LA ARAB FILM FESTIVAL
ASAAD ABDUL MAJEED, THE HITMAN UPSTAIRS
An Iraqi film, Qarantina, shot in Baghdad was by far the most powerful film shown at this years LA Arab Film Festival.
Considering the war torn conditions still going on in Iraq even after the withdrawal of American forces, it is a wonder that somebody has actually been able to conceive and shoot a dramatic feature film there -- in the city of Baghdad no less. The production company was Ger...
11 Narrative Features From Nine Countries Contend for $15,000 New Directors Prize,
12 Documentaries From Nine Countries Contend for $35,000 in Cash Prizes
The 55th San Francisco International Film Festival (April 19 - May 3) today announced the films in competition for the New Directors Prize and the Golden Gate Awards for documentary features. The International will award $70,000 in total prizes this year. The New Directors Prize of $15,000 will be given to a narrative first feature...
The nominations and jury members for the 14th annual Moët British Independent Film Awards were announced today, Monday 31 October at St Martins Lane, London by Helen McCrory.
Joint Directors, The Moët British Independent Film Awards' Johanna von Fischer & Tessa Collinson said: "This year's nominees really highlight the immense wealth of British talent in this country today. We are incredibly proud that the Awards have grown to a level that garners attention worldwide...
Award winning Iraqi film maker Koutaiba Al-Janabi's debut feature film, Leaving Baghdad, about the brutal Saddam Hussein regime, shown through the story of the everyday person, who gets caught up in the turbulances of the country's politics. The film provokes the question of guilt, conscience, collaboration, escape. Universal questions, that were asked in connection with Nazi Germany, with the communist regimes, with ...
film still from RAW MATERIAL (Greece, 2011)
13th TDF: Press conference (Shooting vs. shooting / Raw material) (3/19/2011)
PRESS CONFERENCE
SHOOTING VS. SHOOTING / RAW MATERIAL
Nikos Megrelis (Shooting vs. Shooting) and Christos Karakepelis (Raw Material) gave a press conference in the framework of the 13th TDF on Saturday, March 19. Their films participate in the international section.
Nikos Megrelis, a journalist in his debut film, highlighted the importance of team w...
by Alex Deleon
With some 400 films to choose from one might say
that everybody sees a different festival over a ten day period. Of the official
competition films two were early walkouts. Ralph Fiennes' "Coriolanus"
and the Bela Tarr entry "A Torinoi Lo" (The Turin Horse) --
arguably the most bleak, depressing , and boring film ever made. It's all
about two miserable people livinng in a miserable life in a miserable hut
somewhere in the middle of nowhere and tr...
photo still of 'Tropa d'Elite 2' with actor Wagner Moura
-BERLINALE PRESS-
Panorama Special and Panorama Dokumente
The first is Brazilian filmmaker José Padilha's Tropa de Elite 2, which does not just take up his Golden Bear-winning film from 2008 again, but also shifts the perspective. A human rights activist in Brazil is elected district representative, yet he is the antithesis of the militia, police
and, above all, the political system. The second openin...
Sundance Institute announced members of five juries awarding prizes at the upcoming Sundance Film Festival which runs January 20-30, 2011. The juries are comprised of 23 individuals spanning the global arts community. Juror photos and extended biographies, in addition to the complete Festival lineup and schedule, are available at www.sundance.org/festival.
All awards will be announced the evening of January 29 at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival Awards Ceremony. The Short Film Awards will als...
Films that feature well known figures from history are always intriguing, whether they reflect actual fact or are mere figments of the director's feverish imagination. In the delightfully dishy MAHLER ON THE COUCH, the filmmaking team of Percy Adlon (pere) and Felix Adlon (fils) have made a delicious historical "did-it-ever-happen" that features such historical characters as the classical composer Gustav Mahler, the psychotherapist Sigmund Freud and the Bauhaus design foun...
Films that feature well known figures from history are always intriguing, whether they reflect actual fact or are mere figments of the director's feverish imagination. In the delightfully dishy MAHLER ON THE COUCH, the filmmaking team of Percy Adlon (pere) and Felix Adlon (fils) have made a delicious historical "did-it-ever-happen" that features such historical characters as the classical composer Gustav Mahler, the psychotherapist Sigmund Freud and the Bauhaus design founder Walter Gropius (wi...
............. WELCOME TO OUR NEWSLETTER N° 489: December 18, 2010 Follow this LINK if you cannot read the newsletter properly Contact the Editor, Advertise with us This newsletter reaches 83 000 film professionnals...
Screening on Wednesday, Dec. 15 at 10 pm at Cinestar 9, Mall of the Emirates (MoE), is director Shuchen Tan’s ‘Baghdad Film School.’ The film is about Iraqi born filmmakers Maysoon Pachachi and Kasim Abid who developed the challenging idea to open up the first independent film school in Iraq. With a car loaded with video equipment, they undertook their dangerous journey from Amman to Baghdad and in March 2004 they opened up the doors of their school. Their mission was to give a voice to ...
51st TIFF: Mohamed Al-Daradji press conference (12/9/2010) MOHAMED AL-DARADJI PRESS CONFERENCE Mohamed Al-Daradji, a member of the International Jury, as well as a guest of honour of the 51st Thessaloniki International Film Festival, gave a press conference on Thursday, December 9th. The Thessaloniki International Film Festival Director, Mr. Dimitris Eipides welcomed the awarded director. “The greatest satisfaction one can receive from holdi...
