Small MPU – Page 650
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News
Greek festival boosted by business among home distributors
The third RhodesInternational Film Festival has enjoyed a marked increase in activity amonglocal buyers.Stroke, German film-maker Katerina Peters' portrayal of herhusband's battle against disability, became the subject of a bidding warbetween local majors Prooptiki and Playtime. Swiss sales agent Firsthandfilmsis expected to announce a deal later this week.Meanwhile Spentzos Filmstook ...
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Cine Expo: record releases reel in $100m overseas
Nielsen EDI has awarded arecord 32 films the International Gold Reel Award for surpassing $100m innon-US box-office revenue during the past year.Making the awards at CineExpo in Amsterdam, Nick King, international president of Nielsen Entertainment,said the numbers reflected the growth of the international market."We are seeing proof thatfilms can have ...
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Alexander Payne called to festival jury service again
Film-maker Alexander Paynewill preside over the inaugural short film jury at the 11th Sarajevo Film Festivalin August.Payne, fresh from heading upthe Un Certain Regard jury at Cannes in May, had previously been announced asthe subject of a retrospective, including talks and workshops, at the event,which runs from August19-27.Veteran Serbian actor ...
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Cowboy lassos Antidote for arthouse releases
Cowboy Booking International, the New York releasing boutique, has created a new specialised distribution operation that will draw on an initial $1m private equity fund raised by Antidote Films to acquire and put out ten films a year.The new co-venture between Cowboy and Antidote will go by the name Code ...
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Cine-Expo: Warner Bros pledges to be the 2005 hit factory
Warner Bros had pledged that its strategy of a tighter slate ofbigger films will deliver exhibitors the box-office success they crave thisyear.Speaking before the first European screening of Tim Burton'sCharlie And The Chocolate Factory at Cinema Expo in Amsterdam yesterday, Warnersenior vice president for European distribution, Monique Esclavissat said thecompany ...
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Sith breaks all-time preview record in Japan for Fox
20thCentury Fox has recorded record-breaking previews of Star Wars: Episode III:Revenge Of The Sith in Japan, wherethe film opens on July 9. The previews grossed $4.59m ('495m), higher than theprevious record held by The Matrix Reloaded at $3.52m ('416m).Episode I's preview grosses reached $2.35m ('285m), while EpisodeII topped that at$3.01m ...
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Mehta's long-in-the-making Water to open Toronto
Deepa Mehta's long-sufferingdrama Water has been selected asthe opening night gala at the 30th Toronto International FilmFestival. It was one of eleven world premieres announced at TIFF's openingpress conference Tuesday. Also making their worldpremieres are three Special Presentations: Anand Tucker's Shopgirl, based on the novella by Steven Martin, starringMartin opposite ...
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Reviews
War Of The Worlds
Dir:Steven Spielberg. US. 2005. 116 mins. It'salmost as if there are two Steven Spielbergs behind the camera on thiscontemporary version of H G Wells' classic sci-fi story about an alien invasionof Earth: one delivers a thrilling action adventure with just the right mix ofhumanity and effects; the other produces a ...
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News
Paradiso renews output deal with Wild Bunch
Netherlands-based distributor Paradiso Filmed Entertainment has announcedthe renewal of its output deal with French sales and finance outfit Wild Bunch.Encompassing the theatrical release in Belgium and the Netherlands of 25titles including George Romero's Land Of The Dead, Thomas Clay's TheGreat Ecstasy Of Robert Carmichael, Guillermo Del Toro's upcoming Pan'sLabyrinth and ...
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News
Three Dots makes a Catch with new distribution outfit
Taiwan's Three DotsEntertainment has joined forces with new production and distribution companySerenity Entertainment International to produce Catch, the latestfeature from Formula 17 director DJ Chen.The $700,000 production,which will begin shooting in Taiwan next month, sees Chen re-team with Formula17 star Tony Yang, who will play a movie extra.Last year Yang ...
