Category: International

MUMBAI: Harvey Pekar, who chronicled his travails as a low-level filing clerk in the comic series American Splendor that was made into an award-winning 2003 film expired at the age of 70.

Pekar, who had a range of ailments including prostate cancer, high blood pressure, asthma and clinical depression was found dead by his wife, Joyce Brabner in their house in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.

An employee of the Veterans Administration Hospital in Cleveland until he retired in 2001, Pekar became friends with underground comics creator Robert Crumb through their mutual love of jazz and began contributing stories to The People‘s Comics in the 1970s. Starting 1976, Pekar started publishing tales under the title American Splendor, with Crumb serving as the series‘ first illustrator.

During the ‘80s, the success of his comics as well as his mordant sense of humor brought him close to David Letterman. This association led to a series of appearances on Letterman‘s late-night NBC show where he freely criticised NBC‘s parent company General Electric.

After he was diagnosed with lymphatic Cancer in 1990, Pekar along with his third wife Brabner wrote the book-length comic Our Cancer Year detailing the grueling treatment.

Their life was brought to the screen in Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini‘s film American Splendor in which Paul Giamatti played Pekar while Pekar made an appearance playing Real Harvey.

MUMBAI: Last weekend, the top ten films notched up $ 191 million in the US.

Topping the list was Universal‘s 3D animated feature Despicable Me that collected $60.1 million, followed by Fox‘s R-rated horror thriller Predators that debuted with an intake of $25.3 million falling into the third place. 

Footfalls to Summit Entertainment threequel The Twilight Saga: Eclipse fell 49 per cent from its last week‘s haul to fetch $33.4 million and fall in second place during its second weekend. Its cumulative box-office gathering stood at $237 million.

Comparitively, the first part The Twilight Saga: New Moon had raked in $235.7 million in its first twelve days as part of a $296.6 million domestic run.

On the other hand, Disney‘s 3D animated feature Toy Story 3 collected $ 22 million and fell to the fourth place. On the whole the film collected $340.2 million in its fourth weekend.

Finally to round up the top five films, Paramount‘s 3D live-action kids‘ fantasy The Last Airbender registered a three-day drop of 57 per cent collecting $17.2 million in fifth place with a total earning of $100.2 million in 11 days.
 

MUMBAI: Spanish film The Mosquito Net director Augusti Vila has won the Crystal Globe, the top prize at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival on Saturday, The top award carries prize money of $30,000.

The Karlovy Vary event also awarded Crystal Globes to Russian director Nikita Michalkov and Slovak-born director Juraj Herz for their outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema. 

Aurora, a German, French, Swiss and Romanian co-production won the East of the West section, while Czech film Kooky roped in the Special Jury Prize.

Earlier during the nine-day festival that had screenings of as many as 200 films received a special prize awarded by the Festival‘s president.
 

MUMBAI: German exhibitor Kinopolis has decided to go all-digital by the end of next year.

In this connection Kinopolis will convert all of its 123 screens in Germany to digital projection by the end of 2011.

The group will work together with digital technology groups XDC and Film Ton Technik (FTT) to facilitate the switchover. 

The digital rollout in Germany has lagged behind many of its European neighbors but is now picking up speed. Exhibitors have welcomed an announcement by German culture minister Bernd Neumann that his office will invest $5 million this year to help smaller theaters finance digital conversion of screens.
 

MUMBAI: Tanzania’s Zanzibar International Film Festival scheduled from 10 to 18 is expected to attract films from 43 countries.

With Hopes in Harmony as its theme, the film fest calls for peace and harmony in Zanzibar and provides an opportunity for all the country’s people to have a look at these films for free on a big screen.

The opening film of the fest is I Bring What I Love that takes the audience behind the scenes and into the world of Africa‘s most famous musician Youssou N‘dour.

Among the special highlights this year is the world Cup final late 11 July at the old fort.

Many of the films to be shown at the festival highlight every day life of women in the society, according to a press release of the film fest. It also includes performing arts, which is a street theatre component.

The film festival is seen by the government as a symbol of enhancing Zanzibar’s culture and acts to propagate Zanzibar tourism thus enabling more tourists to visit Zanzibar and boost the Zanzibar economy.
 

MUMBAI: Filmmaker Michael Moore has come out in praise of His and Hers even as it continues to receive international acclaim.

Talking about the award-winning documentary on his website, Moore described it as “One of the most moving and original films I’ve seen this year. No one has ever made a documentary like this one. In a summer of tired and stale movies from Hollywood, His and Hers is a breath of fresh air blowing in from the midlands of Ireland.”

The film, a cinematic mosaic tells the story of 70 different Irish woman’s love stories through their own admissions. Each woman speaks openly about that special man in their life.

