 Monday, February
11, 2002 |
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Today |
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TF1 International has boarded The One And Only,
a romantic comedy produced by the UK’s Assassin Films and to be
directed by Simon Cellar Jones. The world-wide acquisition and sales arm of TF1
Group, which is co-producing the title along with Pathe UK, will be
handling worldwide sales with the exception of English-speaking territories
which will be handled by Pathe, and Scandinavia which will be handled
by Sandrew Metronome. The One and Only -- an adaptation from Danish
award-winning box office hit Den Eneste Ene, written by Peter Flannery
and set in Newcastle — will start shooting in the summer of 2001.
Assassin Films produced East is East, while Simon Cellar Jones' credits
include Some Voices. TF1 International’s two other hot pre-sales
include Danish film-maker Ole Bornedal’s $14m period drama I Am
Dina, starring Pernilla August, Gerard Depardieu, Maria Bonnevie, which
is currently shooting, and another recent pick-up, Dai Sijie’s
The Little Chinese Seamstress, based upon the Chinees film-maker’s
own best-selling novel Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, which
is to start shooting shortly. Palomar Pictures
Joni Sigvatsson's Palomar Pictures, which is
co-producing mega-budget K:19 - The Widowmaker for Intermedia, is teaming
up with hot Icelandic director Baltasar Kormakur (101 Reykjavik) to
produce Kormakur's English-language debut A Little Piece Of Heaven. Palomar has also bought film rights to US bestseller
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant which is being developed as a directing
vehicle for Ramaa Mosley, and is rescussitating romantic comedy Why
Can't I Be Audrey Hepburn? Which Ryan Murphy has scripted and will direct. Inspired by Tom Waits' song of the same name
and 16th century play Tis A Pity She's A Whore, A Little
Piece Of Heaven is currently being rewritten by Kormakur and Andrew
Chapman. An edgy thriller, it tells the story of a man and a woman on
the run from the police for setting up insurance frauds who are not
what they seem. Icelandic company Zikzak is co-producing the film with
Palomar. Palomar was bought out by Sigvatsson, former
head of Propaganda Films and Lakeshore Entertainment, two years ago
and he runs it with partner Jonathon Ker. Why Can't I Be Audrey Hepburn?
Is set to shoot later this year and Sigvatsson is currently negotiating
for the female lead with a major actress. The Red Tent is the retelling
of the Old Testament story of Jacob from a female point of view. M6
France’s M6 has become the first distributor
to sign up for rights to Hong Kong superstar Michelle Yeoh’s new
picture The Touch. The film will be released by M6 sister company SND,
which is scheduled to handle Gangs of New York. Thierry Desmichelle, director general of M6 Interactions
,said he had acquired all French rights including home entertainment. By the end of the market, Media Asia, the production
powerhouse which has developed and is financing the film, expects to
close deals for the rest of Europe. While it is in discussions with
four US parties, Media Asia says that a North American deal on the circus
adventure picture may be harder to close until the SAG strike threat
is resolved. The $20m film has been a long time in development
and is now set to roll in July under the direction of Peter Pau, who
recently won the Oscar for best cinematography for Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon. Yeoh is producing through her company Mythical Pictures
and will star. Taiwanese company Pandasia takes a co-production credit
after putting up some 40% of the budget. The company is also an equity
investor in Media Asia’s Princess D and will supply special effects
through its technical facilities offshoot Digimax. "The Touch is both a statement and a new
standard bearer for what people from Hong Kong can do," said Thomas
Chung, Media Asia Group managing director. Media Asia has been building its own theatrical
distribution network in Asia. In partnership with local partners such
as Entertainment Golden Village it now has releasing capabilities in
Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia. Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s
Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s official competition
title Kandahar sold to a string of distributors even before its first
screening on Thursday. Bim has taken the film for Italy, Golem for Spain
and United King for Israel. StudioCanal’s specialty division Wild Bunch,
which is handling worldwide sales on the title, has also been fielding
several offers for the Benelux, Canada and Scandivania. Two US distributors
have expressed interest. Makhmalbaf's latest film deals the ordeal of
the Afghan women under the rule of the Taliban. Buena Vista International (BVI) has bought a
large part of the world on Europa Corp's Kiss Of The Dragon, the Jet
Li-actioner to which 20th Century Fox has domestic rights.
The $25m picture co-starring Bridget Fonda and Tchecky Karyo which Besson
wrote with his Fifth Element collaborator Robert Mark Kamen. France's Chris Nahon directed Kiss Of The Dragon
which is the story of a Chinese intelligence officer who goes to Paris
and becomes embroiled in a deadly conspiracy. Warner Bros
Warner Bros has acquired Japanese, Spanish and
South American rights to Nanni Moretti’s Cannes competition title
La Stanza Del Figlio, sold worldwide by StudioCanal’s speciality
division Wild Bunch. Wild Bunch had previously sold Korean rights
for La Stanza to Jaynet. Wild Bunch, headed by Vincent Maraval, has
no less than 10 titles in official selection this year, including four
in the main competition, including, along with La Stanza, Jean-Luc Goddard’s
L’Eloge de l’amour, Hirokazu Kore-Eda’s Distance and
Iranian film-maker Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s Kandahar. TR Pictures (TRP)
The $16m ice-age tale The Mammoth Hunters
is to be the first film produced by TR Pictures (TRP) the production
company created in May 2001 by former Clt Ufa International top executive
Heinz Thym and US writer-director Stewart Raffill. The two principals of the UK-based company, which
has offices in London, Los Angeles and Luxembourg, plan to turn out
three to four family-oriented feature films per year, carrying budgets
in the $5m-30m range, most of them shot in Canada and in Europe. Thym was head of co-productions and acquisitions
for the RTL Plus (aka Clt Ufa) group’s foreign sales and distribution
arm. UK-born, Los Angeles-based Raffill directed some 14 features in
Hollywood, including The Adventures Of The Wilderness Family
for MGM/UA. The Mammoth Hunters (working title) - which
is currently being cast and will make an heavy use of computer generated
images - is mostly aimed at children from six to seventeen years old
and is to start shooting as of August in France, Canada and Lapland.
