Category: International

MUMBAI: Warner Bros. International has struck two new partnerships in the Nordic region. Firstly, it has pacted with Fox International in Sweden and also with Svensk Filmindustri in Norway, Denmark and Finland to distribute its slate of films.

The deal was announced by Warner Bros. International‘s executive vp Europe and Latin America distribution Monique Esclavissat. The deal comes in the wake of the reorganization of Sandrew Mentronome, Warners‘ longtime licensee in those territories.

“With so many viable contenders, this was not an easy decision for Warner Bros. International, but we feel we have chosen the best home for our product in each specific market,” Esclavissat said. “We are looking forward to a fruitful ongoing relationship with Fox and build a new mutually rewarding venture with SF,” she added.

MUMBAI: Irish actor Domhnall Gleeson (True Grit), Germany‘s Alexander Fehling (Goethe), Pilou Asb?k (R) of Denmark and English actress Andrea Riseborough (Brighton Rock) are among the 10 young actors picked to be Europe‘s Shooting Stars at the Berlin International Film Festival next year.

Others tipped to be the next big thing are Spain‘s Clara Lago (Bunker), Nik Xhelilaj (the Albanian in The Albanian), Croatian actress Marija Skaricic (Mother of Asphalt), Sylvia Hoeks, star of Dutch Oscar-contender Tirza, Swedish actress Alicia Vikander (Pure) and Macedonia‘s Natasha Petrovic (As If I Am Not There).

The ten some actors would be for producers and agents to be picked for their films at the 2011 Berlin Film Festival that runs from 10 to 20 February next year.

Earlier the event has been an international launch pad for European acting talents like Carey Mulligan, David Kross and Mélanie Laurent.
 

MUMBAI: Revolutionary branding executive Karen Sortito, who helped resurrect the James Bond franchise expired of cancer on Monday in New York. She was 49.

Having come from MTV, Sortito represented a new breed of marketer for the film business. She came from MTV, where, straight out of Southern Connecticut State College in 1983, she helped define the brand during the network‘s formative years.

She also worked at 20th Century Fox Film Corp., Paramount, Morgan Creek Prods., Revolution Studios, Spyglass Entertainment and NYC & Company, the city‘s official marketing and partnership agency.

As head of worldwide promotions for MGM/UA, Sortito helped negotiate high-end promotional deals with the likes of BMW for millions of dollars, which contributed to the cost of making and advertising GoldenEye (1995), the first Bond film in six years.

While MGM/UA were in a reshuffling of management mode, Sortito spent three years consulting in various capacities and in 2002 joined Spyglass as executive vp worldwide marketing under Gary Barber, her former boss at Morgan Creek, and his partner, Roger Birnbaum.

Sortito is survived by her mother, Phyllis Sortito; her sisters, Mary Sortito and Diane Ritucci; her brother-in-law Louis Ritucci and two nephews.

MUMBAI: The nominations of the 68th Annual Golden Globe Awards have been announced. Highlights in alphabetical order:

Films nominated in the Best Motion Picture – Drama category are Black Swan, The Fighter, Inception, The King‘s Speech and The Social Network. Those in the Best Motion Picture – Comedy Or Musical category are Alice in Wonderland, Burlesque, The Kids Are All Right, Red and The Tourist.

Five films nominated in the Best Foreign Language Film category are Biutiful (Mexico, Spain), The Concert (France), The Edge (Russia), I Am Love (Italy) and In A Better World (Denmark).

Similarly five films have been nominated in the Best Animated Feature Film category. They are Despicable Me, How To Train Your Dragon, The Illusionist, Tangled and Toy Story 3.

The category of Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama has five nominations in the form of Halle Berry (Frankie and Alice), Nicole Kidman (Rabbit Hole), Jennifer Lawrence (Winter‘s Bone), Natalie Portman (Black Swan) and Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine).

The Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama category has names like Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network), Colin Firth (The King‘s Speech), James Franco (127 Hours), Ryan Gosling (Blue Valentine) and Mark Wahlberg (The Fighter)

The category of Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Comedy Or Musical has Annette Bening (The Kids Are All Right), Anne Hathaway (Love And Other Drugs), Angelina Jolie (The Tourist), Julianne Moore (The Kids Are All Right) and Emma Stone (Easy A).

The Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Comedy Or Musical category has celebrities like Johnny Depp (Alice in Wonderland and The Tourist), Paul Giamatti (Barney‘s Version), Jake Gyllenhaal (Love And Other Drugs) and Kevin Spacey (Casino Jack).

The awards will be aired on January 16.

MUMBAI: The Toronto Film Critics Association (TFC) has named The Social Network as this year‘s best picture.

While David Fincher won an award for best direction, Jesse Eisenberg was named best actor for his role of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Co-star Armie Hammer bagged the best supporting actor award for his performance as the Winklevoss twins.

Aaron Sorkin‘s adaptation of Ben Mezrich‘s book The Accidental Billionaires was awarded the best screenplay award.

