All Production articles – Page 944

  • News

    Diamonds, Darwin among UK Film Council's development awards

    2002-07-18T04:05:00Z

    New films from director Mike Newell and Gosford Park screenwriter Julian Fellowes are among the latest projects to receive development investment from UK support body the Film Council.The council's development fund is investing $25,800 (£16,433) in The Eustace Diamonds, written by Gosford Park Oscar-winner Julian Fellowes and based on the ...

  • News

    20th Century Fox announces first Bollywood production

    2002-07-18T04:05:00Z

    20th Century Fox is to produce its first Bollywood film: a Hindi feature titled Ek Haseena Thee (There Was A Beautiful Girl) to be directed by Ram Gopal Verma. Fox India is likely to release the film in January 2003 with production set to begin in the next few weeks.The ...

  • News

    ContentFilm, Rapid Film cement Irish production partnership

    2002-07-17T04:05:00Z

    ContentFilm USA and Rapid Film Ireland have announced their partnership to produce 12 low budget feature films from Ireland over the next three years. The deal, similar to those established by ContentFilm in other countries, will source and produce local film scripts for international distribution.As part of the ContentFilm/Rapid Film ...

  • News

    Sun Gateway fund opens up for English-language productions

    2002-07-16T04:05:00Z

    Features by Michael Radford, Sandy Johnson and Amy Lyndon have been lined up as possible projects for backing by the new Sun Gateway Entertainment (SGE) private media fund.The German fund, which aims to raise Euros 50m this year for up to seven English-language feature film and TV productions, is managed ...

  • News

    Two Eastern European countries boost national film funds

    2002-07-16T04:05:00Z

    The newly-appointed Hungarian ministry of culture has awarded $3.3m (HUF 800m) in immediate cash for its struggling local film industry, while in neighbouring Slovakia a new law has been passed requiring broadcasters and exhibitors to contribute to the country's production funds.In Hungary, cultural minister Gabor Gorgey and minister of financial ...

  • News

    $9m large-format Bugs! goes into production

    2002-07-14T00:00:00Z

    Bugs!, a $9m 3-D giant-screen documentary film, has started principal photography in the jungles of Malaysia.A live-action film about the hidden world of insects, Bugs! will use macro-photography and 3D imagery to convey the tiny dramas of bug life on a grand scale - and will be hoping to repeat ...

  • News

    Ireland gets multiple low-budget production schemes

    2002-07-12T04:05:00Z

    In advance of the anticipated announcement of a new Irish-American low-budget production partnership - between Ireland's Rapid Film and Ed Pressman and John Schmidt's New York-based ContentFilm, the Irish Film Board has launched two new low-budget feature film initiatives.The first, called the Low Budget Feature Initiative seeks to create production ...

  • News

    New Line taps UK's Stevenson for Double Au Pair duties

    2002-07-11T04:05:00Z

    British writer/actress Jessica Stevenson, who co-created, co-wrote and co-starred in hit TV series Spaced, has landed a deal with New Line Cinema to write and star in Double Au Pair, a family adventure comedy about a nanny spy. Stevenson, who also starred in comedy Tomorrow La Scala! which played in ...

  • News

    Deepa Mehta plans $10m English-language historical drama

    2002-07-10T04:05:00Z

    Toronto-based Indian filmmaker Deepa Mehta (pictured) is planning to make a $10m English-language feature about the 1914 epic journey by Punjabi immigrants from India to Canada and back on a ship named the Komagata Maru. The film is based on the historical incident of the steamship Komagata Maru that sailed ...

  • News

    German film funds face new threat

    2002-07-09T04:05:00Z

    The future of Germany's film funds has come under further threat with news of proposed tighter regulations by the Federal Ministry of Finance German business daily the Handelsblatt reported that the Ministry of Finance (BMF) intends to consider investors in film funds merely as acquirers of film rights rather than ...

  • News

    Japan's Takeshi Kitano wraps Dolls

    2002-07-09T04:05:00Z

    Dolls, the latest feature from Japanese powerhouse Takeshi Kitano has wrapped principal photography and is set for local release in October by Office Kitano and Shochiku.Made for $2.5m (Y300m), Dolls is the director's 10th feature produced by Office Kitano and financed by a consortium of backers including Office Kitano, Bandai ...

  • News

    Swedish Film Institute withdraws funding from major local production

    2002-07-05T04:05:00Z

    The Swedish Film Institute (SFI) has taken the unprecedented step of withdrawing its financial support of $540 000 (SEK 5m) for the screen adaptation of 2001 local bestseller, Popular Music From Vittula (Popularmusik Fran Vittula). The funding would have made up a quarter of the film's budget.The dramatic move comes ...

  • News

    Hong Kong's Celestial Pictures pulls out of Naked Weapon

    2002-07-05T04:05:00Z

    Hong Kong's Celestial Pictures has pulled out of co-producing action title Naked Weapon with East Asia Entertainment, a division of eSun Holdings which owns Media Asia Group.The English-language film, loosely based on producer Wong Jing's 1992 tongue-in-cheek action comedy Naked Killer, was initially developed by East Asia with Wong on ...

  • News

    The Next Big Thing to be April's first production

    2002-07-05T00:00:00Z

    A production deal signed this week signals that The Next Big Thing, a feature written by and to star Magda Szubanski, is likely to be Australia's April Films' first production. The private owners of the Sydney-based company have put $1.7m (A$3m) of their own money into project development since establishing ...

  • News

    Carlos Saura readies two new feature projects

    2002-07-03T04:05:00Z

    Veteran Spanish director Carlos Saura is preparing two new projects to follow his forthcoming feature Salome, slated for a September release.The first is a story about Spain's 16th century King Felipe II, a project which Saura foresees as 'complicated and expensive' to pull together.The second, Amor De Dios (Love Of ...

  • News

    Japan's Toei launches Laterna animation affiliate

    2002-07-03T04:05:00Z

    Toei Animation, Asia's largest animation house, has launched a wholly-owned subsidiary to produce animation for families and young adults, over a range of media platforms. Called Laterna, the new subsidiary is capitalised at $420,000 (Y50m) and is headed by Tsutomu Tomari, Toei Animation president. Instead of developing projects exclusively with ...

  • News

    Australian film investment fund falls short of target

    2002-07-02T04:05:00Z

    The ambitious joint bid by Australia's Macquarie Bank and the Nine Network to raise $35.1m (A$62.5m) from private investors has fallen considerably short of the target with the result that only two features will be produced rather than the hoped-for eight.But although only $13.3m (A$23.6m) was raised by the time ...

  • News

    UK's FilmFour boards Touching The Void

    2002-07-02T00:00:00Z

    The UK's FilmFour and the Film Council's New Cinema Fund have boarded Touching The Void, a new feature documentary from Oscar-winning director Kevin Macdonald.The film, which starts production in Peru on July 22 and continues shooting in the Alps in September, tells the true survival story of two mountaineers - ...

  • News

    Applause to give an encore to horror hit The Eye

    2002-06-30T00:00:00Z

    Hong Kong production house Applause Pictures has added several new projects to its development slate including a sequel to its recent horror film The Eye which grossed a healthy $1.8m (HK$13.8m) at the local box office in May and June.Thailand's Pang Brothers will again direct and are currently scripting the ...

  • News

    AMW announces Lord Of The Rainy Season as Franco-Thai co-production

    2002-06-30T00:00:00Z

    AMW International, an independent Thai media group, used Hong Kong's FilMart to launch its new film Lord Of The Rainy Season. The project is based on Claire Keefe-Fox's historical novel of the same title Le Ministre Des Moussons documenting France's first official foray into Asia and the meeting between explorer ...