NEWS
Waterstone brings Salesman to Qatar
TELLING STORIES
BY JEREMY KAY Jeff Kalligheri and Stephen Bowen’s Waterstone Enter- tainment are teaming up with Qatar-based Innova- tion Films to develop and produce fi lm and TV projects in Qatar and will kick off with The Greatest Salesman In The World. The deal is believed to be the first between Hollywood
and a Qatari production company. Waterstone will open an office in Doha. Kalligheri, Bowen and
John Darko will produce for Waterstone, with Innovation Films head Ahmed Al Baker and his co-head of parent Innovation Group, Moham- med Al Hamadi , and Mohammed Al Ibrahim. The producers are eyeing
an early 2013 start on the adaptation of Og Mandino’s self-help bestseller Sales- man. The partners previ- ously collaborated on horror thriller Killcam, which Darko directed, and Al Baker and Al Ibrahim produced. Jay Cohen of Gersh repre-
sents Waterstone and the new venture.
MUBI rolls out VoD changes GET THE COMPLETE PICTURE! 24th GALWAY FILM FLEADH 10-15 JULY 2012
WWW.GALWAYFILMFLEADH.COM
BYANDREAS WISEMAN VoD service MUBI is in Cannes with Palme d’Or winner Apichatpong Weerasethakul to launch 20-minute short Ashes, shot on a new-model camera it designed with analogue specialist Lomog- raphy. Efe Cakarel’s expanding
VoD service is rolling out a subscription-based busi-
ness model structured around a curated rotating library of 30 films per month. The service will offer lower price points, as well as a ‘Film of the Day’. The rollout begins in Tur-
key, where monthly sub- scription will cost as little as $2.60, with Scandinavia and the UK due for the upgrade later this year, fol- lowed by Russia, Poland,
Mexico, Brazil and China in 2013. Also, the service has
struck a partnership with Nordisk Film & TV Fund, which will guarantee sub- scribers at least 20 films from the region. In some territories, titles will be free. MUBI has also struck a
deal with Sony Google TV to pre-install the app on its device.
SELLING STORIES BB King sells to UK
BY WENDYMITCHELL GFM Films has sold UK rights to G2 Pictures for Jon Brewer’s BB King: The Life Of Riley. The feature-doc director is planning two fur- ther music-themed projects about Nat King Cole and Slash. Brewer’s Magic Window,
a feature-length documen- tary about Cole, is at a rough edit stage and being readied for a 2013 launch. The film will include two
songs recently discovered in EMI’s vaults. A mislabelled audio tape was found that included two never-released songs — one called Magic Window and the other of Cole singing with his then
n 8 Screen International at Cannes May 20, 2012
Marten Rabarts, artistic director of Amsterdam- based Binger Filmlab, will step down at the end of May to take the role of head of development with India’s National Film Development Corporation. Rabarts will relocate to Mumbai for the newly created role. He will establish a development arm for the national funding body, and oversee the launch of a development and training hub for directors, producers and writers in Mumbai. Liz Shackleton
Fund adds
six-year-old daughter, Natalie. Brewer, who inter- viewed Natalie and Cole’s 92-year-old widow, said: “They were one of the most important black families in America. He was a beacon.” Brewer is also making
Slash, about the Guns N’ Roses guitarist, which will start shooting in the US in July. It is an unusual project that he describes as “a rock- and-roll film based on Alice in Wonderland… it’s a very off-the-wall movie”. Slash will appear in the
film, and share footage from his childhood, alongside a fictional storyline about an aspiring journalist who finds Slash’s missing hat.
$150m Darby Angel’s finance and production outfit Angel World Entertainment and Glenn Myles’ merchant bank First Wall Street (FWS) are launching a $150m equity fund dedicated to independent productions. Angel is in Cannes
discussing the fund with the industry. Projects out of the AWE/FWS fund are due to be announced in the coming weeks. Myles previously
oversaw investments and capital holdings for Davis Corporation. Andreas Wiseman
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