Category: International

MUMBAI: The 16th annual Temecula Valley International Film & Music Festival, that wrapped up last Sunday honoured actress Raquel Welch, actor Eric Roberts and musician Kenny Loggins.

While Welch received the Icon Award, Roberts, 54, received a career achievement award. Presenting Roberts‘ award was former wrestling star Steve Austin who co-starred with Roberts in this year‘s action film The Expendables. 

Since 1995, the festival has screened more than 1,500 films from more than 20 countries. It also features music and film industry workshops.

Previous festival honorees include Ray Charles, Smokey Robinson, Dionne Warwick and Earth, Wind & Fire as well as Carl Reiner, Gena Rowlands, Michael Madsen and Louis Gossett Jr.

MUMBAI: Julia Roberts received the Donostia Award for lifetime achievement from the hands of Eat Pray Love co-star Javier Bardem at the 58th San Sebastian International Film Festival last Monday.

Exclaimed Roberts, “What a fortunate woman I‘ve been in my life for a variety of reasons. If we were having dinner, I‘d tell you all of them. But now, I‘ll just say thank you from the bottom of my heart.” On his part Bardem called Roberts “fearless,” “fun” and “friend.” 

The duo is in town along with director Ryan Murphy and Richard Jenkins for the release of Eat in Spain. The film was screened to packed theatres at the festival.

While Eat was dismissed by critics as light fare, other films in the festival‘s lineup were getting positive reactions.

Diego Luna‘s directorial debut film Abel screened in the Latin Horizons sidebar and Josh Radnor‘s both played well to audiences with Peter Mullan‘s Scottish gang drama Neds and and Oscar Aibar‘s El Gran Vazquez making a splash in the main competition over the weekend.

MUMBAI: The Tom Hooper directed The King‘s Speech won the top award at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday, giving a much needed boost for the film to vie for the Oscar awards.

The film starring Colin Firth as Britain‘s reluctant King George VI and Geoffrey Rush as his speech therapist won the festival‘s People‘s Choice award.

Other films that earlier won the award were American Beauty,Crash, and Slumdog Millionaire and later walked off with best picture awards at the Oscars.

Firth‘s King George, the father of Queen Elizabeth II, is initially reluctant to ascend to the crown following the abdication of his brother Edward VIII. Plagued by a nervous stammer, he enlists the help of a speech therapist and is eventually able to lead the country into World War II.

Runner-up for the prize was the Justin Chadwick-directed film The First Grader that tells the story of an illiterate man in his eighties who tries to enlist in a Kenyan primary school to take advantage of government-sponsored education.

The 35th edition of the festival was notable for the long-awaited opening of the $200 million Bell Lightbox complex, the first permanent home for the festival.

MUMBAI: Enraged by the escalation in anti-piracy efforts, pirates hacked the website of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the lobbying arm of the major Hollywood studios on Saturday.

MPAA.org and the website of AiPlex Software, a company the MPAA hired to target sites where piracy was rampant, were out of action for long periods the day.

Said an MPAA spokesman, “The MPAA is aware of the illegal attack and has taken measures to mitigate the effect of any denial-of-service attack.” In the later part of the day, the organisation was able to get its site back online.

The attacks were declared on the message-board group 4chan that is notorious as a hotbed for piracy activity. Their call to arms was prompted by a statement AiPlex made earlier in the month about stepping up its own efforts to counter copyright-infringing content.
 

MUMBAI: Tom Cruise will pay tribute to the technical fraternity of Hollywood.

To mark the 35th anniversary of the company, the film that focuses on visual effects giant ‘Industrial Light & Magic’ ILM: Creating the Impossible is being released.

The film features interviews with filmmakers like Jerry Bruckheimer, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg and actors Samuel L. Jackson and Robin Williams.

ILM has worked on nearly 300 films in its 35-year history and has largely been the driving force behind the evolution of modern visual effects.
 

MUMBAI: In a landmark court decision, a film pirate who indulged in recording Hollywood films on his iPhone at a cinema based in Harrow has been sentenced to six months in prison today

Emmanuel Nimley becomes the first person to be sent to jail in the UK for this kind of offence after he was caught red handed using his mobile phone in the Vue Cinema in March this year.

The local Court heard how copyright theft is estimated to cost the movie industry in excess of more then half a billion pounds in the UK alone but it believed that the 22-year-old was not making any money from his crimes.

