(Midi Z, cast and crew before the world premiere of Nina Wu, © Lindsay Bellinger 2019)
By LINDSAY R. BELLINGER
Nina Wu is an interesting film that hits a hard punch, and it's clear that Midi Z has enjoyed his share of Quentin Tarantino films in addition to other filmmaking greats. It made its world premiere in the Un Certain Regard section today. It's no surprise to this film journalist that QT showed up for this screening. This is the kind of film that one might thin...
(Cannes Film Festival Press conference room, 20 May 2019, © Lindsay Bellinger 2019)
By LINDSAY R. BELLINGER
When August Diehl was asked how he thinks that this Terrence Malick film can uplift society he had this to say: "This is something that I will know better once I see the film more and more...Being someone who says no and not really judging others, if there were more people like this especially in Europe with all of the political developments maybe that is t...
(Outside the Brotfabrik Berlin, © Lindsay Bellinger 2019)
By LINDSAY R. BELLINGER
The Film:Schweiz 2019 (Swiss Film Festival) had a very interesting mix of films curated this year. Clearly festival director Teresa Vena carefully selected this year's program with a lot of courage, not just going after big names that will please everybody. The mix of feature films, short films, experimentals films, discussions, exhibitions and guest filmmakers were d...
(© Lindsay Bellinger 2019)
By LINDSAY R. BELLINGER
This year's Arabisches Filmfestival Berlin (Arab Film Festival Berlin) was an outstanding success, if you measure success by the number of sold out movie screenings and audience participation during the post-screening Q&As. I attended the opening screening of Egyptian film Yomeddine on Wednesday, April 3rd and it was a packed and excited audience.
(ALFILM moderator and A.B. Shawky post-sc...
(© Film:Schweiz 2019)
By LINDSAY R. BELLINGER
The 2nd annual Swiss Film Festival 2019 (Film:Schweiz 2019) opens this coming Thursday in Berlin. Festival director Teresa Vena curated a wonderful selection for this year's Film:Schweiz edition. This year looks quite interesting, ranging from feature films to short films, experimentals films and even some discussions and exhibitions. Switzerland's cinema has perhaps a leg up on much other world cinema because they hav...
(Berlin Feminist Film Week 2019 © Lindsay Bellinger)
By LINDSAY R. BELLINGER
The Berlin Feminist Film Week closed out their 6th consecutive year last night, after having an eventful seven-day run filled with screenings with q&a's, panels and workshops. This particular film festival was founded in 2014 by Karin Fornander and has steadily grown in popularity with each passing year. This year's Feminist Film Week started with a sold out screening of Desiree Akha...
(Geraldine Chaplin, © Aurora Dominicana)
By LINDSAY R. BELLINGER
La fiera y la fiesta (Holy Beasts) is the fifth directoral collaboration from Dominican directors Laura Amelia Guzmán and Israel Cárdenas, and their second collaboration with the incomparable Geraldine Chaplin who graced the screen in their 2014 film Dólares de arena (Sand Dollars). The Dominican Republic is not necessarily be a country that sprouts to mind when...
(Asalif Tewold,© Mo Scarpelli)
By LINDSAY R. BELLINGER
Anbessa is the epitome of a "fly-on-the-wall" cinematic experience. Italian-American director/cinematographer/camerawoman/writer Mo Scarpelli, whose producer Caitlin Mae Burke points out, "she was totally alone for most of the film," first visited Ethiopia about 10 years ago when she was working with an NGO focusing on clean water. Her love of Ethiopia as a country, their culture and pe...
(Zorica Nusheva, Suad Begovski © sistersandbrothermitevski)
By LINDSAY R. BELLINGER
Macedonia isn't usually a country that comes to mind when the discussion turns to cinema, at least not in modern times. The Manaki brothers shot their first film, The Weavers, in 1905, so they were clearly cinema pioneers in the region. Instead, the political landscape and international disputes with Greece over the country's name often tend to be the focus of conve...
(© Léa Crespi/Pasco/Prune Nourry Studio)
By LINDSAY R. BELLINGER
New York-based French artist Prune Nourry reveals a great deal in her documentary feature debut Serendipity, which made its world premiere in the Panorama Dokumente section of Berlinale 2019. She does not shy away from exposing herself to the camera, her battle with breast cancer in and out of the hospital. For those familiar with her artwork and performance art, this will not be much of a shock b...
(© Boris Laewen / 2018 bombero int./Warner Bros. Ent.)
By LINDSAY R. BELLINGER
Honestly speaking, I had heard negative reviews from many journalists before heading into the extra press screening for Der goldene Handschuh (The Golden Glove). The first two press screenings at Cinemaxx Potsdamer Platz were already to the max 20 minutes before the screening even started. I've never seen that happen before. There were so many of us standing there, a bit stunned and sur...
(Film still: © Wang Quan'an)
By LINDSAY R. BELLINGER
If last year's trend for a controversial "little film" winning the Golden Bear continues this year, then I might have already found the winner. Last year's press screening of Touch Me Not was not necessarily a successful one, if one judges success according to how many of the press badge holders - a mix of journalists and also producers and distributors - stay in their seats until the end....
