ITV

Category: International

  • Illustrator-author Graeme Base to direct film

    Illustrator-author Graeme Base to direct film

    MUMBAI: Australian children‘s author and illustrator Graeme Base is to make his film directorial debut.
     
    Base will co-direct The Gallant Captain, an adaptation of his book ‘The Legend of the Golden Snail‘ with Katrina Mathers.

    Mathers and Daryl Munton of The Lampshade Collective were behind last year‘s The Nullabor that won Sydney Film Festival‘s Best Animated Short Film Award at both the Sydney Film Festival 2011 and the AACTA Awards 2012.
     
    Incidentaly, the short film has received funding from Screen Australia through the agency‘s short animation production programme.

    Base‘s work includes Animalia and The Eleventh Hour, is to make his film directorial debut.
     
    Also to receive funding from Screen Australia is The Crossing, a stop-motion sand animation from writer/director/animator and visual artists Marieka Walsh. Sand animation is the use of sand on a lighted piece of glass to create each frame.

    The film follows on from the success of Walsh‘s team with The Hunter, also using sand animation, which was selected for competition at the recent SXSW Film Festival.

  • 3 creative teams get Screen Australia’s short film initiave’s funding

    3 creative teams get Screen Australia’s short film initiave’s funding

    MUMBAI: Screen Australia‘s Springboard Short Film Initiative has ensured that three creative teams receive investment for their upcoming projects. The idea behind the Springboard Short Film Course is to offer creative teams the opportunity to make a short film that will be the grounding for a feature film idea.

    Screen Australia‘s head of development Martha Coleman said, “This year‘s Springboard workshop has encouraged participants to focus on providing an intense emotional experience by combining a great script with a strong director‘s vision.”

    While writer-director Nicholas Verso and producer John Malloy will make The Last Time I Saw Richard, writer-director Miranda Nation along with producer Lyn Norfor will make Perception. Lastly, writer-director Sean Kruck will make Snowblind with producer Caroline Barry.

    It may be noted that previous recipient writer-director Zak Hilditch made the short film Transmission with producer Liz Kearney that was selected for this year‘s Tribeca Film Festival. The Springboard Short Film Initiative also helped the makers to get finance for their feature These Final Hours.
    Another previous recipient was Grant Scicluna whose film The Wilding won at this year‘s Melbourne Queer Film Festival for Best Australian Short and was in competition at this year‘s Berlin Film Festival.

    Five teams were selected for the Springboard course with convenor Paul Welsh. The teams will receive up to $150,000 each to make a short film.

  • AMC developing film on football

    AMC developing film on football

    MUMBAI: Production house c is developing a period football drama entitled The Real All Americans.

    The series is based on Sally Jenkins‘ book of the same name about Pennsylvania‘s Carlisle Indian Industrial School and its football programme created by U.S. cavalry officer and abolitionist Richard Henry Pratt.

    The football programme had an outstanding record and numbered among its participants coach Glenn “Pop” Warner and Olympic athlete Jim Thorpe.

    Tommy Lee Jones is in talks to direct the pilot, while Nicholas Meyer is writing the script.

    The Carlisle Indian Industrial School was also the subject of the 1992 PBS American Experience documentary In the White Man‘s Image.

    The last film on football was Friday Night Lights.

  • Sequel to Hunger Games coming

    Sequel to Hunger Games coming

    MUMBAI: Liam Hemsworth, whose recent release Hunger Games has been doing very good at the box office, says he is looking forward to the sequel of the film.

    The 22-year-old, who plays Gale has confirmed that the shooting for the second film will begin soon. "I‘m a fan of the books and would be extremely happy to shoot the other two. We‘re going to hopefully shoot, if this does as well as what everyone thinks it‘s going to, I think we‘ll shoot the second one later on this year," Hemsworth has reportedly said.
     
    The original had Hemsworth team up with Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hemsworth that Gary Ross directed.

    Hemsworth will soon be seen in The Expendables 2.

  • Harry Potter wins top honours at Empire awards

    Harry Potter wins top honours at Empire awards

    MUMBAI: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 has won the top honours at the 2012 Empire Awards. It won the best film and best director for David Yates, Gary Oldman, who played Sirius Black in the film and also annexed the best actor for his role in political thriller Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

    The Inbetweeners Movie picked up best comedy.

    Speaking before the ceremony, actor Blake Harrison, who plays hapless, slow-witted Neil Sutherland in the film, said he did not expect to take the prize. “We‘re up against such brilliant films,” he has reportedly said.

    “It‘s films like Bridesmaids and Crazy, Stupid Love. I don‘t know why I‘m here, to be honest,” he added.

  • Berlusconi mulls own biopic

    Berlusconi mulls own biopic

    MUMBAI: Former Italian prime minister and media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi has expressed his wish of a film be made about his life and needs to find the right director, it is reported.

    Berlusconi, 75, made the announcement about his desire to make a film of his life on Tuesday, the 18th anniversary of his entry into Italian politics. He served as prime minister for only seven months back in 1995, but for the ten-year period ending last November, he was prime minister for all but 18 months.

    Born into a middle class family, Berlusconi built Europe‘s largest media empire and became the most transformational Italian political leader since World War II. This makes his life colourful enough to entertain on the silver screen.
     
