All articles by Patrick Frater – Page 70
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UPC creates Euro giant with SBS takeover
Europe is to get its first pan-European broadcast and Internet giant following the announcement that Dutch cable giant UPC has agreed terms for the acquisition of SBS Broadcasting. The deal, which has yet to be finalised and may require regulatory approval, values SBS at some $2.8bn in total. UPC's offer ...
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Senator adds Le Studio titles to shopping basket
Germany's recently floated distributor Senator Films has revealed that it bought rights to 13 features with a total production value of $150m during the recent American Film Market and Sundance and Berlin festivals, including the highly sought after Nicole Kidman-starrer The Others from Le Studio Canal Plus.Senator also grabbed hot ...
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European Film Awards touch down in Paris
The European Film Awards are on the move again. This year the awards will move from their traditional home in Berlin to Paris for a ceremony on December 2.In line with the event's growing profile, the ceremony will again be broadcast live, this time by pay-TV channel Canal Plus. The ...
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Cannes 2000 veers towards larger scale pictures
Although Gilles Jacob is still six weeks away from announcing his Cannes competition selection, the line-up in all the Cannes festival sections is already looking heavily skewed towards high-profile, large-scale films, with a particular bias towards English-language titles, many of the them sizeable international co-productions.The potential list of contenders that ...
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AFM: Roissy-Celluloid slate gets animated
Newly formed French sales house Roissy Films-Celluloid Dreams is poised to become one of Europe's biggest players on the animation scene having added two animated features to its slate - The General And Bonapart and Three Old Ladies (Les Triplettes De Belleville).The General And Bonapart, a new children's animated feature ...
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Blair Witch 2 scares up big numbers
In the fashion of a documentary pieced together from found fragments of footage, the story of The Blair Witch Project 2 is beginning to emerge. Buyers are being given plot snippets to help them commit to the chunky prices being asked by seller Summit Entertainment.The film apparently begins with a ...
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AFM: China Star goes on $150m content binge
Chinese media conglomerate China Star is poised to invest $150m a year in Asian film production as it pushes its film-making and broadcasting efforts into a new dimension. The company is also in the market as a buyer and is putting together a massive library.China Star has launched a new ...
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Korea's CJ unveils production drive
Encouraged by economic recovery in the region, DreamWorks backer CJ Entertainment is stepping up production in its native Korea to 10-12 pictures a year. The company has produced only 10 pictures to date."We stepped back from production during the economic crisis, but the time is now right to increase our ...
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AFM: Kinowelt snaps up Lolafilms trio
German mini-conglomerate Kinowelt International has bought all German-speaking rights to three films from Spain's Lolafilms - That Girl From Rio, The Dancer Upstairs and Gaudi Afternoon.All three films are being produced by Lolafilms' UK-based production outfit. Comedy Gaudi Afternoon, which stars Juliette Lewis and Judy Davis, is currently shooting in ...
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AFM: Eastwood to be feted by Venice festival
Clint Eastwood will be awarded a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at this year's Venice Film Festival (Aug 30-Sept 9).The award, to be presented on the festival's opening night, will be followed by the European premiere of Space Cowboys, Eastwood's latest directorial effort.Venice president Paolo Baretta and festival director Alberto ...
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Kidman, Norton lift UGC's $32m Veil
Gillian Armstrong's long-gestating adaptation of Somerset Maugham's The Painted Veil has re-surfaced as a $32m project on the sales slate of France's UGC International, with actors Nicole Kidman and Edward Norton the targeted leads.Maugham's turn-of-the-century tale is set in China and follows an adulterous doctor's wife who redeems herself during ...
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AFM: Breillat's Fat Girl sexes up FPI slate
Flach Pyramide International (FPI) is once again at a film market selling sex. After the hugely controversial Romance, FPI is at the AFM handling Catherine Breillat's next picture, Fat Girl, an explosive examination of female sexuality set on the slopes of Mount Etna.The picture, which examines the troubled relationship of ...
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Korea lures co-producers with incentive funding
Korea's newly-galvanised film commission, KOFIC, is courting international partners to rebuild the country's recovering film industry with $3m in government cash.KOFIC's international business chief Paul Yi has been in Berlin alerting potential production and distribution partners to the government's new pro-film structures. These include $15m of incentive funding, at least ...
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Notting Hill, East Is East win at Empire awards
Notting Hill was voted Best British film at the Empire Film Awards, which took place today in London, while East Is East deservedly scooped best debut for director Damien O'Donnell. The Best Film award went to US blockbuster The Matrix, and best actor to Irishman Pierce Brosnan.Stars including Oscar-nominee Michael ...
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Sales companies in line for MEDIA boost
Europe's film sales companies are to get a cash boost under a new scheme to include them in the distribution section of the European Union's next MEDIA Programme. Under MEDIA Plus, the new five-year support system which replaces MEDIA II from January 2001, distribution will be allocated $98.2m (euro100m) and ...
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EU challenges assumptions behind box office growth
Media Salles, the European Union-financed exhibition research and support operation, has called into question the widespread assumption that multiplex growth in Europe is responsible for the growth in admissions seen over the last ten years.'There appears to be a rather weak relationship between the two,' said Joachim Wolff, president of ...
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Le Studio unveils Schroeder's shrouded Virgen
A Cannes competition hopeful by Barbet Schroeder and two European pictures with $20m-$30m budgets are among half a dozen new additions to the Berlin and AFM sales slate of French production powerhouse Le Studio Canal Plus.Set in Medellin, Colombia, Schroeder's picture La Virgen De Los Sicarios has been cloaked in ...
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Inaugural Mexican fest mines for Pan-American gems
Pan-American films are to be at the heart of a new festival in Zacatecas, only Mexico's second festival of international standing.In what is seen as a development year, the first Zacatecas International Film Festival will be held in October (20-25) in a former silver mining town in the centre of ...
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Fortissimo expands slate with Wong's Mood For Love
Fortissimo Film Sales has picked up sales duties on seven new pictures including Cannes competition hopeful In The Mood For Love, directed by Wong Kar Wai.The Dutch-Hong Kong sales house opened its new slate for business at the European Film Market in Berlin this week, and plans to take the ...
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Schroeder unveils plans for Franco-German academy
German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder announced the creation of a German-French film academy today at the Berlin film festival.While the chancellor disclosed neither the budget nor the location of the proposed institution, he said it would address the cultural and economic needs of the industry.At a conference attended by French culture ...