Category: International

MUMBAI: Avatar and Star Trek with three nominations each lead the list of nominations for the Motion Picture Sound Editor (MPSE) s‘ 2010 Golden Reel Awards.The awards will be handed out at ceremonies on 20 February at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles.

Steven Spielberg will be honoured at the event as 2010 MPSE Filmmaker Recipient, while the Career Achievement award will go to Larry Singer.

The Golden Reel Awards spotlight the art of sound editing, music editing and sound design in film, TV and video.

In the category of sound editing, music in a feature film, the nominees are 2012, (500) Days of Summer, An Education, Avatar, It‘s Complicated, Star Trek, Sherlock Holmes and The Informant!.

Crazy Heart, Every Little Step, Nine and This Is It earned nominations for sound editing, music in a musical feature.
For sound editing: dialogue and ADR in a feature, the nominees are (500) Days of Summer, A Serious Man, Avatar, GI Joe, Inglourious Basterds, Star Trek, The Hurt Locker and The Stoning of Soraya M.

Moving on to the category of sound effects and foley in a feature, the MPSE nominated 2012, Avatar, Inglourious Basterds, Push, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, The Hurt Locker, Star Trek and Watchmen.

MUMBAI: Sundance is collaborating with YouTube on three titles from the new Next strand set to receive their world premieres in Park City.

Linas Phillips‘ road movie Bass Ackwards, Todd Barnes and Brad Barnes‘ romance Homewrecker, and Michal Mohan‘s friendship drama One Too Many Mornings will screen.

Commencing on January 22, these films will be showcased on the YouTube homepage after which they will also be available till 31 January at YouTube Movies.
The Cove and Children Of Invention, will also be made available for rental.

Said Sundance Film Festival director John Cooper, “It has been our goal this year to find opportunities for our film-makers by linking them to our technology partners and YouTube has been a great sponsor and partner.” 

“The YouTube commitment to independent film is aligned with ours at Sundance. This begins a new age of connecting our artists directly to audiences,” Cooper added.

The films will be available for rental from 22 to 31 January and will be priced at $3.99 that includes an unlimited number of views during a 48-hour period with the exception of The Cove which will be a 24-hour window.

Filmmakers of these films will receive majority of the revenue share and none of the participating filmmakers opted to have a cap on streams. This means that there will be no limit to how many rentals can be purchased during the 10-day period.

After 31 January, the films will no longer be available under their current deal with YouTube.
 

MUMBAI: In the Academie Des Arts Et Techniques Du Cinema‘s nominees for the Cesar awards announced in Paris on Friday, Jacques Audiard‘s A Prophet, which is the country‘s submission for the foreign language Oscar bagged 13 nominations in all including best picture, director and actor award for Tahar Rahim.

Philippe Lioret‘s Welcome garnered nine nominations including the best picture, director and actor categories.

Francois Cluzet, who starred in Guillaume Canet‘s Tell No One, has the distinction of competing against himself in the best actor category for Philippe Godeau‘s One For The Road and Xavier Giannoli‘s In The Beginning.

Foreign films chosen include James Cameron‘s Avatar, Clint Eastwood‘s Gran Torino, Gus Van Sant‘s Milk, Stephane Aubier and Vincent Patar‘s A Town Called Panic, Michael Haneke‘s The White Ribbon, Danny Boyle‘s Slumdog Millionaire and Xavier Dolan‘s Fortnight victor I Killed My Mother.

The Cesar ceremony will take place on 27 February 27 in Paris.
 

MUMBAI: With a non-binding offer expected soon from Fox, seven companies have placed offers to buy MGM in the first round bidding exercise.

Warner Bros., Lionsgate and Elliott Management — an investor in producer Relativity Media — were among those who made first-round offers. It will be learnt next week if they have made it into a second round or not.

All first-round offers, part of a solicitation process launched last month by MGM consultant Moelis & Co., fell short of the $2 billion target for selling the Lion. But with those holding $3.7 billion in MGM debt pressing for a change in ownership, a lesser sum might work out things.

First-round offers were allowed only on the entire studio. It‘s unclear if a la carte bidding on select MGM assets or on film rights to the James Bond franchise would be allowed in the next round.

Lionsgate is considered likely to file a second-round bid for the entire company. So far, the mini-major has offered $1.5 billion to buy the studio, it is learnt.

None of the first-round offers was well detailed, hence the debt holders will be anxious to get a better sense of the seriousness of those bidders.

Lion owners include Providence Equity, TPG Capital, Sony, Comcast, DLJ Merchant and Quadrangle.Companies reviewing MGM financial data have included Fox, Warner Bros., Lionsgate, Liberty Media, AT&T, Summit Entertainment, Reliance Big Entertainment and Elliott.

MUMBAI: The Austrian government is planning to pay out $4.5 million to film projects this year after ‘fast-tracking‘ the introduction of its production incentive.

The scheme, that is modelled on Germany‘s Federal Film Fund (DFFF), was announced by Austrian economics minster Reinhold Mitterlehner on 21 January.

