The Sheffield International Documentary Festival is delighted to announce the launch of its UK Tour at the NATIONAL FILM THEATRE from the 2nd – 5th February 2006. Returning for the seventh year, it features the ‘best of the fest’ from the Festival which took place in October 2005. The four day event marks the beginning of a three month UK tour visiting numerous towns and cities including Belfast, Bradford, Bristol, Brixton, Chichester, Derby, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Hammersmith, Hereford, Lee...
14TH PORTLAND JEWISH FILM FESTIVALSAT JAN 14 7 PM WHITSELL AUDITORIUMSUN JAN 15 4 PM GUILD THEATRELIVE AND BECOMEFRANCE/ISRAEL 2005DIRECTOR: RADU MILHAILEANUWinner of (cheering) Audience Awards at the Berlin and Vancouver International Film Festival, LIVE AND BECOME is an epic, emotional story of one boy's chance survival amidst the Ethiopian famine of the mid-1980s. A mother conspires to place her nine-year-old, non-Jewish son with a group of Falashas (Ethiopian Jews) bound for Israel as par...
THE NEW INDIAN "PARALLEL" CINEMAAn Interview with Ruchi NarainYoung Bombay director Ruchi Narain has been a guest of the River to River Festival introducing her debut feature "KAL - Yesterday and Tomorrow", a ground-breaking exercise in style representative of the "Beyond Bollywood" new wave of "parallel" Indian cinema. The film itself, employing mostly unknown new actors, is a kind of contemporary thriller in a rapid-fire multi-media style focussing on the lives of the well-heeled style-consc...
A conversation with Selvaggia VeloFestival Director; ‘River to River’ Florence Indian Film FestivalWendy DentSV: How did it begin? In ’98 I organised an exhibition of Bollywood movie banners. Still Bollywood was not fashion in Europe. And so this was done, and then in ’99 we invited those same painters, artists, to have a live show during the Florentine summer. There are a lot of events during the summer here in Florence, the start of Fiorentina. And so those painters were coming and ...
Florence -- Firenze -- the city of Dante, Michelangelo, Botticelli's Venus ... and also of the first and only film festival in Europe dedicated exclusively to Indian film! Officially called the "RIVER TO RIVER INDIAN FILM FESTIVAL OF FLORENCE, director Selvaggia Velo, explains that this appellation refers to the holy river Ganges in India and the local waterway, the Arno, which flows through this exquisite Tuscan city into the Tyrrhenian Sea near Pisa. So – how did such a festival get started ...
RICHARD PENA ON HIS WORK III Do you think that the continued expansion of film festivals is indication of the growing cinematic interest by the audience?I wish it were that. I don’t know. It is probably an indication of more people looking for ways of having jobs that are more glamorous. I am not sure how much it helps films. The vast majority of the festivals have no impact on the films at all. In the best possible of all worlds it is a nice cultural activity, but they do not really affec...
November 15, 2005
THE 11th annual Kolkata(Calcutta) Film Festival (KFF) is in full swing this week with more than 125,000 people expected to see a total of 138 films at 240 screenings in eight venues.
The festival got off on a high note with the showing of Christophe Barratier’s Les Choristes for the inaugural evening, marking the first time the French box-office hit has been shown in the sub-continent.
The film was shown in the largest of the three halls that make up Nanda...
Record-Breaking attendance of more than 125,000 anticipatedThe 11th annual Kolkata(Calcutta) Film Festival (KFF) is in full swing this week with more than 125,000 people expected to see a total of 138 films at 240 screenings in eight venues.The festival got off on a high note with the showing of Christophe Barratier’s Les Choristes for the inaugural evening, marking the first time the French box-office hit has been shown in the sub-continent.The film was shown in the largest of the three halls...
16TH WASHINGTON JEWISH FILM FESTIVALDecember 1 - 1140 films • 9 countries • 5 venues • 10 daysThe 16th Washington Jewish Film Festival: An Exhibition of International Cinema presents 40 features, documentaries and shorts from 9 countries, in five venues, during the December 1 – 11, ten-day Festival. The Festival is presented by the Washington DCJCC's Morris Cafritz Center for the Arts and co-sponsored by the Embassy of Israel and Washington Jewish Week; and supported in part by a grant ...
This year’s CINECITY, the Brighton Film Festival (17 November – 4 December), presents a season of ten films - nine features and one short, including: Havana Blues the ‘Buena Vista Social Club for the MTV Generation’; the epic 1964 Soviet/Cuban collaboration I am Cuba, and the 2005 Spanish box office smash and Cannes Film Festival winner, Viva Cuba – all of which explore Havana, the capital of Cuba – providing a rare chance to see both new and classic films from the cinema of a revolu...
This is the first of a three part interview for filmfestivals.com by Claus MuellerRichard Peña on his WorkRichard Peña, noted film curator and scholar, is in charge of the New York Film Festival and the programs of the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Since his appointment in 1988, Mr. Peña has enhanced festival standing as the most selective and influential cinema event in North America, and extended the Film Society’s programs to cover in depth year-round retrospectives of influential film...
The First European Feature Film Award for Best Director went to Radu Mihaileanu At the 11th Film Festival Münster which drew to a close yesterday, the Romanian director Radu Mihaileanu won the first European Feature Film Prize for Best Director for his film ‘Va, vis et deviens / Live and Become’. The award is endowed with a prize money of EUR 10,000. According to the verdict of the five-member European jury the prize went to Mihaileanu’s film because of the ‘outstanding way in which the...
The third Zagreb Film Festival, from 17 to 22. October 2005, hosted by the City of Zagreb, presents films by studio or independent filmmakers, is devoted to the exhibition of three-category feature film, short film and documentary film, as well as other aspects of the film and multimedia projects. The premises of this center had a sort of artistic dynamics and beside students, it is primarily intended for other generations as a meeting place for contemplating new creative potentials. Besides the...
