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All articles by Geoffrey Macnab – Page 180
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News
Da VInci Code backer pulls out of film business
InvictaCapital is to quit the UK film business, says managing director Niall Bamford.TheLondon-based company, one of the powerhouses behind the sale andleaseback-driven production boom in the UK in recent years, is estimated tohave raised over $2.2bn (£1.25bn) for the film industry in the last five years.Recentprojects the company has backed ...
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News
Da Vinci Code backer pulls out of film business
InvictaCapital is to quit the UK film business, says managing director Niall Bamford.TheLondon-based company, one of the powerhouses behind the sale andleaseback-driven production boom in the UK in recent years, is estimated tohave raised over $2.2bn (£1.25bn) for the film industry in the last five years.Recentprojects the company has backed ...
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News
Chadha to shoot JR in Dallas remake
Gurinder Chadha has confirmed that she is to direct Twentieth Century Fox's screen adaptation of TV series Dallas(which ran from 1978-1991.)Thefilm, scripted by Robert Harling (Steel Magnolias), will star JohnTravolta as Texas oil magnate JR Ewing and Jennifer Lopez as hishard-drinking wife, Sue Ellen. Luke Wilson and Shirley Maclaine are ...
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News
UK distributor sets eyes on Lights In The Dusk
In the run-up to Cannes, UK distributorArtificial Eye has taken UK rights to Aki Kaurismaki's Lights In The Dusk (Laitakaupungin Valot).The film,strongly tipped for a Cannes competition berth, is the third part ofKaurismaki's trilogy that started with Drifting Clouds(1996) and continued with The Man Without A Past (2002.) Thetheme of ...
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New UK Film Council measures embraced by producers
British producershave given an enthusiastic response to two new measures that the UK FilmCouncil (UKFC) is putting into place with effect from April 15.The first is totry to ensure that producers using funding from UKFC do not defer "theirindividual fees and/or production company overheads." Stating that the UKFCwould do all ...
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News
Stephen Fry teams with Dev Benegal for Ramanujan
British actor, filmmakerand novelist Stephen Fry is to join forces with leading Indian auteur Dev Benegal in making Ramanujan, a biopic about the "genius" Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan. The film isgearing up just as the UK-India co-production treaty is on the verge of beingsigned.The idea is that Fry willdirect the ...
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News
UK gets more detail on new film tax system
As the UK Government'slong-awaited Finance Bill was finally published on Friday, accountants andlawyers went into over-drive to analyse what implications the Bill holds forthe UK film industry. With 26 film-related pagesand 62 pages of explanatory memo in the 489-page Bill, this was not an easydocument to digest. Even some experts ...
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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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News
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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News
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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News
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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News
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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News
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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News
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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News
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 ...