The average American moviegoer has a very limited exposure to Chinese cinema which often consists of the visually splendorous stunts like those found in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or the sweeping opera of color like that of Hero. If they have any exposure beyond that it probably involves Jet Li or Jackie Chan, and again it’s typically a film centered around astounding fight choreography and stunt work. Empire of Silver (Baiyin Diguo) will require a bit of branching out for American audiences, but the experience will prove mixed as it’s a film of beauty derived from slow and calculated moments of ancient Chinese life but with heavy handed melodrama where American audiences expect grandiose action to be.
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- 6/10/2011
- JustPressPlay.net
Today, the first day of the European Film Market and the Berlin Film Festival itself has buzz around The International, the opening night film by favorite son Tom Tykwer. Festival head Dieter Kosslick says the fictional portrait of the financial world it portrays is mild compared to what's going on today. At the opening press conference yesterday for EFM, Kosslick also mentioned the Wall Street type scandal of China in 1899 depicted in Taiwan's Empire of Silver (Bai Yin Di Guo) by Christina Yao is a mirror of today's events. Kosslick, a vegetarian also touts Food, Inc. as a "must-see" of the festival. The halls of the Martin Gropius Bau are sparsely populated but compared to IFTA's venue, the Maritim Hotel, quite a schlep from the rest of the market, MGB is positively humming. This is in line with the turn down this year from Cannes, AFM and Toronto, and it's reported that attendance at NATPE was also very thin. Tom Ortenberg, recently of LionsGate, is here with his new company, The Weinstein Company and Chris Paton, formerly vice chairman of DDA PR, is now senior VP acquisitions and development with Fortissimo. Newly launched IMDb.de has a new way to highlight the Berlinale as does IMDb.com itself with a special mini site for the Berlinale featuring a new blog by Christian Gaines of Withoutabox. Sundance's opening night film Max and Mary has been picked up by Gaumont for France, Benelux and Switzerland and will show in the Generation 14plus sidebar. Wild Bunch has announced a new sales arm for 3D films called, what else, Wild Bunch 3D. Reliance Big Pictures who has a major stake in Dreamworks is in Berlin with a new international sales division headed by Jawahar Sharma with backup from former Miramax senior VP Colleen Seldin as a consultant. The slate is of Indian films which were previously self distributed in U.S., U.K. and the U.A.E. The four largest Egyptian production companies are uniting under one banner for international sales with backing of the Egyptian ministry of trade and industry (Expolink). Headed by Bassma Kandil, they are also looking for international coproductions.
- 2/5/2009
- Sydney's Buzz
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