Bollywood's Future Market

It is often said that Bollywood is India’s greatest brand ambassador all over the globe perhaps even giving the Taj Mahal a run for its money. However, South Korea has been largely left untouched by Bollywood thus far. This is likely to chage in the coming years.

 Many Indians viewing the South Korea-filmed Gangster were enthralled by the exotic locales and jazzy trains that looked far different from anything Bollywood had used as a backdrop in the past. This was the first Bollywood movie that was filmed in Korea – it was also the last.

 Last week I had an engaging discussion with Charm Lee, head of the South Korean Tourism Organization, and five of my colleagues. Lee, a tall, well-built German who now calls South Korea home, seemed taken aback by the number of Bollywood questions I presented him with. He conceded that the South Korean government was seriously considering the possibility of promoting Korea as a film shooting destination, though the West and even Southeast Asian countries had a clear lead over South Korea in the contest.

China too is already known to have started work on developing an entire island as a film shooting hub, something Lee asked his advisors to take note of. Lee also conceded that a major issue plaguing the effort was the acute shortage of hotel rooms in Korea, which limited its ability to attract big functions like Bollywood’s IIFA awards that are usually held in Macau.

Brand Bollywood’s penetration of the South Korean market is an idea whose time has come. Films like Krissh, Kal Ho Na Ho, Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge and Rang De Basanti have earned millions of dollars from overseas markets, and among Bollywood films are already catching on among the PSY-crazed South Korean youth, who know Bollywood actors like Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan and Aamir Khan quite well. 

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‘Red Riding Hood’ Film Adapted into Novel

Little Brown Books for Young Readers will publish a novel alongside director Catherine Hardwicke‘s upcoming film, Red Riding Hood.



The film (the trailer is embedded above) won’t be released until March, but the print book and enhanced eBook version will come out on January 25th. Hardwicke wrote an introduction to the novel and fans can download a bonus chapter on March 14th.

Here’s more from the release: “Debut author Sarah Blakley-Cartwright has crafted a lyrical thriller, adapting the movie’s story into a stunning stand-alone work that will have readers eagerly anticipating the film’s opening. Blakley-Cartwright wrote Red Riding Hood from a unique and coveted vantage point — she was on set every day with Hardwicke weaving in details from the world created for the film.”

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Iranian film version of Jesus: Jesus was never crucified

A film about Jesus that script the script based on the Islamic perspective recently released in Iran. The film will cause a reaction from the Christian community, because Jesus told not die on the cross, but was replaced by Judas Iscariot. The film is titled "The Messiah, The Spirit of God", written, produced and directed by the producer from Iran, Nader Talebzadeh. The film was made in Iran and Jesus was played by an actor in Iran. This film is based on the teachings of Al Quran about Jesus and based on the contents of the Gospel of Barnabas, a book which is not included in the canon of Scripture. Making the film was funded by an Iranian state-owned TV channel.

Dr. Emir Caner, a dean of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary recommend to Christians watching this film, because in it reveal a lot of new things, like when Jesus was being replaced, why the mother and the disciples did not recognize that the person they were following was exchanged before being on the cross, and what is the purpose of God 'blinding the crowd included all the disciples of Jesus and Mary the mother of Jesus, so they still think that Jesus was being crucified. (Watch trailer & The Muslim Jesus)

Caner, who is also a professor of history, said he believes that ultimately this way, we watch as he asked on that point of view, we can accept this film.

"Maybe the Muslims and Christians will realize through this film that the Koran only offers a possible story that might occur at the time, even though the Bible was clearly written a detailed history of reliable and has proved even to this day." Similarly Caner write a statement.

Almost as a whole "The Messiah," the appearance of Jesus in the film version of Jesus is similar to that made by the western world. Blonde hair and perform miracles. Only thing different is how Judas arrived - arrived miraculously changed resemble Jesus and replace Jesus was crucified.

"He (Jesus) is not the Son of God and never be the Son of God. He only prophet and he was never crucified, it is another person who was crucified to replace him," Talebzadeh told CNN.

One motive of making this film, according to Talebzadeh, is in response to films about Jesus that made the Western producers, like the movie "The Passion of the Christ" starring actor Mel Gibson in 2004. According to him, this film presents the story wrong about Jesus from the teachings of Islam.

Phenomenal movie that involves almost more than 1000 people this is the greatest movie ever made in Iran. The film will also be aired in 20 episodes on TV channels owned by the government of Iran [syarif / eng / www.suara-islam.com]

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Avatar, the biggest film ever

Into the blue … Chinese moviegoers watch Avatar in a cinema in Hefei, in Anhui province. Photograph: STR/AFP/Getty Images


In the end, the only man capable of defeating James Cameron was James Cameron. Titanic, the film-maker's epic 1997 romance set on the doomed ocean liner, yesterday lost its crown as the top grossing movie of all time to Avatar, an epic 3D romance set on an Earth-like moon orbiting a distant star.



