All Middle East articles – Page 205

  • News

    Case study: The Meerkats

    2007-06-08T00:00:00Z

    Billed as a coming-of-age tale, BBC Films' The Meerkats is an attempt to mount a resolutely big-screen experience. Melanie Rodier reports. Now in post-production, James Honeyborne's The Meerkats is the first theatrical nature documentary from the UK's BBC Films.Co-financed by The Weinstein Company (TWC), the film is a collaboration with ...

  • News

    Wildlife documentaries: nature calls

    2007-06-08T00:00:00Z

    Following the global success of March Of The Penguins, animal films are the hot new genre. But is there a market for theatrical wildlife documentaries' Melanie Rodier reports. From meerkats to elephants, turtles to polar bears: in the post March Of The Penguins marketplace, a host of animal-based nature documentaries ...

  • News

    Critical view: breaking the rules

    2007-06-08T00:00:00Z

    Romania's cash-poor but ideas-rich film industry is proving that necessity is the mother of invention with a string of influential titles. What's the secret formula, asks Lee MarshallWhat is it about those Romanians' The Eastern European country's cash-strapped film industry manages to squeeze out no more than 10 full-length features ...

  • News

    Jon Kilik: for whom the Bell tolls

    2007-06-08T00:00:00Z

    The US producer of The Diving Bell And The Butterfly tells Peter Bowen how he got the film made when both Johnny Depp and Universal dropped out. The French-language memoir The Diving Bell And The Butterfly (Le Scaphandre Et Le Papillon) marks the third collaboration between US producer Jon Kilik ...

  • News

    Abel Ferrara: go go dancer

    2007-06-08T00:00:00Z

    The new film from energetic film-maker Abel Ferrara is a sexy, glossy comedy - or so he promises, says Sheri JenningsWhat does a director like Abel Ferrara, who has already had four films invited to Cannes, do for his next act' Something completely different, it seems.Ferrara's Go Go Tales screened ...

  • News

    Wild Bunch enjoys a strong Cannes Market

    2007-06-07T19:12:00Z

    Wild Bunch had a hearty Cannes Market with notable sales across its slate. Palme d'Or winner 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days sold in 31 territories including to IFC in the US, France's Bac Films/Why Not, Germany's Concorde, Spain's Golem, Canada's Metropole, the UK's Artificial Eye, Brazil's Lumiere and China's ...

  • News

    Beta Cinema takes on world sales for three new German productions

    2007-06-07T13:40:00Z

    Beta Cinema has taken on world sales for new films featuring the award-winning German actresses Hannah Herzsprung, Nina Hoss and Julia Jentsch.Herzsprung, who came to wider recognition through her performance in another Beta title Four Minutes and received a Silver Lola for her role in Alain Gsponer's Life Actually last ...

  • News

    Mischa Barton joins casts of Joffe's Russian drama

    2007-06-07T13:36:00Z

    Mischa Barton has joined the cast of Roland Joffe's coming-of-age drama Finding t.A.T.u, which will start shooting in Moscow later this month. The musical drama is based on Russian writer A. Mitrofanov's novel t.A.T.u come back. The story follows a friendless American teenager who escapes her lonely life in Moscow ...

  • News

    Spike Lee decamps to Italy for Miracle Of St Anna

    2007-06-06T23:32:00Z

    Spike Lee will shoot a film in Tuscany based on James McBride's 2003 book Miracle at St. Anna, the story of an Italian orphan who befriends a black American soldier in Italy during World War II.The project - which is in scripting stage - is the first film produced by ...

  • News

    Turner to serve as president of jury at Flanders

    2007-06-06T21:13:00Z

    Kathleen Turner will serve as president of the jury at the 34th Annual Flanders International Film Festival, set to run in Ghent, Belgium, from Oct 9-20.Turner, who served as a juror at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004, is best known for film roles in Body Heat, Romancing The Stone ...

