Small MPU – Page 748
-
News
Zhang's Curse lands at Sony Pictures Classics
SonyPictures Classics has picked up North American and Latin American rights toZhang Yimou's period epic Curse Of The Golden Flower.Currentlyshooting in China, the Beijing New Pictures production stars Chow Yun Fat andGong Li, and marks SPC's ninth collaboration with the director following, mostrecently, this year's Riding Alone For Thousands Of ...
-
News
Gaumont to shoot thriller Avatar in September
Frenchstudio Gaumont has announced that it is inpreparation on Avatar, a first film by Julien Leclercq. The film is scheduled to begin shooting onSeptember 12 for ten weeks in Paris.Avataris a $10.9m (Euros 8.7m) production starring Albert Dupontel,Marie Guillard, Melanie Thierry, MartheKeller, Estelle Lefebure and Francis Renaud. Set in Parisin ...
-
News
The Holiday gets strong response for UIP at CineExpo
Anyregular attendee of Cinema Expo International knows that Monday has becomeknown as UIP day. This year was no different, although CineExpo'sBob Sunshine introduced the beginning of the UIP presentation yesterday as'the end of an era' as chairman and CEO Stewart Till and presidentand COO Andrew Cripps prepared to deliver the ...
-
News
CineExpo told of great threat from closing release windows
Theproblem of closing release windows is 'the only issue that can end cinemaas we know it,' John Fithian of the National Association of Theatre Owners(Nato) in the US told Cinema Expo Internationaldelegates in Amsterdam yesterday on the thornyissue.'Thepreservation of theatrical release windows is the most important issue weface,' he said, ...
-
News
German industry fights piracy with innovative campaign
Attendees at Cinema Expo in Amsterdam heard how real progress is being made in getting themessage to consumers about copyright theft.Jan Oesterlin,managing director of Zukunft KinoMarketing,explained that the problem in Germany was that previous education-oriented campaigns didnot show results, so a decision was made in September 2003 to become more ...
-
News
Glickman stresses importance of international markets
Day two of the15th anniversary Cinema Expo International got underway with a typicallyrousing speech from MPAA chairman and CEO Dan Glickman.Glickman praised the international and European marketsquoting figures that the international market had grown 89% in the past fiveyears, that 19 of 2005's top 20 films made more money internationally ...
-
News
Deauville festival to welcome Lumet and Pollack
The 32nd annual Deauville Festival of American Film will run September 1 to 10 in the Normandy seaside town.Actress/director Nicole Garcia is set to head the jury with the rest of themembers to be announced in late July.The festival, which showcasesAmerican independent film and acts as an autumn European launch ...
-
News
Checkpoint, Cinemedia, Senator team for B-movies
German production and financing outfits Checkpoint Berlin Filmproductions and Cinemedia Film have teamed with local distributor Senator Films to produce a slate of unashamed B-movies under the label Planet B.Checkpoint and Cinemedia aim to produce four low-budget films under the strand, with Senator taking German rights. All will four be ...
-
News
German-French funders back films by Jacquot and de Chalonge
Newfeature films by Benoit Jacquot and Christian de Chalonge are among four projects backed with a total of $1.4m(Euros 1.1m) by the German-French Funding Commission which is administered bythe German Federal Film Board (FFA) and France's CNC to promoteco-production between the two countries.Thelargest sum - $339,754 (Euros 270,000) - went ...
-
News
Venice Orizzonti to open with McGrath's Infamous
The63rd Venice Film Festival has announced that new Truman Capote drama Infamous will open the Orizzonti competition section.Infamous stars Toby Jones asCapote alongside Sandra Bullock, Daniel Craig, Peter Bogdanovich,Jeff Daniels and Gwyneth Paltrow. It is directed byactor-writer-director Douglas McGrath, whose credits as a director include Emma (1996) and Nicholas Nickleby ...
-
News
Toronto names 25 North American premieres
The Toronto International Film Festival has announced 25 NorthAmerican premieres for its 31st outing this September, a line-updescribed as the best picks fromthe 2005-2006 international festival calendar. The selection includes Cannes highlights such as Ken Loach's Palmed'Or winner The Wind That Shakes The Barley, Grand Prize winner Bruno Dumont's ...
-
News
Toronto names 25 North American premieres
The Toronto InternationalFilm Festival has announced 25 North American premieres for its 31stouting this September, a line-up described as the best picks from the 2005-2006 internationalfestival calendar. The selection includesCannes highlights such as Ken Loach's Palme d'Or winner The Wind That ShakesThe Barley, Grand Prize winner BrunoDumont's Flandres, AlejandroGonzalez Inarritu's ...
-
News
Pressman to bring Robert Maxwell story to the screen
Ed Pressman is preparing to make a film of the London stage play LiesHave Been Told aboutRobert Maxwell, the British media tycoon and pension fund swindler who vanishedin mysterious circumstances 15 years ago.Pressman secured film rights with one of the play's producers DaleDjerassi, who was formerly married to Maxwell's daughter ...
-
News
Wurtz moves to Film Movement as vp, business development
US distribution venture Film Movement has bulked up its executivesuite with the appointment of Meghan Wurtz as vice president of businessdevelopment.In the newly created role Wurtz will develop and implementsponsorship programmes, oversee theatrical releases, manage cultural relationsand secure new revenue opportunities for the company's library. She will reportto Film Movement ...
-
News
Quinn joins Streep, Liu in Dark Matter
Aidan Quinn has joined Meryl Streep, Blair Brown and Chinese starLiu Ye on American Sterling Productions (ASP) and Saltmill Productions' drama DarkMatter.Based on a true story about the cultural difficulties experiencedwhen a brilliant Chinese student comes under the tutelage of a US science professor,Dark Matter is beingfinanced by ASP. Myriad ...
-
News
Warner Bros opens Death Note at the top in Japan
Warner Bros became the first non-Japanese distributor to launch aJapanese picture number one at the local box office with the release of DeathNote.Shusuke Kaneko's horror tale about a fateful missive that killsits readers opened on Jun 17 and grossed $3.5m over two days, the equivalent of409million Yen.Warner Bros plans to ...
-
News
Shochiku enlists Centro for live-action Kitaro movie
Japanese major Shochiku andHong Kong-based special effects house Centro Digital Pictures are collaboratingon live-action creature feature Gegege NoKitaro. The film, directed byKatsuhide Motoki, is the first live-action feature based on Shigeru Mizuki'sfamous character, created in 1954, and popularised in the Gegege No Kitaro manga series from 1966-1970.Centro, established in 1987,is ...
-
News
Sony, Fuji end stakeholding talks
Electronics giant Sony Corporation is no longer considering taking a significant equity stake in leading Japanese commercial network Fuji Television Network, the companies announced on Friday.Hisashi Hieda, the president of Fuji Television Network, added that Sony is not the only investment partner Fuji is considering, but declined to name names. ...
-
Reviews
Transe
Dir/scr: Teresa Villaverde. Port-Fr-It. 2006. 126mins.There are the seeds of a coherently harrowing drama about European sex traffic in Teresa Villaverde's Transe, but you have to dig deep to find them. Part road movie, part abstract essay and - as the title suggests - part free-floating hallucination, the latest film ...
-
News
Future Films' Australian plans derailed by tax office
FutureFilms Australia today blamed the Australian Tax Office (ATO) for ditching, at least in theshort term, its plans to raise up to $182m (A$250m ) for new Australian filmsthis financial year. FutureFilms won't say how much it expected to raise by theJune 30 deadline but hinted that it was significant. ...