Small MPU – Page 827
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News
Lumiere, Infinity FCS join forces for Indo-Brazilian alliance
Indian film completion guarantor, Infinity Film Completion Services, has taken a 25% stake in Brazilian producer-distributor Lumiere as the first step in an Indo-Latin American alliance spanning production and distribution. The deal was inked by Lumiere founder and CEO Marc Beauchamps, Joshua Skurla who also recently joined Lumiere as an ...
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Wide sells Sabine to a dozen territories including US, UK
Underlining that there is still an appetite among theatrical buyers for feature documentaries, Paris-based Wide Management has been racking up sales on two of its titles that screened this week at International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA).Sandrine Bonnaire's Her Name Is Sabine has been an especially strong draw for distributors. Bonnaire's ...
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The future of arthouse: Screen opinion
The death of auteurs Antonioni and Bergman has inevitably warmed up that old chestnut about the death of arthouse cinema. It's a perennial favourite that's wrapped up in wider social issues: the notion that society is dumbing down and our brains are becoming atrophied by a forced diet of empty-headed ...
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Net effect: Will the writers' strike drive TV to the web'
As usual, it is all about money. The strike action of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (Amptp) was inevitable. Content creators do not want to give up the potential revenue represented by the web (among other new media platforms) and ...
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Middle Eastern promise: Hunt Lowry profile
When Warner Bros Entertainment unveiled its big Abu Dhabi strategic alliance deal at the end of September, it was the end of 10 months of corporate matchmaking and the start of a new job for Hunt Lowry.The producer (whose credits include The Last Of The Mohicans and Disney's The Kid) ...
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Features
United States - Art class
Donald Krim trained as a lawyer, and he provides a distinct and telling response to the question of how art-film distributor Kino International has survived for three decades in the volatile and constantly changing US marketplace. "Good taste and hard work," he says.The company has recently been celebrating its history ...
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Mexican hit Amores Perros goes to Lions Gate in US
Lions Gate Films has completed its deal to acquire all US and Canadian rights to Amores Perros, the critically lauded Mexican film directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. Lions Gate Films International took the film on for foreign sales prior to Cannes where it screened in Critics Week, winning the Grand ...
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Vietnam - Shugrue mountain
With 60% of its 84 million population below the age of 30, Vietnam offers huge potential to international exhibitors. But the biggest challenge is galvanising the audience into film-going.Vietnam's cinema business has been held back by piracy, poor facilities and the late arrival of titles into the market. 'Young couples ...
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Discovering Earth: themaking of the BBC epic doc
We used a high-speed digital Photron that can film at 2,000 frames per second to capture the shark leaping out of the water to grab a seal,' explains Earth director Alastair Fothergill. 'The action only lasted a second, but because we stored the image on a laptop computer we were ...
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Features
Estonia - Ballroom Blitz
AAutumn Ball (Sugisball) is the sort of risky story of which distributors are normally wary, but which independent film-makers - and the Venice Horizons jury which awarded it the top prize this year - love.Adapted from the book by Mati Unt, Veiko Ounpuu's film is set on a bleak Estonian ...
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Features
Estonia - The end of violence
Writer-director Ilmar Raag was inspired to tell the story of The Class when the Columbine tragedy in the US awoke memories of his own school days.Citing a recent study which estimated 76% of Estonian schoolchildren have encountered violence at school, Raag says: "I don't pretend to know what happened in ...
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Awards Countdown - best actor prospects
1. Daniel Day-LewisThere Will Be BloodWHY As Daniel Plainview, a determined silver miner who becomes a self-made oil tycoon in turn-of-the-last-century California, Day-Lewis delivers another of cinema's great performances. Assuming a voice with a deep, resonant timbre, Day-Lewis' Plainview is menacing and intimidating, yet painfully human and desperate for human ...
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Features
Awards Countdown - Best actor - Awards People
BEN FOSTERThe fast-rising young actor talks to Jeremy Kay about shoot-outs and barbecue with Russell CroweFollowing memorable roles in Alpha Dog, Hostage and Six Feet Under, Foster found himself playing a psychotic gang member alongside Russell Crowe and Christian Bale in James Mangold's Western remake 3:10 To Yuma."To come to ...
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After Bergman: the death of arthouse'
The American Film Market (AFM) has never been especially fertile territory for auteur cinema. This has always been a market for mainstream product and straight-to-video fodder, not arthouse titles. Nonetheless, one trait was very noticeable among independent sales agents in Santa Monica earlier this month. Companies which used to handle ...
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Features
Distribution - The view from the cool kids - The new cinephiles
There are those who enjoy movies, can discuss directors at dinner parties and regularly read film reviews; and then there are the cinephiles. A breed apart from 'regular' movie fans, they are afflicted by a passionate, argumentative, all-consuming love of Film As Art, and have figured out ways to accrue ...
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Features
Distribution - Market Snapshot - Diversity pays dividends
Plenty of enterprising young distribution companies, including Vertigo, Dogwoof, Soda, Swipe and Revolver, have sprung up in the UK, ready to give theatrical releases to the best 'auteur' films and the most challenging documentaries.Bigger companies such as Lionsgate UK (which enjoyed enormous success with The Lives Of Others and recently ...
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Distribution - New talent - Cutting edge Propositions
Back in 1962, the German directors who signed the Oberhausen Manifesto (the birth point for the 'New German Cinema') were among the first to recognise film festivals were becoming the main launch pad for directorial talents. The acclaim given to various short films at international festivals, said the Oberhausen collective, ...
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News
Odeon Films buys Andersson's Songs for Canada
International sales company The Coproduction Office has sold Canadian rights to Roy Andersson's Cannes competition entry Songs From The Second Floor to Odeon Films, a subsidiary of Alliance Atlantis Communications.Latina Film in Mexico and Gutek Film in Poland have also acquired the film which screens in the Toronto International Film ...
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Features
Production - The Baltic assault
The Baltic states, comprising Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, are emerging as Europe's newest low-cost production hub, says UK-born Gary Tuck, managing director of Lithuania-based Baltic Film Services, which entices and services international productions. These include Ed Zwick's Second World War drama Defiance, starring Daniel Craig, which is now shooting at ...
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Features
European Film Awards - The Glories of Europe
Generalising about European cinema is a fool's errand. Countless films never cross national borders. Many films only have a theatrical life on the festival circuit. Some of the continent's biggest box-office hits (Les Bronzes 3, Natale A New York, and (T)Raumschiff Surprise - Periode 1 for example) barely register on ...