All articles by Wendy Mitchell – Page 104
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MPA appoints Thomas Dillon to anti-piracy post
The Motion PictureAssociation (MPA) has promoted Thomas Dillon to vice president, deputy generalcounsel and regional legal director anti-piracy in the MPA's Europe, MiddleEast and Africa office in Brussels.Dillon had been advising theMPA on legal issues arising from copyright and anti-piracy matters sinceJanuary 2001.Dillon will handle publicpolicy and litigation issues relating ...
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Eurimages backs nine new European co-productions
Eurimages, the Council of Europe's film fund, has announced aslate of nine films to receive its latest round of support. Eurimageswill back the European co-productions with a total investment of $3.6m (Euros2.8m). The films are:Noemie Lvovsky's L'ami de Fred Astaire (France-Switzerland) Eric Rohmer's Les amours d'Astree et de Celadon(France-Spain-Italy)Sinisa Dragin's ...
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Prime becomes Ireland's first digital film release
Ireland's Digital Cinema Limited(DCL) is working with distributor Momentum Pictures to handle Ireland's first digital film release.Momentum'sPrime will open today on the firstdigital print screening in the country. "Weare delighted, in association with Momentum Pictures, to release the movie Prime digitally," said Kevin Cummins,director of operations at DCL. "This release ...
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New Writers' Circle recruits UK writers including Toby Young
UK organisations The Script Factory and Skillset have announced the firstnine members of their new Writers' Circle initiative. The scheme aims to helpparticipants segue from another writing arena to become screenwriters. More than 500 peopleapplied, and the nine selected are: playwright/journalist Toby Young, authorMeg Rossof, playwright Moira Buffini, TV writer ...
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Screen Yorkshire gets record $18.7m in funding
Screen Yorkshire, one of the UK's regional screen agencies, announced that it hasreceived a record $18.7m (£10m) in funding over the next four years fromregional development agency Yorkshire Forward. That compares to the $8.4m (£4.5m)over three years that Yorkshire Forward awarded the film agency in 2003. Screen Yorkshire said the ...
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Tartan gets UK rights to Re-Cycle and Look Both Ways
TartanFilms has taken all UK and Ireland rights totwo selections at Cannes 2006, the Pang Brothers' Re-Cycle from Thailand andSarah Watt's Look Both Ways from Australia. TartanFilms acquired rights to Re-Cycle,written and directed by Oxide and Danny Pang, from Universe Films Distribution.Tartan Films owner Hamish McAlpine pre-bought thefilm at script ...
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Initialize launches new UK scheme for female producers
InitializeFilms, in association with BBC Film Network, ShortsInternational and members' club The Hospital, has a new UK industry trainingprogramme for women who want to produce short films. Theprogramme, Athena, is atwo-month course that will train and coach 10 women to produce a short film.The first edition will be comprised of ...
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Short film script prize to launch in Cannes
SeveralEuropean screenwriting magazines are working together to launch an award forthe best short film screenplay as part of Critics Week at Cannes 2006.The GrandCru Award of $2550 (Euros 2,000) will be presented to the writer of the bestscreenplay among the short films selected for Critics Week.The jury,headed by Mexican screenwriter ...
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MPA's Jimmy Katz dies in Brussels
Jimmy Katz, VP of Europe, Middle East and Africa for the Motion Picture Association, died in a Brussels hospital on May 8.Katz had worked with the MPAin Brussels since July 1999. He was previously anexecutive at Columbia Tri-Star and from 1995-1999 he worked in Los Angeles as VP of International. ...
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Bafta sets 2007 awards for February 11
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (Bafta)has announced that 2007 Orange British Academy Film Awards will take place onSunday, February 11. The awards are sponsored for the tenth year in a row by mobile phonecompany Orange. BBC One will broadcast the event in the UK. In 2006, the ...
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Gurassa named chairman of LoveFilm
Charles Gurassahas been named non-executive chairman of LoveFilmInternational. Gurassa is the non-executive chairmanof Virgin Mobile and also chairman of car hire business Worldwide Excellerated Leasing. In addition, he is non-executivedirector of Whitbread PLC and non-executive chairman of human resourcesconsultancy 7Days. He is a Trustee of the National Trust and Chairman ...
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Word of Mouth picks up The Gigolos and KZ
NewLondon-based distributor Word of Mouth Films has signed two new films, The Gigolos and KZ, for UK distribution.RichardBracewell's TheGigolos is a buddy film set against the male escort world in upper-class London. Anna Massey, Sian Phillips and Susannah York star. RexBloomstein's KZis a documentary set in the former SS Concentration ...
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Producer Christine Langan to join BBC Films
UK producer Christine Langan will join BBC Films as a producer/executive producer at the beginning of September.Langan recently produced Pierrepoint and Stephen Frears' forthcoming feature The Queen. She produced ColdFeet for Granada, The Deal forChannel 4 and Dirty Filthy Love forITV. In her new position, Langan will work alongside the ...
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Universal offers download-to-own films in Scandinavia
Buildingon a similar deal in the UK, Universal Pictures Nordicis working with film2home to offer a download-to-own service in Scandinavia. The service will offer athree-copy model, to be launched starting in Sweden from May 22. Other Nordicterritories will follow. Aswith the UK download-to-own deal with LoveFilm, the service will launch ...
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InFrame adds four to slate ahead of Cannes
UK-based sales agent InFrame has added four films to its slate ahead of Cannes: Oliver Rihs's Black Sheep, ValeskaGrisebach's Sehnsucht (Longing),Sean Hogan's Lie Still, and Oscar L Costo's Shanghai Red.InFrame will be doing a work-in-progress screening of Black Sheep, a comedy of five interwovenstories about misfits in Berlin.Director Rihs also ...
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Cinema Expo to honour Narnia and Shrek director
Cinema Expo International will honour directorAndrew Adamson with the convention's 2006 International Filmmaker of the Yearaward. Adamson directed The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, which has grossed more than$735m worldwide. He previously directed Shrek and Shrek 2. He will receive the award at the Cinema ...
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Thema plans Rachmaninoff feature Lilacs
ThemaProduction, which backed Match Pointand the forthcoming In Transit, hasannounced plans for a new dramatic feature based on the life ofRussian-American composer and pianist SergeiRachmaninoff. The project,entitled Lilacs, is in pre-productionwith plans to shoot starting in August in Spain and at Thema'snew studio in St. Petersburg. Paris-based Pavel Loungine, who ...
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UK DVD piracy efforts go to the dogs
The UK-based Federation Against Copyright Theft(FACT), FedEx and the UK's customsdepartment are working together to fight DVD piracy. As part of a project promoted by the Motion Picture Association ofAmerica (MPAA), FACT has trained twoblack Labradors to identify DVDs in boxes, envelopes or otherpackaging that could be smuggled in ...
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Whole New Thing tops at Commonwealth
The fifthCommonwealth Film Festival in Manchester presented Whole New Thing with its top honours forthe audience award for best feature. Directed by AmnonBuchbinder, this film is a coming of age story aboutan exceptional teenage boy from Nova Scotia. Buchbinder andlead actor Aaron Webber were present at the ceremony to collect ...
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Lithuanian Film Studios moves into financing
Lithuanian Film Studios has announced a long-termcommitment to co-finance select projects that are produced at its studio. To launch the new strategy, the studio has partneredwith Los Angeles-based Little Film Company to finance, produce and distribute theaction thriller War of the Dead. Finnish director Marko Makilaaksowill start shooting the film ...