The Board of Governors decided, at a special meeting held on Tuesday 4 September 2012, to designate Carlo Chatrian as the new Artistic Director of the Festival del film Locarno. Carlo Chatrian will take up his post from 1 November 2012, following Olivier Père, who is leaving the Festival to head up Arte Fran...

The 65th edition of the Festival del film Locarno will open on Wednesday 1 August. At the traditional Welcome Cocktail - attended by Federal Councilor Alain Berset and by Mayor of the City of Locarno and Vice-President of the Festival Carla Speziali, as well as by representatives from cultural institutions and Swiss and Ticino politicians - President Marco Solari and Artistic Director Olivier Père will open this edition, in the presence of the numerous directors, actors and film pro...

  The retrospective for the 65th edition of the Festival del film Locarno, in collaboration with the Swiss and French Cinémathèques, will be devoted to the Hollywood master from Europe, Otto Preminger (1905-1986). The festival will show the director's entire body of work: forty films screened in the best 35mm prints available. As with the retrospectives of Ernst Lubitsch (2010) and Vincente Minnelli (2011), screenings will be accompanied by discussions given by various fi...

   When i was a young actor starting out in New York , I was granted the privlege of meeting Sue Mengers and the advice she offered me was to take a chance on making it in Holywood.She told me to take 6 months in Hollywood and  to see what the result would be and if I got a lucky break to stay there.Well it took me 12 years to get to Hollywood from NY and I had an an opportunity to meet with Sue at a conference and we shared our meeting and her advice. We both laughed and ...

Sadistic piano teachers, lovesick young hairdressers, frosty chocolate-factory directors, dark ladies crushed in the French provinces, stuttering factory workers, honest magistrates or evil mothers who can slice the screen to shreds with a single glance. There are truly few actresses on the international scene who, like Isabelle Huppert, have that ability to give shape, in the versatility of the her many roles, to that disturbing femininity that is a narrative all on its own and all o...

Sadistic piano teachers, lovesick young hairdressers, frosty chocolate-factory directors, dark ladies crushed in the French provinces, stuttering factory workers, honest magistrates or evil mothers who can slice the screen to shreds with a single glance. There are truly few actresses on the international scene who, like Isabelle Huppert, have that ability to give shape, in the versatility of the her many roles, to that disturbing femininity that is a narrative all on its own and all on its own m...

  We lost one of the greats this past week. Sidney Lumet, a national treasure and the quintessential New York filmmaker (sorry, Woody Allen) died last week at the age of 86. In a career that spanned over 50 years in both live television and the big screen, Lumet was nominated for the Best Director Oscar four times and has left an indelible filmography of titles that are distinguished by their social relevancy and strong caliber of acting. Lumet’s most famous films were shot in and were ...

 Saturday, August 30------French actress Isabelle Huppert received a special Award yesterday by the Montreal World Film Festival for her unique contribution to French and world cinema. One of the great actresses of her generation, Huppert is also being honored with special screenings of several of her films, including the French films VIOLETTE NOZIERE, MADAME BOVARY and L'IVRESSE DU POUVOIR, all directed by her muse, iconic French film director Claude Chabrol and the Western epic HEAVEN'S GA...

European films and talents were the big winners at last night's Academy Awards, making the event very much a foreign affair. In the acting categories, the winners were all European thespians of note. Daniel Day-Lewis, who portrays a morally corrupt oil baron in early 20th century America, won his second Best Actor Oscar for his role in THERE WILL BE BLOOD. In the Best Actress category, the surprise winner was French actress Marion Cotillard, for her stunning reincarnation of chanteuse Edith Piaf...

Monday, February 25------European films and talents were the big winners at last night's Academy Awards, making the event very much a foreign affair. In the acting categories, the winners were all European thespians of note. Daniel Day-Lewis, who portrays a morally corrupt oil baron in early 20th century America, won his second Best Actor Oscar for his role in THERE WILL BE BLOOD. In the Best Actress category, the surprise winner was French actress Marion Cotillard, for her stunning reincarnati...

Monday, January 1, 2007------While a lot of ink (or bytes) will be spent on the films and performers who will win accolades in the busy awards season to come (from the Golden Globes through the Independent Spirit Awards to the Oscar extravaganza), it seems appropriate, on this first day of the New Year, to take a moment to list the celebrated actors, directors, producers and other film professionals who took their final curtain calls in 2006. We remember them all, and how wonderful that their ...

With a couple of hours still left to go until the official kick-off of this "Mother of all Film Festivals" activity is feverish along the short stretch of the Lido known as Viale Marconi, the actual location of this oldest of all world film festivals --Now that was rather a mouthful, calling for a bit of elucidation. The first Venice film festival took place way back in 1932 when the Fascist government under Benito Mussolini, taking a page from Lenin, realized that film was a powerful propaganda...

The Italian press on the morning after Opening Night was was, as expected, politely dismissive of De Palma's "Black Dahlia" and seemed to be much more concerned with the late arrival on the red carpet of the film's heroine, new American Diva -- (or should we say "Divette") -- Scarlett Johansson. For whatever reason, La Scarlett was more than half an hour unfashionably late for the opening ceremony which had to start without her. Nevertheless, all the papers, including the two largest national d...

Isabelle Huppert, one of international cinema’s greatest and most enigmatic actresses, is single handedly conquering Manhattan this month, as the screen icon makes her American stage debut and is feted by the Museum of Modern Art with a staggeringly impressive survey of her best cinematic accomplishments.Ms. Huppert, who turns 50 this year, yet maintains an ageless beauty and mystery to her screen persona, can be seen both in the flesh and on the screen at different venues in New York. At the ...

24th Annual VIFF Announces Full Line-Up of Films and Events Vancouver, BC (September 7, 2005) – The 24rd Vancouver International Film Festival announced today that it will show 329 films, including 230 feature and mid-length films, at more than 500 screenings. The slate includes 8 World Premieres, 22 International Premieres, 38 North American Premieres, 59 Canadian Premieres and 10 English-Canadian Premieres. The Festival will open on September 29 with a Gala screening of Deepa Mehta’s WATER...

Ben Gazzara is honored with Donostia Prize at 53th San Sebastian Festival.Raised in New York skid rows, Biagio Gazzara, known as Ben since childhood, grew up dreaming of becoming an actor. The son of a Sicilian immigrant, he soon drew attention for his brilliant and contained sobriety during his classes with Erwin Piscator and in his courses at the Actors’ Studio.Gazzara made such a firm start to his acting in Broadway that his first stage appearance (Calder Willingham’s End as a Man) landed...