Claus Mueller : You have been running the Berlinale for 10 years now. What are your most important achievements and what were the biggest challenges? Dieter Kosslick: We have achieved what we wanted; the festival is younger through our initiatives such as the World Cinema Fund. We have a great market this year which has become one of our biggest challenges, there are lots of side bars which offer programs for specific target groups Thus there is no need to do much more. CM: What about t...
SXSW FILM ANNOUNCES 2011 FEATURES LINEUP
The South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference and Festival is thrilled to announce the features lineup for this year's Festival, March 11 - 19, 2011 in Austin, Texas. The 2011 lineup continues the SXSW tradition of tapping into the cultural zeitgeist, highlighting emerging talent and breakthrough performances and supporting first-time filmmakers. "This is the most exciting moment for us.
After a fantastic festival of discove...
Below is the coverage from Berlin, headlines...
My Berlin Top Ten Films
At a film festival that totals more than 250 feature films (not to mention an additional 250 features in the accompanying European Film Market), one can only skim the surface of an event as wide-ranging as the Berlinale. Film choices are often based on schedule availability....grabbing a screening in between meetings or making sure one is awake to catch the early morning press screenings of the Competition program. In a se...
At a film festival that totals more than 250 feature films (not to mention an additional 250 features in the accompanying European Film Market), one can only skim the surface of an event as wide-ranging as the Berlinale. Film choices are often based on schedule availability....grabbing a screening in between meetings or making sure one is awake to catch the early morning press screenings of the Competition program. In a sense, one only gets a random taste of the very far-flung program...
In a flash Day 5 (of ten) has already arrived and the fest is already half over, although it seems like it just began. Like it or not what really makes a festival like Berlin second only to Cannes --besides the 400 or so films from around the world shown --is the St***ar power it generates, and festival director Dieter Kosslick makes no bones about this. He goes all out to invite as many big name stars as possible and even claims that the worst nightmare of his ten year posting as festival dire...
by Alex Deleon
In a flash Day 5 (of ten) has already arrived and the fest is already half over, although it seems like it just began. Like it or not what really makes a festival like Berlin second only to Cannes --besides the 400 or so films from around the world shown --is the St***ar power it generates, and festival director Dieter Kosslick makes no bones about this. He goes all out to invite as many big name stars as possible and even claims that the worst nightmare of his ten year ...
International film festivals are here in force at the Berlinale to not only scout for new films but also to make announcements on upcoming special projects. Here are a few that have made the headlines here in Berlin.
BEIJING INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL LAUNCHES
Beijing, the Chinese capital, now will have its own film event with the launching of the 1st Beijing International Film Festival, set for April 23-28, 2011. The Festival organization took an office at the M...
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...
The selection for the Competition programme of the 61st Berlin International Film Festival has been completed. It includes 22 films, 16 of which will be competing for the awards.
In addition there will be two special screenings: In solidarity with the convicted Iranian director Jafar Panahi, his film Offside will be presented on February 11, the anniversary of the Iranian Revolution. Also, the European premiere of Werner Herzog's 3D documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams will be shown as a...
The selection for the Competition programme of the 61st Berlin International Film Festival has been completed. It includes 22 films, 16 of which will be competing for the awards.
In addition there will be two special screenings: In solidarity with the convicted Iranian director Jafar Panahi, his film Offside will be presented on February 11, the anniversary of the Iranian Revolution. Also, the European premiere of Werner Herzog's 3D documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams will be shown...
"But abundance suits this festival, which draws crowds to commercial movies and challenging experimental work alike, even in the dead of a snowy, bitterly cold winter. While Sundance and Cannes can seem at once hermetic and frenzied - somewhat surreal media happenings in resort towns crammed beyond capacity - the Berlinale takes place in an art-saturated city that comfortably accommodates eclecticism and excess." (New York Times)
Metropolis at the Brandenburg Gate
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Bruno Ganz in WINGS OF DESIRE (Wim Wenders)
Veteran Swiss actor Bruno Ganz, best known for his role as Adolf Hitler in the biopic "The Downfall", will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award at tonight's European Film Awards, to be held for the first time in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. Ganz was born in Zürich to a Swiss mechanic father and a northern Italian mother. He knew from an early age that he wanted to be an actor and found his first success in live thea...
New York has always had an abundance of film festivals....some grand, some intimate; some broad, some specialized; some populist and some elitist. The city's major film institutions, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Anthology Film Archives, present on-going film series that bring a new mini-festival to film buffs every week of the year. The city's other great film resources, including the Film Forum and the IFC Center,...
The seventh annual Amazonas Film Festival today announced its 2010 line-up, which features award-winning films from around the globe, and its jury of international stars and filmmakers. The festival will run November 5-11 in Manaus, Brazil. Screenings will be held at the Teatro Amazonas, the Belle-Epoque opera house upon which Werner Herzog based his epic film, Fitzcarraldo. 35 films will competed in three sections, all vying for the Voo na Floresta (Flight Over the Jungle) trophy. These inclu...
