INTERNATIONAL VOICES CELEBRATED AS ASPEN SHORTSFEST 2005 ANNOUNCES COMPETITION WINNERS An Iraqi boatman, a precocious seven-year old smoker, and a sleepy head were among the winners of the 14th annual Aspen Shortsfest 2005 international short film and video competition when the awards were announced Sunday, April 10. In prefacing the jury?s decisions, jury member Alexander Payne (Sideways) said: "It's unfair to judge a festival this good. It was a constant Sophie's Choice. We were only unanimous...
Danny Boyle’s ‘Millions’ to open The 4th RAINDANCE EAST FILM FESTIVALEast London, April 21 -28, 2005The 4th annual Raindance East Film Festival today announces that the new film from acclaimed Trainspotting director Danny Boyle will open the festival on April 21 at the Genesis Mile End cinema. The hotly anticipated Millions is the story of two young boys who come across the loot from a bank robbery but need to spend it within a week before the UK converts to the Euro.East End resident Dan...
Emir Kusturica will be President of the Jury for the 58th Festival de Cannes which takes place from May 11th to 22nd 2005.When selected for the first time at Cannes in 1985, he won the Palme d'Or for When Father was Away on Business. He returned in 1989 with Time of the Gypsies, and was awarded the Director's Prize. In 1995, Underground saw him join the very select group of directors who have twice been awarded the Palme d'Or. After the success of Life is a Miracle in 2004, Emir Kusturica accept...
VICTORIA INDEPENDENT FILM & VIDEO FESTIVAL Film Festival Wraps with Record NumbersThe 11th annual Victoria Independent Film & Video Festival wrapped this year’s fete with unprecedented success.The interest from filmmakers around the world exceeded previous years with1086 entries coming through the doors. This increased profile allowed for further expansion of programming and enabled the Festival to bring many more talented filmmakers to the attention of local audiences and the media. The Fest...
SUPER SIZE ME the hit documentary by Morgan Spurlock is on it’s way to the Academy Awards with a Happy Meal Buzz. The box office delight from talented debut filmmaker Spurlock is nominated for Best Feature Documentary. This film captured the “Fast Food Generation” as Spurlock took his work on a serious path of self-destruction as a filmmaker. His goal was to eat only from the fast food chain food for a month. As a celebration to this highly regarded nomination a party will take place on O...
Honorary Golden Bears for Im Kwon-Taek and Fernando Fernán GómezThe 55th Berlin International Film Festival will this year honour the Korean filmmaker Im Kwon-Taek, and the Spanish actor, director and screenwriter Fernando Fernán Gómez with Honorary Golden Bears for their lifetime achievements. Im Kwon-Taek will be awarded the Honorary Golden Bear on February 12, 2005 at 9:30 PM in the Filmpalast. Following the award ceremony, Im Kwon-Taek’s impressive film Chunhyang dyeon (Chunhyang, 200...
The 20th Annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival has announced the winners of the 2005 festival competition, as well as next year’s festival dates, February 3-12, 2006.Winners were selected by the following jury members:American Independent Jury: Joe Dante (director, “The Howling” and “Gremlins”), Clark Peterson (producer, “Monster”) and actor Perry Lang (“The Big Red One” and “Eight Men Out”).Spanish and Latin American Film Jury: Cynthia Hargrave (former Music Ex...
LEO!!! LEO!!! LEONARDO!!!Gorgeous adolescents screaming, spilling into the street behind the crush.Five rows of Paparazzi outside and inside.Director Martin Scorsese, DiCaprio’s hero-idol-favorite leader, waiting in the wings to present the festival’s highest award to the Oscar nominee for Scorsese's "The Aviator." Roger Durling at the helm of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival has done it again. Just one year later and the SBIFF delivered another homerun festival opening weeken...
