All articles by Jennifer Green – Page 21
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Reviews
Football Days (Dias De Futbol)
Dir: David Serrano. Spain. 2003. 118mins.There should be much interest in Football Days (Dias De Futbol) at the upcoming MIFED market, considering the film's breakneck climb up the Spanish box office chart and the cast and crew repeats from last year's biggest local box office hit and hot international seller, ...
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News
Telecinco turns back on Hollywood output deals
Spanish broadcaster Telecinco has confirmed a significant shift inits film acquisitions and production policy, turning its back on lengthy Hollywoodcontracts in favour of more selective pacts with both US indies and local suppliers.Opting for cost-cutting multi-title package deals with leading US producersand mini-studios rather than long-term output agreements with the ...
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News
KWA takes over Comandante sales
Spain's Kevin Williams Associates (KWA) has picked up international rights on Oliver Stone's Fidel Castro documentary Comandante.Sales were previously handled by MediaPro, one of the film's co-producers alongside Spain's Pentagrama Films and Morena Films. The controversial title, which paints an amicable, grandfatherly portrait of the Cuban leader, premiered at last ...
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News
SPAIN
Spanish films continued performing well at the local box office. Comedy Football Days (Dias De Futbol) held steady in third position on its fifth weekend out through Buena Vista International, earning a cumulative Euros 6.55m. The total makes it the second highest grossing Spanish film of the year to date.Paz ...
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Spain's merged pay-TV platform reveals first figures
In the first figures released from Spain's new digital satellite pay TV platform Digital Plus since its July 21 merger, the platform boasted 50,000 new subscribers in September alone.Digital Plus's current total of 1.8m subscribers includes the dissolution of 30,000 overlapped subscriptions from merged platforms Canal Satelite Digital (CSD) and ...
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News
Valladolid lines up 21 Spanish premieres of international titles
Spain's Valladolid International Film Week (Oct 24-Nov 1), kicks off this weekend with an official selection featuring the Spanish premieres of 21 top-notch international titles, including opening film Dogville from Lars von Trier and closing film Anything Else from Woody Allen, both screening out of competition.The line-up boasts several foreign-language ...
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News
Saucers flies onto Sogepaq's MIFED slate
Spanish sales house Sogepaq has added forthcoming title Flying Saucers (Platillos Volantes) to its Mifed line-up.The film, a tragedy with elements of black humour, is based on the true story of two men in a bleak industrial town in 1972 who commit suicide in the hope of being united with ...
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News
Saucers flies onto Sogepaq's MIFED 2003 slate
Spanish sales house Sogepaq has added forthcoming title Flying Saucers (Platillos Volantes) to its Mifed line-up.The film, a tragedy with elements of black humour, is based on the true story of two men in a bleak industrial town in 1972 who commit suicide in the hope of being united with ...
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News
Financial backing flows into Spain's Manga Films
Spanish media veteran Enrique Cerezo has taken a 16% stake in Barcelona-based distributor and producer Manga Films, underwriting a Euros 6m capital increase through his Video Mercury Films.Separately, Manga has also signed a Euros 10m loan with the Catalan Finance Institute (ICF), boosting the company's current financial resources to Euros ...
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News
Spain's FAPAE names Perez as new president
The Spanish Producers' Federation FAPAE has elected former Via Digital president Pedro Perez as its new president, replacing Eduardo Campoy.Perez previously held the FAPAE post from 1993 to 1997. His new candidacy, which went uncontested and was voted in by a majority, will last for a minimum of two years.Campoy ...
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News
Pita steps down from Media Business School
Juan Pita has announced he will step down from his position as director of the pan-European training initiative Media Business School (MBS) at the end of the month.Pita leaves to set up his own production company, the Madrid-based Decontrabando. Although his official end date is October 31, he will continue ...
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News
Spanish Film Academy chiefs quit
The president and two vice presidents of the Spanish Film Academy have stepped down in a surprise move just four months after their reelection to a second three-year term.They were replaced by unanimous vote at an extraordinary board meeting last week by the actress Mercedes Sampietro, who will take over ...
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News
Cuba selects Suite Havana for Oscars
Fernando Perez's Suite Havana, a poetic meditation on everyday life in Havana which opened the Donostia-San Sebastian International Film Festival last month, has been nominated to represent Cuba in the foreign-language Oscar race.The dialogue-free film, a majority Spanish co-production between Spain's Wanda Vision and Cuban film institute ICAIC, was also ...
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Reviews
Carmen
Dir: Vicente Aranda. Sp-UK-It. 125 minsAs in any of the dozens of previous film versions of Carmen, the revelation in Vicente Aranda's latest take on the classic Merimee novel (rather than the Bizet opera) is Carmen herself, played here by actress Paz Vega. After provocative turns in Julio Medem's Sex ...
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News
SPAIN
Among the slew of Spanish films set for release this month, Vicente Aranda's Carmen was one of the most anticipated and, accordingly, one of the most promoted. The sexy, $11.5m drama starring Paz Vega and Leonardo Sbaraglia opened strong in second position with Euros 1.14m off 180 copies, replacing Football ...
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News
Top Spanish post-production houses unveil merger
Two Barcelona-based heavyweights, En Efecto and MEDIApro, have announced the merger of their post-production interests.The formerly Das Werk-owned En Efecto, now controlled by one-time Admira president and Antena 3 CEO Juan Jose Nieto, houses audio and digital post-production companies Videoefecto, Madpix, Audioclip and Lisbon-based Bikini Pos Producao de Filmes.Production, facilities ...
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San Sebastian films prepare to roll out across Spain
A swathe of films from last week's Donostia-San Sebastian International Film Festival (Sept 18-28) will invade the Spanish box office over the next month, but to what extent they will benefit from buzz and media coverage coming out of the event remains to be seen.Certainly one of the most interesting ...
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Reviews
Take My Eyes (Te Doy Mis Ojos)
Dir: Iciar Bollain. 2003.Spain. 106mins.This realist take on domestic abuse was the local favourite at last week's Donostia-San Sebastian International Film Festival, where rumour had it the film would have picked up more than the deserved best actor and actress prizes if festival rules didn't preclude giving a single competition ...
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News
Filmax funds boosted by Spanish investors
In a long-anticipated move which gives national and regional government interests direct shares in a film business, Spanish producer-distributor-exhibitor Filmax has undergone a capital increase worth Euros 32m.The five bodies underwriting the increase are Catalan government-backed Finance Institute (ICF) with 3.9%, the Galician government's investment fund XesGalicia with 9.8%, the ...