The science-fiction saga almost overtook its predecessor's record of $1.843bn at the weekend, after six weeks topping box-office charts around the globe. Twentieth Century Fox confirmed yesterday that the record had finally been broken.

Many pundits had predicted Titanic's record would never be beaten. Yet, early in Avatar's run it was clear it was repeating the pattern of multiple repeat viewings that had been the making of Cameron's previous film. Avatar also benefited from the higher price of tickets for 3D screenings, which have accounted for more than 80% of US earnings and 65% of those elsewhere. The film was so successfully hyped as the first must-see stereoscopic experience that few wanted to compromise with a 2D viewing. In addition, its record-breaking success in China and Russia, markets harder to crack back in 1997, certainly helped to lift its bottom line.

Avatar's box-office victory was, however, won without adjustment for inflation. Figures that do so show how far it's eclipsed by the likes of 1939's Gone With the Wind – that film grossed $400m worldwide, which equates to at least $6bn in today's money, more than three times Avatar's figure.

# Production year: 2009
# Country: USA
# Cert (UK): 12A
# Runtime: 161 mins
# Directors: James Cameron
# Cast: CCH Pounder, Giovanni Ribisi, Michelle Rodriguez, Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Zoe Saldana

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Cameron's 'Avatar' takes off with $27 million

James Cameron's space fantasy "Avatar" has launched with a solid $27 million opening day at the box office.

Storms in the East likely will hurt the movie's prospects to approach the December opening weekend record of $77.2 million set by Will Smith's "I Am Legend."

"Avatar" did almost as much business Friday as Cameron's last narrative film, 1997's "Titanic," over its entire opening weekend. "Titanic" had a $28.6 million debut weekend, but remained afloat for months at the top of the box office as it took in a record $600 million domestically.

Set in the 22nd century, "Avatar" stars Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana in a story of a human-alien conflict on a distant moon. [AP]

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New 'Transformers 2' Teaser Trailer Lands Online

Will the latest installment be 2009's most successful sequel?

After the successful debut of a teaser trailer during the Super Bowl, a new, longer teaser for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is now available online.




Michael Bay's first Transformers film was one of the biggest box office successes of 2007, with a domestic haul of nearly $320 million. Even though it will be a highly competitive summer, Revenge of the Fallen could easily be one of 2009's biggest hits. The film has the prime release date of Wednesday, June 24 and so far no major summer blockbusters are slated to open that same day.

Check out the HD version over at Yahoo! Movies.

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Schwarzenegger Joins Stallone's 'Expendables'

In an incredibly surprising casting move, Sylvester Stallone has reportedly signed Arnold Schwarzenegger for a cameo performance in his upcoming action flick titled The Expendables.





The cast for Expendables is already an action fan's dream come true. Jet Li, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren and Mickey Rourke have all joined the cast. Fresh of his comeback in The Dark Knight, Eric Roberts has also snagged a part.

The last time that Schwarzenegger appeared on the bigscreen was in the 2004 dud Around the World in 80 Days, which starred Jackie Chan and Steve Coogan. The film managed to bring in only $24 million domestically.

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There's only one great Mafia film, capice?

IN the crime annals of popular culture, The Godfather remains capo di tutti capi.

Many have imitated the 1972 film but few have come close to matching Francis Ford Coppola's Academy award-winning masterwork - no matter what contemporary critics contend, says Gianni Russo.

"The Sopranos to me was so low-class it's ridiculous," said the man who played Carol Rizzi in The Godfather. "To be operating a family out of the Bada Bing strip club, I mean, come on."

Goodfellas came close and Donnie Brasco was brilliant but one Mafia film tops them all, he argued with some confidence. And Russo is more than happy about that. "It's amazing, it's been a 37-year career on one film, even though I made 43 others," he said.

The Godfather's status will be reassessed tonight at Sydney's State Theatre at the world premiere screening of a newly re-mastered and restored print. If that weren't an enticing enough prospect, the film will be accompanied by a 65-piece orchestra, primarily made up of members of the Western Australia Philharmonic and conducted by expat composer Ashley Irwin.

"It sounds terrific and the theatre's glorious of course," said the Sydneysider, now one of Hollywood's most prolific arrangers.

He spent 18 months orchestrating The Godfather videogame in 2004 with additional music written to add to that famous score. He was the obvious choice to lead the live performances of what will be a number of global black tie premieres ahead of the remastered trilogy's release on DVD in September.

His work includes arranging the Academy Awards, American Idol and many films. But none in his homeland. "No, it's really sad Australian films don't use orchestrations because it adds great gloss to a production," Irwin said. "And synthesisers always sound like synthesisers.

"For me to come home and do it means there's more pressure than a New York or London premiere. I care about it more than if I was doing it in LA."

