Monday 9 June 2008

10TH YEAR A SHOWSTOPPER FOR SHOWCOMOTION

26 JUNE – 10 JULY 2008

The 10th Showcomotion Young People’s Film Festival unveils a packed
programme of films, fun and activities from 26 June to 10 July at the
Showroom Cinema in Sheffield. www.showcomotion.org.uk

SHOWCOMOTION SPECIAL 10TH ANNIVERSARY TALK WITH
MARK WALSH OF PIXAR ANIMATION STUDIOS
Festival Director Kathy Loizou said: ‘Showcomotion is ten years old this
year and Pixar Animation Studios are helping us celebrate our anniversary in
style. Mark Walsh, the Supervising Animator on the Disney•Pixar film
Ratatouille, is a special guest at the festival. Mark will talk about the
work of Pixar Animation Studios over the last ten years, including such
classics as Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo and The Incredibles.
The Showcomotion Special 10th Anniversary Talk is on Wednesday 2 July 2008
at 7pm.’

ED VAIZEY MP TO GIVE KEYNOTE AT
SHOWCOMOTION CHILDREN’S MEDIA CONFERENCE
Ed Vaizey MP, Shadow Minister for Culture and Broadcasting is to give the
Opening Keynote at the Showcomotion Children’s Media Conference on the
evening of Wednesday 2 July at 7pm. The Showcomotion Conference which runs
from 2-4 July is the premier meeting place for delegates in the children's
media and entertainment industries.

48th Zlin International Film Festival for Children and Youth

Golden Slippers awarded at 48th Zlinfest

The 48th Zlin International Film Festival for Children and Youth announced the competition winners of its 48th edition on June 7, with Golden Slipper awards going to The Substitute , Where's Winky's Horse and The Bear Stories. Danish director Ole Bornedal’s The Substitute was named Best Feature Film for Youth, and received the Don Quixote Award of the International FICC jury as well as the International Ecumenical Jury Award.

more info: http://www.zlinfest.cz/index.php?akce=show&id=670&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.zlinfest.cz%2Findex.php

UK and Tunisian women in film and TV exchange

Calling all women TV/filmmakers in London!*
The British Council, in partnership with Birds Eye View, are sponsoring six
UK women filmmakers in a cross-cultural exchange.
*Our aim*
This programme is designed to encourage women in the audio visual industries
in NENA (Near East North Africa) and the UK to further their careers and
form supportive networks within their communitiies.
The programme will challenge stereotypes of the roles that women can and
should play in public life. It will provide women with opportunities to
recognise their potential and to contribute to the future economic and
social well-being of their societies by building careers in the film/TV
industry.
*Who are we looking for?
*
6 women -working as a director, editor, producer or writer in film or
television, based in London.
*The Program*
In October 2008 you will host (but not accommodate) a Tunisian filmmaker.
Partnering up, you will show her the ropes around London - introduce her to
as many networks as possible, help her to find contacts and mentors, bring
her to film events and give her a sense of how the industry works. Birds Eye
View will host a networking event for all participants, and the British
Council will provide accommodation and additional sightseeing activity.
Between January and March 2009 you will travel to Tunisia for one week to
network with and encourage women filmmakers there. You will get the
opportunity to meet up with the same Tunisian filmmaker for her chance to
show you around her stomping grounds and for you to learn about the Tunisian
film scene!
The whole exchange will be documented.
*To Apply*
1.Please outline a one-week itinerary for your guest. Include a day-by-day
breakdown of the events, jobs and set locations you would attend and how you
would entertain her for this week.
2.Who are the people and mentors that you could introduce your guest to and
how might they help?
3.Which professional film/TV networks do you belong to?
4.Career biography including current occupation and employer
5.Interests/hobbies/travel
6.Why are you participating in this scheme? What are your aspirations and
expectations?
*
Deadline Friday June 13th
*Shortlisted candidates will be invited for interview with Birds Eye View
and the British Council.
Applications will be shortlisted in June 2008.
Interviews held the end July 2008.
Please send application to Jahlia Osha at
mail@birds-eye-view.co.uk

26th Filmfest München

Germany’s largest summer film festival will be taking place for the 26th time, in Munich, from June 20 - 28,
2008.


