Small MPU – Page 289
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Features
2008: The New Line Highlights
Jan 25: Be Kind RewindMichel Gondry's latest offbeat comedy features Jack Black as a video-store employee who accidentally erases all the tapes, so re-enacts and refilms them. Mos Def co-stars.Feb 29: Semi-ProWill Ferrell plays a former benchwarmer who returns to his basketball team in an attempt to take them to ...
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News
The Russians are coming' Leonard Klady looks at the 'Russian disconnect' at the international box office.
We all know about the great tradition of Russian cinema that embraces such movie gods as Eisenstein and Pudovkin, Tarkovsky and Bondarchuk. The modern scene post-Glasnost is another matter.The first real sense of a meaningful change might best be encapsulated in a personal anecdote that occurred at Las Vegas' ShoWest ...
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News
FFC boards Aboriginal drama Beneath Clouds
The Australian Film Finance Corporation (FFC) and local broadcaster SBS are backing the first feature from Aboriginal film-maker Ivan Sen, Beneath Clouds, with commitments from UK sales agent Axiom Films and Australian distributor Dendy Films.The film, scheduled to start shooting January 15, is about two teenagers - one the daughter ...
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Features
Asian tigers show their claws
Two very different Korean openers hit the international chart this week: Ra Hee-chan's comedy Going By The Book, and Kim Mi-jung's historical murder mystery Shadows In The Palace. Going By The Book is a broad comedy about a traffic cop and a bank robbery gone wrong, while Shadows In The ...
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Features
The Critical view - The art of war
The autumn epidemic of films dealing with the US's entanglement in Iraq and Afghanistan has launched dozens of features and op-ed pieces but predictably, most of these were written before many of the films had surfaced. So pundits were limited to commenting on the fact that, whereas most of 1970s ...
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News
Control wins further prizes at Chicago festival
Anton Corbijn's Control, which earlier this week picked up 10 British Independent Film Awards nominations, is one of three films to be awarded the Chicago International Film Festival's Audience Choice Award.Control shared the honour with Carlitos Ruίz Ruiz and Mariem Perez Riera's Puerto Rican comedy Lovesickness and Jon Dunham's US ...
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News
Magnolia swoops for Spanish time-travel buzz-film
Magnolia Pictures has picked up worldwide rights excluding Spain from producer Eduardo Carneros to Nacho Vigalondo's sci-fi film Timecrimes.Laird Adamson, head of international sales at Magnolia's sister company HDNet, will screen the film and begin international sales at AFM.Timecrimes centres on a man who inadvertently discovers the perils of time ...
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News
Lakeshore unleashes Underworld 3: The Rise Of The Lycans
Lakeshore Entertainment is prepring Underworld 3: The Rise Of The Lycans, the prequel to its $200m worldwide franchise about warring werewolves and vampires that will open in North America through Screen Gems.Lakeshore and Sony Pictures Releasing International hold international rights to the film, which is set to begin production in ...
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News
Palm Springs honours Into The Wild duo
Sean Penn will receive the Director of the Year Award for his acclaimed latest film Into The Wild at the 19th Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival awards gala on Jan 5.Past director honourees at this Oscar bellweather include Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu for Babel, Anthony Minghella for Cold Mountain, Alexander ...
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Animation Picture Co gives Spyro The Dragon the 3D treatment
The Animation Picture Company has optioned feature film rights from Vivendi Games division Sierra Entertainment to the hit franchise video game Spyro The Dragon.The Animation Picture Company's principals Dan Chuba, John Davis, Mark Dippe, Brian Manis and Ash Shah will produce the 3D CGI feature.Daniel and Steven Altiere will adapt ...
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News
Crossing joins Cineclick Asia's multinational slate
Seoul-based sales agent Cineclick Asia has picked up Crossing, a film from Volcano High director Kim Tae-kyun, for its multinational AFM slate. The film is about a North Korean ex-soccer player who crosses illegally into China, where he desperately tries to find a way to get his son and pregnant ...
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News
Eurasia film fest on schedule despite Turkish border war
Francis Ford Coppola attended the International Eurasia Film Festival for the gala screening of his Youth Without Youth amid escalating tension in Turkey. Coppola arrived at the Mediterranean coastal town Antalya with his family (wife Eleanor and son Roman) and executive producer Anahid Nazarian. He was presented with an honour ...
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News
Red Eagle set to soar for Thailand's Five Star
Thailand 's Five Star will unveil at AFM The Red Eagle, the latest film by acclaimed Thai director Wisit Sasanatieng and starring Ananda Everingham. The picture about the masked crime-fighter Red Eagle will mark the return of the greatest superhero of Thai cinema in 37 years. The character, taken from ...
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News
New Zealand exhibitors scrap merger proposal
New Zealand's biggest exhibitors - Village Force Cinemas and Hoyts Cinemas - have admitted publicly that they have abandoned plans to merge because of the New Zealand Commerce Commission's continued opposition to the deal.The two players would have jointly owned about one third and jointly controlled about three quarters of ...
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News
Disney India taps Samat, Star ups Shankar, Kumar
Walt Disney International president Andy Bird has announced that Mahesh Samat has been appointed as managing director of Mumbai-based Walt Disney Company India. Samat will join the company in January and manage all of Disney's businesses in India excluding the ESPN/Star Sports joint venture with News Corp's Star network. He ...
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News
Japan's Fuji TV unveils big-budget AFM slate
Japanese broadcaster and film financier Fuji TV has announced a slate of big-budget titles which are being handled by sales agents Gaga Communications and Pony Canyon at the AFM. Gaga is handling international sales on Shaolin Girl which is being executive produced by Fuji TV's Chihiro Kameyama and Hong Kong ...
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News
Home Song Stories wins top prize at Hawaii fest
The 27th Hawaii International Film Festival (HIFF) presented its awards today with the Golden Orchid for best narrative feature going to Tony Ayres' The Home Song Stories. The film is about a Shanghai nightclub singer who emigrates to Australia with her son and daughter, and the hardships they go through ...
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News
Michelle Williams joins Bernal for Moodysson's Mammoth
Oscar nominee Michelle Williams has joined the cast of Lukas Moodysson's Mammoth, opposite Gael Garcia Bernal.The Swedish auteur makes his English-language debut with the project, which starts shooting Nov 5 in Thailand before moving to the Phillipines, Sweden and New York. Lars Jonsson of Memfis Film will produce.'In Michelle Williams ...
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News
Despite tricky timing, Antalya's Eurasia market spurs a few deals
The second edition of the Eurasia Film Market drew to a close yesterday, but participants said the market's timing proved difficult for some buyers. Despite a good mix of local and international sales companies and a bigger presence from Asia with Hong Kong's Media Asia, China's Huayi Brothers and Three ...
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News
Saw IV could show international strength in Spain, Latin America
Saw IV is expected to cast a ghoulish shadow over the international box office arena this weekend as it opens day-and-date with North America in Spain and Latin America. The fourth episode in the celebrated horror franchise opens in the key territories of Spain, Mexico and Brazil on Oct 26. ...