ITV

Category: Movies

  • Marc Shaiman to compose music for 82nd Academy Awards

    MUMBAI: Oscar -nominated film music composer Marc Shaiman will serve as music director for the 82nd Academy Awards, telecast producers Adam Shankman and Bill Mechanic said.


    Says Mechanic, “With Marc on board, we are sure to have some great musical and, hopefully, hysterical moments.”


    Shankman adds, “Marc was my inspiration and musical partner on Hairspray and he has been responsible for some of the most memorable moments in Oscar history, like Will Ferrell and Jack Black‘s comedy numbers. He‘s a genius! And he‘d be the first to tell you!”


    Shaiman has earned five Academy Award nominations for his work on films including The American President, The First Wives Club and Patch Adams.


    The 82nd Academy Awards nominations will be announced on 2 February next year. The ceremony takes place on 7 March, 2010 and will air in India on Star Movies.

  • Directors at IFFI to promote their films

    MUMBAI: Directors of four films produced by Reliance Big Pictures namely M S Sathyu, Shaji Karun, Rituparno Ghosh are in Goa to promote their films Ijjodu,Kutty Shrank Janala and Shob Charitro Kalponik that are part of the Indian Panorama section at the 40th International Film Festival of India (IFFI).


    M S Sathyu has directed the Kannada film Ijjodu, Shaji Karun helmed Malayalam film Kutty Shrank while Rituparno Ghosh made Bengali films Shob Charitro Kalponik and Janala.


    All the four filmmakers are known for their craftsmanship and deft handling of subjects and themes and have been feted across the globe having received international acclaim.


    Says Big Pictures CEO Sanjeev Lamba, “We are committed to producing great regional cinema,” says Sanjeev Lamba, CEO BIG Pictures. “India has a great reservoir of creative talent. Every state, every region has something very special to offer and we are working with an array of very talented film makers.”

  • Samson & Delilah is best film at Asia Pacific Screen Awards

    MUMBAI: Samson & Delilah has won the best film award in the feature category at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA), held on 26 November at the Gold Coast.


    The directors of two other films that were best film nominees – Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi and Israeli filmmaker Eliz Sulieman – shared the grand jury prize for About Elly and The Time That Remains.


    The grand jury prize is awarded at the discretion of the judges. Farhadi was also acknowledged for his screenplay.
    A fourth best film nominee out of the five selected, City Of Life And Death from China, earned Lu Chuan the top prize in the category for directing.


    Other significant award winners included best animated film Mary & Max, from Australia, and best children‘s film, A Brand New Life, from Korea. Producer Lee Chang-dong won the best feature award in the first APSA ceremony with Secret Sunshine.

  • Simon Shaps appointed MercuryMedia chairman

    MUMBAI: UK-based documentary distributor MercuryMedia has appointed Simon Shaps, the former director of television at British broadcaster ITV as its chairman.


    Shaps will take up the newly-created position in January next year. The company‘s board already includes chief executive Tim Sparke, who founded MercuryMedia in 2000 and Nick Ware, managing director of MercuryMedia‘s video-on-demand channel joiningthedocs.tv.


    Shaps left ITV in May last year after three years in office. Previously he was the chief executive of ITV‘s global production and distribution business. He has been working with a number of media companies since leaving the broadcaster.


    Said Shaps, “Tim and the team have done an impressive job in creating one of the very few VOD businesses that is up and running with paying customers. I am genuinely excited by the potential of joiningthedocs.tv and Mercury.”

  • 4th Iranian film fest to have Iran revolution as themen

    MUMBAI: The fourth edition of this festival, which will take place on the 18, 19 and 20 December in De Fabriek in Zaandam (the Netherlands) will not only look back at the events of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, but will also focus on Iran‘s current situation.


    The festival will track the development of Iran in the 30 years since the establishment of the Islamic Republic through documentaries, short films and interviews with international guests.


    For instance, the audience can relive the hostage-crisis in Tehran‘s U.S. embassy in 1979 with Mohammad Shirvani‘s documentary 444-day Face-off (2008), or can choose to join president Ahmadinejad as he tours around the country in Letters to the President (Petr Lom, 2009). 


    Through two short films, attention is also given to the protests that followed Iran‘s presidential elections in June, which gave rise to the enormous Green Movemet.


    The upcoming edition of the Iranian Film Festival also creates room for young film talents. Novice directors will be invited to present their work in a special short-film competition, led by a professional jury including Kees Driessen, Floortje Smit, Bart Groenendaal, Jankees Boer and Mostafa Heravi.

  • Coca-Cola to promote Avatar

    MUMBAI: The Coca-Cola Zero brand of the Coca-Cola Company has entered into a partnership with Twentieth Century Fox for a major global promotional campaign for James Cameron‘s epic-adventure film Avatar.


    Set to be activated in over 30 countries, the partnership centers on bringing consumers unique access to exclusive and authentic content from the world of Avatar in a variety of exciting ways.


    Said The Coca-Cola Company Worldwide Entertainment Marketing Director Chip York, “Avatar shares the same aspirational, edgy and unconventional brand values as Coca-Cola Zero.


    “Working so closely with the studio and filmmakers has allowed us to create authentic and exclusive content that provides fans‘ unique access into the world, deepening their AVATAR experience.” 


    Special AR enabled Coke Zero packaging featuring the AVTR mark will provide consumers with an immersive Avatar-related experience. Through the use of AR technology – a web based application that enables the user to interact with 3D motion graphics – Coke Zero consumers will be able to maneuver a Samson helicopter, a vehicle featured in the movie.


    Users can unlock the AR experience in a number of ways including holding a promotional pack in front of a webcam, accessing the experience at AVTR.com or taking a picture of the AVTR mark or Coca-Cola Zero logo from some camera phones.


