Small MPU – Page 607
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News
Ellis to oversee Film London fund
FilmLondon, the regional film agency for London, has beefed up its productionfunding activities by appointing Maggie Ellis as its first head of production.Ellis,previously Film London's production executive, will run the body's micro-budgetdigital feature fund. She will also oversee the agency's digital shorts schemeand work with film funds run by local ...
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Eastern promise for Egyptian Top Gun
Independent producer YoussefEl-Deeb is on a mission to break Egyptian cinema out internationally.El-Deeb's Takhayalproduction company is here with an as-yet unnamed film based around Egypt's1967 disastrous war with Israel, a project he says will have "Top Gun" elements and is intended to appeal to the youngermarket.Anotheris a biopic of the ...
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Petit embarks on Unrequited Love shoot
Shooting hasbegun on Unrequited Love, the latest feature from cult British filmmaker Chris Petit (LondonOrbital, Asylum). Adapted from abook by Greg Dart, the film is an essay-drama exploring the links betweenunrequited love and stalking.The film is aco-production set up by Illuminations with Mediopolis in Berlin, LondonFilm,.MDM, ZDF/ARTE, YLE and the ...
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Kuhn to chair Independent Cinema Office
Qwerty Filmsboss Michael Kuhn has become Chair of the Board of Trustees of the IndependentCinema Office (ICO), it was announced in Cannes yesterday. The ICO's othertrustees are Julia Short, M-D of Verve Pictures, and Ben Cook, Director of Lux.Set up in July2003, the ICO is funded by the UK Film ...
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International directors plan Mozart film festival
An international array ofacclaimed directors including Bahman Ghobadi, Tsai Ming Liang and ApichatpongWeerasethakul will make films for an innovative festival celebrating Mozart's250th anniversary.Unveiling plans for thefilms in Cannes yesterday, festival organisers said they will be inspired bythemes from the composer's later works, including The Magic Flute and theRequiem. Named after ...
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Hopscotch jumps on Scott's Dancer
Australiandistributor Hopscotch has invested development money into the screen adaptationof author Li Cunxin's autobiographical book Mao's Last Dancer, and will be taking its first everexecutive producer credit on the film.Cunxin wasplucked from a peasant childhood for training at Madam Mao's Beijing DanceAcademy. He made a dramatic defection to the US, ...
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Barenholtz, Mitra tout three new features
Real estate developers andentrepreneurs Joseph Scarpinito and Shiraz Sanjana arrive in Cannes with threeprojects on the books for Mitra Films, the new production company they launchedrecently with longtime producer-distributor Ben Barenholtz.Brooklyn-based Mitra is seeking co-production partners and plans toproduced three titles a year.Featuring on the initial slate are the 1950s ...
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J&M walks down Cloudstreet
The UK's J&M Entertainment has boarded four titles including Cloudstreet, an adaptation of the Australian best-seller for which Geoffrey Rush, Judy Davis, Anna Paquin and Heath Ledger are in talks to star.Peter Duncan (Children Of The Revolution) is to direct the picture from an Ellen Erwin adaptation of Tim Winton's ...
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Summit climbs the heights with Cannes slate
Summit Entertainment has reported brisk business on its Cannes slate,virtually selling out on Atom Egoyan's competition entry Where The TruthLies,Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's ensemble piece Babel, Tony Gilroy's dramaticthriller Michael Clayton, Nick Goossen's comedy Nana's Boy, and David Ayer's SouthCentral set drama Harsh Times.Where TheTruth Lies has sold toMomentum in the ...
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Swipe swoops for Paper Clips international rights
Frank Mannion's Swipe Filmshas picked up international sales on Paper Clips, the acclaimedfeature documentary that passed the $1m mark at the US box office last weekend.Thefilm, directed by Elliot Berlin and Joe Fab follows the story of students in arural Tennessee school who collect one paper clip for each person ...
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EU ministers call for action on legal download of films
Europeanministers this week called for more collaboration between the film business andinternet service providers to combat piracy and exploit the online market forcinema.Meetingat the Cannes Film Festival, the ministers from most of the EU member statesissued a statement saying that there is "an urgent need for a meaningfuldialogue" to ensure ...
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Reviews
Shanghai Dreams
Dir. Wang Xiaoshuai,China, 2005. 120mins.Once a rebel now workingin the mainstream, Wang Xiaoshuai draws on his own reminiscences as anadolescent for Cannes competition entry Shanghai Dreams.Wang's family was relocatedfrom Shanghai to the poor, mountainous province of Guiyang, all part of theChinese authorities' decision to install fortified industrial cities near theborder ...
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Reviews
To Paint Or Make Love (Peindre Ou Faire L'amour)
Dir/scr: Arnaud andJean-Marie Larrieu. Fr. 2005. 98mins.The second film byFrance's talented, and as yet little-known, team the Larrieu brothers promisedto be a wild card in the Cannes competition. Given their inventive, hugelyoddball debut feature A Real Man (2003), their follow-up could well haveturned out as much a mood-lightening charmer as ...
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Arclight, Cineclick team for Uekrongtham's Coffin
Arclight Films is teaming up with Korea's Cineclick Asia to co-produceEkachai Uekrongtham's upcoming supernatural thriller The Coffin.Based onUekrongtham's personal experiences in Thailand, the story centres on a youngman who faces a series of terrifying incidents after lying in a coffin for onenight, an old Thai custom that is meant to ...
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Merry Christmas to Sony Pictures Classics
Sony Pictures Classics (SPC) won a bidding war to takemulti-territory rights for Joyeux Noel (Merry Christmas) yesterday,the first US deal for a film in official selection to be announced here inCannes,SPC took rights in the US, UK, Italy and Latin Americafrom Films Distribution in a multi-million dollar deal, beating out ...
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Verhoeven's Black Book closes financing
VIP Mediafondshas boarded Black Book,Paul Verhoeven's long-gestating $20m wartime thriller, as majority financier,finally giving a start-date to the project in August on location in TheNetherlands and at Studio Babelsberg.The cast is ledby Dutch star Carice van Houten, Halina Reijn and Dutch actor Thom Hoffman. Thelead German parts are played by ...
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Indian billionaire Spices up Kapur's Buddha epic
Indian billionaire Dr Bhupendra Kumar Modi has set up an internationalfilm production outfit in Los Angeles called Spice through which he willproduce his epic feature film Buddha to be directed by ShekarKapur.He has hired Patrick De Bokay as the film's executive producer andPascal Borno as its international sales agent.The film, ...
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Kline, Hanks line up for the Great Buck
Kevin Kline is in finaltalks to star with Colin Hanks in The Great Buck Howard, which is being produced by Playtone partners TomHanks and Gary Goetzman and Sidney Kimmel through his Sidney KimmelEntertainment (SKE).Kimmel International's newpresident Mark Lindsay will handle sales on the project, which is set to gointo pre-production ...
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Caton-Jones, De Niro reteam for Franchise
Robert De Niro and director Michael Caton-Jones are reteaming for true life crime epic City By The Sea - one of two new big budget pictures on offer from powerhouse indie supplier Franchise Pictures. Franchise is also backing the next picture written and to be directed by David Mamet - ...
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Chan film to focus on landmines in Cambodia
Jackie Chan plans to head toCambodia next year to direct and star in a film that will draw attention to theproblem of landmines in the former war-torn country."It's about a serious subject so it can't be a comedybut it won't be too heavy or violent," said the star who is ...