Small MPU – Page 1279
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News
Premiere Group unveils first titles starting June
Mitchell Goldman's USdistribution outfit The Premiere Marketing & Distribution Group -which he announced at AFM last year - has finally unveiled its debutslate which will kick off with Slap Her, She's French, a comedy originally housed at Fox Searchlight, onJune 7. Action drama Madisonstarring Jim Caviezel will follow on Aug ...
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UK's Granada and Carlton end secret merger talks
UK commercial television companies Granada and Carlton have called off a planned merger, it was announced on Wednesday (Feb 27).A link-up would have given the broadcasters 90% control of commercial television network ITV. But the annual savings from the merger - estimated at $71m (£50m) by 2002-3 - pale beside ...
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News
UK's Granada and Carlton call off merger talks
UK commercial television companies Granada and Carlton have called off merger talks, it was announced on Wednesday (Feb 27).A link-up would have given the broadcasters 90% control of commercial television network ITV. The decision is said to have been made because of onerous regulatory hurdles, although talks could restart ahead ...
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Reviews
Stones (Piedras)
Dir: Ramon Salazar. Spain. 2001. 130mins.Some Spanish critics have seen Ramon Salazar as Pedro Almodovar's heir, and Stones certainly looks on paper like a sequel to the latter's 1991 comedy High Heels: it tells five women's interlocking stories through their feelings about their feet. The female-dominated subject, a light scattering ...
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An uncertain regard at Cannes' Lynch-mob hopefuls
While Cannes Film Festival selector Thierry Fremaux is said to have been given freer rein this year by festival president Gilles Jacob, there seems a good chance that many familiar, arthouse heroes will be strutting the Croisette than ever before.Despite selectors from all of the festival's sections said to be ...
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Film division boosts Sogecable's net profit
Spanish media group Sogecable has reported positive year-end financial results for the first time since 1998, citing the success of its film division Sogecine, as a major contributing factor. Sogecable posted Euros 2.8m in net profits for 2001 compared with a loss of Euros 11.4m in 2000. Group revenue rose ...
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Alliance Atlantis posts 66% distribution increase
Alliance Atlantis Communications' film distribution business jumped 66% in the third quarter ended Dec. 31, 2001, with revenues up $25m (C$40.2m) to $62.6m (C$100.7m) from $37.6m (C$60.5m) in the prior year's period, boosted by the strong performance of Lord Of The Rings:, increased video and DVD demand and sales to ...
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Hong Kong cinemas slash ticket prices
Hong Kong's largest cinema chains have slashed ticket prices in an attempt to counter the combined effects of piracy, a post-Chinese New Year cinemagoing decline and a slowing economy with record levels of unemployment.UA and Broadway cinemas announced that tickets would cost $3.20 (HK$25) every Tuesday and Wednesday in ...
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Adjani replaces Marceau for Bon Voyage
Isabelle Adjani is to replace a pregnant Sophie Marceau as the female lead in the much-awaited Bon Voyage, Jean-Paul Rappeneau's first film after the 1995 Horseman On The Roof.This is not the only change in the lengthy setting up of Bon Voyage, a WWII romantic drama set in Bordeaux in ...
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TV doldrums dampen AFM sales business
Some 46 years ago, a budding rights-trader pursued the German television rights to Federico Fellini's La Strada, borrowing 25,000 Deutschmarks from his wife in order to complete the acquisition and kick-start what would much later become one of Europe's pivotal media empires. Today, the $6bn debt albatross that now hangs ...
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News
Beart, and Ardant to co-star in Nathalie Ribout
Emmanuelle Beart and Fanny Ardant, currently together on the French screens in Francois Ozon's musical whodunit 8 Femmes, are to co-star in Nathalie Ribout, the next film by Anne Fontaine.Currently at script stage, Nathalie Ribout will go before the cameras in 2003, produced by Les Films Alain Sarde, in which ...
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News
MEDIA! AG anticipates declining fortunes
German production services provider MEDIA! AG anticipates a negative result in the 2001/2002 financial year and sales target of Euros 30m, although it could reach a positive annual result in the next financial year (2002/2003). Reporting on the first half of the current financial year to December 31, 2001, the ...
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News
Miramax to go Full Frontal this August
Miramax Films has moved theUS release date of Steven Soderbergh's low budget ensemble piece FullFrontal from its scheduled March 8to August 2 which not only coincides exactly with the 1989 release date ofSoderbergh's first film sex, lies, & videotape but also opens the film up to a possible worldpremiere in ...
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News
AFM buyer numbers down but screenings, sellers up
The American Film Market(AFM) closed yesterday and organizing body AFMA announced the closingattendance figures as down 6% from 7,127 in 2001 to 6,714 in 2002. Registeredbuyers were down at 1,327 from 1,447 in the previous year, although the numberof non-US registered buyers was down only 2% from 2001.The number of ...
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Doug Wick named ShoWest producer of the year
Douglas Wick, the producerof Columbia Pictures' summer release Stuart Little 2, has been named 2002 producer of the year byexhibitors' convention ShoWest. Wick will receive the award at theconvention's gala awards banquet in Las Vegas on March 7.Wick's credits includeRidley Scott's Gladiatorfor which he won an Oscar for Best Picture, ...
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News
Disney gets Spirited Away for North America
Walt Disney Co. has acquired North American rights to Hayao Miyazaki's smash animated hit Spirited Away, which has broken all box office records in Japan. Disney also bought rights to the film for Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and France in previously concluded deals. Meanwhile, sales agent Wild Bunch is handling ...
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Endemol to buy German film production companies
Dutch media giant Endemol Entertainment plans to expand its role as a producer for cinema and television in Germany with the purchase of a number of film production companies. In an interview with the business daily Handelsblatt, Endemol Deutschland general manager Werner Schwaderlapp revealed that negotiations are already underway for ...
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Spain's Morena Films announces three new titles
Spanish film and TV producer Morena Films has unveiled three new feature films for its 2002 slate, following its co-production of the Oliver Stone Cuba documentary Looking For Fidel.Alvaro Fernandez Armero, director of local box office smash The Art Of Dying (El Arte De Morir), has signed on to an ...
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Reviews
The Diaries Of Vaslav Nijinsky
Dir: Paul Cox. Australia. 2002. 95 mins.One of prolific Paul Cox's most admired movies is his 1987 'docudrama' Vincent, a portrait of Van Gogh told by flowing imagery and close inspection of the paintings in situ, accompanied by voice over excerpts (read by John Hurt) from Vincent's letters to his ...
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News
Howard's Mind gets beautiful reception
After taking home two BAFTA awards last weekend and boasting eight Academy Award nominations, not to mention the amount of press Russell Crowe alone seems to generate, it is no surprise that A Beautiful Mind has enjoyed a host of strong international releases this week. However, the Ron Howard film, ...