Father Geek here with Edgard's Euro-AICN column, but first this Euro-News clip settled on my hard drive over night...

There's a new website called FILMMAKER'S MARKETPLACE in Germany, offering information for young filmmakers. It is both English and German.

And for the German Magazine-part they offer filmgeeks the chance to see FINAL FANTASY for free within the next few days, when there are press screenings all over Germany. All they have to do, is write a review afterwards. So, German readers of Aint-it-cool-news, go to http://www.filmmakers-marketplace.com, see what it takes to get free entry to the press screenings and write a spoiler-free review.

There are also other films to get free screenings for.

Byebye

MIKE

And this is Father Geek back again with some sad news about a really good film maker...

This is my first time emailing you, and I'm sorry that it's bad news.

Cinematographer Sacha Vierny died on May 15. Click for Details.

Best known for his fantastic work with Alain Resnais and Peter Greenaway, his credits include "Belle de jour", "Night and Fog", "Hiroshima, mon amour", "Last Year at Marienbad", "Muriel", "Stavisky...", "A Zed & Two Noughts", "The Belly of an Architect", "Drowning by Numbers", "The Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover", "Prospero's Books", "The Baby of Macon", "The Pillow Book", and "Eight and a Half Women". His final film was Sally Potter's "The Man Who Cried".

Best regards,

A D Jameson

Father Geek again... When I was in Film School back in the late 60's and early 70's this wonderful cinematographer's works were "REQUIRED" viewing for all of us... I'll never forget the lessons in shot composition I learned from him... He was one of the greats!

Just Click Here for a long list of his credits.

Now on with Edgard's column...

EURO AICN

Hello folks... Edgard here with the Euro AICN latest news; this week I'm not late anymore but you will see that this column is quite short... well it's Summer time and news are getting a bit rare... so this is more a light edition of the euro column... so here it is directly from Italy, UK, The Netherlands and France...

ITALY

* George Clooney was today in Milan to support the Running Heart Foundation, an organization which helps people with heart problems. The RHF developed a new kind of scooter equiped with all the instruments to help people struck by a coronary. Of course, a scooter is faster than an ordinary ambulance and this could save many lives.You can see the poster of this campaign (with George of course) here: Click Here

Our correspondent Karin Ebnet also had the chance to ask Clooney about his upcoming Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. The actor told her that he will start working at the movie in the next weeks.

About The Hole. We get, from the italian distributor Nexo, some exclusive stuff of this movie. Besides the italian trailer (that you can see also in the official site in english) we have 5 clips of the movie that you won't find elsewhere. Of course, they are dubbed in italian, but if you want to give a glimpse at some scene of the movie in advance this is the link:Just Click to see.

I suggest you in particular the fifth (called "La verità in un bisbiglio"). Anyway the movie is quite interesting and could be a small hit everywhere (as it was in England).

See you

Robert

UK

* Empire Online reports on different interesting stories :

First is about Joel Silver saying that the Matrix sequels will both be R-rated Click Here...

Then there's John Travolta wanting to do a musical with Russell Crowe and Hugh Jackman : Click Now...

And finally a link to a story where Spielberg explains why he turned down Harry Potter Just Click Here...

And much more on the Empire website at www.empireonline.co.uk

* And from Alasdair : Just picked this up from the BBC - Sims with Carry On co-star Kenneth Williams Actress Joan Sims, known to millions for her roles in the Carry On movies - has died aged 71, her agent said on Thursday. She played a variety of roles ranging from gym mistress to empress, and became famous for her characters' pretentions and mock-refined accents. Barbara Windsor, who acted alongside her in eight Carry Ons, said: "To me she was the last of the great Carry Ons." "She was there at the beginning," said Windsor, speaking from the set of EastEnders on Thursday. "Her talent was wonderful, she could do any accent, dialect, she could dance, sing, play dowdy and glam. "We laughed all the time and giggled a lot. I will sorely miss her." Joan Sims was born on 9 May 1930 in Laindon, Essex, where her father was the stationmaster. After graduating from RADA in 1950, she worked in repertory, and by the early 1950's was appearing in West End revue, in films and on television. She showed her talent as a classical actress with spells at Bristol Old Vic and the Chichester Festival, making her first film Will Any Gentleman with George Cole in 1953. She was soon established as one of the great comic performers of the cinema and television. She starred more than two dozen Carry On films, making her the longest-serving female member of the team until she parted company with the team in 1978. Later she concentrated on television, appearing in Worzel Gummidge as Mrs. Bloomsbury-Barton, Till Death Us Do Part as Gran, and On the Up as the eccentric housekeeper. 'Terrific talent' "It's wonderful to be able to say that she really did have all the qualities that her many fans would have wished," said her agent Richard Hatton, "a great sense of humour, a sympathetic and endearing personality, terrific talent and consideration for others. "Over and above this, she discovered a new side of herself when she wrote her autobiography last year, which was untypical for the genre - honest, frank and intelligent. "Everyone who knew her is going to remember her forever," he said. Her most recent movie was the BBC TV film Last Of The Blonde Bombshells in which she starred with Dame Judi Dench. Joan Sims, who was unmarried, had been ill for some months.

