Small MPU – Page 1408
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News
Gala takes UK rights to African L'Afrance
UK indie distributor Gala has acquired UK rights to Sundance title L'Afrance, an African film which will next be seen in Rotterdam and is handled worldwide by Mercure Distribution's Jacques Le Glou.L'Afrance, directed by Alain Gomis and previously selected for Locarno, is the coming-of-age tale of a young Senegalese student ...
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News
Premiere World adds Kofler, loses Liberty
German entrepreneur Dr. Georg Kofler (pictured) has been enticed back into the Kirch empire to head up the debt-ridden digital pay TV platform Premiere World. At the same time, US cable operator Liberty Media has surprisingly withdrawn an application submitted to the German cartel office for clearance to take a ...
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News
Spanish films' home market share up by 90%
Spanish films came close to doubling their local market share last year, with a record three films breaking through the watershed Euros 6m (pts1bn) mark, while national cinema admissions set a new global (post-war) record of 13 years' consecutive growth.The annual industry report released by the Spanish Cinema Academy also ...
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News
Korea celebrates unprecedented domestic successes
With all of the five highest grossing films of the year being local productions and the top title, Friend (pictured), taking the all-time box office crown, Korean cinema achieved an unprecedented 46.1% market share for Seoul last year, and an estimated 49.1% for the country as a whole.According to year-end ...
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News
Fintage House announces management buyout
Financial services and royalties collection outfit Fintage House has completed a management buyout as well as appointing entertainment lawyer Maarten P Melchior to head the company's film and television collection account management division.Fintage's management is buying the company, which has offices spanning Europe, Australia, Japan and the US, from the ...
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News
Kirch close to finalising 25% Telecino sale
German giant Kirch may close a sale on its 25% stake in Spanish broadcaster Telecinco in a matter of days, according to local Spanish news sources.The stake could be split among current Telecinco shareholders: Italy's Mediaset and Spain's Grupo Correo as well as any of three Spanish investors approached individually. ...
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Spain's Auna posts encouraging 2001 results
Spanish telecoms group Auna posted better-than-expected year-end financial results for 2001 amid continued uncertainty about the future of its stake in struggling DTT platform Quiero TV and its various cable interests.Auna reported before tax earnings (EBITDA) of Euros 93m, a 35% improvement on anticipated figures and well above year 2000 ...
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Reviews
Intact (Intacto)
Dir: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo. Spain. 108mins.Director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo has crafted an accomplished feature debut with Intact (Intacto), a thriller characterised by slick visuals and an imaginative storyline. The film has done well, although not spectacularly, in its home market, earning $1.17m (pts218.6m) in its first five weeks. International prospects, ...
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News
Ocean's Eleven moves on international market
Steven Soderbergh's ensemble heist caper Ocean's Eleven has started its international roll-out to strong receptions. His follow up to Traffic, which earned Soderbergh an Academy Award for direction last year, Ocean's Eleven ousted The Lord Of The Rings from top spots in Australia and Switzerland.Taking the lead down under the ...
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Sundance: Love to THINKFilm, Sex to Palm
Two more acquisitions were closed in Park City yesterday in arguably the busiest Sundance on record for deals. New distributor THINKFilm, which yesterday completed its acquisition of Gus Van Sant's Gerry, has now taken North American rights on out-of-competition selection Love In The Time Of Money, while Chris Blackwell's Palm ...
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News
Slamdance TV to debut on Canada's Movieola
Canadian short film TV channel Movieola has entered into a production agreement with Slamdance Entertainment to form Slamdance TV, a 26-part series giving an inside look at independent film-making. Slamdance Entertainment is a joint venture between Marco Weber's Atlantic Streamline and the Slamdance Film Festival.The series will start playing on ...
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News
Regent launches gay division HERE
Regent Entertainment is to launch a gay label called HERE Films which will provide gay films with domestic theatrical distribution capabilities (HERE Releasing) as well as international sales (HERE International) and a pay-per-view and video-on-demand service (HERE Network).The label was announced by Regent partners Paul Colichman and Stephen P Jarchow ...
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News
Scherfig commits to English-language Suicide
Lone Scherfig, director of Denmark's foreign-language Oscar hopeful Italian For Beginners, is to make her first English-language film.Vilbur Wants To Commit Suicide will be produced by newcomer Sisse Graum Olsen, who recently made her debut with Niels Arden Oplev's black comedy Chop Chop (Fukssvansen) for Zentropa. The film will shoot ...
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News
Weisbein to head StudioCanal international sales
StudioCanal, the film and television arm of Vivendi Universal, is believed to be close to announcing the appointment of Pierre Weisbein as head of the outfit's international sales - a position which has been vacant since Daniel Marquet left to oversee the expansion of the studio structure across EuropeIn his ...
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News
The rise and fall of Italian cinema admissions
Annual box office revenues for Italy's new generation of multiplex cinemas appear to be growing at roughly the same rate as the decline in the profitability of the country's traditional theatres, according to latest industry estimates.Italian box office revenues rose by 4.89% to $384.6m in 2001 compared to $366.6m in ...
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News
Thailand slashes tax as production incentive
The Thai government has announced a series of measures, including substantial tax cuts, to entice foreign films to use Thailand as a production location.With Thailand pulling in an impressive $29m (baht1.27bn) in tax revenues from foreign film productions last year, more than double 2000's $12.6m (baht553 m), the measures ...
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News
Tel Aviv film festival postponed for a year
The ambitious Tel Aviv Film Festival has been postponed for a year.The city's government decided to push back the festival from March until late next year to coincide with the opening of a new Cinema Centre annexed to the Tel Aviv Cinematheque. The city has secured sponsorship worth $3m from ...
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German crits awards snub triple nominees
Christian Petzold's The State I Am In and Achim von Borries' England! picked up two awards each in this year's round of honours by the German film critics association Verband Der Deutschen Filmkritik. Andreas Dresen's The Policewoman (Die Polizistin) and Ben Verbong's family film The Slurb (Das Sams) both came ...
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News
Fantasporto festival unveils genre selection
Jack the Ripper story From Hell, Angel de la Cruz's Spanish 3D computer animation El Bosque Animado and German hit Das Experiment are amongst the films in the official section at leading European fantasy and genre festival, Fantasporto.The Portuguese event, more formerly known as the Oporto International Film Festival, will ...
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Danes grab limelight at Berlin's Kinderfilmfest
Denmark has a strong presence at next month's 25th anniversary edition of Kinderfilmfest at the Berlin International Film Festival.The children's film festival will showcase Danish fare such as Catch That Girl (Klatretosen), the debut of Hans Fabian Wullenweber in which a thirteen-year-old girl robs a bank to save her father's ...