English Entertainment
Second edition of NGC’s ShowReal Asia event on 29 April
MUMBAI: Asia’s documentary filmmakers will gather in Singapore for the second edition of National Geographic Channel’s (NGC) Show Real Asia Awards and public screening of the new season on 29 April 2005
This will be the second time that NGC International is presenting the celebrated ShowReal Asia Awards to outstanding Asian filmmakers. The categories are film, director, cinematography (sponsored by Sony), editing
and most innovative documentary.
ShowReal Asia is a multi-year collaboration between NGCInternational and the Economic Development Board of Singapore. Launched in 2001, the $ 11 million NGCI-EDB Documentary Production Fund over a five-season period has provided the boost for Asian filmmakers to produce documentaries par excellence.
Budding production talents are given the opportunities under the watchful guidance of veteran producers from NGC International.
This partnership has already led to the successful first season of programmes which premiered in August 2003 receiving numerous international awards and accolades, including the Asian Television Awards 2004 Best Documentary.
English Entertainment
Ellison takes his Paramount-Warner Bros case straight to theater owners
The Skydance chief goes to CinemaCon with promises and a skeptical crowd waiting
CALIFORNIA: David Ellison strode into a room packed with thousands of cinema owners and executives at CinemaCon in Las Vegas on Thursday and did something rather bold: he looked them in the eye and asked them to trust him.
The chief executive of Paramount Skydance vowed that his company would release a minimum of 30 films a year if regulators greenlight its proposed $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery, a deal that has made theater owners deeply, and loudly, nervous.
“I wanted to look every single one of you in the eye and give you my word,” Ellison told the crowd. “Once we combine with Warner Bros, we are going to make a minimum of 30 films annually across both studios.”
It was a confident pitch. Whether it landed is another matter. Cinema operators have already called on regulators to block the deal, and scepticism in the room was hardly concealed.
Ellison pushed back by pointing to recent form. Paramount, born from the merger of Paramount Global and Skydance Media last August, plans to release 15 films this year, nearly double the eight it put out in 2025. Progress, he argued, was already underway.
He also threw theater owners a bone they have long been chasing: all films, he pledged, would run exclusively in cinemas for a minimum of 45 days, drawing applause from a crowd that has spent years fighting for exactly that commitment across the industry.
“People can speculate all they want,” Ellison said, “but I am standing here today telling you personally that you can count on our complete commitment. And we’ll show you we mean it.”
Fine words. The regulators, however, will have the last one.
