Category: International

MUMBAI: The 53rd annual San Francisco International Film Festival will present its Kabar Award for excellence in screenwriting to Focus Features CEO and co-founder James Schamus on 29 April.

The fest also plans to screen the new director‘s cut of Ang Lee‘s Ride with the Devil.

The award, named in honor of Maurice Kanbar, a longtime member of the board of directors of the San Francisco Film Society, will be presented by John Waters.

“The 2010 Kanbar Award highlights the writing accomplishments of a man with a uniquely multifaceted career as a writer, producer, executive and scholar,” said SFFS director of programming Rachel Rosen, “We‘re pleased to be able to honor James Schamus, who appreciates, as does Maurice Kanbar, the essential role that screenwriting plays in the genesis of a great film.”

The Film Society‘s Youth Education programme will be the beneficiary of the black-tie fundraiser chaired by Carla Emil and Rich Silverstein and honorary chairs Penelope Wong and Timothy Kochis.

MUMBAI: Cinematographer of Ridley Scott‘s sci-fi film Alien, Derek VanLint expired in Toronto on Tuesday after a short illness at the age of 78.

VanLint‘s brooding photography in “Alien,” where his camera in the movie‘s opening sequence slowly pans the corridors of a silent Nostromo vessel with its crew in stasis, was also on show in the 1981 fantasy adventure pic “Dragonslayer,” directed by Matthew Robbins for Paramount Pictures.

“Derek was truly an icon — his talent and passion for the craft of cinematography knew no boundaries,” VanLint‘s longtime agent Sesler & Co. said.

Besides his film and TV work, British-born VanLint was a veteran commercial director, completing TV spots for international clients that includes Guinness, Pepsi, British Airways and Levis.

MUMBAI: A day after awarding the Golden Bear to the Turkish film Honey, The 60th Berlin International Film Festival came to a close on Sunday.

The jury made the controversial choice to give the Silver Bear to The Ghost Writer directed by Roman Polanski.

The acting honours went to Shinoubu Terajima, the Japanese star of the anti-war film Caterpillar and to Russian co-stars Girgori Dobrygin and Sergei Puskepalis for How I Ended This Summer.

The Turkish film, directed by Semih Kaplangolglu, was one of 20 contenders for the Golden Bear this year.

The film is the third in a trilogy, following Milk and Egg, traces the life of a young boy, Yusuf in rural Turkey. The film that has no music stars eight-year-old Bora Altas.

MUMBAI: Avatar has grossed $ 8.2 million globally from IMAX theatres worldwide in the tenth weekend.

The biggest global hit in IMAX history, the film added $4.3 million from 173 North American screens and $3.9 million from 84 international screens.

The Polar Express held the previous world record of $71m.

Said IMAX CEO Richard Gelfond, “This incredible milestone not only reflects the mass appeal of watching Avatar in IMAX, but also reflects the significant expansion of our global audience base.”

“Avatar was a perfect fit for IMAX and the type of event title IMAX fans and exhibitors embrace. We look forward to growing our audience even more as we continue to expand the IMAX network and offer moviegoers more of Hollywood‘s biggest films,” Gelfond added.

In the Asia-Pacific market, the IMAX network roped in approximately $43 million from 38 screens, with 20 IMAX screens in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and Australia each generating more than $1million. IMAX delivered $32m from 35 screens in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, many of which surpassed the $1 million mark.

Moscow‘s Nescafe IMAX Theatre has reported approximately $3 million from its single IMAX screen and the BFI IMAX in London more than $2.3 million from its single screen.

Commented IMAX Filmed Entertainment chairman and president Greg Foster, “We reached this milestone thanks to the strong word of mouth about the experience of watching Avatar in IMAX, and the hard work of all of those at Lightstorm, Twentieth Century Fox, IMAX and our global exhibition partners.”
 

MUMBAI: 20th Century Fox has picked up the distribution rights of the Fourth Realm Trilogy written by John Twelve Hawks that Watchmen co-writer Alex Tse will adapt.

Tse has made a name for himself in the sci-fi fantasy realm. In addition to Watchmen, Tse wrote an adaptation of a Japanese classic Ninja Scroll for Warners. He is also credited for the adaptation of Ray Bradbury‘s The Illustrated Man for Zach Snyder also for Warners.

The film is being produced by Gil Netter and Andrew Tennenbaum.

The first book, titled ‘The Traveler‘ published in 2006, is set in a US society run by a secret organization seeking to control the population via constant observation.

Seeking to rebel against these constraints are an almost extinct group of people called Travelers who can project their spirit into other dimensions and their protectors called Harlequins.

