Johnny Depp and Leslie Vanderpool, Executive Director,Bahamas International Film Festival
For upper income groups, cultural tourism has developed over the last decade into a significant part of their leisure activities over the last decades. The consumption of soft cultural products such as visual representations and film has become an integral part of their life. Film festival tourism, a relatively recent phenomenon has emerged as a significant niche market. If film festivals meet s...
For the last 25 years as the program director of the Film Society of Lincoln Center Richard Pena has shaped the New York Film Festival upholding the standards of cutting edge cinema and opening new perspectives for film directors and the audience. By introducing new film making countries to the critical film community in New York and other major festivals he has shifted the festival’s Eurocentric orientation to a global perspective presenting production...
Celebrating its 12th anniversary, the New York Indian Film Festival was the first festival in the United States devoted to Indian films and has grown to be the largest and most influential; helping to set up several other Indian Film festivals in the US. It is part of a comprehensive program in the arts offered by the New York based Indo-American Arts Council. As other specialty or niche festivals, the NYIFF has a unique programming profile devoted to features and documen...
New York: Japan Cuts - Festival of Contemporary Japanese Cinema
JAPAN CUTS offered a cross section of contemporary Japanese film productions of which 12 were co-presented with the NYAFF in their sixth year of collaboration.
The remainder of JAPAN CUTS 39 features was screened through July 28 at the Japan Society. What Sam Javier, the programmer of Japanese films observed several years ago, still applies,” … unhinged [film] insanity is unleashing hell on unsuspecting U.S. ...
New York Asian Film Festival 2012
Organized by Subway Cinema in close cooperation with the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Japan Society from June 29 – July 15, The Asian Film Festival has become the most important showcase for films from Asia featuring this year 57 films including 3 programs with short films. For the New York Times critic the NYAFF has become one of the city’s most indispensable film events. The countries represented ...
Human Rights Watch, in cooperation with The Film Society of Lincoln Center, presented the 23rd edition of its film festival from June 14 – 18. Headquartered in New York City the Human Rights Watch is a global non-governmental independent organization considered to be the leading force in protecting human rights and identifying their violations. By shifting the focus of media and policy makers to violations and to the need for corrective actions HRW prepares the ground for effec...
New York: Open Roads: New Italian Cinema, 2012
That foreign language films have hard time finding an audience in the United is no secrete unless they are programmed for a captive diaspora audience in specialty houses as is the case for most films for the Indian language speaking audience. After all as the L.A. Times reported recently the top five grossing foreign films did not generate more than $40 million in each of the last four years while films made in the US generated billions abr...
The Tribeca film festival has become the most important market oriented film festival in the United States and long excelled with strong documentary programs. Characterized by broad thematic orientations and concerns with global issues these documentaries have frequently received kudos as part of the best Tribeca sections. This year there were 33 feature length and 15 short documentaries with most originating in the United States. Productions focusing on socio-political issues constit...
In 2012 the Berlinale had another successful edition as the largest audience oriented international film festival selling 299.362 tickets. Total professional accreditations came close to 20.000 including 3.800 members of the press. 402 films were featured in its public programs and 760 at the European Film Market. The festival continues to expand each year, yet over the last year the strongest growth has been experienced by the European Film market under the direct...
Among 28 international films and two shorts programs, presented in the 41st edition of New Directors/New Films series few would qualify as belonging to traditional genre films or reflecting Hollywood imprinted market oriented productions. To the contrary, the selection committee from the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art picked first or second feature films from relatively unknown directors identifying new trends in directorial and them...
For France, much more so than any other country, film making is an established art form and an integral part of French culture. Public financial support for film making and distribution in foreign territories is a considered an important tool of foreign cultural policies. French cinema represents France. This perception is also reflected at the box office with indigenous films having a much higher share of the domestic box office than other countries and a larger proportion of the French going...
Formerly known as Expresion en Corto, the Guanajuato International Film Festival was held from July 21 – 31 in San Miguel de Allende and the state capital Guanajuato. It has remained the largest international Mexican film festival with more than 3000 submissions from about 10o countries presenting in its final program 350 productions. The festival still receives most of its funding from the state of Guanajuato and other public agencies offering screenings, conferences, and other festival a...
Within a couple of months two new platforms were announced which provide specialized media content to South Asian audiences on a regional and global basis. Both charge a subscription fee and use the internet as a distribution mechanism. The Databazaar Media Channel serving the United States and Canada was launched four month ago and uses a streaming device. It is tied to google-tv but also includes TV and film access via computers. MELA which will start operations in September offe...
