Small MPU – Page 464

  • News

    The Incredibles nears $200m for BVI

    2004-12-21T00:00:00Z

    TheIncredibles added an estimated $26.7m forBuena Vista International (BVI) at the weekend, raising the picture'sinternational cumulative total to $189.5m.Highlightswere first place debuts in Mexico and South Korea, where the picture took $3.5mon 680 screens and $1.8m on 221 respectively.Strongholds saw Japan add $3.2m in its third weekend for $20.1m, while ...

  • News

    Kino picks up The Rider Named Death, The Ninth Day

    2004-12-21T00:00:00Z

    KinoInternational has picked up US rights to Karen Shakhnazarov's The RiderNamed Death and Academy Awardwinning director Volker Schlondorff's The Ninth Day.TheRider Named Death premiered at theMontreal Film Festival and is set to open in New York City in April 2005.AndreyPanin stars as the Russian terrorist Boris Savinkov, who was an ...

  • News

    Kidman, Shore to receive Palm Springs honours

    2004-12-21T00:00:00Z

    Nicole Kidman will receivethe Chairman's Award and Oscar composer Howard Shore will be honoured with the FrederickLoewe Award for Film Composing at the 16th annual Palm SpringsInternational Film Festival (PSIFF).Alejandro Amenabar, who directed Kidman in The Others, will present thehonour at the awards gala on Jan 8. Shore will receive ...

  • Reviews

    The Queen Of Sheba's Pearls

    2004-12-21T00:00:00Z

    Dir/scr: ColinNutley. Swe-UK. 2004. 130mins.Lush decor,swooping cinematography and stirring music. Director Colin Nutley makes hiscanvas clear from the opening frames of The Queen Of Sheba's Pearls, apassionate 1950s-set drama about growing up, love, loss and lingering memories.The film, Nutley's first for ages set in his nativeEngland, rather than his adopted ...

  • News

    SWEDEN 21 December

    2004-12-21T00:00:00Z

    A slew of new releases hit the Swedish chart thisweekend, where Ocean's Twelve's all-star lineup unsurprisingly stole offwith the top spot.Its impressive $9,475 screen average on high 95 printsdwarfed all competition, but local newcomer Maria Blum did reasonably on secondwith a $3,324 average from 89 prints with her feature debut ...

  • News

    Wargnier's Man To Man to open Berlinale

    2004-12-21T00:00:00Z

    The world premiere of French director RegisWargnier's anthropological epic Man To Man will be the opening film ofthe Berlin International Film Festival(Feb 10-20).Starring Joseph Fiennes, Kristin Scott Thomas,Iain Glen, Hugh Bonneville and Flora Montgomery, the film is set in SouthAfrica in the 1870s and follows the search for the so-called ...

  • News

    Hay appointed Scottish Screen chief executive

    2004-12-21T00:00:00Z

    ScottishScreen has confirmed the appointment of Edinburgh-born Ken Hay as their newChief Executive.Hay replaces Steve McIntyre who chose not to renew hiscontract when it ended in August.Thelengthy search for a successor had thrown a number of respected Scottish namesinto the ring, notably Edinburgh International Film Festival managing directorGinnie Atkinson.The 40year-old ...

  • News

    Beatwax founder launches kids brand campaign

    2004-12-22T04:00:00Z

    Beatwax and Firstmovies founder Chris Ward has launched anew venture called iKnow, a not for profit business aimed at making youngchildren more aware of how brands are created and work.iKnow says it is not an anti-brand initiative, but thatit wants to help counter the potential negative effects of brand marketing ...

  • News

    Canal Plus, France Telecom sell cable TV operations

    2004-12-22T04:00:00Z

    Canal Plus and France Telecom have agreed tosell their French cable TV operations to UK private equity firm Cinven andaggressive cable group Altice.The deal, which will be completed in the firsthalf of 2005, sees 60% of the cable company sold for a total of Euros528m. Itis subject to various EU ...

  • News

    Tully, Bounce win top awards at LA Indie Festival

    2000-04-19T02:07:00Z

    What Happened To Tully, a Nebsraska-set family drama directed by Hilary Birmingham, walked away with the Critics Prize and Bounce: Behind The Velvet Rope won the Audience Award at this year's Los Angeles Independent Film Festival (LAIFF) which finished yesterday.Some key domestic buyers were circling some of the films in ...

