Category: International

MUMBAI: With an aim to encourage big-budget foreign films to shoot in the country, the government of France has introduced a tax rebate for international productions.

The rebate that will be available to both film and TV, will offer a 20 per cent tax credit – up to $5.5m (€4m) – on money spent in France.

Applications will have to pass a cultural test to prove the project has a link to French or European culture. It was passed by French parliament last December and received the greenlight from the European Commission in July.

Applications for the credit will be handled by the state-owned Centre National de la Cinématographie (CNC), with assistance from Film France. Films will be eligible if they have a French story, setting, character or are based on French source material, or if French companies or practitioners are involved.

It is open to productions that began shooting in January 2009 although projects that receive money from CNC and are recognised as official co-production will not be able to apply for the rebate.

MUMBAI: The Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences has announced that ten live-action short films have been shortlist among seventy one films that qualified in the category.

Nominees will be announced on 2 February in the run-up to the 82nd Academy Awards on 7 March.

The ten films in alphabetical order are: The Door; The Ground Beneath; Hotel; Instead Of Abracadabra; Kavi; Miracle Fish; The New Tenants; The Response; Short Term 12; and Sidney Turtlebau.
 

MUMBAI: Steven Spielberg has opted out of directing a remake of the James Stewart film Harvey.

It is said that Spielberg was in a drastic search to find a lead actor after Tom Hanks reportedly turned down the role while Robert Downey Jr refused to commit to doing the film.

The original film was based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play of the same name by Mary Chase. 

Harvey, which tells the story about a man who claims his best friend is a giant invisible rabbit, was a huge success.

Stewart received a best actor nomination at the 1951 Oscars for his performance, while his co-star, Josephine Hull, won best supporting actress.

Spielberg has recently completed production on The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn.
 

MUMBAI: Film Independent (FI) has elected Bill Condon, Rodrigo Garcia, Alan Poul and Stephanie Allain to its board of directors.

Condon will serve as president, Garcia as vice-president, Poul as secretary, and Allain as treasurer. Condon et al are joined by new board members Joe Drake, DeVon Franklin, Sue Kroll, David Linde and Ted Mundorff.

Film Independent‘s current board of directors comprises the aforementioned as well as: Randy Barbato, Adriene Bowles, Effie T Brown, Laura Dern, Sid Ganis, Marcus Hu, Laura Kim, Allan Mayer, Gail Mutrux, Peter Schlessel, Jonathan Sehring, Mary Sweeney and Forest Whitaker.

Previous incumbents Vondie Curtis Hall (president), Troika Pictures Co-CEO Michael Helfant (vice-president), One Way Out Media‘s Tom Ortenberg (treasurer) and Kasi Lemmons (secretary) will all remain on the board.

MUMBAI: Arts Alliance Media will release a documentary about British band Blur titled No Distance Left To Run in cinemas on 19 January.

The feature follows the band as they reunited for their 2009 rehearsals and summer tour. It features previously unseen footage, including interviews and reportages, but will also chart the band‘s rise during the 1990s through to their headline slot at this year‘s Glastonbury Festival (pictured).

No Distance Left To Run is directed by Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace and is produced by Lucas Ochoa and Thomas Benski. It will be released in digital cinemas the UK.

Said Pulse Films head of music Jamie Clark, “With our first feature film we can now add a further string to our bow; we see this as the first of many such projects to come out of Pulse. Blur is one of the most iconic bands of the last two decades, and we are delighted to have the opportunity to work with them.”

MUMBAI: Empowered by the super success of 2012, Sony Pictures Releasing International (SPRI) will have crossed the $2 billion mark at the box-office this coming weekend.

“The record haul will power Sony Pictures Entertainment to its best-ever box- office year worldwide,” said Sony Pictures Worldwide Marketing & Distribution chairman Jeff Blake.

2009 marks just the fifth time in motion picture history that any studio will have passed the $2 billion milestone internationally, following Paramount in 2008, Warner Bros. in 2007 and 2004, and 20th Century Fox in 2006.

SPE has already notched $3.357 billion at the box-office, surpassing the studio‘s previous worldwide box-office record of $3.334 billion in 2006.

Blake further said, “Even in the midst of an economy that continues to challenge our industry, this has been a tremendous year in just about every way we can imagine. First and foremost, we have had an extremely strong slate of films built by Amy Pascal, Michael Lynton and the Columbia, Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Animation production teams led by Doug Belgrad, Matt Tolmach, Clint Culpepper and Hannah Minghella.

In recent weeks, SPRI has pushed toward the $2 billion landmark with the blockbuster release 2012, that is supposed to pass $500 million internationally this weekend ($620 million worldwide box-office to date).