On December 08, 2010, The Son of Babylon screened for a packed Olympia Theater in Thessaloniki. The majority stayed for a fascinating Q and A with visionary director Mohamed Al-Daradji
"Mohamed Al-Daradji, born in 1978 in Iraq, was recently awarded the title
of Middle East Filmmaker of the Year by Variety, a prestigious moniker
befitting the industrious and prolific director, producer and c
Director: Mehdi Nadi Najaf Abadi.
"Daniel Dalka", after losing in a boxing game, just only for 50 thousand dollars; kills one of the persons who wagers. And for escaping the mafia nowhere is safer than the US army. But in this time the first balls of war are shot in Iraq, meanwhile "Saleh" is ready for his wedding party.
Mohamed Al-Daradji's SON OF BABYLON (NPP Project 2008) has been chosen as the official closing film of the 30th Netherlands Film Festival. The Dutch/English/Iraqi coproduction tells the story of a boy who, together with his grandmother, goes to search for his father who has never returned from the war. The presentation on 30 September within Utrecht's Cinema Rembrandt will mark the film's Dutch Premiere. SON OF BABYLONMohamed Al-Daradji's SON OF BABYLON (NPP Project 2008) has been chosen as ...
On Monday, 31st May, begins the 50th Krakow Film Festival. The jubilee edition will last until Sunday, 6th June. These seven days will be filled to the brim with film screenings, concerts and exhibitions.
The festival revolves around three competitions. The winners will receive statuettes and prizes in money. The pool of prizes comes to as much as 250 000 PLN. In the international Documentary Competition the films compete for the Golden Horn, in the international Short Film C...
In Competition
Fair Game by Doug Liman
8.30 13.45 19.30
Route Irish by Ken Loach
16.30
Synopsis
Liverpool, August 1976. 5-year-old Fergus met Frankie on his first day at school. They’ve been in each others’ shadow ever since. As teenagers they skipped school and
drank cider on the ferry over the River Mersey, dreaming about travelling the world. Little did Fergus realise his dream would come true as a highly trained member of the UK’s elite spec...
Synopsis:
Liverpool, August 1976. 5-year-old Fergus met Frankie on his first day at school. They’ve been in each others’ shadow ever since. As teenagers they skipped school and
drank cider on the ferry over the River Mersey, dreaming about travelling the world. Little did Fergus realise his dream would come true as a highly trained member of the UK’s elite special forces, the SAS.
After resigning in September 2004, Fergus persuaded Frankie (by now an ex-Para) to join his securit...
In a first for the Berlinale, a film from Iraq had its world premiere last evening in the Panorama section. SON OF BABYLON, co-written and directed by Mohamed Al-Daradji, is a stirring drama about coming to terms with tragedy and moving forward despite the burden of personal loss. Filmed in stark poetic set pieces, the film follows the journey of a Kurdish grandmother and her precocious grandson as they travel (mostly on foot) to discover the fate of the boy's father, who has been miss...
Summer is coming to Tallinn next week.....well not exactly the balmy weather of July and August, but a film that brings with it the sultriness of that special season. The American indie hit (500) DAYS OF SUMMER opens the 13th edition of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, the biggest film festival event in Eastern Europe, on November 26. The festival, which will unspool nearly 250 films in Estonia's capital city, is a true feast for adventurous cinema lovers. One of the big American indie hi...
Summer is coming to Tallinn next week.....well not exactly the balmy weather of July and August, but a film that brings with it the sultriness of that special season. The American indie hit (500) DAYS OF SUMMER opens the 13th edition of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, the biggest film festival event in Eastern Europe, on November 26. The festival, which will unspool nearly 250 films in Estonia's capital city, is a true feast for adventurous cinema lovers.
One of the bi...
1982
* Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic - Circle of Power
1985
* Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic - Blood Simple
* Grand Jury Prize: Documentary - Seventeen
* Special Jury Prize: Dramatic - Almost You
* Special Jury Prize: Dramatic - The Killing Floor
* Special Jury Prize: Dramatic - Stranger Than Paradise
* Special Jury Prize: Documentary - America and Lewis Hine
* Special Jury Prize: Documentary - In Heaven There Is No Beer?
...
NEW
Sophia was just cast as a "Godess' in the new feature film
'Falcyyr' of Unicovia Pictures
Sophia started out in dance, community theatre and playing piano since she was five years old.
Sophie's first introduction to film was in
”Santa Claus in Baghdad” RA Visions Productions"
as an extra and was hooked. She then participated as an extra in
”Soul Sister”OracleVoice Films" .
She started taking acting classes and loved it with a passion that would contin...
Feature Film Awards 2009Best Picture Aspettando Il Sole/Waiting for the Sun (Italy)Best Director Aspettando Il Sole/Waiting for the Sun ~ Ago Panini (Italy)Best Script Baghdad Texas ~ Shaneye Ferrell, David H. Hickey, Al No'mani (USA)Best Actor The Vicious Kind ~ Adam Scott (USA)Best Actress Der Mond und Andere Liebhaber/The Moon and Other Lovers ~ Katharina Thalbach (Germany, Turkey/Germany)Best Supporting Actor Boppin' At The Glue Factory ~ Conrad Roberts (USA)Best Supporting Actress Anywhere,...
