All articles by de.seguin@gmail.com – Page 18
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News
Canadian legal expert disputes Warner piracy claims
A Canadian legal expert disputes recent claims by Warner Bros. that singles out Canada as the primary source of camcorder piracy. On Monday in Los Angeles, the studio issued a press release alleging that 70 per cent of its films distributed in Canada had been pirated through in-cinema camcording. Referring ...
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Features
Digital Rights - Territory report - Was this the opening salvo'
Earlier this year Canada's performers' union, the Alliance of Canadian Television, Cinema and Radio Artists (Actra), held its first-ever strike. The six-week stoppage may come to be seen as one of the initial skirmishes in the North America digital rights war.Actra, representing 21,000 performers across the country, is the most ...
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News
Montreal World Film Festival to premiere Dansereau's Brunante
The Montreal World Film Festival will screen the world premiere of Fernand Dansereau's Brunante, the festival announced today. The film reunites the director and his favoured actresss Monique Mercure in a sequel 40 years after their original 1966 film Ce N'est Pas Le Temps De Romans. As well, the MWFF ...
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News
Losers And Winners the top winner at 14th Hot Docs
German filmmakers Ulrike Franke and Michael Loeken's Losers And Winners won the Best International Feature Documentary as the 14th Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival wrapped this weekend. The film looks at the impact of globalisation as a German smelting plant is disassembled to be rebuilt in China. The International ...
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News
Gaumont backs Natali's genetic horror Splice
Vincenzo Natali has begun casting on horror movie Splice, a Canada-France co-production set in the mutable world of genetic engineering. A production of Toronto-based Copperheart Entertainment and France's Gaumont, the film is wrtten by Natali, produced by Copperheart's Steven Hoban and executive produced by Gaumont's Franck Chorot. Guillermo del Toro, ...
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News
IMAX version of Order Of The Phoenix will have 3D finale
The IMAX version of Warner Bros' Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix will feature a 3D finale, according to the giant-screen company. The two most recent installments of the franchise - Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban and Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire - were ...
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News
Gold in the vaults
With the growth of digital delivery, film archives are a potential goldmine for US studios and other rights-holders. Denis Seguin looks at the promise of digital, while Screen correspondents (see links, right) explore the distribution opportunities for major public rights-holders...In 1955, RKO Pictures licensed the television rights to its 740-film ...
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News
Studio archives: to have and to hold
The DVD did more than create a new means of exploiting old product. It created an industry devoted to transferring analogue celluloid motion pictures into the digital domain, of converting image and sound into data.It seems a straightforward concept: point a film projector into the lens of an electronic camera. ...
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News
Archive value: keeping mobile
Movie distribution on the mobile phone presents different challenges, not all of them an issue of size per se. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment's (SPHE) giant electronics parent, Sony Corp, is a pioneer in producing mobile phone memory chips with pre-recorded feature-length motion pictures. Potential releases include Casino Royale as well ...
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News
Pinewood makes new plans for studio facility in Toronto
Two years after a failed bid to build a film studio in Toronto, UK-based Pinewood Studios Group and Toronto development company Castlepoint Group are teaming on another production studio project in the city.According to a report in the Toronto Star newspaper, the proposal calls for five studios with a combined ...
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News
Canada's ACTRA members ratify production agreement
Members of Canadian performers guild ACTRA voted on Friday overwhelmingly in favour of the new independent production agreement negotiated between ACTRA and the Canadian Film and Television Production Association (CFTPA) and the Association des producteurs de films et de television du Quebec. The CFTPA also represented the interests of US ...
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News
Telefilm Canada invests in 14 feature projects
Telefilm Canada has announced investments in 14 English-language features including new feature documentaries from Deepa Mehta and Kevin McMahon.Mehta is co-directing Forgotten Women with brother Dilip Mehta, a renowned photographer, on this expose of the destitution, exploitation, and virtual slavery of millions of Hindu widows living in India today. David ...
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News
Moss, Zegers, Rennie star in Bessai's Normal
Canadian writer-director Carl Bessai has begun prinicpal photography on his latest picture Normal with Carrie-Anne Moss, Kevin Zegers and Callum Keith Rennie in the lead roles. Travis McDonald conceived the story and co-wrote the screenplay with Bessai, who will also shoot the film. Produced by Bessai's Raven West films and ...
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News
Alliance Atlantis sale hits legal roadblock after trust seeks consent
CanWest Global's $1.95bn (C$2.3bn) purchase of Alliance Atlantis Communications hit a roadblock this morning. Unit holders of Movie Distribution Holding Trust filed court documents seeking a role in charting the destiny of Motion Picture Distribution (MPD), the releasing arm of AAC. MPD is an income fund: the trust controls 49% ...
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News
Canada: inward production
Toronto's main advantages as a film production location are that it is Canada's largest city, it is the capital of its most populous province and next door to the US. Producers can shoot Toronto for New York, Chicago or Boston and tap into federal tax credits, Ontario tax credits and ...
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News
Toronto's Hot Docs unveils lineup with 26 world premieres
The Hot Docs Canadian Documentary Film Festival has unveilled the line-up for its 14th edition with 129 films from 30 countries and more than 1,700 industry delegates from around the world. Among the 26 world premieres screening are Oscar-winner John Zaritsky's The Suicide Tourists, an exploration of a Swiss organization ...
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News
Capri taps Mongrel for Canadian co-release pact
Toronto-based distributors Mongrel Media and Capri Releasing have entered into a national co-distribution agreement that will see Mongrel handling Capri's theatrical releases going forward as well as DVD. The deal follows the departure earlier this year of Capri Releasing vice-president Robin Smith.Mongrel president Hussain Amarshi told Screen International that the ...
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News
Lantos faces lawsuit over In Praise Of Older Women
Canadian producer Robert Lantos is facing a lawsuit over potential profit-sharing from his 1978 production In Praise Of Older Women. The suit has been brought by the author of the book on which the film was based, Stephen Vizinczey. According to a report in the Toronto Star newspaper, Vizinczey sold ...
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News
Equinoxe saves Everything's Gone Green from THINKFilm limbo
Montreal-based Equinoxe Films has picked up Canadian distribution rights to Paul Fox's Everything's Gone Green, one of the Canadian titles left in limbo by the sale of its previously contracted Canadian distributor THINKFilm. THINKFilm was acquired in October by LA-based entrepreneur David Bergstein, effectively ending the company's status as a ...
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News
Marvel's new Hulk movie set for Toronto shoot in summer
Marvel Studios has confirmed it will shoot The Incredible Hulk in Toronto this summer. The $100m+ comic book adaptation is the second feature of the newly-refinanced studio folllowing Iron Man. The announcement came as welcome news for the city following last week's tentative settlement of a strike by Canadian performers. ...