Small MPU – Page 546
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News
THINKFilm strikes US marketing partnership with MySpace.com for Beastie Boys doc
North American distributorTHINKFilm is partnering with the online lifestyle portal MySpace.com to promoteits upcoming Beastie Boys concert film Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That.The process began prior toSundance, when MySpace users were invited to make a music video for one of twoBeastie Boys songs - "Sabotage" and "Shake Your Rump". The ...
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News
Da Vinci Code to open Cannes
RonHoward's The Da Vinci Code has been selected to open the 59th Cannes Film Festivalthis May, where it will be presented out of competition. Organisersannounced the news on Saturday in Paris, where some of the film's crucialscenes were shot.StarringTom Hanks as a Harvard professor who gets embroiled in a murder ...
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Global growth cheers French cinema at Rendez-Vous
Audiences for French films around the world grew 49% year-on-year in 2005, led by March Of The Penguins in the US, according to figures revealed at the 8th annual French FilmRendez-Vous in Paris.Themarket, which closed yesterday, heard that French films had been seen by 73.6 million internationalcinema-goers, generating $448m(Euros 369m). ...
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Foreign shoots brought $243m to France in 2005
Foreignfilm production in France for 2005 brought in $243m (Euros 200m) last year, accordingto Film France. RonHoward's Cannes opener The Da Vinci Codeand Sofia Coppola's Marie-Antoinettewere among major contributors to the figures.FilmFrance also announced that France's Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur region (PACA) wasthe prime shooting location for foreign and local productions. In ...
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Narnia leads international box office for fifth weekend
The Chronicles Of Narnia extended its international supremacy to a fifth consecutiveweekend as it added an estimated $13.3m through Buena Vista International (BVI)to raise the running total to $342.6m.Boasting a worldwide total just shy of $614m, Narnia currently ranks as the 27th biggest filmof all time after it overtook The ...
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News
Screen Gems tops US with Underworld sequel
The Sony stable enjoyed an excellent weekend at the North Americanbox office as Screen Gems' supernatural sequel Underworld: Evolution romped to the top of the charts andColumbia's Fun With Dick And Jane crossed $100m in its fifth weekend.Underworld: Evolution opened number one far ahead of the competition on an estimated$27.6m, ...
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News
Bergstein, Tutor buy Capitol as core of ambitious group
The three owners ofLondon-based Capitol Films - Sharon Harel, Jane Barclay and Hannah Leader -have announced that their long-in-the-works sale of Capitol to LA-basedentrepreneurs David Bergstein and Ronald N Tutor has been completed. Bergstein and Tutor now haveambitious plans to form an international entertainment group which will becalled Capitol with ...
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News
Penguins director Jacquet announces Fox movie
Luc Jacquet has announced in Sundance what his next film will beafter his worldwide documentary smash March Of The Penguins - a narrative-documentaryhybrid with the working title The Fox And The Child.Filming on the Euros11m project is scheduled to run from March2006 to March 2007 in France, Italy and Romania ...
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News
Channel 4 International expands sales staff
Channel 4 International, the distribution arm of the UK's Channel 4, has made two new appointments. Sabine Broening has been hired as senior sales executive. She was previously senior sales executive for German-speaking territories at Carlton International. At the same time, Sarah Tonkiss has been promoted to programme sales executive. ...
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News
IFC takes North American rights to Hamer's Factotum
IFC Films has picked up all North American rights to Bent Hamer'sCharles Bukowski adaptation Factotum, which had originally been bought after its Cannes worldpremiere by Picturehouse but which was returned to the market last week.The picture, which screened at Sundance this weekend, has earnedMatt Dillon plaudits for his portrayal of ...
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News
Sony Classics swoops on Russian Oscar entry The Italian
Sony Pictures Classics (SPC) has picked up North American rightsfrom Lenfilm to Andrei Kravchuk's feature directorial debut and Russian 2006 submissionfor the foreign language Oscar The Italian.Set in 1942, The Italian charts a five-year-old orphan's efforts to avoid adoption byan Italian family as he tries in vain to locate his ...
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News
Sundance launches arthouse anniversary initiative
The Sundance Institute has launched The Sundance Institute ArtHouse, a partnership with national arthouse theatres that will screen filmsfrom the festival past and present as part of the year-long celebration of theInstitute's 25th anniversary.14 theatres in cities ranging from Orlando, Florida, to Nashville,Tennessee, and Bellingham, Washington, are among those that ...
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News
The Works gets on board Winterbottom's new film
London-based sales company The WorksInternational has acquired the international sales rights to Michael Winterbottom's TheRoad to Guantanamo, which will premiere incompetition at the Berlin Film Festival.The film is based on the true storyof four British men who travel from the UK to Pakistan to attend a wedding, just after 9/11. ...
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Reviews
Little Miss Sunshine
Dirs: Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris. US. 2006. 100mins.The first big hit of the 2006 SundanceFilm Festival, sold the night after its first screening last Friday to FoxSearchlight for over $10m, Little MissSunshine is a genuinely delightful comedy about a family of misfits on a roadtrip to a beauty pageant.Playing ...
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Reviews
Friends With Money
Dir/scr: Nicole Holofcener. US. 2006. 88mins.Nicole Holofcener's thirdfemale-skewed ensemble piece confirms her as a distinctive, urbane commentatoron the life of (affluent) women in America today. An incisive snapshot ofcontemporary values as grappled with by four Los Angeles women, Friends With Money is only her thirdfilm, but stints on episodic television ...
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News
Israeli-Palestinian consortium joins forces to promote docs
The Israelis and Palestinians are about to join forces in arare alliance, on a project entitled Greenhouse, whose purpose is to train andcoach promising documentary filmmakers in the Mediterranean region. Originally initiated by David Fisher at theNew Foundation for Cinema and Television (NFCT) in Tel Aviv, and Adam Zouabi, the ...
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News
Megabox finds new backer following Loews pullout
Major Korean multiplex chainMegabox has secured investment from the private equity arm of StandardChartered Bank which has acquired a 45% stake in the company for $73m. The deal follows anagreement reached last month for former Megabox shareholder, US exhibitor Loews Cineplex, to sell its 50% stake inthe company for $79m ...
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Pioneering film competition to encourage use of new technologies
Screen International is holding a pioneeringfilmmaking competition at its Cinema Next conference on February 3rd.Three filmmaking teams will take part in The Cinema Next Mini-Movie Competitionwhere they will use mobile phone cameras to produce short films which will be shot,edited and screened at this London-based conference. The teams will be ...
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Reviews
The Illusionist
Dir.Neil Burger. US. 2005. 110mins.Magic is the artof distraction. The Illusionistsucceeds because writer-director Neil Burger has his audience concentrate onEdward Norton's title character while Paul Giamatti'sfoil bustles around the picture providing the drama. The resulting periodromantic thriller is an attractive after-dinner treat which not only tastesdelicious but lingers on the ...
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News
Elliott becomes on-line chief at Alliance
Canada's Alliance Atlantis Communications has appointed Jeffrey Elliott to the new position of senior vice president, in which he will be responsible for developing the company's on-line and Internet strategies. Elliott joins Alliance Atlantis from Canadian cable channel operator Nestar Communications, where he was managing director of its Interactive division. ...