Small MPU – Page 1217
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News
Cinema Expo leaves sour taste for concessions
Internet and telephone booking may have been heralded as a glorious new dawn for ticket sales, but delegates at Cinema Expo conference in Amsterdam were this week warned about its impact on concessions.Barry Jones, business development manager for Coca-Cola Greater Europe, pointed out that 40% of Swedish tickets are sold ...
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News
French TV cuts back on number of films aired
French terrestrial TV channels have cut back the number of feature films broadcast per year, airing 49 fewer titles last year than in 1999. This includes 31 fewer films broadcast in primetime, for a total of less than 800 films.According to the latest survey by French audiovisual industry watchdog CSA ...
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News
Buyers emerge for French studios group SFP
Two potential buyers - Daniel Lebard Management Development and facilities house Euromedia Television with Bollore Investissement - have emerged for ailing French state-owned studios and facilities group Societe Francaise de Production (SFP). Unless one takes over the massive organisation, the only other alternative appears to be a management buyout led ...
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News
Chow Yun-fat in Waiting for Chan's Applause
Chow Yun-fat, the Hong Kong superstar who headed the cast of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, is set to star in Waiting, a romantic drama set against the backdrop of the Cultural Revolution. The film is to be directed by Peter Chan for his novice production company, Applause Pictures.Waiting is based ...
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Cologne's TV and film fest announces prizewinners
Screenwriter Ruth Toma, Berlin-based production company moneypenny Filmproduktion and casting director Rita Serra-Roll were among the German film industry figures honoured at the end of the Cologne Conference's eleventh International Television and Film Festival during the Media Forum NRW.The casting award went to Munich-based Rita Serra-Roll, whose most recent credits ...
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News
Spanish films get export boost with new promo fund
Spanish producers can already begin tapping into a new promotion fund for films released abroad, thanks to an initiative launched by the state Ministry of Economy with support from the Spanish Producers' Federation (FAPAE). The fund is effective immediately.Juan Costa, Spain's secretary of state for commerce and tourism, announced yesterday ...
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News
Locarno shines spotlight on Asians in US cinema
The 54th editionof the Locarno International Film Festival (Aug 2-12) has unveiled a richsidebar on Asians in American Cinema, including films such as Emiko Omori's RabbitIn The Moon, StevenOkazaki's Days Of Waiting, Wayne Wang's Life Is Cheap But Toilet Paper Is Expensive and Frank Sinatra's soledirectorial effort, None But The ...
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News
Pay-TV channel launches for Germans living abroad
ChannelD, a German-language pay-TV service for ex-pat Germans and holidaymakers in Latin America, the Caribbean and the US East Coast, has been established by six multimedia companies.The partners expect ChannelD will go on air from September 1, 2001 with a mix of bought-in programmes from public and private channels, including ...
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News
German producers body adds Filmpool to books
Cologne-based production outfit Filmpool has been accepted as the 21st member of recently-launched German producers pressure group Film 20. Current members include Kinowelt Medien, Senator Entertainment, Producers AG, Claussen + Woebke Filmproduktion and Constantin Film.Filmpool has an annual output of more than 200 hours of television programming and won the ...
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News
German distributors get inaugural culture awards
Distributor Arsenal Filmverleih, Berlin's fsk Kino & Peripher Filmverleih and Rapid Eye Movies in Cologne have each been selected for the Germany government's 2001 Distributor Awards.The German ministry of culture will present the awards in Dresden in October. The prizes, each of which carries $94,000 (DM200,000), were launched by culture ...
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News
Japanese networks team to launch VOD service
Three of Japan's five television networks - Fuji TV, TBS and TV Asahi - have agreed to form a groundbreaking joint venture to provide film and other content via broadband. In addition to feature films for a VOD service, content will include TV dramas, animation, sports and news. Programmes will ...
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News
Lara Croft continues UIP's hot streak
After a lacklustre domestic performance, just $32.3m in its first three weeks, sci-fi comedy Evolution has surprised many at the start of its international roll-out by scoring a $2.7m (£1.9m) opening weekend in the UK. Directed by Ivan Reitman, most famous for 1984 smash hit Ghostbusters, and starring David Duchovny, ...
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News
Seven Arts to merge with Hollywood Partners.com
Peter Hoffman's Seven Arts Pictures is to merge with US Internet outfit Hollywood Partners.com, it was announced on Wednesday.Hoffman is to join Hollywood Partners with a five-year exclusive commitment to serve as chief executive of the joint companies. Hollywood Partners is to acquire Seven Arts' overhead agreement and first-look deal ...
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News
Finn steps down as WT2 reshuffles exec deck
Jon Finn is stepping down as co-head of WT2, the low-budget division of production powerhouse Working Title Films which debuted with Billy Elliot.Natascha Wharton will continue at the division as head of WT2. Working alongside her will be Rachel Prior, promoted from story editor to development executive. Finn, who came ...
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News
Three more sign up for Carpenter's Pencil
Tristan Ulloa (The Nameless), Maria Adanez (Cha Cha Cha) and Luis Tosar (Flowers From Another World) have signed on to star in director Anton Reixa's The Carpenter's Pencil (El Lapiz Del Carpintero). The project marks the first co-production between Madrid outfits Morena Films and Sogecine, together with Galicia-based start-up Portozas ...
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De la Iglesia goes solo to set up Stray Bullets
Spanish director Alex de la Iglesia has launched his own production company, Panico Films, through which he plans to set up new feature film project Balas Perdidas (literally, Stray Bullets), according to statements he made in Argentina this week.In an interview with La Nacion newspaper, de la Iglesia said that ...
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Reviews
Baby Boy
Dir: John Singleton. US. 2001. 130 mins.The innersoul of a young, immature black man is placed under scrutiny in JohnSingleton's Baby Boy, a companion piece but not a sequel, to his breakthrough film,Boyz N' The Hood,which exactly ten years ago made a splash in the film world. Revisiting thesame ...
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News
Hollywood legend Jack Lemmon dies
American film icon Jack Lemmon has died in Los Angeles aged 76, his publicist has announced. Lemmon, a two-time Academy Award winner, died at USC Norris Cancer Hospital on Wednesday night (June 27, 2001).Since his silver screen debut in 1954 comedy It Should Happen To You, opposite Judy Holliday and ...
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Reviews
Bride Of The Wind
Directed by Bruce Beresford. US 2001. 99 mins.It is said that behind every successful man stands a woman. But rarely in history has one woman, Alma Mahler, stood behind so many brilliant and accomplished men. With Bride Of The Wind, Australian director Bruce Beresford (Double Jeopardy, Driving Miss Daisy) attempts ...
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Reviews
The Chimp
Director: Aktan Abdykalykov. France/Kazakhstan. 2001. 98minsThe desolate Kazakhstan locale may be relatively unknown but everything else about this slight coming of age drama is wearily familiar. The concluding film in director Aktan Abdykalykov's autobiographical trilogy follows a teenage boy in the weeks leading up to his departure for military service. ...