Police arrested Nimley while he was recording the Jennifer Anniston and Gerard Butler film Bounty Hunter.

The police found duplicates of The Crazies, Alice in Wonderland and Green Zone on file sharing network quicksilverscreen.com and found that they were filmed at the Harrow cinema.

Officers from Harrow police and the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) then looked back through CCTV footage at the cinema that showed Nimley entering screenings of the films on the day of their release.

The court heard how the copies were posted just hours after the screenings but were of poor quality and that Nimley himself could be heard eating and drinking during the filming.

It was also said that rather than benefiting financially he had uploaded them in a bid to gain ‘kudos‘ from people visiting the site.
 

MUMBAI: Praised for her excellent performance in Darren Aronofsky‘s psychological thriller Black Swan, Natalie Portman has been approached by Warner Bros. the lead role in a 3D survival story titled Gravity. The role recently vacated by Angelina Jolie.

The $80 million 3-D film to be directed by Alfonso Cuaron centers on a woman stranded on a space station after satellite debris slam into it and wipes out the rest of the crew. 

Incidentally, Cuaron has wriiten the script he wrote with his son Jonas after which the studio approached Portman with the offer. She is expected to read the latest version of the script this week and decide shortly.

Gravity‘s shooting is likley to start at the end of January, before Downey goes off to other engagements.

Portman already has three projects that will be released next year, the Paramount romantic comedy No Strings in January, the Universal comedy Your Highness in April and the Marvel/Paramount comedy cum actioner Thor in May.

Scuttlebutt at Telluride after its first screenings is that, based solely on Swan reviews during the previous few days, Terrence Malick wants Portman for a Jerry Lee Lewis-related project he‘s developing with Brad Pitt, and Tom Stoppard (Shakespeare In Love) also apparently is writing something for her. This is in addition to widespread opinion that Portman will be fielding major awards attention at year‘s end. Fox Searchlight will release Black Swan on December 1.

MUMBAI: Lionsgate has picked up the North American rights of John Cameron Mitchell‘s Rabbit Hole that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last Monday. As the festival comes to a finish this Sunday, other distributors are seen lining up films that could play next year‘s festival circuit.

Lionsgate will release Rabbit by year‘s end, and based on positive reactions here, that should make the movie a player during awards season.

While IFC Films has acquired worldwide rights of Barry Avrich‘s documentary Unauthorized: The Harvey Weinstein Project except Canada, Sony Pictures Classics picked up the North American rights of Pedro Almodovar‘s latest thriller The Skin I Inhabit now being shot.
 

MUMBAI: MGM has been given another postponement of its more than $450 million in debt payments.

More than 100 MGM holders of almost $4 billion have agreed to a seventh debt forbearance agreement with the studio. Now the studio has time until 20 October to pay lenders $250 million in principal and more than $450 million in owed interest.

But it‘s likely that MGM will tap the bankruptcy court before with a plan for turning debt into lender equity. Spyglass Entertainment would come in as an almost 5 per cent stakeholder in MGM as part of the plan with Spyglass co-toppers Gary Barber and Roger Birnbaum installed as co-chairmen and co-CEOs.

The duo recently signed a letter of intent to that effect and now are continuing due diligence on MGM financials in an effect to flesh out the studio‘s new business plan. Lenders eventually must vote to approve the bankruptcy reorganization plan.

Current MGM owners including Providence Equity, TPG Capital, Sony, Comcast, DLJ Merchant and Quadrangle likely would see their equity positions in the studio wiped out in a restructuring.

The previous forbearance agreement expired on Wednesday.
 

MUMBAI: The 16th annual Temecula Valley International Film and Music Festival opened on 15 September when independent filmmakers walked the red carpet to the applause of movie buffs.

The festival will showcase more than 100 documentary, feature, animated and short films along with a performances of variety of musical groups.

The festival began with the screening of Canadian film St. Roz. That drawing Bob and Diane Franco to opening night festivities. The Francos moved to Temecula three years ago and this is the first time they have been to the festival.

The evening‘s events got under way as several dozen spectators and festival staffers lined the red carpet, and filmmakers stepped from vintage cars and spoke briefly about their films.

The festival will end on Sunday when actors Raquel Welch and Eric Roberts and singer Kenny Loggins will receive career achievement awards at the closing gala at the Pechanga Resort and Casino.