All articles by Geoffrey Macnab – Page 158
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News
Carlos Acosta to star in $3m feature for Rosa Bosch
Cuban ballet star Carlos Acosta is set to star in a dramatic feature inspired by his own life story. The film, based on the Acosta biography No Way Home, will shoot in Cuba and the UK. Acosta's nephews will play him as a younger man.The $3m project is being produced ...
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News
Antonia's Line team back with My Father's Notebook
Marleen Gorris and Hans de Weers, the director/producer team behind Oscar winner Antonia's Line, are reuniting on a new feature, My Father's Notebook. The film, based on the bestseller by Kader Abdolah, is set at the time of the revolution in Iran and then in Holland a generation later. It ...
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News
Revamped Baker Street partners with Darkside on Kitchen Games
UK producer and film financier Baker Street Entertainment is partnering with London based animation studio Darkside Entertainment on ambitious new $8m (£4m)CGI animated feature, The Kitchen Games. The film comes billed as 'a tale of cutlery from opposite sides of the table, which compete once a year to decide who ...
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News
Profile: Zentropa co-founder Peter Aalbaek Jensen
Last month, Scandinavian major Nordisk Film acquired 50% of the shares in Denmark's Zentropa - backing that will enable the company founded by Lars von Trier and Peter Aalbaek Jensen to expand internationally.After years of Dogme manifestos, irreverence and a rebellious nature, has age finally caught up with the maverick ...
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News
UK landscape shifts as Warner moves to same-day VOD/DVD
Amid signs that the UK distribution market is in an increasing state of flux, British distributors are testing out more and more new ways of getting their movies in front of spectators.'Companies are beginning to look at imaginative release plans for films that 10 years ago simply wouldn't have been ...
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News
Space man: Duncan Jones talks about his feature debut
It is an early March morning at Shepperton Studios and Sam Rockwell is in a spaceship, shaving. He stars in Moon, an unusual and ambitious film which is being made in the spirit of classic 1970s sci-fi such as Ridley Scott's Alien and Douglas Trumbull's Silent Running.The film marks the ...
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News
Producer Iain Smith tapped to chair UK's new Industry Training Board
Famed UK producer Iain Smith (Children Of Men, Cold Mountain) has been appointed to chair the Film Industry Training Board (FITB).The appointment was confirmed today by The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS). Under Smith, the FITB will have statutory levy powers. Its role is to ensure that the ...
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News
UK financiers don't see disaster with closed tax loophole
UK film financiers have been striking a philosophical note about yesterday's Budget 2008 government announcement that 'sole traders' who spend fewer than 10 hours a week on film-related activities will no longer be able to offset predicted losses on film investment.Previous UKGovernment clampdowns, whether last year's sudden closure of so-called ...
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News
MK2 blasts off with nWave's 3D Fly Me To The Moon
Ben Stassen of nWave Pictures has sold another major territory on animated feature Fly Me To The Moon, which made history in Berlin last month as the first 3D film to screen as part of the European Film Market.The latest deal Stassen has concluded on the film post-Berlin is with ...
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News
Duncan Jones wraps shoot on Moon starring Sam Rockwell
Sci-fi feature Moon has just wrapped principal photography at the UK's Shepperton Studios.The film, which marks the feature directorial debut of Duncan Jones (formerly known as Zowie Bowie), stars Sam Rockwell. Moon is being made through London-based production outfit Liberty Films. The producers are Stuart Fenegan, Nicky Moss and Trudie ...
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Features
France - Critical faculties
"He would never talk about his problems but it was impossible not to feel his anxiety," says young French director Mia Hansen-Love of producer Humbert Balsan, who she worked with on her debut feature, Tout Est Pardonne, winner of the prestigious Prix Louis Delluc in France last year.Later this year, ...
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News
As Hermeling departs A-Film, Wolfers said to be tipped as MD
Following Pim Hermeling's departure from Dutch distributor A-Film (announced yesterday), Wilco Wolfers of Warner Bros Netherlands is being strongly tipped to be appointed managing director in his stead.Speaking to ScreenDaily.com, Philipp Wolff of W2Media BV, the investment company which already owned the majority of the shares in A-Film and has ...
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News
FilmIndustry Training Board: the next steps
Thefilm Industry Training Boardwill administer the mandatory levy on behalf of the film industry.An Order to establish a board was submitted to Parliament in November 2007, and in line with parliamentary procedures a debate was not called for.This was required to 'sit' in Parliament for 40 days, and upon completion ...
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News
UK mandatory training levy wins support despite concerns
Senior UK industry figures are strongly supporting a new mandatory training levy on producers proposed by Skillset and government, despite criticism from some producers.The Government is in the process of creating an industry training board (ITB), which will be able to impose a compulsory training levy on film-making.UK plans for ...
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News
Shooting begins on Salvage in Liverpool
Shooting begins today in Liverpool on British horror film Salvage, one of the three features commissioned under the Digital Departures scheme set up to celebrate Liverpool's year as Capital of Culture. All three films will premiere in Liverpool later in the year.Salvage marks the feature directorial debut of Lawrence Gough. ...
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News
NonStop seals EFM sales on Gnomes And Trolls
Scandinavian-based NonStop Sales is continuing to cultivate deals on its animated features, Gnomes And Trolls I and Gnomes And Trolls II. Following the European Film Market in Berlin, the films have now gone to 14 territories.Further deals on both titles confirmed yesterday include Media Film (Slovenia + Croatia), P.C.V (Greece ...
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News
Nordisk/Trust rack up sales on Lordi horror, Von Trier, Moodysson
As the EFM draws to a close, Nordisk and Trust are continuing to rack up sales on their Berlin slate. One heavy seller is their English-language horror film Dark Floors, starring Finnish rock band and Eurovision Song Contest winners, Lordi. Deals announced yesterday (Wednesday) included Turkey (Umut Sanat/Ozen FilmTAS), Benelux ...
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News
New Wave takes Ceylan's Cannes-bound Daydreams for UK
New Wave Films, the new UK distribution company set up by former Artificial Eye bosses Robert Beeson and Pam Engel, has made its second acquisition of the Berlin market, taking Daydreams, the latest feature from Turkish maestro Nuri Bilge Ceylan from Pyramide International.Like New Wave's first pick-up - the Dardennes' ...
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News
French Film Festival UK to welcome Lola Doillon, Jean Becker
The French Film Festival UK (7 - 20 March 2008) has revealed details of itsprogramme and guests. The event, likely to have added prominence as a showcase for French cinema in the UK this year following the cancellation of the Unifrance London 'Rendez-Vous,' takes place in Edinburgh, Glasgow,Aberdeen, Dundee, Inverness, ...
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News
Niels Arden Oplev preps Scandinavian detective opus
Danish director Niels Arden Oplev, whose Worlds Apart screened in official selection in Berlin, has revealed further details of his big budget new project Men Who Hate Women, an adaptation of the first part of Stieg Larsson's 'detective trilogy.' Oplev is directing the first part as both a feature film ...