Other TFCA award winners include Jennifer Lawrence named best actress for her role in Winter?s Bone and newcomer Hailee Steinfeld as the best supporting actress for her debut performance in True Grit.

The Toronto film critics, while shutting out rival Oscar contenders like Black Swan and The King‘s Speech from its awards list, also gave the best first feature prize to British director Robert Banks for Exit Through the Gift Shop and named DreamWorks Animation‘s How To Train Your Dragon as the best animated feature.

The best foreign language film award went to Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives directed by Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

MUMBAI: The 68th annual Globes nominations that will be announced on Tuesday will feature ten best-picture nominees, five each in the dramatic category and the rest in a musical or comedy category.

Featured are two acclaimed dramas, the British monarchy tale The King‘s Speech and The Social Network. There are prospects of another divergent year between the Globes and the Oscars the nominations of which come out 25 January, nine days after the Globes are presented.

The Social Network has already bagged two key prizes as both Los Angeles and New York film critics groups picked it as the year‘s best film. Other possible Globe drama contenders include the sci-fi smash Inception, the ballet tale Black Swan, the Western True Grit, the boxing saga The Fighter and the survival story 127 Hours.

Among musical and comedy films vying for a look in are the lesbian-family tale The Kids Are All Right, the Lewis Carroll fantasy Alice in Wonderland, the song-and-dance extravaganza Burlesque, the curmudgeon chronicle Barney‘s Version and the romantic films Greenberg, Love & Other Drugs, How Do You Know and Cyrus.

Last year, Avatar won best drama at the Globes while The Hurt Locker took the best film award at the Oscars. But all four Oscar acting recipients viz Sandra Bullock for The Blind Side, Jeff Bridges for Crazy Heart, Mo‘Nique for Precious and Christoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds also won prizes at the Globes.

MUMBAI: Members of two Michael Jackson campaign groups – MJ Justice Project and MJ Children have urged other Jackson fans to contact the people at the Discovery Channel to voice their displeasure about the airing of Autopsy that is said to be based on the official coroner‘s report and court documents taken after Jacko‘s death in 2009.

The show will follow a pathologist as he performs a full autopsy on a synthetic cadaver and exposes the “medical myths that surrounded Jackson throughout his troubled life, his drug addiction, his vitiligo and other disorders”, says a website.

The petition states, “We ask the directors of the Discovery Channel programming to proceed with the outright cancellation of this indecent documentary.”

The programme is due to air in Britain on 13 January.
 

MUMBAI: The Los Angeles Film Critics Association has named The Social Network as the year‘s best film.

The group‘s best-actor prize was given away to Colin Firth for The King‘s Speech, while Kim Hye-ja won the best actress for the South Korean drama Mother. The runners-up were Edgar Ramirez for the terrorist epic Carlos and Jennifer Lawrence for the crime drama Winter‘s Bone.

The supporting honours were picked up by Jacki Weaver for Australia‘s Animal Kingdom and Niels Arestrup for France‘s A Prophet.

The award in the direction category was shared by David Fincher for Social Network and Olivier Assayas for Carlos that also won the best-picture runner-up award.
 

MUMBAI: On Thursday, the 34th Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF) drew to a close with a gala-awards ceremony.

For the first time in 14 years, the Golden Pyramid for best film in CIFF‘s international competition went to an Egyptian film, Khaled al-Haggar‘s Al-Shooq.

One of Egypt‘s two films to be set in the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria, the winning film is a melodrama about a destitute mother of three named Umm Shooq (Sawsan Badr). After losing her young son to kidney failure, whose treatment she cannot finance, Umm Shooq is transformed into a manipulative capitalist and, ultimately, destroyed.

The top film award in CIFF‘s Arab film competition went to another Egyptian film, Ahmad Abdulla‘s Microphone, a critical and audience favorite that took the top prize at the Carthage film festival earlier this year. The film depicts the story of the return of a young expat Egyptian (Khaled Abu Naga) to Alexandria and his discovery of the city‘s thriving, alternative youth art and music scene.

The award for Best Female Actor was shared by Badr, the star of Al-Shooq and the iconic French actress Isabelle Huppert, for her role in Copacabana. The Best Actor award was also shared. Egypt‘s Amr Waked and Italy‘s Alessandro Gassman were appreciated for their performances in Il Padre E Lo Straniero, (The Father and the Foreigner), by Italian director Ricky Tognazzi.

MUMBAI: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced the names of fifteen that have made the first cut for this year‘s visual effects Oscar.

The films are Alice in Wonderland; The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; Clash of the Titans; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1; Hereafter; Inception; Iron Man 2; The Last Airbender; Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief; Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time; Scott Pilgrim vs the World; Shutter Island; The Sorcerer‘s Apprentice; Tron: Legacy; and Unstoppable.

In early January, the members of the Academy‘s visual effects branch executive committee will narrow the list to seven.

All members of the visual effects branch will then be invited to view 15-minute excerpts of each of the seven shortlisted films on 20 January. Following the screenings, the members will vote to nominate five films for final Oscar consideration.

The Oscar nominations will be announced on 25 January.
The Academy Awards are set for 27 February.