LOTTERY BOOST FOR REVOLUTIONARY TECHNOLOGY IN SUPPORTING UK RELEASE OF U2 3D
February 25, 2008
Source: UK Film Council
The UK Film Council’s Prints & Advertising Fund is backing U2 3D, the first-ever feature length live action film shot and exhibited in breakthrough digital 3D. Released on Friday 22 February by Revolver Entertainment, the film documents the band’s 2006 Buenos Aires concert in the Vertigo tour and is an exciting and immersive cinema-going experience unlike anything seen in cinema before.
The film is one of many titles to be backed by the Fund, which continues its work to support the release of specialised films and help increase viewing choices for UK audiences.
Revolver Entertainment receives £150,000 for U2 3D, enabling the film’s release to widen from 30 to 62 screens. An additional 80 35mm trailer prints will be released and the media campaign will include radio advertising.
In addition, as part of its strategy to increase opportunities for the British film industry to learn more about technological advances in film, the UK Film Council is also hosting special industry screenings of the film on 22 February with a masterclass from the film’s producers and director on the film’s creative and practical journey from pre-production to screen.
Soda Pictures receives £150,000 for Michel Ocelot’s Azur & Asmar: The Princes’ Quest, an animated tale of two boys, one Christian and one Muslim, who are raised as brothers, torn apart and then reunited years later as rivals in a mystical quest, released on 8 February.
The film’s release will now expand from 25 to 50 screens with additional media spend covering the production of a new trailer and a TV advertising spot.
Pathé Distribution received £150,000 for Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, the biopic of Jean-Dominique Bauby, high-flying editor of French Elle and father of two, who suffered a stroke at the age of 43 which paralysed his entire body, except his left eye. Imprisoned within his body, Bauby learns to communicate through blinking and begins to make sense of his world using his liberated, limitless imagination.
The award allowed the release to double from 20 to 40 cinemas and fund a national television advertising campaign which raised awareness of the film, released on 8 February.
Artificial Eye received £4,662 for Fatih Akin’s The Edge of Heaven in which a Turkish man travels to Turkey to look for the daughter of his father’s former girlfriend, who has meanwhile fled to Germany after getting into trouble over her political activities. In a bid to look for new ways of reaching art house audiences, Artificial Eye is launching on ten London screens and the film will simultaneously be offered on Sky pay per view, on 22 February. The price to Sky subscribers will be comparable with the cost of a cinema ticket and the film will be available for ‘download’ on Sky for a limited period only.
Further awards have been made to a range of independent and classic films allowing widened access to the films using the Digital Screen Network:
Axiom Films received £5,000 for Wim Wenders’ 1974 film Alice in the Cities, set for release for the first time in the UK as part of the NFT/Axiom’s Wim Wenders retrospective;
Dogwoof Pictures received £5,000 for Polish film The Wedding, a black comedy which was a big hit at the Polish box office;
Cinefile received £5,000 for Changement d’adresse, a sophisticated French comedy about the highs and lows of romantic encounters and relationships;
Transmedia International Releasing received £5,000 for Michael Schroeder’s Man in the Chair, which features an excellent performance by Christopher Plummer as a curmudgeonly old man with a hankering for classic old movies;
Optimum Releasing received £5,000 for Brian de Palma’s Redacted, a fictional film shot on hand-held camera which follows a platoon of soldiers on duty at a checkpoint in Iraq;
Diffusion Pictures received £5,000 for Lars von Trier’s The Boss of it All, an entertaining black comedy in which an IT company hires an out-of-work actor to pose as head of the company in order to get the business sold;
Peccadillo Pictures received £5,000 for Chris Krause’s award-winning Four Minutes, about an elderly piano teacher working in a women’s prison who recognises a talent in a young and violent inmate;
Park Circus received £5,000 for Alfred Hitchcock’s classic 1938 film The Lady Vanishes in which a rich young playgirl travelling in continental Europe realises that an elderly lady seems to have disappeared from her train and teams up with a young musician to try to find her; and
Spier Distribution received £5,000 for Son of Man, a re-telling of the New Testament set in the townships of contemporary South Africa.
P&A Fund Awards
U2 3D
£150,000
Azur & Asmar: The Princes’ Quest
£150,000
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
£150,000
The Edge of Heaven
£4,662
Alice in the Cities
£5,000
The Wedding
£5,000
Changement d’Adresse
£5,000
Man in The Chair
£5,000
Redacted
£5,000
The Boss of it All
£5,000
Four Minutes
£5,000
The Lady Vanishes
£5,000
Son of Man
£5,000
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