Russo, who will attend tonight's premiere with his on-screen partner, Talia Shire, said Coppola had not made any changes to the film other than visually, although he hoped a "horrendous miss I reacted to" in the fight scene had been amended. But he's content if the restoration doesn't change a thing.

"It would be like changing the Mona Lisa's smile," he said. "It's been a privilege and it continues to go on."

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www.theaustralian.news.com.au

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BFI plans gallery of film memorabilia

Where can you see Marilyn Monroe's dress from Some Like It Hot or the first ever script for Coronation Street? Nowhere yet - but the BFI Southbank, which celebrates its 75th birthday this September, is hoping to open a new film centre to house all its TV and film memorabilia by 2015.

As well as a gallery and five cinemas, the film HQ would give the public access to thousands of hours of National Archive film and the opportunity to look at the BFI's posters, letters and scripts. Currently stored in Hertfordshire, the collection includes letters from Alec Guinness while he was filming with David Lean, an annotated early script of Star Wars and Peter Sellers' makeup diary.

"Once we have the green light, we will start a massive fundraising campaign," says Amanda Neville, director of the BFI. "It is vital that we have a centre for everyone to learn about film and film culture." [The Guardian]

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Paramount drops $450 million movie financing deal

A tight credit market prompted Viacom Inc.'s movie-making subsidiary, Paramount Pictures, to drop a deal for $450 million in financing from Deutsche Bank, the companies said Tuesday.

The studio had been seeking the financing to contribute to a three-year, 30-movie slate, including sequels to "Transformers" and "Star Trek," but decided not to proceed several weeks ago.

"The deal terms had evolved to a point where they were unattractive when compared to alternative sources of financing available to Paramount," said spokeswoman Patricia Rockenwagner.

The studio said the decision will not affect its moviemaking plans because projects in the pipeline, including "Transformers," "Star Trek" and "G.I. Joe," already have co-financing deals in place.

Deutsche Bank had no comment on the deal but acknowledged its film financing team had left the bank several weeks ago as the bank scaled back activity in the sector.

"We are maintaining our entertainment financing capabilities, but we continue to realign our business in response to changing market conditions," said Deutsche Bank spokesman John Gallagher.

Major movie studios spent an average of $106.6 million making and marketing each of their films in 2007, up 6.3 percent from 2006, according to the Motion Picture Association of America.

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Hollywood producers say SAG rejects contract offer

The Screen Actors Guild rejected the latest contract offer from Hollywood studios on Thursday but claimed it was willing to negotiate and presented a counterproposal.

Producers, however, didn't appear as willing to consider any revisions to what they called their final offer.

"We made it clear our final is our final and that we're not interested in further counterproposals," said Jesse Hiestand, a spokesman for the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

The two sides met privately for more than five hours before the AMPTP released a statement saying the guild was "unreasonably" seeking more than other unions. The session came as actors continue to work under a contract that expired last month.

The studios made their final offer last week, saying it provided $250 million in additional compensation over three years. The studios said they will not make any pay increases retroactive to July 1 if the deal is not ratified by Aug. 15.

Doug Allen, SAG's executive director and chief negotiator, called the $250 million estimate "highly inflated," claiming that proposed raises to actors' minimum wages would not benefit the higher-paid actors.

Allen said the guild made a "comprehensive counterproposal that adopted some of their proposals and offered alternatives on others."

SAG, the largest and most powerful actors union, represents 120,000 actors in movies, TV and other media.

It is seeking greater compensation for DVDs, something neither writers, directors nor a smaller actors union could secure in negotiations.

SAG also wants more say for actors when they are asked to endorse products in scripted shows.

SAG committee members are scheduled to meet Friday to discuss the situation. SAG officials said they will contact producers Friday afternoon.

AMPTP said in the statement that the guild should consider the consequences of not accepting the latest offer.

"The last thing we need is a long, hot summer of labor strife that puts even more pressure on a badly struggling economy and deprives audiences of the entertainment they clearly desire in such difficult times," the AMPTP said.

On Tuesday, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, a smaller union with 70,000 members, approved a three-year deal for a handful of prime-time TV shows, including "Rules of Engagement" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm."

SAG, however, represents the vast majority of actors who work in prime-time TV shows and movies. Any work stoppage by its members could throw the industry into turmoil.

The guild and studios have said they want to avoid a repeat of the 100-day strike by the Writers Guild of America that ended in February. That walkout stalled production on dozens of TV shows and is estimated to have cost the Los Angeles area economy more than $2 billion.

The studios' position that it had made its final offer left open the possibility that it could declare talks that have reached an impasse. If confirmed by the National Labor Relations Board, the declaration would let studios impose certain clauses of their offer on the guild.

However, most of the proposed contract changes favor the guild, making it unclear if an impasse would benefit the studios.

