My annual pilgrimage to the Durban International Film Festival kicked off on 20 July. I went straight to the media briefing at the Blue Waters Hotel where I chatted to Oliver Hermanus and Deon Lotz, director and star of last year's Beauty. This year Hermanus is part of the international jury and Lotz can be seen in the much anticipated Sleeper's Wake, which is having its world premiere in Durban. Lotz also told me that the film has been accepted for Toronto! I saw two film...

            Victor Kossakovsky’s VIVAN LAS ANTIPODAS! (2011) –(LONG LIVE THE ANTIPODES!) premiered this year at the 68th Venice Film Festival and most recently screened to audiences at the 14th Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival. It is for me one of the most memorable documentaries since Ron Fricke’s BARAKA (1992), similar in form as a type of guided meditation which takes us ar...

            Victor Kossakovsky’s VIVAN LAS ANTIPODAS! (2011) –(LONG LIVE THE ANTIPODES!) premiered this year at the 68th Venice Film Festival and most recently screened to audiences at the 14th Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival. It is for me one of the most memorable documentaries since Ron Fricke’s BARAKA (1992), similar in form as a type of guided meditation which takes us a...

3rd TALENT CAMPUS DURBAN 23 - 27 July 2010 at the 31st Durban International Film Festival (22 July - 1 August 2010) Talents Announced The Durban International Film Festival has announced that the selection for this year's edition of Talent Campus Durban has been finalised. Over 40 young filmmakers representing nearly 20 African countries, including Benin, Botswana, Cameroon, DRC, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, Lesotho, Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, an...

3rd TALENT CAMPUS DURBAN 23 - 27 July 2010 at the 31st Durban International Film Festival (22 July - 1 August 2010) The Durban International Film Festival has announced that the selection for this year's edition of Talent Campus Durban has been finalised. Over 40 young filmmakers representing nearly 20 African countries, including Benin, Botswana, Cameroon, DRC, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, Lesotho, Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and of course South A...

The 53rd New York Festivals International Television & Film Awards honored this year's winning entries at the 2010 awards ceremony Monday, May 3rd in New York at the American Airlines Theater. The GrandJury® awarded two prestigious Grand Trophies - one to ESPN of the US, and the other to The Edge Picture Company in the UK.  In addition, ESPN was named Broadcaster of the Year for the third year in a row, while The Edge Picture Company was also honored for the third time with t...

Follow the Money   In the wake of the worldwide financial crisis, a particularly fascinating group of films has emerged that might help explain the mess we're in. In the Vancouver International Film Festival's Follow the Money series, various sectors of the economy (and aspects of human nature) are examined in illuminating, scarifying and perversely entertaining detail.   It's worth remembering that last year's VIFF took place in the midst of the very worst stret...

This Saturday's New York International Independent Film and Video Festival reception at 2nd Avenue's Pangea restaurant was a convenient walk across the street from the Village East Cinemas where Filmmakers, actors, and artists assembled from Japan, China, Austria, Botswana, South America, Italy, India, and all across the USA. Though interpreters were used to translate across language barriers - no translators were necessary to convey the passion and pride these Independents showed for each oth...

New Yorkers in need of an affordable yet satisfying indie film fix will be happy to hear that The New York International Independent Film and Video Festival (NYIIFVF) has announced their slate of films and red carpet premieres. NYIIFVF runs from March 19 26 in Manhattan and will showcase features, shorts, documentaries and animations from all over the globe. The opening night kick-off party takes place at BLVD (199 Bowery) from 6-10pm. Film screenings begin March 20 on 2 screens at City Cinemas ...

New Yorkers in need of an affordable yet satisfying indie film fix will be happy to hear that The New York International Independent Film and Video Festival (NYIIFVF) has announced their slate of films and red carpet premieres. NYIIFVF runs from March 19 26 in Manhattan and will showcase features, shorts, documentaries and animations from all over the globe. The opening night kick-off party takes place at BLVD (199 Bowery) from 6-10pm. Film screenings begin March 20 on 2 screens at City Cinemas ...

Sunday, 8 February----In addition to the red carpet premieres, the film market haggling and the endless roundelay of meetings and receptions, the Berlin Film Festival offers a fascinating one week film intensive that packs more into seven days than most university film programs do in a year. The Berlinale Talent Campus, now in its 7th year, brings together several hundred aspiring filmmakers who have the rare opportunity of being couched by some of the most experienced and renowned experts in th...

Berlinale Talent Campus 2009 popular among up-and-coming filmmakers. Cinemato-grapher and Oscar® award winner Janusz Kamiński, director and choreographer Farah Khan, and directors Patricio Guzmán and Jasmila Žbanić among the first Campus expertsThe Berlinale Talent Campus, now in its 7th year, remains popular among young international filmmakers: 3834 ambitious Talents from 128 countries responded to this year's call for applications. For the first time, applications were received f...

The 2008 edition of the Dubai International Film Festival features 12 programmes that will showcase cinema of all genres from all over the world.Selected films will be placed in the appropriate programme by DIFF management in consultation with the filmmaker. While DIFF welcomes international submissions, it should be noted that the non-Arab section of the festival is limited to only 60 films and presently does not include short films.The Cultural BridgeThe Cultural Bridge programme is one of the...

 Thursday, March 20----Anthony Minghella, the British filmmaker who won an Academy Award for his direction of THE ENGLISH PATIENT in 1997, died Tuesday morning in London at the age of 54. The cause was a brain hemmorage, brought on by complications from surgery he underwent a week ago to treat tonsil cancer. Anthony Minghella was born on January 6, 1954, and grew up on the Isle of Wight, where his parents, immigrants from Italy, ran an ice cream factory. Minghella began his career writing scri...

New Docs: Films in Competition travels around the globe for stories about family, war, and love with stops along the way for tortoises, call centers, art fraud, a war refugee Afro-Pop band, and asparagus as a metaphor for globalization!Full Frame Documentary Film Festival founder, CEO, and Artistic Director Nancy Buirski released the slate of seventy-four new documentaries chosen for the New Docs: Films in Competition, newly sponsored this year by A&E IndieFilms. "The films this year explore bo...

TIME OF THE WRITER FESTIVAL“Top African writers for Durban festival”The 7th Time of the Writer Festival, one of the flagship projects of the Centre for Creative Arts, on the Durban campus of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, takes place this year from the 22 to 27 of March with readings, panel discussions and live music nightly at the Sneddon plus a range of day activities at other venues around the city. Challenging subjects, brilliant minds, colourful and engaging personalities from around ...