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All Features articles – Page 506
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Features
United States - Tales: Take two
I feel like the pilot of a 747 that's been flying through a hurricane and is finally coming in to land," Richard Kelly says of his most recent film, Southland Tales.It has been two years since Kelly began production on his labyrinthine black comedy-cum-thriller, about the Apocalypse, set in Southern ...
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Features
United States - Planting Marigold
Since setting up its US distribution operation last year, Indian entertainment giant Adlabs has released a swathe of Bollywood pictures to US-based Indian audiences, including sci-fi box-office hit Krrish, which took $2.2m across North America.Now, the company is gearing up for its first ever release to US mainstream theatres, with ...
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Features
Industry moves
Boltho takes on Paramount roleAlexei Boltho, former business development manager for BBC Films, has taken on a newly created acquisitions post at Paramount Pictures International (PPI). As of August 20, he will be PPI's director, co-productions and acquisitions, working out of Paramount's London headquarters and reporting to Los Angeles-based Ellen ...
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Features
Venice International Film Festival - Venice spans the generations
Marco Mueller, artistic director of the Venice international film festival, has been carving a personal stamp that becomes more defined each year.For his fourth line-up, Mueller has constructed a competition with a strong bedrock of English-language pictures from directors including Paul Haggis, Wes Anderson, Brian De Palma, Andrew Dominik, Tony ...
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Taiwan - Eros as a labour of love
Lee Kang-sheng has walked the Venice red carpet three times as the leading man of Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang's Vive L'Amour (1994), Goodbye Dragon Inn (2003) and most recently, I Don't Want To Sleep Alone (2006). This year, however, will see him there as not just an actor but as ...
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Features
United Kingdom - British promises
Like most, if not all, successful UK producers, Paul Webster is not afraid of the US. "We're trying to work on projects with scale, so that means we need American partners," says Webster, the former Miramax head of production and Film4 chief executive who now oversees the film division of ...
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Features
Hitting the books
It used to be common to see ads that heralded a $100m gross but now that figure seems rather puny. Still, it's not that common to see a double truck for a picture that's done $500m. Certainly when you toss in ancillary revenues from cable, merchandising, soundtracks, and DVD sales ...
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Features
Red's army on the march
It is a scorching summer day of around 36C at a tank base three hours outside Beijing. More than 1,000 actors and extras wearing ancient armour are in the midst of battle. As flags fly and war drums pound, Hong Kong star Tony Leung Chiu-wai dashes among the crowds, waving ...
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Features
China - Felling tales in the digital age
In the winter of 2004, Yu Guangyi entered the snowy forests of Black Bear Valley to record the lives of some of China's last lumberjacks. He spent four months, shooting with a single Sony PD150, a documentary that captures the dangerous and arduous nature of their work as well as ...
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Features
Analysis: International box-office - Weekend August 17-19
The Simpsons Movie barely keeps hold of the top spot for a fourth weekend, taking $22.3m from 49 territories, just beating The Bourne Ultimatum's $22.2m weekend take. The third instalment of the Bourne franchise shot up 423% this weekend after expanding in a further seven territories. The increase was catapulted ...
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Features
Industry moves
PPI FILLS KEY POSTSParamount Pictures International has hired new executives in two key territories. Ichiro Okazaki, who comes from BVI, will take up the role of president of Paramount Pictures Japan from September 1. Pierre Auger will become general manager, Paramount Pictures Spain, from December 2007.ODD LOT BOOSTS TOP LINEOdd ...
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Features
United States - Freedom of the pen
When series regular Steve Kloves ducked out of writing the fifth Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix, producer David Heyman turned to Michael Goldenberg. Goldenberg is no stranger to challenging adaptations, with Contact and Peter Pan among his credits. He immediately felt he had a ...
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Features
In Focus - The Latest Strike News
Contract talks between Hollywood writers and their studio employers got off to a testy start last month: Writers Guild of America (WGA) reps dismissed a proposal by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (Amptp) for a study of the residuals paid in new media markets - perhaps the ...
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Features
Finland - The war zone
Marko Makilaakso is a tenacious film-maker. When film school turned him down, he started making his own short films and music videos, eventually establishing an award-winning career.A few years later, when the Finnish Film Foundation refused to fund his debut feature on the grounds it was a horror film, Makilaakso ...
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Features
Montreal World Film Festival - Second life
Serge Losique is on the phone and he is laughing. The president of the Montreal World Film Festival (Mwff) is not unlike the captain of a storm-tossed ship now entering safe harbour. The distributors who refused to give him films are now providing top titles (see sidebar). The agencies that ...
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Features
United Kingdom - East meets west
A chance meeting on holiday set Donal Fernandes on the previously untrodden Estonian route to Cannes.The first-time producer was on a trip to the Eastern European country when he bumped into local film-maker Kadri Kousaar, who was struggling to produce her first feature, Magnus.He had previously met her in 2006 ...
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Features
Creating the legend
In the next month or so, film festivals in Montreal, Venice and Toronto will debut hundreds of new films. Some will be world premieres; others will be the first screenings outside the country of origin; and still others will be a picture's North American or European premiere.Many of these films ...
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Features
Yellow fever still contagious
Springfield's favourite family held on to the top spot as The Simpsons Movie generated $24.1m in its third week, pushing it well past the $200m mark. Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix trailed behind, taking $23.8m over the three-day period for $548.4m to date. And Disney's Ratatouille continued ...
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International box office - That rising feeling
Japan's overall box-office earnings for the first half of 2007 totalled $778.2m (Yen92.5bn), a tiny 0.7% increase from the same period last year, according to data from Japan's top 13 largest distributors.Toho, Japan's largest distributor, topped the list with earnings of $194.1m (Yen23.8bn), but managed only 75% of last year's ...
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Features
The little black book
When deciding where to locate a shoot, the crucial factors might seem cut and dried. What are the tax breaks' Are there decent production facilities' Is there a skilled local workforce' What locations are needed'But such hard-headed considerations overlook an aspect of film-making that has a major impact on the ...