All articles by Tim Dams – Page 68
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Optimum acquires UK rights to Focus pair
Independentdistributor Optimum Releasing has acquired all UK rights to Rian Johnson's Brickandpurchased UK rights to Jeff Wadlow's Cry Wolf from Focus Features. The deal is the first between Focus andOptimum. Brick was awarded the Special Jury Prize at this year'sSundance Film Festival and is the story of a ...
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Aishwarya Rai enlists in De Laurentiis' Last Legion
Aishwarya Rai has joined thecast of Dino De Laurentiis' The Last Legion, which begins filming inTunisia on August 5. The Bollywood star joins previously confirmed leads ColinFirth and Sir Ben Kingsley. Directed by Doug Lefler, TheLast Legion is a Dino De Laurentiis presentation produced by Martha DeLaurentiis and Raffaella De ...
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UK exhibitor launches online DVD rental service
UK exhibitor Vue Cinemas has partnered with online DVDrental outfit Screenselect.co.uk to launch 'Vue at Home'.The partnership will see Vue customers able to accessScreenSelect's library of over 34,000 titles through www.myvue.com. The summer launch will involve promotions across all Vue's52 cinemas nationwide. When buying cinema tickets, all Vue customers will ...
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Jarmusch's Flowers takes Cambridge prize
Jim Jarmusch's BrokenFlowers starring Bill Murray has won the audience award at the CambridgeFilm Festival (7-17 July).The Jarmusch film nudgedStudio Ghibli's Howl's Moving Castle into second position and ThomasVinterberg's Dear Wendy into third place. The 25th Cambridge FilmFestival saw audiences of over 13,000 watch 137 feature films from 29countries, 57 ...
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Arts Alliance, Lovefilm expand into Europe
Arts Alliance Media (AAM),majority shareholder in leading UK online DVD rental service Lovefilm, hasexpanded its business into Europe.AAM has taken a controlling stakein Swedish on-line DVD rental company, Boxman.Boxman is the second largestonline rental DVD rental company in Sweden, with over 14,000 subscribers and was established in 2003.AAM said it ...
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Civilian Content expands into UK distribution
Civilian Content, parent company of film financier TheFilm Consortium and sales agent The Works, has launched a new UK distributioncompany called The Works UK Distribution.Industryveteran Mick Southworth and three of his key colleagues from the UK distributionarm of Anglo-US outfit ContentFilm have left to form The Works Distribution. Joining Southworth ...
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Hytner's History Boys starts shooting
Shooting has begun on the film adaptation of AlanBennett's The History Boys. Like the award winning play, the film version will bedirected by Nicholas Hytner from a script by Bennett. The project is financed by DNA and BBC Films anddistributed by Fox Searchlight. The film will shoot for six weeks ...
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Serkis, Fry join Stormbreaker cast
Andy Serkis and Stephen Fryare the latest stars to join the cast of Samuelson Productions' Stormbreaker,which has just started shooting on the Isle of Man.The $40m-plus teen superspy adventure is based on the first book in the best-selling AlexRider series by Anthony Horowitz.Serkis will play Mr Grin, theunfortunately disfigured henchman ...
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London set for 2,000 seat open-air Summer Screen festival
FilmFour and Somerset House Trust have launched the line-upfor The Summer Screen, the first annual movie season to be held in the open-airsetting of the Courtyard at Somerset House in central London.Up to 2,000 movie-goers a night, London's largest cinemaaudience, will be able to fit into Somerset House's 18th centuryCourtyard.Summer ...
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Icon takes UK rights to World's Fastest Indian
IconFilm Distribution has acquired UK rights on The World's Fastest Indian, starring AnthonyHopkins. Soldby NZ Film, The World's Fastest Indian is written and directed by RogerDonaldson (The Bounty, Thirteen Days, The Recruit). The film, based on a true story, seesHopkins play Burt Munro who set a new speed record on ...
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UK Film Council looks at supporting sales companies
The UK Film Council is to conduct research into ways thatit could provide support for sales companies operating out of the UK.The move follows the closure of four UK based salesoperations in the past three months: Renaissance Films, Element X, Portman andHBO Films.It also comes as senior figures from the ...
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Weinsteins team with Vertigo on Harry remake
The Weinstein Company hasteamed up with hot UK production outfit Vertigo Films to shoot Paranoia,an English language remake of French hit thriller Harry, He's Here ToHelp.The film will be directed byJonathan Jakubowicz (Secuestro Express) and will see its settingrelocated to New England in the US. However, the film will shoot ...
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Video Island drafts in Calver as CEO
UK based online DVD rentaloutfit Video Island has drafted in Simon Calver as its new CEO replacingcurrent CEO and co-founder, Saul Klein.Calver has worked in seniormanagement positions at digital outfit Riverdeep, Dell, PepsiCola and Unilever.He has been brought intoVideo Island by Klein to help lead the company to further growth ...
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Soda takes UK rights to Akin's Bridge
UK distributor Soda Pictures has acquired Crossing TheBridge; The Sound of Istanbul, the new filmfrom award winning director Fatih Akin. Akin, winner of the Berlin Golden Bear Award and EuropeanFilm of the Year for Head-On, returnswith a musical documentary homage to Istanbul. Literally crossing the bridge from traditional to modernTurkish ...
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Copenhagen festival launches industry Screenings
The Copenhagen International Film Festival has launchedindustry screenings for new Danish films for international buyers and festivalprogrammers.The Copenhagen Screenings will be held between August 23-24as a pilot project. Some ten - as yet unnamed - new Danish films,including two documentaries, will screen at the event. Festival programmer Jacob Neiiendam said ...
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Woolcock's Mischief Night cranks up in Leeds
Shooting has begun onlocation in Leeds on Penny Woolcock's Mischief Night.Woolcock (Tina Goes Shopping, The Death ofKlinghoffer, The Principles of Lust)latest film is billed as an exuberant, wild andcontemporary comedy drama about two families (one white, one Asian) who cometogether unexpectedly on a local night of carnival trickery and festivity. ...
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EuropaCorp's Love embarks on London shoot
Shooting starts today (July11) on Love And Other Disasters, a EuropaCorp production inco-production with Skyline and in association with Ruby Films for ten weeks onlocation in London. Love And Other Disasters is an original screenplaywritten and being directed by Alek Keshishian (Madonna: Truth or Dare),produced by Alison Owen, Keshishian and ...
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Film London advises film-makers in wake of blasts
Film-makers in London have been urged to follow instructions from thepolice and emergency services in the wake of the series of bomb-blasts thatstruck the capital yesterday.The bomb attacks on London'stransport network killed at least 50 people and injured scores more. There were three explosionson the Underground and one on adouble-decker ...
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Schnabel to direct Doll for Killer, Number 9
ElizabethKarlsen's Number 9 Films has reteamed with Christine Vachon's Killer Films toproduce The Lonely Doll, which will be directed by Julian Schnabel (BeforeNight Falls, Basquiat).The film, writtenby Carl Lund, is based on the life story of Dare Wright, the beautiful andeccentric author and photographer of the best-selling Lonely Dollchildren's books.The ...