  • News

    New Line pair win German funding

    2004-12-22T04:00:00Z

    Two New Line Cinema films - Craig Gillespie'scomedy-drama Mr. Woodcock and Liam Lynch's Tenacious D in The Pick OfDestiny - have won backing from a film fund run by Germany's ALCAS/KGAL.According to ALCAS/KGAL, the fund's investorsdecided at their assembly in Munich last week to invest in the LandscapePictures production of ...

  • News

    HanWay takes on Kidulthood sales

    2004-12-22T04:00:00Z

    UK-based sales agency HanWayFilms has acquired international distribution rights to Kidulthood, aLondon teenage gang story that marks the debut of a promisingwriter-director-producer trio.The film, which combines alove story, rites of passage and a tale of retribution, wrapped this week underthe direction of Menhaj Huda, a former commercials and TV director.Produced ...

  • News

    Oceans Twelve marches to top of int'l chart

    2004-12-21T00:00:00Z

    Ocean'sTwelve opened inanother 22 territories in its second week on international release, helping itsteal pole position from The Incredibles.StevenSoderbergh's film is now playing in 27 territories and claimed number ones inmost new territories for a $28.9m weekend. The original film grossed $267.3mfrom international markets, 59% of the worldwide total.Anexception to ...

  • News

    Piracy problems to worsen in 2005

    2004-12-22T04:00:00Z

    Audiovisual piracy problemsare set to get worse in 2005, according to a new report by lobby body, theEuropean Association for the Protection of Encrypted Works and Services(AEPOC).The association says thattwo factors will contribute to the growing scale of the piracy problem. Itsays: "the growing ubiquity of audio-visual services creates new ...

  • News

    Ontario boosts production tax credits

    2004-12-22T00:00:00Z

    Ontario-based producers andservice providers received an early Christmas gift as the province increasedthe labour-based production tax credits for foreign and domestic productions.Effective Jan 1 2005, the Ontario Production Services Tax Credit for foreignproductions will increase from 11% to 18% and the Ontario Film and TelevisionTax Credit for domestic productions will ...

  • News

    Polar Express passes $20m on IMAX 3D worldwide

    2004-12-22T00:00:00Z

    The Polar Express has grossed $22.3m on global IMAX 3D screens and is on the cusp of passing $20m at the North American box office, accounting for more than one-fifth of the WarnerBros picture's $123.4m domestic running total.The picture has amassed roughly $19.9m in North America since opening on Nov ...

  • News

    China unveils tougher penalties for pirates

    2004-12-22T00:00:00Z

    China has strengthened its anti-piracy laws to make iteasier to prosecute copyright violations and to allow tougher sentences to behanded out to offenders.Thenew rules cover many kinds of copyright and patent violations but are specificabout film and other software. Starting from Dec 22, anyone found copying anddistributing more than 5,000 ...

  • News

    Germany's X-Verleih earns exhibitor wrath

    2004-12-23T04:00:00Z

    Germany's exhibitorassociations HDF and AG Kino have criticised distributor X Verleih for planningto release Dani Levy's comedy Alles Auf Zucker! on free-TV station WDRjust three months after its Jan 6 theatrical premiere.AG Kino said it feared that 'a precedent' wasbeing set to undermine release window dates. Earlier in the year, ...

  • News

    Popular UK shorts get second outing at London's Curzon Soho

    2004-12-22T00:00:00Z

    Ashowcase of popular UK shorts will get a second outing next month at Londonspecialist cinema Curzon Soho after a sell-out screening.Theten-title collection of naturalistic dramas, mathematicalpuzzles and a samurai film includes shorts by former WorkingTitle executive Amanda Boyle, British Independent Film Awards nominee SimonHookandBafta-nominated Carol Morley. The filmswill be screened ...

  • News

    Turkey in good spirits heading into Christmas

    2004-12-23T04:00:00Z

    Agreat year for local product in Turkey in 2004 was capped by comedy smash G.O.R.A.which now ranks as the highest grossing film of the last 20 years in theterritory having grossed $17.4m (TKL 24.5bn).Fiveof the year's top six releases were local productions with only Troy, inthird place, preventing a clean ...