All articles by Geoffrey Macnab – Page 178
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Reviews
Alien Autopsy
Dir: Jonny Campbell UK.2006. 95minsFitfully entertaining, but undermined by its owninanity, Alien Autopsy is muddled anduneven fare which shows yet again how difficult it is for the best Britishcomic talent to make the transition to the big screen. Its stars Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly, hugely popular TVpersonalities in the ...
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News
Pernille Fischer Christensen's A Soap sold to the US
Pernille Fischer Christensen's Silver Bear winning debutfeature A Soap has been acquired byStrand Releasing for US and by Theodora Films for Italian rights. The US deal was struck between Jon Gerransof Strand Releasing and Natja Rosnerof Trust Film Sales."We're thrilled to be working with Nimbus Filmand Trust Film Sales again, ...
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Reviews
Wilderness
Dir: Michael J Bassett. UK 2006. 91mins"Get them out of here. Get them to the island andteach them a bloody lesson!" the governor at a young offenders institutionroars at the inmates early on in Wilderness,Michael Bassett's lurid but enjoyably cheesy horror picture.This is not subtlefilm-making. Dario Poloni's screenplay is influencedby ...
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Revolver acquires UK rights to Tideland
Aggressive new London-based distributor RevolverEntertainment has taken UK rights to Terry Gilliam's Tideland. Revolver will be releasing the film (represented by Hanway) in British cinemas later this summer.A US deal has also now been struck on Tideland with what a Hanwayspokesperson calls "a well-established independent." Full details will beannounced shortly.Tideland ...
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News
Michael Winterbottom options controversial memoirs
Fresh from the controversy ofhis Berlinale Silver Bear winner The Road To Guantanamo,prolific British director Michael Winterbottom is setto tackle an equally contentious project. Winterbottomrevealed this week that his company Revolution has optioned Murder In Samarkand, the memoirs of Craig Murray, the former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan. Comedian Steve Coogan ...
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Nordisk racks up sales for action-adventure feature
Danish based sales outfit Nordisk has been racking up sales at Berlin's European Film Market. As the market in the Martin Gropius-Bau closes its doors, the company has confirmeddeals on action-adventure The LostTreasure of the Knights Templar to Medallion Media for Japan,A-Film for the Benelux,Ukrainian DVD Company for CIS, D-production ...
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News
Trust sells Guerrilla Girl to Colombia
Copenhagen-based sales agent Trust has closed a deal withColombian distributor Cineplex for Frank Piasecki Poulsen's feature documentaryGuerrilla Girl.When premiered at the IDFA Festival in Amsterdamlate last year, the film caused a huge controversy back in Colombia.To make the film, Poulsen had entered Colombiaillegally and spent three months in a jungle ...
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Iran exporters blossom at the European Film Market
New Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may haveunsettled western governments with his fervid anti-western rhetoric but thathasn't affected the continuing international push of Iranian cinema. There were six Iraniantitles in official selection in Berlin this year, and for the very first time,the Government has paid for private Iranian sales outfits to ...
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Latido wraps up sales on its Berlin slate
As the European Film Market(EFM) enters its final furlong, Massimo Saidel'sMadrid-based Latido has been wrapping up sales on anumber of titles on its Berlin slate. Goya winner The Method has gone to France (CTV), and Chile (Bazooka) with Mikado poised to take Italian rights.De Profundis, Latido's big-budget adultanimated feature, has ...
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Marilyn Manson film impresses buyers
Lured by the presence in Berlin of Goth rocker MarilynManson, buyers have been buzzing round Manson's Phantasmagoria The Visions Of Lewis Carroll.Wild Bunch subsidiary Pan-Europeene will handle the French release of the film, Lucky Red has taken Italy,Triangel for Scandinavia, SPIfor Eastern Europe with Tarantula poised to board asSwiss co-producer.Meanwhile ...
