All Finance articles – Page 312

  • News

    French films see increase in foreign investment

    2003-03-12T04:05:00Z

    French film production is still up, foreign investment is high but local investment is slowing, according to latest figures from France's National Cinema Centre (CNC). Two hundred films were produced in France in 2002, 163 of which were majority French efforts. Those figures are down, but only slightly, from 2001 ...

  • News

    Skolimowski to return to film-making after 10-year absence.

    2003-03-12T04:05:00Z

    Polish film-maker Jerzy Skolimowski, who won awards at both Cannes and Berlin, is set to return to film-making after a 10-year absence. Working with producer Jeremy Thomas, Skolimowski is developing Las Vegas-set project: The System on a budget likely to be around $12m, with the director aiming for an autumn ...

  • News

    Sony closes German film production arm

    2003-03-12T00:00:00Z

    Sony Pictures Entertainment's (SPE) German production arm Deutsche Columbia Pictures Filmproduktion (DCPF) is to be closed down due to "the difficulties of the media market and the downward box-office trends in Germany", according to SPE chairman and CEO John Calley. "It just makes more sense for us to refocus our ...

  • News

    New Spain-Argentina production company wraps first films

    2003-03-11T04:05:00Z

    Start-up Spanish-Argentinean production company Altair Cinema has wrapped its first two feature films in Buenos Aires and is now preparing a similar second-year slate.Alejandro Chomski's drama Today And Tomorrow (Hoy Y Manana), a co-production with Cinema Digital starring Manuel Navarro (Alas Rotas) and Antonella Costa (Garage Olimpo), starts post-production in ...

  • News

    Gary Oldman to star in Dead Fish

    2003-03-11T00:00:00Z

    Gary Oldman, one of the UK's most bankable stars, is confirmed to star in Dead Fish, an $11m thriller about a locksmith and a contract killer who accidentally switch mobile phones. Dead Fish is being directed by Charley Stadler, a top Munich-based commercials director making his feature debut. The ...

  • News

    Swedish talent to shine in Three Suns

    2003-03-10T04:00:00Z

    Richard Hobert, director of last year's Everyone Loves Alice, has assembled some of Sweden's top actors to star in his new film, Three Suns (Tre Solar). Actors such as Lena Endre (Faithless, Everyone Loves Alice), Maria Bonnevie (I Am Dina), Mikael Persbrandt (Everyone Loves Alice) and 11-year-old Natalie Minnevik ...

  • News

    German fund gathers around 80 Days

    2003-03-10T04:00:00Z

    Frank Coraci's Around The World In 80 Days starring Jackie Chan is one of 30 projects awarded a total of Euros 4.5m by the Central German film fund Mitteldeutsche Medienfoerderung (MDM). US-based Walden Media's production partner Studio Babelsberg Motion Pictures received Euros 500,000 production support for the action comedy which ...

  • News

    Dreamworks joins Prague production influx

    2003-03-07T04:00:00Z

    Dreamworks SKG has gone into pre-production in Prague on an untitled teen comedy, formerly called The Ugly Americans. The European road trip movie represents the first shoot in the Czech capital for DreamWorks, previously the only major studio not to have shot a film in the Czech Republic, which has ...

  • News

    Buyers shoot for UGC's Mike Blueberry

    2003-03-07T04:00:00Z

    UGC International has struck a number of key sales deals on its big-budget supernatural Western, Mike Blueberry, Expanded Reality.The $35m film, directed by Jan Kounen, who previously made the stylish and ultraviolent Dobermann, is the story of a "Wild West" marshal who faces the challenge of a lifetime when his ...

  • News

    The Third Wave heralds Sonet's international ambitions

    2003-03-06T04:05:00Z

    Swedish production and distribution company Sonet Film has started shooting its first English-language feature film, The Third Wave, directed by Anders Nilsson, who made local box-office hit Executive Protection in 2001.Following Sonet Film's local success both Executive Protection and last year's Everyone Loves Alice, the company has announced that ...

