Monday, July 10---It's been quite a year for the MONTREAL WORLD FILM FESTIVAL!!! Not only has it emerged triumphant from a near-fatal loss of federal funding and the creation of a rival festival event last year, but it has confounded its critics by coming back stronger than ever in time to celebrate its 30th anniversary as North America's only FIAPF approved competition festival.
The rival event, funded by local media powerhouse Equipe Spectra and headed by former Berlinale topper Mortiz de Ha...
CHAOS is just a theory in physics, but it's a full blown practice at the Minneapolis film festival. Whether or not a can of film will arrive at its designated venue at all, or, if it does arrive, whether it will be wound on backward or inside out -- therefore unshowable -- is often a toss-up. One such instance, Werner Herzog's latest, "The Wild Blue Yonder" -- an astronaut fantasy in a post-Armageddon world -- arrived at the Oak Street theater projection booth cut into unmarked segments, so th...
The Boston Indie Film Festival 2006: Gritty, Noirish, and FunBy Julian PetersonThe 4th annual Independent Film Festival shuttered April 23 after six days of films, galas, and workshops. The Festival grows steadily each year as evidenced by the round the block lines at the Somerville Theater and an array of corporate sponsors. But the festival is refreshingly free of the corporate definition of "independent", which in other festivals have threatened a truly independent agenda. The hard work and...
The 8th Sarasota Film Festival concluded this past weekend, with a flurry of parties, special events and an impressive roster of Hollywood names receiving career tributes. The Festival, which has been growing in reputation in the past few years, has really come into its own this year as a major destination for filmmakers and film buffs. Kudos to longtime Executive Director Jody Kielbasa, who has been able to attract high level sponsors, patrons and honorees to the event, and to Tom Hall, the Fes...
Yesterday, Hot Docs announced its official programming line-up for the 2006 festival, coinciding with the opening of the CBC Newsworld Advance Box Office, where tickets and passes for Hot Docs screenings can be purchased from now until the end of the festival. Hot Docs will screen 99 films from 23 countries between April 28 - May 7, including 18 world premieres, 17 international premieres, 13 North American premieres, 30 Canadian premieres, and seven Toronto premieres. Hot Docs' Canadian Spectru...
ROBERT ALTMAN And A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION To Be Saluted At the 8th Annual Sarasota Film Festival: March 31 – April 9, 2006Altman Joins Throng of Talented Honorees Including Werner Herzog, Felicity Huffman, Allison Janney, William H. Macy, Robert Towne, Paula Wagner Honorary Academy Award® recipient Robert Altman will be Saluted at the Sarasota Film Festival during the final weekend of the 8th annual event where his latest film, the Picturehouse release of Garrison Keillor’s A PRAIRIE HOME ...
It's always a bit of a let-down when a big one like this wraps and you look through the catalogue noting oodles of films you were dying to see but just didn't have time to get to. Ouch! Among the most coveted 'near misses' (since it would have been possible to see them, but at the expense of missing other simultaneously scheduled events) I can list with sweet regret (and this is only a small sampling), the following: "The Notorious Betty Page" (with a fetishistically luscious Gretchen Mol); "Ab...
On day number three of the Rotterdam film festival the buzz is still going strong regarding the new Japanese film "A Heart Beating In the Dark" (Yami ni utsu Shinzo) by maverick Nippon director Shunichi Nagasaki. Mr. Nagasaki has been around for a long time but his films are so wide of the mainstream that he is barely known outside of Japan and not particularly well known even in his own country. Rotterdam, a festival which specializes in introducing new faces as well as older ones who have no...
The 15th Annual Gotham Awards Winners will be awarded at the ceremony on November 30 in New York City. Executive Director Michelle Byrd said the nominees were selected by three separate nominating committees composed of critics and film programmers. Nominees for a final competitive juried award, Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You (for films yet to receive theatrical distribution), will be announced in early November. A jury of peers will decide the winning selections in all six categori...
3rd COPENHAGEN INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FESTIVALNOVEMBER 4-13 2005In only 3 years the festival has become on of the biggest doc events in Europe.The festival has enjoyed a lot of positive response and attention from our large local audience as well as from international producers and distributors, the national and international press and the many international guests visiting cph:dox 2005. cph:dox strongly believe in the many opportunities this new platform has created for a future and possibly...
IDFA International Documentary Festival Amsterdam 200524 November, 4 DecemberLast week, it was announced that a number of documentaries at this year's IDFA will deal with the subject of worldwide terrorism. This year's big festival theme is the environment, however. Under the title Green Screen, IDFA is presenting seventeen recent documentaries exploring aspects of the environment. Each offers insight into the tension between man and his environment. Alongside the films, on Tuesday, 29 November,...
The first-ever Austin Fantastic Fest (October 6 - 9) will present sneak previews of Jon Favreau’s ZATHURA, Robert Rodriguez & Frank Miller’s SIN CITY: RECUT & EXTENDED, and Werner Herzog’s THE WILD BLUE YONDER; work-in-progress screenings of John Gulager’s FEAST and Eli Roth’s HOSTEL; behind-the-scenes peeks at the making of Richard Linklater’s A SCANNER DARKLY and Andrew Adamson’s THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDOBE; and over a dozen other feature films f...