The inaugural tome centers on a Harlequin named Maya who must protect two naive Traveler brothers.
 

MUMBAI: The Korean Film Festival will kick of in Los Angeles on 4 March with the screening of Le Grand Chef II that stars Kim Jung-Eun and Jin-Gu.

Korean Film Festival in Los Angeles (KOFFLA) executive director Chang-Wha Chung and actor John Cho revealed details of the upcoming fest on Monday.

The closing award ceremony that is set for 7 March will be followed by a presentation of Hur Jin Ho‘s A Good Rain Knows starring Jung Woo-Sung and Gao Yuan Yuan.

The film festival that will feature more than 60 features and shorts will have a retrospective of films by action director Ryoo Seung-Wan.

Among other events of importance slated in the festival are a master class with cinematographer Kim Hyung-ku, a surprise screening of an undisclosed Korean masterpiece and Actorfest KOFFLA, a one-day event for actors and aspiring actors to participate in panels, workshops and meetings.

MUMBAI: With a haul of an estimated $ 51 million from 7,600 screens in 71 markets, Avatar‘s ten-week haul reached $1.78billion.

The film became the biggest release in history in Mexico, where it garnered $ 608,049 from 380 screens that swelled its tally to $42.5 million.

In France, Avatar garnered $ 165. 1 million after ten weekends while in China, the film added $ 3.6 million to its kitty from 792 and finally accounted for $ 164.4 million in seven weeks.

In Germany Avatar added $ 5.7million from 544 screens to reach a tally of $ 134 million, it ramped in $4.6 million in the UK from 408 screens to collect $134.9 million , in Japan, the film amassed $131.9 million after nine weekends, while in Italy it collected $85.7 million after six weeks.

Adding the North American tally of $687.8 million, the global cumulative total of Avatar currently rests at $ 2.47 billion.
 

MUMBAI: Kathryn Bigelow‘s The Hurt Locker hauled six awards at the recently held BAFTA awards including best film, best director, best original screenplay, best cinematography, best sound and best editing.

Avatar, nominated in eight categories, got two awards; one in the special visual effects category and second in the production design category.

Colin Firth who starred in A Single Man was named best actor while British actress Carey Mulligan annexed the best actress award for her role in An Education.

Christoph Waltz collected the best supporting actor award for his role in Inglourious Basterds while the best supporting actress award was collected by Lee Daniels.

The award ceremony attracted stars including Dustin Hoffman, Kate Winslet and Robert Pattinson.

Andrea Arnold won the outstanding British film award while Twilight star Kristen Stewart was named Orange Rising Star. Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner took the award for the best adapted screenplay for Up in the Air.
 

MUMBAI: Post-production tools that helped launch the digital intermediate process figured prominently during the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences‘ annual Scientific and Technical Awards presentation.

The Academy honoured a total of 10 technologies with scientific and engineering awards and five with technical achievement awards.

The digital intermediate, or DI, process gives filmmakers extended creative flexibility by shifting color grading and other post-production tasks from a chemical process to one that is digital. 

Said SciTech Awards committee chairman Richard Edlund, “The digital intermediate is taking over the post-production field the way Avid took over the editing field.”

DI became the common term used to describe this process because at its launch approximately a decade ago, a film was initially shot on film and after post-production, it was recorded back to film for theatrical release.

That is already changing. With the proliferation of digital cinematography cameras, movies increasingly begin in the digital realm — and with digital cinema projection, they often end as files rather than film. For that reason, many believe that the still-young term will need to be retired.

Among the technologies recognized for enabling the DI process were scanners, which convert film into files for the post process; look up tables and color management tools, which allow filmmakers to create and maintain a consistent look; color grading tools, offering creative flexibility in adjusting color; and display, enabling accurate monitoring of the images.

While this year the SciTech Awards honoured various tools from the intermediate portion of the digital pipeline, no digital cinematography technology has been recognized to date.
 

MUMBAI: Tom Cruise will star in a new Mission: Impossible that is to release in 2011. The film will incidentally be produced by the actor himself and J.J. Abrams.

Incidentally both Cruise and Abrams had teamed for the earlier version of Mission: Impossible III.

The first two ‘Mission: Impossible‘ films made $1 billion at global box-offices. The third film‘s U.S. box-office garnered $ 134 million but was considered a disappointment of sorts by box-office analysts.

Following Mission: Impossible III, Paramount started its film production ties with Cruise but the making of a fourth film in the series has been a question ever since.

“Tom and J.J. are great talents and we are excited to be working with them to re-launch this legendary franchise,” Paramount Pictures Chairman Brad Grey said in a statement.