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News
Judelewicz preps My Life As A Dog sequel
Pascal Judelewicz'sParis-based Les Films De Cinema, the production outfit behind Panorama entry BirdsOf Heaven, has announced a slate ofprojects all to shoot this year.The films are Hair Of TheDog, the sequel to My Life As ADog, starring Stellan Skarsgaard andto be directed by Ludi Boeken (Deadlines); Catherine Cabrol's House 5 ...
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Nimbus slate to include two Kragh-Jacobsen features
Prolific Danish production house Nimbus Film is pushingahead with a slate of new projects including two features from Kragh-Jacobsen (Mifune) which may shoot back to back.First up should be romantic comedy The Sandwich Thief, dueto shoot in September. Once that is wrapped, Kragh-Jacobsenwill move straight ahead with political thriller, Another ...
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Wajda to tackle feature on wartime massacre of Poles
Revered 79-year-old Polish auteur AndrzejWajda, in Berlin to receive an honorary Golden Bear,has revealed details of what promises to be one of the most ambitious andcontentious films he has ever made.The new feature will deal with the KatynForest massacre, in which an estimated20,000 Poles were killed by the Soviet Union ...
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Woody flirts with France
IsWoody Allen going Gallic' In the Martin-Gropius-Bau, there have been strongrumours that the much-travelled US filmmaker is looking to shoot a new featurein France as early as this spring.Allen isexpected in Paris for the Cesars later this month. The word at the EFM is thathe has been discreetly sounding out ...
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DOCker five pool EFM resources
Five of thebest-known sales outfits in the documentary arena are pooling resources in theEuropean Film Market in Berlin. SND Films,Doc & Co, Films Transit, Deckert Distribution and First Hand Films are thepartners involved in the venture, dubbed Meet The DOCkers! The fivecompanies, normally business rivals, are sharing space at Martin-Gropius-Bauand ...
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Ambitious Rome festival to launch co-production event
Theinaugural Rome Film Festival (Oct 13-21) is looking to set up aco-production event along the lines of Rotterdam's CineMart which will includea cash prize for the best project presented."TheCineMart structure is so far the best one," explained Rome's internationalprogramme manager Teresa Cavina on the decision to emulate Rotterdam's popularpitching bazaar.Rome'sindustry ...
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Auteurs are New Crowned Hope for Vienna
Furtherdetails are emerging of the six new features being prepared as part of Vienna'sNew Crowned Hope Festival (November 14-December 13) to celebrate the 250thanniversary of Mozart's birth.Titlesare Bahman Ghobadi's The Last Symphony Of The Kurds, Garin Nugroho's RequiemFrom Java,Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Intimacy, Paz Encina's Hamaca Paraguaya, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun'sDarattand Tsai Ming-Liang's Dark ...
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Famke Janssen to star in Juraj Jakubisko's Bathory
Famke Janssen is toplay the notorious Countess Bathory in Juraj Jakubisko's $12.6 million epic, Bathory.The 17thCentury Hungarian countess was nicknamed "the blood countess" for her penchantfor bathing in virgins' blood. TheCzech/Slovak/Hungarian/UK co-production has already started second-unitphotography, with principal photography set to begin next month.Bathory is one offive new projects with ...
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Brisseau explores his own story in Exterminating Angels
Controversial Frenchfilmmaker Jean-Claude Brisseau is at work on what promises to be his mostcontentious feature yet. Late last year, Brisseau wasfound guilty of sexually harassing two young actresses auditioning for roles inhis feature, Choses Secretes(2002). Now, in The Exterminating Angels, being sold by Rezo, he deals indramatised form with events ...
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Trier hits 50 and decides to 'narrow down'
Lars Von Trier is to downsize. Themercurial Dane yesterday issued another of his 'statements.' The subject thistime was his own 'Revitality.' 'In my fiftieth year Ifeel I have earned the privilege of narrowing down,' he declared.'In conjunction with the departure of VibekeWindelov, who has been my producer for ten years, ...