Los Angeles-based New Films International has completed one of the largest deals to close with the Middle East at the Afm.
Nfi concluded the deal with Lebanon's Falcon Films, which has acquired an eight-title package covering all rights for the Middle East.
The films included in the agreement cover titles in production and completed films, including the relationship drama "Multiple Sarcasms," starring Timothy Hutton; "Serbian Scars," with Michael Madsen; "Frame of Mind," with Chris Noth; and "The Making of Plus One," with Jennifer Tilly and Amanda Plummer.
New Films International president Nesim Hason said this year alone Nfi has closed more than $1 million worth of deals with Falcon.
Other titles included in the package are Mary McGuckan's "Rag Tale," starring Simon Callow and Kerry Fox, and "Palo Alto," with Tom Arnold.
New Films International was formed in 1996 by Hason to bridge the gap between the U.S. and international.
Nfi concluded the deal with Lebanon's Falcon Films, which has acquired an eight-title package covering all rights for the Middle East.
The films included in the agreement cover titles in production and completed films, including the relationship drama "Multiple Sarcasms," starring Timothy Hutton; "Serbian Scars," with Michael Madsen; "Frame of Mind," with Chris Noth; and "The Making of Plus One," with Jennifer Tilly and Amanda Plummer.
New Films International president Nesim Hason said this year alone Nfi has closed more than $1 million worth of deals with Falcon.
Other titles included in the package are Mary McGuckan's "Rag Tale," starring Simon Callow and Kerry Fox, and "Palo Alto," with Tom Arnold.
New Films International was formed in 1996 by Hason to bridge the gap between the U.S. and international.
- 11/9/2008
- by By Liza Foreman
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Mary McGuckian's Rag Tale is supposedly a satire of British tabloid newspapers and their insatiable hunger for sensation but it is a dreadful misfire that assaults the eye and offends the ear with a scattershot cinematic style that suggests it was made using David Letterman's monkey-cam.
Screamingly unpleasant, it's difficult to imagine audiences remaining in their seats except those incapacitated by the relentless flashing of its meaninglessly gymnastic mix of hand-held color and black-and-white footage; hideous mish-mash of jump cuts, quick zooms, fast-action, and sharp pans; and raucous soundtrack.
In the chaotic set-up, a tabloid editor (Rupert Graves) is sleeping with his deputy editor Jennifer Jason Leigh) although she is married to the mogul who owns the paper (Malcolm McDowell).
The cretinous plot has the owner taking out his revenge on the editor by forcing the paper to change its policy from knocking British royalty to championing it so that he may keep his wife, make her editor and win a knighthood or, better still, a lordship.
The editor's response is to fabricate a scandalous story about the owner that his ex-wife's broadsheet newspaper will threaten to publish so that the owner's only recourse is to ask for his own editor's help as only he can persuade his ex-wife to spike the story.
The behavior of tabloid journalists and paparazzi is ripe for satire and even tragedy, but it would take a far greater knowledge of that furiously desperate and cynical world than is on display here.
In Rag Tale, the senior editors of a tabloid newspaper risk their jobs and possible criminal charges by leaving their desks to spend a drunken afternoon concocting a completely phony and libelous story simply in order to save their editor's job. Sure.
The actors apparently improvised the witless dialogue in the film ("We have a paper to put out; who are we going to get this week?"), but the full blame for this misbegotten nonsense must lie with filmmakers who, on this evidence, apparently know as little about making films as they do about newspapers.
Screamingly unpleasant, it's difficult to imagine audiences remaining in their seats except those incapacitated by the relentless flashing of its meaninglessly gymnastic mix of hand-held color and black-and-white footage; hideous mish-mash of jump cuts, quick zooms, fast-action, and sharp pans; and raucous soundtrack.
In the chaotic set-up, a tabloid editor (Rupert Graves) is sleeping with his deputy editor Jennifer Jason Leigh) although she is married to the mogul who owns the paper (Malcolm McDowell).
The cretinous plot has the owner taking out his revenge on the editor by forcing the paper to change its policy from knocking British royalty to championing it so that he may keep his wife, make her editor and win a knighthood or, better still, a lordship.
The editor's response is to fabricate a scandalous story about the owner that his ex-wife's broadsheet newspaper will threaten to publish so that the owner's only recourse is to ask for his own editor's help as only he can persuade his ex-wife to spike the story.
The behavior of tabloid journalists and paparazzi is ripe for satire and even tragedy, but it would take a far greater knowledge of that furiously desperate and cynical world than is on display here.
In Rag Tale, the senior editors of a tabloid newspaper risk their jobs and possible criminal charges by leaving their desks to spend a drunken afternoon concocting a completely phony and libelous story simply in order to save their editor's job. Sure.
The actors apparently improvised the witless dialogue in the film ("We have a paper to put out; who are we going to get this week?"), but the full blame for this misbegotten nonsense must lie with filmmakers who, on this evidence, apparently know as little about making films as they do about newspapers.
- 8/12/2005
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
SYDNEY -- Iain Canning, former head of acquisitions for recently shuttered U.K. sales company Renaissance Films, has been tapped to spearhead international acquisitions out of London for Australian sales agent Becker Films International and distribution company Dendy Films, both subsidiaries of the Becker Entertainment Group, the company announced Friday. Becker Films International has acquired five titles in the past 12 months, including Rag Tale, a contemporary urban satire set in the world of the British tabloids, and the Australian title Like Minds, which stars Toni Collette and Richard Roxburgh. BFI president Reiko Bradley said Friday that she hopes to increase the company's lineup to 10 pictures over the next 12 months, encompassing commercial films, genre fare and arthouse titles.
CANNES -- Oscar-winning actress Kathy Bates has signed on to star in Mary McGuckian's Funny Farm, joining a cast that includes Malcolm McDowell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Rupert Graves, Lucy Davis and Ian Hart. Made by U.K. indie production company Pembridge Pictures, Farm is set in a celebrity drug and alcohol rehab clinic and is a follow-up to McGuckian's experimental satire Rag Tale, which is being screened at the Marche du Film here. Billed as an edgy black comedy, Rag Tale examines the "amorality" of the tabloid newspaper industry.
- 5/16/2005
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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