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 July 2, 2008 DISPATCH FROM SWEDEN | Bergman Island: "Faro Document," "Persona," "Summer Interlude," and More from Faro
by Michael Koresky (July 3, 2008) A film festival unlike any other, Bergmanvecken (or Bergman Week), now in its fifth year in operation and its first incarnation since the death of the man at its center last July, is a celebration of location as much as film. For Swedish cinema, Ingmar Bergman was always a one-man-show, its industry glue, its irreproachable standard-bearer, its looming demon genius -- and he has been resented throughout the industry for the past half-century nearly as often as he's been embraced. Not so on Faro, the island located on the northern tip of Gotland, where he made his permanent residence for decades even as he lived and worked in Stockholm during the off seasons. [ read more in On The Scene ] July 1, 2008 REVIEW | Best Kept Secret: Guillaume Canet's "Tell No One"
by Leo Goldsmith (July 1, 2008) [An indieWIRE review from Reverse Shot.] Guillaume Canet's "Tell No One" begins with a certain nonchalance that one wouldn't ordinarily expect from a suspense thriller, least of all one that adapts Harlan Coben's multi-twist mystery plotting with the brio of a distinctly "Bourne"-again action film. In its first minutes, the film draws us into a group of French yuppies summering enviably in woody Rambouillet. Kristin Scott-Thomas rolls a joint, someone passes a baby around, and all seems serene enough for Dr. Alex Beck to take his wife Margot for a languorous, moonlit skinny-dip at a nearby lake where they used to swim as children. How cruel it seems of Canet to ruin this moment, allowing Dr. Beck to be beaten unconscious and left naked on the dock, while Margot falls prey to a knife-wielding, cat-murdering serial killer. [ read more in Movies ] June 30, 2008 DISPATCH FROM SCOTLAND | "Somers Towns" Leads Winners in Edinburgh
by Charlie Olsky (June 30, 2008) The 62nd annual Edinburgh International Film Festival came to a close this weekend, after screening over 130 films over the course of 12 days, throughout the cobblestoned medieval cluster of the Scottish capital. Founded in 1947 in conjunction with Edinburgh Festival in August, the festival was intended to help revive the city's post-war economy. This year marked the first year the film festival ran at a different time and the event had tremendous help in smoothing the transition from its dedicated patrons, Sean Connery and Tilda Swinton, who were present throughout the EIFF's duration at many screenings, dinners and gatherings. Connery hosted the awards ceremony on Sunday night, presenting the Michael Powell Award, named for Britain's leading golden-era director, to the best in British cinema. [ read more in On The Scene ]  indieWIRE INTERVIEW | "Tell No One" Director Guillaume Canet
by Erica Abeel (June 30, 2008) It's not exactly clear when the trend started, but French filmmakers are currently making the best old-style Hollywood thrillers. The caffeinated pace, requisite chase scenes, intricate plots are all there. But Gallic filmmakers bring something more to the party: distinctive camera work along with a social critique and complex characters who resonate with the over-thirteen crowd. Claude Lelouche's recent thriller "Roman de Gare" plumbed the darker corners of the fame game and a writer's ego. Now comes "Tell No One" from actor-turned-director Guillaume Canet, a major hit in France and winner of two Cesars. Adapted from the novel by Harlan Coben - six million copies sold, translated in twenty-seven languages - "Tell No One" essentially hangs an action thriller and police procedural on a story of romantic obsession. [ read more in People ] June 29, 2008 DISPATCH FROM SWEDEN | Cinema, Past and Present: "Maria Larsson's Everlasting Moment," "Involuntary," "Wolf"