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Reviews
Crossing The Bridge: The Sound Of Istanbul
Dir/scr: Fatih Akin. Ger.2005. 90mins.Following on the heels ofhis Golden Bear win for Head-On at last year's Berlin Film Festival,Turkish-German filmmaker Fatih Akin shows a different side of his artisticpersonality in Crossing The Bridge: The Sound Of Istanbul, a lovingmusical homage to that glorious city straddling Asia and Europe.Though it ...
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Reviews
The President's Last Bang (Geuddae Geu Saramdeul)
Dir. ImSangsoo. S Kor. 2005. 102mins.The mostambitious feature yet from director Im Sangsoo (A Good Lawyer's Wife),his fictionalised telling of the assassination of South Korean President ParkChung-hee was released only after the late statesman's daughter had documentaryfootage removed on the grounds that the film was not accurate.But then ThePresident's Last ...
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Reviews
Northeast (Nordeste)
Dir/scr: Juan Solanas.Fr-Sp-Bel-Arg. 2005. 104mins.A woman's selfish questto adopt a baby becomes an eye-opening journey into the heart of Argentina in Northeast,a first feature from director Juan Solanas that contrasts the beauty of thecountry with the ugliness of what happens there.The personal story is thekey to a political statement as ...
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News
Rourke, Nighy, McGregor enlist for Stormbreaker
An impressive cast isgathering for the $40m-plus teen superspy adventure Stormbreaker, whichbegins shooting in the Isle of Man next week.Alex Pettyfer (pictured), who was TomBrown in UK TV series Tom Brown's Schooldays, will play 14-year-old specialagent Alex Rider. Mickey Rourke will star as Alex's nemesis, megalomaniacbusinessman Darrius Sayle. Bill Nighy ...
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Latin American productions boosted by Berlinale fund
Planned productions fromLatin America have attracted most support at the latest funding session of theBerlinale's World Cinema Fund (WCF). Five features and one distributioncampaign will share Euros 195,000 ($235,445) from the body's latest round of awards.Fund manager Vincenzo Bugnostressed: 'The majority of the submissions came from Latin America for thefunding ...
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Paris opens $17m fund to documentaries
The Ile de France Commission,which encompasses Paris and its environs, has made its Euros 14m ($17m) purse available to documentary makers for the first time.The announcement was made at the Sunny Side Of The Doc documentary market in Marseilles on Wednesday.The programme will enabledocumentaries to benefit from aid previously earmarked ...
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Cine-Expo: Herbie revs up Disney's attempts at international record
Disney-branded films are heading for 18 months ofunprecedented success in the international market, delegates to Cinema Expo inAmsterdam have been told.The company did a record-breaking $1.7bn of business in 2004but Mark Zoradi, president of Buena Vista International is promising biggerthings to come.The key to the predicted run will be this ...
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War of the Worlds invades international marketplace
War of the Worlds takes its turn invading the globalmarketplace this weekend, with UIP giving the Steven Spielberg-Tom Cruisesci-fi adventure a 78-territory, 8,200-print international launch. Expectations are high that the Paramount/DreamWorksco-production, which opened in North America on Wednesday (June 29) to get ajump on the July 4 holiday weekend, will ...
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Canada's cinema admissions drop after ten years on the increase
Canadian cinema attendancedropped 4.6% in 2003-2004, the first reduction in ten-year upward trend, accordingto an industry survey released by Statistics Canada. More crucially, profits wereoff by 15.8% despite a rise in average admission price, which rose 2.5% toC$7.45. Part of the downturn may be a reflection of the SARS scare ...
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National Lampoon family brand begins first film in LA
National Lampoon Clubhouse,a new family brand created by National Lampoon Inc and Lorenzo Doumani'sMajestic Entertainment, has started production in Los Angeles on its firstproduction National Lampoon Clubhouse's Trick Or Treat.The film is a familyHalloween comedy about a 15 year-old boy spending the fateful night at homebabysitting his younger siblings who ...