All articles by Wendy Mitchell
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NewsBruce Robinson is 'comeback kid' with Rum Diary
Bruce Robinson jokes that on the set of The Rum Diary starring Johnny Depp, he is the ‘comeback kid’ - directing his first film since 1992’s Jennifer 8. ‘Now I’m working with the world’s most famous movie star all of a sudden,’ Robinson says. ‘It’s kind of a shock to ...
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NewsGood Pitch at Hot Docs selects five social issue projects
The Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival’s Toronto Documentary Forum (TDF) will welcome five projects as part of The Good Pitch at Hot Docs, inpartnership with the Channel 4 Britdoc Foundation and Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program and also supported by the Fledgling Fund and Working Films.
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Producers say NY tax credit extension is good news, if a temporary fix
New York State has unveiled a Budget that extends the state’s 30% film and TV production tax credit. The state has now set aside $350m for the extension of the incentive, as part of the $132bn budget presented by Governor David Paterson (given final approval by the state Senate on ...
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Sarasota's top prizes go to The Maid, Winnebago Man
Sebastian Silva’s Sundance award winner The Maid continued its winning spree by taking the honours for Best Narrative Feature at the 11th annual Sarasota Film Festival. The Best Documentary Feature was Ben Steinbauer’s Winnebago Man.For the first year, Sarasota’s awards came with distribution prizes. The narrative feature gets a DVD/VOD/TV ...
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Tribeca panelists to include Spike Lee, Tommy Ramone
The Tribeca Film Festival has announced its discussions line-ups as part of the Tribeca Talks Series and Behind The Screens: Films and Conversations about Truth, Clarity and Responsibility.Tribeca Talks Special Events will include a politics/Hollywood discussion after the world premiere of Poliwood, featuring director Barry Levinson and actors including Josh ...
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Czech Center New York to host contemporary European filmseries
The Czech Center New York will host Disappearing Act: European Cinema from New Wave to New Wave, a series of 18 contemporary feature films running April 16-23.The films from nine countries are presented in partnership with eight European institutes. The series also marks the Czech Republic's presidency of the EU. ...
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RiverRun to open with Mark Webb's (500) Days Of Summer
The RiverRun International Film Festival will open its 11th-annual event on April 22 with Mark Webb's (500) Days Of Summer. The Winston-Salem, North Carolina, event will close April 29 with a screening of Harold Lloyd's classic 1928 silent comedy Speedy accompanied by the Alloy Orchestra.Ramin Bahrani will receive RiverRun's first ...
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Babelgum takes online/mobile rights to Workbook's Radar
Online content platform Babelgum has acquired the worldwide exclusive Internet and mobile rights to weekly video series Radar.The three-minute episodes, which examine innovative projects across creative disciplines, are produced by WBP Labs, the experimental lab division of the Workbook Project.The deal was negotiated by Babelgum's GM and publisher - film ...
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Babelgum offers mobile video application to US users
Online content platform Babelgum has released a US version of its mobile video application. At the same time the babelgum.com website has been redesigned with a Flash-based player.Babelgum had previously launched its mobile services in the UK and Italy.In the US, the mobile appication is free and available for download ...
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Tribeca All Access selects 27 projects from US, UK, Australia, Canada
The Tribeca Film Festival and Tribeca Film Institute have selected 27 projects for the 2009 Tribeca All Access programme, which encourages industry support of filmmakers from traditionally underrepresented communities.TAA, supported by Bloomberg, is now in its sixth year, and will run during April 20-25 during the TFF.Participating directors and screenwriters ...
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Producer Paul Mezey looks outward from NYC
Paul Mezey does not have the insular New York mind-set of some independent producers based in the Big Apple. One of his next two productions, Joshua Marston's Blood Feud (working title), will shoot in Northern Albania while David Riker's The Girl will shoot in Texas and Mexico.He has also gone ...
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Cherien Dabis on Amreeka
Cherien Dabis' feature debut Amreeka, a richly observed story of Arab-American immigrants in middle America, hits very close to home. 'I grew up in Ohio, going back to Jordan every summer,' Dabis says. 'I had a sort of identity crisis - I wasn't American enough for the Americans nor Arab ...
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Critical Condition: How media downsizing impacts indie film
Mark Lipsky knows first hand how important critics can be for an independent film's success. Lipsky, now head of Gigantic Digital, was working for New Yorker Films in 1981 when Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert championed a little film called My Dinner With Andre on their syndicated TV show. When ...
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SXSW's Janet Pierson talks about being part of 'a film's life'
Janet Pierson did not set out to become the head of a film festival, but aged 51 she finds herself with the unexpected task of running the South By Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference & Festival.'It was a great surprise,' Pierson says of the chance to lead the Austin, Texas-based festival ...
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Sarasota to open with Oren Moverman's The Messenger
The 11th-annual Regal Entertainment Group Sarasota Film Festival will kick off in the Florida city on March 27 with a screening of Oren Moverman's The Messenger. The military-themed drama, which won the Berlinale's Silver Bear for Screenwriting, stars Ben Foster, Woody Harrelson, Samantha Morton and Jena Malone. Foster, Harrelson and ...
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Tribeca adds world premieres by Steven Soderbergh, Cheryl Hines
The Tribeca Film Festival has unveiled the remainder of its 2009 programme with the out-of-competition selections for its Encounters, Spotlight, Showcase, Restored/Rediscovered and Midnight sections.In Encounters, 10 of the 11 narratives and documentaries are world premieres. Those include Cheryl Hines' directorial debut Serious Moonlight written by the late Adrienne Shelly ...
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Technology's transformation of the film business
A dance floor in Indonesia is not the most likely place for a US seller and a German buyer to negotiate an acquisition deal. Yet with the transformation of the film business due to cellphones, PDAs (personal digital assistant) and other mobile devices, anywhere is valid as a place to ...
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Extra Virgin: getting creative in Thailand
In a year of economic crisis, not to mention political upheaval at home, Thailand's Extra Virgin is a rare independent company that is expanding its business.Mai Meksawan and Pimpaka Towira founded Bangkok-based Extra Virgin in 2007 with a slate of projects; they have since released Thai films theatrically (Pimpaka's own ...
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Durand takes new VP marketing role at Warner Bros France
Emmanuel Durand has been hired as vice president marketing, Warner Bros France and will join the company in May. He will report to Iris Knobloch, president/director general of Warner Bros France. Durand will be responsible for marketing across theatrical, video, digital and games. Warner Bros France said that with this ...
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Minority report: training in the US
Minority training in the USOne of the hottest US initiatives supporting women and minority film-makers is the Tribeca Film Institute's Tribeca All Access (TAA), a project-based, meetings-driven programme held during the Tribeca Film Festival in April, and now in its sixth year. Programme manager Tamir Muhammad says the 2009 TAA ...