Small MPU – Page 400
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News
Wide Management picks up Quinzaine title Counterparts
Paris-based sales company Wide Management has picked up international rights for German filmmaker Jan Bonny's feature debut Counterparts (Gegenuber) which has been selected for this year's Directors' Fortnight sidebar in Cannes. The drama about domestic violence between a primary school teacher and her policeman husband features Viktoria Trauttmannsdorff (whose credits ...
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Reviews
Suburban Girl
Dir: Marc Klein. US. 2007. 96mins. The 'chick lit' phenomenon, which has flooded bookstores around the world, is clearly triggering a celluloid trend, especially after the success of The Devil Wears Prada last year and a wide release planned later this year for The Nanny Diaries. Suburban Girl, an adaptation ...
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Reviews
Beyond Belief
Dir: Beth Murphy. US. 2007. 98mins.Beyond Belief follows two 9/11 widows outside Boston as they rebuild their families. The women move beyond grief and beyond their own experience to start a charity to help the thousands of Afghan women whose hardships from decades of war and discrimination is barely know ...
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News
Fox Searchlight buys Al Pacino's Chinese Coffee
Fox Searchlight Pictures has acquired worldwide rights to Al Pacino's second directorial effort Chinese Coffee which stars Pacino, Jerry Orbach, Susan Floyd and Ellen McElduff. The company also had worldwide rights to Pacino's Looking For Richard - a semi-documentary study of Shakespeare's Richard III - which grossed $1.4m in 1996/7.The ...
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News
Intandem takes on sales to Julie Delpy's thriller The Countess
London-based Intandem Films has taken worldwide sales rights to Julie Delpy's Gothic thriller The Countess. The film is inspired by the life of the 17th-century Hungarian countess Elizabeth Bathory, whose reckless pursuit of eternal beauty transformed her into a murderous heretic. Delpy, Oscar-nominated for her screenplay for Before Sunset, not ...
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News
Wild Bunch strikes exclusive Benelux partnership with A-Film
France's Wild Bunch and Benelux's A-Film have announced a distribution, acquisition and co-production partnership for Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. A-Film will now be the exclusive theatrical, video and television distributor in the Benelux region for new films acquired or co-produced by Wild Bunch.A-Film will also be responsible for handling ...
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News
Jeonju's top award goes to Ying Liang's The Other Half
The eighth Jeonju International Film Festival (JIFF) wrapped its nine-day run today with the top Woosuk Award going to The Other Half, directed by Ying Liang. Local distributor Sponge also picked up Koji Hagiuda's Genius from Bitters End at the fest's industry screenings. The Indie Vision jury on awarding The ...
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News
Alec Guinness dies aged 86
Academy award winning UK actor Sir Alec Guinness has died after a 60-year career ranging from Shakespeare to Star Wars.The 86 year old actor died late on Saturday after reportedly being rushed to hospital by ambulance on Thursday. He had been suffering from ill health for several years.Guinness, who picked ...
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News
Dutch government vows to again support Rotterdam's Bals Fund
Reversing earlier decisions, the Dutch government has announced its continued support of the Hubert Bals Fund of the International Film Festival Rotterdam.The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs has initially rejected the fund's subsidy application for 2009-2012, but now Bert Koenders, the Minister of Development Cooperation, has asked the Fund to ...
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News
Penny Averill replaces Cussons as head of UK's WFTV
Penny Averill has been appointed the new chief executive of the UK 's Women in Film and TV (WFTV). Averill most recently worked as deputy director of the British Board of Film Classification and previously worked at UKTV. She succeeds Jane Cussons as chief executive and officially takes up her ...
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News
Chris Kraus's Four Minutes takes best film Lola
Chris Kraus's prison drama Four Minutes (Vier Minuten) was awarded the Golden Lola for Best Film at this year's German Film Awards at the weekend in Berlin.Produced by sisters Meike and Alexandra Kordes of the Berlin-based production outfit Kordes & Kordes Film, the film also picked up the Lola for ...
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News
DreamWorks wins bidding for Jackson's Lovely Bones
Peter Jackson's upcoming Alice Sebold adaptation The Lovely Bones has landed at DreamWorks, the studio announced late on Friday after it won the auction for Jackson's project in association with Film 4.Sony, Warner Bros and Universal had also pursued the New Zealander, whose ongoing legal spat with New Line meant ...
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News
Domestic opening record established by Spider-man 3
The spandex one-piece and wise-cracking come-backs weren't the only familiar things about Spider-Man 3, as Sony's favourite super-hero swung back into action with a sensational estimated $148m three-day domestic opening that returned the franchise to its record-breaking ways established by the first episode in 2002.Spider-Man 3 spun a staggering $375m ...
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Reviews
The Grand
Dir: Zak Penn. US. 2006. 95minsIf you hesitated to believe that gambling casinos were a magnet for misfits, The Grand, an improvised ensemble comedy set at a high-stakes poker tournament in Las Vegas, will confirm that impression. Zak Penn's new film is a high-stakes vaudeville Love Boat with more stars ...
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Reviews
My Father, My Lord (Hofshat Kaits)
Dir. David Volach. Is. 2006. 72mins. Even the top drama award at Tribeca can't make My Father, My Lord, David Volach's debut feature, into a crowd pleaser - but then again, it was never meant to. An intimate chamber piece, requiring its audience to interpret the apparently banal images into ...
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Reviews
The Air I Breathe
Dir: Jieho Lee. US. 2007. 97mins.In his debut feature, The Air I Breathe, Jieho Lee turns a Chinese proverb into a story that explores the interlocking fates of four characters, all of whom all are trapped in the grip, literally, of a violent gangster boss called Fingers. The gangster drama ...
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Reviews
Watching The Detectives
Dir: Paul Soter. US. 2007. 91mins. Watching The Detectives, Paul Soter's feature debut, is intended to be a cinephile's movie, a geek cinephile's movie, where the hapless proprietor of video store and slacker haven is seduced by a femme fatale who walks in off the street. The tale than unfolds ...
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News
Peru's Pantaleon triumphs at Gramado
Peruvian film Captain Pantoja And The Special Service (Pantaleon Y Las Visitadoras), directed by Francisco Lombardi, was the clear winner at the 28th Film Festival of Gramado in Brazil, picking up awards for best film, director, actor and screenplay.The film was also awarded best editor and won the critics' award ...
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News
Spider-Man shatters records with $375m global opening
Spider-man 3 ignited the global summer blockbuster season with the most auspicious of starts, triggering a gargantuan $375m worldwide gross from 107 countries and a $227m international tally on 16,700 screens in the first six days.The results far exceed the boldest predictions of analysts and pave the way for the ...