The studios said the possibility of a SAG strike sent some film producers rushing to finish shooting or to delay projects for fear they would be shut down before filming was complete.

But even after the contract expired, on-location movie shoots were on the rise in Los Angeles, according to permitting group FilmL.A. Inc.

There were 101 shooting days on location in Los Angeles between July 2 and July 8, up from 97 days a year ago, it said, making the studios' claim that labor uncertainty had caused a de facto strike in Hollywood somewhat dubious.

AFTRA said its three-year deal establishes higher fees for downloaded content and residual payments for ad-supported steams and clips.

It also sets a 90-day deadline after ratification to develop rules that would have actors consent to the use of clips in a commercial market similar to iTunes.

The AFTRA deal boosts minimum wages by 3.5 percent in the first year of the contract, 3 percent in the second and 3.5 percent in the third. The increase is slightly higher than the bumps received by directors and writers.

The deal with AFTRA largely followed the script laid out in contracts approved by directors and writers. SAG and AFTRA had agreed to the same starting proposals but took different tacks with the studios, the first time they had negotiated separately for the first time in 27 years.

In March, AFTRA accused SAG of trying to entice actors in the soap drama "The Bold and The Beautiful" to abandon the federation. AFTRA said then it was in the best interests of its members to deal with the studios on its own.

Pressure for a speedy resolution to negotiations came from A-list actors such as Tom Hanks, George Clooney, Meryl Streep and Robert De Niro, who took out ads in trade publications in March that called for talks to start months ahead of the June 30 expiration of the contract.

SAG reached separate deals that cleared the way for more than 350 independent productions to raise financing and start work.

The agreements called for those companies to abide retroactively by the long-term contract eventually reached with the major studios. [AP]

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Hollywood's panda hit makes China bare its soul

Kung Fu Panda, the Hollywood hit, is prompting roars of laughter and bouts of soul-searching in China, where the film world is asking why it cannot get as much smileage out of the national symbol.

Despite nationalist calls for a boycott, critics, directors, classical artists and countless bloggers have given two thumbs up to the story of a chubby panda who dreams of becoming a martial arts superhero. The film topped the box office, having taken more than $20m (£10m) since its release late last month and continues to play to packed houses in the country's tightly regulated cinema industry.

Such is its popularity a parliamentary cultural affairs committee debated why a film with so many Chinese symbols and settings could be made more successfully in Hollywood. The Xinhua news agency said the committee concluded there were too many controls and too few producers willing to take the risks of a $123m film.

"Although there is no secret ingredient to film-making success the government ought to relax its oversight," the standing committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Congress was quoted as saying. "Opening more space for Chinese artists would allow more innovation, ultimately giving China greater cultural influence abroad."

The film mixes hi-tech and star power with Chinese traditional culture, including landscape painting, architecture, classical mythology, acupuncture, modern slang and the symbolic characters of the crane, snake, monkey, praying mantis and tiger - all styles of wushu (kung fu).

The lead character, Po, is an amusingly sympathetic figure who proves himself above mockery. But Hollywood's use of a panda was criticised by the artist Zhao Bandi, who uses the animal as a motif. In his blog, Zhao called on compatriots to shun the movie because it profits from a national symbol so soon after the Sichuan earthquake. Others have called for a boycott because the DreamWorks studio is part-owned by Steven Spielberg, who quit as an adviser to the Beijing Olympic Games over China's links with Sudan.

But the criticism has been drowned by the laughter. Typically mixed feelings were expressed by Mu, a Sina.com website blogger: "They manage to mix the Chinese elements into the film so naturally we cannot criticise the story as too simple ... although the 'theft' of the Chinese symbol of the panda gives us pain, at least it makes the Chinese movie industry consider why we are always one step behind in globalisation's war of creation."


source: http://film.guardian.co.uk

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Film festival that aims to sparkle without glitz

£3 or a tray of home-baked cakes will get you into a Scottish answer to Cannes

If you could imagine the opposite of Cannes, this would be it. A new film festival, which Oscar-winning actor Tilda Swinton is founding in her hometown of Nairn, north-east Scotland, is to have no red carpets, no ranks of paparazzi and no designer evening dresses. Entry to the films will cost you £3 or a tray of home-baked cakes; and the audience will sit on beanbags.

Needless to say, the festival will have its own kind of glamour. Aside from the presence of Swinton, Joel Coen, one half of the Coen brothers, will programme two evenings of films for the event. His choices are being kept secret at the moment but, according to co-organiser Mark Cousins: "They are as daft as a brush. If you went through 5,000 films, you would never guess them."


The idea for a festival on the Moray Firth came when Swinton, "on a quixotic whim", according to Cousins, decided to rent an old ballroom in the town, known as the Ballerina, where Pink Floyd and the Who once played.

