All articles by de.seguin@gmail.com – Page 34
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Reviews
The Ritchie Boys
Dir/scr. Christian Bauer.Ger-Can. 2004. 90mins.The Ritchie Boys is the documentary ideal: at once a broad canvas andan intense personal journey, as rich in historical detail as it is in humanistresonance. The film profiles the experiences of several emigre German Jews whofled their nation during Hitler's 1930s rise to power and ...
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News
Ontario boosts production tax credits
Ontario-based producers andservice providers received an early Christmas gift as the province increasedthe labour-based production tax credits for foreign and domestic productions.Effective Jan 1 2005, the Ontario Production Services Tax Credit for foreignproductions will increase from 11% to 18% and the Ontario Film and TelevisionTax Credit for domestic productions will ...
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News
Montreal set for three film festivals in 2006
The Montreal World Film Festival officially has competition. Federal film subsidy agency Telefilm Canada and its provincial counterpart SODEC announced the winning bid to organize a new event in the city.But Montreal's ongoing film festival war got a little stranger when it was revealed the outcome resulted through a merger ...
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Toronto critics vote for Sideways
AlexanderPayne's Sideways addedToronto to its growing quiver of awards season kudos. The Toronto Film CriticsAssociation named Payne's bittersweet comedy Best Picture of 2004 andperformers Paul Giamatti and Virginia Madsen Best Actor and Best SupportingActress.The othermultiple award winners were Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind, with Michel Gondry named Best Directorand ...
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Revolution/Rhombus co-production wins Telefilm Canada funds
Marc Evans' Snowcake, a coproduction between Canada's Rhombus Media andthe UK's Revolution Films, is one of four films approved for funding over C$1min the latest subsidy round of Telefilm Canada. Other tittles include newfeatures from Clement Virgo (Lie With Me, Rude) and Vic Sarin (Cold Comfort). The total potential financial ...
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News
TIFFG names ten best Canadian films of the year
The Toronto International FilmFestival Group has unveiled its annual listing of the best in Canadian cinema.Titles making the fourth annual list include acclaimed short title Ryan, by Chris Landreth, Michael Dowse's TIFF prize winner It's All GonePete Tong, Daniel Roby's Peau Blanche, which won the first film prize at TIFF ...
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Giant screen bonanza for Polar Express
ThePolar Express: An Imax 3D Experience, thelarge-format version of the Warner Bros/Castle Rock animated feature, hasbroken several records in its North American giant-screen outing.Itslatest three-day weekend gross was an estimated $2.75m, 30% more than itsopening weekend, breaking its own record. Playing on 61 screens, the filmscored an estimated per screen ...
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Wayne Clarkson gets top job at Telefilm Canada
S Wayne Clarkson has beenappointed executive director of Telefilm Canada, the nation's leading source ofpublic subsidy for the film and television industry.The announcement, madeThursday by Heritage Minister Liza Frulla, is seen as good news for the beleagueredEnglish-language film production sector. Hotly tipped for the top post, hereplaces Richard Stursberg, who ...
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News
Imax strikes deal for new Russian cinema in the city of Perm
Imax Corp. hassigned an agreement to install one of its giant-screen cinemas in the Russiancity of Perm. The cinema will be part of a new multiplex.under construction forlocal exhibitor Panorama Cinemas in the one million-person city located some 1,300kilometres east of Moscow.In a statement,Imax co-chairmen and co-CEOs Richard Gelfond and ...
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News
Canadian service companies lock C$ at 78 US cents
Spurred by the rising valueof the Canadian dollar against the US dollar, two major Canadian productionservices companies are offering US producers pricing in US dollars locked atthe rate of 78 US cents.Toronto Film Studios (TFS),Canada's largest production facility, announced the fixed exchange plan wouldtake immediate effect for rentals of its ...
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Reviews
Jiminy Glick In Lalawood
Dir. Vadim Jean. Canada-US. 2004. 90 mins.To the immense credit of star and creator MartinShort, Jiminy Glick In Lalawood almostworks. To the discredit of Short the writer, the film falls short of thecomedian's vision because of a script that is unwilling to push the boundariesthe character does. Like most outgrowths ...
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News
Storm clouds ahead for Canada's production sector
The "perfect storm" metaphor has beenflying around Canada's service production industry of late. There's nothinglike a handful of negative coincidences to put the fear into people.Item One: Mel Brooks decides to shoot theadaptation of his hit musical TheProducers in New York.Item Two: the state of New York and NewYork City ...
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News
Telefilm extends Montreal film festival deadline
Telefilm Canada and itsQuebec counterpart SODEC have granted a one-month extension to the four partieswho submitted proposals for a new film festival in Montreal.While declaring the call forproposals officially closed, Telefilm chairman Charles Belanger and SODEC chairJean G Chaput said in a tele-conference that the four proposals tabled wereclose to ...
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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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News
THINKFilm, MGM sign Canadian home video pact
MGM Home Entertainment Group has agreed todistribute eight THINKFilm theatrical titles in Canada. The home-video and DVDdistribution pact kicks off this December with rockumentary Festival Express, a two-disc specialedition featuring unreleased concert footage not contained in the theatricalrelease. The deal includes three other documentaries: Jonathan Demme's The Agronomist, Mongolia-Germany sleeperThe ...
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Cinematheque Ontario's Quandt wins prize from Japan Foundation
James Quandt, the seniorprogrammer of Cinematheque Ontario, has been awarded the Special Prize for Artsand Culture from The Japan Foundation.The honour recognizesQuandt's extensive scholarly work in Japanese cinema, from monographs onJapanese film masters, such as Kenji Mizoguchi, Shohei Imamura and KonIchikawa, and numerous individual and overview retrospectives that have touredinternationally.In ...
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Reviews
Head In The Clouds
Dir/scr: John Duigan.Canada-UK. 2004. 132mins.Head In The Clouds aims to be asweeping romantic epic but it falls short, the victim of a fatal lack of energyand a scale that cannot live up to the film's ambitions. Set in Europe as itbuckles under Fascism, it's the story of an untenable love ...
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Reviews
Going Upriver: The Long War Of John Kerry
Dir. George T. Butler.US. 2004. 130mins.The 2004 US presidential election is widely considered oneof the most divisive in memory, mostly the result of polarity between those whosupport the US-led invasion of Iraq and those who consider it an error equivalentto that nation's adventure in Vietnam a generation ago.A number of ...
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Reviews
Innocent Voices (Voces Inocentes)
Dir. Luis Mandoki. Mexico. 2004. 120mins.Luis Mandoki, the Mexican film-maker whohas built a comfortable career around middling Hollywood melodramas such as WhenA Man Loves A Woman and Message In A Bottle, returns to his LatinAmerican roots with a powerful true story about a young boy growing up in themidst of ...
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News
Arcand's awards run continues with Directors Guild of Canada accolade
Denys Arcand's The Barbarian Invasions continued its winning ways, earning Arcandthe Directors Guild of Canada Outstanding Achievement in Direction - FeatureFilm prize and earning the film the Outstanding Team Achievement prize.Accepting the prize, Arcand quipped that the win was necessarybecause four months had passed since he had last received an ...