Small MPU – Page 683
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News
Garpastum picks up best film at Sofia Film Festival
AlekseiGerman Jr.'s story of four friends on the eve of theFirst World War Garpastumwon the Stella Artois Grand Prix for Best Film at theSofia International Film Festival 10th anniversary edition which ended on March18.In itsmotivation, the International Jury headed by Russian critic Andrei Plakhov said that the film "deals in ...
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News
Brisk business for close of Thessaloniki doc fest
TheThessaloniki Documentary Festival-Images of the 21stCentury and its concurrent Doc FilmMarket wrapped over the weekend.VictorKossakovsky's Svyato (Russia), Dani Menkin's 39 Pounds ofLove (USA), the Kimon Tsakiris'Greek production Sugar Town-TheBridegrooms as well as Angelos Kovotsos' Kleon Krantonellis and Yorgos Papakonstantinou's Takis Zenetos (from thePortraits of Greek Architectsseries) received the Audience Awards, ...
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News
Pioneering launch of DVD quality human rights film on the Internet
DerekWyatt MP, Chair of the Parliamentary Internet Committee, launched the firstever DVD quality human rights film on theInternet. The documentary film, Russia/Chechnya:Voices of Dissent, produced by Vanessa Redgraveand directed by Carlo Nero, was made in honour of Amnesty International.OpusMedia is using video-streaming technology with no buffering and no downloading,delivering a ...
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Fortissimo banks on SCB
Dutch/HK-based sales agent Fortissimo Films has entered into a new banking relationship with Standard Chartered Bank.The arrangement is "unique" according to co-chairman Michael Werner, and involves the "construction of a revolving line of credit based on their discounting our contracts portfolio, resulting in a reasonable line of credit which we ...
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China-led crossover epics 'draining' Asia dry
Mid-budget producersin Asia are facing a crisis as investmentdollars are drained into mega co-productions, leading to a "drought" of talent,according to Applause co-founder Peter Chan Ho-sun.Speaking at Filmart'sSeminar On Film Financing yesterday, the director said the commercial realitiesof mounting large-scale China epics means the films "must be big,spend $10-$30m, must ...
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Dot-com murder tale to be shot twice
US and Asia-based production company Bigfoot Entertainment plans to start shooting thriller Irreversi in Hong Kong next Monday. But the project has an unusual twist in that the two versions will have distinct casts and crews will be filmed simultaneously in Mandarin and English. Bigfoot founder Michael Gleissner plans to ...
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News
Chinese outlets hunger for Golden titles
Hong Kong sales outfit Golden Sun has racked up three major deals at Filmart, selling a record high of 148 Chinese titles from its library to a Guangzhou-based video-on-demand company. Another package of about 100 films has gone to South TV Station from China while Thailand's home video distributor WPM ...
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News
Lion Rock roars into China
Producer Terence Chang is moving full-steam into Chinawith three mid-budget films to be shot on the mainland - all of them on top ofJohn Woo's 2007 production of Battle Of Red Cliff, set to be China'smost expensive film ever.Chang is ready to roll on the first, an as-yet-untitled1930s-era gangster film, ...
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Sammo Hung to direct Sundream Motion Pictures latest film
Sundream MotionPictures, the film production arm of Hong Kongcable operator i-Cable, has lined up veteran actionstar Sammo Hung to direct big-budget period epic Howling Arrow. Scheduled to shoot from September, the film follows acommunity of gangsters at the end of the Qing dynastyin North-East China, at the turnof the 20th ...
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News
Action star Sammo Hung to direct gangster saga
Sundream MotionPictures, the film production arm of Hong Kongcable operator i-Cable, has lined up veteran actionstar Sammo Hung to direct big-budget period epic Howling Arrow.Scheduled to shoot from September, the film follows acommunity of gangsters at the end of the Qing dynastyin North-East China, at the turnof the 20th Century.According ...
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News
CASE STUDY - Bread And Roses
A European co-production about struggling migrant workers sounds just like Ken Loach's cup of tea. The difference is this story is set in LA. Natacha Clarke reports.The Pitch:Ken Loach takes on America in this story of immigrant workers fighting for their rights.1994-1996Former human rights lawyer Paul Laverty goes to LA ...
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Showbox sounds out dub-only release
In a bold marketing stratagem,leading Korean investor/distributor Showbox Mediaplex is considering releasing the animation Hoodwinked! inits locally dubbed version only. The irreverent whodunit comedy basedon the Little Red Riding Hood talewas picked up by Showbox in the pre-buy stages fromCinema Management Group.Known for its smart-bombingdistribution strategies for films like last ...
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Reviews
Ten Canoes
Dir: Rolf de Heer. Aus.2006. 91mins.The Adelaide Film Festival has aninvestment fund which, with its first feature flutter last year, shrewdlybacked the critically acclaimed Look BothWays. Sarah Watt's drama about fractured lives in a big city suburb went onto play well at international festivals - it won Toronto's Discovery award ...
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News
Korea primed for novel entertainment
Korea's Prime Entertainment is poised to sign with Japanese novelist group Osawa Office to adapt an Arimasa Osawa novel for the screen, potentially leading to a partnership between the two companies for adaptation, production, and distribution.Head of production at Prime Entertainment, Lee Seung-jae tells Screen International: "With success, the deal ...
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News
Roadside Attractions to bring Guantanamo to US
Roadside Attractions has picked up domestic rights to MichaelWinterbottom and Mat Whitecross' docudrama The Road To Guantanamo, which recently won the Silver Bear atBerlin.The picture will receive its US premiere at Tribeca next month andRoadside is preparing to release in North America the summer.The Road To Guantanamo chronicles the detention ...
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News
Sommers promoted in German anti-piracy operations at Warner Bros
Christian Sommer has been promoted to Warner Bros' director ofanti-piracy operations for German-speaking territories.Based in Hamburg, Sommer reports to senior vice president ofEuropean anti-piracy operations Jodi Benaim. He will continue to work closelywith colleagues across Warner Bros' units providing anti-piracy relatedstrategies in support of new business models.These include online releasing ...
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News
Lin named senior vice president of production at Warner Bros
Five years after he joinedWarner Bros as creative executive Dan Lin (pictured) has been appointed senior vicepresident of production at the studio.Lin is currently inpost-production on Martin Scorsese's crime drama The Departed starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and JackNicholson, and Oliver Hirschbiegel's The Visiting, which stars Nicole Kidman and Daniel ...
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News
Thailand's M Pictures gets Restless
Korea's CJ Entertainment has pre-sold swordplay fantasy Restless to Thailand's M Pictures. The film, starring Daisy's Jung Woo-sung, is about theexperiences of a slain warrior who remains in a 49-day purgatory beforeascending to heaven. Director Jo Dong-oh was formerly an assistant to Kim Sung-suon the swordplay epic Musa.Budgeted at $9m, ...
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Chinese TV's biggest film channel grabs MK trio
Korean producer/distributor MK Pictures has announced a deal with China's government-run film channel CCTV-6 for broadcast rights to three films. The pact, signed in Beijing, is for MK Pictures library titles YMCA Baseball Team, a historical melodrama, Jung Ji-woo's critically acclaimed Happy End and melodrama If The Sun Rises In ...
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Drummer marches to a German-Asian beat
Germany's Twenty Twenty Vision Filmproduktion has boarded Hong Kong director Kenneth Bi's upcoming drama The Drummer as co-producer alongside Hong Kong's Kenbiroli Films and Taiwan's Arc Light Films.The $1.8m film, scheduled to start shooting in mid-May, tells the story of a young Hong Kong man who runs away to Taiwan ...