TRP has several other projects already in development,
all written and to be directed by Raffill, including Europe-set political
thriller Bombers, a humorous Christmas tale, as well as The Smooth Operator
a women-oriented flick set between the UK, Holland and Paris. TRP will
develop, produce and handle foreign sales on its titles. Code Red
Catherine Breillat’s latest controversy-courting
film, Fat Girl (A Ma Soeur!) has been acquired for distribution in the
US and English-speaking Canada by Code Red, which now plans an unrated
domestic release after an expected North American festival run this
autumn. Code Red is the acquisition co-venture formed
by art-house specialist Cowboy Booking International and producer Antidote
Films. Fat Girl is the company’s third pick-up from French sales
house Flach Pyramide following Ziad Doueiri’s West Beirut and Tony
Gatlif’s forthcoming Vengo. While not quite as overtly explicit as Breillat’s
earlier film, Romance, Fat Girl is still an unflinching study of teenage
sexuality and virginity. that revolves around two young sisters. Other territories already sown up include the
UK (Metro Tartan) Australia (Potential), Japan (Prenom H), Brazil (Cinearte),
Finland (Cinemundo), Netherlands (Film Museum), Belgium (Progres Films),
Switzerland (Agora Films), Russia (ASG Video) and Turkey (Irfan Film). Mirovision
Setting out to become an integrated major, Korean
sales agent Mirovision has unveiled a series of acquisitions, a new
production alliance and a slate of new pictures. Having last year handled Korean distribution
of big-budget international titles such as Dancer In The Dark, Mirovision
has set up a new distribution label Miro Discovery for smaller titles.
"This will allow us to create a brand and a clear identification
with auteur directors," said Jason Chae, Mirovision CEO. First
titles acquired for the new label include Amores Perros, Séance, Girl
Fight, Requiem For A Dream and Winchester’s Christmas Carol. On the production front Chae unveiled the next
film by Hong Sangsoo, whose Virgin Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors last
year appeared in Un Certain Regard. The untitled drama with a $1.5m
budget will go into production in July through Miracin Korea, the production
company that has delivered all of Hong’s acclaimed films. Confirming the Korean sci-fi boom Mirovision
is also readying Yesterday, a psychological thriller about detectives
on the trail of kidnappers. The film stars Choi Min-soo, the Broadway-trained
actress who shot to fame in blockbuster Shiri.The film begins production
in July on a hefty $5m budget under the direction of Jung Yon-soo. Mirovision
says that the project is already attracting strong interest from Japan
and other Shiri success territories. It is in post-production on Raiba:n (SIC), a
light drama about three taxi drivers who attempt to shake up their pathetic
lives. The director is Jang Hyun-soo, who Chae describes as "the
hidden treasure of Korean cinema." "We are reinventing ourselves as content
players, above and beyond sales," said Chae. "We will have
the ability to go beyond the Korean market. That’s why we are so
pleased to representing Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Séance [which premiered
at last year’s Toronto festival]". Chae is just weeks away from finalising a deal
with Korean broadcaster MBC which will span production, distribution
and acquisitions. This is likely to kick off with six low-budget independent
projects, backed by a new fund, which MBC is establishing. "We
may do English-language projects as co-productions with the US through
this." Myriad Pictures
Myriad Pictures has agreed to terms for a two-year
$100m revolving line of credit from Imperial Entertainment Group, the
film financing subsidiary of Comerica Bank, for film production. The deal was negotiated by Myriad co-president
Kirk D'Amico and CFO Jon Schiffman with Imperial's president Morgan
Rector, senior vice president Jared Underwood and assistant vice president
Jaime Regal. The deal will allow Myriad to continue to finance
its production slate independently, according to D'Amico and his co-president
Philip Von Alvensleben. Myriad is owned by German media company IN-Motion
AG. Myriad's current slate includes People I Know
featuring Al Pacino and Kim Basinger, Miguel Arteta's The Good Girl
with Jennifer Aniston and teen comedy Van Wilder: Party Liaison. Karim Traidia
Algerian-born Dutch director Karim Traidia (Les
Diseurs Des Verites, The Polish Bride) has completed the script for
what will be his next film, English-language comedy Halcyon, set to
become the first feature film out of Robert Lovenheim’s Paris and
New York based River City Productions. Described as a bittersweet comedy, Halcyon tells
the story of a Dutch family forced to emigrate from a futuristic Europe
due to a "meat plague." The family arrives to island nation
Halcyon, where they have to assimilate to the islanders’ strange
customs. Lovenheim, who co-wrote the script with Traidia,
is seeking a Spanish co-producer to shoot the $3.5m film this autumn
on the Canary Island of Lanzarote, which he discovered at last December’s
Spanish Film Screenings for Europe. A prolific TV producer, Lovenheim is refashioning
veteran River City as a home for "English-language films made in
Europe with European directors and mixed casts." He recently formed
an association with New York-based start-up management company Key Light
Entertainment to tap US actors and scriptwriters as well. Two other feature films in development at River
City include the $10m fantastic comedy Dragons from director Ella Lemhagen
(Tsatsiki) and director Rainer Kaufmann’s $6-8m Pandora, written
by David Ives and based on the true story of the 1930’s love affair
between silent movie star Louise Brooks and director Georg Wilhelm Pabst. Winchester Films
The UK’s Winchester Films has finalised
its long gestating acquisition of 10 year-old indie distribution outfit
Feature Film Company. Winchester bought the distributor from chairman
David Holloway, who co-founded the operation with Mick Southworth in
1991. Southworth joined Winchester last year to set up a UK distribution
operation. Laurence Gornall and David Shear, respectively
head of marketing and sales at Feature Film Company, will take up posts
at Winchester under Southworth. Winchester’s distribution operation
is to handle ten to 12 releases a year including product from the US’
Wind Dancer, with which the company has a three-year deal. Feature Film Company handled titles such as Withnail
& I, Cold Comfort Farm, Gang Related and Ulee’s Gold. "This is a determined business undertaking,"
said Southworth. "The only niche we wish to fill is that of a solid
resourced distribution company that has the infrastructure capable of
releasing a steady stream of high level product." Alliance Atlantis Pictures
Alliance Atlantis Pictures International has
closed a raft of deals on Atom Egoyan's Ararat, a film within a film
set against the 1915 Turkish massacre of Armenians. Aside from the previously announced sales to
ARP in France and BIM Distribuzione in Italy, president Mark Horowitz
has sold it to Altima in Spain, AMA Films in Greece, Myndform in Iceland,
MGN in Russia, Shaw Renters in Singapore and Shani Films in Israel.
