NEWS BERLINBRIEFS
Berlin tales rebooted The Berlin portmanteau film announced two years ago has been rebooted with the title Berlin, I Love You. The producers are Emmanuel Benbihy, Claus Clausen and Steffen Aumüller from The Very Useful Company, Josef Steinberger from Rheingold Films with Katharina Kowalewski and Edda Reiser.
Foster signs on for The Job GFM Films, the production/ finance company run by Guy Collins and Michael Ryan, has confirmed that Warp Films’ Lucas Foster will produce its $20m action thriller The Job.
Grindstone calls up Seance Grindstone Entertainment Group has taken US rights to chiller Seance: The Summoning. The UK/Ireland rights have gone to Lionsgate Home Entertainment and Metrodome. Arrow is handling world sales.
Dead walks to UK Black-and-white dark comedy Dead In France has sold to Showbox Media Group for the UK. The deal was negotiated yesterday by David Hodgins and Steve Rivers of Showbox Media Group, and Brian Levine of Delacheroy Films ahead of the film’s market premiere tomorrow (09:30 at Marriott 2).
Darlings cast swells Michael C Hall, Ben Foster, Kyra Sedgwick and Jennifer Jason Leigh have joined the cast of Kill Your Darlings, about the beat poets, for Killer Films and Benaroya Pictures. John Krokidas starts shooting in New York on March 19. Inferno is selling international, and US rights are from UTA and Cassian Elwes.
Beijing Film Market opens door to China
BY LIZ SHACKLETON The Beijing Film Market has announced further details of its second edition which will be held April 24-26 in the China National Convention Centre in Beijing. In addition to a market with
sales booths, the event will feature a conference programme and a projects market in collaboration with China Film Co-production Corp. The event will take place as part of the Beijing International Film Festival. “The conference will focus on
co-production between China and international companies,” said
Jon Shenk’s The Island President (sold at the EFM by Films Transit), is to be re-edited after its subject, president Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives (pictured), was ousted in a coup. In a letter to Film Transit’s Jan Rofekamp, the film-makers said: “The situation is urgent. The new government has issued a warrant for Nasheed’s arrest,
market director Wang Yu. “Co- productions can help foreign com- panies gain access to the China market, and we hope that by working with foreign companies, the standard of Chinese film-mak- ing will improve.” Wang said another aim of the
market is to enable Chinese inves- tors, banks and government offi- cials to understand how the international film market works. “China has many investors, but
their understanding of the film business is lacking, so there’s a lot of work that needs to be done,” he said.
Island revisited The market will host 200 sales
booths — half for Chinese and half for foreign companies — with country pavilions also planned. The co-production market will select around 20 projects in any language that are suitable for Sino-foreign co-production. Wang said the market will pro-
vide flight and hotel costs for select buyers and sellers. The festival and market, organ-
ised by the Beijing municipal gov- ernment and China’s State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), were held for the first time in April last year.
and they are rounding up his allies in parts of the country where there aren’t many foreign journalists.” The award-winning doc has sold to Israel (Yes), Netherlands (VPRO), Spain (Canal Plus) and Finland (YLE) and is in talks for other territories. Goldwyn has taken US rights from Menemsha Films, and plans a March 28 release.
Golden Network bites for Cherry
BY LIZ SHACKLETON Hong Kong-based Golden Net- work Asia picked up international rights to Chinese black comedy A Cherry On A Pomegranate Tree, from the producer of Venice Hori- zons title The Sword Identity. The feature debut of theatre
director Chen Li is based on Li Er’s controversial novel of the same name, which has sold 100,000
copies in Germany. The contem- porary tale revolves around a woman battling to become village chief, whose life is complicated after the disappearance of a preg- nant villager who has broken the family-planning policy. Golden Network previously handled pro- ducer Rui Li’s The Sword Identity. The seller has also picked up Chinese CGI animation Yugo And
Lala, produced by Cheerland Entertainment, which is sched- uled for Chinese release in sum- mer 2012. The company’s Malaysian ani-
mation feature SeeFood continues to sell well, going to the UK (Lionsgate), Scandinavia (Sam- film), former Yugoslavia (Blitz), India (Select Media), Thailand (IPA Asia Pacific) and Taiwan (AV-Jet), in addition to previously announced sales.
Popogrebsky calls Bettany into Room
BY GEOFFREY MACNAB Paul Bettany is in final negotia- tions to star in Alexei Popogreb- sky’s new feature, Lost Rooms. Popogrebsky, who won a Silver
Bear in 2010 with How I Ended This Summer, will shoot the new film in 3D in the English lan- guage. Other prominent Euro- pean and US names are expected to join the cast and crew. Producer Roman Borisevich,
founder of the Koktebel Film Company, is in advanced prepara- tions for the film, due to shoot in 2013. “Our main focus is co-pro- duction with Germany, France and the UK, and a strong world sales company is essential to this project,” he said. Pitched recently in Rotterdam’s
CineMart, the film is being pre- sented as part of the Rotterdam- Berlin Express co-production initiative. The Russian Cinema Fund has
put $2.6m (¤2m) into the project while TV station Rossiya has invested a further $1.3m (¤1m). Borisevich is looking to attach a sales company. “We are approaching final
script development stages and commencing previsualisation and testing of some original VFX concepts,” he said. The story is about a girl who
has an ability to see hidden depth where everyone else sees flatness. Popogrebsky has already shot a
3D short, Blood Drop. Another Koktebel feature, the
new film by Boris Khlebnikov, is already in post-production. It is loosely inspired by the Gary Cooper western High Noon, and is budgeted at around $1.3m.
Financed from the resources of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage
n 4 Screen International at the Berlinale February 12, 2012
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