She asked friends, including Cousins, a former director of the Edinburgh international film festival, to help. "We started making a list of films we wanted to show, and we clicked immediately," he said. "We were attracted to the wondrous, childlike qualities of certain films; films with highly coloured, dreamlike elements."

Though the programme has not been announced, the films of Powell and Pressburger are bound to be featured - "you can't talk to Tilda for more than half an hour without her mentioning Powell and Pressburger," said Cousins. "She started throwing out names and they were things like Margaret Rutherford as Miss Marple; and I suggested a lot of African and Iranian films. It won't be what you expect: we will show a Björk video before All About Eve, for example. It's very irrational."

What will draw the programme together, he said, is a certain fantastic, expressionist, anti-realist aesthetic. Roman Polanski's The Fearless Vampire Killers will be shown and Federico Fellini's 8½ will close the festival.

In contrast with more conventional film festivals, The Ballerina Ballroom Cinema of Dreams (as it is to be called) will not centre around premieres.

Part of the impetus behind the festival is Swinton's and Cousins' idea that "money dictates the festival circuit too much, and fogs the pure, romantic obsession with film".

The festival will run from August 15-23, and screen three films a day in the 200-seat (or beanbag) ballroom. Some tickets will be available in advance, but most will be sold on the day.

If the festival is successful, the organisers hope to make it an annual event. Aside from a small grant, costs have been so far met by Swinton.

source: http://film.guardian.co.uk

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Titanic life-jacket fetches 68,000 dollars in US auction

A life-jacket from the doomed transatlantic cruise ship "Titanic," which struck an iceberg in 1912 and sank, fetched 68,500 dollars at auction at Christie's in New York late Wednesday.

It is one of only six life-jackets still known to exist from the Titanic and had been kept in a trunk by a Canadian family, AFP reported.

Some 1,500 passengers and crew aboard the Titanic died when the White Star line luxury ship sank in the frigid northern Atlantic ocean on its maiden voyage.

About 700 people are believed to have survived the sinking, one of the worst maritime disasters ever.

Christie's said earlier that a similar life-vest sold in London in 2007 for 119,000 dollars, and put the value of the vest at between 60,000 and 80,000 dollars.

It is the first Titanic life-jacket to go on sale in the United States, and Christie's says the ties have not been cut, meaning it was probably not taken from a body but found on an isolated beach after the disaster.

The Christie's auction, dedicated to the history of transatlantic ocean liners, included 257 lots of items that included dish sets, maps, ship logs and various objects related to navigation.

A 1935 lithograph of the French passenger ship "Normandie" by Adolphe Mouron Cassandre was sold for 22,500 dollars.

A 1935 scale model of the "Normandie" went for 10,625 dollars, while a pair of lamps from the deck of the ocean liner" France" went for 625 dollars.

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Academy changes rules for Oscar best song gong

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Science has adjusted its rules governing the Oscars to avoid a small number of films from dominating the best original song category and to ensure that the best foreign language films from around the world don't get overlooked.

Henceforth the number of nominated songs from each feature will be capped at two, although each individual film can spawn an unlimited number of songs for consideration.

In the 2006-07 original song Oscar race, both Dreamgirls and Enchanted fielded three nominations each. Neither won, incidentally: the prize went to Melissa Etheridge's I Need to Wake Up, from An Inconvenient Truth.

The Academy board also tweaked the regulations concerning foreign language films in a clear effort to avoid last year's situation in which the Palme d'Or winner 4 Weeks, 3 Months and 2 Days and the much-admired Persepolis were left out of contention.

Starting immediately with this upcoming season's 81st Annual Academy Awards hopefuls, a committee of members will select six films and an executive group of experts will be on hand to boost that number to nine by including widely respected titles that have been left out.

As in previous years, a second stage will then take place in which the shortlist of nine is whittled down to five nominations.

The 81st Annual Academy Awards is set to take place in Hollywood on February 22 2009.

source: http://film.guardian.co.u

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Digital cinema looking for gains in Amsterdam

Europeans looking for more traction at CinemaExpo

If the digital-cinema revolution took its time getting traction among U.S. exhibitors, the situation in Europe has been downright slo-mo.

D-cinema proponents say there has been a perfect storm of woes impeding progress in European territories: a tendency to lag behind U.S. rollouts, combined with a pullback in Hollywood studios' generosity in funding installations on both sides of the Atlantic and now the spreading global financial crunch.

"Everybody is suffering from the state of the financing market," said Gemma Richardson, a spokeswoman for London-based Arts Alliance Media. "We have five studios on board, so we're rolling. But we're trying to get everybody to pitch in and help, and that means from the pricing of equipment by the manufacturers and right on down the line."

An installations facilitator, Arts Alliance has been among those companies at the center of the European digital rollout.