As for the Turkish buyers, says Horowitz, the
response has been mixed but he is confident that he will close in Turkey.
"Will Japanese audiences not see Pearl Harbour," he said.
"Did Germans not go to see Schindler's List?" PICCAP Cinema Arts Entertainment, the US arm
of French sales house Artedis, has picked up lowbudget US title, Gabriela.
The romantic tale, produced by its writer and director, Vincent Jay
Miller, has been successfully released in the US by fledgling US distributor
Power Point Films.It earned $600,000 (a $5,791 per screen average on
its opening week-end in Los Angeles and is expected to gross some $2m
as it rolls on to other cities. Pictured are Jaime Gomez and Seidy Lopez.
Francoise Meaux Saint Marc Alibi Films International
UK-based sales outfit Alibi Films International
has picked up international sales rights on Secretary, a US indie film
starring James Spader. Directed by Hit Me’s Steven Shainberg from
a script by Erin Cressida, the love story also stars Maggie Gyllenhaal
and Jeremy Davies. Gyllenhaal plays a secretary who goes to work for
Spader’s eccentric lawyer. The film was produced by Double A Films, which
has credits including Hamlet, and Shainberg. The deal with Alibi was
brokered by Michael Roban of New York law firm Kauffman & Roban. Alibi, founded by former HandMade executives
Gareth Jones and Hilary Davis, is representing a mostly UK and Irish
slate including South West 9, by the producers of Human Traffic, and
Mystics, about two spiritualist con artists. CineMedia Filmproduktions
Germany's CineMedia Filmproduktions, Freedom
Pictures and Voyager Films will team on Face Value, a $7.5m comedy set
to start shooting at the end of August on location in London and Berlin.
Cobalt Media Group is in advanced negotiations to co-finance and distribute
the film. John Hay (There's Only One Jimmy Grimble) will direct, Tim
White and James Gibb will produce; CineMedia's Christoph Thoke will
co-produce. Face Value is the story of a bankrupt printer who decides
to start a counterfeiting operation. Crusader Entertainment
Howard Baldwin's Crusader Entertainment - financed
by billionaire businessman Philip Anschutz - has acquired the rights
to the action/adventure book series by Clive Cussler revolving around
character Dirk Pitt. They include Sahara, Atlantis Found, Night Probe,
Inca Gold and Flood Tide. Paramount Pictures has domestic rights to the
series, per Crusader's three-year first-look deal with the studio, and
Baldwin is meeting with international distributors, financiers and sales
agents in Cannes with a view to setting up foreign finance. The first Pitt novel Iceberg was published in
1973 and since then, the books have been published in over 40 languages
in over 100 countries. The latest adventure Valhalla Rising is to be
published this fall. "I have always been a huge fan of the Clive
Cussler's stories and I am excited to be working with Crusader in developing
these books into films," said Sherry Lansing, Chairman of the Motion
Picture Group for Paramount Pictures. "We are thrilled Crusader
Entertainment has acquired the rights to them." Crusader has also created a Classics division
which is currently on production on two films shooting in Chicago -
Joshua based on the first novel of Joseph Girzone's book series, and
Children On Their Birthdays based on the short story by Truman Capote. The company is currently in pre-production on
A Sound Of Thunder based on Ray Bradbury's short story; Pierce Brosnan
stars, Renny Harlin is directing and Dante Entertainment is co-producing.
Crusader also recently acquired the life rights to the story of music
legend Ray Charles. Gravity Entertainment and Studios
South Florida-based company Gravity Entertainment
and Studios, has announced the first titles to be produced through its
three production divisions : Gravity Pictures, Lighthouse Point
Films (medium-sized, genre flicks) and the latest addition, arthouse-oriented
Farm Club Films. Gravity, which handles titles in the $10m plus
budget range, is in the process of building film and television studios
in Fort Lauderdale and has already backed Larry Clark’s Bully,
along with StudioCanal. The next picture to be turned out by Gravity
Pictures will be Goodtime Charlie, a $15m rock n’ roll epic starring
Brad Rowe and Marisa Coughian to be directed by Kostas Iannos, which
is scheduled to start shooting mid-june in Toronto. Don Carmody (Driven,
The Lost World) is producing. As for the Lighthouse banner, its first producing
effort will be Funny Money, a $3m Irish title produced by Noel Pearson
(My Left Foot) and featuring Stephen Dorff and John Hurt. Farm Club Films, dedicated to smaller titles
with price tags up to $1.5m, will kickstart with Have You Seen Me, a
partnership with Muse Productions (American Psycho, Virgin Suicides,
Buffalo 66). The $1.2m California-set drama written and directed by
Damian Harris is to start shooting at the end of June. Mr Brown Entertainment
A Danish remake of Lars Buechel’s hit comedy
Now Or Never — Time Is Money could be on the cards according to
Ralf Zimmermann of Mr Brown Entertainment, the production company of
German star Til Schweiger. He also announced that Mr Brown and director
Buechel are to continue their collaboration with another feature project,
Erbsen Auf Halb Sechs, a tragicomedy about two blind lovers, which Buechel
has been writing with Now Or Never author Ruth Toma. Principal photography
is slated to begin in April 2002. In addition, Mr Brown is developing a number
of US projects including the western Marilyn's Tavern & Whorehouse
and a feature entitled Barefoot to be made in English and as a German
remake in collaboration with a US studio and a German distributor. Now
Or Never — Time Is Money is handled internationally by Telepool Hong Kong is now ready to take its place at the
centre of the world film industry. That at least is the message being
delivered by Selina Chow, member of the Hong Kong legislature and chairman
of the HK Tourism Board. Chow says that the film industry is now being
taken seriously by the HK authorities and that the various government
departments are at last co-ordinating their efforts."Everyone is
doing their bit," said Chow. "Film and tourism are inseparable
in our minds." She admits that, prior to Hong Kong becoming a Special
Administrative Region, support had been haphazard. "We have a great
city, great talent and we are ready and able to welcome other film-makers
to come here and make use of our facilities." Chow is also keen to position HK as the key access
point for film-makers wanting to shoot in mainland China. Most of Crouching
Tiger Hidden Dragon’s crew was Hong Kong based. We are very familiar
with locations and facilities in China. The HK government has set up a film fund. "This
is not in the business of subsidising films. But it is now assisting
training, script-writing, production courses art design and even travel
