Buyers going for the globe

Int'l intrigue awaiting at AFM

By IAN MOHR

October 31, 2006

Variety.com

As the 27th American Film Market kicks off today in Santa Monica, even hardened vets are realizing that the past 26 years of experience are not going to give them any easy answers about what global audiences want.

Buyers and sellers of films are weighing info that appears contradictory as the international marketplace becomes increasingly fragmented. In this past year, pics have been gangbusters in some territories, but die in others....

...

"You are seeing competition come out of other territories," said Mark Lindsay, prexy of Sidney Kimmel Entertainment's intl. sales arm. "They can make these local productions and own them in perpetuity."

Exec -- who will be repping pics including the Frank Oz-helmed "Death at a Funeral," helmer Kasi Lemmons latest project and Billy Ray's "Breach" -- added that star-driven fare is not as surefire with foreign buyers as it once was.

Sunday Times

October 29, 2006

Interview: Dye another day

Eva Birthistle's steely determination has taken her from Glenroe to her role in the ‘intense' film Middletown. But she doesn't always want to be serious, discovers Paul Byrne

It was the kind of part that most young actresses would jump at, a regular role in Ireland's longest-running drama. Yet scarcely had Eva Birthistle, then barely in her twenties, made her screen debut in Glenroe than she began to feel restless.