It will launch in July, subject to approval from the European Commission, and will pay out a further $10.5 million in 2011 to 2012. 

The Austrian film industry trade association FAFO estimates that between 20-30 films could be supported by the new fund.

Projects, including international co-productions, will need to spend at least 25 per cent of its production budget on Austrian film-related goods and services. This could be reduced to 20 per cent for large productions with budgets of $14 million for large productions with a budget.

The maximum support for a single project will amount to 25 per cent of the Austrian production costs or 15 per cent of the fund‘s annual budget.

It is understood that the international awards garnered by Michael Haneke‘s The White Ribbon and actor Christoph Waltz, for his role in Inglourious Basterds, prompted the Austrian government to ‘fast track‘ its plans.
 

MUMBAI: Paramount Pictures has acquired worldwide rights of Participant Media‘s documentary Waiting For Superman.
The studio had been tracking the project and will release it in the US in autumn through Paramount Vantage, which distributed Guggenheim‘s environmental warning An Inconvenient Truth in 2006.

Waiting For Superman screens in the US Documentary Competition at the Sundanance Film Festival and while examining the stricken US public education system, explores innovative alternatives.

Bill Gates is featured and is understood to have been a factor in the film lapping up by Paramount. The acquisition demonstrates Paramount‘s healthy appetite for documentaries of late.

In December Josh Braun‘s Submarine that is handling sales in Sundance of the Participant Media documentaries Cane Toads: The Conquest and Countdown To Zero, among other films, sold the cyber thriller talhotblond to Paramount Digital Entertainment.

MUMBAI: Under an agreement announced this week, nearly all the assets of Kerasotes Showplace Theatres Co., a Chicago-based owner of movie theaters throughout the Midwest, including one in Fitchburg, will be sold to AMC Entertainment Inc.

The deal involving the sale of most of Kerasotes‘ assets to AMC will add Kerasotes‘ 973 movie screens in 96 theaters to the AMC group, which already owns 4,574 screens in 304 theaters in five countries, according to a news release issued by both companies.

Under the agreement, Kerasotes‘ owners Tom and Dean Kerasotes will continue to own and operate two of their new ICON concept theaters in Minneapolis and Chicago and one Showplace theater in Secaucus, N.J.

Kerasotes owns the Star Cinema 18 and IMAX theatre while in Wisconsin, the company owns theatres in Wisconsin Dells and Johnson Creek, said Kerasotes‘ special promotions manager Steve Carpenter.

Kerasotes also owns Star 6 Cinema in Reedsburg, which remains closed and up for sale since flooding in downtown Reedsburg in June 2008.

MUMBAI: According to figures from Nielsen, the 67th Annual Golden Globe Awards brought in 16.9 million viewers on the NBC channel that telecast the shiw live. This years show garnered a gain of 14 per cent on last year‘s show.

Reports indicate that the Globes brought NBC its highest ratings in the 8 pm to 11 pm time period, excluding sports coverage, in six years.

While viewership increased this year, the ratings were still below that of 2004 that had a high of 26.8 million viewers.

MUMBAI: Nine films have advanced from the initial pool of 65 submissions in the Academy‘s foreign language shortlist and will be in the mix when five nominations are announced on 2 February.

Of these topping the list are German entry The White Ribbon and A Prophet from France.

Other shortlisted films include, El Secreto De Sus Ojos (Argentina), Samson & Delilah (Australia), The World Is Big And Salvation Lurks Around The Corner (Bulgaria), Un Prophete (France), The White Ribbon (Germany), Ajami (Israel), Kelin (Kazakhstan), Winter In Wartime (The Netherlands) and The Milk Of Sorrow (Peru). 

India‘s hopes of a Oscar nomination was dashed after Harischandrachi Factory did not find a mention in the shortlist.

Foreign language nominations are being determined in two phases. The Phase I committee, comprising several hundred Los Angeles-based members, screened the 65 eligible films between mid-October and January 16.

The shortlist will be reduced to five nominees by specially invited committees in New York and Los Angeles. They will spend 29 to 31 January viewing three films each day before casting their ballots.

The nominations will be announced on February 2.

MUMBAI: Celine Dion, Carrie Underwood and Usher will take part in a tribute to Michael Jackson at the Grammy awards next week and will also showcase a film created by Jackson for his 1995 hit ‘Earth Song‘.

Organisers of Grammy said that Jennifer Hudson and Smokey Robinson would also join in the Jackson tribute and will sing along with the voice of Jackson.

The 31 January Grammy ceremony in Los Angeles will also feature the first complete showing of a 3-D mini movie for ‘Earth Song‘ created by Jackson before his death last June.

Jackson, who won 13 Grammys and whose 1982 album ‘Thriller‘ is the biggest-selling album of all time, is to get a posthumous lifetime achievement Grammy this year.

Ehrlich said the five singers would perform along with Jackson‘s voice while the 4 1/2 minute film is projected on a screen behind them. The ‘Earth Song‘ film features a young girl who goes to sleep in a verdant forest and awakes to find it destroyed by environmental changes.