Small MPU – Page 1231
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News
Fremaux opens Cannes door to German films
After nearly a decade of being excluded from the Cannes Film Festival's official competition, the German film industry has been given a glimmer of hope by the festival's new artistic director Thierry Fremaux.Following a visit to Munich, where he met industry figures including FFF Bayern's Klaus Schaefer, Berlin Film ...
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France favours Evolution over Kids
French cinema-goers have once again demonstrated their cultural distance from their American counterparts by embracing Columbia TriStar's Evolution, according it a certain 'je ne sais quoi' that its domestic audience failed to appreciate In its first week on release Ivan Reitman's alien/romantic comedy attracted a substantial 400,000 admissions, placing it ...
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Germany creates two new digital film awards
Digital filmmakers can compete for two new German awards that are being launched at the BerlinBeta Film Festival (August 29 - September 5) and Filmfest Hamburg (September 24-30) this year.Sponsored by leading postproduction group Das Werk, the BerlinBeta Digital Fiction Award will give the winning film postproduction services with a ...
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News
Corelli to open Dutch Film By The Sea
Working Title's Captain Corelli's Mandolin is set to open the third Film By The Sea international film festival in The Netherlands. The World War II romantic drama, set on the island of Cephalonia and starring Nicolas Cage and Penelope Cruz, has yet to open theatrically in any territories other than ...
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News
Robert Luketic
The Robert Luketic story is already well-known around Hollywood. It is now set to be repeated many times by the talented young Australian director as he conducts worldwide publicity for his debut feature Legally Blonde, which opened at the top of the US box office, winning a popular vote ...
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News
Kirk Wong signs to direct Artisan's Iron Fist
Hong Kong action director Kirk Wong has committed to develop and direct Iron Fist, the film of Marvel Enterprises' comic book which is the first to be generated by a joint venture between Artisan Entertainment and Marvel formed to create character-based programming across all media.Ray Park will star in the ...
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News
Reelplay buys FilmBazaar as B2B websites dwindle
Reelpay has completed its acquisition of FilmBazaar, further consolidating the business-to-business e-marketplace for the film and television distribution industries.Under the terms of the merger agreement, Reelplay acquired FilmBazaar in a stock-for-stock deal. Headed by co-presidents Stephen Liu and Dennis Young, Reelplay is also suggesting that it will look for further ...
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News
Venice 2001: Film Festival Line-up
Following this year's radical restructure of one of the world's oldest international film events, Venice film festival chief Alberto Barbera has unveiled the line-up of the two official competition sections for the event's 58th edition. Now including the Cinema Of The Present competition - which showcases some 30 contemporary, debut ...
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Apes rules US box office; Fox epic opens on $69.6m
20th Century Fox breathed a sigh of relief as its great summer hope Planet Of The Apes opened to out-of-this-world box office results, taking an estimated $69.56m over the Friday to Sunday weekend which is the second highest opening, the highest non-sequel opening and the highest non-holiday weekend opening of ...
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News
No Borders Co-Prod Market unveils 2001 lineup
The Independent Feature Project (IFP) has announced the projects which will make up this year's No Borders Co-Production Market taking place between Sept 30 and Oct 4. In addition, No Borders has struck up an arrangement with UK public funding body The Film Council which will act as a presenting ...
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News
Venice selection expansion hailed as double treat
The programming innovations revealed for the 58th Venice Film Festival - which this year heralds the advent of an additional competition line-up known as The Cinema Of The Present - have been greeted with generally favourable industry reactions.Many have praised the inclusion of more innovative and 'fringe' titles into the ...
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Big budget films boost Italian industry confidence
With a total of 12 Italian films showing in various sections of this year's Venice film festival, and a raft of big budget films in the pipeline from the likes of Roberto Benigni and Franco Zeffirelli, the Italian film industry is feeling more positive than usual.After last year's bleak patch, ...
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News
Sony Classics grabs Sverak's Dark Blue World
Sony Pictures Classics has picked up Jan Sverak's Czech language WWII aerial drama Dark Blue World for theatrical release in North America, Australia and the UK. The deal brings the total number of territories to which the film has been sold all rights to 23, including Japan, Italy (Medusa) and ...
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News
Deauville announces additional titles
Joel Coen's The Man Who Wasn't There, toplining Billy Bob Thornton and Frances McDormand and Woody Allen's The Curse Of The Jade Scorpion, featuring Dan Aykroyd, Helen Hunt and Charlize Theron are among a raft of titles which have been added to Deauville's 2001 line-up.Both the Coen brothers (whose debut ...
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News
Traumwerk and Promark unite for TV series
Das Werk's production subsidiaries Traumwerk Filmproduktion and Promark Entertainment are banding together under the label Promark International to develop English-language TV 'events' and mini-series productions for the international market. The joint venture will be co-ordinated from Los Angeles by Promark's Jon Kramer and from Traumwerk's new Berlin office by former ...
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Oldenburg festival launches $99 Specials
The Oldenburg Film Festival (September 5-9) has launched a new short film programme in co-operation with the Slamdance Film Festival and based on its "$ 99 Specials" initiative which was a new feature last January. Twelve of the hottest young German filmmakers will each be provided with a budget of ...
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Reviews
Rush Hour 2
Dir: Brett Ratner. US. 2001. 87 min.Neither terribly exciting asan actioner, nor sufficiently funny as a comedy, Rush Hour 2 re-teams the odd couple of the first film, theendlessly bickering Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, placing them in the most routineand movie-ish situations imaginable. Coldly calculated, but still rather flat,the ...
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Reviews
The Princess Diaries
Dir: Garry Marshall. US.2001. 115 mins.Shot on the same soundstage that was used for Mary Poppins, the Disney comedy that catapulted Julie Andrews to international stardom, The Princess Diaries is an enjoyable fairy tale that in its mores andmessage is not that different from that Andrews' 1964 Oscar-winning picture. This ...
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Locarno competition favours debut directors
In her first year as Locarno International Film Festival's new artistic director, Irene Bignardi has shown strong commitment to fresh and young cinema. Almost in diametric opposition to the Cannes festival's latest edition, which displayed the work of veteran auteurs, such as Manuel de Oliveira, Shohei Imamura, Jacques Rivette and ...
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Swiss film industry on an upswing
Switzerland has seen cinema admissions soar by 6.4% in the first half of 2001 to 8.78m, with local productions accounting for a 4.1% market share in the first six months, compared with 4.6% in 2000 as a whole.However, of the 100-plus Swiss films released in the first half of 2001, ...