    It wouldn‘t be the first film with Berlusconi as a subject. Nanni Moretti‘s Il Caimano (The Caiman) from 2006 which skewered Berlusconi appeared in competition in Cannes; Videocracy, a controversial documentary about Berlusconi‘s television empire from Erik Gandini, screened at the Venice Film Festival in 2009; and Silvio Forever, another critical documentary from Roberto Faenza, made its rounds last year.

    Berlusconi would presumably pen the film adaptation of his life story.

    One director who says he might be interested in making a Berlusconi film is well-known Italian funnyman Carlo Verdone, who bears a resemblance to the Italian leader.

  • Cleopatra cape to go under hammer

    Cleopatra cape to go under hammer

    MUMBAI: The golden cape that was worn by Elizabeth Taylor in two major sequences from the 1963 film Cleopatra is to go up for auction.

    Bidding for the intricate garment, made from leather and gold, is set to start at $10,000 when it goes under the hammer at Dallas-based auction house Heritage Auctions on May 30, it is understood.

    But the bidding could soar way beyond that, reaching into the hundreds of thousands, it is being rumoured.

    The leather and gold garment, designed to look like the wings of a Pheonix, were worn in the two most memorable scenes in the blockbuster movie.

    The costume, designed to look like the wings of a phoenix, has been designed using thin strips of gold leather and embellished with thousands of seed beads, bugle beads and bead-anchored sequins.

    The cape will be up for auction alongside the wig worn by Taylor in the same film.

  • James Cameron is 3rd to go sea bottom

    James Cameron is 3rd to go sea bottom

    MUMBAI: With his visit to the floor of the Mariana Trench‘s Challenger Deep, the deepest known point on Earth, James Cameron has joined the tiny club of explorers who have taken a submersible to such depths.

    Talking of his travel, Cameron said that hr had to cut short his record solo descent due to a hydraulic fuel leak in his Deepsea Challenger sub that was later plucked from the Pacific about 300 miles southwest of Guam.

    “I see this as the beginning … of opening up this frontier to science and really understanding these deep places,” Cameron has been quoted to have said. The filmmaker is a National Geographic Society explorer-in-residence.

    Cameron‘s trip to the murky floor of the Mariana Trench was as deep as any human has gone since retired U.S. Navy Capt. Don Walsh and the late Swiss engineer Jacques Piccard dropped down a watery elevator to the bottom of Challenger Deep in the submersible Trieste in 1960.

    While Walsh and Piccard had gone down 35,797 feet, Cameron‘s Deepsea Challenger nearly matched by going down 35,756 feet.

    In recent years, there have been a pair of descents to similar depths made by remotely operated, robotic submersibles.

  • Thornton, Whitaker in Out of the Furnace

    Thornton, Whitaker in Out of the Furnace

    MUMBAI: Billy Bob Thornton and Forest Whitaker have signed up to play the leading villains in upcoming film Out of the Furnace.

    The 56-year-old will join Christian Bale, Zoe Saldana and Casey Affleck. The film is about a man who tracks down his brother‘s killer after he is released from prison, it is understood.

    Whitaker is also set to play a leading part in the Scott Cooper-directed picture while Thornton will play the leading bad guy in the project.

    The actor, who was married to actress Angelina Jolie for three years, is best known for roles in Sling Blade and Armageddon. He is currently filming a part in the film Red Machine.

  • The Huger Games tops overseas grossing $59.3 mn

    The Huger Games tops overseas grossing $59.3 mn

    MUMBAI: Already a box office superhit in the US and Canada, Lionsgate produced The Hunger Games opened on the foreign theatrical circuit grossing $59.3 million at around 7,700 locations in 67 offshore markets.

    Overseas, the action/sci-fi vehicle opened as the weekend‘s No. 1 after the films‘ foreign opening was said to be the year‘s second biggest opening; nearly $10 million less than the March 11 debut weekend gross of Disney‘s John Carter at 51 locations.

    Starring Jennifer Lawrence as a 6-year-old heroine who fights to survive a last-person standing contest, Games registered dominant No. 1 market introductions in Australia via Roadshow ($9.69 million at some 260 sites) and in the U.K. via Lionsgate ($7.49 million from some 515 situations).

    Leading the non-English-speaking markets was Russia where The Hunger Games grossed $6.5 million. The No. 1 France debut via Metropolitan Filmexport kicked in $3.75 million from about 400 locations while Germany via Studio Canal contributed even more, $3.9 million from 610 sites.

    Based on the first book of Suzanne Collin‘s popular trilogy about kids killing kids in a dystopian future, Games drew a worldwide opening gross of $214.3 million.

    Debuts in Italy, South Korea and Spain will take place next month while the film‘s Japan opening is scheduled for September.

    On the other hand, Disney International‘s Carter, that was the No. 1 overseas for the last two rounds, grossed $22.2 million on the weekend in 54 territories that is more than four times its domestic tally. Carter dropped to fourth place in key markets like Australia, Germany, Spain and South Korea. It finished No. 7 in the U.K., No. 8 in Italy and No. 9 in France.

    Finishing No. 3 on the weekend was Fox International‘s The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel which picked up steam on the foreign circuit with openings in about a dozen markets, highlighted by a No. 2 Australia debut, which produced $3.75 million from 288 screens.

    Weekend gross overall for the comedy-drama about British pensioners in India came to $8.26 million drawn from 1,859 sites in 18 markets. Foreign cume stands at $33.3 million. Hotel opens domestically on May 4.