EXCLUSIVE: Robert Osborne On TCM's 31 Days of OSCAR, Judy Garland, & Surprisesby Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent When the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences award show premiered in 1928, the industry was barely 31 years old. For this year's Oscar build-up, Robert Osborne will host his annual much-watched "31 Days of Oscar" on Turner Classic Movies, Feb. 1, at 10 PM (ET/USA). Robert Osborne: Keeper of OSCAR's secrets Known as The Official Biographer of The Academy Awar...

What is it about French actresses, that they grow even more beautiful and, arguably, more talented with age. Jeanne Moreau and Catherine Deneuve are but two examples of this gorgeous gallic phenomenon, where their later roles take on even greater gravitas as the subtle lines of their face change, their voices lowers a register and their once all-too-fragile beauty slightly hardens and becomes as enduring as a Greek sculpture. But blood courses through their veins and passion, if not only...

Hard as it is to believe, the summer of 2010 (the hottest on record.....thank you global warming) is coming to an end. The cranking of the film industry's engines begin in earnest in September with the Venice,, Montreal, Toronto, New York and San Sebastian film festivals.....but for the last two weeks of summer, we still can relax with the languid and liquid films of French filmmaker Eric Rohmer. The Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York is offering a complete retrospective of...

  Uma Thurman in MOTHERHOOD At the Woodstock Film Festival, which today concludes its five-day marathon of film premieres, industry seminars, music concerts and groovy parties, film directors generally get all the attention. However, after my own personal marathon screenings, it is the performances of several standout actors that has made the biggest impression. Of course, for an independent filmmaker, casting is a critical part of the process.  Luckily, it has been par...

At the Woodstock Film Festival, which today concludes its five-day marathon of film premieres, industry seminars, music concerts and groovy parties, film directors generally get all the attention. However, after my own personal marathon screenings, it is the performances of several standout actors that has made the biggest impression. Of course, for an independent filmmaker, casting is a critical part of the process. Luckily, it has been part of the appeal of independent cinema that name actors...

 by Sandy Mandelberger, Festival Dailies EditorIn a theater full of documentary filmmakers and film lovers, the appearance of an eminence grise the likes of Albert Maysles is the equivalent of having a member of documentary royalty in your midst. Maysles, along with his late brother David, was responsible for some of the most iconic documentaries of the past fifty years and has served as a mentor to hundreds of filmmakers.Albert Maysles is widely recognized as a pioneer of “direct cinema” a...

By Maria Esteves - August 19, 2008 The Ninth Annual New York International Latino Film Festival (NYILFF) 2008 Awards Ceremony presented by HBO was held at El Morocco Theater & Nightclub, Sunday, July 27, 2008, 8:00 PM. The award acknowledges the best in filmmaking and emerging directors of Latino descent. The award announcers were NYILFF founder/executive director Calixto Chinchilla and executive director Elizabeth Gardner. A special live performance by Comedy Troupe, ROOM 28 preceded the c...

The 6th Brussels European Film Festival will take place from Saturday 28 June until Sunday 6 July 2008 at the Flagey theatre, in collaboration with Cinédécouvertes. The Festival continues its role of discovering European talents by focusing on first and second long feature films from all over Europe. Following its fruitful collaboration with the Royal Belgian Film Archive, the Festival widens its horizons by reaching to the five continents. The Compétition Age d'Or – Cinédécouvertes pres...

Cristian Nemescu's Romanian traqi-comedy CALIFORNIAN DREAMIN' took the Alexsander Sasa Petrovic award for best film at the 13th Auteur Film Festival in Belgrade (Nov 27 - Dec 4). Ozer Kizilitan's courageous tale of religious Zealotry in modern day Turkey TAKVA won the Freedom of Artistic Expression Award and Anton Corbijn's Joy Division biopic CONTROL recieved the Special Prize of the Jury.The jury of the festival, US critic Ron Holloway, British director Julian Richards and Serbian director Srd...

