All Finance articles – Page 327

  • News

    Australian actors are getting behind the camera

    19 July 2002

    Russell Crowe's mooted directorial debut, The Long Green Shore, is just one example of a host of Australian actors currently getting behind the camera with projects to direct or produce.Toni Collette is in the process of producing an adaptation of Luke Davis's novel Isabelle The Navigator alongside Icon Shanahan Productions' ...

  • News

    Hunter tracks down Harper for Prey

    18 July 2002

    UK director Simon Hunter, whose debut film Lighthouse opens in London this week as an unusual double bill with horror classic Evil Dead, has teamed with producer Sara Harper on his next project, heist movie Prey.Prey, which Hunter also wrote, follows a group of criminals who kidnap a murderer by ...

  • News

    Two Australian production companies established

    18 July 2002

    Two Australian companies, leading TV commercials producer Film Graphics and top visual effects outfit Animal Logic have simultaneously, but separately, launched into feature film and television programme production.And while each company's methods are different - Australian Rules producer Mark Lazarus has been appointed executive producer and head of development for ...

  • News

    US productions running away to Australia, says new research

    18 July 2002

    Australia is the first choice when shooting abroad for 60% of Los Angeles-based film and television producers that have worked there, according to a new survey released this week. "Australia is seen as more competitive than Canada because of the exchange rate and the climate," the survey states, "and more ...

  • News

    Diamonds, Darwin among UK Film Council's development awards

    18 July 2002

    New films from director Mike Newell and Gosford Park screenwriter Julian Fellowes are among the latest projects to receive development investment from UK support body the Film Council.The council's development fund is investing $25,800 (£16,433) in The Eustace Diamonds, written by Gosford Park Oscar-winner Julian Fellowes and based on the ...

  • News

    20th Century Fox announces first Bollywood production

    18 July 2002

    20th Century Fox is to produce its first Bollywood film: a Hindi feature titled Ek Haseena Thee (There Was A Beautiful Girl) to be directed by Ram Gopal Verma. Fox India is likely to release the film in January 2003 with production set to begin in the next few weeks.The ...

  • News

    ContentFilm, Rapid Film cement Irish production partnership

    17 July 2002

    ContentFilm USA and Rapid Film Ireland have announced their partnership to produce 12 low budget feature films from Ireland over the next three years. The deal, similar to those established by ContentFilm in other countries, will source and produce local film scripts for international distribution.As part of the ContentFilm/Rapid Film ...

  • News

    Sun Gateway fund opens up for English-language productions

    16 July 2002

    Features by Michael Radford, Sandy Johnson and Amy Lyndon have been lined up as possible projects for backing by the new Sun Gateway Entertainment (SGE) private media fund.The German fund, which aims to raise Euros 50m this year for up to seven English-language feature film and TV productions, is managed ...

  • News

    Two Eastern European countries boost national film funds

    16 July 2002

    The newly-appointed Hungarian ministry of culture has awarded $3.3m (HUF 800m) in immediate cash for its struggling local film industry, while in neighbouring Slovakia a new law has been passed requiring broadcasters and exhibitors to contribute to the country's production funds.In Hungary, cultural minister Gabor Gorgey and minister of financial ...

  • News

    $9m large-format Bugs! goes into production

    14 July 2002

    Bugs!, a $9m 3-D giant-screen documentary film, has started principal photography in the jungles of Malaysia.A live-action film about the hidden world of insects, Bugs! will use macro-photography and 3D imagery to convey the tiny dramas of bug life on a grand scale - and will be hoping to repeat ...

  • News

    Ireland gets multiple low-budget production schemes

    12 July 2002

    In advance of the anticipated announcement of a new Irish-American low-budget production partnership - between Ireland's Rapid Film and Ed Pressman and John Schmidt's New York-based ContentFilm, the Irish Film Board has launched two new low-budget feature film initiatives.The first, called the Low Budget Feature Initiative seeks to create production ...

  • News

    New Line taps UK's Stevenson for Double Au Pair duties

    11 July 2002

    British writer/actress Jessica Stevenson, who co-created, co-wrote and co-starred in hit TV series Spaced, has landed a deal with New Line Cinema to write and star in Double Au Pair, a family adventure comedy about a nanny spy. Stevenson, who also starred in comedy Tomorrow La Scala! which played in ...

  • News

    Deepa Mehta plans $10m English-language historical drama

    10 July 2002

    Toronto-based Indian filmmaker Deepa Mehta (pictured) is planning to make a $10m English-language feature about the 1914 epic journey by Punjabi immigrants from India to Canada and back on a ship named the Komagata Maru. The film is based on the historical incident of the steamship Komagata Maru that sailed ...

  • News

    German film funds face new threat

    9 July 2002

    The future of Germany's film funds has come under further threat with news of proposed tighter regulations by the Federal Ministry of Finance German business daily the Handelsblatt reported that the Ministry of Finance (BMF) intends to consider investors in film funds merely as acquirers of film rights rather than ...

  • News

    Japan's Takeshi Kitano wraps Dolls

    9 July 2002

    Dolls, the latest feature from Japanese powerhouse Takeshi Kitano has wrapped principal photography and is set for local release in October by Office Kitano and Shochiku.Made for $2.5m (Y300m), Dolls is the director's 10th feature produced by Office Kitano and financed by a consortium of backers including Office Kitano, Bandai ...

  • News

    Swedish Film Institute withdraws funding from major local production

    5 July 2002

    The Swedish Film Institute (SFI) has taken the unprecedented step of withdrawing its financial support of $540 000 (SEK 5m) for the screen adaptation of 2001 local bestseller, Popular Music From Vittula (Popularmusik Fran Vittula). The funding would have made up a quarter of the film's budget.The dramatic move comes ...

  • News

    Hong Kong's Celestial Pictures pulls out of Naked Weapon

    5 July 2002

    Hong Kong's Celestial Pictures has pulled out of co-producing action title Naked Weapon with East Asia Entertainment, a division of eSun Holdings which owns Media Asia Group.The English-language film, loosely based on producer Wong Jing's 1992 tongue-in-cheek action comedy Naked Killer, was initially developed by East Asia with Wong on ...

  • News

    The Next Big Thing to be April's first production

    5 July 2002

    A production deal signed this week signals that The Next Big Thing, a feature written by and to star Magda Szubanski, is likely to be Australia's April Films' first production. The private owners of the Sydney-based company have put $1.7m (A$3m) of their own money into project development since establishing ...

  • News

    Carlos Saura readies two new feature projects

    3 July 2002

    Veteran Spanish director Carlos Saura is preparing two new projects to follow his forthcoming feature Salome, slated for a September release.The first is a story about Spain's 16th century King Felipe II, a project which Saura foresees as 'complicated and expensive' to pull together.The second, Amor De Dios (Love Of ...

  • News

    Japan's Toei launches Laterna animation affiliate

    3 July 2002

    Toei Animation, Asia's largest animation house, has launched a wholly-owned subsidiary to produce animation for families and young adults, over a range of media platforms. Called Laterna, the new subsidiary is capitalised at $420,000 (Y50m) and is headed by Tsutomu Tomari, Toei Animation president. Instead of developing projects exclusively with ...