The New York International Independent Film and Video Festival (NYIIFVF) announced that they will return to Los Angeles for an exciting lineup of independent films and special events, taking place September 27 - October 4, 2007. NYIIFVF begins its celebrations along with The New York International Art Festival (NYIAF) with a film/art market and networking party at the Cabana Club. Film screenings will take place exclusively at the legendary Sunset Laemmle 5 Theatre in West Hollywood.Known as "th...
Friday, August 31--------While the big ticket Galas sometimes seem to dominate the press coverage of the upcoming Toronto International Film Festival, which opens next Thursday, the program is, in fact, a diverse one that showcases a mix of auteur cinema and prolific film genres. The documentary section is among the choicest, with many films benefitting from the Toronto exposure to find mainstream theatrical careers as good, if not better, than any feature film title. One of the most anticipat...
Tueday, August 28----------The Toronto International Film Festival has become a key launching pad for the careers of films in the North American market. This is even more true for films chosen for the Gala Presentations.....mainly American prestige pictures and international titles from known auteurs. Early buzz for the awards season can be created here, and with over 3000 journalists attending from all over the globe, the international aspects (and pressure) are enormous. A film can either be...
Monday, August 27--------With a local Quebec film opening the Festival this past weekend (BLUFF), the Montreal World Film Festival is serving as a launching pad and promotion platform for a group of diverse Canadian features (and short films) in the coming week. This brings high profile attention to local artists for visiting journalists, industryites and programmers. There is a strong Canadian presence in all sections of the Festival and this is an opportunity for the "home team" to...
Thursday, August 16--------For almost 50 years, the film industry in the former East Germany was one of the most profitable and prolific in European cinema. However, because of political considerations and trade embargoes, few of those films ever got seen in the West. A result is an almost total familiarity with the films and the auteurs, who worked under an oppressive and meddling regime, and yet who still found an "individual voice" for their films. One of those voices was stilled ...
Tuesday, August 7--------Bob Hoskins, one of the most respected English actors of his generation, will be honored at the upcoming Edinburgh International Film Festival, which opens on August 15th and runs through August 26. On the first Friday of the Festival, August 17th, the prolific actor will appear on-stage to discuss his diverse career. This has included stellar work over the past three decades, where the chameleon actor has had the opportunity to portray such historical figures as J Ed...
Wednesday, August 1--------Robert Redford's got Sundance. Robert De Niro's got Tribeca. So why not let Paul Giamatti into that exclusive club? Well, the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) apparently agrees and has scheduled an 8-film series of movies selected by the Oscar nominee (and indie fave) entitled PAUL GIAMATTI SELECTS. The series begins tonight at the BAM Rose Cinemas and continues through September. Giamatti and Brooklyn are actually a perfect fit. Not only is he a longtime res...
Monday, July 23-------Two must-see documentaries that document political and social "hot button" regions are making their theatrical debuts this week. THE DEVIL CAME ON HORSEBACK is an extraordinarily powerful film that exposes the genocide taking place in the Darfur region of Sudan, as seen through the eyes of an American witness. The film, directed by Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern, opens on Wednesday, July 25th at New York's IFC Center, followed by a national release by Inte...
Monday, July 23-------You may think you know the film that many major film critics chose as the best of last year. But in reality, with little fanfare or certainly Oscar buzz, the film that garnered the most uniform praise from top film scribes was a French thriller, shot in 1959 and set in occupied France during World War II by a director who has been six feet under for more than three decades. That film, ARMY OF SHADOWS, directed by Jean-Pierre Melville, was an astonishingly gritty and involvi...
This Wednesday night at 10PM (EST), MOVIE GEEKS UNITED! will feature new interviews with the makers of "The Shark Is Still Working" and "Your Mommy Kills Animals". We will also replay an earlier interview with Anthony Giacchino, director of the upcoming New York City release "The Camden 28" and John Swinglish, an original member of the protest group. Below is a director's statement with Mr. Giacchino discussing the film and the cause. Director's Statem...
Filmmakers Behind The Shark is Still Working, The Camden 28, and Your Mommy Kills Animals Featured on Internet Radio Program On Wednesday, July 25 at 10pm (EST), MOVIE GEEKS UNITED!, a movie-themed talk radio program on the internet, will broadcast a special live interviews with the key filmmakers behind three of the year's most highly touted documentaries, The Shark is Still Working, The Camden 28 and Your Mommy Kills Animals. Jake Gove, Erik Hollander, James Gelet, and M...
The winner of Wolgin Award for the Best Full-Length Feature is The Band's Visit, directed by Eran Kolirin, and produced by Eilon Ratzkovsky, Ehud Bleiberg, Yossi Uzrad, Kobi Gal Raday, and Guy Yekuel.The winner of the Wolgin Award for Best Documentary Film is Children of the Sun, directed by Ran Tal.The winner of the Wolgin Award for Best Short Film is Roads, directed by Lior Geller.Following is a description of the films that won in the Festival: The Wolgin Award for Best Full-Length Feature Fi...