to foreign festivals." Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures is backing the UK remake of
Burt Reynolds thriller The Mean Machine, with former football hard man
Vinnie Jones taking the starring role. Newcomer Barry Skolnick is currently
shooting the story of a jailed footballer forced to take part in a violent
contest between prisoners and their guards for Matthew Vaughn and Guy
Ritchie's Ska Films, the prodcution outfit behind Lock, Stock And two
Smoking barrels and Snatch. Also in the cast are Jason Statham Sally
Phillip, Vaz Blackwood and Warren Mitchell, famous for his Alf Garnett
character. Paramount had the rights to the 1974 original. Film & Music Entertainment
Film & Music Entertainment (UK), the British
production division of German’s FAME has picked up feature film
rights to acclaimed TV series Flambards. The 13-part series was based
on a series of novels by Katherine Peyton and was produced by Yorkshire
Television. F&ME (UK)’s head of production Sam taylor said
the series targets girls between 12 and 6 years old and has the potential
to be turned into a lucrative brand." F&ME UK, the British film production and
finance arm of German multi-media group FAME, is to team up with production
outfit Clear Pictures on Fake!, a $25m tale of art fraud. Clear Pictures is the new Los Angeles-based production
label of Matthew Justice, who executive produced Steven Norrington’s
Blade and recently delivered the same director’s The Last Minute
under his Venom Entertainment banner. Fake is based on the life of Elmyr de Hory, a
Hungarian refugee who was once acclaimed as the greatest forger of all
time. He was also the inspiration for Orson Welles’ documentary
F Is For Fake. "Fake! represents a real opportunity to
make a sophisticated, entertaining movie, with an independent heart
and international appeal," said Justice. F&ME UK, which is headed by Mike Downey and
Sam Wood, will co-develop and produce. It is also readying two other
productions, Josephine starring Giancarlo Esposito and Maria Schrader
and Under the Stars by Christos Giorgiou currently in post production
and looking for summer festival homes. Sullivan Entertainment
Canadian independent production and distribution
company Sullivan Entertainment has signed with Harper Collins to produce
thirteen paperback books in an exclusive series to publish prior to
the launch of the animated feature of Anne of Green Gables which will
be completed production late Fall 2001. Sullivan, which recently announced
its new feature film division will be attending Cannes for the first
time and will unveil exclusive footage from the animation to buyers
and distributors at the market. Bavaria Film International (BFI)
German directors may not have much joy with Cannes’
Official Competition selectors, but Bavaria Film International has had
no trouble finding takers among international buyers for its lineup
of German films. Bavaria Film International (BFI) has forged a three-year
, five-picture output deal with newcomer producer Oliver Simon’s
new production outfit K5 Film. The first project under the agreement will be
the $ (DM 3.5m) Nitschewo which will be co-produced by production services
house ARRI and start shooting in August. BFI’s Michael Weber said the sales company
is "working for the first time here with a very young company who
we are accompanying from their launch. We have an option to co-produce
on the projects, but are also interested at the same time in bringing
other partners onboard." BFI also has output arrangements with such local
production companies as box! Film, MTM and Wueste Film.. Roland Suso Richter’s "Cannes Junior"
film A Handful Of Grass has been sold to France’s K-Films. Deals
have been announced on Fatih Akin’s road movie In July for distributors
in the USA (Philos), Singapore (Spafax), Norway (Scandinavian Entertainment)
and Mexico (Gemini Films). Further sales have been concluded on: Jean-Jacques
Beineix’s thriller comedy Mortal Transfer which Maxfun Arthouse
has bought for Hong Kong and has deals pending for Norway and Iceland;
Philip Groening’s L’Amour, L’Argent, L’Amour with
Overseas Movie Distribution for Singapore; Andreas Dresen’s Night
Shapes for Paradise Films of Cuba; Caroline Link’s Beyond Silence
for Svenska Filminstitut of Sweden; Lars Becker’s Kanak Attack
for Beliven Enterprises of Russia; Tom Tykwer’s Run Lola Run for
Golden Screen Cinemas for Malaysia and Brunei; Otto Alexander Jahrreiss’
Zoom for Maxfun Arthouse ofHong Kong and Oskar Roehler’s No Place
To Go for ICA of the UK, Filmmuseum of the Netherlands and Lusomundo
of Portugal and Portuguese speaking Africa. The Indian Government
The Indian Government has launched its first
ever marketing blitz to sell Indian movies at Cannes. This includes
setting up an India pavilion at the festival to give prospective buyers
information about Indian movies and to sell India as a destination for
film shooting and post-production activities. Indian Information and
broadcasting minister Sushma Swaraj, who will arrive today with a high-level
delegation to Cannes starting today, will also be meeting French film
producers and potential investors for Indian entertainment industry.
Swaraj and the delegation will also meet international film industry
executives at a special India Reception scheduled for this evening at
the Carlton. "The government wants to proactively facilitate export
of Indian films," Swaraj told EIOL. The minister added that the
idea was to highlight advantage India offers in terms of cost, diversity
of geographical conditions, trained manpower for the post-production
activities such as animation, special effects, sub-titling and digitalisation
of old films. The minister said talks would be held with her counterpart
in France for some Indo-French productions. The National Film Development
Corporation has brought some 35 movies to be sold at Cannes, of which
11 are in production stage. This includes Daman, Train to Pakistan and
Goutam Ghosh's Deekha. The government is planning to increase the Indian
presence at other festivals and trade shows in the years to come. India
is the largest producer of movies in the world and exports films worth
around US $ 110 million annually. Greenlight Media
German micro studio Greenlight Media is exploring
the possibility of accessing private investors from outside of Germany
to come onboard a new $100m media fund being launched in the next couple
of months as a successor to Greenlight's Berlin Animation Film (BAF) fund,
according to Rick van den Heuvel, President and CEO of world sales division
Greenlight International. The new fund, which was first made public
during the Cartoon Movie co-production market at the Babelsberg Studios
in March, will back a portfolio of 4-5 feature films. Van den Heuvel
pointed out that "it is not clear yet whether it will only be animation
- [as in BAF 1] - or whether there might also be 1-2 live action films.
