Small MPU – Page 261
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News
Edinburgh: one surprise down, but more to come'
Mick Jagger may be wavering, but Tim Roth paid an unexpected visit to the Edinburgh International Film Festival last night (August 15) to introduce the event's surprise film - Planet Of The Apes.The festival is now hoping that Jagger, who was to have been the star guest this weekend, changes ...
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Ad slump hits Germany's Das Werk
Leading German postproduction group Das Werk has been hit by the economic slowdown in the advertising industry, according to its results for the first half of 2001.While the group posted a 57% increase in revenues from Euro 32.9m in the first half of 2000 to Euro 51.5m this year, it ...
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Cinemark: revenues up, losses down
Cinemark USA has reported that for the six month period ended June 30, 2001, revenues increased 9.8% to $398.4m compared to $362.8m for the same period last year.EBITDA for the first six months of 2001 increased 23.8% to $71.9m from $58.1m in 2000. The company's net loss for the six ...
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German audiences warm to crowd-pleasers
Despite having a key role in international film funding, Germany has long struggled to gain recognition for its locally produced films. Its film-makers were accused of "lacking an unmistakable style" by the Cannes artistic director this year when, for the eighth consecutive year, no German film was chosen for the ...
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South African film industry gets house in order
More than seventy key representatives of the South African film industry met last week in Johannesburg to address out the persistent problems plaguing them - and for once in an industry beloved of seminars and conferences the meeting seemed to yield some positive results. The event involved four panels ...
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German talent lines up for $99 films
German actor Peter Lohmeyer (Playing Swede) is to make his directorial debut with one of the 12 shorts for the "99Euro Film" initiative which was launched by this year's Oldenburg Film Festival (September 5-9) along the lines of the Slamdance Film festival's $99 programme.Other participants who have agreed to the ...
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US plexes adopt technology for blind, deaf patrons
A second multiplex theatre in California has installed Motion Picture Access - a new technology which enables blind, visually impaired, deaf and hard of hearing patrons to further enjoy the film. The technology - comprised of the DVS Theatrical and Rear Window Captioning systems - was developed by Boston-based Media ...
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Filmstar recruits Lantern Lane to sell two
LA-based production company Filmstar Productions has enlisted Lantern Lane Entertainment to handle sales on its latest two films, The Courier, which is in post-production, and Third Eagle, which is in pre-production.David L Garber, the president and CEO of Lantern Lane, will negotiate all domestic and international distribution deals for the ...
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News
121% rise in 2nd quarter revenues for First Look
First Look Media has announced a rise of 121% in its second quarter 2001 revenues to $9.8m from $4.4m in the second quarter 2000. Operating results for the three-month period ended June 30 showed an operating loss down to $0.5m from $0.8m in the same quarter last year.The revenue rise ...
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Reviews
The Emperor's New Clothes
Dir: Alan Taylor. UK. 2001. 105 mins. Alan Taylor's 'what if' reverie on the last days of Napoleon, The Emperor's New Clothes had its world premiere in the best possible circumstances for such a middlebrow entertainment: under the stars in Locarno's Piazza Grande. Originally titled My Napoleon, the film turns ...
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Reviews
Filthy Earth
Dir: Andrew Kotting. UK. 2001. 111minsAndrew Kotting's follow up to his quirky, much admired road movie documentary Gallivant offers an extreme vision of rural hardship. Inspired by Emile Zola's La Terre (Earth), it saturates the screen with mud and muck, blood and viscera to create an unrelenting portrait of squalor, ...
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News
Pearl Harbor and Shrek hit $400m worldwide
Buena Vista International (BVI) had major cause to celebrate this week as its World War II epic Pearl Harbor crossed $200m in international box office gross, taking it to over $400m worldwide. Harbor, which was BVI's big hope in the summer blockbuster season, became the second film, which debuted in ...
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News
US box office bonanza: new rules, new targets
Total box office receipts in North America for the year 2001 passed $5bn this week - setting a record pace not only for the summer season - which closes in a fortnight on Labor Day weekend - but for the year. This time last year, box office was at $4.71bn ...
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News
Samaha takes advantage of Oz investor frustration
Elie Samaha's Franchise Pictures has secured a new source of film financing through the German Commerzbank-backed Academy Film Fund (AFF), which has tapped Australian entertainment financiers frustrated by the tax changes in their own market. The AFF aims to raise up to Euros 200m ($176m) from private German individuals by ...
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News
Goldbacher develops Utopia and Faith
Sandra Goldbacher, the UK writer-director who impressed buyers at Cannes with her second feature Me Without You, has started work on two contemporary scripts, Faith and Utopia.Faith is a London-set story about magic and witchcraft, while Utopia is set in a commune in an arctic-like region. Goldbacher, who debuted with ...
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News
San Sebastian unveils 14 'Pearls' for sidebar
Spain's San Sebastian International Film Festival (Sept 20-29) unveiled the fourteen titles which will comprise the "Pearls from Other Festivals" section of its Open Zone (Zabaltegi) line-up.Following last year's model, "Pearls" shows a heavy emphasis on films which screened at Cannes. There are also several titles from Berlin and at ...
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Screen Comment:
To hear it now from Francis Ford Coppola, the same Hollywood studio system that released his magnificent acid trip of a movie, Apocalypse Now, would never today dare indulge such an extravagantly ambitious and vainglorious undertaking by a director. Even by one who had previously made a truck-load of money ...
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News
Brazilian soccer star signs for Shooting Star
Soccer superstar Ronaldo has signed up to be the star subject in feature-length football documentary Shooting Star.Along with being the main interviewee, the Brazilian striker will represent the fatherhood section as the film explores the seven stages of life - including birth, boyhood, adolescence, manhood, mid-life crisis and old age ...
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Sackman & Co form Lions Gate Redux with ThinkFilm
Jeff Sackman, former president of Lions Gate Films, is returning to the North American distribution market with a new outfit accompanied by some familiar names, including former Lions Gate Releasing co-president Mark Urman and Andy Myers, a veteran of Canada's distribution scene.The new company, ThinkFilm, will be headed by Sackman ...
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Hollywood logs on with on-line studio coalition
In an unusual show of cooperation, five Hollywood studios - Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, ParamountPictures, Sony Pictures, Universal Studios and Warner Bros - are banding together to create an on-demand movie service that will offer theatrical films via digital delivery for broadband Internet users in the US. The service will primarily be an ...