All articles by Patrick Frater – Page 29
-
News
Cannes Directors' Fortnight names first titles
Under the management of Francois Da Silva, the new Cannes Director's Fortnight is beginning to take shape as an enlarged and experimental section with an emphasis on diversity.The first four films to be announced range from a Yakuza genre film, to an intense drama by a normally mainstream director and ...
-
News
Swedish Komedy to be remade by Columbia
Swedish comedy Kopps is to beremade by Primal Pictures and Adam Sandler's companyHappy Madison for Columbia Pictures, under a deal signed this week. The film, originally directed byJosef Fares, is a tale about policemen who go on the rampage in a small town inorder to boost crime figures and keep ...
-
Reviews
Fear And Trembling (Stupeur Et Tremblements)
Dir: Alain Corneau. France. 2003. 107mins.An unusual French take on life in the Japanese workplace, Stupeur Et Tremblements (literally Fear And Trembling) is a tightly-executed social drama with a vein of absurdist humour discretely buried beneath the surface. The film, which by some accounts only just missed out on a ...
-
News
L'Homme Du Train joins Monsieur Hire for Leconte remake
Not one, but two films by French director Patrice Leconte are set for English-language remake treatment. According to multiple US sources, Leconte's most recent effort, The Man On The Train (L'Homme Du Train) is poised to be set up via Warner Bros, while earlier drama Monsieur Hire is likely to ...
-
News
Dobermann director plans eco-friendly documentary series
Jan Kounen, the French director behind the stylish and hyper-violent 1997 comic-book adaptation Dobermann, is to show another side of his character with the launch of a new series of spiritual and eco-friendly documentaries. Kounen, who is just completing post-production of Blueberry, a stylised fantasy Western, that weighs in ...
-
News
CETV granted extra broadcast rights in China
CETV, the Chinese-language entertainment channel majority-owned by AOL Time-Warner, has been granted additional broadcast rights in mainland China.In a statement AOL Time-Warner said that the channel will be allowed to broadcast via cable networks in the cities of Guangzhou and Shenzen. Since October 2001 it has been allowed to broadcast ...
-
News
European competition watchdog to rule on Stream/Telepiu merger
The competition watchdog of the European Commission (EC) is tomorrow expected to announce that the merger of Italian pay-TV companies Telpiu and Stream can go ahead.The deal was sealed five months ago with the News Corp-controlled Stream buying Telepiu from Vivendi Universal's Canal Plus unit for Euros 900m. The deal ...
-
News
HAF decision to be taken today
Organisers of the Hong Kong Asia International Film Finance Forum (HAF) will today (Tuesday, Apr 1) take a decision as to whether to press on with the projects market scheduled to take place next week (Apr 7-9).Hong Kong is at the centre of an outbreak of a killer virus known ...
-
News
MIP-TV ends on comfortable note
MIP-TV, the spring TV programmes market in Cannes, closed on a modestly positive note yesterday. Market chief, Rene Pires said that some 9,024 delegates had taken part. That was down 11% on last year's figure of 10,104, but was better than he had hoped for given the world's current political ...
-
News
Vien takes over Universal's international TV operations
Patrick Vien is to take over management of Universal Television Group (UTG)'s international channel operations. These include Sci-Fi UK, 13th Street, which airs under different names in France, Spain and Germany, Studio Universal Germany, the leading film channel on the Premiere platform, USA Network Latin America and its local derivative ...
-
News
BVITV strikes MIP-TV deals
Buena Vista International Television (BVITV), the film and TV sales arm of Disney, struck a number of film deals in small territories during this week's MIP-TV market in Cannes. With PoPTV, the largest commercial broadcaster in Slovenia, it agreed to supply films including Gone In 60 Seconds, Armageddon, TV movies ...
-
News
DVD comes to the rescue
With TV markets seemingly as off-colour as the independent film sector, producers and broadcasters are increasingly turning to the fast-rising DVD sector for new revenue and profits."The success story of 2002 was video, not video-on-demand," said Gilles Fontaine, head of media market researcher IDATE. "Home video in Europe last year ...
-
News
Italy's DeAngelis Group picks up major classic library
Italian production and distribution specialist DeAngelis Group has picked up a catalogue of some 200 classic feature films including Cinema Paradiso and Divorce Italian Style.DeAngelis will handle worldwide sales and distribution of the Cristaldi Films catalogue which dates from the 1940s to the early 1990s. The catalogue also contains a ...
-
News
Shooting starts on Taviani bros' Luisa San Felice
Production has got underway on Luisa San Felice, a Euros12.5m picture directed by the celebrated Taviani brothers, Paolo and Vittorio.The cast is headed by supermodel-turned actress Laetitia Casta (pictured) and Adriano Giannini in a romance and revolution story adapted from the Alexandre Dumas classic novel La San Felice. Principal photography ...
-
News
Beta sells Manitou's Shoe to Japan
German film and TV sales player Beta Film used MIP-TV to complete another deal on its hit comedy Manitou's Shoe (Der Schuh Des Manitou). The film was sold in an all rights deal to SPO for Japan.'We tend not to sell our films in package deals and instead handle and ...
-
News
TV-Loonland goes for Pettson & Findus hat-trick
TV-Loonland, the German TV outfit that controls UK theatrical distributor Metrodome, is ramping up production of the third film in its successful Pettson & Findus children's franchise.The animated film, which goes into production in the next three months, is set to be directed by Torbjorn Janssen, who has co-written the ...
-
News
Shanghai Media and Entertainment Group sets out its stall
The changing face of Chinese media is one that looks increasingly familiar to Western eyes. But it will be some time before it is one that is fully open to outside investors.That was the message yesterday from Li Ruigang, the youthful president and CEO of the newly amalgamated Shanghai Media ...
-
News
Warner deal helps TPS' share of kids market
TPS, the French satellite broadcaster controlled by TF1, yesterday launched three new children's channels.TPS spokesman, Guillaume de Posch said that it had planned to launch two channels under its own steam, but that the recent output deal with Warner Bros. (see Screendaily) permitted it to launch a third, effectively allowing ...
-
News
MIP-TV celebrates muted 40th anniversary
MIP-TV, the television programmes market, celebrated its 40th anniversary yesterday with Champagne and a towering cake in front of the Palais des Festivals in Cannes. But inside the Palais and the new Riviera complex the market was wearing a very gap-toothed smile. Corridor traffic was down on previous events and ...
-
News
Nakata's Don't Look Up in remake deal
South Africa-based Distant Horizon has picked up remake rights to Don't Look Up (Joyuu-Rei), a Japanese horror story originally made by Ringu-director Hideo Nakata. Distant Horizon CEO, Anant Singh told Screendaily that a number of Hollywood studios have indicated an interest in the remake and that a top horror screenwriter ...