"We're having conversations with the top cinema chains throughout Europe, and it's just a question of who wants to get in the game," said Howard Kiedaisch, Arts Alliance's New York-bred CEO and a former international executive at Universal and PolyGram.

Arts Alliance's deal this year with the French theater chain Circuit George Raymon marked the first funded through a virtual print fee arrangement with Hollywood studios. Through VPFs, studios agree to pay exhibs the equivalent of what print runs would cost for several years after converting to digital distribution.

Funding d-cinema installations by tapping studio largesse has been much more widespread in the U.S. But in the U.S. and Europe, Hollywood studios recently have insisted on much lower VPFs than was true in the earlier days of the U.S. digital rollout.

That's been a drag on how many circuits sign up for installations.

In some cases -- like a near $1 billion deal recently struck by four studios with the Belgium-based d-cinema service XDC -- impressive financing is in place. But third-party facilitators such as XDC or Arts Alliance still need to hammer out VPF-related agreements with individual exhibs.

"That's just what I call a hunting license," one d-cinema wag quipped of XDC's deal with Warner Bros., Disney, Paramount and Fox.

Europe's d-cinema rollout will figure in several sessions set for CinemaExpo International 2008. The annual exhibition trade confab kicks off Monday at the RAI convention center in Amsterdam.

Europe has only 1,300 screens equipped for movie-quality digital projection, with many of the installations involving lease-only arrangements with systems vendors and others funded with government subsidies. The U.S. has almost 5,000 movie-quality digital screens, dating from an initial round of deals in late 2005 and early 2006 orchestrated following a lengthy engineering phase by a Hollywood studio consortium.

"The reality is that only as of February of this year are we where the U.S. was in December of 2005," Arts Alliance's Kiedaisch said. "It should go faster now, because the U.S. rollout shows people digital cinema helps business once you have digital screens up and running."

Arts Alliance recently struck a deal with Spain-based Yelmo Cineplex to equip five screens in a Madrid multiplex set to open in July. Those installations won't tap into any VPF funding, but execs hope to do so eventually as Yelmo and Arts Alliance expand on their relationship.

Meanwhile, though 3-D installations necessarily lag digital installations -- you can't have the former without the latter -- the less-expensive, less-complicated 3-D rollout could gain quick traction once Europe's d-cinema footprint grows a bit.

"RealD is dependent on the roll-on success of digital cinema," said Michael Lewis, CEO of U.S.-based 3-D vendor RealD. "But 3-D has been the driver for getting digital out there, because right now there is one sunny area in the cinema business, and that's 3-D."

RealD, which operates more than 90% of the global 3-D screens, has almost 1,000 North American screens but just 192 elsewhere, including 116 in Europe. The company recently struck a contract to equip 600 screens operated in the U.K. and elsewhere by the Odeon/UCI and CineWorld circuits, but only slow progress will be marked on converting those screens until the chains sign off on VPF-related financing agreements.

Complicating Europe's VPF negotiations is the simple reality that more films are distributed there independently.

As a result, "exhibitors will just have to pay a larger share (of d-cinema installation costs) than in the U.S.," a d-cinema proponent noted.

Proponents of 3-D tout exhibitors' ability to charge more for 3-D movie tickets, as well as its ability to differentiate the theatrical experience at a time when home theater viewing is on the rise. As for d-cinema, it eventually will save studios on distribution costs and boosts exhibitors' ability to program advertising and alternative programming in their auditoriums.

"Everybody knows all the merits of digital," Kiedaisch said. "But it's important that anybody who wants to be around in three to five years helps drive the process. You can't just be an ostrich with your head in the sand." [www.hollywoodreporter.com]

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Italy hails rebirth of its cinema after Cannes

While France hailed the triumph of one of its own at the Cannes film festival, Italy was also celebrating the rebirth of its cinema after scooping two top prizes at the world's biggest film competition.

"Gomorrah," a hard-hitting film about the Naples' mafia, and "Il Divo" -- a satire on the life of former Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti -- won the second and third prizes respectively, earning critical acclaim both at home and abroad.

The awards were a welcome boost for Italian cinema, which has gone through a wave of soul-searching in recent years for lack of memorable titles -- and has often been described as being in a state of decline.

The prizes to the two domestic entries in the main competition made front-page headlines in Italy on Monday, all but eclipsing the winner of the Palme D'Or, "Entre Les Murs" (The Class) by French director Laurent Cantet.

"If there is a real winner of this edition, then it is Italian cinema," said Paolo Mereghetti, a veteran film critic for daily Corriere della Sera.

"It was important to convince the international public -- which is the strength of Cannes -- that our cinema is again flying high," he said.

The tone could not have been more different from last year, when Italian films were left out of the main contest in Cannes, and American director Quentin Tarantino called Italian cinema depressing.

"Recent films I've seen are all the same. They talk about boys growing up, or girls growing up, or couples having a crisis, or vacations of the mentally impaired," Tarantino said in an interview last June.

