All articles by Sandy George – Page 68
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Media Vision takes Oz comedy quartet
LA-based sales outfit Media Vision has picked up four "edgy mainstream comedies" which are being produced by Australia's Lance Peters and US producer Marina Martins under the joint production banner Cop-Outs Production. Peters has written all four projects which will shoot in Australia. LA-based Australian expat Marina Rose will co-produce. ...
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Oz's Pinefilm in line for cash boost
Australian distributor Pinefilm Entertainment is in the final stages of negotiations to merge with an unnamed public company, in a move that will provide it with considerable new cash resources for film acquisitions. Pinefilm managing director Sean Rothsey confirmed the talks but said a non-disclosure agreement prevents him from naming ...
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Alston issues warning to Oz post sector
Australian communications, IT and arts minister, Richard Alston, has warned the local post sector that it has only about 18 months left to exploit its current competitive advantages, because bandwidth, which connects it to the rest of the world, is "virtually unaffordable".Australian post-production companies enjoy the dual advantages of being ...
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Chopper leads race for AFI Awards
Andrew Dominik's Chopper, about one of Australia's best-known living criminals, topped the nominations for the AFI (Australian Film Institute) Awards with 10 nods including best film, best director and best screenplay.The other three titles vying for best film are Looking For Alibrandi with a total of nine nominations and Better ...
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REP, Dendy go on pre-MIFED buying spree
Australian distributor REP Films has picked up US comedy Human Nature, while sister company Dendy Films has acquired Swedish hit Together and Thai film The Iron Ladies. Iron Ladies follows the adventures of a transsexual volleyball team hoping to win the national championships. According to sales agent Fortissimo, it has ...
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Iran's Meshkini wins Pusan's New Currents prize
Iranian title The Day I Became A Woman, directed by Marziyeh Meshkini of Iran's Makhmalbaf family, won the jury prize in the Pusan film festival's New Currents section, dedicated to Asian film-makers' first or second features.The award includes distribution of the winning film in Korea or $10,000 to the director ...
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Palace, Pusan Story share top prize at PPP
The staff cutbacks sweeping through AOL Time Warner following its recent merger approval have now reached as far as the New York and London offices of Fine Line Features, the specialised offshoot of New Line Cinema.On Tuesday, Fine Line's New York staff were informed that their ranks would be pruned ...
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South Korea keeps up screen quotas fight
South Korea's Coalition for Cultural Diversity in Moving Images (CDMI) is an organising a symposium involving government ministers on November 8 due to continued fears that the country's screen quota system could be abolished.The CDMI, which has carried out a global campaign for the retention of quotas over the last ...
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Virgin takes top honours at Pusan
Korean writer-director Hong Sang-Soo's third film, Virgin Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, was awarded best film and best script by Pusan Film Critics on Sunday night in a ceremony that coincides with Korea's 5th Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF).The best director award went to Bae Chang-Ho for My Heart, while ...
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Hewison to head Melbourne Film Festival
The Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) has appointed James Hewison as executive director. He was formerly marketing manager (Victoria) for public broadcaster the ABC. Since 1993, when he returned from living in Paris for five years, Hewison has worked for Palace Cinemas, played a key role in re-establishing the French ...
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First Look acquires US rights to Chopper
Beyond Films has confirmed that US rights to writer-director Andrew Dominik's Chopper have been sold to First Look Pictures, which plans to stage a theatrical release in March 2001.Chopper screened at the Edinburgh, Toronto and Telluride Film Festivals and has now been in the Australian top 20 list for eight ...
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Telstra set to revise Pacific Century deal
Australian telecommunications giant Telstra is set to consider a second revision of its $2.7bn (A$5bn) alliance with Richard Li's Hong Kong-based Pacific Century CyberWorks (PCCW) this week. Since being announced in April, the deal - which would create one of the largest internet, data and business services groups in the ...
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Olympic fever impacts Australia's box office
One week into the Olympics and most Australian cinemas are reporting revenues down by 25-50%, with games venue Sydney being the worst affected. Unseasonably fine spring weather is further exaggerating the fall in business, particularly as it's helping to draw non-sport lovers out of doors.Although the Olympic site is 14 ...
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Nine Network strikes Paramount supply deal
Australia's Nine Network has struck a supply deal with Paramount Pictures, securing the rights to half of the studio's theatrical output from 2000/01 and all of it from the following year.The Australian network is also gaining access to programming from the Paramount Television group up to the 2001/02 US broadcast ...
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ABC appoints Virgo as drama chief
Italy has chosen Marco Tullio Giordana's The Hundred Steps (I Cento Passi) as its official entry for the foreign-language Oscar, over both Silvio Soldini's Bread And Tulips and Giuseppe Tornatore's Malena, which had both been widely tipped.The Hundred Steps is based on the true story of Peppino Impastato, a student ...
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Reynolds to head Screen Tasmania board
Launceston-based Margaret Reynolds, currently president of the United Nations Association of Australia and a former Federal Minister, is to head up the new board of Screen Tasmania. The other board members include producer Rosemary Blight, author and director Richard Flanagan, lawyer and executive producer Bryce Menzies, writer-director Roger Scholes, ABC ...
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New Zealand exhibitors scrap merger proposal
New Zealand's biggest exhibitors - Village Force Cinemas and Hoyts Cinemas - have admitted publicly that they have abandoned plans to merge because of the New Zealand Commerce Commission's continued opposition to the deal.The two players would have jointly owned about one third and jointly controlled about three quarters of ...
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FFC boards Aboriginal drama Beneath Clouds
The Australian Film Finance Corporation (FFC) and local broadcaster SBS are backing the first feature from Aboriginal film-maker Ivan Sen, Beneath Clouds, with commitments from UK sales agent Axiom Films and Australian distributor Dendy Films.The film, scheduled to start shooting January 15, is about two teenagers - one the daughter ...
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Oz in over development drive, warns AFC
Australia is developing too many feature projects according to Australian Film Commission (AFC) chief executive Kim Dalton.Presenting preliminary results of new AFC research to the National Screenwriters Conference, Dalton said that projects spend longer in development in Australia but the time and resources directly committed to the task is usually ...
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Branagh joins Noyce's Rabbit-Proof Fence
Kenneth Branagh has been cast as AO Neville - the controversial chief protector of aborigines in Western Australia in the 1930s - in Phillip Noyce's Rabbit-Proof Fence.The film, which starts shooting on September 18, is about the courageous escape of three Aboriginal girls after they are forcibly removed from their ...