Category: International

MUMBAI: The $663 million sale of Miramax Films by Disney to Filmyard Holdings, the group led by construction exec Ron Tutor and investor Tom Barrack was finalised on Friday.

Qatar Holdings, that invests for the Middle Eastern country‘s royal family, also is a major investor in the deal. Among the minority investors is actor Rob Lowe through a fund he created with Barrack‘s Colony Capital.

The investors put up about $200 million, while a group of banks led by Barclays raised debt of about $400 million. (Qatar Holdings holds a minority stake in Barclays). New York investment bank Jefferies & Co. helped raise the debt, while Mesa Global, an investment bank that includes Mark Patricof, formerly at CAA, was involved in valuating the assets. Mesa also has been a part of such deals as the sale of ContentNext and paidContent.org to the Guardian and recent funding for the theatrical troupe the Blue Man Group.

The buyers got about $50 million in cash that came with Miramax, another $10 million in adjusted fees and about 700 films in the library, many of which are licensed for theatrical, TV and video around the world for years to come.

The deal includes the Miramax name, some 300 development projects, 90 book rights and a handful of finished films waiting to be distributed. Two movies, Don‘t Be Afraid of the Dark and The Debt, are expected to be released in 2011 by a distributor other than Disney.
 

MUMBAI: 73 year-old Andrei Konchalovsky, the co-writer cum director of The Nutcracker in 3D,” has dot the film to the big screen after 40 years.

The Russian theater and film director has modernized the classic tale, that released in the United States on Friday by converting it in 3D. He also changed the setting and some of the characters.

Elle Fanning stars as nine-year-old Mary, who receives an enchanted nutcracker as a gift from her eccentric Uncle Albert, played by Nathan Lane. On Christmas night, the Nutcracker (Charlie Rowe) comes to life and leads her to a kingdom of living toys threatened by an evil Rat King (John Turturro).

Incidentally, Konchalovsky wrote the first version of the script for director Anthony Asquith in the late ‘60s, but when the director expired “the script went to oblivion,” Konchalovsky says.

More than 25 years later, in 1995, Konchalovsky decided that the time had come to make a film for his children and grandchildren and that is when he remembered the shelved script.

Instead of attempting to film a ballet, Konchalovsky turned to German author E.T.A. Hoffmann‘s original story and Russian composer Pyotr Tchiakovsky‘s music.

The director dressed his anthropomorphic rats in military uniforms inspired by Pink Floyd‘s concept album and film The Wall, but he tempered this grim aesthetic by casting comic actor Turturro as the Rat King.

Despite the strong cast, financing his unique vision of the Christmas classic wasn‘t easy as he met several film executives showing set designs and describing his unique vision. Finally, he found people “mad enough to give me money!”

As an independently-financed and distributed feature, the film is “like a David against Goliath in the market” against big wigs like Warner Bros‘ Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1″ and Disney‘s Tangled.

He eventually feels that the 40 more years he traveled to arrive at The Nutcracker in 3D has been worthwhile.

MUMBAI: Chinese film Tangshan Dadizheng (Aftershock) has won the best feature film award and its lead actor Chen Daoming was declared the best actor at the fourth annual Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA) held in Gold Coast, Australia.

President for the international jury for APSA 2010, Academy-award winning producer Lord David Puttnam said, ‘The sheer variety of films and staggeringly good performances made our task very difficult indeed, in every category. “Ultimately Aftershock won the best film award because, in my own view, it has everything. It is as good a ‘big‘ movie as any I‘ve seen from Hollywood in years, it is incredibly moving and it ends beautifully,‘ he added. 

‘Tangshan Dadizheng‘ is the highest grossing domestic film of all time at the Chinese box office, said a press statement.

The best director‘s award was given to Korean director Lee Chang-dong for his film Shi (Poetry) and the best actress award went to the star of the film Yun Jung-hee.

The screen international jury grand prize went to Japanese actress Shinobu Terajima for ‘Caterpillar‘ and the best screenplay award which went to Samuel Maoz for Levanon (Lebanon) who also won the best screenplay award for Levanon (Lebanon).

Legendary Indonesian actress turned producer Christine Hakim was presented with FIAPF award for outstanding achievement in film.
 

MUMBAI: A wig worn by John Wayne in the 1967 film El Dorado will soon be auctioned in the United States. Auction house Bonhams has announced that the wig that is brown with a hint of grey is expected to sell for up to 1,000 pounds.

“The hairline is quite distinctive and fans would be able to recognise it at once,” said Margaret Barrett from Bonhams and Butterfields.”In the US John Wayne is huge even though he has been dead for 30 years or more,” she added.

Wayne wore wigs in all his films from the 1948 film Wake of the Red Witch.

