Small MPU – Page 4063
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News
Kinowelt bags five-year deal with Gale Anne Hurd
Kinowelt USA, the recently set-up US film production arm of German film giant Kinowelt, has signed its first major producer deal - with Gale Anne Hurd. Kinowelt and Hurd have entered into a multi-year, first-look development, production and distribution arrangement whereby Kinowelt USA will provide Hurd with financing to develop ...
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Reviews
Bullet Boy
Dir: Saul Dibb. UK. 2004.91minsA low-budget blackBritish film with energy and attitude, Bullet Boy is among the moreinvigorating UK movie debuts of recent years. In his first feature, directorSaul Dibb (best known as a documentary maker) uses his north London locationsin eerie, atmospheric fashion and manages to deal with gun ...
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AUSTRALIA 25 October
Shall We Dance'opened last Thursday and leads the box office chart for the four-day weekendending on October 24. It sold A$2,104,907 worth of tickets to 267 screens to beable to earn that honour.The BVI title pushed Collateralinto second place after just one week at the top. The UIP Tom Cruise ...
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Emmerich strikes first look deal with German fund
Director Roland Emmerich (The Day After Tomorrow) has signed a "first look" agreement withthe German private media fund VIP for his own in-house developed film projectsas opposed to those offered to him by Hollywood studios.As part of the agreement, the German-born director and VIP'sAndreas Schmid are planning to set up ...
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Parker to head Marrakech festival jury
Alan Parker is to head the jury at the fourth edition of theMarrakech Film Festival (Dec 6-12).Fourteen international films will be shown in the officialcompetition although their names have yet to be announced. The festival hasalso programmed tributes for Italian actress Claudia Cardinale, Egyptiandirector Youssef Chahine and Scotsman Sean Connery.In ...
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Czech features dominate Cottbus market
New Czech feature projects dominate this year's ConnectingCottbus East-West co-development market which will be held during theFilmFestival Cottbus - Festival of East European Cinema (Nov 2-6) from November4-5.Five of the 13 projects selected from nine countries for themarket will be pitched by Czech production houses, including Bionaut Films (TheCarp), Endorfilm ...
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DENMARK 25 October
Though the new release of stuntman-turned-filmmaker LasseSpang Olsen's romantic comedy Inkassomuscled its way into the top of the Danish chart with its high 77 prints, itdidn't quite have the draw of Kings' Game,which had a better screen and admission average on its 57 prints despite beingin its fourth week. However, ...
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UK tax fund, Foresight, pulls out of two projects
UK tax fund Foresight has had to pull out of Michael Winterbottom's Tristram Shandy and FilmFour's quirky Brothers Of The Head, citing what it says is the latest problem to hit the UK financing sector.The fund has just bankrolled Terry Gilliam's Tideland but had to abandon the other two films ...
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Bavaria closes further Bombon sales
Bavaria Film International (BFI) has closed further sales onArgentine director Carlos Sorin's Bombon - El Perro following its market screening at MIFED.Deals for all of the Germanspeaking territories were concluded with Alamode Film (Germany), Poly Film(Austria) and Trigon Film (Switzerland), while all rights were also sold toMikado Film (Italy), Arthaus ...
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BVI's King Arthur rules in China
King Arthur, which has been a star performer forBuena Vista International (BVI) this year, scored the distributor's thirdbiggest ever debut in China at the weekend.The epicadventure opened on an estimated $870,000 on 335 screens, ranking behind PearlHarbor and Pirates OfThe Caribbean in theall-time opening pantheon.Overall thepicture grossed $1.5m for a ...
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News
MGM teams with NTV-PLUS in Russia channel
MGM Networks hasannounced a deal with Russia's largest Pay-TV provider NTV-PLUS to localise anddistribute a Russian-language version of the MGM channel to NTV-PLUS'direct-to-home subscribers.The agreementfollows the launch in 2002 of MGM Channel in the former Soviet Union countrieson a number of cable and MMDS systems."We have beenassiduously trying to expand ...
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News
IMAX lands in Pakistan
Imax Corp. and the Pakistaniprovince of Punjab have signed a deal that will see the first-ever Imax cinemain the country. The new facility, which will be capable of presenting 3D filmsas well, will be located in Lahore as the anchor tenant of a leisure centre thePunjab Government is developing. The ...
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Reviews
The Grudge
Dir: Takashi Shimizu. US.2004. 90mins.The second Hollywoodremake of a J-horror movie after blockbuster hit The Ring, The Grudgehas confirmed the wide appetite for this kind of unsettling chiller with a $40mopening weekend in North America.Domestic distributorColumbia Pictures positioned the film to perfection, scoring a teen-friendlyPG-13 rating, creating intriguing TV spots ...
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Reviews
The Polar Express
Dir: Robert Zemeckis. US.2004. 92mins.Only Hollywood couldproduce a film as lavish and technologically ground-breaking as The PolarExpress, and Warner Bros is banking on that fact to entice millions offamilies around the world into their seasonal heartwarmer.The film brings to lifeChris Van Allsburg's classic US kids' book using a new animation ...
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News
Dead Man's Shoes leads BIFA contenders
The British Independent Film Award (BIFA) nominations wereannounced today, with Shane Meadows' DeadMan's Shoes leading the field with eight nominations, closely followed byMike Leigh's Vera Drake with seven nods including Best Actress for ImeldaStaunton.Other strong contenders include Pawel Pawlikoski's My Summer Of Love; Kevin Macdonald's Touching The Void and Shaun ...
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UK/IRELAND 26 October
Aliens and predators may have fought their way into secondplace in the UK/Ireland chart but they were still no match for UIP's animatedsharks.Shark Tale heldthe lead for a second weekend, dropping 36% from its opening week, notincluding previews. It has quickly established a strong $22.7m (£12.4m)cumulative gross.Alien Vs Predator(AvP) got ...
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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 ...