We are currently making the decisions at the moment on which projects
will be supported". The first BAF fund, which was launched in two
tranches in autumn and winter 1999 by London-based Dresdner Kleinwort
Benson ploughed some DM 150m ($ ) into a mix of cinema and TV projects
ranging from the $30m Simsalagrimm - The Movie, based on the SimsalaGrimm
animated series, through to such series as Meadowlands, The @dventurers,
Bob's Beach and Acariens . Bim
Bim, one of Italy’s leading arthouse distributors,
is looking to buy up to 9 pictures between now and the Venice Film Festival
as it boosts its slate to 24 titles. It is the first time Bim’s
Valerio de Paolis is attending the festival with an open slate. "It’s so much more fun to be able to
attend all the black tie dinners and parties when you’re looking
for movies, rather than going and knowing that you’ve already bought
everything you want before the festival," said De Paolis, explaining
the change of strategy. Meanwhile, De Paolis is also looking to board
new projects as a co-producer, and already has a co-production-distribution
agreement with UK director Ken Loach. Over the last decade, Bim has built a solid reputation
distributing arthouse films by important authors as well as debut directors,
and is a well-known distributor of Asian films. De Paolis recently acquired
Tears of the Black Tiger and was the Italian distributor of Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Recent pick-ups include hot French director Francois
Ozon’s upcoming Eight Women, which stars Emanuelle Beart, Isabelle
Huppert, Catherine Deneuve, Virginie Ledoyen and Fanny Ardant, and Bruce
Beresford’s Boswell for the Defence. Bim’s slate also includes
Eric Rohmer’s The Lady and the Duke, Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amelie
and Bill Benett’s Australian film Tempted. Esicma
Spanish producer Esicma is prepping its first
two films under new head Pau Calpe: Manuel Poirier’s The Women…
Or The Children First (Les Femmes… Ou Les Enfants D’Abord)
and Eduard Bosch’s A Love Story (Una Historia De Amor). The French-language Women is an 80/20 co-production
between Maurice Bernart’s Paris-based Salome and Escima, which
also holds all Spanish rights. ARP Selection has rights in France on
the $4m film. Women begins shooting Monday in the UK and Spain with
star Sergi Lopez (Harry, He’s Here To Help), who previously collaborated
with Poirier on 1997 film Western. Bosch (El Viaje De Arian) will helm the $2m Love
Story (working title) with a script by Nicolas Melini. The film is expected
to roll before year end. "These two projects follow our twofold strategy
of developing or backing two to three films per year mixing Spanish-language
films for the local market and more international projects, likely in
English," Calpe said. Calpe took over the reigns at Elias Querejeta-backed
Esicma in 1999. Menemsha Entertainment
Neil Friedman's Menemsha Entertainment has acquired
international sales rights to Allison Anders' Things Behind The Sun,
which premiered at this year's Sundance Film Festival. Starring Kim Dickens, Gabriel Mann, Don Cheadle,
Rosanna Arquette, Eric Stoltz, Elizabeth Pena, CCH Pounder and Patsy
Kensit, the film - which is premiering on Showtime in the US - is the
story of a music journalist writing a piece on a young rock musician
(Dickens), who gets more than he bargains for when he starts to interview
her. Menemsha, which traditionally specialises in
foreign language movies such as Train De Vie, Mauvaises Frequentations
and Color Of Paradise, has also completed sales on its Hungarian film
Divided We Fall which was nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film
Academy Award this year and has been picked up for domestic release
by Sony Pictures Classics. Alfa Films bought it for Argentina, Cine
Colombia for Colombia and Tantra for Poland. He also concluded a deal
for pan-Latin pay-TV deal for CineCanal. Filmstiftung NRW
Filmstiftung NRW chief Michael Schmid-Ospach
has plunged into the debate about the absence of a German film in the
Cannes official competition for the last eight festivals. In an interview with German public broadcaster
ZDF's Aspekte arts programme on Friday evening, Schmid-Ospach described
the French attitude as "regrettable ignorance" when asked
if Cannes was a fair playing field for the German cinema. "Their internationality and their openness
are no longer quite so credible if they don't register anything at all
over such a long stretch, and then say that German cinema is lacking
this or that", he argued. "In questions of art one cannot proceed
with brutality, one simply goes somewhere else", Schmid-Ospach
suggested. Schmid-Ospach replaced Dieter Kosslick as head of German
funding body Filmstifung last year. Last week, Cannes Film Festival’s artistic
director Thierry Fremaux accused German filmmakers of "lacking
an unmistakable style". MediaTrade
Italy's MediaTrade and Polish impresario Wladislow
Bartoszewicz are backing Between Strangers, a film written and directed
by Sophia Loren’s son Edoardo Ponti and starring his superstar
mother opposite Gerard Depardieu. Set to go before the cameras on June 4th
in Toronto, the film is being produced by Gabriella Martinelli, whose
previous credits include both Baz Luhrman's Romeo + Juliet as well David
Cronenberg's Naked Lunch. She returns to production after a three-year
hiatus alongside two other established Italian producers, Elda Ferri
(Roberto Benigni's Life Is Beautiful) and Mario Cotone (Giuseppe Tornatore’s
Malena). Between Strangers tells the stories of three
women representing three generations whose lives radically change when
they confront their past.. "It's about Europeans who have found themselves
in this cosmopolitan town and how their lives interweave," says
Martinelli, who divides her time between Rome and Toronto. Martinelli
will be shopping Between Strangers in Cannes accompanied by Ponti and
Helga Stephenson, former executive director of the Toronto Separately, Martinelli is in discussion with
a British coproducer on an adaptation of Canadian journalist Robert
MacNeil's Burden Of Desire, a historical novel set against the Halifax
Explosion of 1917. John Kent Harrison is in the frame to direct. Martinelli is structuring another Canada-Italy
coproduction to adapt Canadian author Nino Ricci's best-selling trilogy
Lives Of The Saints. International Film Festival and long-time Cannes
habitue, who is acting as an unofficial producer's representative. Italian
rights are also held by MediaTrade, an offshoot of the Mediaset television
empire; Equinox Entertainment has the film for Canada. Danish Film Institute
The Danish Film Institute's Lars Feilberg has
arrived in Cannes with an interesting offer to all foreign producers.