At the 23rd European Film Awards the European Film Academy will Honour Swiss ActorWhether it is as an angel in WINGS OF DESIRE (1987) by Wim Wenders, in the Italian comedy BREAD & TULIPS (2000) by Silvio Soldini, or impersonating Adolf Hitler in Oliver Hirschbiegel's THE DOWNFALL (2004), Bruno Ganz has lent his face to some of cinema's most unforgettable moments. In the 70s and 80s Bruno Ganz has worked with the greats of German auteur cinema like Werner Herzog (NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE, 1979), Vol...
Woody Allen and Anthony Hopkins
For you stargazers, here is a list of the films that feature top rank film directors and acting talents that are premiering this week at the Toronto International Film Festival (and the talent that is here):
127 HOURS (Danny Boyle, Director; James Franco, Actor)
AMIGO (John Sayles, Director; Chris Cooper, Actor)
ANOTHER YEAR (Mike Leigh, Director; Jim Broadbent, Actor)
THE BANG BANG CLUB (Ryan Phillipe, Actor)
BARNEY...
Today marks the close of the 37th Telluride Film Festival, presented by the National Film Preserve. Two surprise “Sneak Previews” joined the previously announced list of twenty-four feature films that played in the Festival’s main program; thirteen documentaries in the Backlot program; twenty-five new short films; and six revivals selected by Guest Director Michael Ondaatje. Telluride Film Festival’s celebration of art and film, set amongst the beauty of the Rockies, opened Friday, Septe...
TABLOID (Errol Morris, USA)
OK......even for someone who is internet-connected, it is still impossible for me to be physically in more than one place at any given time (please work on that, Steve Jobs.....). As I am sitting typing this at the Montreal World Film Festival, simultaneous events are happening around the world at a pace that is dizzying indeed.
Montreal is hot and humid, which is perhaps the weather I could be expect if I was attending that other major internation...
Telluride Film Festival, presented by the National Film Preserve, is proud to announce its 2010 Festival program. Twenty-four new feature films presented by their creators in the Festival’s main program; six programs curated by 2010 Festival Guest Director Michael Ondaatje; twenty-five new short films; plus thirteen documentaries screening in the Backlot program. Celebrating works from over twenty countries, Telluride Film Festival opens today, Friday, September 3 and runs through Monday, Sep...
THE PLEASURE OF BEING ROBBED
You've heard of the Warner brothers and the Baldwin brothers.....well, make way for the Safdie brothers, the directorial team of Benny and Josh Safdie, American indie's dynamic duo. The BAMcinématek located at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York has turned the asylum over to the inmates for the eclectic film series titled Emotional Sloppy Manic Cinema: Films Directed and Selected by Benny and Josh Safdie.
The series, a collection of 19...
Documentaries screened at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival tended to be superior to the feature films in its program an assessment not disputed by its creative director Geoff Gilmore. In one of the seminars Gilmore admitted that the Sundance festival which he had directed before coming to New York experienced a similar discrepancy. Similar to the US market position of foreign language films, documentaries play a minor role at the US box office. In the 2009 U.S. total box office of $10.6 billio...
Documentaries screened at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival tended to be superior to the feature films in its program an assessment not disputed by its creative director Geoff Gilmore. In one of the seminars Gilmore admitted that the Sundance festival which he had directed before coming to New York experienced a similar discrepancy. Similar to the US market position of foreign language films, documentaries play a minor role at the US box office. In the 2009 U.S. total box office of $10.6 billion,...
At a press conference at Filmhouse in Edinburgh this morning, Artistic Director Hannah McGill announced the full programme details for the 64th edition of the Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF). This year the Festival, which runs from 16 - 27 June, will host twenty-two World premieres, and twelve International premieres. The Closing Night Gala will be the World premiere of THIRD STAR, a British tragi-comic buddy film by newcomer Hattie Dalton, starring Benedict Cumberbatch (FOUR...
The new image for the 58th San Sebastian Festival was unveiled at an event in the city’s Science Kutxaespacio Museum. For the fourth year running, Oscar Mariné has set the lines of the graphic design for the edition. On this occasion, a special spirit invites us to discover with resolve, inquisitiveness and defiance the contents of the Festival’s 58th edition.
The 58th Festival will run for nine days, from Friday 17 to Saturday 25 September. As usual, the three competi...
Awards by the specialized juries at the berlinale sometimes are a better indication of the quality of the productions selected than the official awards, though in the 2010 berlinale edition, few disputed the selections of the jury run by Werner Herzog and concurred with the choice of awards for BAL, THE GHOSTWRITER, CATERPILLAR, HOW I ENDED THIS SUMMER, and IF I WANT TO WHISTLE, I WHISTLE. These films obtaining the golden or silver bear awards, let in Herzog’s word the viewer discern dark corn...
