Small MPU – Page 778
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News
Seven Swords, Perhaps Love lead race for Hong Kong Film Awards
Tsui Hark's martial arts film Seven Swords and Peter Chan's musical Perhaps Love lead the race for the 25thHong Kong Film Awards with 11 nods each, closely followed by Johnnie To's triad drama Electionand Andrew Lau and Alan Mak's car racing drama Initial D with 10 nods each. All fourfilms ...
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Palfi's Taxidermia wins best film at Hungarian Film Week
Four years after Gyorgy Palfi burst onto the international scene withhis debut feature, Hukkle, the director's follow-up effort, Taxidermia, has won a slewof awards at the 37th Hungarian Film Week. Other big winners at the awards ceremony February 7 in Budapest wereSzabolcs Hajdu's White Palms, Kornel Mundruczo's Johanna, and KrizstineGoda's ...
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Gilliam goes west with McMurtry's Billy The Kid
Terry Gilliam is to team up with Brokeback Mountain co-screenwriter and Pulitzer Prize-winner Larry McMurtry on AnythingFor Billy, a new feature inspired by wild west anti-hero, Billy The Kid. Gilliam is attached to direct the new project, which isadapted from McMurtry's best-selling novel. Anything For Billyis about Ben Sippy, an ...
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Media Asia Distribution pre-sells Johnnie To's Exiled
Hong Kong's Media Asia Distributionhas pre-sold Johnnie To'supcoming thriller Exiled to a raft ofterritories including Sharada for Italyand Cineart for Benelux.The $5m film, which started shooting last November in Macau,has also gone to Videosonic for Greece and Cyprus,Taiwan's Long Shong, WPM Films in Thailand and Galaxy Studio in Vietnam.Produced by ...
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News
Director Gabriele Muccino sets up production company
Last Kiss director Gabriele Muccino has set up his own production company, which willfocus on adverts and feature films and will have offices in Milan, Rome and LosAngeles'IndianaProduction will group together both young and established writers and directorsand will also operate as a talent agency,' Muccinosaid. Indiana will also have ...
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Darclight gets on board horror Dark Ride
Arclight Films has bulked up itsgenre division Darclight Films in preparation for Berlin'sEFM and boarded the serial killer thriller DarkRide.Directed by Craig Singer from a screenplay he co-wrote withRobert Dean Klein, Dark Ride is aboutan escaped serial killer who returns to the theme park ride where he slaughteredtwo girls 10 ...
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Reviews
Alpha Dog
Dir/scr: Nick Cassavetes. US. 2006. 122min.Alpha Dog aims to be a nihilistic exploration of a true story about alow-level LA drug dealer whose career was ended by a more-than-usuallysenseless murder. But director-screenwriter Nick Cassavetes spends too many ofhis 122 minutes amidst LA's over-privileged and over-stimulated teenagewasteland and too little providing ...
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Reviews
The Darwin Awards
Dir/scr. Finn Taylor. US. 2006. 93 min.The Darwin Awards is a hit-and-miss comedy with far too few hits and way too manymisses. Indeed, the title is perilously close to reflexive, given the likelyfate of this misbegotten hybrid. A Premiere presentation at the Sundance FilmFestival, it will initially rely on the ...
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Reviews
Steel City
Dir/scr. Brian Jun. US 2006. 95 min.An overlooked gem in Sundance's USdramatic competition, Steel City is awell-written and solidly-performed exploration of working-class male angst seenthrough the eyes of two very different sons as they struggle with the legacy oftheir dead-beat father.The achievement is all the more impressivegiven that debut filmmaker ...
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News
Intandem Films comes to Berlin with a slate of eight
London-based financing, sales, and distribution company Intandem Films comes to Berlinwith a slate of eight new pictures.Heading the slate is Zoo,the first project from its horror and thriller label FearFactory,the Enterprise Investment Scheme set up with producers Spice Factory, Colin Pons, and Mark Thomas. Zoois a dark comedy/horror film directed ...
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Listener secures sales and slot in Berlin's special section
Fortissimo Films has secured a raft ofpost-Sundance sales on The NightListener, starring Robin Williams and Toni Collette, including Telepool in Germany andIcon in the UK.The Berlinale hasalso announced that the psychological suspense thriller has been added to thefestival's Berlinale Special Section. Both directorPatrick Stettner and Armistead Maupin, on whosebest-selling novel ...
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Troubled German media fund will fight on, says CEO
Andy GroschCEO of beleaguered German media fund VIP, made a defiant defence ofhis company at the Screen International Europe Film Finance Summit, shruggingoff a new lawsuit being prepared against the company as pure nonsense. Eventhough his business partner Andreas Schmid has beenin custody on charges of tax evasion since Sept ...
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News
Focus takes international on $45m Zhang epic
Focus Features has boardedthe Untitled Zhang Yimou Epic, the Chinese master's$45m upcoming period romance starring Gong Li and Chow Yun-fat.President of internationalsales and distribution Alison Thompson will commence sales in Berlin this weekon the project, which is set to begin shooting in China at the end of the monthin time ...
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News
Kopelson shifts slate from Fox to Intertainment
Germany's Intertainment has stepped up to fully finance a $1bn slate of films being prepared by Oscar-winning producer Arnold Kopelson, who is poised to quit his production deal at 20th Century Fox.Kopelson and his wife and producing partner Anne enjoyed huge commercial success with a prolific stream of pictures for ...
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Gael Garcia Bernal to star in Hector Babenco film
Gael GarciaBernal will star in the new Hector Babenco film, The Past (O Pasado),confirmed Oscar Kramer of Argentina's ShokFilms to Screen. Based on a novel by theArgentine writer Alan Pauls, The Past is about a couple who decide to separate after 12 years;while the man tries to leave his past ...
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News
Kosslick predicts big business at new-look EFM
The European Film Marketopens today in its new centre at the Martin Gropius Bau (MGB) with Berlinale directorDieter Kosslick estimating a 100 percent increase infilm executives attending Berlin over 2005, both inside theofficial venues and out.'I'm completely confidentthat it will work and people will do big business here,' he said.With ...
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Time is right for European studio, says Wild Bunch CEO
The dream of aEuropean major to match the Hollywood studios should now be back on the agenda,according to Wild Bunch CEO Vincent Grimond.He told ScreenInternational's European Film Finance Summit at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel thatmarket conditions were moving in favour of a pan-continental distribution andproduction centre.Last October, Wild Bunch took steps ...
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Reviews
The Pink Panther
Dir: Shawn Levy. US. 2006. 95 minutes.Hollywood studio projection and analysisdepartments have rather crassly if understandably deemed remakes and franchisesthe surest thing going, even if one of the results is that there's often nocorrelative sense of joyful anticipation attached to these moviegoingexperiences. Owing to this and more, there's no particular ...
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Block launches sales and financing outfit QED
Producer andformer Artisan president Bill Block has teamed up with three entertainmentindustry veterans to launch the Beverly Hills-based international sales,financing and production house QED International.Block is joinedin the new enterprise by senior vice president Kimberly Fox, the former head ofinternational sales at Kathy Morgan International, chief operating officer PaulHanson, the ...
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Brokeback rides away with London Critics prizes
Continuing its awards season kudos, Brokeback Mountain received the top honours at the London Critics' Circle Awards. Ang Lee won for best director and the film won the group'sbest film award. The other prizes were less predictable: Bruno Ganz won best actor for Downfall(which also won the foreign-language film category), ...