Small MPU – Page 624
-
News
Hong Kong clears way for rental licence fees
Video rental shops may be requiredto pay licence fees for the first time in Hong Kong under government plans to extend copyright laws.The Hong Kong government proposedthe reforms, after a public consultation last December. The introduction of rental rightswould be highly significant for the film industry, meaning copyrightowners could demand ...
-
News
Mandate restructures, adds new staff after mbo
Joe Drake's Mandate Pictureshas restructured the company in the wake of the management buyout in Jan.Rob McEntegart (pictured) has beennamed executive vice president, business affairs, and will oversee rights andtalent deals for development and production, as well as select distributiondeals such as the company's multi-picture distribution deal with Sony.He joined ...
-
News
Nouveau Montreal festival nabs four Cannes films
The Dardenne brothers' Palmed'Or winner L'Enfant, Lars vonTrier's Manderlay, AlainCavalier's Le Filmeur and UneNuit (Yek Shab), the directorial debut of Iranian actress NikiKarimi, have all been confirmed as official screenings at Montreal's Festivaldu Nouveau Cinema (FNC), Oct 13 to 23.The four Cannes titles theformer two in Official Competition, the ...
-
News
Darwin's Nightmare wins Silverdocs
Silverdocs, AFI/DiscoveryChannel Documentary Festival, ended on Sunday night with its annual awardsceremony which gave Hubert Sauper's Darwin's Nightmare the top prize, the Sterling Award.The film shows the impact ofglobalization and the scourge of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa through themicrocosm of life on the shore of Lake Victoria in Tanzania.The festival, ...
-
News
Gellar to inhabit Alice for Universal
Sarah Michelle Gellar is attached tostar in Alice, a new film based on the video game AmericanMcGee's Alice, for Universal Pictures. Marcus Nispel is set todirect.AmericanMcGee's Alice is a popular Electronic Arts computer game createdby McGee, one of the lead designers on the Quake and Doom series. Usingcharacters and concepts ...
-
News
Spyglass dunks bastketball doc on Canal
Spyglass Entertainment has sold rights in continental Europe to Leon Gast's untitled basketball documentary to StudioCanal, marking another deal in the ongoing relationship between Gary Barber and Roger Birnbaum's Hollywood production and the French major.The film is a history of basketball and marks Gast's follow-up to Oscar-winning boxing documentary When ...
-
News
Hastie advance at Magna Pacific
Lauren Hastie has beenpromoted to theatrical acquisitions and marketing manager at Magna Pacific, oneof the few independent Australian distributors interested in releasingpredominantly mainstream fare into cinemas.Hastie has been with the company fortwo years and was involved in such recent Australian rights deals as theUS/Canadian romantic comedy Just Friends and the ...
-
News
HBO closes London sales arm in US relocation plan
HBO Films London is shutting down as part of a rationalizing move that will see overseas sales of HBO's films now handled out of the US.Theclosure follows the creation of Picturehouse, the New York-based joint venture US theatrical distribution company that unites HBO Films with New Line. That recent tie-up ...
-
News
HBO Films London relocates to the US
HBO Films London is shutting up shop andrelocating to New York and Los Angeles.Themove follows the HBO Films partnership with New Line in the newly-formedindependent US theatrical distribution company, Picturehouse,"With greater focus from HBO Films onproducing theatrical films, we feel our new international theatricaldistribution activities will be most effectively handled ...
-
News
Bafta to get its first woman chair
Joint director of Tightrope Pictures Hilary Bevan Jones isto become the first woman to chair the British Academy of Film and TelevisionArts (Bafta) in 60 years.She was named deputy chairman today, which means she willchair the organisation next year.Bevan Jones is a well-known name in UK television with ahistory of ...
-
News
Dardenne brothers top Nouveau Montreal festival
Jean-Pierre et Luc Dardenne's Palme d'Or winning TheChild will be among the films screeningat the 34th Festival du Nouveau Cinema in Montreal from October 13to 23. Programming Director Claude Chamberlan has alsoannounced three more films for theprogramme: Lars von Trier's Manderlay, Alain Cavalier's Le Filmeur andthe directorial debut of Iranian ...
-
News
Intermedia pushes into TV and lower-budget genre film
Terminator 3 and Alexander producer Intermedia Films hasconcluded three separate international production deals as part of the group's streamlining of itsdevelopment and production activities and its expansion into televisionproduction.Intermedia, IMInternationalmedia's Los Angeles-based subsidiary, has come to agreement "in principle" with the Cologne-basedproduction house Action Concept on a feature film co-production ...
-
News
Italian cinema admissions crash
Cinemaattendances plummeted in Italy by 18.05% in the first half of 2005 with a17.84% slump in box office, according to figures released by monitoring body,Cinetel. A grim-lookinggroup of Italian operators met in the centre of Rome to reflect on the firsthalf of the business year and promote their films for ...
-
News
Korea braced for Puchon punch up
South Korea's festival sceneis set to witness a major confrontation in mid-July, when the 9th PuchonInternational Fantastic Film Festival (PiFan) faces off against a smaller rivalevent staged by PiFan's former organisers.On Tuesday the so-calledReal Fantastic Film Festival, to take place in Seoul over the same period asPiFan (July 14-23), unveiled ...
-
News
Overseas satellite operations still on HBO horizon
The decision to close HBO Films London should be taken as a signof greater global ambition rather than retrenchment, claims HBO president ofinternational distribution, Charles Schreger.And that may include creating satellite branches of the business acrossthe world in the future.Schreger says HBO is serious about growing both the domestic and ...
-
News
Toronto festival unveils Cannes, Berlinale bounty
Films from the Dardennes brothers, Lars von Trier, MichaelHaneke, Alexander Sokurov and Hou Hsiao Hsien were among sixteen North Americanpremieres unveiled today by the Toronto International Film Festival, as thecontinent's leading festival launched the first salvo in its annual PRoffensive. In all, twenty titles were announced, one week before theopening ...
-
News
Puttnam chairs BFI development board
David Puttnam is to chair the development board of UK cultural body the British Film Institute (bfi), overseeing a newly-launched department with the brief of securing donors for the bfi Film Centre.The department is to find corporate, trust and individual donors for the centre, which is due to start construction ...
-
News
AMC and Loews Cineplex set to merge
US and international exhibitors AMC Entertainment and LoewsCineplex have agreed to merge, creating a cinema chain with 5,900 screens inthe US and 13 other territories, including the UK, France, Spain, Japan, SouthKorea and Mexico. The merged entity, to be known as AMC Entertainment, willown, manage or have an interest in ...
-
News
Warner Bros picks up Almodovar's Volver for Italy
Warner Bros Pictures International (WBPI) has acquired PedroAlmodovar's upcoming Volver fordistribution in Italy. The film stars Penelope Cruz, Carmen Maura, Lola Duenasand Chus Lampreave. Volver becomes thethird Almodovar project to which WBPI has acquired select distribution rights.The company previously distributed the Spanish director's Hable conElla (Talk to Her) and La ...
-
Reviews
Factotum
Dir: Bent Hamer.Nor-US-Ger. 2005. 93mins.Following the modest butreal arthouse success of Kitchen Stories (which premiered, in 2003, inDirector's Fortnight at Cannes), Norwegian auteur Bent Hamer is back with Factotum,a small but droll and, in its own way, quietly powerful film based on a novelby America's poete maudit, Charles Bukowski.To this ...