We will be showing 237 films from 41 countries on 15 screens – all German
premieres. This year’s opening night film is French director Laurent Cantet’s THE
CLASS (Concorde Filmverleih).

In addition to exciting discoveries by new directors from around the world, we are
also presenting the new films by tried and true filmmakers including Abel Ferrara
(CHELSEA ON THE ROCKS), Jonathan Demme (MAN FROM PLAINS), Silvio Soldini (DAYS AND
CLOUDS), Peter Greenaway (NIGHTWATCHING), Brian DePalma (REDACTED), Barry Levinson
(WHAT JUST HAPPEND), Francis Ford Coppola (YOUTH WITHOUT YOUTH), Andreas Dresen
(CLOUD 9), Eric Rohmer (THE ROMANCE OF ASTREA AND CELADON), Cédric Klapisch (PARIS),
Alain Corneau (THE SECOND WIND), Pablo Trapero (LION’S DEN), and Zhang-Ke Jia
(USELESS).

Munich filmmaker Peter Schamoni’s BOTERO – BORN IN MEDELLIN will be our closing
night film. The painter Fernando Botero and narrator Mario Adorf will join Schamoni
at the gala on June 28th.

More info: www.filmfest-muenchen.de

Mike Leigh joins line up at July's SWF 2008

The Screenwriters' Festival is delighted to announce that Mike Leigh OBE
will give a masterclass at the Cheltenham International Screenwriters'
Festival held 1-3 July 2008 in the UK and whose sponsors include: South
West Screen, Cheltenham Council, Sky, UIP, BBC Films, UK Film Council,
Skillset, C4, LSC, Ealing Film Studios, BAFTA, Face Group, Arturi Films,
and Chateau De Sours . The Festival which is devoted to the art, craft,
education, and business of writing for the screen, exploring writing for
feature films, television and new media in all genres including comedy.
Mike Leigh will be among the guest speakers.

More info: http://www.screenwritersfestival.com/guest-speakers.php

I want £16m ‘Cashback’

By mark Chandler.

Elizabeth Obisanya has started a copywright infringement case against the makers of
Oscar-nominated film Cashback. The writer's screenplay, Cashback Paper or Plastic,
was released two years previously GC11059

A SCREENWRITER has started a £16m copyright infringement case against the makers of
a new film. Elizabeth Obisanya, 39, wrote the screenplay for a short film called Cashback Paper
or Plastic, set in a supermarket, in 2002.


Since then, writer/director Sean Ellis has released an award- winning short film
called Cashback, made in 2004.


A feature-length version starring Emilia Fox is due to be released in the UK on May 9.
Ellis's short film was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Short Film, Live Action
category, at the 2006 Academy Awards and has also won several other short film
prizes.


Now Ms Obisanya, who lives with her 10-year-old son Steven in Tawney Road,
Thamesmead, is suing Mr Ellis and company Cashback Films at the High Court, for
£16m. Ms Obisanya said: "£16m is really an estimate of what the work encompasses, the fact
the short was nominated for an Academy Award and a feature film has been made.
"When I do my own film, people will think it's just like Sean Ellis's."

The divorced mother-of-two claims the fact her film shares the same title as Mr
Ellis's, and both films are romantic comedies set in a supermarket, give her a good
case in law.

She said: "I was surfing the internet in 2005 when I put in a search for Cashback
and found there was a short film purported to have been written by Mr Ellis.
“I said to my son ‘Mummy doesn’t remember making her film yet.’”

source:http://www.newsshopper.co.uk/mostpopular.var.2215003.mostviewed.i_want_16m_cashback.php

WIBBELL - A NEW NAME IN WEIRDNESS!

British Film company Wibbell Productions announces their new WEIRD WORLD OF WIBBELL
DVD label.


Independent British film distributor Wibbell Productions Ltd today announced the
launch of their new niche DVD label 'The Weird World of Wibbell'.
With a very clear identity right from the start, the new label is set to
specifically target cult, horror and science fiction feature films (or so called
B-movies), short film compilations and some 'very odd' special interest
documentaries.


more info: www.wibbell.co.uk

Sweet Movie:

The Gentle Side of “Destructive Art”
by Dušan Makavejev

Dušan Makavejev is a Yugoslav born filmmaker who resides in Paris and Belgrave and whose extensive and distinguished career includes such titles as Innocence Unprotected, The Tragedy of a Switchboard Operator and Manifesto.