"We have some $1m which has been earmarked for foreign productions
which have Danish companies involved as minor partners," Feilberg
told Eiol. Feilberg, who was appointed new area-manager
for production and development at the Danish Film Institute in April,
added: "Our system is quite flexible in this area, but so far we
have only been involved in projects from the other Nordic countries.
However, as our Danish filmmakers have been able to find increasing
amounts of backing for their projects abroad, it's now our turn to invite
European companies to collaborate with us." Last year's Cannes contender from Sweden, Songs
From The Second Floor, is one resent example of a film which benefited
from the support from the Danish Film Institute through Danish co-producer
Easy Film. "Projects still have to be evaluated by our film-consultants,
but we aim at 5-8 projects this year alone. Our film industry has become
increasingly international in scope, with producers producing and co-producing
feature in English and many of our most talented filmmakers and actors
getting plenty of work and offers outside Denmark." The Danish
Film Institute is represented in Cannes by Feilberg as well as head
of development Lars Hermann and producer Maja Dich. Full On Entertainment
Start-up UK producer-financier Alki David has
launched sales operation Full On Entertainment with a slate of completed
features including Greek-set diving story Oxygen and comedy Adonis Of
Orange County. The company aims to start shooting on dark comedy Coke-Head
later this year. Kevin Williams Associates (KWA)
Spanish sales agent Kevin Williams Associates
(KWA) has closed a string of sales on Ventura Pons comedy Anita Takes
A Chance (Anita No Perd El Tren). The Catalan-language film has sold all rights
to Canada (Cinema Esperanza), Finland (Kamras), Brazil (Providence)
and Switzerland (Rialto). According to KWA chief Williams, sales are
in final negotiations in France, Italy and Argentina as well. Slovakia
‘s Slovak TV picked up local free TV rights. Anita premiered last February at the Berlin International
Film Festival, becoming the fourth consecutive Pons film screened in
the festival’s Panorama section. The film stars Rosa Maria Sarda as a neurotic
middle-aged woman who loses her job on the eve of her 50th
birthday and starts an affair with a younger construction worker (Spanish
hunk Jose Coronado). Anita won the Best Iberoamerican Picture prize
and a special mention for Best Actress at Argentina’s Mar del Plata
film festival in March. Outrider Pictures
SearchParty Films, the company launched at Sundance
this year by Larry Estes and Scott Rosenfelt, has changed its name to
Outrider Pictures and secured a second round of financing from DreamWeaver
Film Investors based in Park City, Utah. A film distribution services company founded
for the exhibition, sales, marketing and promotion of independent feature
films which are traditionally overlooked by other distribution companies,
Outrider will release Ed Radtke's The Dream Catcher, Philip Kan Gotanda's
Life Tastes Good and Stacy Cochran's Drop Back Ten; as producer's rep,
they are currently shopping Jonathan Parker's Bartleby. Outrider recently opened a sales and business
affairs office in Los Angeles, headed by Kjehl Rasmussen and a theatrical
distribution office in New York headed by Richard Abramowitz. Fox Searchlight had been pressurizing SearchParty
to change its name to avoid confusion in the marketplace; the SearchParty
has been in use since 1997 when Estes joined ShadowCatcher Entertainment
to create a low-budget financing/mentoring programme for young film-makers. Svensk Filmindustri
Nordic major Svensk Filmindustri is to handle
all international sales on Nik Powell’s Scala Productions’
Black and White, directed by Australian Craig Lahiff. The fact based $4.5m drama will star Robert Carlyle
as a lawyer who tries to save a young Aborigine from death row in the
late 1950’s. Penned by acclaimed Australian Louis Nowra (Map Of
The Human Heart), principal photography is set for late summer on locations
down under in Adelaide and Ceduna Beach, as well as in London. Scala
Produc tions will co-produce with Dou Arts’ Helen Leake with additional
funding from The South Australian Film Commision, Showtime Australia
and Tim Levy’s Future Films. Frank Cox’s New Vision will be
handling the Australian release. Black and White is the second English-language
feature picked up for international distribution by Svensk Filmindustri
which will also be are presenting Sweden's Gossip and the Norway's You
Really Got Me in Cannes. Grupo Novo de Cinema E TV
Brazilian sales outfit Grupo Novo de Cinema E
TV is developing two feature films and two documentaries in what will
mark the heavyweight sales company’s first productions since 1999
documentary Dorival Caymmi, says Novo president and chairman Tarcisio
Vidigal. The initial four projects, details about which
are still under wraps, are planned for production between this year
and next. They form part of Novo’s current expansion, thanks to
new backing from Brazilian Cinema Promotion (BCP). Vidigal is hoping to capitalise on a renewed
interest in Brazilian cinema following the international success of
films such as Central Station and Me You Them. "There’s a
lack of producers in Brazil," he says. "We get a lot of scripts,
but we prefer to choose and develop our own projects." Brazil’s only consolidated international
sales agency, Novo began in 1972 as a producer of short films and documentaries
then entered feature film production in the 1980s. Its transformation
in the mid-1990s to its current incarnation came about following the
closure of state film agency Embrafilme. Blooming Pictures
Blooming Pictures, a new Italian production company,
is in Cannes looking for European partners to finance Turtles, an English-language
feelgood movie. The Rome-based outfit, created by Riccardo Di
Russo a former Strategic Management Consultant at Deloitte Consulting,
and his sister Viviana, a former Mediaset journalist, aims to focus
exclusively on commercial English-language pictures for the international
market. Turtles is a romantic comedy about the relationship
between an Italo-American translator and a young English company manager.
