Friday, November 24----The Independent Feature Project (IFP), the membership organization that represents the interests of independent filmmakers across the United States, has announced the nominees for its 16th IFP Gotham Awards, which will be given out at a gala Awards Ceremony on November 29th in New York City. The event, which was begun in 1991 as a way of recognizing New York-based independent producers and distributors and their films, also serves as a major fundraiser for the organizat...
Thursday, November 23----One of the exciting events of the Opening Night festivities of the International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam (IDFA) is the international premiere of acclaimed American director Spike Lee's moving opus WHEN THE LEVEES BROKE: A REQUIEM IN FOUR ACTS.
The film, which was produced by television cable giant Home Box Office and had its world premiere last month to honor the first anniversary of the devastation in New Orleans due to Hurricane Katrina, will be shown in ...
Thursday, November 9----The Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival switches into especially high gear for its final three days in Fort Lauderdale before taking the show on the road to the resort of Key West next week. It promises to be an exciting weekend of film premieres, celebrity watching and awards ceremonies, with evening receptions set for every night. Now that the skies have cleared, Fort Lauderdale is a magical place for both sun and celluloid.
FRIDAY HIGHLIGHTS
DAVID & LAY...
33rd Northwest Film & Video Festival Schedule of EventsShowing November 10-November 18The Northwest Film & Video Festival, officially kicks off Friday, November 10th with a program of short films at 7pm at Cinema 21 Theatre. After the show there will be an Opening Night Party with musical guests Eux Autres at the Laura Russo Gallery. Admission for Opening Night festivities are $10 for screening and party or $10 for party alone. The Festival, playing throughout the week at the Whitsell Auditoriu...
The 2006 HIGH FALLS FILM FESTIVAL celebrates its sixth wonderful year of honoring the cinematic achievements of women around the world. This unique and exciting festival will take place in Rochester, New York, November 8-13, 2006. The Festival has grown exponentially to become one of the vital cultural assets in Western New York. This international festival of films made with women taking an integral place behind the camera draws people from around the country and globe to this stimulating eve...
In the handsome press book for the new Agnieszka Holland musical biopic "Copying Beethoven" writer/producer Christopher Wilkinson, regarding the appearance of actor Ed Harris in the title role, is quoted as having said on a visit to the set, "I see Beethoven standing there -- but what have they done with Ed Harris?" If Ed Harris does to some extent disappear into the skin of the composer in this not-to-be-denied bravura acting job, and if the trompe l'oeil maquillage really does makes it hard ...
Dick Cheney becomes the 44th President of the United States when George W. Bush, after addressing the Economic Club of Chicago, is assassinated outside a Chicago hotel, after a speech marked by l0, 000 demonstrators violently protesting nuclear brinksmanship policies in Iraq, North Korea and Iran. The date is Oct.19, 2007.This is the setting for the 93-minute fictionalized, controversial feature,”Death of a President”. The picture won the prestigious international critics (FIPRESCI) prize ...
9 European films get Film Sales Support for promotional activities at Brazil’s most important film festival6 European sales agents and production companies are being awarded Film Sales Support (FSS) for the promotion of 9 European films in total at Latin America’s Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival (21 September 5 October 2006). Amongst the supported films are Aleksandar Maniæ’s documentary, The Shutka Book of Records (Czech Republic), Nils Tavernier’s Aurore (France), Pedro Co...
Toronto Opens 2006 Festival with World Premiere of “The Journals of Knud Rasmussen”The largest and one of the most respected Film Festivals in the world will open its doors to the public with Zacharias Kunuk and Norman Cohn's “The Journals of Knud Rasmussen". Their last film "Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner),” had won the Camera D'or in Cannes and then the prize for best Canadian film here in Toronto in 2001. Festival Co-Director Noah Cowan felt that this was one of the most important film...
The winners of the three prizes in the Open Doors section were announced: two Indonesian projects (The Photograph by Nan Achnas and Jermal by Ravi Bharwani) and one from Malaysia (Living Quietly by Tan Chui Mui). Southeast Asia is the focus for this year's Open Doors. 11 projects were chosen from the 50 entered from Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. During this fourth Open Doors workshop they were presented to potential producers and co-producers from around the world and from Europe ...
The 14th Annual Hamptons International Film Festival, October 18 - 22, is proud to announce this year’s selection for Opening Night film: The World Premiere of Philip Haas’ compelling drama, THE SITUATION. Combining elements of thriller, romance and war movie, THE SITUATION, the first U.S. feature film dealing with the war, set exclusively in Iraq, is a dramatization of one of the countless human stories that lie behind the headlines of present-day Iraq. When some American soldiers throw an...
The 25th Annual Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) will open on September 28 with a screening of Pedro Almodóvar’s VOLVER. Festival Director Alan Franey also announced a few of the special events and thematic highlights of this year’s festival, which will take place September 28 to October 13 at ten theatres in the Vancouver area, again centred at the Empire Granville 7 Cinemas.“In our 25th year, rather than reflecting on the past, the VIFF looks to the future with much curiosit...
26th Cambridge Film Festival (6-16 July, Cambridge Arts Picturehouse)“ This ever-expanding festival has really pushed the boat out this year, with an amazing slew of UK premieres – over 30 and counting. And this is only the tip of the iceberg!” The Guardian 1/7/06“ The Cambridge Film Festival has developed into a leading showcase for art-house hits. It’s a taste of the best of what’s to come” The Observer 2/7/06“Cambridge has the knack of attracting big names – to the irritatio...
