By some still considered a showcase for exploitation and video fare, Mifed recently managed to get rid of its secondary market image. After AFM and Cannes, Mifed seems to turn into the prime film market to launch new product. This also explains the further expansion of the London Pre-Mifed screenings which, with new players like International Media Resources arriving in town, are heading towards yet another record-breaking edition this year.
Following is a first glimpse of what some companies will have on offer:
- One of the new titles on Miramax/Dimension's Mifed slate is almost certain to be Mimic, a sci-fi morality tale about what happens when scientists upset the balance of nature.
The screenplay comes from John Sayles, Steven Soderberg and Mexico's Guillermo del Toro who is signed to direct. Names attached to the project include Oscar-winning Mira Sorvino, Charles Dutton, Jeremy Northam and John Brolin.
Miramax also has James Mangold's police drama, Copland in production with Sylvester Stallone in the lead role. The all-star cast, which is currently at work in New Jersey, now includes Robert de Niro, Ray Liotta, Robert Patrick, Annabella Sciorra and Harvey Keitel.
David Schwimmer (Friends) follows up the Pallbearer with his directorial debut, the romantic comedy, Dogwater. Shooting in Chicago, he is joined in the cast by Lara Flynn Boyle.
- Avi Lerner and Danny Dimbort's Nu Image have three new projects which will be on the company's Mifed slate at various stages of production. Andrew Shea's comedy Santa Fe starring Gary Cole, Lolita Davidovich and 11 year-old Tina Majorino (Waterworld), recently wrapped in New Mexico. Shea wrote the screenplay for his first feature with Academy Award-winning Mark Medoff (Children Of a Lesser God).
Other new projects on the Nu Image slate include Tim Hunter's thriller The Maker, which is expected to star Matthew Modine, Jonathan Rhys-Myers, Mary Louise Parker and Michael Madsen; and American Perfekt, which like the company's Frankie the Fly, features a very strong cast of Amanda Plummer, David Thewlis, Louise Fletcher, Robert Forsteer, Lenny Van Dolen and Fairuza Balk who recently came to prominence in The Craft.
- The UK's HandMade Films announced five new projects: Daniel Petrie Sr's The Assistant, based on Bernard Malamud's novel, and set to shoot in the autumn, as is Dinner at Fred's, a comedy written and directed by Shawn Alex Thompson. Written in Water, a drama about a successful novelist and an obsessive fan, will shoot on location in Toronto. From the UK, The James Gang, a funny, fast-moving drama produced by Andrew Eaton (Jude), while Another Life, the story of Edith Thompson's trial and execution in 1920s England, is the second project for HandMade from writer/director Philip Goodhew and producer Angela Hart (Intimate Relations).
CHRISTOPHER PICKARD/NICK THOMAS
© 1996 - MOVING PICTURES INTERNATIONAL
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