by Michael Koresky (June 29, 2008) How to get rid of the ghost that you want to keep close? It's been more than twenty-five years now since Ingmar Bergman was regularly making feature films, but the master's mammoth shadow looms over the national cinema with undiminished dominance, and indeed most of European art cinema in general; meanwhile it's just one year after his death, at age 89, and Swedish cinema is still struggling with the legacy of this fearsomely popular and canonized auteur. Despite the domestic success of homegrown films such as Kay Pollack's "As It Is in Heaven" and Mikael Hafstrom's "Evil," and the ever-growing international reputations of festival-circuit favorites Roy Andersson and Lukas Moodysson (not to mention the imminent international release of Tomas Alfredson's already widely acclaimed, and Tribeca-feted "Let the Right One In"), Swedish cinema longs to crawl out from under the shadow of Bergman, even as it cannot afford to forget him. [ read more in On The Scene ] June 26, 2008 DISPATCH FROM SCOTLAND | Hop Scotch: Edinburgh Fest Moves Out On Its Own
by Charlie Olsky (June 26, 2008) The city of Edinburgh holds endless treasures. The dense, medieval city center, built in the crater of an ancient volcano, breathes history from the massive Edinburgh Castle, down the gothic Royal Mile to the Palace of Holyrood. The beautifully planned "New City" remains one of the best examples in the world of Georgian architecture, and throughout, the city is interrupted vivid green hills and cliffs. It is also known for the annual Edinburgh Festival in August, a massive conglomeration of arts and music events that has made up the largest arts festival in the world since its founding in 1947. This year, the 62nd annual Edinburgh International Film Festival struck out on its own, moving to June; ever since it opened on Wednesday, the 18th, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. [ read more in On The Scene ]  REVIEW | Woman on Top: Catherine Breillat's "The Last Mistress"
by Chris Wisniewski (June 26, 2008) [An indieWIRE review from Reverse Shot.] The first time Asia Argento appears in Catherine Breillat's "The Last Mistress," she fills the frame, reclining on a couch with devilish confidence as her character, Vellini, discusses the upcoming marriage of Ryno (Fu'ad Ait Aattou), her lover of ten years, to another woman. It's an appropriate entrance for a woman who could fittingly be described as a force of nature -- a "goddess of capriciousness," as one character calls her -- someone who trembles with erotic delight as she climaxes on a tiger-skin rug, moans with unfathomable grief clutching the corpse of a loved one, and drinks blood from a man's bullet wound with carnal glee. [ read more in Movies ] June 18, 2008 indieWIRE INTERVIEW | "Brick Lane" Director Sarah Gavron
by Erica Abeel (June 18, 2008) The theme of the immigrant experience has become a burgeoning sub-genre in both cinema and literature. The latest such film on tap is "Brick Lane," a debut feature helmed by Sarah Gavron, who previously had mainly a BAFTA-winning TV movie to her credit. The project presented multiple challenges. Writers Laura Jones and Abi Morgan had to compress the acclaimed 500 page novel by Monica Ali (short listed for Britain's Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 2003). Gavron needed to devise a visual equivalent for the rich inner life of a notably silent heroine. The filmmakers scoured the world in search of actors to play the Bangladeshi characters. Add to that, Gavron, who's Caucasian, was making a movie about Bangladeshis. [ read more in People ] June 17, 2008 DISPATCH FROM SYDNEY | A Comeback For Australia's Troubled Fest?
