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All articles by Geoffrey Macnab – Page 181
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News
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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News
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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News
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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News
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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News
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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News
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, ...
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News
Wild Bunch back Marc Caro's new sci-fi action film
Marc Caro, the French film-makerwho collaborated with Jean-Pierre Jeunet on Delicatessen and The City Of Lost Children, is preparing anextravagant new sci-fi action movie called DanteXXI that is being represented for worldwide sales by Wild Bunch.Billed by the seller as Cubemeets Gattaca,it's a tale about a convict in space. Tormented ...
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News
Troubled German media fund will fight on, says CEO
Andy GroschCEO of beleaguered German media fund VIP, made a defiant defence ofhis company at the Screen International Europe Film Finance Summit, shruggingoff a new lawsuit being prepared against the company as pure nonsense. Eventhough his business partner Andreas Schmid has beenin custody on charges of tax evasion since Sept ...
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News
Gilliam goes west with McMurtry's Billy The Kid
Terry Gilliam is to team up with Brokeback Mountain co-screenwriter and Pulitzer Prize-winner Larry McMurtry on AnythingFor Billy, a new feature inspired by wild west anti-hero, Billy The Kid. Gilliam is attached to direct the new project, which isadapted from McMurtry's best-selling novel. Anything For Billyis about Ben Sippy, an ...
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Reviews
Gitmo
Dirs: Erik Gandini,Tarik Saleh. 78mins. Den-Swe. 2005.There is something Kafka-esqueabout the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba. Despitebeing part of the War On Terror, prisoners detainedhere in their strident orange suits are not given "Prisoner Of War" status butare treated as "Unlawful Combatants." Many have been left in limbo for ...
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Reviews
Running Scared
Dir/scr: Wayne Kramer. US-Ger. 2006. 122mins.Film-maker Wayne Kramer follows up hisOscar-nominated film noir The Cooler withRunning Scared, a hyper-charged,ultra-violent thriller that opens in frantic fashion and never slows down.While Kramer succeeds insetting a relentless narrative pace and shows plenty of flair for stagingbloody set-pieces, his sledgehammer approach has obvious drawbacks. ...
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Reviews
KZ
Dir/sc: Rex Bloomstein. UK.2005. 97mins.Initially KZ,Rex Bloomstein's harrowing documentary, appears tocover seemingly familiar territory. His subject is the former concentrationcamp of the title, located at Mauthausen in UpperAustria, and the last of the Nazi death camps to be liberated after the war.Thousands of men, women and children from more than ...
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News
Director Joe Wright collaborating on Hangover Square
Sought-after young Britishdirector Joe Wright (Pride and Prejudice)and writer David Nicholls (Starter forTen) are collaborating on a new version of Patrick Hamilton's classic 1941novel, Hangover Square, for Fox/DNA. Dixie Linder is to producethe feature, currently in development at DNA.Fox own the rights to Hamilton's novel. It has been filmedfor the ...
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News
Wild Bunch to launch sales for Leconte feature
French outfit Wild Bunch is to launch sales on Mon Meilleur Ami,(My Best Friend), Patrice Leconte's latestfeature at the Paris Rendez-Vous later this month. Touted as a comedy in the style of François Veber, Leconte's new film tellsthe story of a snobbish art gallery owner who gradually comes to realise ...
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Reviews
Lassie
Dir/scr: Charles Sturridge. UK-Ire-Fr-US 2005.Hansomely crafted, full of lively performancesfrom both animals and humans, and with far more satirical bite than might havebeen expected, Charles Sturridge's Lassie is a richlysatisfying affair.In drawing his inspirationdirectly from Eric Knight's 1938 story, Sturridge hastaken the famous collie away from Hollywood and back to ...
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News
Peter La Terriere to produce Quiver
Ex-Trainspotting hardman and former Bond villain RobertCarlyle is to star as Cupid in a new romantic comedy, Quiver, being set up by London-based First Foot Films. Frenchactress Virginie Ledoyen (The Beach) will play the woman whobreaks his heart. Also in the cast is James McAvoy.Scripted by Liam Gavin, Quiver is ...
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News
Atmo and Zentropa to partner on animation film
Swedishproduction outfit Atmo and Lars Von Trier's Zentropa are partneringon an unusual new cartoon venture - an adult-themed, English-language animatedsatire which promises to lay bare the political tensions at the heart of modernEurope.Metro, asthe animated feature is called, is written and directed by TarikSaleh (whose Guantanamo Bay documentary Gitmo received ...
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Reviews
Keeping Mum
Dir: Niall Johnson. UK. 2005. 103mins.Keeping Mum is acurious mish-mash: part morbid comedy in the vein ofold Ealing classic Kind Hearts And Coronets, part family drama, part Rowan Atkinsonvehicle, part murder mystery, part Mary Poppins, its disparate elements are thrown together withlittle craft or subtlety.Director and co-writer NiallJohnson never seems ...
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News
Drouot takes MD role at Flemish Audiovisual Fund
PierreDrouot has been appointed managing director of the Flemish Audiovisual Fund(VAF), it was announced late last week. Hesucceeds former MD Luckas vander Taelen, who made an abrupt exit from the Fundearlier this month.Drouotalready worked for the Fund in various capacities, for instance as a mentorguiding young filmmakers and as a ...