All articles by Agnes Poirier – Page 14
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News
dotcom report: MPAA fights Napsterisation
To the music industry, the enemy's name is Napster; to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the current scourge is Scour.com.Last week, Napster won an eleventh hour reprieve from an injunction that would have shut it down - the case will be heard in late September - but two ...
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News
CanWest bags Endemol's TV distribution arm
Toronto-based CanWest Entertainment will pay more than $100m for the international television distribution assets of Endemol Entertainment, the Dutch media company recently purchased by Spain's Telefonica. The deal includes the Endemol subsidiary's 600-hour programme library and distribution pacts with Alliance Atlantis, Hearst Entertainment, Lions Gate Films and Trimark Pictures. CanWest, ...
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News
Contact 2000 co-production market set for Berlin
Three international cultural subsidy groups will host a co-production and co-financing market, Contact 2000, in Berlin, from November 24 to 26. Brussels-based Linking Market Forces (LMF), an association accredited by the EU's MEDIA Programme, along with Societe de developpement des entreprises culturelles (SODEC), an agency of Quebec's provincial government, and ...
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News
Lions Gate posts net loss despite revenue gains
Vancouver-based Lions Gate Entertainment is improving its performance but the company's investment in Mandalay Pictures continues to drag it down. According to financial results for the year ended March 31, 2000, the company posted a 129% increase in revenue, from $79.8m (C$118.3m) to $183m (C$271m), and a 110% increase in ...
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News
Imax puts itself on the block
Pioneering giant-screen entertainment company, Imax Corp, has hired investment firms Goldman Sachs and Wasserstein, Perella & Co to advise it on sale or merger opportunities. The company's share price jumped 18% to $26.50 yesterday on the news.In a prepared statement, co-CEOs Richard L. Gelfond and Bradley J. Wechsler said: "Our ...
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News
Soldier video game falls foul of BC ratings board
Soldier Of Fortune, a CD-ROM based video game featuring the anguished cries and death-throes of its victims, has been rated as adult-only entertainment by British Columbia's film classification board. The ruling bans sale or rental of the game within the province to people under 18 and means the game's Canadian ...
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News
CanWest gets greenlight to launch Canadian network
CanWest Global Communications is to form Canada's third national free-TV network after this week securing regulatory approval of its $545m purchase of the prinicpal TV assets of WIC Western International Communications.CanWest will now combine the new assets with stations in two key markets - Hamilton, Ontario and Vancouver, British Columbia ...
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Canadian start-up has TiMe on its side
Wolfram Tichy's TiMe Film & Television Produktion is backing start-up Canadian production company Savi Media in a long-term development and production deal. Essentially a first-look deal in exchange for start-up capital, the arrangement will see Savi, headed by veteran producer Alexandra Raffe, scout for and screen projects for co-development and ...
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News
Toronto to feature Crowe, Lurie premieres
DreamWorks' untitled Cameron Crowe project and The Contender, directed by Rod Lurie and handled internationally by France's TF1, will make their world premieres at the 25th Toronto International Film Festival (September 7-16).Handled internationally by DreamWorks/UIP, Crowe's latest project is a loosely autobiographical tale about a teenage rock fan on assignment ...
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News
Alliance Atlantis reports 21% revenue boost
Fuelled by an increase in library revenue, Alliance Atlantis released strong fourth quarter results this week, with revenue up 21.8% to $771.6m compared to $633.4m the previous year. Gross profit was up 37.1% to $179.2m compared to $130.7m. The company's television group was the principal engine, with library revenue up ...
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News
Canadian province strikes $60m production jackpot
Manitoba-based start-up production company Blye Brothers Entertainment has unveiled a $60m feature film slate that will see three to four features shot per year over the next three to four years. A minimum of 12 films, all of them targeted for theatrical release, will be produced with an average production ...
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News
Fox, Cinram seal North American video pact
Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment and Toronto-based videocassette and DVD manufacturer, Cinram International, have entered into a multi-year agreement under which Cinram will produce and distribute Fox's VHS tapes in the US and Canada. Previously the company distributed Fox product in Canada only. Given the ten-fold increase presented by the ...
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News
Shower takes top honours at Seattle
Continuing its award-nabbing festival tour, Chinese director Zhang Yang's Shower walked away with audience awards for Best Film and Best Director at the 26th Seattle International Film Festival, which wrapped on Sunday. The film has also yielded prizes at Toronto, San Sebastian, Thessaloniki and Rotterdam. Dan Futterman, star of Urbania, ...
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News
DreamWorks to release Shrek in Imax 3D
DreamWorks' animated film Shrek is set to be released in Imax 3D, the first full-length animated feature to be released in the format as Walt Disney's Fantasia 2000, which opened in January, was shown on 2D. The Shrek 3D release is set for December 2001 to coincide with DreamWorks' home ...
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Landscape enlists Cronenberg for Internet start-up
Indie film giant Intermedia is launching into TV with the acquisition of a 24.9% stake in Box TV, the start-up production house run by former Channel 4 executive Gub Neal.Intermedia will handle worldwide distribution on the bulk of Box TV's projects. Since launching last month, the new outfit has lined ...
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News
Texas Instruments licenses DLP technology to Imax
Imax Corporation and electronics giant Texas Instruments (TI) have entered an agreement which will see the large-format entertainment company develop, manufacture and market projectors based on TI's (Digital Light Processing) DLP Cinema projection technology for large-format IMAX theatres.Texas previously licensed the technology to Imax-owned Digital Projection (UK) for standard (35mm) ...
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News
Canada's Nelvana, Keystone hit IPO hurdles
Two Canadian entertainment companies have cut back or withdrawn public offerings as market volatility continues to unbalance North American stock exchanges. Toronto-based animation house Nelvana Ltd has trimmed back the number of shares in a US public offering from a proposed 3.75 million shares to 2.5 million. The shares, priced ...
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News
Nielsen, Amberwood form joint production venture
Actor Leslie Nielsen and Canadian animation house Amberwood Entertainment have entered into a joint venture to produce a range of family-oriented TV and video projects as well as a live-action theatrical feature with Nielsen in the lead.In all, the deal will see 390 half-hour animated episodes, three animated feature-length productions ...
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News
Paramount Classics chooses Equinox for Quebec
Paramount Classics has signed a theatrical distribution output deal with Equinox Entertainment, which sees the Montreal-based producer-distributor releasing all its pictures in Quebec in French and English. Paramount Canada releases Classics pictures in the rest of Canada. The first picture in the Paramount Classics deal, Sofia Coppola's Virgin Suicides, will ...
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Reviews
Une Affaire De Gout
Dir : Bernard Rapp. France. 1999. 90 mins.Prod Co : CDP, Le Studio Canal Plus, France 3 Cinema, CNC, Procirep. Domestic dist:Pyramide. Int'l sales: Art Box/France Television Distribution, tel: (33) 1 44 25 01 62. Prods: Catherine Dussart, Chantal Perrin. Scr: Gilles Taurand, Bernard Rapp from Philippe Balland's novel Affaires ...