Small MPU – Page 27
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Features
Festival Deauville - Opening French doors
The 33rd edition of the Deauville Festival of American Film will showcase 124 films, including 11 in competition. And for the first time, the festival has added a sidebar entitled American Nights, which will screen 60 films back to back, 24 hours a day, in the French seaside town's Morny ...
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Features
Japan - Production - Out with the new in with the old
After a phenomenally successful year - Japanese productions grossed an unprecedented $920m (Yen107.8bn) at the local box office in 2006 - the territory's film-makers and financiers are continuing their reliance on proven books, comics, manga and TV shows (known as 'gensaku').Of the top 20 local films in Japan last year, ...
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Features
Japan - Technology - Jumping between platforms
BroadbandThere are now around 26 million broadband connections in Japan, with some of the fastest and cheapest services among Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development (Oecd) countries. Many consumers watch TV on computers with built in TiVo-like functions, increasing the audience for the dramas that are often made into movies.Unlike ...
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Features
Japan - Hot projects in the pipeline
Aruitemo AruitemoDirector Hirokazu Kore-eda is no stranger to critical acclaim with films such as Nobody Knows and international arthouse hit After Life. His latest stars Hiroshi Abe (Bubble Fiction) as the good-for-nothing son of a doctor who returns home for the anniversary of his brother's death. With Kore-eda's talent for ...
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News
Edinburgh toasts latest wave of British filmmaking
Critical enthusiasm for a new wave of British filmmaking was reflected in the prizes announced Sunday night at the 54th Edinburgh International Film Festival. Pawel Pawlikowski's lyrical, Venice-bound Last Resort received the Michael Powell Award for Best New British Feature whilst the Standard Life Audience Award confirmed the crowd-pleasing qualities ...
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Features
Japan - Adaptations - Tapping the sources
Books: While the manga TV animation-animated feature cycle has been a mainstay in Japan, Toho Studios' 2004 megahit Crying Out Love, In The Centre Of The World ($72.5m) sparked an increased dependence on novels as source material, with major publishers such as Kadokawa Publishing and Shueisha regularly joining production consortiums. ...
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Features
China - Onward and upward
Industry experts in China believe the country's 2007 box office could break the $400m (rmb3bn) milestone as the number of cinemas and admissions continues to grow.According to monthly statistics from the Film Bureau of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (Sarft), total box office for the first half ...
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Features
Bourne-again triumphs
Jason Bourne kicked the Simpsons out of the top spot as The Bourne Ultimatum took $15.2m in its third weekend - pushing it past the $50m mark. The third instalment of the franchise expanded into a further five territories, taking $2.5m in its first weekend in Russia and opening to ...
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Features
International box office - Czech Republic - Recovery position
Admissions in the Czech Republic grew 13% year on year for the first half of 2007, with cinemas earning total revenues of nearly $31.3m (czk637m). If the trend continues, 2007 will outpace last year's 11.5 million admissions, continuing the recovery from 2005's 9.5 million.The Czech Republic, which has a population ...
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News
Wild Bunch boosts strong Toronto slate with addition of $22m Terra
Wild Bunch has acquired worldwide rights outside English-speaking territories to the $22 million animated project Terra, which will screen in a gala world premiere at Toronto. The film is directed by Aristomenis Tsirbas and has a voice cast including Luke Wilson, Evan Rachel Wood, Danny Glover, Dennis Quaid, Rosanna Arquette, ...
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News
Stopping Power forced to stop $40m shoot over financing issues
Principal photography on Jan de Bont's $40m action thriller Stopping Power has had to be suspended after the default of a key equity investor in the film made it impossible for the Internationalmedia Group to close the required financing. The investor's breach has led to the IM Internationalmedia wholly-ownd subsidiary ...
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News
Ang Lee plans safer edit of Lust, Caution for Chinese audiences
Since its Venice world premiere, Ang Lee's Lust, Caution has created whatFocus boss James Schamus is calling 'a tidal wave of interest' across Asia.The Asian response has been largely positive. Lee's steamy espionagethriller will be given a major Asian release later in the autumn. However,controversy is already dogging the film ...
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News
Babelgum recruits Spike Lee to judge new online shorts festival
New Internet TV platform Babelgum has announced plans to launch a new online film festival for films up to 45 minutes long.At a press conference in Venice, Babelgum CEO Valerio Zingarelli also announced that Spike Lee will serve as an honorary judge of the Babelgum Online Film Festival. Zingarelli $20,000 ...
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News
Shrek narrowly beats Bourne to top international box office
In a narrow victory DreamWorks/Paramount's Shrek The Third wrestled the overseas crown from The Bourne Ultimatum and raised its international running total by an estimated $17.2m to $436m.The weekend result struck a blow for the more traditional staggered release pattern in a season where the more spectacular opening grossesgenerated by ...
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News
Clubland wins top prize at Australian Writers Guild Awards
Clubland written by Keith Thompson won the top prize, for 'Outstanding Australian Script', at this year's Australian Writers Guild Awards (the Awgies) which took place on Friday night. The film also shared the award in the original feature film category along with another story about family - Tony Ayres' The ...
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News
Sitges adds Sabotage, Shadow Of The Vampire
Spain's Sitges International Film Festival (Oct 5-14) has announced two more films in this year's line-up: screwball comedy Sabotage will close this year's event, while Elias Merhige's Shadow Of The Vampire will compete as part of the official selection.The English-language Sabotage, from Spain's Ibarretxe Brothers (writer-directors Esteban and Jose Miguel, ...
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News
Dennehy in talks for Righteous Kill
Brian Dennehy is in negotiations to join new cast members John Leguizamo, Dan Futterman, Trilby Glover and professional skateboarder Rob Dyrdek on the crime thriller Righteous Kill, which begins filming on Sept 4 in Connecticut and New York. As previously announced in Cannes, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro star ...
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News
Italian distributor cancels Woody Allen screenings in Venice
There were angry scenes in Venice over the weekend when it emerged that Italian distributor Filmauro had cancelled three of the five screenings planned for Woody Allen's new feature, Cassandra's Dream, starring Colin Farrell and Ewan McGregor. The reasons for the last-minute cancellations were shrouded in mystery. Some well-placed sources ...
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News
UTV moves into Telugu-language film production
Mumbai-based UTV Motion Pictures (UTVM) is making a foray into Telugu-language films by signing Telugu star Mahesh Babu, one of the most bankable stars in the Southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, for two movies. The company has also acquired the Andhra Pradesh distribution rights for Mahesh Babu's next film ...
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Ridley Scott to tackle religion and politics with Body Of Lies
Ridley Scott, in Venice at the weekend for the special screening of Blade Runner: The Final Cut, has revealed further details of his new Warner Bros film, Body Of Lies, which starts shooting on Wednesday. 'We are working fast. We are working to get ahead of the strike,' Scott said ...