Small MPU – Page 842

  • News

    France Televisions deal boosts feature films on French TV

    2007-12-20T21:51:00Z

    France's public television holding company, France Televisions, has signed an agreement with local film producers which increases the number of feature films airing on its channels as well as guaranteeing higher investment in film production. France Televisions is comprised of channels France 2, France 3, France 4, France 5 and ...

  • News

    Seven films announcedforBerlin Perspektive Deutsches Kino sidebar

    2007-12-20T21:55:00Z

    The Berlinale's Perspektive Deutsches Kino sidebar has announced half of the section's programme for the seventh edition.The opening film on Feb 8will be1st of May - All Belongs To You (1. Mai - Das Ende Vom Lied), an episodic feature directed by Jakob Ziemnicki, Sven Taddicken and the directorial duo ...

  • News

    German box office fails to match 2006boom

    2007-12-20T22:01:00Z

    After Germany's exhibitors' fortunes revived in 2006 following a catastrophic 2005, box-office takings and admissions have fallen back again this year by 8-9%, according to figures collated by Nielsen EDI. Box-office revenues amounted to $ 983.5m (Euros 684.13m), compared to $ 1.06 bn (Euros 740.09 m) in 2006 although still ...

  • News

    Juthamas resigns from PPP following bribery accusations

    2007-12-21T02:23:00Z

    Former governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), Juthamas Siriwan, yesterday (Dec 20) tendered her resignation as deputy head of Thailand's Puea Padin Party following the revelation of a bribery scandal over the Bangkok International Film Festival (BKKIFF). The corruption link to Juthamas has been making top headlines all ...

  • Reviews

    Merci Pour Le Chocolat (Nightcap)

    2000-09-18T10:15:00Z

    Dir: Claude Chabrol. France-Switzerland. 2000. 100 mins. Prod co: MK2 Productions, Cab Productions in association with France 2 Cinema, Le Studio Canal +. Int'l Sales: MK2 Diffusion. Prod: Marin Karmitz. Scr: Caroline Eliacheff, Claude Chabrol based on the novel The Chocolate Cobweb by Charlotte Armstrong. DoP: Renato Berta. Prod des: ...

  • News

    Pursuit Of Happyness cleared for China release

    2007-12-21T03:58:00Z

    Amid rumors of a prolonged black-out period on US blockbusters, Sony's Will Smith-starrer The Pursuit Of Happyness is now scheduled for release in China on Jan 17. Chinese film import officials confirmed the release date. The film will be released on a revenue-sharing basis but will be shown only in ...

  • News

    Thai interim parliament approves controversial film act

    2007-12-21T11:47:00Z

    Thailand approved the controversial new Film and Video Act yesterday during the last days of the National Legislative Assembly (NLA), the interim parliament installed by the military junta until Sunday's general election. The new law will see the launch of a film rating system for the first time, which in ...

  • Reviews

    Loins of Punjab Presents

    2007-12-21T11:36:00Z

    Dir: Manish Acharya India/USA 2007. 88mins.A mostly hilarious screwball comedy set around a New York talent contest for expat Indians - or 'desis' - Loins of Punjab Presents has an infectious energy that makes up for the occasional lapse into self-indulgent cliche. With its wacky ensemble cast and its affectionately ...

  • News

    US films' box office in China up by 37% in 2007

    2007-12-21T12:30:00Z

    The box office revenues of US blockbusters continued to grow in mainland China in 2007. The combined grosses of the 20 revenue-sharing foreign films reached $158.87m (RMB1.17bn), an increase of 37.6% on 2006. Based on statistics which combine the Chinese Film Bureau's weekly box office figures and Screen International's own ...

  • News

    New German fund to back Dunaway in Master Class

    2007-12-21T13:33:00Z

    A new German private media fund Shalimah German Film Management is to be launched to attract investment for participation in a slate of Stateside projects and an in-house family production for the international market. The Shalimah fund will participate in Glenn M. Stewart's investment and financing company Sherezade Film Development ...

  • News

    Telefilm backs 13 features including films by Mehta, McGowan

    2007-12-21T13:41:00Z

    New films from Deepa Mehta and Michael McGowan are among 13 English-language features backed by Telefilm Canada in its latest funding round, the Canadian investment agency announced today. Several projects have already started production, including Vincenzo Natali's Splice, starring Adrian Brody and Sarah Polley, which received $2.5m (C$2.5m) in Telefilm ...

  • News

    Metrodome hands backUK rights to Haditha to HanWay

    2007-12-21T14:01:00Z

    UK distributor Metrodome has agreed to hand back UK rights for Nick Broomfield's Battle For Haditha to sales company HanWay Films. Each company has released the other's obligation with immediate effect. The Channel 4-backed drama recreates a fight between US soldiers and Iraqi civilians in November 2005. Broomfield 's drama ...

  • Reviews

    Recycle (Ee'adat Khalk)

    2007-12-21T14:00:00Z

    Dir/Scr: Mahmoud al-Massad. Jordan/Netherlands/USA/Germany 2007. 80mins.Recycle, a portrait of a disillusioned former mujahideen fighter who makes a living collecting scrap cardboard in Zarqa, his Jordanian hometown, is one of those subtle, taciturn, underplayed documentaries that forces its audience to work at teasing out meanings. It's Errol Morris, in other words, ...

  • News

    The Writer's Strike:Cloudy forecasts

    2007-12-21T00:00:00Z

    The film and television industries represent collectively a $500bn global enterprise that attracts some of the keenest minds in business. And yet, judging by the high emotions evident at so many industry get-togethers these past six weeks, when talk turned invariably to the writers' strike, this is also a sector ...

  • News

    High stakes at box office in awards corridor

    2007-12-21T00:00:00Z

    Handling a prestige film in North America has always called for a combination of art and science and, faced with today's increasingly crowded market place, it is more important than ever distributors get the balance right. This season alone finds a multitude of films in the mix: from critical darlings ...

  • News

    Maybe Baby opens Dinard British cinema festival

    2000-09-18T10:53:00Z

    Ben Elton's Maybe Baby opens the Dinard Festival Of British Film, which runs October 5-8.In the competition section, Guy Ritchie's Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels' follow-up Snatch will square up to another much-anticipated, low-budget UK crowd-pleaser - Stephen Daldry's Billy Elliot. Also up for the Hitchcock d'Or at the ...

  • News

    Profile: Liz Mackiewicz of Arclight Films

    2007-12-21T00:00:00Z

    When she officially joined Arclight Films just before last November's American Film Market, Liz Mackiewicz brought a wealth of experience to the Los Angeles-based international sales and finance company.While Arclight may have established itself as a significant international sales player in its first five years of operation, its new executive ...

  • Features

    United States - Water Works

    2007-12-21T00:00:00Z

    Director Jay Russell has already brought two well-loved books to the big screen, in his 2000 family film My Dog Skip and in his 2002 fantasy Tuck Everlasting. But it took a leap forward in special-effects technology for him to pull off The Water Horse: Legend Of The Deep, based ...

  • Features

    Botswana - Production Number One

    2007-12-21T00:00:00Z

    It is fitting that when he started filming, Anthony Minghella did not know if The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency would end up as a feature or a TV film. After all, this is a director who made his international name as an Oscar winner for such sweeping cinematic epics ...

  • Features

    Turkey - Road movies

    2007-12-21T00:00:00Z

    For the last 13 years Basak Emre and Ahmet Boyacioglu have been bringing world cinema to the farthest corners of Turkey. Their European Film Festival on Wheels, running since 1995, starts in late autumn in Ankara, then, for the following month, stages repeat performances of the programme in at least ...