How did I get Otto Muehl (1) and the AA Kommune (Actions-Analytic Kommune) into Sweet Movie? The shooting of Sweet Movie was planned for October 1974. In the earlier version of the script, the leading female character ends up catatonic in a mental hospital. She comes back to life by being treated with the highly perceptive non-action of a nonverbal doctor whom I imagined as my variation of Ronnie Laing. (2) I had never met Laing, but he fascinated me with his intelligence, risk-taking, playfulness, radical insight and genuine respect for life. He was a healer by just being around.

Full article: http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/08/47/sweet-movie-makavejev.html

ETHICAL CALCULUS:

The cross-cultural dilemmas and moral burdens of Fatih Akin’s The Edge of Heaven by Thomas Elsaesser

Fatih Akin is a German-Turkish filmmaker from Hamburg. Or rather, he is a German filmmaker with a Turkish name and Turkish parents. His dislike of the hyphenated identity label is such that he was reported as saying, at the time of his first success, Short Sharp Shock (98): “If I can’t be Fatih Akin, I’d prefer to be known as the German Martin Scorsese.”

full article: http://www.filmlinc.com/fcm/mj08/heaven.htm

HUNGER/STRIKES GOLD IN CANNES




Here is another poke in the eye for people who argue that you need an obviously dramatic story to make a great film. One trouble-making IRA prisoner slowly starves himself to death. Who would want to see a movie like that?


exposures – new talent in moving image call for entries

exposures – the UK's leading competitive festival for student film and moving image – is looking for the talent of the future. Call for entries is now open for the 2008 edition to be held in November at Cornerhouse and Urbis, Manchester's two leading contemporary arts venues, co-hosts of exposures for the first time this year. The deadline for entries is 31 July.

The 2008 exposures festival is, like its predecessors, looking to find new and exciting filmmaking talent amongst today's students. However, this year's competition widens the criteria for entries to include not only film but all aspects of the moving image ie video, mobile 'phone work, animation or visual art installations. The competition is open to students who have created their work whilst studying on any UK course between August 2007 and July 2008. Work does not have to have been made as part of the course. Pieces should be under 30 minutes long.

To download an entry form and enter for free, go to www.exposuresfestival.co.uk
festival dates 23-27 November, 2008

Marianelli and Badalamenti guests of honor 8th World Soundtrack Awards

The World Soundtrack Academy has just announced that world-class composers Angelo
Badalamenti and Dario Marianelli will attend the 8th annual World Soundtrack Awards,
the closing event for the 35th edition of the Ghent Film Festival (7-18 October
2008).


The 8th edition of the World Soundtrack Awards is once again promising to be the
highlight of the year for soundtrack music fans. After the prestigious awards
ceremony, the international elite of film music composers will be on hand to present
a live performance of their music by the Flemish Radio Orchestra, conducted by Dirk
Brossé. For this year’s edition, the World Soundtrack Academy, an initiative of the
Ghent Film Festival, managed to bring Angelo Badalamenti and Dario Marianelli on
board as its guests of honour.

Angelo Badalamenti is best known for his soundtrack work for American film director
David Lynch. He has scored a number of Lynch projects including Blue Velvet (1986),
Twin Peaks (1990), Wild at Heart (1990), Lost Highway (1997), The Straight Story
(1999) and Mulholland Drive (2001). He also composed the music for La Cité des
Enfants Perdus by Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet (1995), Wait Until Spring Bandini
(1989) by Dominique Deruddere, and Jeunet’s Un Long Dimanche de Fiançailles (2004),
which earned him the WSA’s Composer of the Year award in 2005.

Badalamenti also collaborates with world-class entertainers including David Bowie,
Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney, Julee Cruise and Marianne Faithfull. This year,
Badalamenti will be bringing two special guests along to the concert in Ghent:
Siouxsie Sioux from Siouxsie & The Banshees, and Beth Rowley, who will be
performing songs from The Edge of Love, a biopic on Dylan Thomas starring Keira
Knightley and Sienna Miller (autumn 2008 release).

More Info: www.worldsoundtrackacademy.com