Small MPU – Page 408
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News
ScreenDaily.com to offer global box office service
Regular readers of both the weekly magazine Screen International and the daily news service ScreenDaily.com will notice important changes this week.The weekly magazine will sport a brand new look and speak with a fresh new voice that will truly help bridge the different worlds of the global cinema business.From Thursday ...
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Reviews
The Battle Of Shaker Heights
Dirs: Efram Potelle, Kyle Rankin. US. 2003. 78mins.Dogged - and, of course, publicised - throughout its production by documentary TV cameras, the second low-budget feature to result from Ben Affleck and Matt Damon's Project Greenlight script competition is a sweet if uneven coming-of-age drama-comedy whose major asset is a winning ...
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News
Buddy emerges as Haugesund audience favourite
Romantic comedy Buddy by newcomer Morten Tyldum has picked up the audience award at the Norwegian International Film Festival in Haugesund (Aug 17-24). The Norwegian film, which also was an audience prizewinner in Karlovy Vary, also received the 'feelgood' award (Gledessprederprisen) from Norwegian exhibitors. The exhibitor jury also gave a ...
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News
IEG to finance historical epic Smoke And Mirrors
Initial Entertainment Group (IEG), which last week bought international rights to high profile Harrison Ford-starrer Traffic, has unveiled another acquisition - the rights to historical adventure Smoke And Mirrors, one of the most famous never-produced scripts in Hollywood in recent years. IEG will fully finance the film and handle worldwide ...
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Arclight to sell Fat Pizza worldwide
Arclight has picked up all international sales rights except Australia, New Zealand, Greece and Singapore on Fat Pizza, the highest grossing local comedy in Australia this year.A politically incorrect comedy adaptation of a cult SBS television series, Fat Pizza took many observers by surprise when it opened in the second ...
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Reviews
Solid Air
Dir: May Miles Thomas. UK. 2003. 113minsA doleful examination of social injustice and family heartache, Solid Air is a remarkably polished and painfully personal second feature from BAFTA-winning Scots director May Miles Thomas. Dedicated to her father and others who have suffered from asbestos-related illnesses, the film's unrelenting intensity creates ...
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News
UK Production Listings - August 8 2003
Copyright: Screen InternationalUK - August 8Pre-ProductionALEXANDER(Intermedia) Co-prod: Pathe (Fr). Int'l sales: Summit Entertainment (US). US dist: Warner Bros. Prod: Iain Smith. Main cast: Colin Farrell, Anthony Hopkins. Shooting from Sept. Contact: Pinewood Studios, (44) 1753 651 700BRONTE (Random Harvest Pictures) Budget: $12m. Period drama. The moors above Yorkshire are harsh ...
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News
Cecchi Gori cranks up comeback feature
Popular Roman actor-director Carlo Verdone (It Can't Be All Our Fault) has announced that he is about to start shooting a new project for Cecchi Gori - marking the first concrete steps in the fallen giant's comeback.Entitled Love Is Eternal - For As Long As It Lasts (L'Amore E' Eterno ...
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News
Diamant to launch sales company with Lamping
X-Men 2 screenwriter Dan Harris' directorial debut Imaginary Heroes will be the first film to be handled by new international sales outfit Signature Pictures International (SPI) - a subsidiary of Moshe Diamant's production outfit Signature Entertainment Inc. Diamant and Jan Fantl's Cologne-based Quality International are the investment partners in SPI, ...
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News
German veterans launch Living Pictures fund
Veteran fund initiator Rudolf Wiesmeier and Gerhard Schmidt's Cologne-based production house Gemini Film have joined forces to launch a Euros 150m fund to back a portfolio of internationally marketable English-language feature films.According to Schmidt the fund, called Living Pictures, is in negotiations with Danny de Vito's Jersey Films and Jan ...
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News
Sky Italia unsettles local players
Pier Luigi Celli, the polemical former CEO of RAI, has warned that the arrival on the Italian market of Sky Italia is "certain" to cause more economic damage to the state broadcaster than to Silvio Berlusconi's Mediaset network.In an interview published by Italian news weekly L'Espresso, Celli said: "Between Rai ...
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News
Reloaded passes $450m international gross
The Matrix Reloaded has passed $450m at the international box office, aformidable sum that combines with the $280m domestic take to make it thebiggest worldwide release of 2003 so far.The second instalment in theWachowski Brothers' sci-fi trilogy is also the highest grossing R-ratedfilm in both domestic and international marketplaces ever ...
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News
Odeon, ABC merge to form UK's largest circuit
The Rank Group has confirmed the sale of Odeon Cinemas to private equity financier Cinven, which plans to combine the circuit with its own ABC Cinemas to create the UK's largest cinema chain.Cinven paid $450m (£280m) for Rank's 75 cinemas following several weeks of speculation. Odeon chief Richard Segal has ...
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News
Menemsha acquires Mika Kaurismaki music doc
Menemsha'sworld sales division has picked up Finnish director Mika Kaurismaki'smusic road movie The Sound Of Brasil (Moro No Brasil) for all North and South American territories.Menemsha'sEuropean sales representative Beatrix Wesle brought the film to the companyafter it premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in 2002."Kaurismakitakes the viewer on a 2,500 ...
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News
Spence leaves San Francisco, Blackaby steps up
Linda Blackabyhas been named director of programming for the San Francisco Film Society andthe San Francisco International Film Festival.Blackaby willtake over from Carl Spence, who has left to pursue other interests.In her new roleBlackaby will work with executive director Roxanne Messina Captor overseeingprogramming duties both for the film society and ...
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News
Fuse ignites Sarajevo
Bosnian filmmaker Pjer Zalica's Fuse (Gori Vatra) has continued its winning streak after Locarno's Silver Leopard by picking up six awards at the Sarajevo Film Festival this weekend.The International Jury led by veteran director-screenwriter Dusan Makaveyev awarded the Euros 15,000 Agnes B. Award for the Best Feature Film in the ...
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Edinburgh closes with Splendor
It may have been a tough year for securing titles and attracting talent but the 57th Edinburgh International Film Festival closed in style on Sunday with the British premiere of Sundance prize-winner American Splendor. Earlier in the day star Paul Giamatti and cartoonist Harvey Pekar, the subject of the film, ...
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Domestic box office slides, marking the end of summer
New Line's Freddy VsJason stayed atop the charts at theweekend as the top four remained intact, as sure a sign as any that the fadingsummer season has little left to offer.The horror film dropped 63%and added an estimated $13.5m for a $61.5m running total in its second week. Itwas the ...
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News
Limelight picks up rights to Gun, Professional
Limelight Films, theLA-based fledgling production, financing and distribution company headed up byCharlie Chaplin's granddaughter Keira Chaplin, has picked up worldwide rightsto Vladimir Alenikov's The Gunand Dusan Kovacevic's Serbian comedy-drama The Professional.Both films will screen atthe Montreal Film Festival in the World Competition programme.The Gun was directed and written by Limelight's ...
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News
Kramer named executive vp, business affairs & operations, at Warner Independent
Veteran entertainment lawyerand business affairs executive Andrew Kramer has been appointed executive vicepresident of business affairs and operations at the fledgling WarnerIndependent Pictures.Kramer will be responsiblefor handling all business and legal matters related to the specialty unit'sslate, as well as the company's internal operations and relationships withother Warner Bros Entertainment ...