Main Square, Old Town, Wroclaw, Poland The AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL (AFF), the first film event in Eastern Europe solely devoted to the works of contemporary and classic American cinema, was announced this week during the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City. The first edition of the AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL will be held from October 20 to 24, 2010 in the cultural heritage city of Wroclaw, Poland (featured this week in the New York Times as one of the hot travel ...

The AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL (AFF), the first film event in Eastern Europe solely devoted to the works of contemporary and classic American cinema, was announced this week during the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City. The first edition of the AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL will be held from October 20 to 24, 2010 in the cultural heritage city of Wroclaw, Poland (featured this week in the New York Times as one of the hot travel destinations in Europe). The event is being organized by the New Horizons ...

HUNGER, multiple-award-winning film debut of the famous visual artist Steve McQueen, has won the Grand Prix (20 000 €) of NEW HORIZONS International Competition. The festival's highest honour was awarded by the international jury. HUNGER also took home the Film Critics Award (10 000 €). The film, which won the Camera D'Or prize at last year's Cannes Film Festival, tells the chilling tale of Irish Republican Army activist Bobby Sands, whose prison hunger strike eventually help push the Englis...

  by Sandy Mandelberger, Online Dailies Editor HUNGER, multiple-award-winning film debut of the famous visual artist Steve McQueen, has won the Grand Prix (20 000 €) of NEW HORIZONS International Competition. The festival's highest honour was awarded by the international jury. HUNGER also took home the Film Critics Award (10 000 €). The film, which won the Camera D'Or prize at last year's Cannes Film Festival, tells the chilling tale of Irish Republic...

      by Sandy Mandelberger, Online Dailies Editor   When the film history of our era is written for future scholars to examine, one of the interesting aspects will be the flowering of non-fiction film. Documentaries, once relegated to television or educational settings, have broken through to the theatrical box office. While not every film can be “Fahrenheit 911” (which topped $200 million at the box office) documentaries have been faring we...

  by  Sandy Mandelberger, Online Dailies Editor  “Night And The City” (1950) is a neglected film noir masterpiece by the American-born director Jules Dassin. The film, a cult favorite among cinephiles but largely unknown by the public, has taken on renewed currency as the inspiration for “Broken Embraces”, the latest film from Spanish superstar director Pedro Almodóvar, which screened at the ERA New Horizons International Film Festival in Wroclaw, Poland. Almodovar himself...

  Sebastian Lelio (Chilean director) by Sandy Mandelberger, Online Dailies Editor The hardest working band of professionals at this year’s ERA New Horizons International Film Festival, which closes today in Wroclaw, Poland, are undoubtedly the juries that have been viewing films from all over the world in the main Festival competitions. As the Festival headed into its final days, the juries moved from viewing and evaluating the films into the rigors of that favorite bl...

   by Sandy Mandelberger, Online Dailies Editor  Wroclaw, Poland-----Canada’s reputation often is overwhelmed by the sheer size and influence of its neighbor to the south. While Canadians may seem interchangeable with Americans to outsiders, the differences are particularly clear in the Canadian film industry, where active governmental subsidy systems have nurtured the careers of such film artists as David Cronenberg, Atom Egoyan, Norman Jewison, Robert Lepage, and Guy Maddin,...

  by Sandy Mandelberger, Online Dailies Editor The Swedish master filmmaker Jan Troell is the subject of a major retrospective tribute at this year’s ERA New Horizons International Film Festival in Wroclaw, Poland. The 78-year-old film auteur has amassed a string of film jewels over a career that stretches back five decades. Many of these gems, including his latest masterpiece “Everlasting Moments”, nominated this past year for the Oscar, will be screened.    &nbs...

  by Sandy Mandelberger, Online Dailies Editor Guy Maddin, the Canadian filmmaker who is the subject of a Festival Retrospective at the 9th edition of the ERA New Horizons International Film Festival in Wroclaw, Poland. His   magnum opus BRAIN UPON THE BRAIN was presented last evening at the Wroclaw Opera House, with a chamber orchestra, foley sound artists and a narrator. Living and working in his beloved Winnipeg, an industrial city in the Canadian heartlan...

  by Sandy Mandelberger, Online Dailies Editor It takes a filmmaker of great daring to successfully combine genres and create a hybrid that is unique and exhilarating. Such is the case with Pen-Ek Ratanaruang, the 47-year-old Thai film director and screenwriter, who is part of a Thai new wave that includes such auteur names Wisit Sasanatieng and Apichatpong Weerasethakul. His singular films have made him one of the more intriguing film stylists of the moment. Pen-Ek beg...

by Sandy Mandelberger, Online Dailies Editor   Michael Haneke relishes his reputation as one of the controversial directors working in the film arts. He is a provocateur with a mission to shock audiences out of their complacency and contemplate the good, bad and ugly of modern society. “My films are an appeal for a cinema of insistent questions instead of false answers……for provocation and dialogue instead of consumption and consensus”, he stated in a recent inter...

  by Sandy Mandelberger, Online Dailies Editor To the untrained ear, Wroclaw, Poland, the site of the ERA NEW HORIZONS International Film Festival, is generally mispronounced as "ro-claw". I've been learning to offer the correct pronunciation, which is more like "rotz-vav". The former German city known as Breslau has been on-again and off-again part of the Polish empire for centuries. It is now a major economic and cultural center for the modern state of Polan...

THE WHITE RIBBON, the celebrated Austrian film by auteur Michael Haneke, which recently won the Palme D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, will open the 9th edition of the ERA NEW HORIZONS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, to be held in the city of Wroclaw, Poland from 23 July to 2 August. The film, which also won the prestigious FIPRESCI International Critics Prize in Cannes, is set in a small town in northern Germany just before World War I, and refers to the origins of the totalitarian systems that...

  by Sandy Mandelberger, Festival Dailies Editor THE WHITE RIBBON, the celebrated Austrian film by auteur Michael Haneke, which recently won the Palme D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, will open the 9th edition of the ERA NEW HORIZONS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, to be held in the city of Wroclaw, Poland from 23 July to 2 August. The film, which also won the prestigious FIPRESCI International Critics Prize in Cannes, is set in a small town in northern Germany just before World War...

Prix Visionica - International Festival for Creative Television, produced by the City of Wrocław and Telewizja Polska S.A. in program partnership with ARTE Television and Russian Telekanal Kultura.This year's edition will be held between 24th and 29 th of April and take place in Wroclaw, Poland. Festival will be organized every two years.The centerpiece of the Prix Visionica Festival is an international competition accompanied by special events programmed and carried out in cooperation with...