  • News

    Columbia TriStar starts shooting first South Korean production

    2003-03-05T04:05:00Z

    Silmi Island (working title), Columbia TriStar's first foray into the South Korean production sector, started principal photography on March 1. Fully financed by Columbia for $10m, an unusually high budget by local standards, the Korean-language feature is directed by Cinema Service founder Kang Woo-suk. Kang, a producer and ...

  • News

    German film fund awards more than $5m to new projects

    2003-03-04T04:05:00Z

    New features by Dennis Gansel, Sherry Hormann, Ben Verbong and three graduation films by students of Munich's Academy for Television & Film (HFF) are among the film projects receiving over Euros 5m from Bavaria's regional film fund FFF Bayern.Olga Film's production of Dennis Gansel's historical drama Napola about the ...

  • News

    Gaga takes Japanese rights to Winterbottom's Code 46

    2003-03-04T04:05:00Z

    Gaga Communications has acquired Japanese rights to Michael Winterbottom's sci-fi Code 46, which is currently in production starring Tim Robbins and Samantha Morton.The deal was sealed with UK-based sales agent The Works at last week's AFM, where Winterbottom's previous film, Berlin winner In This World, was one of the market's ...

  • News

    Macquarie and Nine launch second production fund

    2003-03-04T00:00:00Z

    Australia's Nine Network and Macquarie Bank have launched a new production investment fund with the aim of raising at least $12.3m - after the partnership's inaugural fund last year raised $13.3m out of a hoped-for $35m. The Nine Network and Macquarie Bank today (March 4) lodged a prospectus with the ...

  • News

    BBC Worldwide to co-produce feature documentary with Germany's Greenlight

    2003-03-04T00:00:00Z

    BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC, is working on a theatrical version of its acclaimed natural history documentary series The Blue Planet. BBC Worldwide has signed a co-production agreement with German production and international distribution company Greenlight Media to fund the feature length documentary.Greenlight Media will co-ordinate all ...

  • News

    Canada pursues commerce over culture

    2003-02-28T04:05:00Z

    Ararat and Crash producer Robert Lantos is readying a series of big-budget films with international casts - in line with Canadian funding body Telefilm's aim to support films with box office potential.It has been almost a year since federal funding body Telefilm spelled out its aim of focusing on supporting ...

  • News

    Co-productions boost Czech release slate

    2003-02-28T04:05:00Z

    Nearly half of all Czech films scheduled for release during 2003 are co-productions with Slovakia, the Republic's erstwhile partner in the former Czechoslovakia.One of the few female Czech directors, Michaela Pavlátová (pictured), makes her debut with Lassitude In Two, a psychological drama based on a novel by Slovak author Tina ...

  • News

    New films by Rohmer, Akerman and Fridriksson get Eurimages cash

    2003-02-28T04:05:00Z

    New feature films by Eric Rohmer, Chantal Akerman and Fridrik Thor Fridriksson are among nine projects awarded over Euros 3.3m by Eurimages.Two projects were backed in the funding category for larger projects with commercial promise: Euros 700,000 for Didier and Thierry Poiraud's French-German-UK co-production Le Retour De James Bataille and ...

  • News

    India's Tata steps in to film production

    2003-02-27T04:05:00Z

    Indian conglomerate the Tata Group has entered the Indian film production business, stepping in to rescue stalled production on Bollywood title Aitbaar.The company announced its plans to co-produce the big-budget movie, starring Bollywood super star Amitabh Bachchan and model-turned-Indian actress Bipasha Basu (pictured), after funding failed to materialise for producer ...

  • News

    Hong Kong - the sequel means business

    2003-02-27T04:05:00Z

    With box office for local films down by nearly 25%, last year marked a low point for the Hong Kong film industry. So it's hardly surprising that filmmakers are now revisiting familiar material. At least three sequels are set to start shooting in Hong Kong over the next few months ...