SPRI‘s many hits in 2009 include Angels & Demons that reached $352.6 million in foreign markets; Terminator Salvation, that made $220.6 million in SPRI‘s territories; District 9, that generated $69.4 million in SPRI‘s territories; The Ugly Truth that has taken in more than $114.2 from foreign audiences; The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 that grossed $86.4 million internationally and Seven Pounds, released in 2008 that earned $99.3 million from international markets in 2009. Finally, Michael Jackson‘s This Is It, that ended its highly successful run in most territories on Tuesday by rompiing in $180.0 million internationally, making it the most successful concert film of all time.

Domestically, this year, Sony Pictures has released eight top grossers and is enjoying one of the highest grossing years at the box-office in the studio‘s history with more than $1.370 billion to date.

MUMBAI: First Run Features has acquired the entire US rights of Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith‘s documentary The Most Dangerous Man In America: Daniel Ellsberg And The Pentagon Paper.

Yesterday the National Board Of Review named the film as one of the five top documentaries of the year and also announced it as one of the Freedom Of Expression Award winners.

Last week the film won the Special Jury Award at IDFA and it is on the shortlist of Academy Award documentaries in the running for a nomination.

First Run will release the film sometime in February next.

MUMBAI: Jason Reitman‘s Up In The Air has been named the National Board Of Review‘s (NBOR) 2009 Best Film Of The Year.

The film also earned a best actor award for George Clooney as well as best supporting actress award for Anna Kendrick and adapted screenplay for Reitman and Sheldon Turner.

While Clint Eastwood was named best director for Invictus, Carey Mulligan won best actress award for An Education.
Woody Harrelson took best supporting actor for The Messenger and Jacques Audiard‘s A Prophet was named best foreign-language film.

In two of the most acclaimed performances of the year, Jeremy Renner won best breakthrough performance by an actor in The Hurt Locker and Gabourey Sidibe took the corresponding actress honour for Precious. Both are likely to receive Academy Awards attention.

The Cove was named best documentary and Up best animated feature, while best ensemble cast went to It‘s Complicated. The key cast includes Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin, Steve Martin, John Krasinski and Rita Wilson.

The Spotlight award best directorial debut went to Duncan Jones for Moon, Oren Moverman for The Messenger, and Marc Webb for 500 Days Of Summer.

MUMBAI: Distribution firm Optimum Releasing has increased its slate with nine acquisitions including romantic comedy Leap Year, Bong Joon-ho‘s Cannes title Mother and Source Code, the second film from British director Duncan Jones.

The distributor acquired Leap Year, which stars Amy Adams, and The Tourist, which is based on the Jerome Salle‘s film Anthony Zimmer and will star Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp, through parent company StudioCanal‘s deal with Spyglass Entertainment.

Optimum has also acquired the rights to Duncan Jones‘s sci-fi project Source Code. The film, the first to emerged from StudioCanal‘s deal with Vendome Pictures, will begin principal photography in March. It will star Jake Gyllenhaal as a man forced to relive a train bombing through a stranger‘s eye to figure out who is responsible.

It has also bought Daniel Monzon‘s Spanish action drama Cell 211 from CJ Entertainment that has already been a major hit in Spain. The film stars Carlos Bardem, Luis Tosar and Marta Etrua and tells the story of a two men of different sides of a prison riot.

Having handled his previous two films, Optimum says it is particularly pleased to have “snared” the rights to Bong‘s Mother, which premiered in Un Certain Regard at Cannes this year. It follows a widow trying to clear her handicapped son‘s name. Optimum acquired the film from CJ Entertainment.

It will also handle the release Australian horror flick, The Loved Ones, which won the Midnight Madness Audience Award at this year‘s Toronto Film Festival. It is director Sean Byrne‘s debut film and is about a 17 year old student who is kidnapped by a fellow student and her father.

Optimum has also acquired Darren Bousman‘s Mother‘s Day, which is currently in production. Starring Rebecca De Mornay and Shawn Ashmore, it follows sadistic members of a villainous family who return to their childhood home to terrorize its new owners.
 

MUMBAI: The annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest) now in its 11th year is set to kick off this weekend.

Highlights from this year‘s festival are plentiful, including the fact that this is the first time ever that the open night film will be Indonesian itself. The film, Sang Pemimpi (The Dreamers), is the sequel to Indonesia‘s biggest box-office hit of all time, Laskar Pelangi (The Rainbrow Troops) that was released last year.

The film festival will close with an invitation-only screening of “New York, I Love You.” 

JiFFest will also include a Madani Film Festival, which will focus on films that have an Islamic theme. Interestingly, the Swiss Embassy will be doing some damage control with a Swiss Design in Hollywood Exhibition Master Class.

The Congeniality award will go to Balibo, an Australian film depicting the murder of the Balibo 5, a group of journalists who were allegedly killed by the Indonesian military during the country‘s 1975 invasion of East Timor.