Small MPU – Page 3521

  • News

    Profile:UK director Tom Hooper

    2008-07-25T00:00:00Z

    In terms of scale, Tom Hooper may never top his recent feat of directing the nine-hour HBO mini-series John Adams.The historical epic shot for 110 days on a budget of $110m, with more than 200 speaking parts. 'It's like my Lord Of The Rings, except I don't have to do ...

  • Features

    United Kingdom - Mother Care

    2008-07-25T00:00:00Z

    Shane Meadows' Somers Town, after much praise at the Berlinale and awards at Tribeca and Edinburgh, has had an unusual path to screen. The genesis of the project was not with a seasoned writer or director, but from famed advertising agency Mother.Ad legend Robert Saville, one of the founders of ...

  • Features

    Production - Armenia - The apricot revolution

    2008-07-25T00:00:00Z

    For more than a century, Armenia's main export has been its people: men like MGM investor Kirk Kerkorian, who fled oppression and settled in Russia, France and North America. The country of 3.2 million people began post-Soviet independence in the early 1990s in the throes of a devastating earthquake and ...

  • News

    In Focus:A hero's welcome

    2008-07-25T00:00:00Z

    Modern Hollywood has had a thing for spandex tights and alter egos ever since Christopher Reeve launched into the Manhattan skyline in Warner Bros' 1978 hit Superman.While subsequent superhero adventures have met with varying degrees of success, there is a level of accomplishment and ambition in recent years that suggests ...

  • Features

    New Projects - Graphic encounters

    2008-07-25T00:00:00Z

    Iron Man 2Marvel Studios and Paramount return in 2010 with Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark/Iron Man and Jon Favreau once again at the helm. Downey Jr has also signed to play Sherlock Holmes, in a project based on a graphic novel, for Warner Bros.The AvengersNo relation to the 1998 ...

  • News

    Home Entertainment: A bolt from the Blu'

    2008-07-25T00:00:00Z

    When Toshiba announced in February it would stop developing high-definition DVD players, it marked the end of a format battle that looked like it might rival the VHS vs Betamax videotape war of the 1970s and 1980s.Toshiba's announcement cleared the way for Sony's Blu-ray to take the next generation of ...

  • Features

    Online Distribution - The trouble with downloads

    2008-07-25T00:00:00Z

    Opinion may be split on whether online downloads are the future of home entertainment but everyone agrees on the key limiting factor to the expansion of downloads: bandwidth."What we're waiting for is broader, more reliable, more ubiquitous bandwidth," says US analyst Roger Kay. "Video as a data type is as ...

  • Features

    The American stream - Leading download sites in the US

    2008-07-25T00:00:00Z

    Amazon UnboxThe big beast of internet shopping stepped into the movie downloading business when it set up Unbox in late 2006. It now boasts more than 5,000 movies for US users to rent or buy, though customers need to download its video-playing software. Rentals are mostly $3.99 and most purchases ...

  • Features

    International - Cliff scales the heights

    2008-07-25T00:00:00Z

    Nine new entries wrestled their way into Screen's international chart this week, with Japan, South Korea, India, Germany, China and France providing new films alongside the big Hollywood blockbusters.Japanese films continue to make their mark with two further entries opening in their home territory this week.Ponyo On The Cliff - ...

  • News

    Korea's Cinema Service makes sales debut

    2000-10-24T19:53:00Z

    One of Korea's largest producer-distributors, Cinema Service, is making its market debut as a film seller this week with a slate of nine pictures including local box office hit Bichunmoo.The $5m martial arts romance has scored 2.3 million admissions at the Korean box office. Shot in Shanghai with a Chinese ...

  • Features

    The Critical View - War of words

    2008-07-25T00:00:00Z

    The argument about possessory credits and the creative heft of the screenwriter is almost as old as the film industry itself.It predates the squabble between Herman Mankiewicz and Orson Welles over the writing credit on Citizen Kane - which the director wanted all for himself; it underpinned the on-set ...

  • News

    Hong Kong's Media Asia takes back Infernal rights

    2008-07-25T07:25:00Z

    Hong Kong's Media Asia has announced that it has retrieved rights to seven films it had previously licensed to UK-US distributor Tartan Group, including its hugely successful Infernal Affairs trilogy. In a legal notice, the Hong Kong company said that, as of July 4, it has terminated all licence agreements ...

  • News

    Melbourne fest's financing market and fund to continue

    2008-07-25T11:29:00Z

    The government of the Australian state of Victoria brought a smile to the faces of filmmakers attending the opening of the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) tonight, by pledging $2.3m (A$2.4m) to extend the life of the festival's investment fund and financing market. 'We were not certain that funding would ...

  • News

    Naked Of Defenses picks up top prize at Japan's Pia fest

    2008-07-25T11:52:00Z

    Japanese director Masahide Ichii's Naked Of Defenses won the Grand Prix at the 30th edition of the Pia Film Festival (PFF), which ran from July 19 to 25 in Tokyo's Shibuya district. A total of 15 films, both feature-length and shorts, were selected to screen in competition from 601 submissions ...

  • News

    Venice Days premieres include Aprahamian's Broken Lines

    2008-07-25T14:11:00Z

    Czech director Bohdan Slama's A Country Teacher (VenkovskyUcitel) will have its international premiere at this year's Venice Dayssidebar, which is heavy on European and Eastern European films in thisyear's edition.A Country Teacher, sold by Wild Bunch, tells the story of a brilliantprofessor who moves to the Bohemian countryside in order ...

  • News

    Council of Europe sponsors Sarajevo's main award

    2008-07-25T14:19:00Z

    The Council of Europe has become the partner of the Sarajevo Film Festival and sponsor of the 'Heart of Sarajevo' award for the best feature film.Since 1988, the European Support Fund for the Co-production and Distribution of Creative Cinematographic and Audiovisual Works, or Eurimages, has worked within the Council of ...

  • News

    Samantha Morton to direct drama for UK's Channel 4

    2008-07-25T14:22:00Z

    Actress Samantha Morton will make her directorial debut on a Channel 4 television drama, The Unloved.The drama is a Channel 4 production with co-finance from regional screen agency EM Media through the European Regional Development Fund.The story is about a young girl growing up in a children's home.Morton plans to ...

  • News

    Japanese box office plummets 13.7% in first half of 2008

    2008-07-25T14:26:00Z

    Japanese box office earnings for the first half of 2008 totaled $743.54m (Y79.83bn), a 13.7% drop from the same period last year, according to figures reported by media trade publication Bunka Tsushin.The total comprises grosses of the the top 13 foreign and local distributors in the territory, representing approximately 95% ...

  • News

    Sundance names documentary film-makers for Aug lab

    2008-07-25T21:49:00Z

    The Sundance Documentary Composers and Story Lab has named the seven film-makers and six composers invited to the lab Aug 3-8 at the Sundance Resort in Utah.The lab, which will explore the creative process in sound and story and the role of film music in nonfiction storytelling, is a collaboration ...

  • News

    Man On Wire takes British feature prize at third BritDoc

    2008-07-27T12:22:00Z

    The UK's third BritDoc documentary festival wrapped on Friday (July 25) with James Marsh's Man On Wire continuing its festival awards spree by winning the British Feature Film Documentary Prize.Jerry Rothwell's Heavy Load - a film about a punk band with learning difficulties that was pitched at BritDoc in 2006 ...