Small MPU – Page 444
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News
Kidman, Norton lift UGC's $32m Veil
Gillian Armstrong's long-gestating adaptation of Somerset Maugham's The Painted Veil has re-surfaced as a $32m project on the sales slate of France's UGC International, with actors Nicole Kidman and Edward Norton the targeted leads.Maugham's turn-of-the-century tale is set in China and follows an adulterous doctor's wife who redeems herself during ...
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Kuhn's Qwerty Film recruits former FilmFour executive
Former FilmFour executive Andrew Hildebrand is to join Michael Kuhn's Qwerty Films as head of commercial and business affairs.Hildebrand joined FilmFour as director of business affairs at its inception, where he handled negotiations and contracts across all of FilmFour's co-financing, sales and distribution activities.Hidlebrand replaces Kathryn Craig, who is leaving ...
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News
Spare Parts, Window dominate Slovenian fest
Leading Slovenian producer Danijel Hocevar's Emotionfilm has walked away with 13 awards for two of its productions - Spare Parts (Rezervni Deli) and Beneath Her Window (Pod Njenim Oknom )- at this year's Festival of Slovenian Films in CeljeDamjan Kozole's Spare Parts, which has been submitted as Slovenia's entry for ...
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UIP targets booming Russian market
UIP is considering opening its own distribution office in Russia, a country expected to become one of highest grossing cinema markets in Europe within five years.UIP currently distributes its films in Russia through East West, a local distributor which it has worked with for the past 13 years.A UIP source ...
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News
Weinstein pays tribute to Alexander Walker
A memorial service for Evening Standard film critic Alexander Walker was held last night at St Brides Church, Fleet Street in London. To mark the occasion, Miramax co-chairman Harvey Weinstein sent the following tribute for Walker, who died suddenly in July aged 73:"At the start of Alex's magnificent overview of ...
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News
NETHERLANDS
Independent distributor Upstream saw a strong turn out for Aki Kaurismaki's The Man Without A Past when it opened on a mere 13 screens.The second part of the director's acclaimed 'Finland' trilogy, about a man with amnesia following an assault, trying to put his life back in order while living ...
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NORTH AMERICA
In the North American limited release arena there was another strong weekend for Focus Feature's slow burner Lost In Translation, which stayed in 10th place adding $3.7m for a $8.6m running total. It expanded by 305 to 488 sites and should be in 700-800 venues next weekend. Newmarket's acclaimed ...
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News
New York indies send written objections to MPAA over screeners
Under the nominal leadership of IFP/New York executive directorMichelle Byrd, more than 30 prominent members of the independent community havesigned a joint statement condemning this week's ban on awards season previewtapes by the MPAA.Robert Altman, John Waters, Killer Films' Christine Vachon and PamKoffler, GreeneStreet's John Penotti and Fisher Stevens, This ...
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News
Blanchett retuns to Oz for Little Fish
Academy-Award nominee Cate Blanchett is set to return Australia early next year to work on one of the features in a new slate of films approved by the Film Finance Corporation Australia (FFC). Blanchett will play the lead in Little Fish, a drama set in 'Little Saigon' in Sydney's western ...
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HUNGARY
The third episode of the American Pie series took a strong, although not spectacular start at the Hungarian box office last weekend. With just over 62,000 admissions it is the year's fifth strongest opening and the 14th strongest of all time but fails to repeat the performance of the second ...
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News
Movie mogul plans revenge with comeback feature
Indian film producer Bharat Shah - one the biggest film financiers in the Mumbai film industry - has announced fresh plans to invest in Indian films. The move came on the day he was given a one year prison sentence for withholding information from police about the criminal underworld muscling ...
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News
ARGENTINA
Local title Valentin climbed to the fifth slot from its seventh position last week after being officially selected to represent Argentina at the Oscars race next year. The film has received 84,224 admissions after 18 days on release.Robert Rodriguez's Once Upon A Time In Mexico opened to dominate the weekend, ...
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SWITZERLAND
Record-breaking Swiss comedy Ready, Steady, Charlie! proved unstoppable in the German region of the country in its second week. The film actually rose 14% from its launch weekend, when it became the biggest local opener of all time, after adding six more screens to its run. Charlie has taken $2m ...
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Reviews
Evil (Ondskan)
Dir: Mikael Hafstrom. 2003. Swe. 113 minsEvil (Ondskan), the third feature of Swedish director Mikael Hafstrom, plays well enough on the big screen but, aside from likely appearances at a few of the bigger festivals like Toronto, where it showed in the Contemporary World Cinema section, it's not sufficiently accomplished ...
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News
Top Spanish post-production houses unveil merger
Two Barcelona-based heavyweights, En Efecto and MEDIApro, have announced the merger of their post-production interests.The formerly Das Werk-owned En Efecto, now controlled by one-time Admira president and Antena 3 CEO Juan Jose Nieto, houses audio and digital post-production companies Videoefecto, Madpix, Audioclip and Lisbon-based Bikini Pos Producao de Filmes.Production, facilities ...
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News
Krueger takes over as Berlinale marketing chief
PR specialist Heike Krueger has been appointed successor to Dr. Silke Zimmermann as head of marketing & communications at the Berlinale.Krueger, who took up her post on October 1, had run her own agency PR & Film for the past twelve years handling arthouse film and TV projects for German ...
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News
Chinese film wins Vancouver festival prize
Chinese filmmaker Diao Yinan has won the Vancouver International Film Festival's Dragons & Tigers Award for Young Cinema for his film Uniform, a story of contemporary China's lost generation of young people who search for an identity amidst a society beset by industrial decay and urban despair. According to a ...
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Dutch industry wins tax extension
The Dutch CV tax incentive scheme has been extended for one year following intensive lobbying from the local film industry.Following a special hearing into the issue, a majority in the Dutch parliament is willing to support the tax break for at least a year. Initiated by D66, one of the ...
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News
Relaunched Kinowelt unveils first foray into production
For the first time since its relaunch at the beginning of this year, Kinowelt has announced that it will be making its first foray into production by co-producing an adaptation of Wladimir Kaminer's bestselling cult novel Russendisko next year (ScreenDaily.com, April 2003).The film, which will be produced by Christoph Meyer-Wiel ...
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News
...as Affairs prequel storms Hong Kong box office
Infernal Affairs II, the prequel to Andrew Lau and Alan Mak's hit crime thriller Infernal Affairs, shattered box office records on its opening night in Hong Kong grossing US$427,000 (HK$3.9m) and easily outpacing the opening figures for the original film. The Media Asia production received its world premiere at the ...