All articles by Patrick Frater – Page 17
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Giannini tipped for Venice figurehead role
Oneof the favourite betting games at the Rotterdam festival this week has beenspeculation about who will front the next Venice festival, with the smart moneynow riding on a split role between a figurehead chief and a chief selectoror artistic head.Sources close to the Venice festival organisation say that an announcement ...
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Strong Paris sales for Wild Bunch
French sales house WildBunch will go into Berlin and AFM buoyed by a raft of strong sales followinglast week's Rendez-Vous De Paris market.Its biggest seller wasPierre Salvadori's Apres Vous. The film was sold to Crystal Films forCanada, Alta Films for Spain, Audiovisual for Greece, IIF for Italy, Atalantafor Portugal, Cinema ...
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Rotterdam debates the future of digital
Independent cinema versus corporate America was the underlying theme of a big set-piece debate at the Rotterdam festival yesterday (Sun 25 Jan).The discussion on digital cinema and its potential threats to conventional film-making took the form of a parliamentary debate, a format which inevitably produced colourful language and a spirit ...
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Business stirs at Paris Screenings
Kiyonaga Nakagawa from Comstock was the only Japanese buyer present at the Rendez-Vous De Paris, the Unifrance organised screenings that are otherwise targeted at European distributors.He made a splash taking Japanese rights to TF1 International's Spy Bound (Agents Secrets), directed by Frederic Schoendoerffer, starring Monica Bellucci and Vincent Cassel.Other deals ...
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Motorcycle Diaries takes road to Cannes
Walter Salles' highlyanticipated The Motorcycle Diaries looks set to make its internationalpremiere in Cannes, rather than at the forthcoming Berlin festival where it hadbeen expected to show in competition.The Berlin festival invitedthe film last autumn and seemed certain to include it in its main competitionsection. Diaries' Brazilian director Salles had ...
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Cannes Market launches Producers Network
The Cannes Market islaunching a new initiative intended to make its activities relevant toproducers, as well as the usual ranks of sales agents and distributors.It is launching ProducersNetwork, Le Reseau Des Producteurs, which will act as both an informationsource and a highly-structured meeting place for producers.It says that the movereflects ...
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Lakeshore dives into Romania with Cave
Lakeshore Entertainment and Screen Gems have settled on Romania as the location for the shoot of their action-thriller Prime Evil aka Cave.The picture, which is scheduled to shoot from March, had long been pencilled in to use East European locations. Lakeshore recently settled on Romania and has begun constructing sets ...
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Belgian tax shelter ready to go live
The new Belgian tax shelter for film investment is finally set to become operational, putting Belgium into the front-ranks of "hot" territories for film production.The scheme, which has been working its way through a maze of administrative and legal hurdles, yesterday passed the last major legislative hurdle on its way ...
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Cold Mountain to open Berlinale
Anthony Minghella's Cold Mountain is to be the opening night film of this year's Berlinale (5-15 Feb).The decision allows Miramax to give the film a high profile position in the Oscar race - nominations are announced on Jan 27 and ballot papers mailed on Feb 4 - and to kick ...
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Moscow fest set for revamp, appoints new artistic director
The Moscow International Film Festival (18-27 June 2004) is to give itself a more business-like stance and a more Russian flavour and has appointed a new artistic director.Nadia Turincev, a Moscow-born executive, takes up the specially created post with immediate effect. She will remain in Paris, where she previously managed ...
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Romania set to privatise state-owned cinemas
Romania is expected this week to unveil details of the privatisation of a significant number of state-owned cinemas.The move was revealed by Decebal Mitulescu, director general of the National Centre of Cinematography (CNC), the state-body which has regulatory, funding and administrative functions similar to the French organisation with the same ...
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Berdugo named head of French film exporters
Raphael Berdugo, head of Roissy Films, was last week unanimously elected president of the executive board of ADEF, the association of independent French film exporters. Berdugo has a mandate for two years and heads a committee that also includes Daniela Elstner of Les Films du Losange, Nicolas Brigaud-Robert of Films ...
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Sliding Dice wraps after Romanian, Irish shoot
Production wraps today (19 Dec) on Sliding Dice, a caper movie with a serious subject set in Romania and Ireland.The film is directed by Canadian-born John Ketchum and John Riley of the UK. It describes a real-life immigration scam in which 41 Romanians obtained tourist visas for Ireland purporting to ...
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Cannes festival outlines new selection teams
Thierry Fremaux, artisticdirector of the Cannes festival, has realigned and clarified the selectionsystem for the next edition (12-23 May 2004).The festival will now havetwo Paris-based selection committees which screen and pre-select films, one forFrench films and one for foreign pictures. In a significant shift, bothcommittees are now deemed to be ...
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Korean conglomerate boosts film investment
Daesung, the Korean conglomerate that invested $510,000 (W600m) in Park Chan-Wook's hit thriller Old Boy, has decided to set up a media investment fund in partnership with the Korean Film Commission (KOFIC) and a trio of industrial groupsThe new fund will have some $8.2m (Won10bn) at its disposal for ...
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Locarno winner makes sales splash
Pakistani film Silent Waters (Khamosh Pani), which was the surprise winner at Locarno earlier this year, has turned out to be a strong seller for French combine Les Films Du Losange.The film by Sabiha Sumar enjoyed Mifed sales to Filmladen for Austria, Lumiere for Belgium, Filmmuseum for The Netherlands, Karma ...
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Germany's BKN secures London Stock Exchange listing
BKN, the Cologne-based animation firm, has become the first renegade company from Germany's discredited Neuer Markt to be listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE).The Neuer Markt was for three years home to a host of high-flying new technology and media companies. But many of the companies collapsed, were embroiled ...
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New Romanian studio complex to open next year
Romania's growing attraction as a location for film production could increase still further with the arrival of a new studio complex next year.The project is the brainchild of British property developer Andrew Stear, who has been based in Romanian capital Bucharest for the last seven years. His company BPD Management ...
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BVITV strikes deal with Finland's Channel 4
Finnish broadcaster Channel 4 (Nelonen) has agreed to buy a range of feature films and series from Buena Vista International Television (BVITV), the international TV licensing arm of Walt Disney.The deal gives Nelonen first-run and library titles including The Rock, Pearl Harbor, Enemy Of The State and The Princess Diaries. ...
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BVITV strikes Finnish film deal
Finnish broadcaster Channel 4 (Nelonen) has agreed to buy a range of feature films and series from Buena Vista International Television (BVITV), the international TV licensing arm of Walt Disney.The deal gives Nelonen first-run and library titles including The Rock, Pearl Harbor, Enemy Of The State and The Princess Diaries. ...