By Maria Esteves – January 26, 2011 The 83rd Academy Award Nominations were announced by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) President Tom Sherak and 2009 Academy Award winner for supporting actress Mo'Nique in "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire," on Tuesday, January 25, 2011. The King's Speech, directed by Tom Hooper received twelve Oscar nominations including best picture, best director, best actor, and best supporting actor. True Grit, directed...

By Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles CorrespondentToday the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences announced this year's Oscar(r) nominations. With few surprises, Colin Firth's festival run in THE KING'S SPEECH, written by David Seidler, is poised to take most of the honors with a record-vying 12 nominations. Fourteen (14) is the record for Oscar noms (i.e.; TITANIC), but if this picture wins in every nominated category, cinema history will be made.Oscar 2011: Expect Natalie Portman & Colin Fir...

2010 PLUS CAMERIMAGE FESTIVAL PRIZEWINNERS OF FESTIVAL COMPETITIONS MUSIC VIDEOS COMPETITION: Best Music Video: Kora, “Zabawa w chowanego" (Game of Hide-and-Seek) - Cinematographer Marek Sanak; Director Bartłomiej Ignaciuk For the Best Video, the jury felt almost unanimously, that Kora Jackowska's video for "Zabawa W Chowanego" did an excellent job of visually contributing to communicating an important socially relevant mess...

Film Independent, the non-profit arts organization that produces the Spirit Awards and the Los Angeles Film Festival, announced nominations this morning for the 2011 Film Independent Spirit Awards.  Eva Mendes and Jeremy Renner served as presenters and 2011 Spirit Awards host Joel McHale was also on hand.  Nominees for Best Feature include 127 Hours, Black Swan, Greenberg, The Kids Are All Right and Winter's Bone. Please Give was selected for the Robert Altman Award, which is given...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced that 15 films in the Documentary Feature category will advance in the voting process for the 83rd Academy Awards®. One hundred-one pictures had originally qualified in the category. The 15 films are listed below in alphabetical order by title, with their production company:• “Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer,” Alex Gibney, director (ES Productions LLC)• “Enemies of the People,” Rob Lemkin and Thet Sambath, d...

PLUS CAMERIMAGE PRESENTS DOCUMENTARY FILMS COMPETITION Documentary Films Competition "Image of the World - World in Images" is organized in collaboration with     For this year’s Documentary Films Competition, held within the Documentary Films Section of 'Image of the World - World in Images' under the patronage of Discovery Networks Central Europe, the entries were accepted for two separate categories: feature-lenght and ...

In its 21st edition the festival organized by Human Rights Watch and the Film Society of Lincoln Center presented from June 10-24 thirty films from 25 countries with 28 New York Premieres. The Human Rights Watch organization is an international group with offices in 18 countries publishing well received investigative reports about human rights violations which are taken seriously by policy makers. It is no wonder that the film festival is also shaped by the expectation that it has an impact...

After the intense (and enjoyable) experience of sitting through at least 15 documentary feature films over 4 days at the just concluded AFI-Discovery Channel Documentary Festival, the question organically arose: do documentaries really matter? As someone who trained in documentary filmmaking techniques (and who made a few, best to be forgotten non-fiction nothings) and an admirer of the stamina, grit and determination of the documentary filmmaker, my answer appeared more hopeful than det...

  It is one of the defining news stories of the Iraq/Afghanistan wars….when all-star football player Pat Tillman walked away from a multi-million dollar contact with the Arizona Cardinals in May 2002 to join the Army, he became an instant symbol of patriotic fervor following the events of 9-11. However, when his promising future ended in unexpected and unnecessary tragedy, the Tillman family refused to accept the “official” story being offered by the military and polit...

  The Edinburgh International Film Festival today announced the winners in the six competition categories for feature films at an Awards Ceremony prior to the Closing Gala of the world premiere of THIRD STAR. The awards were presented by EIFF Artistic Director Hannah McGill and Patrons Tilda Swinton and Seamus McGarvey on the penultimate day of the Festival at Cineworld. This year's winners are:   The Michael Powell Award for Best New British Feature Film, sponsored by t...

  While it is undeniably fun (and instructive) to view the completed films at this year's SILVERDOCS, much of the meat of the 7 day program is in its annual professional conference. Held parallel to the film screenings at the AFI Silver Theater and other venues, the concurrent International Documentary Conference is a must for professionals in the non-fiction field. The Conference brings together leading filmmakers, educators, broadcasters, business leaders, distributors, private a...

"Restrepo": Interview with Sebastian Junger, Tim Hetherington, and Rachel Reid.Winner: Grand Jury Prize: Documentary at The Sundance Film Festival 2010.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rm5kfdT5E4U...

The nation's largest film festival concludes today with record-breaking box office numbers, the announcement of the Jury and Audience Award Winners, and the Closing Night Gala featuring Get Low.The 36th Seattle International Film Festival concludes a record-breaking year today, in spite of the downturn in summer movie-going nationwide, with the announcement of juried SIFF 2010 Competition Awards and Golden Space Needle Audience Awards, bringing to a close the largest and most highly attended fil...

Last July, the nonprofit group Human Rights Watch put out a hefty report drawn from its prior two decades of watching dogs in some 20 countries. Called Selling Justice Short, the dossier showed why accountability was a good thing for peace and, if nothing else, could help heal victims by acknowledging their anguish. I didn't read it – nor likely did you – but the Human Rights Watch Film Festival supplies some visual Cliff's Notes. This year it gives witness to human rights violations ...

Thirty-four films were awarded prizes in 29 categories, honoring both veteran and first-time filmmakers from the U.S. to Spain, Cambodia, and beyond. First-year Festival Director John Cooper had branded the 2010 Festival a reboot, calling for a return to the Festival's rebellious roots, and the diversity of tonight's winners would seem to move toward satisfying that mission and complicate received notions of the homogenous "Sundance film." As he did throughout the week, Cooper broug...

.............WELCOME TO OUR NEWSLETTER N° 450: January 27, 2010 Follow this LINK if you cannot read the newsletter properly Contact the Editor, Advertise on the sites. Our newsletter reaches 77 000 film professionnals every week. COMING SOON THE NEXT FESTIVAL DAILIES ON FEST21.COM We follow 4 000 festivals for you. Stay tuned for Sundance, Berlin.... ___________________________________________________...

by Marla Lewin Marla Lewin co-producer Life After War photo by Jimmy Malecki                           Back in 2002 we were in Park City at Sundance with Doug Pray of Scratch. It was four months after 9/11, and we had heard about what was going on in Afghanistan the previous night over dinner. At lunch the next day with Doug we began discussions about p...