Monday, April 17-----One of the best attended sidebars of the Sarasota Film Festival is its Emerging Jewish Voices program, featuring a diverse group of Jewish-themed films that provide a contemplative and suggestive look at the re-examination of Jewish history and a sense of what is important to contemporary Jewish culture.   The Jewish community is particularly mindful of keeping its history, both tragic and transecendent, alive in the hearts and minds of its members. This sentiment reaches...

The Sarasota Film Festival, which began its 9th edition last night, will salute Academy Award nominated actor Edward Norton and writer/producer Brian Koppelman (who recently teamed as actor and producer of the critically acclaimed THE ILLUSIONIST) at The Reel Experience at The Lake Club Gala this evening. Mr. Norton will be honored with the Festival’s Humanitarian Award, with Koppelman receiving an Excellence in Screenwriting honor for his work (which includes the upcoming OCEAN'S THIRTEEN,...

 Saturday, April 14----The Sarasota Film Festival, which began its 9th edition last night, will salute Academy Award nominated actor Edward Norton and writer/producer Brian Koppelman (who recently teamed as actor and producer of the critically acclaimed THE ILLUSIONIST) at The Reel Experience at The Lake Club Gala this evening.   Mr. Norton will be honored with the Festival’s Humanitarian Award, with Koppelman receiving an Excellence in Screenwriting honor for his work (which includes...

by Alex Deleon, for <www.filmfestivals.com> March 20, 2007 After the opening weekend at the expansive Cinerama theater downtown the Festival has now moved over to more modest quarters in the auditorium of the Seattle Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI) on the edge of the University of Washington campus. The museum  lobby is quite interesting itself with an exhibit of old Seattle photos currently on display featuring celebrity visitors to Seattle in the good old days. Among them, ...

After the opening weekend at the expansive Cinerama Theater downtown the Festival has now moved over to more modest quarters in the auditorium of the Seattle Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI) on the edge of the University of Washington campus. The museum lobby is quite interesting itself with an exhibit of old Seattle photos currently on display featuring celebrity visitors to Seattle in the good old days. Among them, a very young Marlon Brando, shown fishing with a local native American,...

New York Arab & South Asian Film Festival 2007, 2/23 – 3/4There is a constant creation of new film festivals defined by regional, thematic, distribution (such as video ipods), or other parameters, propelled by a large supply of production and an ever increasing number of new film makers. This phenomenon is caused by expansion of film schools, access to low cost production equipment, and last not least public and corporate funding for film festivals. By now it is hard to ascertain how many fes...

The Jewish Community Center and the Museum of Fine Arts are teaming up for a third year to bring a series of thirteen new Jewish films to Houston over the next ten days. The festival include documentaries, dramas, and comedies that exhibit the variety and complexity of Jewish life.Tonight the festival begins at 8pm with From Shtetl to Swing. Written and directed by Fabienne Rousso-Lenoir, it tells the story of the cross-pollination of Jewish and African-American musical influences, two tradition...

Tonight, February 25, the world will watch in baited breath to see if one of their cinematic favorites walks away with the industry's highest honor – the Oscar. Every year presents its fair share of surprises, triumphs, heartaches and snubs. What makes this Academy Award ceremony particularly exciting is the monumental year of quality films that it represents. 2006 was a sensational year at the movies, highlighted by an unprecedented number of fine roles for women. With so much great work...

On Sunday, February 25, the world will watch in baited breath to see if one of their cinematic favorites walks away with the industry's highest honor – the Oscar.  Every year presents its fair share of surprises, triumphs, heartaches and snubs.  What makes this Academy Award ceremony particularly exciting is the monumental year of quality films that it represents.   2006 was a sensational year at the movies, highlighted by an unprecedented number of fine roles for women.  With so much...

Monday, February 5----While the Berlin Film Festival, which opens on Thursday evening, is certainly an international affair, it has traditionally been one of the important showcases for new European cinema. With a French film opening the prestigious Berlinale Competition section (LA VIE EN ROSE by Olivier Dahan) and top-flight French and UK films included this year (see earlier stories), the rest of Europe gets equal billing as the Festival presents mainly world premieres from some of Europe's ...

