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All Features articles – Page 505
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Features
United Kingdom - Heart of darkness
Neil Marshall indulges his influences in Doomsday, the $30m follow-up to his acclaimed 2005 low-budget horror hit The Descent. "Raiders Of The Lost Ark was the film that made me want to make movies," Marshall says during a recent promotional trip to Comic-Con in San Diego.From the sound of it, ...
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Marketing - Brand marketing - learning the hard sell
In India, the sight of Bollywood stars on posters or television promoting the biggest brands is an everyday occurrence. But despite their popularity now across the globe, it seems their brand appeal has yet to take off."We have a lot of brands tying up with the films and actors in ...
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International - A bigger picture
As far as the film industry is concerned, it's a long hot summer. It defies seasonal or calendar considerations, running 18 weeks from early May through to the first weekend in September.At the conclusion of summer 2007, about $4.2bn was spent in North American multiplexes and an additional $6.3bn worth ...
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Argentina - Chasing foreign interest
Directors Lucrecia Martel, Pablo Trapero and Daniel Burman were all key figures in the emergence of Argentinian cinema on the international scene a decade ago. All three are now in production on new projects, with an array of foreign partners."We have solid contacts with established companies in Europe," says rising ...
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Analysis: International box-office - Weekend August 31-September 2 - Shrek The First
Shrek The Third knocked Jason Bourne out of the top spot this weekend, taking $17.8m over the three-day period after expanding in Italy and Scandinavia. The green ogre shot up a whopping 2,086% after generating $8m in its opening weekend in Italy, the best opening for an animated film ever ...
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Master of Spices
Indian director Santosh Sivan based his new film Before The Rains, which has its world premiere as a Special Presentation in Toronto next week, on the Israeli short film Red Roofs, one of Dan Verete's Desert Trilogy (2001). But, Sivan says, it really only served as a stepping off point ...
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Japan - Production - Out with the new in with the old
After a phenomenally successful year - Japanese productions grossed an unprecedented $920m (Yen107.8bn) at the local box office in 2006 - the territory's film-makers and financiers are continuing their reliance on proven books, comics, manga and TV shows (known as 'gensaku').Of the top 20 local films in Japan last year, ...
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Features
Japan - Hot projects in the pipeline
Aruitemo AruitemoDirector Hirokazu Kore-eda is no stranger to critical acclaim with films such as Nobody Knows and international arthouse hit After Life. His latest stars Hiroshi Abe (Bubble Fiction) as the good-for-nothing son of a doctor who returns home for the anniversary of his brother's death. With Kore-eda's talent for ...
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Features
United Kingdom - Mountain High
Eight months in as president of Paramount Pictures International (PPI), Andrew Cripps is enjoying the change of pace from his last job as president and COO of UIP."What I've really thrived on are two things," he says. "Working with all divisions at Paramount and being part of the overall decision-making ...
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Festival Deauville - Opening French doors
The 33rd edition of the Deauville Festival of American Film will showcase 124 films, including 11 in competition. And for the first time, the festival has added a sidebar entitled American Nights, which will screen 60 films back to back, 24 hours a day, in the French seaside town's Morny ...
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Features
Italy - The Dark master
Thirty years in the making, the launch of Dario Argento's The Mother Of Tears finally closes the door on The Three Mothers trilogy of cult horror films that began with Argento's Suspiria in 1977 and Inferno in 1982."I feel relief but also sadness," Argento says of the film, which has ...
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Features
United States - Collective thinking
Life just wasn't the same for Michael Green after the co-founder of top management company The Firm sold his stake to partner Jeff Kwatinetz in 2001. "I got bored of sitting on the beach," Green says from the Beverly Hills offices of The Collective, the full service production and management ...
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China - Onward and upward
Industry experts in China believe the country's 2007 box office could break the $400m (rmb3bn) milestone as the number of cinemas and admissions continues to grow.According to monthly statistics from the Film Bureau of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (Sarft), total box office for the first half ...
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Festival buzz - Special Presentations
Nothing Is Private (US)Dir: Alan BallEight years after American Beauty, writer Ball returns to features with his directorial debut. Aaron Eckhart and his Thank You For Smoking co-star Maria Bello headline alongside Toni Collette in a drama about a sexually obsessed Lebanese-American girl who moves next door to a bigoted ...
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Festival Buzz - Other World Premieres
SPECIAL PRESENTATIONSLove Comes Lately (Ger-Aus-US)Dir: Jan SchutteContact: Zero Fiction Film, (49) 30 390 663 0Shake Hands With The Devil (Can)Dir: Roger SpottiswoodeContact: White Pine Pictures, (226) 416 703 5580Real To ReelAlgerie, Unspoken Stories (Alg)Dir: Jean-Pierre LledoContact: Jean-Pierre Lledo, lledo.2007@yahoo.frAmazing Journey: The Story Of The Who (US)Dir: Paul Crowder, Murray LernerContact: ...
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International box office - Czech Republic - Recovery position
Admissions in the Czech Republic grew 13% year on year for the first half of 2007, with cinemas earning total revenues of nearly $31.3m (czk637m). If the trend continues, 2007 will outpace last year's 11.5 million admissions, continuing the recovery from 2005's 9.5 million.The Czech Republic, which has a population ...
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Bourne-again triumphs
Jason Bourne kicked the Simpsons out of the top spot as The Bourne Ultimatum took $15.2m in its third weekend - pushing it past the $50m mark. The third instalment of the franchise expanded into a further five territories, taking $2.5m in its first weekend in Russia and opening to ...
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Japan - Technology - Jumping between platforms
BroadbandThere are now around 26 million broadband connections in Japan, with some of the fastest and cheapest services among Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development (Oecd) countries. Many consumers watch TV on computers with built in TiVo-like functions, increasing the audience for the dramas that are often made into movies.Unlike ...
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Belgium - Back in the habit
It is 15 years since Belgian director Stijn Coninx was Oscar-nominated for his feature Daens in 1992. Now, he is preparing a new feature likely to pique the curiosity of European buyers. La Vie Extraordinaire De Soeur Sourire - to star Cecile De France - will tell the story of ...
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Japan - Adaptations - Tapping the sources
Books: While the manga TV animation-animated feature cycle has been a mainstay in Japan, Toho Studios' 2004 megahit Crying Out Love, In The Centre Of The World ($72.5m) sparked an increased dependence on novels as source material, with major publishers such as Kadokawa Publishing and Shueisha regularly joining production consortiums. ...