All articles by Patrick Frater – Page 3
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News
StudioCanal snaps up gangster tale Bittersweet Life
StudioCanal has snapped upKorean major CJ Entertainment's A Bittersweet Life, a gangster dramafrom the director Kim Jee-woon (A Tale Of Two Sisters, The Foul King). StudioCanal has guaranteed aminimum commitment on the scale of the French theatrical release and agreed tobe the agent to present the film for selection at ...
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News
Svensk to back Danish directing collective
Swedish giant SvenskFilmindustri (SF) is to power up its production ambitions in neighbouringDenmark by backing "a Danish version of United Artists".The new company, Tju-BangFilm, is a collective of directors and creatives which includes Jacob Thuesen,director of Berlin competition film TheAccused (Angeklaget). SF will own80 percent of the company, with the ...
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News
Celluloid takes on sales for Sundance winner Blue
Leading French sales agent Celluloid Dreams hasadded to its Berlin slate, picking up two films from this year's Panoramasection. FortyShades Of Blue won the dramatic competition at lastmonth's Sundance festival, while Hostage,by Constantine Giannaris, is based on a real-life bus hijack which took placein Greece.Celluloid president, Hengameh Panahi said:"We screened ...
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News
Buyers out in force for Berlin market
Film buyers and sellers are pouring in to Berlin inunprecedented numbers in time for this year's festival and European Film Market(EFM), which starts today.Buyer numbers are understood to be up by about 30%. Salescompanies are shoe-horned into the EFM's Debis building and scores more areoperating out of hotels in and ...
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News
Director Eytan Fox floats The Bubble at Berlin
After the high-profile success of last year's Panoramaopening film Walk On Water, Israeli-American director Eytan Fox is using Berlin as the platform for his next film The Bubble.New French sales company Scalpel Films has picked upinternational rights to the story of three young people who share an apartmentin Tel Aviv's ...
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News
Lumina picks up international rights to Salles backed City
Lumina Films, the newLondon-based sales agent, has picked up international rights to the WalterSalles-produced Lower City (CidadeBaixa).The film is amusically-charged story about a group of friends who fall in love with the samewoman. It stars Lazaro Ramos of MadameSata, Wagner Moura and City Of Godstar Alice Braga.The film is the ...
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News
Koltai's Fateless steps up to Berlin competition
Fateless (Sorstalansag), the directorial debut of celebrated Hungariancinematographer Lajos Koltai, will make a splash in Berlin as a last minuteentrant to the official competition. It will play on Wednesday (Feb16) in a time slot vacated by Heights, Chris Terio's New York-set drama, which was previously announced as playing in official ...
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Reviews
The Shutter (Sutter Kodtid Winyan)
Dirs: Parkpoom Wongpoom,Banjong Pisanthanakun. Thai. 2004. 95mins.The Shutter is a film happily demonstrating that it is possibleto combine all the familiar staples of the current Japanese-Korean horror boomand still come up with some new chills and an entertaining picture.A low-budget ghost picturefrom Thailand, the film follows a couple of twenty-somethings ...
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News
Busy CineMart overshadows Rotterdam's gab fest
Rotterdam's CineMartyesterday got off to both a bang and a whimper. Some 900 film producers, buyersand financiers poured into town, many directly from Sundance, to pick throughthe details of some 48 art-house film projects in various stages of completion.And for those not tied up in deal-making CineMart ran the third ...
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News
Berlin set for Troma invasion
The Berlinale, or officialBerlin film festival, will find itself with some light-hearted competition thisyear.German fans of the Tromaschool of low-budget film-making will be running Tromanale (10-20 Feb).Screenings and events will be held at C-Base, a high-tech grunge location inthe Mitte district, some 2 km from the Berlinale's Potsdamer Platz. "Tromanale ...
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News
Indie Circle takes up Smoking
IndieCircle, the pan-European distribution consortium, has pre-boughtmulti-territory rights to Thank You For Smoking, a black comedysatirising the tobacco industry. Thefilm is sold internationally by US-UK combine ContentFilm International and isa co-production between ContentFilm and Room 9 Entertainment. Directed by JasonReitman, it went into production earlier this week.TheIndie Circle deal means ...
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News
Capitol bounces with Rabbit
Berlinale Special film Rabbit On The Moon (Conejo En La Luna)has been picked up in international markets by the UK's Capitol Films.The "Mexican new wave" film directed by Jorge Ramirez-Suarez is athriller that examines the effects on a family when the husband is wronglyaccused of a political murder. It stars ...
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News
MK2 to sell Hong's Tale Of The Cinema
France's MK2 is again backingand selling the latest film by Korean auteur Hong Sang-soo. The Frenchmini-major previously financed his Cannes competition film Woman Is TheFuture Of Man.MK2 is partnered with Koreancombine Chungeorahm Films on A Tale Of The Cinema (Geuk-Jang-Jeon), whichis now in production. Other backers in the $900,000picture include ...
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News
Paris screenings end on optimistic note
The Paris Screenings(Rendez-Vouz du Cinema Français) (21-24 Jan) ended yesterday with sellers incautiously optimistic mood and a culture minister set on rolling back thebarriers to business development.At a cocktail reception atthe Musee d'Orsay, minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres left little doubt thathe will stand up to more conservative elements of ...
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News
Tautou lines up for Howard's Da Vinci Code
French stars Audrey Tautou and Jean Reno are reportedlyjoining the cast of Ron Howard's adaptation of The Da Vinci Code - whichhas just gained permission to shoot in Paris's Louvre museum.Local newspaper Le Parisien said that A VeryLong Engagement and Amelie star Tautou had been selected to playSophie Neveu opposite ...
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News
Golden Scene takes on sales for Kwan's Regret
Hong Kong distribution company Golden Scene has picked upinternational sales rights to Stanley Kwan Kam Pang's forthcoming Chang HenGe (which translates literally as Everlasting Regret).The film is based on a prize winning novel and wasadapted by Elmond Yeung and Jiang Liping.Production design is by William Chang. Starring Sammi Cheng, Tony ...
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News
Bangkok Film Market earns plaudits
The second running of the Bangkok Film Market (BFM) earnedwarm plaudits from many of the participants. While claims that the event would generate $250m of salesbusiness were always highly dubious and the volume of corridor traffic droppedsharply after day one, it seems that the site of business shifted away from ...
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News
Scalpel sells prize-winning trio to US buyers
On the eve of Sundance, new Paris sales companyScalpel Films has sold a trio of pictures to the US. Launched in 2004 byformer Celluloid Dreams executive Pierre Menahem, Scalpel had success with Private,the hard-hitting Palestine-set drama by Saverio Costanzo, selling it to AvatarFilms. The film, which premiered in Locarno and ...
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Reviews
This Charming Girl (Woman, Jeong-hae)
Dir: Lee Yoon-ki. 2004. 99minsAny film that deals with subjects such as loneliness, boredom andself-loathing must run the risk of inflicting similar feelings on its audience.This Charming Girl flirts with these dangers as it slowly, slowlyscratches beneath the isolationist facade put up by a largely unremarkableyoung woman. Often minimalist in ...
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News
Thai action flick scores trio of sales at Bangkok market
Thailand's biggest film of the year, Tom Yum Goong,has struck a trio of deals at the Bangkok Film Market (BFM), part of theBangkok International Film Festival (13-23 Jan).The$8m action flick was pre-sold to Korean major Showbox, Hong Kong's Edko and India'sIndo by Hong Kong-based sales agent Golden Network. Thecompany has ...