Category: International

MUMBAI: Alain Resnais‘ Wild Grass will open the 47th New York Film Festival while Pedro Almodovar‘s Broken Embraces will close the festival. Sony Pictures Classics holds domestic rights to both titles.

Among the 29 films from 17 countries that would vie for a look up at the festival that would run from 25 September to 11 October, Lee Daniels‘ Precious: Based On The Novel Push By Sapphire will be the centre of attraction.

Notable films to be shown at the festival include Von Trier‘s horror film Antichrist, Haneke‘s Palme d‘Or‘s The White Ribbon, Marco Bellocchio‘s Vincere and Bong Joon-ho‘s thriller Mother.

MUMBAI: The Venice Film Festival has declared the names of nine eligible films for the best stereoscopic 3-D film of the year for the upcoming Venice‘s new Persol 3-D award.The films selected are Eric Brevig‘s Journey To The Center Of The Earth 3-D, Rob Letterman and Conrad Veronon‘s Monsters Vs Aliens, Patrick Lussier‘s My Bloody Valentine, Aristomenis Tsirbas‘ Battle For Terra, Henry Selick‘s Coraline, Bruce Hendricks‘ Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience, Carlos Saldanha‘s Ice Age: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs, Peter Docter‘s Up and the world premiere of Joe Dante‘s The Hole.

Russian filmmaker Sergei Bodrov was the last named as member of the main competition jury that comprises of film historian David Kerr, critic Scott Foundas and Italian 3-D filmmaker Nadia Ranocchi. The award will be announced along with the other festival winners in the Sala Grande on 12 September.

The Persol 3-D award category that comprises of 3-D films produced around the world between September 2008 and August 2009 aims to show in detail the wave of innovative 3-D filmmaking as well as the returned focus of watching films in traditional cinema settings.

MUMBAI: US-based distributor Oscilloscope Laboratories has entered into an exclusive three-year DVD distribution deal with Milestone Films. With this, O-scope will get exclusive distribution rights to DVD releases of all DVD releases of The Milestone Cinematheque including future releases.
Kent McKenzie‘s 1961 The Exiles, about twenty-something Native Americans in the 1950s who leave their reservation to move to Los Angeles. Yvonne Williams, Homer Nish and Tommy Reynolds star will see deal kicking off in November.

Milliarium Zero, the sister company of Oscilloscope and Milestone‘s will also release the Mariposa Film Group‘s documentary of gay and lesbian identity titled Word Is Out: Stories Of Some Of Our Lives.

Milestone‘s library includes films like Killer Of Sheep, I Am Cuba, The Sorrow And The Pity, Bon Voyage, and Winter Soldier.

MUMBAI: Filmmaker Chris Columbus, director of Harry Potter1 and Harry Potter 2 has been signed by Big Entertainment to direct its forthcoming English venture titled The Last Campaign. Incidentally, Columbus has also been the man behind Home Alone 1 and Home Alone 2.

The film based on Thurston Clarke‘s best-selling novel The Last Campaign: Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days that Inspired America shows all about Robert F. Kennedy‘s 1968 presidential campaign.

Though the pre-production of the film titled The Last Campaign is on in full swing, no actors have yet been signed for the project.

This will be the first-ever Hollywood venture to be produced by an Indian corporate.

Recently, Reliance has been in talks with Steven Spielberg to be a partner in his production company Dreamworks.

MUMBAI: At the 2009 Teen Choice Awards held on Sunday last, Britney Spears was presented with the ‘Ultimate Choice Awards‘ the highest of honours of the awards.
The singer had been all but written off two years ago after a series of bizarre incidents, legal entanglements was magnified when an out-of-sorts, out-of-shape Spears gave a lackluster performance in Gimme More at the 2007 MTV Music Awards.

Miley Cyrus, who presented the singer with the award remarked, “She‘s a good friend of the family, so I‘m just happy to finally show everyone that she‘s back, and she never went anywhere. She‘s had a successful career, I‘m proud of her and both of us being Southern girls, I love that.”

MUMBAI: San Francisco-based Microcinema International has partnered with London-based MercuryMedia to distribute some of its titles in Europe, Australia and Asia.
The first feature under the deal is documentary Loose Change 9/11: An American Coup. Mercury will also offer the film on its video-on-demand service joining thedocs.tv. The latest instalment in the Loose Change series looks at suspicious events following 9/11.

Said MercuryMedia chief executive Tim Sparke, “It is a tremendous privilege to be working with Microcinema and it‘s fantastic that our first title should be about a subject which continues to resonate and arouses such passion.

“We are confident that there is an untapped European and Austral-Asian markets for Microcinema‘s fantastic catalogue which we are eager to offer to our appreciative client base.”

MUMBAI: Japanese producer-distributor Movie-Eye Entertainment which is also distributor of Oscar-winning films like Crash and Million Dollar Baby has filed for bankruptcy, it is reportedly learnt.It is said that Movie-Eye increased its spend on films in anticipation of becoming a listed company last year but the global slowdown, the recession in Japan and under-performing box-office led to losses of $45m (Y4.29b).

Established in April 2000 and headed by former Gaga Said MercuryMedia chief executive Tim Sparke, “It is a tremendous privilege to be working with Microcinema and it‘s fantastic that our first title should be about a subject which continues to resonate and arouses such passion.

“We are confident that there is an untapped European and Austral-Asian markets for Microcinema‘s fantastic catalogue which we are eager to offer to our appreciative client base.”

MUMBAI: At the recently held Teen Choice Awards, The vampire story filmTwilightwon as many as nine awards.

The film won for choice drama, romance, lipl-lock, rumble, drama actress for Kristen Stewart, drama actor for Robert Pattinson, villain for Cam Gigandet, fresh face female for Ashley Greene and fresh face male for Taylor Lautner who will also appear in the upcoming sequel, New Moon.

MUMBAI: 20th TV has assigned director Shawn Ryan to make a pilot for Ridealong a new cop drama. Set in Chicago, Ridealong will move the inner law-enforcement workings away from the police stations.

It is known that Ryan‘s return to the cop genre so soon after the end of FX‘s Shield was planned earlier. Said Ryan, “I always knew I wanted to go back to the cop arena but with a markedly different approach, not just do a network version of ‘The Shield,‘ ” he said. “I think I‘ve found a way to do a unique cop show with Ridealong.”

MUMBAI: All kinds of attempts to stop screening of the controversial documentary on the exiled Uyghur leader Rebiya Kadeer went awry when the film was screened at the Melbourne Film Festival.

Scores of people attended the world premiere of the film The 10 Conditions of Love after which director Jeff Daniels thanked the organisers of the festival and the audience who attended it braving the Chinese threats, saying “I congratulate you for standing up for the basic freedom of being heard.”