25th Warsaw International Film Festival
9-18 October 2008
Total audience: 108,000
Cinemas: Multikino (4 rooms), Kinoteka (5 rooms), Kultura (1 room)
Audience Award
- best feature film: two films received exactly the same mark for the first time ever - 4.77. In the feature film category, the joint winners were:
DOM ZŁY / THE DARK HOUSE, dir. Wojciech Smarzowski (Poland)
and WELCOME, dir. Philippe Lioret (France).
In the documentary category, the winner was HASHMATSA / DEFAMATION, dir. Yo...
HAMBURG -- BEN BECKER'S TOUR DE FORCE AS AN EXTRAORDINARY"ORDINARY JEW" by Alex Deleon, September 29, 2005 for <www.filmfestivals.com>"Just an Ordinary Jew" ('Ein Ganz Gewohnlicher Jude') directedby Oliver Hirschbiegel of the Berlin Bunker drama "The Downfall", andstarring Ben Becker in a mesmerizing 89 minute screen monologue, turned outto be the capstone of the Hamburg film festival. Based on a recent bookby Swiss author Charles Lewinsky, ...
Clint Eastwood will receive this year’s Spirit of Independence Award at the 2007 Los Angeles Film Festival. The Spirit of Independence Award will be given to Eastwood at a special event on Thursday, June 28 sponsored by Target. Tony Bennett, who is the focus of a new documentary for which Clint Eastwood serves as executive producer, will present Eastwood with this honor.The Spirit of Independence Award event is an opportunity for emerging filmmakers to hear Eastwood speak about his work, h...
Here on the next to the next-to-last day of the festival, American actor Matt Dillon, is to be awarded a lifetime career CONCHA award (at the relatively tender age of 42) -- in this writer's opinion a very good choice. The other performer award this week went to Swede Max Von Sydow, so Matt can be said to be stepping in the best of company, and no questions about that. Over the years I have watched Dillon's career develop from early "young punk" roles in films like "Rumble Fish" (Coppola,1983) ...
HAMBURG 13 CLOSES WITH CASH PRIZES AND ELECTRIC SHADOWSThe thirteenth installment of the Hamburg Film Festival came to a close on September 29 with an invitational screening of the Chinese film "Electric Shadows" (Dyan-Ying), which is simply a direct translation of the Chinese word for "movies". The film is basically a declaration of love for the medium itself, and female director Xiao Jiang picked up a nice little purse of 10,000 Euros, the Otto Sprenger Prize for best debut film. Sprenger is ...
"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...