Zenpix
Zenpix, a new US distribution company formed
in April as a joint venture between Susan Jackson and Das Werk-backed
Promark Entertainment Group, has picked up three films at the Cannes
Film Festival - Asunder, Let It Snow and Ivans.x.t.c. Asunder is an African-American drama starring
Blair Underwood and directed by Tim Reid acquired from New Millenium;
Let It Snow aka Snowday premiered at Sundance 2000 and was written and
directed by Adam Marcus; it was acquired from Curb Entertainment; and
Ivans.x.t.c is directed by Bernard Rose and stars Danny Huston and Peter
Weller. It was acquired from producers Bernard Rose and Lisa Enos. Let It Snow will be distributed theatrically
by Artistic License in June; Zenpix has ancillary rights. Jackson was formerly head of BMG Independents;
she established a consultancy business Turtles Crossing in 1999, building
a portfolio of clients including Granada Film, Lolafilms, Capitol Films
and Portman Entertainment. Magellan Filmed Entertainment’s
Magellan Filmed Entertainment’s Michel Shane
and Jim Steele are in Cannes searching for an Italian partner to board
a $50 million feature film about Leonardo da Vinci. The biopic will start from Da Vinci’s deathbed
before chronicling the multi-talented renaissance artist’s life
from birth to middle age. "This story focuses particularly on the
little-known tormented relationship Leonardo, the illegitimate child
of peasants, had with his father. He strove for his dad’s acceptance
all his life, while also longing for the love of a noble woman." Shane, who bought rights two weeks ago, underlined
the need to find an Italian partner given the nature of the project,
and said writer Joseph Masiello had spent six months researching the
story in Italy. Key roles are for a young to middle-aged man, a mature
actress who will play Leonardo’s mother, and the artist’s
group of friends. The Malibu-based production outfit, which is
chaired by Patrick F. Charles, Director,
President and CEO and Terrence K. Picken,
, Director, Executive Vice-President and COO, went public a year ago
and houses producers Michel Shane and Anthony Romano, the team behind
Leonardo Di Caprio’s next film Catch Me If you Can at DreamWorks
SKG, and Michael Garrity and Mike Gabrawy. The two partnerships recently
teamed up to produce Rennie’s Landing. Driftwood
Matthew Justice has set a Cuban baseball film
La Pelota as the first title to be produced under his new Driftwood
label. Driftwood will handle those films the prolific Justice is producing
outside his existing Venom Entertainment banner with Blade director
Steve Norrington. La Pelota is a creative documentary being co-produced
with New York-based Chamba Mediaworks and directed by celebrated documentary-maker
St Clair Bourne. Bourne recently completed Half past Autumn for HBO.
Venom and Justice yesterday (May 12) gave a world
premiere market screening to Norrington’s The Last Minute, which
is sold by HanWay Films. "Driftwood is about collaboration with other
film-makers and allows me to develop material that may take me in new
directions," said Justice. "However my partnership with Norrington
remains very important to me. We have a project called Godhead that
Norrington is re-writing now." Earlier this week it was announced that Justice
is to produce Fake!, a $25m picture about art forger Elmyr de Hory.
The film is set up as a co-production between Scott kaplan’s Clear
Pictures LA and Mike Downey and Sam Taylor’s UK-based F&ME. F.A.M.E
Germany’s F.A.M.E is set to follow such
Neuer Markt companies as Internationalmedia and In-MOTION in accessing
finance for its production activities via a private German media fund. F.A.M.E board member Michael Bischoff, who is
now also responsible for film production at the Munich-based company
following the sudden exit of Thomas Haeberle last month, says that around
$ (DM 40m) of private investors’ money could be tapped for international
English language productions developed in-house by F.A.M.E as well as
from third party projects in 2001. "The only condition is that they have a
potential to be distributed on the international market, so we are not
talking here about German language features or TV movies", Bischoff
explained. "We want to step up
providing our production know-how toEnglish language productions linked with the
resources made available through the funds", Bischoff said. ApolloMedia
German private film fund ApolloMedia is set to
launch another two new funds after Cannes with the aim of raising up
to Euro 45m for the financing of film projects this year. While a fifth tranche of ApolloMedia is likely
to have a volume of Euro 30m, a new financing instrument called ProMedia
is being created with an anticipated volume of Euro 15m. "Investors had asked to have a fund which
would take on fewer investors but each with higher [individual] levels
of investment", explained Q & Q Medien’s Jan Fantl who
supervises ApolloMedia’s projects. The unveiling of these new funds
comes as Apollo closed its fourth tranche on May 8 with a total volume
of Euro 52m. Among the projects being financed by Apollo 4
are Christian Duguay’s $26.5m action thriller The Extremists with
Rufus Sewell, Heino Ferch and Devon Sawa; William Malone’s Feardotcom,
starring Natasha McElhone, Stephen Dorff, and Isabella Parkinson; Burr
Steers’ $8.5m Igby Goes Down, coproduced with Marco Weber's Atlantic
Streamline and starring Susan Sarandon, Ryan Philippe, Claire Danes,
Jeff Goldblum and Bill Pullman; and Robert Dornhelm’s Fourth Man
with Oliver Platt, Ben Cross and Katja Flint, which will begin shooting
in Vienna on October 1 as a coproduction with Austrian producer Norbert
Blecha's Terra Film. In addition, Apollo 4 is partnering Steven Paul's
Crystal Sky on three projects: Bob Clark's Unleashed, Carl Colpaert's
Jon Voight-starrer Façade, and Gregory Poppen's Baby Geniuses II which
began shooting on location in Toronto on May 7 Italian Trade Commission
The Italian Trade Commission and Italy’s
film promotional body, Italia Cinema, will launch the first ever Italian
Screenings in Siena next June, in line with similar events in London
and Lanzarote. A deconsecrated 15th century church
will host the screenings of 18 Italian films — both Italian premieres
and this season’s big hits, Italia Cinema director Giorgio Gosetti
said. Sixty guests will be invited to the screenings and attend a reception
in the medieval Chiantishire town’s frescoed Palazzo Comunale.
Gosetti explained that the event will be aimed
at foreign buyers and executives who have been closely following the
current revival of Italian cinema. Guests will be invited on the recommendation
of Italian exporters and chosen among international film professionals
who have a particular interest for European cinema. The Italian Screenings
will be held between June 21st and June 24th. Equinoxe
Equinoxe goes international with script programme
Francoise
Meaux Saint Marc France's Equinoxe - a non-profit organisation
which concentrates on script development - has announced the creation
of Equinoxe Inc, a sister company that will operate on an international
and commercial level. The original organisation - whose founders and
principals are Noelle Deschamps, Daniel Langlois and Dominique Marchand
- operates a system where ten pupils discuss their scripts with ten
supervisors in a week-long retreat at the Chateau Beychevelle in the
Saint Julien wine region of Bordeaux. Current backers include Sony Pictures
Entertainment, Canal Plus, the Daniel Langlois Foundation, the CNC and
the Media Programme. Since 1993, Equinoxe’s workshops have dealt
with 153 scripts, 50 of which have been produced, including Alain Berliner’s
Ma Vie en Rose, Albert Dupontel’s Bernie, Rolf de Heer’s The
Old Man Who Read Love Stories, Yoshiyatsu Fujita’s The Bleep Brothers
and Rachid Bouchareb’s Little Senegal. Equinoxe Inc will be based in New York, and will
work on four projects (half of them US, half of them European) per year
and will organize two to three workshops involving high-profile scriptwriters.