This time, critics said Matteo Garrone's Gomorrah and Paolo Sorrentino's Il Divo had convinced by taking a fresh and original look at topical themes -- mafia and political corruption -- prompting one commentator to quip that "Italy is washing its dirty linen on the Croisette."

"In an industry that seemed to be fading ... suddenly two directors who have yet to turn 40 have shown that a new generation of film-makers is born looking at our country's reality, its shadows and shames, without fear," wrote Natalia Aspesi, who covered the festival for La Repubblica newspaper.

Even Andreotti, who had criticized Sorrentino's film for portraying him in a bad light, put on a brave face when asked whether he was happy it had won a prize.

"If I could take a share of the profits I'd be even happier," said Andreotti, who has been part of Italy's political establishment since 1947.


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"Sex and the City" film poses "big" question

Do Carrie and Mr. Big marry or don't they? That is the question "Sex and the City" fans hope is answered when the long-awaited film about love and friendship in New York City hits theaters worldwide this week.

Writer Carrie's relationship with a financier known as Big, the love lives, and fashion choices, of her friends -- publicist Samantha, curator Charlotte and lawyer Miranda -- enthralled millions of television viewers during six seasons.

And now four years after the series ended they are back with fans desperate to know the fate of Carrie and Mr. Big.

"Those people who like the show will expect the joy and the good times and the whimsy and the clothes and the cocktails and the salty language," said actress Sarah Jessica Parker, who plays Carrie and also produced the movie and TV series.

"But what they might not expect is that the shank of the movie is pretty sad," she said.

Based on Candace Bushnell's autobiographical columns in The New York Observer newspaper, the TV series won eight Golden Globes and seven Emmys and made Manolo Blahnik shoes and the Cosmopolitan cocktail household names.

The movie picks up where the series ended -- Carrie and Big are together, Samantha is in Los Angeles with her boy toy, Charlotte and her husband are raising their adopted Chinese daughter and Miranda is in Brooklyn with her husband and son.

"I always knew the big story left untold was literally the 'Big' story -- would Carrie and Big get married? What would that be if they did or what wouldn't it be?" said Michael Patrick King, writer and director of the film.

FASHION PASSION

King said the script focuses on the difference between 35 and 40 and the things you let go of as you evolve.

But fans should not be worried -- there is still a passion for fashion with the return of stylist Patricia Field, whose work on "Sex and the City" helped have it dubbed "the biggest thing in fashion since the invention of pants" by Elle magazine.

"They spawned an unstoppable machine of economic, cultural, and social trends that still very much matter today," the magazine said. "From nameplate necklaces to exposed bra straps, SATC (Sex and the City) had a hand in creating some of the biggest fashion statements of the past 10 years."

Parker said that she has archived all of her character's clothes "that were not borrowed," which proved useful when restocking Carrie's apartment closet for the film.

MORE 'SEX'?

But despite the success of the TV series, Parker said it was still a struggle to get the movie made.

"To make a movie about four women over 40 is really not the way Hollywood likes to spend their money," she said, adding that the studio was swayed by the devotion of the show's fans.

But there was also the problem of signing up all the stars, especially Kim Cattrall, who plays Samantha and was initially unwilling to make a film -- but not because of a supposed rift with Parker, which both women laughed off.

"What a difference four years makes," said Cattrall, who blamed exhaustion, a divorce, the end of the series, and her father's diagnosis with dementia for her initial reluctance.

Kristin Davis, who plays Charlotte, and Cynthia Nixon, who plays Miranda, both said the movie was a dream come true. "We thought we were dead and we were resurrected," Nixon said.

And while early reviews of the film have been mixed, critics expect it to still be a hit. "One thing's for sure: fan's of the series will lap this film up," wrote Celia Warden in Britain's Daily Telegraph.

And if it's a hit, there may be a sequel.

"I don't think anyone could turn down more sex coming around the corner if it was good," said King, the movie's writer and director.

The studio behind the film is New Line Cinema, owned by TimeWarner Inc.

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Cinefondation helps new filmmakers

Nadine Labaki, the Lebanese helmer of 'Caramel', was a guest at Cinefoundation's Paris residence.


If the Cinefondation is the closest thing the Cannes festival has to a graduate school, then fest prexy Gilles Jacob makes a marvelous Mr. Chips.

Since founding the Cinefondation 10 years ago, Jacob has gladly welcomed back 27 foundation alumni to Cannes with feature-length films (not including this year's fest selection).

"I'm especially pleased because these films were all included in the official selection," says Jacob. "And 12 guests of the Cinefondation Residence in Paris have also won major festival prizes, like the Deauville Grand Prix, the NHK Award at Sundance and the Camera d'Or (at Cannes). Last year, (Nadine Labaki's) 'Caramel' was sold in more than 60 countries."