The inaugural Fantastic Fest (Oct. 6-9, 2005) will present sneak previews of Robert Rodriguez & Frank Miller’s SIN CITY: RECUT & EXTENDED; John Gulager’s Project Greenlight horror film FEAST as a work-in-progress; and Werner Herzog’s science-fiction fantasy THE WILD BLUE YONDER (Winner, FIPRESCI Prize, 2005 Venice Film Festival).SIN CITY: RECUT & EXTENDED expands the hit film into a trilogy of stand-alone stories, featuring new footage and extended scenes. (Fantastic Fest will be the firs...
Patrice Chereau’s Gabrielle based on The Return by Joseph Conrad is the story about an upper class woman, Gabrielle (Isabelle Hubert), who writes a letter to her husband that she is leaving him for another man. She later returns home to her husband Jean (Pascal Greggory)the same day. The decision to project letters and plot developments onscreen as mega texts is one of the problems of Chereau’s film. The other is the cinematography by Eric Gautier who tries to enhance the story with more vi...
Two masters of the art of the cinema are being honored in New York at career retrospectives at two of New York’s most venerable film institutions, starting this past weekend. The Museum of Modern Art, which has one of the world’s most celebrated film archives, will present three defining films from the career of Taiwanese director Edward Yang, to mark the publication of a new monograph on the filmmaker by celebrated film critic and historian John Anderson. The filmmaker is revered as a moder...
June is Gay Pride Month, and among the many celebrations are film festivals that showcase the new and provocative works of gay and lesbian film talents. Beginning this past weekend, two prominent film festivals dedicated to this niche opened nearly simultaneously in two of the most celebrated gay enclaves in the US: San Francisco, the California home of gay culture and queer politics, and Provincetown, the idyllic seaside resort on the tip of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. With its premieres, filmmake...
SILVERDOCS June 14-19, June Silver: Spring, MarylandBlame it on Michael Moore. The filmmaker provocateur of FAHRENHEIT 911 created a tidal wave of audience and media interest in documentary film that has not yet crested. The truth is that documentaries have escaped from their restricted niche and now can generate the kind of publicity and audience interest that was once reserved for fiction features.Documentaries are suddenly hot, and the financials of making and distributing them have made them...
GUS VAN SANT'S LAST DAYS OPENS PROVINCETOWN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL JUNE 15The Provincetown International Film Festival, scheduled for June 15-19, enters into its seventh year with another stellar line-up of films and highlights. This year's program includes fifty-five new features (28 narratives and 27 documentaries), with 10 countries represented. Opening Selection is the East Coast premiere of director Gus Van Sant's newest release Last Days unveiled at Cannes (slated for theatrical rele...
Sundance Film Festival now in it’s 24th year held its award ceremony at the Park City Racquet Club this past weekend and announced it’s winners. Leading the way for Best Feature Film is 40 Shades of Blue and for Best Documentary is What IS IT?With over 6,500 films submitted to the Festival the 16-member jury had an auspicious task set before them to decide on the top winners for the Festival. Sundance known as one of the top festivals in the US and draws in a dedicated independent audience...
2005 Sundance Film Festival Announces ProgramThe Sundance Institute has announced the slate of films for the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. New this year will be the inaugural World Cinema Competition, which brings more of an international focus on this once only US independent film Festival. The 2005 Sundance Film Festival will take place January 20–30, 2005, in Park City, Utah, USA. This Film Festival is the premier showcase for American independent film, is an important new platform for i...
Sundance Institute presents the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, an exhibition of work that showcases the best of independent cinema. Each year the programming staff views thousands of submissions to select the most exciting and innovative works for the Festival.The Sundance Institute announced the lineup of films for the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. The films listed below make up the Independent Feature Film Competition, inaugural World Cinema Competition, Premieres, Park City at Midnight, American...
23rd International Istanbul Film FestivalThis year the International Istanbul Film Festival, organised by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts, will take place between 10 – 25 April. The festival will present 203 films to cinema lovers.14 films will compete in the “International Competition” and 12 in the “National Competition” of the 23rd Istanbul Film Festival. (Details of the National Competition below)The “Tributes” section will feature a selection of works by Bahram Ba...
ANNOUNCING THE 2004 PHILADELPHIA FILM FESTIVAL From April 8-21, the Festival Presents 250 Features, Documentaries, Animated Films and Shorts from 43 CountriesAwards go to Mary-Louise Parker and Tobe Hooper2004 Highlights include Animation Festival, sponsored by University of the Arts; International Comedy Series; “Save the Boyd” Benefit; Hong Kong Horror in 3-D; New Films from Master Directors Breillat, Demme, Greenaway, Herzog, Téchiné, von TrierNow in its 13th year and fourth with Raymon...
KINO's jubilee event in 2003:25 years of German Cinema in the Museum of Modern Art in New YorkBig round of applause for ROSENSTRASSE at the opening and a substantial increase in admissions for KINO 2003On the occasion of KINO's 25th jubilee, the Export-Union of German Cinema and the Museum of Modern Art opened the season of German films (6-16 November 2003) with the Venice prize-winner ROSENSTRASSE in the presence of director Margarethe von Trotta, co-author Pamela Katz and the lead actress Mari...