With most of the United States in the grip of a devastatingly cold winter, more than a few eyes (and hearts) turn to Florida, the sunshine state, which is having an intensely active “high season”. As much as the sun and the beach are major attractions, this is also the kick-off to the Florida film festival season.Two of Florida’s most interesting film events are happening this week. The Sarasota Film Festival, now in its seventh year, opened this past weekend, with an ambitious slate of pr...
The 11th annual Victoria Independent Film & Video is set to open this week with the anticipated film JIMMYWORKS by Canadian filmmaker Simon Sauve’With submission reaching a record high of over a 1,000 for this years Festival, the programming is sure to be dynamic and well received by the film going audience of Victoria. Known for an ever growing and well-directed festival Victoria is a growing support to filmmakers as they prepare the next decade for VIFVF 2005. From February 4th to the 13th...
55th Berlin International Film FestivalBerlin - Official Selection Opening Night - In Competition MAN TO MAN -(FRANCE-UK)by RÉGIS WARGNIER (Indochine, Est-Ouest)CAST ATTENDING BERLIN: JOSEPH FIENNES (Luther, Shakespeare in Love), KRISTIN SCOTT-THOMAS (Four Weddings and a Funeral, The English Patient), IAIN GLEN (Gorillas in the Mist), HUGH BONNEVILLE (Notting Hill), LOMAMA BOSEKI, CÉCILE BAYIHA 1870. Young Scottish doctor Jamie Dodd and adventuress Elena van den Ende journey into the dark hea...
SWISSAM ‘04 - Swiss American Film Festival, New YorkThe second edition of the SWISSAM screened from November 5th through 11th fifty five productions at the Quad Cinemas, the Anthology Film Archives, and the Tribeca Cinema. As the German Swiss would say ‘small but superb’ (klein aber oho). Switzerland has made significant contributions to international film making, initially through films by Alain Tanner, Claude Coretta or Michael Spoutter but also equally important through exporting he...
The New York Film Festival, running through October 17, is in full swing, with enthusiastic audiences selling out nearly every film showing and film critics praising the films on offer. New York is in its prime at this time of the year: beautiful sunny weather, a Fall chill in the air, the turning of the leaves in nearby Central Park, and everywhere you go, chit chat about the Festival and the new films of the season. With such celebrated filmmakers as Mike Leigh and Pedro Almodovar in town, the...
THE DOWNFALL represents Germany in the race for the OSCARThe independent expert jury, which was appointed by GERMAN FILMS to selection the German entry to compete for the OSCAR for the best Foreign Language Film, has chosen THE DOWNFALL by Oliver Hirschbiegel. The jury on its decision: with the film The Downfall Oliver Hirschbiegel and Bernd Eichinger succeed in achieving the haunting and demystifying cineamtic realisation of the last days of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich." The production by...
DEALS, DEALS AND MORE DEALSAs the Toronto Film Festival enters its final weekend, distribution deals for the coveted North American market have been secured on a number of key film titles.Focus Features, the specialty distribution division of Universal Pictures, secured North American, Scandinavian and Australian rights for the UK film My Summer of Love, directed by Pawel Pawlikowski. The film, which screened in Toronto in the Contemporary World Cinema section, tells the story of a summer encoun...
HIGHLIGHTS FREE OUTDOOR SCREENINGS PROGRAM AT MONTRÉAL WORLD FILM FESTIVALSA cornucopia of acclaimed movies from Canada and around the globe will be screened free-of-charge nightly during the 12-day run of the 28th Montréal World Film Festival, August 26 – September 6.The Cinema Under The Stars program, presented by Loto-Québec in association with the MWFF, will feature two hit films each night starting at 8:30 pm on the Esplanade of Place des Arts, Sainte-Catherine at Jeanne Mance. Only on...
GABI RECIPIENT RETROSPECTIVE: RITA MORENO (Retrospectiva Premio Gabi: Rita Moreno)Each year the Festival honors an artist’s career and contribution to cinema with the “Gabi”, Gabriel Figueroa Lifetime Achievement Award. This award is the heart and soul of the Festival and has been bestowed in the past to Raúl Julia, Carlos Saura, María Félix, Anthony Quinn, Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Federico Luppi and of course, Gabriel Figueroa. This year, in its eight edition, LOS ANGELES LATINO INTE...