Film festivals come in various shapes, sizes, formats and orientations. The currently ongoing 22nd installment of the Santa Barbara Film Festival is a bit off-beat in certain aspects. Lasting eleven days and presenting some 200 films it is certainly not small -- more like "medium to large." In terms of importance, however, while it is not considered to be quite in the same class as the North-American majors, Sundance, Telluride, Chicago, New York, Toronto and Montreal, it can nevertheless ce...

During the IFFR 2007 Awards Ceremony on Friday, February 2, 2007 in Concert and Congress Centre ‘de Doelen’ in Rotterdam, the winning films of the 36th International Film Festival Rotterdam were announced. The three VPRO Tiger Awards were granted to the Hubert Bals Fund supported Love Conquers All by Tan Chui Mui (Malaysia), The Unpolished (Die Unerzogenen) by Pia Marais (Germany) and, ex aequo, to Bog of Beasts (Baixio das bestas) by Claudio Assis (Brazil) and AFR by Morten Hartz Kaplers (D...

Tom Tykwer and Kees Kasander explore virtual worlds These days, no other stories do as well in the cinemas as stories set in fantastical worlds or that take audiences on a journey into the past. Elaborate adventure-fantasy films like The Lord of the Rings and Eragon and opulent historical epic dramas like Perfume: The Story of a Murderer and Kingdom of Heaven are among the biggest box-office winners. A similar development can be observed in the gaming world. Here, online role-playing games are...

Wednesday, January 24-----Jared Leto is the thinking man's Orlando Bloom. Possessed of a handsome face, a lithe body, piercingly deep eyes and an infectious smile, Leto is one of the few in Young Hollywood who shows no vanity in his screen performances. This is more than evidenced in his starring role as the chubby and erratic Mark David Chapman, the young man who, on a cold December night in 1980 in New York City, pointed his gun at music legend John Lennon and robbed the world of a man know...

THE ELITE: In a career teeming with brilliant work, these are Al Pacino's greatest films. The Godfather: This is where the legacy begins, both of the greatest one-two punch in film history and Pacino's stellar career. Pacino first plays the highly moral idealist Michael sheepishly, until he subtly morphs into a cold-blooded gangster right before your eyes. It is the most amazing transformation ever portrayed in the cinema; made all the more powerful because you barely register it happening. A+ ...

The 15th annual Portland Jewish Film FestivalThis year's films, while they express specific Jewish experiences, resonate beyond their cultural inspiration and speak to ideas, experiences and issues that confront our common humanity. We invite you to explore, discover and acknowledge as we do the generosity of our individual program sponsors and patrons, whose ongoing investments make the Festival possible.JAN 18 THUR 7 PMFAMILY LAWARGENTINA 2005DIRECTOR: DANIEL BURMANBurman's warm dramatic come...

Tuesday, December 12---UNITED 93, the harrowing re-enactment of the last hours on one of the doomed planes hijacked on September 11, 2001, has received the nod as Best Picture of the Year, from the New York Critics Circle, considered the most prestigious and influential of all the national film critics associations. The win by UNITED 93, which was echoed last week by the Washington DC Film Critics Association, catapults the docudrama into prime position for multiple Golden Globe and Oscar nomi...

Tuesday, December 12---UNITED 93, the harrowing re-enactment of the last hours on one of the doomed planes hijacked on September 11, 2001, has received the nod as Best Picture of the Year, from the New York Critics Circle, considered the most prestigious and influential of all the national film critics associations. The win by UNITED 93, which was echoed last week by the Washington DC Film Critics Association, catapults the docudrama into prime position for multiple Golden Globe and Oscar nomi...

UNITED 93, the harrowing re-enactment of the last hours on one of the doomed planes hijacked on September 11, 2001, has received the nod as Best Picture of the Year, from the New York Critics Circle, considered the most prestigious and influential of all the national film critics associations. The win by UNITED 93, which was echoed last week by the Washington DC Film Critics Association, catapults the docudrama into prime position for multiple Golden Globe and Oscar nominations. The film, direct...

The New York International Independent Film and Video Festival (NYIIFVF) proudly announces Star Circle Pictures (SCP) has won the award for BEST SUSPENSE SHORT for the N.Y. premiere of “SAMARITAN” at its 2006 festival.NYIIFVF is passionate about exposing films and documentaries of emerging filmmakers from all over the globe,” says NYIIFV Festival Executive Director and Founder Stuart Alson. “Star Circle Pictures had demonstrated it’s skill with new technologies, being the first in the ...