Small MPU – Page 707
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News
Posey, Poupaud take leads in Cassavates drama
Production is set to begin in New York on May 5 on HD Net Films'romance Broken Englishstarring Parker Posey and Melvil Poupaud.Japan's Phantom Films and France-based Back Up Films areco-producing the story based on a screenplay by John Cassavetes' daughter ZoeCassavetes, who makes her feature directorial debut.Posey plays a high-flying ...
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Strangers to open New York's NewFest on June 1
Paul Dinello's Strangers With Candy will open the 18th Annual NewFest, NewYork's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender film festival that runs from Jun1 to 11.Strangers With Candy stars Amy Sedaris, Stephen Colbert and Dinello and was written byDinello and Colbert as a prequel to the Comedy Central series of the ...
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News
Barbakow takes over as president of board at Santa Barbara festival
The 22nd annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF)will take place in 2007 from Jan 25 to Feb 4.Festival organisers have also announced new officers for the SBIFFboard of directors, headed up by president Jeff Barbakow, the former chairmanand chief executive officer of MGM/UA, who takes over from Arnold Kassoy.The ...
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News
Zeta Jones nears deal to star in Death Defying Acts
Catherine Zeta Jones in final talks to join Guy Pearce in theAustralia-UK co-production Death Defying Acts, a drama about Harry Houdini.Filming is scheduled to begin later this summer in the UK withGillian Armstrong set to direct from a screenplay by Tony Grisoni and BrianWard.The Australian Film Finance Corporation, BBC Films ...
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Kent Jusick installed as executive director and curator of MIX NYC festival
MIX NYC, the media arts organisation behind the New York Lesbian& Gay Experimental Film Festival, has installed a new team of directors.The four-person committee is led by executive director andfilmmaker and curator Stephen Kent Jusick.Co-directors are Canadian-born artist, photographer anddocumentarian Szu Burgess, animator, artist and diversity activist Kate Huh,and filmmaker ...
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News
Danielak's Arsenal picks up Rosario Dawson thriller
Yarek Danielak's fledgling international sales house ArsenalPictures has picked up international rights to the psycho-thriller Descent starring Rosario Dawson.City Lights Pictures' Danny Fisher, MEGA Films' Morris SLevy and Dawson's Trybe Films are producing the story of a rape victim whoreinvents herself as a seductress in order to gain revenge.'Descent is ...
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TWC takes international rights to crossword doc Wordplay
The Weinstein Company (TWC) has acquired all international rightsto Patrick Creadon's crossword documentary and Sundance hit Wordplay and will commence sales at Cannes.Christine O'Malley produced the feature, which profiles NY Times crosswordeditor Will Shortz and charts the fortunes of contestants in the AmericanCrossword Puzzle Tournament founded by Shortz.Crossword aficionados Bill ...
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News
Alliance Atlantis, Arclight team for US distribution joint venture
Alliance Atlantis Motion Picture Distribution (MPD) and ArclightFilms are launching the US-based distribution joint venture Union Station Media.Former Lionsgate acquisitions executive Paul Gardner will run theLos Angeles-based company, which will initially release 12-18 titles a year onthe DVD, television, cable, internet, VOD, PPV and electronic sell-thruplatforms.The first three pictures are ...
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News
StudioCanal to acquire UK distributor Optimum Releasing
Confirming rumours that had been buildingfor weeks, French distributor StudioCanal announcedtoday that it will acquire UK distributor OptimumReleasing.The companies said, "The deal will helpOptimum grow by combining its resources with those of StudioCanal.This will give Optimum access to one of the largest film catalogues in theworld and to StudioCanal's line-up ...
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News
DreamWorks, Polyvideo reportedly in on-line pact
DreamWorks has signed an exclusive agreement with Milan-based Polyvideo to sell its home video and DVD titles on-line, according to Italian press reports.The deal is expected to be the first in a series of alliances that DreamWorks plans to establish in Europe to sell its product on-line. In the US, ...