KARLOVY PRIZES ANNOUNCED: AND THE WINNERS WERE ...GRAND PRIX -- CRYSTAL GLOBE (20,000 USD CASH!)Surprisingly, to the American independent film "Sherrybaby" the feature debut of Laurie Collyer, 2005. Former drug addict Sherry (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is released from prison where she did time for robbery, and so on ... Considering that all the other main competition pictures were darkhorses as well, maybe this award is not so surprising. Too bad this festival doesn't have bookies and pari-mutuel bet...
11 projects from Southeast Asia invited to Locarno “Open Doors underscores in a practical way one of the Festival’s vocational objectives – to bring together film cultures and traditions that are different or distant from each other,” notes Frédéric Maire, Locarno’s new artistic director, “and, with effect from this year, the section is to enjoy a higher profile within the Festival”.The Open Doors workshop, thanks to the support of the Swiss Foreign Ministry’s Agency for Develo...
Saturday, June 17----As the US Congress debated this week on the future of the war in Iraq, four documentaries presented at the SILVERDOCS AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival provide a more in-depth understanding of the cost of this bloody conflict to the American economy, the American morale and America’s standing in the world.
While the Bush Administration offers platitudes of bringing Western style democracy to the Middle East, the true politics of that region are “petro politics...
Sunday, June 11....At a gala Awards Ceremony at the Forum Luisa Todi last night, the 22nd edition of the Troia International Film Festival came to a conclusion with the announcement of Fetival Awards in a number of competitiom categproes.
An analysis of the films and the awards will follow, but here is the list of award winners.
FESTROIA – FESTIVAL INTERNACIONAL DE CINEMA
SPECIAL AWARDS
AUDIENCE AWARD To the film THE WEDDING PARTY, by Dominique Deruddere (Belgium/Germany)
PRIZE MAN AND HIS...
BEST OF BAGHDAD – THE RESURRECTION OF IRAQI CINEMAat the 26th CAMBRIDGE FILM FESTIVAL (6th–16th July 2006, Cambridge Arts Picturehouse)www.cambridgefilmfestival.org.ukIraqi Cinema has had a chequered history – from all-singing all-dancing melodramas of the 40s to lavish vanity projects funded by Saddam Hussein in the 80s to total extinction during the Gulf Wars. Now amidst the tensions of the occupation the resuscitation of Iraqi Cinema has gradually begun, heralding a new phase in the slo...
SILVERDOCS: The AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival, which begins next week, has announced the 10 films that will be competing for the Sterling Award Feature Film prize at its event. The Festival, which has become one of the leading showcases of non-fiction film in the world, mixes film screenings with information panels and special events to offer a comprehensive look at the current state of the art of documentary film, and where the art form may go in the future. As one can imagine in t...
SILVERDOCS: The AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival, which begins next week, has announced the 10 films that will be competing for the Sterling Award Feature Film prize at its event.
The Festival, which has become one of the leading showcases of non-fiction film in the world, mixes film screenings with information panels and special events to offer a comprehensive look at the current state of the art of documentary film, and where the art form may go in the future.
As one can imagine ...
The fifth annual Tribeca Film Festival wrapped here Sunday with a political and international selection of winners including three war themed films which took the top prizes. Tristan Bauers tale of a Falklands War soldier won the Founders award, while Deborah Scrantons Iraq-themed The War Tapes took the Best Documentary prize. The audience award went to Linda Hattendrfs “The Cats of Mirikitani” the tale of an American who lost family in the Hiroshima bombings.Figures show this years fest att...
The 5th annual Tribeca Film Festival opened on Tuesday evening with the world premiere of a controversial 9/11 docudrama. United 93, which opens nationally in theaters this Friday via Universal Pictures, is a dramatized version of the events that occurred on September 11th, 2001, when Al Qaeda terrorists took over a US airplane that was meant to crash into the White House, on the same day that other airplane hijackings attacked the Pentagon in Washington DC, and brought down New York’s World T...
The 4th International Human Rights Film Festival ended last night with the awards ceremony. Thest1st 1st Prize in the Creative Documentary section was awarded to Peter Raymont’s film Shake Hands with the Devil (Canada 2004), which follows the footsteps of general Roméo Dallaire, head of the UN peace mission during the Rwandan genocide in 1994. His vain attempts to alert the international community went unheard. In 2003, he released his memoirs in a book of the same title. This is the story in...
The 4th International Human Rights Film Festival ended last night with the awards ceremony. Thest1st 1st Prize in the Creative Documentary section was awarded to Peter Raymont’s film Shake Hands with the Devil (Canada 2004), which follows the footsteps of general Roméo Dallaire, head of the UN peace mission during the Rwandan genocide in 1994. His vain attempts to alert the international community went unheard. In 2003, he released his memoirs in a book of the same title. This is the story i...
Yesterday, Hot Docs announced its official programming line-up for the 2006 festival, coinciding with the opening of the CBC Newsworld Advance Box Office, where tickets and passes for Hot Docs screenings can be purchased from now until the end of the festival. Hot Docs will screen 99 films from 23 countries between April 28 - May 7, including 18 world premieres, 17 international premieres, 13 North American premieres, 30 Canadian premieres, and seven Toronto premieres. Hot Docs' Canadian Spectru...
