A
record-setting number of exhibitors, screenings and Sundance Film
Festival entries mark new highs in growth as the American Film Market
celebrates its 20th year. The annual event, which takes place at
the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel in California from February 23
through March 1, will attract over 7,000 industry professionals
from 70 countries including film and TV distributors, agents, attorneys,
producers, directors, trade groups, film festival programmers and
film commissioners.
The record-setting numbers this year include 327 exhibitors,
the screening of over 400 films (24 different films every two hours),
260 films which are U.S. or world premieres, 667 screening times,
27 films from the Sundance Film Festival, and sold out space at
the Loews Hotel which meant finding another hotel for the first
time, Le Merigot, to accommodate all the exhibitors.
 Titles
range from big budgets to modest, lower budget art and genre films.
Among the higher profile films to be screened are The Boiler
Room starring Ben Affleck from New Line Cinema, The
Filth and the Fury which is a film about the punk rock
bank the Sex Pistols from Film Four Ltd., and Miramax International's
Hamlet starring Ethan Hawke, all of which debuted
last month at the Sundance Film Festival, as well as Miramax International's
Daddy and Them starring Billy Bob Thorton and Laura
Dern, and Capitol Films' Drowning Mona starring Danny
Devito and Bette Middler.
For the second year in a row, the market is offering AFM
Premiere Screenings for the public and industry (without AFM badges)
during AFM screenings of 80 independent films. Among the yet-to-be-released
titles are Alfonso Arau's Picking Up the Pieces starring
Woody Allen, Maria Grazia Cucinotta and Sharon Stone, comedy It
Had to Be You starring Natasha Henstridge, More Dogs
Than Bones starring Joe Mantegna and Peter Coyote, Rated-X
starring brothers Emilio Estevez and Charlie Sheen with Estevez
directing, and Robert Dornhelm's The Venice Project.
A general admission badge is $95, an industry badge/pass is $45.
According to the AFM, the market has grown steadily over
the last two decades, making it the largest motion picture market
in the world. Over $400 million in licensing deals are now closed
each year.
Contributor/festival
specialist
Wendy Carrel
|
The
year 2000 American Film Market has shown that this international
trade event continues to be a pivotal destination for film buyers
and sellers and independent filmmakers from all over the world.
Business was booming and the market again closed over $400 million
in licensing deals indicating that the world economy may have
picked up and there is a need for product.
There were 1504 registered buyers this year. Among them
were 245 North American buyers from 118 companies, 174 buyers
from Japan, 68 buyers form Korea, 19 buyers from Hong Kong, 26
buyers from Brazil, and 24 buyers from Argentina. Germany, the
largest European territory for sales outside North America, dominated
the number of European buyers with a total of 134 at the AFM this
year, up from 108 last year. There were 76 buyers from France,
73 buyers from the UK, and 36 Canadian buyers representing 20
companies.
One of the highest profile sales was Interlight's thriller
Driven, starring Keanu Reeves, Marisa Tomei, and
James Spader which was sold to Universal Pictures. The picture
is in post-production.
France's UGC International had a lot of buzz and pre-sales
activity around its title The Painted Veil (Somerset
Maugham story) from Australian director Gillian Armstrong about
an adulterous wife of a doctor who redeems herself during an epidemic
in China. The $32 million film, set at the turn-of-the-century,
will star Nicole Kidman and Edward Norton and is scheduled for
shooting later this year. Already sold are Japan to Nippon Herald,
Italy to Medusa, Taiwan to CMC, Korea to Mongto, the Middle East
to Italia Film, and Portugal to Echo Filmes. Talks are underway
with a domestic U.S. distributor. (Armstrong is also in talks
to direct Film Four's adaptation of Sebastain Faulks' best-selling
novel Charlotte Gray).
Actress Jodie Foster was feted at a dinner by distributors
Good Machine International and producers USA Films for Flora
Plum slated to film later this year with Clare Danes starring
in a tale about a mysterious young trapeze artist. Foster was
also present at the market with The Dangerous Lives of Altar
Boys, a dramatic $15 million feature which was developed
at Foster's production company Egg Pictures in which Foster will
have a supporting role as a nun. The picture will be financed
and distributed by IEG (Initial Entertainment Group) and is slated
to start filming on May 1.
U.S. domestic distributor Trimark Pictures was an active
buyer at the AFM concluding purchases of the Sundance Film Festival
title Songcatcher from director Maggie Greenwald,
and the Sundance Film Festival opening night hit, Gurinder Chadha's
What's Cooking, a dramedy about four families of
different ethnic origin celebrating American Thanksgiving, which
was picked up for just under $2 million. Trimark also purchased
the North American distribution rights to Beyond Films' Cut,
a satirical horror film from Australia starring Molly Ringwald,
the buy was a mid-six figure advance.
