Small MPU – Page 482
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Reviews
Hide And Seek
Dir: John Polson. US.2004. 105mins.A good cast and somespooky build-up fall victim to cliched plotting and an unlikely surprise endingin suspense thriller Hide And Seek, the second US film from Australiandirector (and actor) John Polson. The cast, headed by Robert De Niro and rising10-year-old star Dakota Fanning, might get the ...
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News
Tout Un Hiver Sans Feu wins top Swiss Film Prize
Greg Zglinski's Tout UnHiver Sans Feu picked up the $51,000 (CHF 60,000) Swiss Film Prize 2005 forBest Feature Film at this week's Solothurn Film Days.Meanwhile, the prizes forBest Documentary went to Stefan Schwietert's Accordion Tribe - which hadits world premiere at Graz's Diagonale last year - while Best Short Film ...
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News
Heidi producers option Roman Mysteries
The British productioncompany behind Heidi, the family film remake which Warner Bros isreleasing in July, has optioned The Roman Mysteries, an 18-book seriesset in first century Rome.Martyn Auty and Ian Gordon,partners in Suitable Viewing, have optioned the books with Dashiell Productionsto adapt into a family film. Written by Caroline Lawrence, ...
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News
Economic boom sees surge in Russian cinema building
The number of modern cinema screens in Russia is expectedto nearly triple to 1,900 by 2009, according to research published this week.DodonaResearch's report CinemagoingRussia says that the growth in newshopping complexes is providing locations for entertainment facilities andunderpinning a rapid expansion in the cinema sector.Several operators have successfully raised investmentfinance ...
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News
Giffoni chief named general director of Italy's AIP
Giffoni Film Festival chief Claudio Gubitosi has been namedgeneral director of AIP, the Italian film organisation which overseespromotional body Filmitalia as well as the Mifed film market.Envisaged as an outfit similar in scope to Frenchpromotional body Unifrance, AIP was created in 2003 by Cinecitta Holding andFiera di Milano.As well as ...
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News
Allen's Melinda to open first Glasgow festival
Woody Allen's MelindaAnd Melinda will open the first Glasgow World Film Festival on February 9. The event, sponsored byGlasgow City Council and Visit Scotland, will screen seventy films over thefollowing eight days closing with Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic onFebruary 17. Highlights include recentAmerican box-office success Coach Carter with Samuel ...
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News
ICM agency recruits Jones for below the line team
Vanessa Jones is to join UK agency ICM on Feb 1 after atwo-year break travelling the world.The former PFD agent joins the below the line team of SueGreenleaves, Chris Smith, Kate Ledger and Rachael Taylor at the agency."Vanessabrings to ICM a wealth of experience and a great personality, and willcompliment ...
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News
Zglinski's Hiver wins Swiss Film Prize
Greg Zglinski's Tout Un Hiver Sans Feupicked up the Swiss Film Prize in the best film category at this week'sSolothurn Film Days.The prize for best documentary went to StefanSchwietert's Accordion Tribe - which had its world premiere at Graz'sDiagonale last year.Manuel Flurin Hendry's Straehl won threeprizes for best lead role ...
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News
Mighty Celt to open Dublin festival
The worldpremiere of Pearse Elliott's The Mighty Celt will open the DublinInternational Film Festival on February 11, it was announced at the programmelaunch this week (Jan 26). Elliottpreviously wrote Man About Dog, also produced by Treasure Entertainment,which was the highest earning local film at the Irish box office last year.The ...
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News
Top Korean distributor drops assassination drama
A South Korean political drama that is dividing audienceson the same scale as Fahrenheit 9/11 has been dropped just ahead of itsFebruary 3 release by distributor CJ Entertainment.The President's Last Bang by Im Sang-soo --director of Venice entry A Good Lawyer's Wife (2003) - is a creativeretelling of the hours ...
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News
Wild Bunch unveils European Film Market slate
French sales and distributionoutfit Wild Bunch has lined up several new titles ahead of next month'sEuropean Film Market in Berlin.The company has taken worldrights, outside France, to competition title The Wayward Cloud bydirector Tsai Ming-Liang. Wild Bunch chief Vincent Maraval told ScreenDaily.comthat the Taiwanese-Chinese-French co-production, which juxtaposes colourfulmusical scenes with ...
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News
Sundance: Par Classics goes Ballroom dancing
Paramount Classics andNickelodeon have teamed up to buy worldwide rights excluding Australia and New Zealand toSlamdance opening night picture Mad Hot Ballroom, on a day that produced a raft of major deals atSundance (27).In three North American acquisitions Samuel Goldwyn Films and RoadsideAttractions picked up Pretty Persuasion, THINKFilm took The ...
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News
Kinowelt, BAC talk distribution partnership
Germany's Kinowelt Medien is in talks with French distributor BAC Films about joining Kinowelt's proposed international distribution network.Kinowelt, which could feed its partners with films from its recently struck deal with US producer Gale Anne Hurd, is also in talks with potential partners in Italy and Spain, where Lolafilms is ...
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News
Jobson wraps A Woman In Winter
Richard Jobson is finishing theHD feature A Woman In Winter, which shot in Edinburgh and stars Jason Flemyng, Brian Cox, French actress JulieGayet and newcomer Jamie Sives.The story involves a destructive love affair between an astronomer and a mysteriousFrench photographer.Regular Jobson collaborator Chris Atkinsand Hamish McAlpine serve as producers on ...
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Int'l box office preview: Ray prepares for wide release
Universal's Ray stands to benefit from its six Academy Awardsnominations earlier this week with a full-on assault through UIP in a raft ofmajor markets this weekend.The picture opened on an Australian national holiday on Jan 26 and Russia a daylater, and follows up with debuts in Spain on Jan 28 ...
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News
Belgrad, Tolmach named Columbia production presidents
DougBelgrad and Matt Tolmach have each been promoted to president of production atColumbia Pictures following three of the most successful years in the studio'shistory.Both senior executives have extended their contracts until 2008 and willcontinue to report to Sony Pictures Entertainment Motion Picture Group chairmanAmy Pascal.In the two years since Belgrad ...
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Reviews
Hustle & Flow
Dir/scr. Craig Brewer.US. 2004. 114mins.Hustle & Flow sets a new standard for films about rap music, ifonly because it's a strong-piece of story-driven filmmaking in its own right.While 8 Mile was a star-vehicle for rapper Eminem, the new film exploresnot just the making of the music - by any means ...
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News
Wertmuller lines up Loren for tsunami feature
Veteran Italian film director Lina Wertmuller is lining up afilm about the South-East Asia tsunami, which is set to star Sophia Loren.In an interview with Italian daily Il Corriere della Sera, Wertmuller said she plans to shoot the film in thebeach resorts that have been destroyed by the tsunami. The ...
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News
Indie Circle takes up Smoking
IndieCircle, the pan-European distribution consortium, has pre-boughtmulti-territory rights to Thank You For Smoking, a black comedysatirising the tobacco industry. Thefilm is sold internationally by US-UK combine ContentFilm International and isa co-production between ContentFilm and Room 9 Entertainment. Directed by JasonReitman, it went into production earlier this week.TheIndie Circle deal means ...
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News
Foreign films struggle at Oz box office
The numberof foreign films released in Australia in 2004 from countries other than the USand the UK nearly doubled compared to 2003.However,the 80 films in question from across the world earned $28.4m (A$36.8m) -down from the $32.6m earned by just 43 foreign films in 2003. Thisequated to average earnings of ...