The film is being currently screened in select cinemas around Ireland.

MUMBAI: Strand Releasing has lapped up the US rights of Apichatpong Weerasethakul‘s Palme D‘Or winner Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives from sales outfit The Match Factory.

Strand plans to release the film in Spring 2011. 

The Match Factory has now closed deals for Uncle Boonmee for more than 40 territories that includes Movienet in Germany, BIM for Italy, Pyramide for France, Karma for Spain, New Wave Films in the UK and Filmswelike for Canada.

Uncle Boonmee follows a Thai man dying of kidney failure who is visited by spiritual versions of his loved ones. The feature was set up as a U.K.-Thai-German-French-Spanish co-production headed by Kick the Machine Films and Illuminations Films with Anna Sanders Films, The Match Factory, Germany‘s GFF and Eddie Saeta in Spain.

Previous Strand-Match deals include Fatih Akin‘s The Edge of Heaven (2007) and Jasmila Zbanic‘s Berlin Golden Bear winner Grbavica: The Land of My Dreams (2006).
 

MUMBAI: This year‘s Galway Film Fleadh that opened last evening will pay a tribute to filmmaker and festival producer Leila Doolan. On the occasion, the Ireland‘s leading film festival is also organising a workshop with actress Annette Bebing.

Films to be screened at the festival include eighteen new Irish films and several vintage movies from the Irish Film Archive along with world premieres, international features, documentaries, animation and shorts.

The festival opens with My Brothers that tells the story of three young brothers who set out on a mission in a battered bread van on a Hallowe‘en weekend to replace their dying father‘s watch.

Bening co-stars with Julianne Moore in The Kids are All Right as a lesbian couple in southern California, one of whose kids wants to meet their “bio-dad”.

Among the documentaries that would be screened are The Pipe by Risteard Ó Dómhnaill, a portrait of the pressures within a community living with the Corrib gas project in north Mayo, and Burma Soldier, a profile of a former soldier and member of the Burmese junta who becomes a pro-democracy activist.

The tribute to Doolan takes the form of a public interview on 10 July.

Doolan worked in RTÉ, Ireland‘s National Television and Radio Broadcaster in the 60s was first chairwoman of the Irish Film Board and was a key mover in the Burren Action Group that successfully opposed original plans to build an interpretative centre at Mullaghmore, Co Clare.

MUMBAI: After a long gap, Paramount Pictures is readying to tap into the powerful Nickelodeon television brand for making movies that would have a kid-to-family appeal.

Modeling itself along the lines of Walt Disney Studios that moved television programming properties like Hannah Montana to the big screen, Paramount will have a development slate that include ‘The Last Airbender’ and ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.’

‘The Last Airbender,’ built on a budget of $150 million, is the story of a boy who can control air, fire, earth and water. Directed by M Night Shyamalan, the live-action 3-D movie is based on the first season of hit cartoon ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender.’

“Now that we have something, let’s keep it going,” Nickelodeon president Cyma Zarghami told The New York Times. “There’s no reason this can’t be the first of many successful movies built around our television properties.”

While ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is produced by Michael Bay, the director of ‘The Transformers,’ other films in development include a family adventure built around Mattel’s Magic 8-Ball toy and a property around ‘The SpongeBob SquarePants.’

Paramount will look at broad, family movies – and not focus on kids films – while developing the television properties, a genre that is raking in big monies in Hollywood like ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and ‘Toy Story 3.’

Paramount Film Group president told The New York Times that he wanted to stretch the Nickelodeon brand to include racier content — just as Disney did with PG-13-rated movies like ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.’

Though Nickelodeon succeeded with ‘The Rugrats Movie’ in 1998, it subsequently failed in 2004 with ‘The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie’ and ‘Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events.’ It is only now that it is trying to aggressively mine Nickelodeon movies.

MUMBAI: Japanese theatres finally released The Cove, a film about a Japanese dolphin-hunting village after protests by angry nationalists had forced theatres to cancel earlier showings.

Some of the six small cinemas sold out their initial shows and others were mostly empty. Another 18 are due to begin screening the film at later dates.

At Image Forum, an art theatre in Tokyo, about 30 protesters waved Japanese flags and blasted slogans against the film. Police stopped shoving matches between the protesters and a handful of supporters of the showing. 

Viewers were undeterred, and the first two showings at the theater were sold out.

Last month, three other theatres canceled the screenings of the film after noisy protests and a telephone campaign against the film. Nationalist groups say the US produced film was anti-Japanese and distorted the truth.

Some cinemas are trying to show both sides. A theatre in the central city of Nagoya plans to screen the controversial film along with Whalers and the Sea, a 1998 documentary that shows a favourable view of whaling in Japan.