Category: International

MUMBAI: French director Eric Rohmer expired last Monday at the age of 89 in Paris.

A veteran and pioneer of the New Wave, Rohmer made 24 films over a period of 50 years. His last, Les Amours D‘Astree Et De Celadon was screened at the Venice Film Festival in 2007. 

Rohmer was nominated for a best original screenplay oscar for 1969‘s My Night At Maud‘s. Among his myriad other well-known titles were Love In The Afternoon, Pauline At The Beach, A Good Marriage, The Green Ray, A Winter‘s Tale and The Aviator‘s Wife.

His dialogue-dominated character dramas usually focused on the relationships between men and women were often filmed as part of themed series Moral Tales, Comedies And Proverbs, Tales Of The Four Seasons but he also enjoyed historical or literary pieces like Perceval Le Gallois, The Lady And The Duke and The Marquise Of O for which he won the Grand Jury Prize in Cannes in 1976.

MUMBAI: The Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences has announced the names of seven films that have made it to the shortlist for the make-up prize.

The films in alphabetical order are: District 9; Il Divo; The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus; Night At The Museum:Battle Of The Smithsonian; The Road; Star Trek; and The Young Victoria.

On 23 January all members of the Academy‘s make-up branch will be invited to view ten-minute excerpts from each of the seven films.

Following the screenings, members will vote to nominate three films for final Oscar consideration.

The nominations will be announced on 2 February.
 

MUMBAI: Two of Hollywood‘s veteran producers namely Arnon Milchan and Terry Semel are in plans to launch a $1 billion-plus fund to finance studio projects.

The duo is fashioning a pitch that draws two key distinctions from past film-fund deals: Milchan and Semel would be hands-on exec producers of the films that get funding. The duo would pick and choose from projects all around town rather than strike an exclusive deal with any one studio.

Milchan and Semel believe the dearth of outside financing has Hollywood in a particularly receptive mood for their pitch.

“They think that with there being no slate financings around and with their specifice pedigrees and reputations in the business, it‘s a great time for them to do this,” said a financial community insider.”

“All sorts of people are saying they don‘t want to invest in Hollywood anymore. So Arnon and Terry are saying to the studios, ‘There is nobody better than us to do this for you; the fund will be run by the most experienced professionals this time,” he added.

The plan would see Milchan and Semel each contribute $200 million or more to set up the fund, while turning to banks and other lenders for additional capital.
Still, it‘s unlikely Milchan and Semel will be without competitors for long in this new game.

The fund to be launched by Milchan and Semel is expected to be unveiled this year.

MUMBAI: The American Cinema Editors‘ 60th annual ACE Eddie Awards has nominated Avatar, District 9 and Star Trek for this year‘s awards.

These three films will compete for best edited dramatic feature film along with The Hurt Locker and Up in the Air.

Two Meryl Streep films namely Julie & Julia and It‘s Complicated were nominated in the best comedy or musical category along with (500) Days of Summer, The Hangover and A Serious Man.

For best animated film, the contenders are Coraline, Fantastic Mr. Fox and Up.

This Is It, the Michael Jackson documentary, scored a slot in ACE‘s best documentary race alongside The Cove and Food, Inc.

An honorary society of motion picture editors founded in 1950, ACE‘s nominations usually point toward Oscar victory since no film has won an Oscar for best picture without also having received an ACE editing nom since Ordinary People in 1981.

Turning to television, the editors nominated episodes of 30 Rock, Curb Your Enthusiasm and Entourage in the half-hour series category.

Winners will be announced at ACE‘s awards ceremony on 14 February at the Beverly Hilton.
 

MUMBAI: The Wild and Scenic Environmental Film Festival opens on 15 January in Nevada City after which the venue will become a center of activism to halt global warming.

Antarctica will be among the places featured as signaling the effects of human interaction with Mother Nature. The Antarctica Challenge: A Global Warning by award-winning Canadian filmmaker Mark Terry is a one-hour documentary that profiles how the issues of global warming are impacting the southern continent.

Terry, who has been on the film since 1986, is a member of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society having won a Platinum Award for best documentary feature and best director at the Houston International Film Festival in 2001 for We Stand Guard about the history of the Canadian military.

Through Terry‘s investigative work during International Polar Year, when scientists were invited to study Antarctica‘s larger-than-life-creatures, he noticed little information was coming out of Antarctica.

So he visited for his 50th birthday to bring the latest findings of the scientific world to the big screen. The film released in 2009, interviews some of the leading scientists living in Antarctica as they study the dramatically changing wildlife and polar ecosystem.

Among other questions they address: are penguins really committing suicide?

Antarctica Challenge won the Silver Sierra Award at the Yosemite International Film Festival and best picture in environment and ecology at the International Film Festival of Ireland. The film shows how warmer temperatures are affecting the icy landscape in three ways.

First, land ice is melting at a faster rate than expected. Second, the newly exposed rock absorbs sunlight, heats up and creates giant landslides of ice and third, the precipitation cycle shows a marked increase, as more fresh water is evaporating. This fresh water then rains down on the land ice which, in turn, melts the ice faster.