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Optimum deal marks shift in UK distribution
Studio Canal's acquisition of Optimum, just a few months after Lionsgate's takeover of Redbus,marks a major shift for the UK indie distributionbusiness. Not so long ago, it was a side of the industry that waswidely seen as over-stretched, cash-strapped and scrambling to stay afloat. Distributors were invariably to be heard ...
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UIP CEO Stewart Till named chairman of football club
Stewart Till, the CEO ofUnited International Pictures, has been appointed as the new chairman of UK football club Millwall.Till told ScreenDaily.com that the role was non-executive and non-paid and wouldn't change his duties at UIP. "It's a dream come true for me, but obviously UIP pay my salary and they ...
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News
Van Damme thriller Til Death wraps in Bulgaria
Director Simon Fellows hasconcluded principal photography on thriller Til Death in Sofia, Bulgaria. After 33 days on location on the outskirts of Sofia, the $15m project now moves to New Orleans for five days of shooting. The thriller stars Jean ClaudeVan Damme as a dirty cop who is nearly killed ...
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News
MonteCristo brings two Singaporean titles to Cannes
MonteCristo International has added two Singaporeanfilms, Graham Streeter's Cages andKelvin Tong's 1942, to its salesline-up for Cannes this year.The US-basedsales company, which focuses on Asian and Eastern European cinema, will startsales for Cages at Cannes. The film, which premiered at Pusan last year, tells a story of threegenerations: a single ...
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German cinema admisions up 18% over last year
Germanexhibitors are on the rebound as cinemas reported a 17.89% year-on-yearincrease in admissions and 18.08% rise in box-office takings for the first fourmonths of 2006.Accordingto Jan Oesterlin, managing director of Zukunft Kino Marketing (ZKM), cinema attendance andreceipts this year even surpassed the strong beginning of 2004, with admissionsup 5.92% and ...
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News
Bavaria takes on sales for Norwegian Critics' Week feature The Bothersome Man
BavariaFilm International has added International Critics' Week title The Bothersome Man (Den BrysommeMannen) by to its Cannes sales slate. Norwegianfilmmaker Jens Lien's second feature, which is described as 'a fantasticand bitingly funny fable that bears echoes of The Truman Show, will have its world premiere in Cannes and thenopen wide ...
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Ascot Elite picks up German-language rights to thriller Unknown
Onthe eve of this year's Cannes Film Market, Swiss independent distributor AscotElite has announced the acquisition from GreeneStreetFilms International of Simon Brand's high-concept thriller Unknown forGerman-language territories Germany, Austria and Switzerland.Thefilm stars Jim Caviezel, Barry Pepper, Greg Kinnear, Peter Stormare andBridget Moynahan. The Weinstein Company will bereleasing the film in ...
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Reviews
Lonely Hearts
Dir/scr: Todd Robinson. US. 2006. 100mins.Martha Beck and Raymond Martinez, otherwise known asthe "Lonely Hearts Killers", return foranother adaptation of their sex, murder and mayhem saga, which delighted theAmerican tabloids during the late 1940s before their eventual executions in1951. Neither as shocking nor as decadent and perverse as its two ...
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Reviews
New York Waiting
Dir: Joachim Heden. Swe. 2006.96mins.There is little new or of interest in New York Waiting, a modest romanticcomedy from newcomer Jonathan Heden - save that despiteits Stateside location, everyone behind the camera isSwedish.The English-language story mostlytakes place in Manhattan during one summer day and night, and shares theenthusiasm of all ...
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Gitai chooses Miller adaptation for next project
Israeli film-maker Amos Gitai - whose latest film, Kippur, was in competition at Cannes this year - will next direct an adaptation of Arthur Miller's novel Plain Girl: A Life.The project marks a departure for Gitai who usually focuses on Israeli history and social issues. Kippur is set in the ...