The first stone in the Cinefondation's edifice was laid when Jacob created the Selection, a competition designed to unearth the best student filmmaking talent from around the world. Every year the Cinefondation selects between 15 and 20 short- and medium-length films, with cash prizes of up to E15,000 ($24,000) going to the three best pics.

Then, in 2000, Jacob established the Residence: a program for young directors working on their first or second film. Each year, at least six filmmakers are invited to live in Paris for four months and receive expert advice in writing and producing their films.

"It's the quality of the films these directors have already made and not their age that counts," Jacob says. "If a new Orson Welles comes along aged 25 (the age Welles was when he made "Citizen Kane"), then we'll sign him up."

In 2005, Jacob added the final piece to the jigsaw by establishing the Atelier of the Cinefondation, designed to put young filmmakers in touch with industry professionals and sources of financing during the Cannes Film Festival. This year, the Atelier has selected 15 projects from 14 countries. Filmmakers range from first-timers to the Chinese cineaste Lou Ye, who is working on his sixth feature, "Bitch."

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Irish films on the rise

While keeping up with the changes in U.K. tax laws has become something of an annual sport for Brit film execs, their Irish counterparts are reaping the benefits of a bit of a fiscal stability.

In March this year, the British government announced it was further clamping down on tax loopholes, in this case the "sole trader" exemption for individual investors that offset predicted losses in film investments against other income.

In contrast, across the Irish sea, the Irish government's Section 481 tax incentive, supplemented by the Irish Film Board's international production fund, is helping to support a rise in both Irish productions and international co-productions.

Section 481, which can be applied for by an Irish production company only, offers producers up to 20% of a project's Irish budget -- with a maximum of e50 million ($78 million) -- and is available to both film and TV productions; it's in place until 2012.

Perhaps most importantly, the coin is paid out on the first day of principal photography. That means producers can receive up to $15 million on the first day of filming.

In addition to the government tax incentives, the Irish Film Board can invest $1.2 million in any given project in equity finance, with discretionary powers to raise that sum to $1.5 million on a case-by-case basis.

The result has been a number of announcements in recent months of high-profile projects being set up as Irish co-productions or coming to Ireland to shoot.

"That bottom-line figure producers receive from the tax incentive and the IFB is allowing us to compete internationally and with our closest rival, namely the U.K.," says Irish film commissioner Naoise Barry. "The IFB is a film sponsor, not a producer. It relies heavily on the quality of Irish production companies that are co-producing these film and TV shows."

Some of the projects already greenlit are dark drama "Triage," starring Colin Farrell as a photojournalist who returns from Kurdistan harboring a secret about the disappearance of his best friend. The pic's helmer is Danis Tanovic, whose "No Man's Land" won a foreign-language Oscar.

Also in the pipeline, thanks to IFB support, are supernatural thriller "Daisy Chain" by Aisling Walsh starring Samantha Morton; Ian Fitzgibbon's gangster caper "Perrier's Bounty" with James McAvoy; as well as the third season of Showtime's lusty period drama "The Tudors."

"Mary, Queen of Scots," which has suffered from a protracted development and financing process, finally should start lensing later this year. Pic, whose principal financier is U.K.-based sales company Capitol Films, stars Scarlett Johannson as the ill-fated monarch.

"Money from the IFB can make a difference, and helps to make Ireland competitive," says IFB topper Simon Perry. "In most cases the subsidies and incentives on offer in Ireland are worth more than in the U.K., because they're paid upfront; there are no intermediaries, no middle men and there is no waiting."

The incentives are helping local and debut filmmakers get their projects off the ground. Jordan Scott, daughter of helmer Ridley, has set up her feature directorial debut, "Cracks," a British boarding school-set period drama starring Eva Green, as an Irish co-production.

The IFB's multiple project development fund, essentially slate development coin offered to 10 Irish shingles, should assure the continuing rise in profile of new Irish cinema.

Animation shingle Cartoons Saloon, set up largely by animators trained at Don Bluth's now-defunct Sullivan Bluth Studios, received coin from the IFB for their debut, the full-length feature "Brendan & the Secret of Kells." The project, a co-production with France and Belgium, received 20% of its $10 million budget thanks to the IFB and Section 481 incentives. The pic sees a young orphan tasked with completing the famous illuminated manuscript against a backdrop of invading Vikings.

"It would never have gotten off the ground without the IFB and the incentives," says producer Paul Young. "Both the IFB and Section 481 are extremely important for producers here, particularly independent producers."

Cartoons Saloon is working on developing its animated TV skein "Skunk Fu," which sold to more than 100 countries worldwide, into a feature film.

"The incentives really helped us make the TV series, with both the pre- and post-production in Ireland," Young says. "We had a lot of people in Ireland working solidly for two years thanks to it."

Source: Variety

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