Category: International

MUMBAI: Quentin Tarantino is bringing his latest film Inglourious Basterds to Chicago next month as a fundraiser for the Chicago International Film Festival.Cinema

/Chicago, that presents the festival will give Tarantino its Career Achievement Award at its 2009 Summer Gala

on August 18 at the AMC River East theatre, followed by a screening of his comedy-tinged Nazi-hunting adventure film that opens on 21 August.

The program will include a montage of the filmmaker‘s works that include Reservoir Dogs, “Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill — as well as what‘s sure to be an entertainingly off-the-cuff acceptance speech from the fast-talking director.

MUMBAI: Robert Schwentke, director of The Time Traveler‘s Wife, is in negotiations to take the reins of the Summit Entertainment thriller, based on the WildStorm/DC Comic starring Bruce Willis and Morgan Freeman.

The spy thriller follows a former black-ops agent forced out of retirement when a high-tech assassin threatens him and his girlfriend.

Schwentke had earlier directed Flightplan and The Family Jewels. He is currently developing the Enron drama Conspiracy of Fools for Appian Way at Warner Bros.

Time Traveler‘s Wife on August 14.

MUMBAI: The Abu Dhabi Film Commission (ADFC) has announced the signing of a partnership agreement to fund trips for filmmakers wishing to participate in an Australian film industry initiative.

Melbourne International Film Festival‘s (MIFF) 37 Degrees South Market, which hosts the global film financing forum, will welcome UAE production companies at the event from 2010.

In turn, The Circle Conference, a series of film industry forums and workshops held during Abu Dhabi‘s Middle East International Film Festival will host filmmakers from Australia and New Zealand later this year.

“Executives from ADFC and the 37 Degrees South Market will select production companies to receive bursaries to travel to both countries and take part in these innovative industry events,” ADFC said in a statement.

MUMBAI: The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has accepted two additional Israeli films ahead of its annual event, bringing the number of Israeli productions featured in it to four.
The nine-day Toronto Film Festival set to begin on 10 September and feature over 32 titles from all over the world is considered one of the industry‘s most prestigious events.

The first of the two new films to be included in the festival‘s Discovery sidebar is director Leon Prudovsky‘s Five Hours from Paris which tells the story of an Israeli cab driver who longs to fly, and a Russian music teacher who is soon to board a plane, find out that romance is only a cab ride away.

The second film, to be screened as part of TIFF‘s Real to Reel sidebar, is director Zippi Brand Frank‘s Google Baby – about a surrogate baby producer in India.

The two productions join Haim Tabakman‘s Eyes Wide Open a gay love story set in a religious Jewish community, and Elia Suleiman‘s The Time that Remains which is a semi-biographic film depicting the daily life of Palestinians in 1948, which were selected by the festival at an earlier date.

Tabakman and Suleiman‘s films will be screened as part of the festival‘s Contemporary World Cinema

events.

MUMBAI: With films and filmmakers arriving from across the globe, the Rhode Island International Film Festival (RIIFF) kicks off its 13th annual event to be held from 4th to 9th August.

This year 235 feature length, documentary and short films – from 57 countries – will be screened over a six-day period. This year‘s films have been selected from a record entry base of over 3,000 submissions.

A Lifetime Achievement Award would be presented to Ernest Borgnine with the world premiere of his latest feature film, Another Harvest Moon. In attendance will be fellow cast members Anne Meara with her husband, Jerry Stiller; Piper Laurie and Doris Roberts.

The Festival will salute composer Klaus Badelt (“Pirates of the Caribbean”) with the presentation of the Crystal Image Award at the Opening Night Festivities on 4 August. Badelt will be the keynote speaker at the annual Rhode Island Film Forum on 7 August.

MUMBAI: For the first time, theme park Universal Studios Hollywood is offering fans behind-the-scenes access to its Halloween Horror Nights attraction through social networking sites, Twitter and Facebook.

Via Twitter, Halloween Horror Nights creative director John Murdy will reveal information on @HorrorNights as he ‘tweets‘ a running creative chronicle of the celebrated event‘s design, casting and production, among other eagerly awaited nuggets of information. Through the event‘s Facebook page, Halloween Horror Nights – Hollywood (Official), fans are invited to become a part of the process with regular updates, exclusive content highlights and an opportunity to interact with one other.

Through Murdy‘s creative direction, “Halloween Horror Nights” – Southern California‘s most terrifying Halloween event – pairs Hollywood‘s top entertainment scenic and special effects artists with a cast of thousands. The event brings great films from the horror genre to life with scary ‘live‘ experiences within the theme park and via the ‘Terror Tram‘ on the movie studio‘s famed back lot.

