friday through Eagle Pictureswhich has spent Euros 2.5m to launch the film. ...

  • Reviews

    My Life So Far

    2000-03-21T13:50:00Z

    Dir: Hugh Hudson. UK. 1999. 93mins.Prod Co: Enigma, Hugh Hudson Films. Int'l sales: Miramax International. Prods: David Puttnam, Steve Norris. Exec prods: Bob Weinstein, Harvey Weinstein, Paul Webster. Scr: Simon Donald from the autobiography Son Of Adam by Sir Denis Forman. DoP: Bernard Lutic. Prod des: Andy Harris. Ed: Scott ...

  • Reviews

    Bad Education (La Mala Educacion)

    2004-04-08T00:00:00Z

    Dir/scr: Pedro Almodovar. Spain. 2004. 104 minsPedro Almodovar's status as Europe's most distinctive and bankable auteur is effortlessly maintained with Bad Education, a rich fusion of film noir and melodrama spun with all the intricacy of a spider's web. Autobiographical memories and Almodovar's trademark preoccupations with death and desire are ...

  • Reviews

    Walking Tall

    2004-04-08T00:00:00Z

    Dir: Kevin Bray. 2004. US. 86mins.Former wrestler turned action hero The Rock stars in this updated and reconstituted revenge saga based on the true story of Sheriff Buford Pusser, whose vigilante exploits in a small Tennessee town set the stage for the 1970's trilogy of 'hickspolitation' films on which this ...

  • Reviews

    The Alamo

    2004-04-08T00:00:00Z

    Dir: John Lee Hancock. US. 2003. 136mins.Reconceived and re-budgeted after the departure of original director Ron Howard and then rescheduled by Disney from its planned release date last Christmas, The Alamo finally arrives on screen with a lot of baggage. But it's not the baggage that weighs down this latest ...

  • News

    Germany's Senator files for insolvency

    2004-04-08T00:00:00Z

    Beleaguered German producer-distributor Senator Entertainment filed for insolvency today (April 8) after failing to agree a rescue plan with its creditor banks and potential investors.The Berlin-based company said the filing affected parent company Senator Entertainment AG as well as the subsidiaries Senator Film Produktion GmbH, Senator Film Verleih GmbH and ...

  • News

    City Screen looks to expand UK arthouse circuit

    2004-04-12T04:00:00Z

    Arts Alliance Media (AAM), the venture capital firm which owns a majority stake in City Screen, is looking to expand the art house cinema chain yet further.The company has already earmarked another unnamed London cinema outside the West End to add to the City Screen circuit, which currently stands at ...

  • News

    Period epic Kisna wraps Himalayan shoot

    2004-04-12T04:00:00Z

    Hindi film producer-director Subhash Ghai has completed a forty-day shoot of his period epic Kisna in the foothills of the Indian Himalayas.The US$5m Kisna is the most expensive film made by Ghai's Mukta Arts. The company's credits include Taal, which was the first Indian film to feature in both the ...

  • News

    Swedes back English language features

    2004-04-12T04:00:00Z

    The Swedish Film Institute (SFI) has greenlit six new Swedish feature films and given financial support to Lars von Trier's Manderlay.Colin Nutley's English-language drama The Queen of Sheba's Pearls won most backing. $1.04m (SEK 8m) has been allocated to the film, which is being produced by Maritha Norstedt of Sweetwater ...

  • News

    Italian cinema hit by distribution bottleneck

    2004-04-12T04:00:00Z

    New research shows that 30 completed Italian films are currently in limbo, still searching for a distributor or simply waiting to be released.Among the Italian market's self-described "frozen" films are Egidio Eronico's Rua Alguem, which stars Charlton Heston and F. Murray Abraham, and Fiorella Infascelli's Il Vestito da Sposa with ...

  • News

    The Truth About Love located in Bristol

    2004-04-12T04:00:00Z

    Romantic comedy The Truth About Love, starring Jennifer Love Hewitt, Dougray Scott and Jimi Mistry, begins filming in the UK this month.Directed by John Hay (There's Only One Jimmy Grimble) and produced by Tracey Adam at Lex Filmed Entertainment, The Truth About Love is billed as a film in which ...

  • News

    Wild Bunch picks up Mar del Plata winner

    2004-04-12T04:00:00Z

    French sales house Wild Bunch has picked up international sales duties on Buena Vida Delivery, the Argentinian dark comedy which won last month's Mar Del Plata festival and the Toulouse festival of Latin American films."We don't often board such obviously cinephile pictures, but we feel strongly that this film will ...

  • News

    Italian film suffers domestic box office decline

    2000-03-22T12:56:00Z

    Admissions to Italian films dropped by almost 50% to 9 million in the eight months from August 1999 to March 2000, according to local trade body Cinetel, compared to 16 million the previous year.Total admissions fell by 1.5 million over the eight-month period, according to Cinetel which monitors 75% of ...

  • News

    UK Film Council unveils Development Fund recipients

    2004-04-08T00:00:00Z

    UK Film Council's Development Fund has unveiled details of its third year of slate funding to a selection of film companies.Recipients include: Fragile Films (£200,000), Ruby Films (£255,000), Tall Stories (£100,000), NFTS (£12,000), Riverchild Films (£65,000), October Films (£90,000), Gruber Films (£100,000) and Recorded Picture Company (£100,000).Little Bird has been ...