All articles by Michael Gubbins – Page 5
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News
Opinion: the digital dream
Consolidation in the independent sector has been an absolute inevitability, particularly in Europe, for some time. The position of the traditional sales agent has been quietly changing during the past couple of years, and the state of today's market makes the acceleration of that process virtually certain.So the news of ...
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News
Inward investment: coming to America
It does not take long for the film world to turn on its head. A couple of years ago, discussion of the US industry tended to be couched in terms of crisis: runaway production, job losses, an over-ripe domestic market falling into the shadow of international.But suddenly it seems the ...
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Features
In Focus - UK TAX - Feeling the squeeze
I think it's going to get worse before it gets better," admits John Woodward, chief executive of the UK Film Council of the current state of UK film finance.For the world's third-biggest producer of films, the idea that the situation will get worse will not surprise many people. But local ...
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News
Exhibitors: windows on the world
John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theatre Owners, told this week's ShoWest that release windows are the industry's top priority. He speaks for the majority of exhibitors in his alarm that the average window between theatrical and home release slipped last year by 10 days, to four months ...
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News
UK Film Council chief warns producers of tougher times ahead after tax clampdown
UK Film Council chief executive of the John Woodward has warned the UK film industry it will have to face up to a tough period of contraction following this month's tax clampdown.'Things will get worse before they get better,' he said.Earlier this month, the Treasury announced it was effectively ending ...
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Features
In Focus - UK tax - Chronicle of a death foretold
There is a sense of deja vu about the sudden tax changes in the UK last week. The government ostensibly clamped down on so-called sideways loss relief, whereby a wealthy individual could offset tax against accounting losses recorded by a partnership. It was a loophole that spawned what became known ...
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Features
Market focus - Calling on the neighbours
The performance of European films outside their home markets remains one of the thorniest issues for the EU's policy-makers. Last year's box-office recovery in many European territories was largely built on the success of local films in local markets and a number of Hollywood blockbusters. There were high-profile exceptions: Pedro ...
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Features
In focus - Digital rights sales - The fight for bytes
The spectre of digital rights haunted this year's Berlinale."It's a difficult market in general because of anxieties over VoD (video on demand)," admitted Celluloid Dreams' Charlotte Mickie.The potential of new platforms is a mainstream issue but quantifying the value of downloads, VoD and online distribution is tough. Smaller content owners ...
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News
Europe and the slate-finance boom
The idea that there might be another big wave of funding around the corner remains one of the big hopes for the European film industry. Those dreams have until recently revolved around the idea of the discovery of a new tax loophole, which might allow a return to the sale-and-leaseback ...
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News
Digital rights issue causes buyer/seller strife in Berlin
The European Film Market is struggling to cope with the arrival of an important new factor in the film sales world - digital rights.Buyers are desperately trying to acquire rights for downloads, video-on-demand and online distribution but many content owners are simply refusing to sell.Digital media is now a mainstream ...
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Features
Market focus - Boom time in Bollywoodland
Indian box office revenues increased by 40% last year but it is widely expected to be just the start of a period of radical change and rapid growth.The quality of local content in a region where Hollywood has barely made a dent remains a vital factor. But an increasingly important ...
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Features
Film finance - A question of duty
Pierre Drouot is a worried and angry man. The director of the Flanders Audiovisual Fund fears that the work of 20 years' hard lobbying for a Belgian tax shelter to support film finance may soon be killed off. And he believes he has identified the culprits responsible."The analysis is very ...
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Features
Market focus - Numbers back up 007's story
China this week becomes the last major territory to screen Casino Royale, closing a run that has already left all 007 predecessors in its wake. What has been forgotten in a record-breaking run is the inauspicious initial response to the plans for the 21st Bond film.Few were predicting a major ...
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News
New players at the table
If the story of 2006 was realignment, reorganisation and box-office recovery, 2007 should be about attracting new investment. After a year of recovery at the box office, there is suddenly a feelgood factor about film again. Some of it may be exaggerated, of course, just as the 2005 slump was ...
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News
Bridging the gap: cinema enters the digital age
'This a time of huge opportunity but also of great fear,' Stephen Moore, head of features and COO of Aardman told Screen International Digital Rights conference.It may not sound like a big shift from the vague predictions over the last few years that a digital future represented threats and ...
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News
Production subsidies under scrutiny
After a long delay, Europe finally approved the UK's tax system with considerable modifications. The UK should now join Germany with new tax offerings from January 1 but the process raises questions about subsidies.The system of tax subsidies for film has always had an identity crisis.It's been justified as supporting ...
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News
Cinema's economic model is dead, says Digimart keynote
The film industry has a great future as long as it realisesthe existing economic order is dead.That was the warning of John Perry Barlow in his keynoteaddress to this year's Digimart conference in Montreal.The co-founderof the Electronic Frontier Foundation and former lyricist of the GratefulDead said the debate about the ...
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News
Time is right for European studio, says Wild Bunch CEO
The dream of aEuropean major to match the Hollywood studios should now be back on the agenda,according to Wild Bunch CEO Vincent Grimond.He told ScreenInternational's European Film Finance Summit at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel thatmarket conditions were moving in favour of a pan-continental distribution andproduction centre.Last October, Wild Bunch took steps ...
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News
Goalpost hopes to score on debut with Clubland
Fledgling UK sales agent Goalpost Filmis backing Australian drama Clublandas its first project.The film, starring BrendaBlethyn, and directed by Cherie Nowlan starts shooting in Sydney at the beginning of nextyear.Clubland producer Rosemary Blight of RB Films said the coming of agecomedy about a shy and inexperienced young man and his ...
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News
Booking surge for Berlinale's European Film Market
Berlin's European Film Market (EFM) is boasting a 30%year-on-year increase in bookings for 2006 with nearly 200 companies signed up forthe upgraded Martin-Gropius-Bau facilities.They will have a choice of more than 600 screening slots innew or improved facilities. The surge in bookings follows AFM's move toNovember, leaving the February market ...