The 15th annual South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference & Festival is thrilled to announce the complete lineup of feature films slated to screen at the event, March 7-15, in Austin, Texas.Over the course of nine days, 114 features will screen at the festival, with65 of those having their world premieres at SXSW 2008. Among the high-profile films added to the festival¹s ³Spotlight Premieres² categoryare: Kimberly Peirce¹s 'Stop-Loss,' Nicholas Stoller¹s 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall,' Martin ...

The director Julian Schnabel talks about films that inspired him and the challenges he faced in adapting the script for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.Let's start from your new new film, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. I've read somewhere that it took about 200,000 of Bauby's blinks to write the whole book and writing down each word took approximately 2 minutes. What were your first thoughts when you decided to adapt the script? Well, I didn’t know all those facts, but I know that once...

INDEPENDENCE DAYS The Independence Days Section, now in its third year as part of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, remains committed to showcasing independent and unique works and to discovering new filmmakers from all over the world. The section’s core program, a selection of films under the title ID-07, identifies this year’s aesthetic, political, geographical, political and thematic landscape of worldwide independent, decidedly non-mainstream film production. ID-07 is compris...

Close to 200,000 film-goers took part in the various screenings and activities at the 55th edition of the San Sebasti?n International Film Festival, which came to a close on September 29th. Ticket sales were up 8% this year, with a total of 100,576 tickets sold compared with 93,253 in 2006. Added to this figure are the 60,300 entrances by Festival accredited participants and the 18,000 children who enjoyed the morning screenings at the Velodrome, in addition to the peop...

A diverse selection of 522 feature films, including 106 industry world premieres and 364 market premieres, have been confirmed to screen at the 28th American Film Market (AFM) October 31 to November 7, 2007, in Santa Monica, it was announced today by Jonathan Wolf, Executive Vice President, Independent Film & Television Alliance (IFTA) and AFM’s Managing Director.A total of 34 different languages will be represented on the screening schedule of this year’s AFM.In addition, Wolf announced tha...

 Tuesday, September 4---------The Toronto International Film Festival doesn't officially open for another 48 hours, but already a hurricane of film talents, industryites, press and film buffs are descending onto the Ontario metropolis with a torrent that is almost audible. Coming in from Los Angeles, New York and the four corners of the globe, including the just concluded Montreal World Film Festival, and the still continuing Venice Film Festival......all eyes are on "the gateway to North...

The Toronto International Film Festival doesn't officially open for another 48 hours, but already a hurricane of film talents, industryites, press and film buffs are descending onto the Ontario metropolis with a torrent that is almost audible. Coming in from Los Angeles, New York and the four corners of the globe, including the just concluded Montreal World Film Festival, and the still continuing Venice Film Festival......all eyes are on "the gateway to North America" as the frenzy, fun and fero...

 Tuesday, May 15------One of the more provocative, outrageous and downright brilliant film events of the New York film season ends its seven day run tonight, with actress Isabella Rossellini live and in person, capping off a series of live narrators during the silent film epic's week-long run at New York's Village East Cinemas. Canadian director Guy Maddin, who draws upon the aesthetics and melodramatic richness of early silent cinema for his expressionistic works, is presenting his la...

 Monday, April 30-------While the narrative offerings at the Tribeca Film Festival remain an oil-and-water mix of glossy Hollywood product and uneven independent fare, the documentaries on tap are refreshingly nimble and powerful. Three docs seen this past weekend illustrate the top-flight work being done by non-fiction masters and newcomers at this year's Tribeca Film Festival.The master is UK director Michael Apted, who is one of the rare filmmakers who have simultaneously invigorating c...

 Sunday, April 29-------While the narrative offerings at the Tribeca Film Festival remain an oil-and-water mix of glossy Hollywood product and uneven independent fare, the documentaries on tap are refreshingly nimble and powerful. Three docs seen this past weekend illustrate the top-flight work being done by non-fiction masters and newcomers at this year's Tribeca Film Festival.The master is UK director Michael Apted, who is one of the rare filmmakers who have simultaneously invigorating c...

Tuesday, December 5----The Maya Stendhal Gallery, one of New York's most adventurous gallery spaces, is currently presenting a collection of over 40 short works, created and curated by pioneering avant-garde filmmaker, artist, poet and archivist Jonas Mekas. Dubbed WWW.JONASMEKAS.COM---RECENT WORK, the program includes works shot on film, video and in new media platforms. The 84 year-old Mekas, one of the founders of the independent film movement, remains vitally prolific and engaged in the c...