Small MPU – Page 744
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News
European regional funding network swells its ranks
The UK's Screen South, Sweden's Film I Vast and Spain's IVACLa Filmoteca are among eight regional film funders who have swelled the ranksof the Cine-Regio network of European funding agencies to bring the membershipup to 13.Part-financed by the European Union's Interreg IIICprogramme, the Cine-Regio network was launched at the beginning ...
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Best Man joins The Works for AFM
Shooting Fish director Stefan Schwartz is directing The Best Man, a romantic comedy that is part of a trio of new filmson the AFM slate of UK-based sales agency The Works.Shooting has already startedon the story of a hapless best man who falls in love with the bride. Thepicture, which ...
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BAFTA Scotland announces film award nominees
Young Adam, American Cousins and Afterlifelead the nominations for the BAFTA Scotland Awards to be held in Glasgow onNovember 14.A significantexpansion of the previous biennial awards honouring new talent, these nowannual awards will honour Scottish achievement at all levels as well asrecognising developments in new technology and new media.Scots actor ...
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UK faces co-production reality-check
UK filmcommissioner Steve Norris has called for the British qualifying certificationof UK co-productions to be taken over by the UK Film Council.Speaking during apanel discussion on co-productions at Screen International's UK Film FinanceSummit in London last week (Oct 21), Norris said that the UK film industryneeded to develop a co-production ...
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IAC announces AFM line-up
UK-based sales agent IAC Film has boarded four films including Leningrad, a WW2 story starring Mira Sorvino, Gabriel Byrne and Armin Mueller-Stahl.Sasha Buravsky is to direct the story of a young British female journalist during the Nazi blockade of Leningrad in 1941. Principal photography will start in January.Also joining ...
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Michael Stone joins sales team at Regent Int'l
Michael Stone has joined Regent Entertainment as director of international sales and servicing as part of the expansion of the company's international sales division. Stone was most recently vice president worldwide distribution at Blue Rider Pictures and previously director of international servicing at Lakeshore International and Trans Atlantic Entertainment. He ...
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MGM bullish with third quarter figures announcement
Powered by a 30% increase inworldwide video shipments of titles like Barbershop 2 and Agent Cody Banks 2, and the Jul 1 launch of the MGM Channel in Spain,MGM top brass remained upbeat as they announced third quarter operatingfigures.Third quarter revenues were$401.3m for the period ending Sept 30 2004 compared ...
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AFM name 31 films for Premiere Screenings
EddieO'Flaherty's boxing drama Fighting Tommy Riley and Nickolas Perry and Harry Thomason'spolitical documentary The Hunting Of The President are among a line-up of 31 independentfeatures selected for the AFM's Premiere Screenings Programme.The titles wereannounced yesterday (26) by Jonathan Wolf, executive vice president of theIndependent Film & Television Alliance and AFM ...
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Latvian, Croatian films tie for best film prize in Denver
Rich Devaney's debut feature and inner city drama BrooklynBound won the Emerging Filmmaker Award andDanny Schechter's WMD: Weapons Of Mass Deception took the Maysles Brothers Award for Best Documentaryat the 27th Starz Denver International Film Festival.LailaPakalnina's Latvian school-set drama Python tied for the Krzysztof Kieslowski Awardfor Best Feature Film with ...
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Reynolds, Reeds leave Curb to start Fabrication
KjehlRasmussen's fledgling Hollywood-based distributor Fabrication Films has pickedup its first two features for worldwide distribution and will bring them to theAFM in Santa Monica next week.The company,which plans to distribute six to nine titles a year including US theatricalreleases, has acquired all worldwide rights to Jay Anania's mystery Her NameIs ...
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Arclight launches AFM sales on Word, Girl
Arclight Filmshas picked up international rights to Every Word Is True starring Sandra Bullock and GwynethPaltrow among others and Hilary Duff comedy Material Girl which 20th Century Fox isdistributing domestically. Both will be offered to buyers at AFM.WarnerIndependent Pictures (WIP) is financing Every Word Is True and handling domestic distribution;Arclight's ...
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Bush's Brain to screen pre-election on Sundance
Bush's Brain, the profile of George W Bush's chiefpolitical strategist Karl Rove, will screen on the Sundance Channel on the eveof the presidential election on Nov 1.Directed andproduced by Joseph Mealey and Michael Paradies Shoob, the documentary is basedon the bestselling book by journalists James Moore and Wayne Slater.Bush's Brain ...
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AWP takes the world on Satan's Little Helper
Los Angeles-basedinternational production and distribution company American World Pictures hasacquired worldwide rights to Satan's Little Helper, the first horror picture in more than 20 years bycult filmmaker Jeff Lieberman.The Halloween-themed picturemade its debut at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year and centres on anaive child who becomes the unwitting ...
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EU drops antitrust case against six Hollywood studios
The European Commission (EC) has called on NBC Universal andParamount Pictures to drop what it regards as unfair conditions in their outputdeals with European broadcasters.The EC's departing Competition Commissioner Mario Monti saidyesterday that his organisation had dropped its investigation into thepractices of the other six "major Studios", Buena Vista International ...
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Verhoeven's Blackbook postponed
Dutch director Paul Verhoeven has postponed the filming ofhis new thriller Blackbook (Zwartboek).Shooting should have started this week, but the 66 year old director recently underwenta heart operation and will be recuperating for at least a couple of weeks.Producer San Fu Maltha has rescheduled shooting of the filmfor April 2005, ...
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Universal takes New Police Story for Japan, Korea
Universal Pictureshas acquired all rights to New PoliceStory, starring and produced by Jackie Chan, for Japan and Korea.Co-produced byChan's JCE Movies and the China Film Group, the US$15m action blockbuster isdirected by Benny Chan and also stars Nicholas Tse, Daniel Wu, Charlie Youngand Charlene Choi.The deal wasnegotiated by Keizo Kabata ...
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Dern, Koteas, Caan in cast of Artisan's Novocaine
Laura Dern, Elias Koteas and Scott Caan have joined the cast of Artisan Entertainment's dark comedy Novocaine which began principal photography this week in Chicago.The film, which toplines Steve Martin and Helena Bonham Carter, is written and directed by David Atkins, previously best known as the screenwriter of Emir Kusturica's ...
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Japan's Gaga bought by Usen Corp.
Japan's Usen Corp. has announced the purchase of GagaCommunications, a leading independent film distributor.Usen, a major supplier of broadband services in Japan, plansto acquire a 57.6% stake, amounting to $94.3m (Y10 billion) and operate Gaga asa subsidiary. It will invest the funds in two share issues that Gaga isplanning for ...
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Irish greyhound comedy races towards record book
Redbus Film Distribution'scomedy road movie Man About Dog iswell on its way to becoming one of the most successful Irishindependently-financed films ever.A hit at the Irishbox-office, the Paddy Breathnach-directed film is on course to go up 7% compared to last week.Redbus estimates it will pass the $1.8m (£1m) mark by ...
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Golden Harvest closes Taiwan exhibition deal
Following lengthynegotiations, Hong Kong's Golden Harvest Entertainment has reached a deal toacquire Taiwan's Warner Village cinema circuit - a joint venture between WarnerBros and Australia's Village Roadshow - with a consortium of Taiwanese partnersfor US$38m.Golden Harvest istaking a 40% stake in the circuit for US$15.2m while Taiwanese companies -including disc ...