    Once unlocked, consumers can use a computer keyboard to trigger different actions including; shooting a missile, maneuvering the rotors of the helicopter and shooting its guns. AVTR.com will include a call-to-action telling the visitor to use one of the activating symbols against their webcam to initiate the experience.

  • PVR to release New Moon on 11 December

    MUMBAI: After its record-breaking opening weekend collection, New Moon, which released on 20 November across worldwide, will release in India on 11 December.


    PVR Pictures will release New Moon with over 300 prints and for the first time, the company will release a dubbed version of the film in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu as well.


    Titled as Amavasya in Telugu and Digilan in Tamil, New Moon, with its wide release, is expected to create a record-breaking haul in India as well.


    Says PVR Pictures head distribution (worldwide) Deepak Sharma, “With record-breaking collections that New Moon has achieved internationally in its opening weekend, we are very excited to release it across the country. We are confident that it will break the record set by 2012 and be one of the biggest films of the year.”


    The film has created a world-wide history by achieving the numero uno position through its box-office collection of $140.7 million in the US. At the international box-office, the vampire romancer bowed to $118.1 million for a worldwide opening total of $258.8 million.


    The first part of the saga, Twilight released on 20 November in India and has received a good opening with over a 60 per cent occupancy ratio on the weekend.


    The Twilight Saga has already become a blockbuster book release in India with over 3, 00,000 copies of the book that have been sold so far. Hachette India, the publisher of the Twilight series, is confident of adding more copies to this number, once the film releases in India.


     

  • Shemaroo releases film on R. D. Burman

    MUMBAI: Shemaroo Entertainment has released Pancham Unmixed, a film that attempts to explore legendary composer the late R. D. Burman‘s music.


    Directed by Brahmanand S Siingh, the film is expected to evoke awe, admiration and nostalgia among audiences the way most of R.D.‘s music does even today.


    Says the director, “I relate to R.D. wholly, hence I took up the huge task of making a lyrical and definitive film on him. The process was a long winding one, took me practically 3 years of active work to get all of them together and over 1500 hours of edit time, to make the structure and narrative as gripping and seamless as possible. The journey has no doubt, been a fascinating one and the entire experience, a very defining one.‘


    This film has attempted to explore legendary composer R. D. Burman‘s music. It takes an incisive look into the composer‘s reflective artistry and buoyant, but also lonely inner being. Featuring a host of Pancham Da‘s close friends, colleagues and admirers like – Asha Bhosle, Gulzar, Javed Akhtar, Manna Dey, Shammi Kapoor and Rishi Kapoor among others – Pancham Unmixed is the most comprehensive film made on the composer till date,.


    Avers Shemaroo Entertainment Director Hiren Gada, “Pancham Unmixed is undoubtedly a passion product. The passion behind the launch of this collectors edition DVD is obvious from its packaging, marketing strategy, the coffee table book and the promotions. It is our homage to a great music composer who has given so much to the world. Pancham Unmixed is yet another jewel in our catalogue.”


    The collectors pack that comprises of 2 DVDs: Disc 1 has the film ‘Pancham Unmixed‘ and Disc 2, titled ‘Pancham Magic‘ has 30 timeless Original Video Songs composed by R. D. Burman is priced at Rs. 999.
     

  • Karnataka HC stays entertainment tax order on Kannada films

    BANGALORE: A division bench of the Karnataka High Court has stayed the operation of a 17 September 2008 order of a single bench, quashing a provisio of Section 4 of the Karnataka Entertainment Tax Act 1958. Exhibitors of Kannada will now have to pay Rs 48 per show instead of Rs 118.


    The exhibition of non-Kannada films, however, will still attract an entertainment tax of Rs 118.


    The provisio allowed the state to levy entertainment tax for the state’s languages – notably Kannada, Konkani, Kodava, Tulu and Banjara and a different one for exhibiting films of other languages in Karnataka.


    Contesting that the Kannada film industry was small and ill-equipped to compete with films of other languages, the State had filed an appeal, stating that by virtue of the earlier single bench order, it was forced to collect Rs 118 per show irrespective of the language of a film.
     
    The State earns about Rs 560 million annually by way of entertainment tax from 790 theatres. Twenty nine per cent of the revenue comes from theatres in Bangalore.
    An Ernst & Young report pegged the revenue of the Kannada film industry for FY 2009 at just about Rs 500 million, a little more than 2 per cent of the Rs 17.73 billion revenues earned by the South Indian Film industry made up of the four states – Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

  • Welcome annex European Parliament’s LUX Prize

    MUMBAI: Philippe Lioret‘s Welcome is the winner of the 2009 European Parliament LUX Film Prize after having received a majority of European Parliamentarians‘ votes.


    Worth around $131,000 (€87,000), the prize will help in the subtitling of the film in all 23 of the European Union‘s official languages, including the adaptation of the original version for visually- or hearing-impaired people and also the production of a 35-mm print or a contribution to the DVD release for every EU member state.


    Set in Calais, France, Welcome tells the story of a swimming instructor who chooses to help out a young Kurdish refugee who needs to swim across the English Channel to join his girlfriend. It is produced by Christophe Rossignon of France‘s Nord-Ouest Productions.


    The LUX Prize is awarded annually by the European Parliament for fiction or animation films illustrating or questioning the founding values of European identity, revealing Europe‘s cultural diversity or providing insights into the EU integration debate.


    This year‘s finalists, along with Welcome, were Kamen Kalev‘s Eastern Plays (Bulg-Swe) and Hans Christian-Schmid‘s Sturm (Ger-Den-Neth).