Small MPU – Page 779
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News
Media Business School seeks applicants for training course
The pan-European Media Business School (MBS) has announced a July 28 deadline for applications to the upcoming fourth edition in October of its Marketing & Distribution training course.A maximum of 16 participants will be selected to attend the course, which is jointly organised by MBS and UIP and supported by ...
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Disney closes French animation studio
After 15 years of activity, the Disney animation studio based in Montreuil, France is to be closed. Located just outside Paris, the studio had worked on several of Disney's feature animation projects including The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, Hercules, Tarzan and Jungle Book 2.The news was made official in June ...
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BFI to unveil plans for new London film centre
UK Government-backed film and TV body the British Film Institute (BFI) will this week unveil plans for a film centre at London's South Bank complex.The new development will replace the institute's often-criticised National Film Theatre, a venue for some screenings during November's London Film Festival (LFF). The new complex will ...
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UK's Script Factory launches training programme for writers
Lawless Heart director Neil Hunter and producers Andrea Calderwood, Robyn Slovo and Kate Ogborn are to act as mentors for young writers on a new teaching programme launched by writers training The Script Factory.The week-long workshop kicks off on July 14 and will benefit ten up-and-coming young screenwriters.The writers will ...
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Guild of German arthouse cinemas fete Good Bye, Lenin!
Wolfgang Becker's runaway hit Good Bye, Lenin! won the Gold Award in the Best German Film category of the Guild of German Arthouse Cinema Awards at a ceremony in Marburg's Cineplex cinema. Fatih Akin's family drama Solino picked up Silver .In the Best Foreign Film category, the Guild ...
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New Zealand producers seek new chief executive
Jane Wrightson has resigned from her post as chief executive of New Zealand's Screen Production and Development Association to take up the role of chief executive of the Broadcasting Standards Authority from mid-August.Wrightson, former chief executive of New Zealand On Air, former chief film censor and one-time commissioning editor for ...
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France continues resistance to film advertising on TV
The French government appears to have won another round in its ongoing battle against film advertising on television. Since May 2002, an EU commission under the guidance of Frits Bolkstein, has been pushing for television advertising access for several sectors previously banned from putting commercials on air. Among them, supermarkets, ...
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Stuttgart film festival reveals competition line-up
Paula van der Oest's Zus & Zo, the opening film of this year's Filmfest Stuttgart Ludwigsburg (July 10-15, 2003), Lukas Moodysson's Lilya 4-ever, Karim Dridi's Rage and Sandra Goldbacher's Me Without You are among 14 films from 14 European countries competing for around Euros 70,000 in prize money.The international jury ...
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Hong Kong box office succumbs to Twins Effect
Two diminutive vampire-slayers are kicking Charlie's Angels' butts at the Hong Kong box office.Emperor Multimedia Group's The Twins Effect, starring Hong Kong pop sensation Twins and a special appearance by Jackie Chan, grossed $2m in the week ending July 2 - more than four times the opening week gross of ...
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High Hopes Award goes to French producing duo
French producers Jean-Philippe Andraca and Christian Berard of Paris-based Les Films A4 have received the Euros 25,000 High Hopes Award, donated by the German collection society GWFF, for their production of Robert Kechichian's feature debut Aram, which was co-produced with StudioCanal and BAC Films.In its decision, the jury of distribution ...
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Terminator 3 pays off with $72.5m opening
Terminator 3:Rise Of The Machines,the most expensive independently financed movie of all time, paid off for itsbackers Intermedia and parent company IM Internationalmedia AG with anestimated $44.1m opening in the Friday to Sunday period and a total of $72.5msince its first previews last Tuesday night.The $175m epicsci-fi actioner which is ...
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Reloaded leaps to $410m and number ten of all time
Warner Bros Pictures/VillageRoadshow's The Matrix Reloaded passedthe $400m mark at the international box office over the weekend; with its $410mtotal, it has now surpassed Spider-Man ($403m) as the tenth highest grossing international hit of all time. It is the first film inhistory to surpass $100m in a single weekend in ...
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Full Throttle scores at international box office in 43 markets
Columbia TriStar FilmDistributors International (CTFDI) scored the biggest international hit of theweek with Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, which added another 32 territories to its existing 11 and scored$22.3m on 3,982 prints.Although Full Throttle struggled to hold up domestically, drops in those 11foreign markets were less dramatic. For example, in Japan, ...
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News
Channel 5 shareholders buy out Warburg stake
Luxembourg-based CLT-Ufa and the UK's United News and Media and Pearson have increased their stakes in UK broadcaster Channel 5, as financial investor Warburg Pincus sold out of the channel.The three shareholders paid $277m (£172m) for Warburg's 18% stake in a move that is regarded as an endorsement of the ...
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Reviews
A Long Weekend in Buda And Pest (Het Pesten Et Budan Egy)
Dir. Karoly Makk. Hungary. 2003. 90mins.While it is by no means a sequel to his celebrated feature Love of 32 years ago, Karoly Makk's new film not only employs the same two leading actors, Mari Torocsik and Ivan Dardas, but also makes extensive use of footage from his earlier picture ...
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Reviews
The Island (L'Isola)
Dir: Costanza Quatriglio. Italy. 2003. 102mins.A coming of age film set on Favignana, an island off western Sicily known for its tuna fishing traditions, The Island (L'Isola) is so relentlessly charming and so ravishingly shot that one can almost forgive a lack of dramatic backbone. Dealing with themes that arise ...
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Reviews
Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl
Dir: Gore Verbinski. US. 2003. 144 mins.Thank heavens for Johnny Depp. The maverick actor who has generally avoided roles in Hollywood event pictures to date survives his first Jerry Bruckheimer production not only with integrity intact but the knowledge that he enhances the end product to such a degree that ...
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Reviews
Battle Royale II: Requiem
Dir: Kinji Fukasaku, Kenta Fukasaku. Japan. 133mins.Blood squib for blood squib, Battle Royale, Kinji Fukasaku's last completed film did not show much that had not been shown before. Based on a best-selling novel about a "class" of 42 teen troublemakers forced to murder each other by a repressive government it ...
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Korea's Taewon and Cinema Service may end partnership
South Korean import/production company Taewon Entertainment has announced that it is transferring local distribution rights for Peter Jackson's Lord Of The Rings: Return Of The King from Cinema Service to rival distributor CJ Entertainment. The switch virtually guarantees CJ Entertainment a third smash hit for 2003, following Memories Of ...
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Battle Royale II storms Japanese box office
Battle Royale II - Requiem, the sequel to Kinji Fukasaku's 2000 hit Battle Royale, had a better Japanese opening weekend than the original - and for that matter than any other film in the history of distributor Toei. Released on 261 screens on July 5, BR2 earned $2.8m (Y337m) from ...