Frank Benitez is young and talented filmmaker, who made it to ÉCU 2012 Official Selection with his film “Minute 200″. This interview was finished couple of weeks before the festival. By Alexander Acosta Osorio Q: Where does the inspiration for your short come from? A: Usually my inspiration comes from places I visit or just an image that sticks in my memory. In this case it was that of a house in my hometown, a dilapidated house that had a sign on the facade whic...

An Argentine Istanbul writer… Memories of a lovelorn man, walking around Buenos Aires after a break up, unites with memories of world and cinema history. Poems praising the night are the music of the film. Screened within the “Challenging the Years” section of the Festival, Nocturnos addresses the audience on the point where literature and cinema come together. It is just like a sweet dream that leaves a short and temporary taste behind. Istanbul streets continue to inspire Edgardo...

  Martin Scorsese wins The American Riviera Award at the 27th Santa Barbara Film Festival.. “We have to keep this wonderful life-sustaining conversation going with cinema”.   On the night of January 30, 2012, the legendary director Martin Scorsese, whose latest film HUGO (2012) is nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture, was awarded The American Riviera Award at the 27th Santa Barbara Film Festival (SBIFF) by celebrated actor Ben Kingsley. Before receiving the award, M...

  Martin Scorsese wins The American Riviera Award at the 27th Santa Barbara Film Festival.. “We have to keep this wonderful life-sustaining conversation going with cinema”.   On the night of January 30, 2012, the legendary director Martin Scorsese, whose latest film HUGO (2012) is nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture, was awarded The American Riviera Award at the 27th Santa Barbara Film Festival (SBIFF) by celebrated actor Ben Kingsley. Before receiving the award, M...

DRIVE (2011) held its North American premier this week at 2011 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). Below is the press conference for the film in competition DRIVE (2011) at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. On panel were: Director Nicolas Winding Refn, Actor Ryan Gosling, Writer Hossein Amini, Editor Mat Newman, Producer Marc Platt and Producer Adam Siegel.Nicolas Winding Refn is a former student of Von Trier so naturally, there was a thick tension in the DRIVE pressroom with ever...

This was a very endearing press conference, especially in light of Lars Von Trier’s press conference two days prior for MELANCHOLY (2011) that still had everyone’s head spinning in Cannes. Von Trier’s comments on his Nazi sympathies as well as his protested desire to return to Denmark and focus only on soft and hardcore porn had everyone at Cannes thinking twice about Danish cinema and its praiseworthy art-house directors. Nicolas Winding Refn is a former student of Von Trier so naturally,...

This was a very endearing press conference, especially in light of Lars Von Trier’s press conference two days prior for MELANCHOLY (2011) that still had everyone’s head spinning in Cannes. Von Trier’s comments on his Nazi sympathies as well as his protested desire to return to Denmark and focus only on soft and hardcore porn had everyone at Cannes thinking twice about Danish cinema and its praiseworthy art-house directors. Nicolas Winding Refn is a former student of Von Trier...

The Bang Bang Club is the true story about four, free spirited combat photographers with a passion for danger and search for the truth during the uprisings in apartheid South Africa from Nelson Mandela’s release from serving a life sentence in prison on February 11, 1990, to the first democratic election in 1994, in which he became President until 1999. Follow these fearless young men as they demonstrate bravery, camaraderie, and moral turpitude, in the heart of the apartheid riots and “tr...

Canadian director Dan Clements whose recent submission to ÉCU 2010's Non-European Dramatic Short film category is entitled ”Patient” talks to us about blind dates, false teeth and his motivations as a filmmaker. By Mairi Cunningham Q: First off, the ambiguous and unsettling opening was amazing. First time round, I was fooled into thinking it was going to be a very awkward blind date that was about to be acted out, not a hostage negotiation! T...

The Oscar winner Charlie Kaufman we’ve met on Sarajevo Film Festival in a very relaxing discussion when Kaufman spoke about the frequent presence of Darwin’s theory of evolution in his screenplays.“Synecdoche, New York” film shown on Sarajevo Film Festival, was actually so very anticipated directorial debut done by Charlie Kaufman, the unusual writer who stands behind “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”, “Adaptation” and “Being John Malkovich”.  His scripts examine the n...

Interview with David Sington  Let me begin with your film, The Shadow of the Moon. The film deals with an important event not just in the American, but also world history. You managed to gather together the surviving crew of the Apollo missions and also showed  previously unseen NASA footage. You are also a self-taught filmmaker… All that means is that I didn’t go to film school. When we went to Sundance, I had to fill in this questionnaire ‘Where did you learn filmmaking?’ Well, ...