AT KARLOVY VARY, THE FILM FESTIVAL COTTBUS PRESENTS ITS FOCUS 2004:„NEW CZECH CINEMA: THE VELVET GENERATION“At the 39th International Film Festival in Karlovy Vary, the Film Festival Cottbus will be making its traditional presentation in the section „East of the West“, this year showing the film LITTLE MEN by Nariman Turebaev (France/Kazakhstan 2003). The film experienced its German premiere at last year’s festival in Cottbus.In addition, the Cottbus Festival - along with its media par...
FRAGILE by Sikander Goldau nominated for Honorary Foreign Film Student OscarAcademy AwardAMPAS (Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) has selected five films from 39 entries coming from 23 countries. The winner of the Honorary Foreign Film Student Oscar Academy Award automatically qualifies for participation in the OSCAR competition for the best short film. The short fiction film FRAGILE by Sikander Goldau – student at the Academy of Television & Film Munich (HFF/M) - was produced by Sc...
Billy Crystal will host the Academy Awards for the eighth time this February 29 (CTV/ABC), he'll have his lucky charm in his pocket: his childhood's ttothbrush.Billy Crystal has created one of the most versatile and prolific careers in the entertainment industry, finding success in front of the camera, as a performer in film and television, and behind the scenes as a writer, director and producer.His family owned and operated the legendary Commodore label and record store, so Crystal grew up in ...
Oscar ceremony serves up a clean sweep and a long nap February 29, 2004Sean Penn picked the wrong year to attend the Oscars. Hollywood’s favorite rebel – and four-time best actor nominee – famously snubbed Academy Awards ceremonies in the past. Though he threatened, yet again, to bypass this year’s awards show, he turned up Sunday night in a sleek tux with wife Robin by his side. Penn went on to win the best actor gold for his Mystic River turn – but he also had to sit through one of t...
LORD OF THE RINGS - RETURN OF THE KING AT AUSTRALIAN EFFECTS & ANIMATION FESTIVAL MELBOURNE 1-2 JUNE 2004Joe Letteri, Visual Effects Supervisor, Weta Digital (NZ), one of the Oscar-winning inventors of the stunning Middle Earth landscapes of Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, will reveal the visual effects secrets behind this film phenomenon at the Australian Effects & Animation Festival Melbourne, Melbourne Convention Centre, June 1-2, 2004.Revealing how Peter Jackson’s team devised the ...
The Florida Film Festival, which celebrated its 13th anniversary at a Gala Awards Ceremony on Saturday evening, 13 March, has secured its position as one of the best run and most popular regional festivals in the US. With an eclectic mix of films, devoted audiences and a large turnout of filmmakers, the Festival is giving Sundance a run for its money as a showcase of American Independent Cinema.The Festival, which presented almost 150 films in the film boom town of Orlando, Florida and its envir...
MIFF, the International Film Festival of Milan strikes an independent pose by moving to a spring date, separating it from previous complementary relations of simultaneity with the market. Nicknamed the Sundance of Europe, MIFF has seen an upsurge in participants, attendance and media focus in its previous October runs right before MIFED. The new spring date will propel it to new heights by giving MIFF an exclusive spotlight. “Now that AFM is moving to November, MIFF’s early spring setting...
Sean Penn picked the wrong year to attend the Oscars. Hollywood’s favorite rebel – and four-time best actor nominee – famously snubbed Academy Awards ceremonies in the past. Though he threatened, yet again, to bypass this year’s awards show, he turned up Sunday night in a sleek tux with wife Robin by his side. Penn went on to win the best actor gold for his Mystic River turn – but he also had to sit through one of the most lackluster awards ceremonies in years.Billy Crystal’s cracked...