THE NETHERLANDS

* "It doesn’t get a whole lot better than this." That was the message to delegates attending Cinema Expo in Amsterdam this week from distributors unveiling what has been a well-received array of product - much to the relief of embattled European exhibitors. "There is a higher than normal degree of anticipation," said Richard Segal, CEO of UK circuit Odeon Cinemas. "The product reels leave me feeling very encouraged, and the number of big films coming down the pipeline are, on paper, reaching new highs." Animated product was particularly well received by delegates at the exhibition conference, now in its tenth year. Highlights included Fox’s computer-animated Ice Age, scheduled for Easter 2002, Columbia Pictures’ Final Fantasy and Buena Vista International’s Monsters Inc, scheduled for spring 2002 and Lilo And Stitch, scheduled for summer 2002. The latter, a story of a Hawaiian child and her alien pet, had unfinished scenes screened, which blended animation and storyboard pencil sketches. Expectation was also high for the remaining 2001 product, such as Planet Of The Apes, Harry Potter, Lord Of The Rings and A.I. Artificial Intelligence, which closed the event last night. And seasonal release windows for 2002 are quickly filling up for exhibitors, with the summer already looking hot. "It’s going to be an historic summer for us and the industry," Fox Entertainment’s Jim Gianopulos told exhibitors, referring to next summer’s Star Wars/Minority Report double whammy. "It’s the first time anyone will have had a George Lucas and a Steven Spielberg [film] within a month. It doesn’t get a whole lot better than this." "I can say without any shame that 2002 will be our biggest year ever," said Mark Zucker, senior executive vp of Columbia TriStar Film Distributors International, which for summer 2002 is readying Spiderman, Stuart Little 2 and Men In Black 2. "I know we’re all going to cash in on this great line up." Exhibitors were not only optimistic about the frequency of large tentpole titles inked on schedules over the next two years, but also about the knock-on effects they could have for cinema attendance overall. "The big challenge in the UK is to increase frequency of visits," said Odeon’s Richard Segal. "And there’s a good succession of tentpole movies. There’s no reason why people won’t see trailers and return." The prospect of a banner year for product is a major relief to European exhibitors, still learning the lessons from the meltdown in the overheated US market. "It’s great to be in a country where the exhibitors are not going broke," quipped The Animal star Rob Schneider at Thursday’s Columbia TriStar lunch, where he was the recipient of an Excellence in Comedy presentation. (Source : Screendaily)

FRANCE

* With over 221,000 tickets sold on its first day on release (June 27) in France, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider looks set to kick Pearl Harbor off the top slot at the French box office in its first week. Tomb Raider is the fourth biggest opener in France since the beginning of the year. With little heavyweight competition (Warner Bros’ Valentine and SND’s Crocodile Dundee In LA attracted a meagre 27,000 and 17,000 admissions respectively) the UIP title will have a free run and should be able to reap the benefits of promotional event La Fete du Cinema. The annual event, held July 1-3, enables French movie-goers to see as many films as they want for the price of one regular ticket plus an additional $1.30 (FF10) per film. La Fete will also boost such titles as Pearl Harbor (1.7 million tickets sold in two weeks) and Amelie From Montmartre (5.6 million admissions in nine weeks) which still ranked first and second, respectively, for the week ending June 26. (Source : Screendaily)

* JCVD films still benefit of theatre release here... on July 11th will be released his latest : REPLICANT (quite good from what I heard). The trailer is up on the French Premiere Website at http://www.premiere.fr/ns_projection/index_ba.html

That's it for this week... if you have anything to share with our Euro AICN readers, please send us your reports or news to the EURO AICN offices in Paris at euroaicn@yahoo.com; if you don't have anything well just enjoy the Summer...