By Liza Foreman
Marrakech - We live in interesting times. And no where has that been more apparent than at this week's Marrakech International Film Festival where a star studded line up of international filmmakers gathered to talk film and politics.
Given the recent tragic events from Paris to California, there was much to talk about with Jury head Francis Ford Coppola reciting the Koran and Bill Murray talking about his love of Morocco and Muslim friends.
At the n...
By Liza Foreman
TOKYO – Three markets have been rolled into one to create Japan’s biggest content confab, which opens here tomorrow. The newly expanded market arm of the Tokyo International Film Festival combines the 10th Tokyo International Music Market (TIMM); TIFFCOM2013, the marketplace for film and television content in Asia; and the Tokyo International Anime Fair 2013 Fall (TIAF).
The markets will be held simultaneously from October 22 - 24 at the...
By Liza Foreman
The countdown to this year's Tokyo International Film Festival (October 17 - 25, 2013) has begun.
The 26th Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) will include a special-focus on Taiwan, including films from both established and veteran directors.
The “Taiwanese Cinema Renaissance 2013" series is part of the festival’s World Focus section.
Herewith a list of the selected films for Taiwanese Cinema Renaissance 2013:
“27°C-...
By Liza Foreman
The countdown to this year's Tokyo International Film Festival (October 17 - 25, 2013) has begun.
The 26th Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) will include a special-focus on Taiwan, including films from both established and veteran directors.
The “Taiwanese Cinema Renaissance 2013" series is part of the festival’s World Focus section.
Herewith a list of the selected films for Taiwanese Cinema Renaissance 2013:
“27°C- L...
By Liza Foreman
Voltage Pictures has added the Taliban-themed Untitled Drones Project to its Cannes line up.
The package, as it is being presented here, includes Chris Pine (Star Trek Into Darkness) in the lead role, with Andrew Niccol (Lord of War, Gattaca) directing and writing. Voltage’s Nicolas Chartier is producing.
The story follows a fighter pilot turned drone pilot. Based in Las Vegas, he fights the Taliban by remote control all day before going home to the...
By Liza Foreman
Joel McHale, Lauren Graham and Academy Award-winner Robin Williams are set to star in Sycamore Pictures' dysfunctional holiday comedy "A Friggin' Christmas Miracle."
The screenplay was written by Phil Johnston, ("Wreck-It Ralph") with Tristram Shapeero attached to direct.
Williams recently wrapped production on Phil Alden Robinson’s "Angriest Man in Brooklyn" and will soon begin production on Dito Montiel’s &qu...
By Liza Foreman
DreamWorks Studios has concluded a further ten key partnership deals with leading independent distribution companies overseas, through its sales partner, Mister Smith Entertainment.
Mister Smith represents DreamWorks Studios' films for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
See full story at: http://lizaonfilm.blogspot.com/2013/02/dreamworks-finds-friends-overseas.html
...
By Liza Foreman
And in more Berlinale news, Johnny Depp is confirmed to star in Cross Creek's crime thriller "Black Mass," as Boston’s most notorious gangster, Whitey Bulger. Sales for the film will begin at the European Film Market.
The film will be to co-produced and co-financed with Exclusive Media, and directed by Barry Levinson. "Black Mass" will be released by Universal Pictures in the U.S. through Cross Creek’s d...
By Liza Foreman
The Cohen Media Group has announced plans to restore scores of classic films from its Cohen Film Collection which includes hundreds of cinematic gems, which will be restored and enhanced by the company as part of the project.
Formerly The Rohauer Library, the collection includes more than 700 films - from Hollywood classics to foreign masterpieces and seminal avant-garde works.
See full story at:
http://lizaonfilm.blogspot.com/2013/02/cohen-media-group-to-restore-hollywo...
By Liza Foreman
Collaborations between fashion designers and filmmakers are on the increase. Witness the recent Banana Republic “Anna Karenina” collection, or the design of costumes for “The Great Gatsby” which was aided by Miuccia Prada.
Now Sony and Snoopy are taking the development to a new level, with a New York Fashion Week show presenting a collection in honor of the release of “The Smurfs 2” movie which is due out in July.
For full story go ...
By Liza Foreman
The Solution Entertainment Group has joined forces with Jonathan Zucker of 25A Productions and Robert Teitel to produce and co-finance the action crime thriller "The Harbor."
Bobby Moresco ("Crash") is set to write and direct the film about a New Orleans PI investigating the mysterious death of a woman. He uncovers a conspiracy leading him into a shadowy realm involving rogue agents from the government’s top spy agency.
For full story read:
h...
By Liza Foreman
Fox searchlight has set an April 5, 2013 release date for "Trance," it was announced on Tuesday. Directed by Danny Boyle, the story follows Simon (James McAvoy), a fine art auctioneer, who teams up with a criminal gang to steal a Goya painting worth millions of dollars. But after suffering a blow to the head during the heist he awakens to discover he has no memory of where he hid the painting. When physical threats and torture fail to produce...
By Liza Foreman
“From Up on Poppy Hill,” the latest production from Studio Ghibli, will be released in Los Angeles and New York on March 15, 2013, and will expand its run on March 29.