MUMBAI: Québec actor-director Xavier Dolan is tipped to be the first recipient the Jay Scott Prize for emerging talent instituted by the Toronto Film Critics Association.

The Jay Scott Prize is named for the influential Globe and Mail film critic, who died in 1993. In addition to the honour itself, there is also a cash prize of $5000.

Dolan shot to instant fame when his film, J‘ai tué ma m?re (I Killed My Mother) had its world premiere at the 2009 Cannes International Film Festival. Although the film didn‘t win the Camera d‘or, which honours first films, it did pick up three other awards including the Art Cinema Award granted by an international jury of indie theatre programmers obviously convinced that audiences will go for the film.

In September last year, Telefilm Canada announced that it had selected Dolan‘s film to represent Canada in the best foreign language film category at the 2010 Academy Awards. Nominations for the awards will be announced on February 2nd.

Dolan is expected to be in Toronto to accept the award from Atom Egoyan when the Toronto critics gather for their annual meeting on 12 January.

MUMBAI: The Spanish Film Academy‘s Goya Awards will be handed out in a gala ceremony on 14 February in Madrid.

Among the 28 categories, three have been earmarked for short films and an honorary Goya award for director Antonio Mercero.

Daniel Monzon‘s prison drama Cell 211 and Alejandro Amenabar‘s Agora led the pack with 16 and 13 nominations respectively, including all the main categories of the 24th Goya Awards.

The two films will vie for the top categories of best film and director opposite Fernando Trueba‘s The Dancer and the Thief with nine nominations and Juan Jose Campanella‘s The Secret in Their Eyes with eight. 

The nominations for 2010 divvy up the biggest nods among a half-dozen titles, like Daniel Sanchez Arevalo‘s Gordos with eight nominations; Sigfrid Monleon‘s The Consul of Sodoma with six and Pedro Almodovar‘s Broken Embraces with five.

Penelope Cruz will have a tough fight in the actress category for her role in Almodovar‘s Embraces and will be pitted against Maribel Verdu for her role in Francis Ford Coppola‘s mystery Tetro, Rachel Weisz in Agora and Lola Duenas from Me Too.

Argentine actor Ricardo Darin has been nominated in the actor category for his role in Dancer and the Thief while his competitors in the category are Luis Tosar for Cell 211, Jordi Molla for Consul of Sodoma and Antonio de la Torre for Gordos.

The Goya nominations were selected from the 120 Spanish and Latin films released in Spain between 1 December, 2008, and 31 December, 2009.
 

MUMBAI: Indonesia‘s Bali province will host an international film festival in 2012, the Antara news agency quoted an official as saying on Friday.

“Bali is preparing itself to successfully host the International Film Festival in 2012,” said the Head of Art and Film at Bali‘s Culture Department I Made Santha. 

He said that the preparation included the 32nd Balinese Art Fair in June and documentary film festival that will present the latest documentary movies produced by regencies/cities government in the province, local companies as well as individual producers.

Santha added that growing creative industries has been done to support the international event.

MUMBAI: Canadian distributor Knightscove Media Group has entered into an agreement to acquire Ellis Entertainment for C$2.82 million.

The purchase price consists of C$1.5 million in cash, with the balance made of Knightscove stock. The transaction is due to close at the end of this month. Knightscove announced in April of last year that it had signed a non-binding letter of intent to acquire Ellis Entertainment.

The company that has been in business for 45 years owns the rights to about 600 titles that cover wildlife and nature genres as well as other factual fare and entertainment shows. 

It also operates VisionTV International, a joint venture with Canadian specialty broadcaster VisionTV. Knightscove owns the DVD distributor Morningstar, which is expected to manage the Ellis catalogue in the U.S. market.

Said Knightscove‘s president and CEO Leif Bristow, “Having KnightTV will create a magnet effect assisting in broader distribution rights to be leveraged by all Knightscove divisions.

“Having Ellis Entertainment and Stephen Ellis become part of this shared vision will demonstrate to the industry and our shareholders our commitment to growth through strategic business combinations. We believe that the synergies by working from the same offices will increase profitability and provide new and enhanced opportunities to increase overall revenues.”
 

MUMBAI: 20th Century Fox has acquired Spanish theatrical rights of Andrucha Waddington‘s Spanish-Brazilian historical epic Lope nmade at a cost of $20m.

The deal was struck between Fox and Lope‘s producers Ikiru Films, El Toro Films, Antena 3 Films and Conspiracao in Brazil.

The film, featuring rising star Alberto Ammann as the 16th century playwright Lope De Vega, has taken 10 years to make and passed through the hands of some varied players including Columbia Pictures, major Spanish producer Elias Querejeta and right wing radio and TV corporation Intereconomia.

Warner Bros has already lapped up the Latin American rights of the film that has also received the backing of regional broadcaster TeleMadrid and private pay-TV platform Canal Plus Espana, which will share TV rights with Antena 3.

“We are happy to say that Fox has picked up Lope and will release it in Spanish cinemas on September 3,” said Edmon Roch at Ikiru Films adding, “We are currently working on the editing in Brazil and hope to have the film ready by March.”