  • News

    Pathe picks up buzz titles from Cannes

    2007-06-06T13:34:00Z

    Pathe has acquired rights to a quartet of buzz features from Cannes. Deals have been sealed for UK and French rights to Focus Features International's Blindness; UK rights to 2929 International's What Just Happened' and Fortissimo's Mama's Boy; and UK and French rights to Edko Films' Blood: The Last Vampire, ...

  • News

    EastWest sells Fashion Victims to Austria and Germany

    2007-06-05T15:23:00Z

    EastWest Filmdistribution finalised deals in Cannes for its comedy Fashion Victims with Germany (Filmlichter) and Austria (Poool Filmverleih). EastWest managing director Alexander Wieser negotiated both deals. German director Ingo Rasper makes his feature debut with the story of a man whose life falls apart when his son comes ouf of ...

  • News

    Fortissimo Cannes deals led by Live! and Pleasure Factory

    2007-06-05T14:59:00Z

    Fortissimo Film Sales had a strong Cannes, with hot sellers including Tim Hamilton's comedy Mama's Boy, reality TV satire Live!, the Martin Scorsese Rolling Stones project Shine A Light, Singapore red-light story The Pleasure Factory and Bela Tarr's Competition Title The Man From London. Fortissimo co-chairman Wouter Barendrecht said: 'We ...

  • News

    Amour Fou partners split to form two production outfits

    2007-06-05T14:29:00Z

    Six years after founding Vienna-based Amour Fou Filmproduktion, partners Gabriele Kranzelbinder and Alexander Dumreicher-Ivanceanu have decided amicably to part and set up two separate production companies. As part of the restructuring, Kranzelbinder has launched Kranzelbinder Gabriele Production (KGP), which will acquire Amour Fou's shares in the sales company Autlook Film ...

  • News

    Dreamachine sells all territories on Persepolis

    2007-06-05T14:18:00Z

    New sales company Dreamachine reported a successful Cannes, including worldwide sales on all territories for Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Parronaud's animated coming of age story Persepolis, which shared the jury prize. Another hot seller was Naomi Kawase's competition drama The Mourning Forest, which won the Grand Prix. Deals for Persepolis ...

  • News

    International buyers up 25%for second Madrid Screenings

    2007-06-04T15:34:00Z

    The second edition of the Spanish Film Screenings of Madrid expects to attract 131 international film buyers this weekend - about 25 percent more than last year. And the growing interest is reflected not only in the number but also the stature of the buyers, according to the Spanish Producers' ...

  • News

    Telepool sells A Crude Awakening to UK's Dogwoof

    2007-06-04T12:49:00Z

    Telepool has closed an all-rights deal for the UK with Dogwoof Pictures for the feature documentary A Crude Awakening by Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack of Swiss-based Lava Productions. The film about how humans are sucking dry our most valuable, non-renewable resource - oil - was released by Columbus Film ...

  • News

    Trinidad & Tobago starts new film tax incentive with rebate up to 30%

    2007-06-04T12:29:00Z

    Trinidad & Tobago, the twin island nation in the Carribean, has today unveiled its first tax incentives for film, TV and advertising shoots. The new rebates system ranges from 12.5% for productions of expenditures up to $500,000, 15% for productions from $500,000 to $1m, or 30% rebates for productions spending ...

  • News

    Locarno juries to include Diego Lerman and Jia Zhangke

    2007-06-04T10:55:00Z

    The Locarno International Film Festival will be celebrating its 60th anniversary this year by dedicating its Retrospective, entitled Back In Locarno, to those filmmakers whose careers were significantly advanced by the initial exposure at the Swiss festival. Among those directors expected to attend screenings in the Retrospective are Marco Bellocchio, ...

  • News

    Controversial Spanish film law approved by ministers

    2007-06-03T21:39:00Z

    Spain's controversial new film law took a major step forward on Friday after being approved by the Council of Ministers.The legislation, now expected to come into force by the end of the year after being pushed through Parliament as a matter of urgency, is intended to improve distribution and boost ...