Small MPU – Page 436
-
News
Sundance Channel closes 13-picture deal with Palm
The Sundance Channel has acquired US television rights to 13 filmsfrom Palm Pictures, including Claude Chabrol's drama The Flower Of Evil, Dagur Kar's acclaimed Icelandicdrama Noi The Albino and Mark Moorman's music documentary Tom Dowd And The Languageof Music.Thegroup of films includes Palm's entire 2003 slate as well as several ...
-
News
Franchise takes international rights to Hollywood North
Elie Samaha's LA-based Franchise Pictures has acquiredinternational rights in all media to Hollywood North, Peter O'Brian's comedy that recentlypremiered at Toronto.The film centres on the trials and tribulations of making a filmin Canada and stars Alan Bates, Matthew Modine, Deborah Kara Unger, JenniferTilly, John Neville, Fabrizio Filippo and Joe Cobden.John ...
-
News
Emerging, Digiscreen screen Jackson Hole finalists around US
The Wyoming-based Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival is teamingup with New York based Emerging Pictures and Montreal's Digiscreen to show aselection of films nominated as finalists in this year's festival competition,which runs from Sept 22-27.The programmes, which are free, will be screened in participatingdigital venues in California, North Carolina, Nebraska ...
-
News
US/Czech Republic short Most takes top prize at Palm Springs
Bobby Garabedian's US/Czech Republic drama Most, a poignant tale of a railbridge tenderand his son, won the best of festival award as the 2003 Palm Springs InternationalFestival of Short Films closed on Sept 22.Andrij Parekh's Ukraine/US sibling drama Dead Roosters won the Future Film-maker Award, whileMimi Gan's Pearl Harbour story ...
-
News
MTV strikes first European film production alliance
MTV Films Europe, looking to produce a slate of low-budgetyouth-orientated films in a variety of local languages, has turned to Spain forits first alliance.An agreement with Spanish consultancy Intuition Media'snew production arm Intuition Films is designed to funnel projects and potentialco-productions in Spain and Portugal to the iconic music network.Speaking ...
-
News
GERMANY
Although its week-on-week admission figures dropped by 42%, BVI's Pirates Of The Caribbean held on to the pole position at the German box office for the third week and has already become the third most successful release so far this year. The swashbuckler starring Johnny Depp, and Orlando Bloom had ...
-
News
Dirty Pretty Things leads BIFA nominations
Stephen Frears' Dirty Pretty Things has emerged as the frontrunner for this year's British Independent Film Awards (BIFAs), earning seven nominations. Sixteen Years of Alcohol and Buffalo Soldiers received five nominations followed by Wilbur Wants To Kill Himself, Young Adam, In This World and Bright Young Things, each of which ...
-
News
BSkyB chief Ball announces decision to step down
Tony Ball has officially confirmed that he is to step down from his job as chief executive of British Sky Broadcasting.Rumours of his departure have been circulating for the past week in the UK press, with James Murdoch - son of Rupert Murdoch - being tipped to replace him.Ball will ...
-
News
Basque politics loom large over San Sebastian opening
Charlize Theron, MarkWahlberg, Isabelle Huppert and Harvey Keitel provided the star wattage for theopening weekend of the Donostia-San Sebastian International Film Festival butit was a controversial Basque documentary and a strike by workers at thefestival's traditional social hub, the Hotel Maria Cristina, that dominatedconversations here. By Sunday evening, JulioMedem's La ...
-
News
MTV strikes first European film production alliance
MTV Films Europe, looking to produce a slate of low-budgetyouth-orientated films in a variety of local languages, has turned to Spain forits first alliance.An agreement with Spanish consultancy Intuition Media'snew production arm Intuition Films is designed to funnel projects and potentialco-productions in Spain and Portugal to the iconic music network.Speaking ...
-
News
Spanish veterans launch co-production consultancy
Aiming to fill a niche for Spanish and other producers increasingly hard-pressed to finance feature films in their own markets, two veteran players have formed Madrid-based co-production negotiation outfit Cinearch.Co-founders Maria Jose Poblador and Carlos Batres officially presented the company, which has been operating for several months, on Sept 22 ...
-
News
Spanish film industry in flux
Key changes to the Spanishfilm industry were announced this weekend at the Donostia-San SebastianInternational Film Festival (Sept 18-28).Production, facilities andrights management giant MediaPro unveiled its acquisition of post-productioncompany Molinare and a majority stake in another, Mozart. The new acquisitions givethe company a strong new foothold in the film, TV and ...
-
News
Softbank invests in Content Capital
Japanese venture capitalist Softbank has taken a strategic stake in Australia's Content Capital, one of two government-sanctioned Film Licence Investment Companies (FLICs) aimed at coaxing private investment into Australian production. The investment is Softbank's first venture capital investment in Australia. Legislation restricts foreign companies from owning more than 33% of ...
-
Reviews
La Pelota Vasca
Dir. Julio Medem. Spain. 2003. 115 mins.Put this down as another well intentioned, dedicated but not terribly effective attempt to open up a dialogue within the Basque discord, one of the more stubborn ongoing conflicts smouldering in the world today. With the name of Julio Medem (Sex And Lucia, winner ...
-
News
Studio Babelsberg looks to local industry
Studio Babelsberg Motion Pictures (SBMP) has boarded Torsten Wacker's Superseks, the second German feature the studio has backed this year on top of its high profile international productions.Starring Denis Moschitto, Marie Zielcke, Hilmi Soezer, and Martin Glade, the comedy centres on the 23-year-old Elviz who launches the first sex hotline ...
-
News
Berlin moves to educate film journalists
A scheme to introduce to young critics and film journalists to the workings of the international film industry has been unveiled by the Berlin International Film Festival.Called The Talent Press, it will see 10 young film critics and film journalists from five different continents invited to Berlin to report on ...
-
News
UK Film Council offers funds to short film-makers
The UK Film Council's New Cinema Fund is inviting filmmakers and production companies with unfinished short films to apply to the £50,000 Completion Fund. The Fund, now in its second year, was developed to provide vital funds for the completion of short film projects.The Completion Fund is part of the ...
-
News
Clavier to produce debut French comedy
Marie-Anne Chazel will begin shooting Au Secours, J'ai 30 Ans (Help, I'm 30) on October 6, a comedy produced by French comic actor Christian Clavier.The film is based on the best selling novel The Last Chance Club by Mariane Keyes.Chazel, an actress best known to French audiences for her participation ...
-
News
Regulators probe Intertainment insider trading allegations
The beleaguered German license trader/producer Intertainment has come under suspicion of insider trading, according to German business newspaper Handelsblatt.The newspaper quoted a spokeswoman of the stock exchange watchdog BAFin as saying that it would "look at the case as a matter of routine." The allegations stem from a delay by ...
-
Reviews
Grimm
Dir. Alex van Warmerdam. The Netherlands, 2003. 104mins.Looking both grim and Grimm (as in the Brothers), this modern nightmarish fairytale has nevertheless enough weird humour in it to legitimately qualify as a comedy, though there is nothing funny going on throughout. The way Dutch director Warmerdam applies his wicked touch ...