Osian’s-Cinefan will open with the International Premiere of Raami by Babak Shirinsefat. An Iran-Azerbaijan co-production, Raami is the director’s debut film.Ten years after the Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan a middle-aged Azerbaijani folk composer who has spent ten years in a war refugee camp in Sabirabad, goes looking for his Armenian wife and child. He heads for Iran since his family had been lost during the occupation of Jibrail and had fled to Iran. Based on the Azerba...
Releases – SpainA requiem of illusionsSpanish cinema remembers for the first time the Madrid terrorist attacks of the 11th of March. Alex Quiroga's Ilusiones Rotas 11-M(Broken Illusions) reflects the hopes and the frustrations of four characters living very different lives in the months before the attacks, until the fatal day, when they are all touched by the same tragedy. The film opens today in seven Spanish
SPANISH DOCSJuly 13-August 16The rise of the documentary over the last decade has been an international phenomenon. A new generation of filmmakers has been able, with new digital technology and low budgets, to tackle issues, ideas and portraits as never before. In addition to compelling subjects, diversified exhibition and distribution channels are providing exciting opportunities for artists and audiences to connect. In recent years Spain has seen the emergence of a provocative documentary film...
Since its inception nine years ago, the South African International Documentary Festival has gained in popularity and grown significantly. We received a record number of over 500 films from around the world this year, and have chosen 51 which tackle pertinent and quirky issues, tell tales and true stories, introduce audiences to illustrious, forgotten or little known figures, charismatic revolutionaries and leaders, and milestone events in world history. Among the 52 films, from 18 countries, we...
More than 80 fantastic films: what a programme!From July 3-8, 2007, the city of Neuchâtel will host its great Swiss meeting of fantastic cinema for the 7th time - a unique event presenting over 80 film premieres. This year, a new open air cinema will be inaugurated in town, near the lakeside, showing previews and unreleased films. In present two addition to four different competitions and the presence of renowned guests, the NIFFF will also special sections: a trip back to the golden age of 3D ...
This year, DOK Leipzig celebrates its 50th anniversary! It’s the right time to look back and experience once again the most important, disputed and beautiful films in our retrospective; the right time also to invite and celebrate with all those, who have followed and shaped the festival over the years. And it is the right time to recall experiences and events that were not in the spotlight, but took place ‘behind the scenens’. Over the past 50 years the festival saw enthusiastic as well as...
With 200 films from 77 different countries the Durban International Film Festival offers an unparalleled opportunity to enrich our understanding of the state of the contemporary world. This is particularly evident in the issue-based documentary programme. 55 film strong, the programme encompasses themes such as slavery; racism; gender struggles; the conflict in Palestine and Israel; South African social and political matters; the urban underground; the different faces and impacts of consumerism;...
Sunday, June 17-------At the risk of being a moth-eaten cliche, the term "fog of war" is now routinely used to describe a state where political, strategic and moral choices in areas of conflict become shaded by the exigencies of human response to violence and an abandonment of an ethical compass that determines policy and behavior. This "fog of war" has certainly descended on the chaos that is now unfolding in the Middle East, both in the five-year conflicts in Afghanistan...
For their overwhelmingly successful efforts to promote and publicize the critically acclaimed Academy Award-winning documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," Megan Colligan, Paramount Vantage executive vice president of Publicity and Promotions; Buffy Shutt, Participant Productions executive vice president for Marketing; and Michael Feldman, Glover Park Group founding partner, received the Public Relations Professional of the Year award from the 31,000-member Public Relations Society of America (PRS...
Friday, June 15-------With the accent on documentary production, financing and distribution here at SILVERDOCS, an announcement from the Sundance Institute regarding their own documentary lab initiative is particularly relevant. With many of the SILVERDOCS film having received their world premieres at the Sundance Film Festival in January, it is clear that Sundance has a large role to play in the development and disemination of non-fiction material.The Sundance Institute announced today the se...
Friday, June 15------The Main Competition section of SILVERDOCS consists of 10 documentary features, all competing for the coveted Sterling Award. The films represent some of the most innovative, provocative and compelling non-fiction films of the year. Jurors determining the prizes include: Liesl Copland, head of acquisitions of Red Envelope Entertainment, the newly created original content division of Netflix; Matt Dentler, the Producer of the South by Southwest Film Conference & Festiva...
Directed in tandem by Bill Gutenburg and Dan Sturman, "NANKING" (USA 2007, RT, 91 minutes, in Mandarin, English and Japanese) is a startling and shocking reconstruction of a gigantic atrocity perpetrated by the Japanese army in China nearly 70 years ago, but presented in part by leading actors as if it were taking place today. The result, graphically depicting the sack and destruction of the city along with the indiscriminate bestial massacre of just about the entire civilian population, is a p...
Friday, June 1-------The 23rd edition of FESTROIA: Festival Internacional de Cinema, Portugal's oldest and most prestigious event, opens this evening with back-to-back screenings of new films from Spain. The honor of a double Opening Night attraction from Portugal's neighbor (and frequent rival) is the Tribute To Spanish Cinema that is the centerpiece of this year's event. Over 20 Spanish films will be screened....most in the special Hommage section, but others interspersed in the ma...