$1 million will be invested in Equinoxe Inc per year, with the company
taking equity shares in any resulting productions. The financing (which
will include Langlois as the main shareholder as well as a number of
former and future supervisors) is currently being put together and the
plan is to breakeven within three years. European Audiovisual Observatory (EAO)
Strasbourg-based European Audiovisual Observatory
(EAO) is keen to bring the Motion Picture Association (MPA) onboard
the Lumiere Network of organisations, which provides statistics for
its free database on admissions to almost 8,000 films released in Europe
since 1996. "Half of the traffic on the Lumiere website
is from US and the service has been well received by MPA", said
EAO's Andre Lange, "so we are now looking to integrate them into
the network". Meanwhile, another service similar to Lumiere
is being prepared for unveiling in Cannes 2002 which will list all of
the regional, national and supra-national public film funds throughout
Europe. The EAO currently also runs the subscriber-only
Internet-based media law service Iris as well as an electronic version
of its Statistical Year Book. Morena Films
Spanish film and TV producer Morena Films is
prepping a new slate of feature films top-lined by the English-language
Time Spy from Argentine writer Marcelo Figueras (Plata Quemada). An
anticipated $9m budget makes Spy Morena’s most expensive project
to date since the firm’s Cannes-timed launch two years ago. Being
developed in-house with no director yet attached, the project also marks
a new direction for the company. "Over the past 12 months we have selected
new directors and broken them into features with the idea of continuing
to work with them on bigger budgeted films," says Morena film division
head Juan Gordon. "Now we have a number of projects with a clear
commercial focus that we plan to fully develop before seeking high profile
directors." Gordon defines Spy, a futuristic thriller about the
investigation of a series of political assassinations, as "retro-decadent."
Also in development is an as-yet untitled $6m Spanish-language film
about the real-life sinking of a submarine in the Bay of Biscay at midnight
on New Year’s Eve, 1936. Alberto Porlan is scripting. Elisabeth Films
French production outfit Elisabeth Films is developing
Olivier Assayas’ next film, Demonlover - a thriller dealing with
industrial espionage starring French actor Charles Berlin. The film - a ‘financial’ thriller set
in France, Japan and Mexico and which will carry a budget in the $7m-8m
range, is a complete departure from Assayas’ 2000 Cannes period
drama Les Destinees Sentimentales. It is also likely to have more mainstream
appeal than his award-winning festival titles Irma Vep (1996 Rotterdam)
and Fin Aout debut Septembre (1998 San Sebastian). Demonlover is expected to start shooting this
summer and be ready for release in the second half of 2002. Franch digital
satellite operator TPS has already boarded the project and other backers
are to be announced shortly. Elisabeth Films was created in 1996 by Edouard
Weil and film-maker Xavier Giannoli, whose first short film, L’Interview,
won a Palme d’Or in Cannes in 1998 and a Cesar award in 1999. CJ Entertainment
Park Chan-wook, director of Korean blockbuster
"Joint Security Area" (JSA), has fast-tracked Revenge Is Mine
as his next picture. The $4m psychological thriller will go into production
next month with delivery set for late autumn. Sales are handled by Korean
major CJ Entertainment. The story is of a father who sets out to avenge
the kidnapping of his daughter, but is played as much as a drama as
a thriller. "Park was keen to investigate the effects and impact
of a kidnapping than to focus on the action itself," said CJ executive
Catherine Park (no relation). "We can move through the production and
delivery phases very quickly as the script was finished two years ago
and casting is nearly completed," said Park. In fact he was ready
to make it before JSA." Although traditionally few Korean films are sold
internationally before completion, CJ is confident that the director’s
track record and established production values mean that it will be
able to be pre-sold. The cast is headed by Song Kang-ho, who co-starred
in JSA as the North Korean sergeant. Also new to CJ’s slate are
Jakarta, a comic crime thriller, and Prison World Cup, a $2m comedy
which will be ready for the football (soccer) World Cup next year. Jakarta, a comedy about three simultaneous attempts
to rob a bank, was directed by Jung Cho-shin and notched $3.6m at the
Korean box office. Prison World Cup, by first timer Bang Sung-woong
is from the Shin Cine, the production stable, which last year delivered
controversial Lies. Mercure Distribution
Mercure Distribution is to handle worldwide sales
on French main competition title La Chambre des Officiers directed by
Francois Dupeyron and produced by Arp Selection. The title, which toplines Eric Caravaca, Denis
Podalydes and Sabine Azema, had already generated a positive buzz before
Cannes. The WWI drama centres on a young officer wounded in the early
days of the war, his face reduced to pulp, who spends the rest of the
war in a military hospital. Mercure’s Jacques Glou is already handling
sales duties on another French main competition title, Cedric Kahn’s
serial killer tale Roberto Succo. FilmEngine
Chris Davis has been appointed head of international
sales at newly established production and distribution outfit FilmEngine
which was founded by Anthony Rhulen, Bill Shively and AJ Dix. Davis, a familiar figure on the international
scene, was most recently head of international at Scanbox International
as well as holding similar posts at Franchise Pictures, Imperial Entertainment
and Trans World Entertainment. FilmEngine is debuting at Cannes with a slate
including The Butterfly Effect starring Josh Jackson, Ali Larter and
Elden Henson and One Night written by Mike Bender with Joel Gallan attached
to direct. The company is also in development on Star Crossed
to star Andrew Keegan and LeAnn Rimes; an untitled action/adventure
script written by Christian Gudegast and Paul Schuering and the action
thriller Blind Horizon. Rosa Filmes
Portuguese producer Rosa Filmes has announced
plans to begin acquiring rights on feature films for its recently launched
sales and distribution arm, dubbed Kino. Rosa chief Amandio Coroado, being honoured at
Cannes this year as one of European Film Promotion’s producers
on the move, said he is particularly interested in handling Spanish
and Brazilian fare. "We can provide a gateway between Europe and Latin America," Coroado says. "It is absurd that Spanish and Portuguese audiences don’ |
