Small MPU – Page 3462
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Holt named to English-language post at Telefilm Canada
Telefilm Canada hasappointed senior executive Ralph Holt to the position of national head ofEnglish-language feature film. Holt, a 17-year veteran of the agency, most ofthat serving as director for the Atlantic Region. Holt will relocate toToronto, effective immediately.'I am verypleased that Ralph has decided to take on the challenges of ...
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Allen to receive lifetime award from San Francisco
Joan Allen willreceive the Peter J Owens Award at the 48th San Francisco International FilmFestival, in honour of a career that in the words of the festival organisersexemplifies "brilliance, independence and integrity".Allen will takepart in a retrospective on Apr 29, culminating in an onstage interview prior toa screening of Sally ...
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Ferrara sued for alleged breach of contract on Tales
Abel Ferrara, the cultdirector of Bad Lieutenant, has been served with an Euros 6m lawsuit forallegedly breaching his contract with Istituto Luce, the Italian state-ownedproduction and distribution outfit, and independent local producer Gam Film.Ferrara was allegedly due tostart shooting a Euros 4m screwball comedy entitled Go Go Tales,"between December 13, ...
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Polish cinema admissions soar by 40%
Poland has recorded aphenomenal box office increase of 43% during 2004 - from $103.4m (Zlotys324.3m) in 2003 to $148m (Zlotys 464.2m) last year.Admissions saw a similarleap, from 20033s 23.8 million admissions to 33.3 million in 2004, a 40% hike.With a total population of 38.6 million people there is still a ...
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Australia celebrates record BO revenues
AustraliaHs annual boxoffice gross looks certain to exceed A$900 million in 2004 for the first timeever although the Motion Picture Distributors Association of Australia (MPDAA)has not released the final figure, nor admission numbers, and may not until laterthis month. Making significantcontributions to the 2004 tally were Shrek 2 (A$50.26m) and ...
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UK's Portobello Pictures launches book arm
Eric Abraham, founder of UKproduction outfit Portobello Pictures, is financing the creation of a new bookpublishing company.The venture, PortobelloBooks, will be run by Philip Gwyn Jones, former publisher of HarperCollins' UKliterary imprint Flamingo.The list will run to between15 and 20 new titles a year, focusing on international fiction and activistnon-fiction. ...
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Fiennes to star in Coetzee adaptation Disgrace
Australian productioncompany Wild Strawberries has secured Ralph Fiennes to play the lead in itsfeature adaptation of 1999 Booker Prize winning novel Disgrace, writtenby J M Coetzee. The politically chargedstory will be filmed in South Africa, where it is set. Fiennes will play atwice-divorced academic in Cape Town who retreats to ...
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Japanese police make first pirate vendor arrest
In the first case of itskind in Japan, local police havearrested a street vendor for selling pirated DVDs. Among the 1,000 DVDs seizedfrom 35-year-old Shigeyoshi Oshio were 300 copies of Howl's Moving Castle,the Hayao Miyazaki animation currently on release. Others included pirated DVDsof Spider-Man 2 and other recent Hollywood films, ...
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Int'l Box Office: Alexander conquers Europe
Oliver Stone needn't haveworried about the US critical reaction to Alexander having an adverseeffect on European box office. Opening in key European territories includingSpain, France and the UK this week Alexander flew in the face ofcritical reaction to lead the international table with a powerful $18.7mweekend.The film has already morethan ...
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Mannion swipes Strings from Trust
Frank Mannion's Swipe Filmshas picked up UK rights to acclaimed fantasy film Strings from TrustFilm Sales.Directed by AndersRonnow-Klarlund, Strings is a fantasy film with string puppets thatfeatures the voices of James McAvoy, Catherine McCormack, Samantha Bond &Derek Jacobi. Channel 4 has also picked up TV rights to the film.Swipe also ...
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Cinema sale likely for London's West End
Competition is heating up totakeover a flagship UK cinema site in London's Leicester Square after theOffice of Fair Trading cleared investment vehicle Terra Firma's purchase ofexhibitor UCI provided it sold off certain cinemas in its estate.Terra Firma controls boththe Odeon Leicester Square and the Odeon West End, in addition to ...
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FCG launches festival programming service
Festival Consulting Group(FCG) partners Jon Fitzgerald and Mitch Levine have launched The ProgrammingBureau, a web-based subscription service for film festival professionals,studios, distribution companies, sales agents and the independent film community.Subscribers will get accessto a specialised database containing a curated listing of the top titlesplaying and set to play the festival ...
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Lash, Previd, Panzer all promoted at IFC
IFC has announced a trio of promotions, with Sarah Lashbecoming vice president of acquisitions at IFC Films, Nevette Previd becomingvice president of marketing at IFC Films, and Michelle Panzer rising to vicepresident of public relations at IFC Entertainment.Lash joined thecompany four years ago and played a key role in acquiring ...
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Endemol reports 36% increase in interim profits
Dutch production giant Endemol Entertainment has reported an impressive 36.4% rise in profit, before extraordinary gains and losses, to $20.9m (NLG48.3m) in the first half of the 1999-2000 financial year, compared to $15.3m (NLG35.4m) in the corresponding period in 1998-1999.The company 's operating result also increased substantially by 42% to ...
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Gondry embarks on Science Of Sleep
Director Michel Gondry, whocontinues to receive plaudits for 2004's Eternal Sunshine Of The SpotlessMind, began shooting The Science Of Sleep last week in Paris. The film boasts a pedigreecast with Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal and French stars Alain Chabat andCharlotte Gainsbourg.Gaumont is co-producing thefilm with Partizan and will handle ...
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ProSiebenSat.1 signs Spyglass output deal
Germany's ProSiebenSat.1Group has signed a license agreement with US production outfit SpyglassEntertainment covering all German-language free-TV rights for titles going intoproduction from this year onwards. The agreement will includethe much-anticipated adaptation of Arthur Golden's best-selling novel MemoirsOf A Geisha which is being co-produced by Spyglass with Columbia Picturesand DreamWorks. Commenting ...
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Random Harvest teams with Hammer, Winston on horror deal
In a move underliningthe growing market for quality, low-budget horror, British production andfinancing outfit Random Harvest is starting a new Enterprise InvestmentScheme (EIS) Company, Harvest PicturesIII, with Hammer Films and LA-based Stan Winston Productions.Harvest Pictures IIIwill back new horror films from Hammer, Stan Winston and Four Horsemen Films(Random Harvest's genre ...
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Korea's Kim Ki-duk shoots The Bow
South Korean director KimKi-duk has opened shooting on his 12th feature film, a low-budget production tobe titled The Bow.Following a highlysuccessful 2004 in which he won Best Director awards at Berlin and Venice for SamaritanGirl and 3-Iron respectively, Kim began shooting his latest workwith little fanfare on a remote island ...
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Tsunami effect spreads across international territories
SouthernThailand (where popular tourist destinations Phuket, Kao Lak and Phi Phi Islandare located) was hit hard by the Boxing Day tsunami. Whilethe Thai people are generally in mourning, the cinemas are still doing briskbusiness, as reflected by the strong box office of two local titles. Jaew,a new action comedy produced ...
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Gerardmer names Levinson president of 12th edition
The 12th annual FantasticFilm Festival of Gerardmer has named Barry Levinson as its jury president. Thefestival, which brings together a mix of horror and fantasy films, will runfrom January 26 -30 in the French town of Vosges.Other members of the featureand short films juries include director Laurent Bouhnik, writer Eric ...