 Thursday, August 23--------The Venice International Film Festival has announced that it will honor the filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci with a special achievement award. Bertolucci will receive the 75th Anniversary Golden Lion at the Festival, which opens next week. One of the seminal filmmaker auteurs of the last 50 years, Bernardo Bertolucci was born in the Italian city of Parma. He was the second son of his father, a poet and art historian. Bertolucci began writing at the age of fifteen, and...

 Friday, August 10--------The division between real life and fantasy is not so clear in the newly released comedy 2 DAYS IN PARIS, written and directed by actress (now debut director) Julie Delpy. After years of working in both Hollywood and Paris, Delpy has been given the opportunity to direct her own project, one that draws on her real life confrontation with the French/American divide. That cultural, political and even psychological chasm has only grown in the last decade, as Americans and t...

 Thursday, May 3--------Sometimes a Festival, certainly one that has the scope of the Tribeca Film Festival, comes out with unexpected themes that have not necessarily been planned or anticipated. Such a mini-trend in this year's program are films that are directed by people who are mainly known for their acting work. Following in the footsteps of Robert Redford, Kevin Costner, Mel Gibson, Penny Marshall, Al Pacino, Sydney Pollock, Paul Mazursky and many, many others, actors are finding ...

 Thursday, May 3--------Sometimes a Festival, certainly one that has the scope of the Tribeca Film Festival, comes out with unexpected themes that have not necessarily been planned or anticipated. Such a mini-trend in this year's program are films that are directed by people who are mainly known for their acting work. Following in the footsteps of Robert Redford, Kevin Costner, Mel Gibson, Penny Marshall, Al Pacino, Sydney Pollock, Paul Mazursky and many, many others, actors are finding ...

Tuesday, February 13----Actress-turned-director Julie Delpy's TWO DAYS IN PARIS, which had its world premiere in the Panorama section of the Berlin Film Festival a few days ago, has been purchased for North American rights. The Samuel Goldwyn Company and Netflix's Red Envelope Entertainment have announced the joint acquisition of the film, which they are planning to release in the US and Canada this coming summer. TWO DAYS IN PARIS is a romantic comedy about a French woman photographe...

Saturday, December 16---A retrospective of the career of French director Jacques Rivette has been unspooling at New York's Museum of the Moving Image since mid November. Several of the director's most ambitious and least known film gems are yet to be screened, as the series continues through the month of December. Intrepid film lovers should run, not walk, to this rare and wonderful series of a true cinema original. Rivette was a one-man film revolution. A critic for the influential film mag...

A retrospective of the career of French director Jacques Rivette has been unspooling at New York's Museum of the Moving Image since mid November. Several of the director's most ambitious and least known film gems are yet to be screened, as the series continues through the month of December. Intrepid film lovers should run, not walk, to this rare and wonderful series of a true cinema original. Rivette was a one-man film revolution. A critic for the influential film magazine Cahiers du Cinema, a f...

Oscar-winning actress Meryl Streep has been chosen to receive the prestigious Coolidge Award in Boston on April 5. The annual event, recognizing a selected film artist whose work advances the spirit of original and challenging cinema, was launched in 2004. The first film auteur so honored was Chinese director Zhang Yimou in 2004 (HERO, THE HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS, RAISE THE RED LANTERN).Last year’s honors went to Italian cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, whose long list of cinema masterpieces ...

The Chicago International Documentary Festival (CIDF) will pay tribute to celebrated filmmaker Albert Maysles by awarding him their inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award during the Opening Night Gala on Friday, April 1, 2005 at the Doc Films- Max Palevsky Cinema in Ida Noyes Hall (1212 E. 59th Street). The gala will feature a cocktail reception with live entertainment starting at 6pm, followed by the award presentation and film screening at 8pm. Tickets are $50 per person to attend the receptio...

The 27th Starz Denver International Film Festival (SDIFF27), produced by the Denver Film Society, rolls-out October 14 - 24, 2004. This year’s festival features a focus on German cinema along with a host of new and returning awards and showcases approximately 200 films, including eighteen premieres, including six World, five North American, and seven U.S. premieres. SDIFF27 will host over a hundred actors, directors, and producers as guests and promises to answer the festival’s theme quest...