All articles by Patrick Frater – Page 16
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News
Romania unveils film commission
One of the hottest destinations on the "soft money-low cost location" scene, Romania is to get its own form of film commission.The new body, Romanian Film Promotion, is a private sector initiative spearheaded by Tudor Giurgiu, an independent producer and chief selector of the Transylvania Film Festival."Ultimately, we want Romania ...
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News
Transit runs away with doc sales
End Of The Century: The Story Of The Ramones, the Berlin Panorama music documentary, has been bought for theatrical release by King Records of Japan and the UK's Tartan Films.Handled by documentary specialist Films Transit, the film had previously been pre-sold to US distributor magnolia.Film's Transit's Sundance award-winning documentary about ...
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Golden Network sells Takien, unveils martial arts pic
Hong Kong's Golden Network has had a busy time fielding sales started at the recent Bangkok Film Market, launching new Thai martial arts pictures and presenting a new Chinese project in Berlin's Co-Production market.New Select has bought Japanese rights to Takien, a supernatural rural tale directed by Chalerm Wongpin, which ...
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European Film Market buyers afraid of the dark
Talk to buyers at this year's market and you'll find that they like the films on offer - but find it difficult to rave about their commercial prospects.In fact, scarcely any film from either the Berlin festival or the European Film Market has been able to unite buyers in a ...
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Wild scores Bunch of sales
French seller Wild Bunch's increasingly multinational line-up has scored a number of sales to distributors around the world.Year-old Italian distributor and marketing combine Metacinema bought Finnish comedy Young Gods.Brazilian distributor S2A bought Pierre Salvadori comedy Apres Vous, documentary The Yes Men and Pascal Plisson's African adventure Masai. Apres Vous was ...
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News
Skull in 'brutal' financing struggle
Producer Robert Chartoff emerged more battered and bruised from Berlin competition film The Country Of My Skull than he did from his breakout boxing picture Rocky.At a seminar organised by the European Co-production Market yesterday, he described the financing of John Boorman's Skull as "absolutely brutal," and said that the ...
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British tax authority slams shut equity loophole
Operations ofthe UK tax finance industry today (Jan 10) suffered a major blow when theInland Revenue (the UK's tax authority) closed down the burgeoning equityfunds sub-sector.Some 17production partnerships managed by financiers such as Grosvenor Park andIngenious' Inside Track that use "Generally Agreed AccountingPrincipals" are understood to have been affected.The Revenueclosed ...
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Film Italia launches with Mifed price cut promise
Georgio Gosetti will today in Berlin (Monday) present Film Italia the new national promotional body that replaces Italia Cinema, and unveil the first concrete elements of Mifed's response to the challenge of an autumn AFM."In the past we have had too many announcements about Mifed which have not been followed ...
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Besson's EuropaCorp raises Euros 25m
EuropaCorp, the French studio created three years ago by Luc Besson and Pierre-Ange LePogam, raised Euros 25m on the Paris stock market, through the issue of a convertible corporate bond on Friday.The cash raised will be used to finance the development of the company and its slate of productions. ...
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News
Rezo says Yes to Men
French seller Wild Bunch claimed one of the first deals of the EFM with the sale on Friday afternoon of recently picked-up documentary The Yes Men to Rezo Films for France.The film by Chris Smith, Dan Oldman and Sarah Price was quickly snapped up by Rezo buyer Laurent Danielou. Yes ...
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News
Japanese fall for My Girl
Thai drama My Girl (Fan Chan), which screens in both Berlinale's Forum and the EFM, was scooped up by Japanese buyers Cinema Parisien and Artist Film.'We are thrilled to have sold it to these distributors which are also releasing Party Monster and have recognised the film's cross-over potential between youth ...
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European Film Market faces growing pains
This year's Berlinale European Film Market (EFM), which opens today, is going to be bigger than ever before - but its chief is playing down its growth prospects once the American Film Market loses its February slot from 2005."We don't know what is coming. We cannot just assume that the ...
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Film councils tell EC to leave subsidy rules alone
Europe's national film funding agencies - including the UK Film Council, France's CNC and Spain's ICAA - have told the European Commission to keep its hands off local funding regulations.The national film agencies of the 15 European Union (EU) member states this week issued a joint statement attacking new Commission ...
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South Africa set for Dreamworld studio
Anant Singh's Dreamworld Film City has confirmed plans to build a film production complex in Cape Town, having finally received development permission from the state and city authorities.In September Singh's consortium had appeared to have won the bidding process - it was named as the "preferred finalist" - but obtaining ...
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Giles checks into Tartan as buying chief
Tartan Films, the UK indie that recently changed its name from Metro Tartan, has appointed Jane Giles as its new head of acquisitions.Giles, who held a similar post at the Institute of Contemporary Arts' ICA Projects, joined Tartan at the beginning of the year and has already travelled to the ...
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Hot docs swell Wild Bunch slate
French sales house Wild Bunch has added another controversy-stirring documentary to the huge line-up it will present at the Berlinale and the AFM later this month. It has also added two films that look made for high profile slots at Cannes.It has picked up world sales rights to The Yes ...
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Deveau named MK2 acquisition chief
French mini-conglomerate MK2 comes to Berlin having recently appointed Jean-Francois Deveau as its new head of acquisitions.The move signals MK2's ambition to expand its theatrical releasing operations, which have taken a back-seat in the last couple of years as the group developed its exhibition portfolio and branched into DVDs.Deveau, who ...
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Reviews
The Wooden Camera
2003 Dir: Ntsuaveeni Wa Lurili. UK-Fr-South Africa. 90mins.Brazil has enjoyed five Oscar nominations thanks to City Of God, a tale of a camera-toting good guy caught in the crossfire of gang-warfare in Rio's favelas. The Wooden Camera, the story of a video-toting South African boy with choices to make, has ...
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Reviews
The Wooden Camera
2003 Dir: Ntsuaveeni Wa Lurili. UK-Fr-South Africa. 90mins.Brazil has enjoyed five Oscar nominations thanks to City Of God, a tale of a camera-toting good guy caught in the crossfire of gang-warfare in Rio's favelas. The Wooden Camera, the story of a video-toting South African boy with choices to make, has ...
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News
Cannes is set to be long on shorts
The Cannes Market is toextend its operations with the launch this ear of a separate section for shortfilms.In the Palais des Festivalsthe market will create a new area "Short Film Corner" devoted entirely toshorts. It will include a meeting place for short film producers, institutionsand festival programmers that is equipped ...