Universal Studios Hollywood VP, interactive marketing Joshua Cole says, “‘The ‘Halloween Horror Nights‘ event is an ideal fit for social media. Our guests eagerly await the highly experiential event with an increasing thirst for information. We‘re excited that for the first time, we‘re able to offer them instantaneous news and access to the event via Twitter and Facebook with insight from Creative Director, John Murdy, who will communicate directly with fans who share his passion for the horror genre.”

This year, Halloween Horror Nights will present all-new ‘live‘ experiences based on Saw, per an agreement among Universal Studios Theme Parks, Lionsgate and Twisted Pictures. All-new mazes, scare zones and new shows will be featured.

MUMBAI: Coming September, Marvel will premiere The Super Hero Squad Show on Cartoon Network. It has signed up Tom Kenny, who voices SpongeBob SquarePants, to lend his talents to the characters of Iron Man, Captain America and M.O.D.O.K.

Kenny is among the schedule of Grey DeLisle (Fairly Oddparents) as Ms. Marvel and the Enchantress, Alimi Ballard (NUMB3RS) as the Falcon and Charlie Adler (Cow & Chicken, Transformers 1 and 2) as Dr. Doom.

The show will a host of guest talent to voice villains and heroes from the Marvel universe, including Shawn Ashmore (X-Men films) as Iceman, LeVar Burton (Ali, Roots) as Rhodey, Taye Diggs (Private Practice) as the Black Panther, Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Galactica) as Sif, Cheryl Hines (Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Ugly Truth) as Stardust, Kevin Sorbo (Hercules, Meet The Spartans) as Ka-Zar, George Takei (Heroes, Star Trek) as Galactus and Michelle Trachtenberg (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Gossip Girl) as the Valkyrie.

The cast is accompanied by comics legend Stan Lee (co-creator of Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, Iron Man, the Hulk, Thor and other Marvel characters).

Marvel‘s president of animation Eric Rollman comments, “The talent that has signed on truly speaks to the strength of the Marvel brand as well as the uniqueness of this series. This is the first time Marvel has produced an action-comedy show and the reaction from both broadcasters and celebrity talent indicates we have something very special in the making.”

MUMBAI: European cable revenues grew 5.4 per cent last year to reach 18.8 billion euros, according to new research from Screen Digest.

The research, carried out in collaboration with the Cable Europe trade organization, notes that of the 18.8 billion euros in revenues from cable last year, 17.4 billion euros were generated by EU countries.

ARPU in the EU was 21.45 euros at the end of 2008, up from 20.79 euros in 2007. For Europe as a whole, ARPU rose from 21.06 euros to 21.90 euros.

The average number of services taken by subscriber is 1.29 in Europe overall, 1.4 in the EU and 1.42 in Western Europe, suggesting plenty of room for growth of triple-play services, which are at present most popular in the U.K. and Spain.

The total digital penetration in the EU stood at 29 per cent at the end of the year, bringing the number of digital cable homes to 18 million. Of these, 27 per cent subscribesr to cable Internet services and 21 per cent subscribe to telephony services from their cable provider.

Europe‘s largest digital cable TV market is the U.K. with 3.5 million digital homes, followed by Germany with 3.3 million and the Netherlands with 2 million.

MUMBAI: D. J. Caruso has been tapped to direct Dead Space, a sci-fi horror film based on the popular video game about an alien virus that reanimates human corpses.

“The producers, EA and Caruso have been listening to stories from prospective screenwriters and once they set a writer and EA signs off on a creative direction, they will auction the property to studios. That will likely happen in early September, ” according to sources.

Caruso‘s earlier films include Disturbia and Eagle Eye.

MUMBAI: TBS has ordered 20 episodes of the comedy Tyler Perry‘s House of Payne additionally taking the total for the series to 172 episodes.

TBS has ordered 46 new episodes of House of Payne in recent weeks. House of Payne and its spinoff, Tyler Perry‘s Meet the Browns, rank as ad-supported cable‘s top two original sitcoms of all time among adults 18 to 49, viewers and households.

So far this year, the shows are television‘s top two series in delivery of African-American adults 18 to 34. House of Payne is distributed by Debmar-Mercury and licensed by TBS.

“Tyler Perry has created the first sitcom in history to reach this many episodes in just two years, an amazing achievement that only a handful of top comedies have been able to achieve after many, many years,” said Debmar-Mercury‘s co-president, Mort Marcus.