Small MPU – Page 711
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Collette, Castle-Hughes to star in Esther Blueburger
Oscar-nominatedAustralian-born actresses, Toni Collette and Keisha Castle-Hughes, have agreedto board teen coming-of-age drama Hey,Hey It's Esther Blueburger.The film starts shooting in Adelaide in October and is being introduced to theinternational marketplace at Cannes by sales agent Lightning Entertainment. BVI hasAustralian rights.The two seasoned actors wereof course chosen for their talent ...
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Ulrich Thomsen hooked on Szasz's Opium
Ulrich Thomsen, who hasstarred in Festen,Kingdom Of Heaven, and The World Is Not Enough, has signed on to star in Hungarian director Janos Szasz's Opium. Szasz, who previously directed Woyzeck and The Witman Boys, is currently filming onlocation in Komarom, northern Hungary, at the Monostorifortress, which once served as a ...
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Cinema Expo to honour Narnia and Shrek director
Cinema Expo International will honour directorAndrew Adamson with the convention's 2006 International Filmmaker of the Yearaward. Adamson directed The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, which has grossed more than$735m worldwide. He previously directed Shrek and Shrek 2. He will receive the award at the Cinema ...
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Harrelson, Huston set to attend Karlovy Vary
Woody Harrelson, Anjelica Huston and, subject to shooting schedules, Johnny Depp are amongst the stars expected to attend next month's Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, the festival has announced.Harrelson, a guest at the festival last year, is to present the Canadian documentary Grass, which he narrated and co-produced, while Huston ...
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UK DVD piracy efforts go to the dogs
The UK-based Federation Against Copyright Theft(FACT), FedEx and the UK's customsdepartment are working together to fight DVD piracy. As part of a project promoted by the Motion Picture Association ofAmerica (MPAA), FACT has trained twoblack Labradors to identify DVDs in boxes, envelopes or otherpackaging that could be smuggled in ...
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Whole New Thing tops at Commonwealth
The fifthCommonwealth Film Festival in Manchester presented Whole New Thing with its top honours forthe audience award for best feature. Directed by AmnonBuchbinder, this film is a coming of age story aboutan exceptional teenage boy from Nova Scotia. Buchbinder andlead actor Aaron Webber were present at the ceremony to collect ...
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InFrame adds four to slate ahead of Cannes
UK-based sales agent InFrame has added four films to its slate ahead of Cannes: Oliver Rihs's Black Sheep, ValeskaGrisebach's Sehnsucht (Longing),Sean Hogan's Lie Still, and Oscar L Costo's Shanghai Red.InFrame will be doing a work-in-progress screening of Black Sheep, a comedy of five interwovenstories about misfits in Berlin.Director Rihs also ...
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Thema plans Rachmaninoff feature Lilacs
ThemaProduction, which backed Match Pointand the forthcoming In Transit, hasannounced plans for a new dramatic feature based on the life ofRussian-American composer and pianist SergeiRachmaninoff. The project,entitled Lilacs, is in pre-productionwith plans to shoot starting in August in Spain and at Thema'snew studio in St. Petersburg. Paris-based Pavel Loungine, who ...
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German director Uwe Boll plans to take Boll AG public
Onthe eve of this year's Cannes Film Market, German film director/media fundmanager Uwe Boll has unveiled plans for his group ofcompanies under the mantle of Boll AG to be listed in the Frankfurt StockExchange's Entry Standard before the summer.Accordingto a company announcement, the injection of fresh cash through a stock ...
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Paula Wagner to head Venice's Lion of the Future jury
TheVenice Film Festival has announced that Paula Wagner will this year head theLion of the Future jury which awards a prize to the best first film. Germandirector Philip Groening will preside over the Orizzonticompetition.The Lionof the Future jury will award $127,565 (Euros 100,000) to the best firstfeature in any section ...
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Line-up revealed for Human Rights Watch Fest
Michael Caton-Jones' Rwandan genocide drama Shooting Dogs and Michael Winterbottom's The RoadTo Guantanamo willscreen at the upcoming 17th Human Rights Watch International FilmFestival in New York.Other titles include Zach Niles' and Banker White's Refugee AllStars, about displacedSierra Leonean musicians who form a band in a refugee camp, and AnthonyGiacchino's Vietnam ...
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Peace Arch funnels genre titles through Genius Products
Toronto-based Peace Arch Entertainment Group has signed anexclusive deal with ambitious Genius Products for Genius to distribute fivehorror and thriller titles from Peace Arch's genre label Archetype Films.Genius now holds exclusive US DVD distribution rights to thebiotech horror project Warriors Of Terra starring Ed Furlong; supernatural tale 5ive Girls starring ...
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Universal buys spec heist script with 50 Cent attached as star
Universal Pictures has acquired the rights to Charley and VlasParlapanides' speculative heist script Live Bet and has attached Curtis '50 Cent'Jackson to star.Mary Parent and Scott Stuber will produce, under their exclusive termdeal with the studio, along with Chris Lighty and 50 Cent through his G UnitFilms label.Universal Pictures' president ...
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Malaysian government bans The Last Communist
Malaysia's Ministry of Home Affairs has banned the release ofAmir Muhammad's The Last Communist,about former Communist leader Chin Peng, over-ruling an earlier decision of theFilm Censorship Board which passed the film uncut last month. According to a spokespersonof Red Films, the co-producer and distributor of the film, the ministry issuedthe ...
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Buena Vista makes record DVD shipment with Tarzan
Buena Vista Home Entertainment has shipped 150,000 DVDs of Tarzan to Japanese stores - a company record for an initial DVD shipment in Japan and the second highest number industry-wide since Warner Home Entertainment released The Matrix on DVD in March.In co-operation with the Fuji TV network, Buena Vista is ...
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Australian government to review film funding
The Australian governmenthas announced, at the same time as handing down the annual budget, that it willreview the effectiveness of the various ways in which it supports films in Australia.The review will encompass,among other things, the investment vehicle Film Finance Corporation Australia(FFC), development agency the Australian Film Commission (AFC), tax ...
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Producer Christine Langan to join BBC Films
UK producer Christine Langan will join BBC Films as a producer/executive producer at the beginning of September.Langan recently produced Pierrepoint and Stephen Frears' forthcoming feature The Queen. She produced ColdFeet for Granada, The Deal forChannel 4 and Dirty Filthy Love forITV. In her new position, Langan will work alongside the ...
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Scalpel takes on sales for Loktev's Day Night Day Night
Pierre Menahem'sParis-based Scalpel Films has picked up worldwide rights to a second Cannes title - the anticipated suicide bomber drama Day Night Day Night by Julia Loktev, which is screening as part of Directors Fortnight.ID Distribution has already signedon for France for this film about a 19-year-old girl preparing tobe ...
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Word of Mouth picks up The Gigolos and KZ
NewLondon-based distributor Word of Mouth Films has signed two new films, The Gigolos and KZ, for UK distribution.RichardBracewell's TheGigolos is a buddy film set against the male escort world in upper-class London. Anna Massey, Sian Phillips and Susannah York star. RexBloomstein's KZis a documentary set in the former SS Concentration ...
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Czech study calls for 12.5% tax rebate on film productions
A 2005 study released May 9 by the Czech Ministry of Culture calls forthe creation of a 12.5% tax rebate for productions filmed in the Czech Republic and the creationof a national body to oversee a comprehensive strategy to promote domesticfilms abroad and boost the country as a destination for ...