NEWS
Mega-Vision ships out
Soldier Hong Kong’s Mega-Vision Project (MVP) has sold Marco Mak’s action title Naked Soldier to a slew of territories including France, where it was jointly acquired by AB Groupe and AAA. The follow-up to producer
Wong Jing’s Naked Weapon has also gone to India (Indo Overseas) and Vietnam (Vietnam Media). Earlier in the market, North American rights for the film went to XLrator Media, which has made it one of the first releases on its Turbo by XLrator label. Directed by Mak, the film stars
Jennifer Tse as a sexy assassin. Corey Yuen (The Expendables) is on board as action director, and the cast also includes Sammo Hung, Philip Ng and Ankie Beilke. Scheduled for local release
over the summer, the film was previously sold to Malaysia (Golden Screen), Middle East (Gulf) and Turkey (ANC). Liz Shackleton
Zurich fest adds industry spotlight
BY WENDYMITCHELL The growing Zurich Film Festival is launching an industry platform, or ‘mini-market’, for its eighth edition. The initiative, ZFF Filmboutique, will focus on German-language features and documentaries. It will focus on 20-30 produc-
tions from Germany, Austria and Switzerland for the past 12 months. There will also be work- in-progress offerings. The Filmboutique will run Sep- tember 27-29 at Arena Filmcity.
ATTHE PRODUCERSNETWORK French producer Pierre-Ange Le Pogam talks to participants at breakfast yesterday.
Blue Lake gets airborne
BY JEREMY KAY Blue Lake, the two-year-old invest- ment fund managed by Steven Silver and Neil Tabatznik’s Toronto-based Blue Ice and Doug Mankoff ’s Echo Lake, has formed a joint venture with Paul Poste of Captive Entertainment to acquire airline rights to high-end films.
A portion of the Blue Lake fund
has been allocated to enable Cap- tive to better compete with the major airline buyers by offering “significant” advances. The deal also gives Blue Lake another way to invest in film. “Doug and I met in Toronto and discussed the possibility of teaming
up,” Poste said. “He saw this as an extension of what Blue Lake does.” “I worked with Paul several
years ago and was very imp- ressed,” Mankoff said. “Not only did he do great in terms of sales, he was very thoughtful about how to keep costs down and this meant bigger overages.”
Roskino unveils projects with Brody, Uchitel
BYANDREAS WISEMAN In an effort to encourage more co-productions with Russia, Roskino yesterday announced seven new co-productions, includ- ing projects with Adrien Brody, Alexei Uchitel and Tulpan director Sergei Dvortsevoy. The new projects are Assign-
ment (Russia-Germany-US-Swe- den), which has Brody and Gosha Kutsenko attached, from produc- ers Marina Kozhevnikova Ravie, Marco Gilles, Maria Pazoukhine and director Neil Bell; My Little One (Russia-Germany-Poland) from producer Dvortsevoy; Mat-
Adrien Brody
ilda Kshesinskaya from producers Uchitel and Kira Saksaganskaya; 1961 (Russia-Germany) from pro- ducers Wladimir Dercho, Gilles, Pazoukhine and Kozhevnikova
Ravie; Labyrinth, from producers Kozhevnikova Ravie, Gilles and Pazoukhine (Russia-Germany); New California (Russia-China) from producer Sergey Kornikhin; and Sleeping Neighbourhood (Rus- sia-Estonia) from producers Max Tuula and Masha Gavrilova. Roskino managing director
Catherine Mtsitouridze said: “The focus for Roskino is to bring inter- national awareness to Russian cinema, so we’re excited to announce these co-productions in collaboration with some of Rus- sia’s most established and upcom- ing talent.”
Scottish features
Accelerated Creative Scotland and Playwrights’ Studio Scotland’s inaugural Accelerator feature development programme has selected seven Scottish features. They are: Creed, with producer
Karen Smyth and writer Johnathan Barraclough; Fanatical, with producers Claire Mundell and Wendy Griffin, and writer Audrey Gillan; Mainland, with producer Kathy Speirs and writers Raymond Friel and Derek Boyle; Monica Pink Pet Shrink, with writer Frances O’Neill and director Tim Pope; Seen, with writer-director Jeremy Raison; Shows, with writer/director Martin Smith and Smokeheads with producer-writer Alan McKenna, writer David Ireland, director Ron Scalpello and producer Carole Sheridan. Mentors include producer
Andrea Calderwood and script editor Kate Leys.
Wendy Mitchell Directors and producers rally against EC changes
BY GEOFFREYMACNAB Amid signs of a growing rift between the European Commis- sion and the European film indus- try, the European Film Agency Directors (EFADs) and the Euro- pean Producers Club (EPC) have both issued strongly worded state- ments expressing their alarm at EC proposals to change state-aid rules for film. EFADs’ ‘Cannes Declaration’
and the statement from the pro- ducers’ club were drawn up after the European Audiovisual Observ- atory workshop, which took place
last weekend. “What we’re not happy about is the question of ter- ritorialisation,” Jeanne Brunfaut of Wallonie-Bruxelles said of all member states signing EFADs’ declaration. “EFADs regret that these pro-
posals were made without the EC having been able to demonstrate that the territorial conditions so far implemented by member states had had any detrimental effect on the production and circu- lation of European works,” the declaration states. “We are hereby warning that
the intended new rules would clearly threaten the sustainability of European public support to the audiovisual sector, and on top of that the member states’ ability to develop and adopt political strate- gies embracing the future chal- lenges of the sector.” EPC’s statement warned the
proposed changes could “signifi- cantly damage the entire film financing system”. The EC consultation ends in
June and the new cinema commu- nication is expected to be adopted in the latter half of 2012.
n 4 Screen International at Cannes May 22, 2012
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