THE WORLD’S ONLY MULTICULTURAL LESBIAN/GAY/BISEXUAL/TRANSGENDERPEOPLE OF COLOR FILM FESTIVALTO TAKE PLACE IN LOS ANGELES NOVEMBER 11-13Outfest, one of the world’s largest gay and lesbian film festivals, will present Fusion, the only multicultural gender-inclusive LGBT People of Color Film Festival for the third consecutive year. To be held in Los Angeles November 11-13, 2005, Fusion is a celebration of extraordinary films, music, spoken-word, workshops and panels. Every program of Fusion is...
The Times bfi London Film Festival opens today for the 49th time with "The Constant Gardener", directed by acclaimed City Of God director Fernando Meirelles. The Festival closes on Thursday 3 November with George Clooney's Good Night. And, Good Luck. With up to 20 screenings and special events to choose from every day the festival offers a lot to films fans.Herewith a list of a few key events.The Hollywood Reporter presents: In Sync: The Director/Producer Dynamic20th October 2005 - 18:15, Natio...
For 28 years, Mill Valley Film Festival has been presenting the best in American Independent and International feature films, hard-hitting documentaries, cutting edge video, delightful children’s fare and tributes to celluloid luminaries. This year is no exception. With more than 150 slated films and videos from around the globe, the Mill Valley Film Festival unspools October 6-16.“The 28th Festival is filled with extraordinary independent films from 55 countries around the world as well as ...
This year's Flanders International Film Festival - Ghent is proud to announce David Cronenberg and Viggo Mortensen (History of Violence), François Ozon and Jeanne Moreau (Time To Leave), and Mike Leigh, one of contemporary Britain's most renowned directors, as expected guests. Leigh makes remarkable films, known for their levelheaded, unsensational portrayals of topics that would become four-hankie "message" melodramas in the hands of mainstream directors. This "slice-of-life" realism of Leigh ...
"Just an Ordinary Jew" ('Ein Ganz Gewohnlicher Jude') directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel of the Berlin Bunker drama "The Downfall", and starring Ben Becker in a mesmerizing 89 minute screen monologue, turned out to be the capstone of the Hamburg film festival. Based on a recent book by Swiss author Charles Lewinsky, this heady piece of work adresses itself to the thorny issue of what it means to be a Jew in contemporary Germany. Emanuel Goldfarb, a German journalist of Jewish heritage, but not a...
Dropping in on the Hamburg film festival on the way back from San Sebastian is something like stopping off at a neighbourhood bar for a nightcap after a gala bash at the Waldorf. Which is not to say that Hamburg is not interesting or lacking in films of merit -- just that it's on a much smaller scale (although Hamburg, as a city, is far bigger than San Sebastian) and is geared to the tastes of the local film-buff public, rather than to industry professionals. Films are shown in five venues, mo...
It's fairly unusual at a film festival with umpteen titles to pick from that one selects three names out of a hat, and all three turn out to be not only winners, back to back, but films of quality ranging from excellent to astounding. Today's triple winning ticket: "ZOZO" from Norway by way of Beirut, "Fratricide" Brudermord) -- astounding turf battle between Turks and Kurds in a German city, and "Bashing", a hypnotic Kafkaesque look at life on Desolation Row in a northern Japanese industrial w...
For 28 years, Mill Valley Film Festival has been presenting the best in American Independent and International feature films, hard-hitting documentaries, cutting edge video, delightful children’s fare and tributes to celluloid luminaries. This year is no exception. With more than 150 slated films and videos from around the globe, the Mill Valley Film Festival unspools October 6-16 at the CinéArts @ Sequoia, 25 Throckmorton Avenue in Mill Valley; 142 Throckmorton Theatre, 142 Throckmorton Aven...
London Spanish Film Festival: 23-29 September 2005 at Ciné Lumière This is the only film festival in London dedicated exclusively to cinema from Spain, the festival is a selection of recent Spanish films and this first edition will include several UK premieres and encounters with directors, iconic actress Victoria Abril and one of the most important young actors in Spanish cinema, Eduardo Noriega.The festival will showcase films from well-established directors such as Carlos Saura’s El sépt...
The rehearsals are over. The inaugural edition of the New Montreal Montreal FilmFest is unspooling its first films to eager audiences. And the red carpet has been laid out to welcome its first guests... The opening of a new edition of any film festival is always filled with a mixture of hope, anticipation and anxiety. The launch of a brand new film festival, an event that wasn't even on the drawing board a year ago, quadruples these feelings. It would be dishonest to pretend that the NMFF is a f...
THE 11TH ANNUAL TEMECULA VALLEY INT’L FILM & MUSIC FESTIVAL September 16th and 17th Indie Music Artists from two major music markets coasts – Los Angeles and New York. Two local Rock bands from Murrieta. Two separate Pop artists from different parts of Canada. Two Brandons. There’s even have R&B twins from Chicago. Two is a magic number as this year’s 11th annual Temecula Valley International Film & Music Festival (TVIFF) slated for September 14-22,2005 at the Movie Experience 10 a...
Casanova Directed by Lasse Hallstrom screens today out of competition and will be followed by a lavish paris at the Palazzio Ducale attended by crew and cast: Heath Ledger who plays Casanova, Lena Olin, Jeremy Irons, Oliver Platt...1700s Venice – He was the legendary adventurer whose amorous dalliances would go on to inspire countless lovers throughout the centuries. She was the most virtuoso writer of her time who was waiting to find that rare man with a true understanding of steadfastness a...