(Berlinale Street Food on February 6, 2019 with Lindsay Bellinger and Dieter Kosslick, © Lindsay Bellinger 2019)
By LINDSAY R. BELLINGER
Berlinale Festival Director Dieter Kosslick and Culinary Cinema head Thomas Struck officiated the start of the 69th Berlin International Film Festival when they welcomed the media and five enticing food trucks on Wednesday, February 6th, the day before filmmakers and celebs will hit the red carpet for the world premiere of Lo...
(Helsinki Mansplaining Massacre, © Jon Grönvall 2018)
By LINDSAY R. BELLINGER
Sadly, the closing day of the Weihnachtsfilmfestival 2018, came and went too quickly. The first half of the program was a tad more family friendly than a lot of the other programming this year. Muumien taikatalvi (Moomins and the Winter Wonderland) from filmmakers Ira Carpelan and Jakub Wronski featured the voices of Alicia Vikander and Stellan Skarsgård. ...
(Day 3, © Teresa Vena/Weihnachtsfilmfestival2018)
By LINDSAY R. BELLINGER
...
(Valle de Goni film team, © Teresa Vena/Weihnachtsfilmfestival2018)
By LINDSAY R. BELLINGER
Day two of the Weihnachtsfilmfestival in Berlin was filled with some surprising moments, ranging from a neo-pagan Christmas celebration to Jesus returning to Italy and even lawsuits being filed against farm animals.
Canadian filmmaker Laurie Mannessier&...
(© Teresa Vena/Weihnachtsfilmfestival2018)
By LINDSAY R. BELLINGER
Opening night of the 3rd Weihnachtfilmfestival at Kino Moviemento Berlin (Germany's oldest cinema) was quite festive. Christmas cookies and hot apple beverages spiked with vodka were in heavy rotation. Festival director André Kirchner and his festival partner Teresa Vena were quite busy keeping things running smoothly. Kirchner was proud to show off the Audience Award for Best Short Film fr...
(© Teresa Vena)
By LINDSAY R. BELLINGER
The third annual Weihnachtsfilmfestival 2018 is right around the corner, running from Friday, December 21st to Monday, the 24th at Moviemento Kino Berlin. It may be centered around Christmas but don't be fooled, it's an eclectic mix of festive and not so festive films. Festival director André Kirchner says that although his first unconventional Christmas Film Festival in 2016 started out as an ...
(Melissa Miller Costanzo, Molly Ringwald and Oldenburg Filmfest head Torsten Neumann, Photo courtesy of Laurence Diederich / Filmfest Oldenburg)
By LINDSAY R. BELLINGER
"All These Small Moments" is currently screening at the 68th Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival and will have its first screening at the Torino Film Festival on November 25th. It had its international premiere at the Oldenburg International Film Festival in September and M...
(Rudy Riverón Sánchez and Jorge Enrique Caballero after the world premiere of "Is That You?", photo courtesy of Lawrence Diederich / Oldenburg Filmfest)
By LINDSAY R. BELLINGER
Cuban culture is often portrayed as exotic and vibrant, filled with lively music and sun-kissed faces. If you were to walk into a screening of "Is That You?" (¿Eres tú, papá?) expecting a happy-go-lucky experience you'd be so...
(Still from "Don't Tell Me You Can't Sing". Courtesy of Filmfest Oldenburg)
By LINDSAY R. BELLINGER
Sabine Timoteo is a well-known actress in her native Switzerland. She also co-wrote the Philip Gröning film "Mein Bruder heißt Robert und ist ein Idiot" (My Brother's Name is Robert and He is an Idiot), which premiered in competition at Berlinale this year. This time she wears the director's hat for an avant-garde film that starts ou...
Still from "The Boat"
(Photo courtesy of Filmfest Oldenburg)
By LINDSAY R. BELLINGER
"Almost nothing comes through the sea and almost nothing leaves." These lines begin Petrus Cariry's exquisite film "The Boat" (O Barco). Set in a far-flung fishing community in Brazil, the ferocious waves speak before any images even grace the screen. So begins this curious fable. Ana (Samya De Lavor), a mysterious woman washes ashore shortly before a bo...
(Photo courtesy of Christian Scholz / Filmfest Oldenburg)
By LINDSAY R. BELLINGER
...
By LINDSAY R. BELLINGER
There was a long wait, but I finally got a chance to sit down with Oldenburg Film Festival director Torsten Neumann to discuss the 25th year of this very special film festival, what one of the director's described as "punk rock" or a "punch to the face", but in a good way. It was such a treat to sit down and discuss films with someone whose passion about films oozes from his pores.
Torsten Neumann presenting awa...
(© Lindsay R. Bellinger 2018)
By LINDSAY R. BELLINGER
Holiday is Swedish director Isabella Eklöf's feature directorial debut but one would never know it. Her film has been catching audiences off-guard since its premiere at Sundance Film Festival at the beginning of this year. The one very graphic and unwavering depiction of rape, the kind of rape that happens more often than naught by someone the victim knows, has surely been causing...