MUMBAI: Reese Witherspoon, the 34-year-old Oscar winner received the 2,425th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame Wednesday.

Said Witherspoon, “What I understand now, after 20 years of making movies, is that the achievement is being part of a community of people – often who have done this for generations – who are the best at what they do.”

Reese Witherspoon‘s career began in 1991 when she starred in the coming-of-age movie The Man in the Moon. She starred in Cruel Intentions and also won an Oscar in for portraying June Carter Cash in Walk the Line in 2006.

In her latest film How Do You Know, Witherspoon stars along with Paul Rudd and Owen Wilson.

MUMBAI: The International Press Academy (IPA) has announced nominees for its 15th annual Satellite Awards.

While on the film front, Warner Brothers‘ thriller Inception led the list with 11 nominations, top TV contenders were Glee and The Good Wife with five nominations each. In all, the group put forward film nominees from 67 films in 22 different categories, while in its 12 television categories, it rolled out 38 different programmes.

The IPA, a group of entertainment journalists, nominated 10 movies like 127 Hours, Animal Kingdom, Blue Valentine, Get Low, The Ghost Writer, Inception, The King‘s Speech, The Social Network, The Town and Winter‘s Bone in the best motion picture category.

It also singled out another seven films as best comedy or musical nominees: Cyrus, The Kids Are All Right, Made in Dagenham, The Other Guys, Please Give, RED and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

Toy Story 3 and Alice in Wonderland were nominated in the category of best motion picture, animated or mixed media, along with four other films. As far a s documentaries go, Inside Job and Waiting for Superman earned best documentary nominations along with eight other films.

The winners will be announced on 19 December.
 

MUMBAI: The International Press Academy will honor motion picture preservationist Robert A. Harris with its 2010 Nikola Tesla Award at the15th annual Satellite Awards gala luncheon, to be held Dec. 19 at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in Century City.

The award recognizes Harris‘ work to conserve, preserve and restore the cinematic masterworks of the past.

Harris has contributed to the reconstruction of films like Abel Gance‘s Un grand amour du Beethoven and J‘accuse. Working with Kevn Brownlow, he found additional footage used in the restoration of Gance‘s Napoleon.

He has also worked on restoring films like Lawrence of Arabia, Spartacus, My Fair Lady, Rear Window and Vertigo.
 

MUMBAI: In a bid to attract younger viewers to the telecast, young actors James Franco and Anne Hathaway will co-host the 83rd Academy Awards to be held in February next year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced on Monday.

In a statement the academy said that the two actors personify the next generation of Hollywood icons – fresh, exciting and multi-talented. Making the choice more unusual, both Franco and Hathaway are part of this year‘s Oscar race. 

Franco has been nominated as best actor for his role in 127 Hours while Hathaway has been nominated in the best actress category for playing an early-onset Parkinson‘s victim in Love and Other Drugs.

Last year, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin co-hosted the ceremony.
 

MUMBAI: Veteran filmmaker Irvin Kershner, who directed The Empire Strikes Back expired Saturday last at the age of 87. He had waged a 3 1/2-year battle with lung cancer.

Kershner had already made several well-received films when Lucas tapped him to direct Empire. George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars said he didn‘t want to direct the sequel himself. “I needed someone I could trust, someone I really admired and whose work had maturity and humor. That was Kersh all over,” Lucas said in a statement. 

The Philadelphia-born Kershner studied music, painting and photography before turning to film. He attended the University of Southern California film school and in the 1950s made U.S. government documentaries in Greece, Iran and Turkey.

He was a director and cameraman for a television documentary series called Confidential File in Los Angeles before getting his first movie break in 1958 when Roger Corman helped finance his first feature, Stakeout on Dope Street that Kershner wrote and produced with colleague Andrew Fenady and Hollywood publicist Dick Guttman.
 

MUMBAI: Academy Award winner Alan Arkin will be honoured by the Bahamas International Film Festival (BIFF) when it confers the prestigious Career Achievement Award at this year‘s event scheduled to take place between 1 to 5 December in Nassau.

Arkin will be on hand for the tribute that will be presented to him by Abigail Breslin who received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress starring alongside Arkin in Little Miss Sunshine.

Arkin is known to many moviegoers for his memorable roles in timeless comedies such as Edward Scissorhands , Little Miss Sunshine and The In Laws.

Arkin began his career with the Second City improvisational troupe in Chicago and from there moved on to Broadway. He won a Tony for his first stage role — the lead in the Broadway version of Carl Reiner‘s Enter Laughing . He received an Oscar nomination for his first movie role — as a Soviet sailor in the film farce The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! in 1966.

Past recipients include Johnny Depp, Nicolas Cage, Laurence Fishburne, Daryl Hannah and Roger Corman.