Business was brisk for two sales companies with prestigious
Academy Award nominated titles in the Best Foreign Language category
for the year 2000. Jacques-Eric Strauss, president of France's
President Films immediately sold Eric Valli's Tibetan Himalayan
tale Caravan
to Japanese distributor Gaga following the screening, and is considering
several offers from U.S., Latin American and Scandinavian distributors.
The film is also sold to Korea, Hong Kong and the Czech Republic.
Caravan has grossed over $10 million in France since its release
in November. Svensk Filmindustri's Senior Vice President International
Sales and Business Affairs Ann-Kristin Westerberg, and Senior
Vice President International Distribution Edward Noeltner also
got well-deserved attention and buys for their Academy nominee,
Swedish box office winner Under the Sun starring
Helena Bergstrom, Rolf Lassgard and Johan Widerberg, directed
by Colin Nutley. The film is based on an H.E. Bates short story.
Another international title with lots of activity, hot
from its Tiger Award win at the Rotterdam
Film Festival in February and its standing room only screenings
at the Berlin Film Festival is the Chinese language Chinese-German
co-production from young Shanghai filmmaker Lou Ye Suzhou.
This romantic thriller has multiple firm offers from several territories
around the globe. Philippe Bober of Germany's The Co-Production
Office, the producer, is handling world sales.
France's Le Studio Canal Plus is running warm with sales
of its Cannes competition hopeful La Virgen De Los Sicarios
from director Barbet Schroeber. The film, set in Columbia and
shot in Spanish and English languages on a budget of less than
$5 million, has been pre-sold to Alliance Atlantis for Canada
and the UK, Bac for France, Kinowelt in Germany, Bim in Italy,
PrenoH for Japan, and Vertigo for Spain.
Franchise Pictures, U.S.-based sales company of Eli Samaha
and Andrew Stevens, in business at the AFM for less than five
years, has emerged as a notable AFM player. This year it scored
a coup with Nippon Herald Films in a deal for the distribution
of three titles for Japan, it also has deals with Gaga in Japan
(John Travolta's Battlefield Earth, and Sundance
2000 entry Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her).
Coming up are new star power pictures 3000 Miles to Graceland,
an actioner starring Kevin Costner; Kasi Lemmon's psychological
thriller Caveman's Valentine starring Samuel L.
Jackson; Champs starring Sylvester Stallone with
Renny Harlin to direct and an output deal for U.S. distribution
with Warner Bros.; actioner The Art of War starring
Wesley Snipes; and the action comedy The White River Kid
which will top line Antonio Banderas. Also on the Franchise slate
will be a yet to be cast actioner from director Kirk Wong (The
Big Hit) with Mark Canton producing and a Warner Bros.
output deal; and for their Franchise Classics division, Tony Bui's
(director 1999 Sundance Film Festival winner Three Seasons)
next outing which he will co-direct with his brother Timothy,
The Green Dragon, starring Forest Whitaker and
Patrick Swayze.
German titles, until a few years ago virtually ignored,
have bounced back. Following the international acclaim and box-office
success of last year's original action MTV-like romance Run
Lola Run from filmmaker Tom Twyker, there has been a growing
interest in German titles. Of note are Twyker's next outing The
Princess and the Warrior which will be handled by his
company X-Filme Creative Pool's new distribution entity X Verleih,
Doris Dorrie's Enlightenment Guaranteed from Cinepool
which was screened at the market and is now being signed for U.S.
theatrical release, Rolf Scheubel's award-winning Gloomy
Sunday which several American buyers are in discussions
about with Cinepool, and festival buzz film Tuvalu,
a debut feature from Berlin-based quirky filmmaker Veit Helmer
which has been sold to several territories.
New to the AFM this year was the presence of emerging dot.com
sales and distribution companies, or "virtual studios". Though
most distributors have their own websites, several dot.com startups
have concluded that not every acqusitions person and buyer wants
to travel and spend money at film markets and film festivals,
and that their lives could be more cost effective and easier if
product lists were centralized and accessible on one database
together with videoclips, promotional materials, and direct access
to sellers online. The companies present were filmbazaar.com (an
AFM sponsor, it took over the 4th floor ballroom with computer
monitors and sales executives); internetstudios.com, a London
and Santa Monica-based company which will launch at Cannes 2000;
reelplay.com, a Santa Monica-based company; and rightsmart.com,
a Los Angeles-based company. Although the Cannes Market, filmfinders.com,
mipinteractive.com and showbizdata.com did not have stands at
the AFM, they held a press conference to announce their new partnership
to create a film and TV web portal called "FilmMarketOnline".
The AFM rounded out its activities with a finance conference
which took place during four morning sessions. The topics were:
Will the Internet and E-Commerce Change How Feature Films are
Financed?; Producing Latino Themed Projects for the Screen; The
Future of Feature Film Financing (from the point of view of producers);
The Future of Feature Film Financing (from the point of view of
bankers).
Contributor/festival
specialist
Wendy Carrel
|
