All Features articles – Page 487
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Features
Italy/United Kingdom - It takes three to fandango
New Italy-UK sales outfit Fandango Portobello Sales made a splash in Cannes this year with Matteo Garrone's Naples-set Mafia drama Gomorrah. The title won the Grand Prix, was one of the most coveted films in the Marche, and one of the few Italian films in recent years to sell worldwide.Overseeing ...
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New Projects - Graphic encounters
Iron Man 2Marvel Studios and Paramount return in 2010 with Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark/Iron Man and Jon Favreau once again at the helm. Downey Jr has also signed to play Sherlock Holmes, in a project based on a graphic novel, for Warner Bros.The AvengersNo relation to the 1998 ...
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United States - Docs Under The Microscope
Cara Mertes, director of the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program (DFP), is an award-winning former executive producer of PBS's documentary showcase P.O.V. who knows only too well how unforgiving the non-fiction arena can be. For every Michael Moore, Morgan Spurlock and Alex Gibney there are thousands of film-makers whose stories ...
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Online Distribution - The trouble with downloads
Opinion may be split on whether online downloads are the future of home entertainment but everyone agrees on the key limiting factor to the expansion of downloads: bandwidth."What we're waiting for is broader, more reliable, more ubiquitous bandwidth," says US analyst Roger Kay. "Video as a data type is as ...
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Features
The Critical View - War of words
The argument about possessory credits and the creative heft of the screenwriter is almost as old as the film industry itself.It predates the squabble between Herman Mankiewicz and Orson Welles over the writing credit on Citizen Kane - which the director wanted all for himself; it underpinned the on-set ...
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Features
International - Cliff scales the heights
Nine new entries wrestled their way into Screen's international chart this week, with Japan, South Korea, India, Germany, China and France providing new films alongside the big Hollywood blockbusters.Japanese films continue to make their mark with two further entries opening in their home territory this week.Ponyo On The Cliff - ...
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Features
United Kingdom - Mother Care
Shane Meadows' Somers Town, after much praise at the Berlinale and awards at Tribeca and Edinburgh, has had an unusual path to screen. The genesis of the project was not with a seasoned writer or director, but from famed advertising agency Mother.Ad legend Robert Saville, one of the founders of ...
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Features
Production - Armenia - The apricot revolution
For more than a century, Armenia's main export has been its people: men like MGM investor Kirk Kerkorian, who fled oppression and settled in Russia, France and North America. The country of 3.2 million people began post-Soviet independence in the early 1990s in the throes of a devastating earthquake and ...
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The American stream - Leading download sites in the US
Amazon UnboxThe big beast of internet shopping stepped into the movie downloading business when it set up Unbox in late 2006. It now boasts more than 5,000 movies for US users to rent or buy, though customers need to download its video-playing software. Rentals are mostly $3.99 and most purchases ...
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International - Drunk on success
Six new entries broke into the international box-office chart this week, with Sony Pictures' Hancock storming to the top of the table.Non-US new entries failed to break into the top 10, with India's Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na reaching number 12. Written and directed by Abbas Tyrewala and distributed by ...
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New talent - One to One - John Maybury and China Moo-Young
China Moo-Young: What's the difference between working with Hollywood and British producers'John Maybury: To be honest, none. Now in this country, as soon as you're above $2m (£1m) you're answering to some sort of American requirement. I was working with Capitol Films (on The Edge Of Love) and I was ...
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Features
In focus - Audience Award
James Marsh's Man On Wire, a thrilling documentary about Philippe Petit's daring 1974 walk on a tightrope between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, beat off strong competition from Pixar's Wall-E to win Eiff's Standard Life Audience Award. Icon's August release of the film in the UK will ...
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Features
New talent - UK Stars of Tomorrow 2008
"The US has money but a shortage of stories. And in the UK, there is material and talent without financing. It's a marriage made in heaven." So said Mark Gill of The Film Department at the end of last year. Financial incentives and exchange rates will wax and wane but ...
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Features
New talent - Where are they now' - The Class of 2007
THE ACTORSArsher Ali spent most of the year at the Royal Shakespeare Company in The Merchant Of Venice, The Taming Of The Shrew and The Tragedy Of Thomas Hobbs.Following his starring role in The Kite Runner, Khalid Abdalla has just completed Paul Greengrass' Green Zone.Gemma Arterton won acclaim for her ...
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Features
New talent - The Actors part 2
GEORGIA GROOMEGeorgia Groome made her big-screen debut aged 14 in Paul Andrew Williams' festival hit London To Brighton, in which she played a young homeless girl. She is about to prove her versatility as an actor in Gurinder Chadha's comedy Angus, Thongs And Perfect Snogging which opens at the end ...
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New talent - The Film-makers part 2
VIRGINIA GILBERT - WRITER-DIRECTORA coolly directed short about a morally compromised man whose holiday is ruined by an unruly boy, Hesitation marks Virginia Gilbert's first foray into directing. That it was nominated for a Bafta this year (as well as winning awards at Galway and Chicago film festivals last year) ...
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Features
New talent - The Actors part 1
BEN ALDRIDGEHe has not yet graduated from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (Lamda) but Ben Aldridge has already caught the eye of UK casting directors. Earlier this year he was cast opposite Parminder Nagra and Ray Winstone in the ITV drama Compulsion and from there he went ...
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Features
New talent - The Film-makers part 1
ANDREW HAIGH - WRITER-DIRECTORAndrew Haigh cut his teeth in the editing suite, on such mainstream hits as Gladiator and Notting Hill, but his own shorts display a much more indie sensibility. His debut, Oil, employs fast cutting and voiceover to create a poetic and poignant portrait of a man reminiscing ...
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International - Japanese romcom flies
Japanese romantic comedy Boys Over Flowers: Final was the highest non-US entry in this weekend's chart, generating $9.5m in its home territory.Toho released the film, based on characters from the original shojo manga (girl's comic), on 400 screens in Japan, and it earned a very strong $23,686 screen average - ...
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France - The film Fan-ancier
In April 2008, Yann Le Quellec was named managing director of Continental Entertainment Capital's (CEC) European operation based in Paris. A former banker with JP Morgan, Le Quellec is no stranger to the film industry, nor to CEC.As head of EWB Finance, an affiliate of Wild Bunch, Le Quellec was ...