Within a couple of months two new platforms were announced which provide specialized media content to South Asian audiences on a regional and global basis. Both charge a subscription fee and use the internet as a distribution mechanism. The Databazaar Media Channel serving the United States and Canada was launched four month ago and uses a streaming device. It is tied to google-tv but also includes TV and film access via computers. MELA which will start operations in September offers a mu...
In June 2010 I received the following email from New York based correspondent and Cambodian cinema afficianado Claus Mueller:
From: Claus Mueller <filmexchange@gmail.com>
To: The CamboFest Team <info@cambofest.com>
Subject: Re: combofest lite december 2010
Date: Sun, 27 Jun 2010 14:35:29 -0400
Hello JR
In late April we communicated about CamboFestLite.....Since I may be in
Phnom Penh in December I am most interest...
Wieland Speck who is in charge of the Berlinale's Panorama has been heading the TEDDY program and awards for the last 25 years and transformed it into the world's most important platform for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual cinema (LGBT). The Berlinale was the first major international film festival which made a queer film program part of its official repertoire. Films with these themes account now for about 20% of all production in the Berlinale program. The Teddy program ...
The Berlinale continues to solidify its position among the top three film festivals and film markets. It scored well this year with about 800 films in the Berlinale and the European Film Market program attracting close to 20,000 accredited professionals including 3900 journalist and selling 300 000 tickets to the general public. Undoubtedly, as the first major international film festival and film market in the calendar year offering a widely differentiated program with a strong doc...
In its 20th edition, the New York Jewish Film Festival presented 36 features and shorts from 14 countries; 31 premiered in New York. As in past years a balanced program provided perspectives on the Jewish experience and included several outstanding productions on the holocaust period and its aftermath.
In LILITH (Eytan Harris, ISRAEL, 2010), a documentary; prejudices and resentments are revealed when a mother...
In the US and overseas two organizations have become more prominent over the last few years at film and television festivals: the French-German consortium arte, and the U.S. based HBO. A growing number of their productions have been selected and received a disproportionate number of awards. HBO and arte are now leading funders and producers of outstanding documentaries and feature films. This article covers HBO and a different one will cover arte.
For HBO much credit for the succes...
Documentaries screened at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival tended to be superior to the feature films in its program an assessment not disputed by its creative director Geoff Gilmore. In one of the seminars Gilmore admitted that the Sundance festival which he had directed before coming to New York experienced a similar discrepancy. Similar to the US market position of foreign language films, documentaries play a minor role at the US box office. In the 2009 U.S. total box office of $10.6 billio...
Documentaries screened at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival tended to be superior to the feature films in its program an assessment not disputed by its creative director Geoff Gilmore. In one of the seminars Gilmore admitted that the Sundance festival which he had directed before coming to New York experienced a similar discrepancy. Similar to the US market position of foreign language films, documentaries play a minor role at the US box office. In the 2009 U.S. total box office of $10.6 billion,...
Against the background of an overall decline of US revenues from foreign films, Europe as the dominant source of such productions has been surpassed by Asian Countries. Even for internationally acclaimed films as evidenced by awards and critical reviews, the income seems minuscule. Of the 1000 foreign language films which entered the US market since 1980, 70% scored less than $1 million and only 22 more than $10 million. For each successful foreign release there are dozen if not hu...
It belongs to our common sense perception that distribution and production technologies develop more rapidly than the content they cover and that great competence in technologies is not equivalent to the mastery of creative content. Knowing grammar and vocabulary or different types of filters and lenses is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for creative output. Over the last few years in virtually all related film festival seminars there have been discussions about the new distribution p...
Entering its second decade the most important US film festival with a focus on Cuban film making has expanded its programs and venues including links with some of the most prestigious New York art institutions. As a member of the group which established the Havana Film Festival in New York in 2001 I was fortunate to secure some funding from the Ford Foundation for bringing Cuba film makers to the festival, a practice which was continued in the following years contingent on funding and the vaga...
Awards by the specialized juries at the berlinale sometimes are a better indication of the quality of the productions selected than the official awards, though in the 2010 berlinale edition, few disputed the selections of the jury run by Werner Herzog and concurred with the choice of awards for BAL, THE GHOSTWRITER, CATERPILLAR, HOW I ENDED THIS SUMMER, and IF I WANT TO WHISTLE, I WHISTLE. These films obtaining the golden or silver bear awards, let in Herzog’s word the viewer discern dark corn...