Written by the legendary studio's founder, Hayao Miyazaki, and directed by Goro Miyazaki, “From Up on Poppy Hill” marks the first creative collaboration between father and son.
The setting is Yokohama in 1963, and the filmmakers bring to life the bustling seaside town, with it...
By Liza Foreman
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios has secured the feature film rights to Jojo Moyes bestselling novel “Me Before You” it was announced today by Jonathan Glickman, MGM’s President, Motion Picture Group.
“Me Before You” tells the story of two very different characters: Lou, a small town girl caught between dead-end jobs and Will, a high-profile, successful man who becomes wheelchair bound following an accident. Will has decided his life is not...
By Liza Foreman
Julia Garner has joined the cast of Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller’s "Sin City: A Dame To Kill For," which is now filming in Austin at Rodriguez’s Troublemaker Studios. Garner, an up-and-comer whose credits include "Martha Marcy May Marlene" and "The Perks Of Being A Wallflower," will play a young stripper opposite Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Johnny in the follow-up to 2005′s "Sin City," adapted from Miller’s ow...
By Liza Foreman
New Regency and Gore Verbinski’s Blind Wink are joining forces on the feature film “Pyongyang,” about outsourcing run amok when a young animator sent to North Korea is accused of spying.
The film will reteam director/producer Gore Verbinski and writer Steve Conrad (“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”) for the adaptation of Guy Delisle’s graphic novel “Pyongyang.” Verbinski is currently in post-production on “The Lone Ranger,&r...
By Liza Foreman
Magnolia Pictures has picked up North American right to Blackfish at Sundance.
The film follows the notorious killer whale Tilikum, who was responsible for three human deaths. Through these incidents, Blackfish examines the consequences of keeping intelligent mammals in captivity.
Blackfish premiered as part of Sundance's U.S. Documentary Competition category.
Within days of the Sundance Film Festival beginning this year, a flurry of deals ...
By Liza Foreman
IFC Films has acquired North American rights to Michael Winterbottom’s Sundance film "Look of Love" from Studiocanal. The film, with a screenplay by Matt Greenhalgh, stars Steve Coogan, Anna Friel, Imogen Poots, and Tamsin Egerton and was produced by Melissa Parmenter. Andrew Eaton, Jenny Borgars, Katherine Butler, Norman Merry, Danny Perkins, and Piers Wenger executive produced the project. Film premiered here this week.
S...
By Liza Foreman
Fox Searchlight Pictures Presidents Stephen Gilula and Nancy Utley announced Wednesday that the company will re-release director Benh Zeitlin’s Academy-Award nominated film "Beasts of the Southern Wild" in select cities for a special return engagement on Friday, January 18.
Nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Director, the film’s return to theatres marks the one-year anniversary of its...
By Liza Foreman
London-based HanWay Films has taken on world sales for the Sundance-bound feature "Houston" by Bastian Günther (World Dramatic Competition). The film charts the epic melt-down of a German headhunter whose desperate pursuit of a Texas oil exec is hampered by booze, jetlag and a questionable sidekick.
The film is Günther’s second feature, following "Autopilots," which premiered at the Berlinale Film Festival in 2007. The f...
By Liza Foreman
QED International has appointed John Hegeman President of Worldwide Marketing and Acquisitions. In his newly created role, Hegeman will report to QED CEO Bill Block and be responsible for global marketing and acquisitions, as well as all genre productions.
Hegeman is a leading expert in global marketing across multiple platforms and his hire reunites him with Block with whom he previously worked at Artisan Entertainment as President of Worldwide Marketing. There, the ...
By Liza Foreman
As conventional wisdom would have it, for a film to even get an Oscar nomination, it would first have to make at least $5 million to $10 million at the box office and be released on three-hundred-plus screens. Remember all of those lavish campaigns by Oscar kingpin Harvey Weinstein?
Well, how things have changed. Consider “The Invisible War,” the first acquisition for the digital powerhouse Cinedigm, which was nominated earlier this week for an Academy Award in th...
By Liza Foreman
Loretta Young was considered to be one of the most fashionable stars of her time. “Glamour is something you can’t bear to be without once you are used to it,” she once said. And then: "Every best-dressed woman keeps some of her gowns for years. She's learned that fashion-wisdom is compounded of knowledge, taste, confidence and poise."
Now on display at The Hollywood Museum in Los Angeles is a selection from her wardrobe, including...
By Liza Foreman
Herewith the nominations for the 85th Academy Awards, which were announced today (Thursday, January 10) by this year's Oscar host, Seth MacFarlane, and actress Emma Stone.
MacFarlane and Stone announced the nominees at a 5:38 a.m. PT live news conference attended by more than 400 international media representatives.
Academy members from each of the branches vote to determine the nominees in their respective categories – actors nominate actors, film editors no...
By Liza Foreman
The Brits may love Steven Spielberg enough to give his latest film “Lincoln” ten nominations on Tuesday for the 2012 BAFTA awards. But the question is for how long?
Confirming ongoing doubts that Spielberg would really make his sci-fi film “Robopocalypse” over lingering script issues, it was confirmed on Wednesday that the film has been postponed indefinitely.
As per employees, preparation was already underway for the film to shoot at the Leavesden St...
