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<u>U.K. To Halt Funding Movies That No One Sees</u>
Kim Howells, Britain's minister for tourism, film and broadcasting, is hoping to cut the flow of funding to U.K. filmmakers who produce esoteric films of no commercial value. In an interview with London's Independent on Sunday, Howells said, "There is a fine balance to be struck. We need to give young talent a leg up -- I am entirely in favor of that -- but we have also got a duty to ensure that there are good financial returns to the investments that we are putting in." Howells said that he has asked Alan Parker, the director who now heads the British Film Council, to make sure that government funds are used to produce commercially viable movies. Moreover, he criticized the British investment community of being "too unimaginative and conservative" when it came to British film. "If you compare it to the huge rush to invest in the dot-com companies at the height of that craze, those investment decisions look absolutely insane now whereas movies have a long and steady history. They are a damn good investment."
<u>Australian Schools Become Outposts For Pirates</u>
Australian schoolyards have become a major marketplace for bootleg DVDs and videogames, with some late releases selling for as little as $2.65, Melbourne's The Age newspaper reported Sunday. In a report filed from the Asia-Pacific Motion Picture Anti-Piracy conference in Beijing, the newspaper quoted Stephen Howes, director of the Australasian Film and Video Security Office, as saying that the schoolyard trade was a special concern given the fact that young persons could purchase films with the equivalent of the U.S. R rating. "You can get a young person buying something that's quite unsuitable for them," Howes remarked. </font>
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