by Shane Danielsen (June 17, 2008) Having suffered from a decade of leadership that ranged from lackluster to inept, and eclipsed during that time by rival events in Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane, 2008 ranked as something of a make-or-break year for the Sydney Film Festival. It saw, among other things, a substantial rise in state funding, and, as an emblem of this renewed confidence, the launch of a new international competition. It also marked the sophomore outing for new Artistic Director Clare Stewart, upon whose shoulders many hopes for the festival's resurrection have come to rest. [ read more in On The Scene ] June 3, 2008 REVIEW | Fascist Faux Pas: Sergei Bodrov's "Mongol"
by Michael Joshua Rowin (June 4, 2008) [An indieWIRE review from Reverse Shot.] "Mongol" marks a personal first for this reviewer: a bloated epic so boring and unengaging that by its numbing conclusion (the word anticlimactic can only be used for stories that actually build) he was zapped even of the conviction to hate it. An international co-production that probably broke the bank of several film companies from Russia, Germany, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan, and 2008's official Academy Awards foreign film entry for the latter country, "Mongol" is one of those violent, historical blockbusters that have been multiplying like swamp rats ("Gladiator," "Apocalypto," "300") ever since the head-slapping enshrinement of "Braveheart" by the Academy back in 1995. [ read more in Movies ] May 31, 2008 REVIEW | Trouble in Paradiso: Giuseppe Tornatore's "The Unknown Woman"
by Kristi Mitsuda (May 31, 2008) [An indieWIRE review from Reverse Shot.] A deliberately titillating scene opens Giuseppe Tornatore's "The Unknown Woman": three women wearing masks, asses to audience, stand naked in a strangely gilded room to be examined through peepholes. After they're dismissed, a second round comes out, and a blonde is asked to step forward and strip; "She'll do fine," an offscreen male voice intones. As usual, the "Cinema Paradiso" director has an eye for the voluptuous female form, but the lascivious voyeurism of his camera -- contained (Tornatore thinks) in his preceding movie, "Malena," by embedding its obsessive gaze within the point of view of a horny adolescent boy -- is made explicit here by its alignment with a prurient perspective. This objectifying introduction to his film's protagonist (played by Xenia Rappoport) is curiously at odds with the rest of the film, which is filtered through her subjectivity. This slippage explains the unintentional unease which colors the movie from the start, and undermines its attempt to create a credible portrait of a woman. [ read more in Movies ] May 18, 2008 REVIEW | Scattered People: Fatih Akin's "The Edge of Heaven"
by Elbert Ventura (May 17, 2008) [An indieWIRE review from Reverse Shot.] A German filmmaker of Turkish descent, Fatih Akin has made hybrid cultures and hyphenated identities his great subject. "Head-On," his acclaimed breakthrough film from 2004, told a love story between two German Turks that wended its way back to the homeland. In "The Edge of Heaven," his latest, the fixation on blurred borders and social dislocation continues on a larger canvas. Several characters shuttle back and forth between Turkey and Germany, even as the quest for home and rest seems increasingly quixotic. But let the overstuffed "The Edge of Heaven" be a lesson: Just multiplying and magnifying your obsessions does not make them any more powerful. [ read more in Movies ] May 14, 2008 indieWIRE INTERVIEW | "Reprise" Director Joachim Trier
by Eric Kohn (May 14, 2008) Combining pop whimsy with nuanced characters, Joachim Trier's "Reprise" constructs a simultaneously moving and satiric portrayal of two young struggling writers, Erik (Espen Klouman-Hoiner) and Phillip (Anders Danielson Lie), in Norway's chic modern professional scene. After a warm reception at the Sundance Film Festival in 2007 and a similar response later that year at New Directors/New Films, "Reprise" remained without distribution until producer Scott Rudin, a fan of the film, pressured Miramax's Daniel Battsek to purchase it. Incessantly lively, filled with contemporary references, and containing a number of creative flourishes to help give the heavier ideas a sense of levity, "Reprise" marks Trier's directorial debut. In a conversation with indieWIRE last week at the Soho Grand Hotel, the filmmaker matched the positive qualities that make his movie so distinct. [ read more in People ] May 12, 2008 DISPATCH FROM KOREA | Jeonju Fest: Eyeing Korean Film, and Some Major Talent
by Shane Danielsen (May 12, 2008) This year's Jeonju International Film Festival, the 9th, boasted ten world premieres of features and feature-length documentaries. There was a retrospective dedicated to Bela Tarr, and another to Alexander Kluge. There were works by James Benning and Nina Menkes and sidebars dedicated to Vietnamese and Central Asian cinema. But with the exception of a brief revisit to Kluge's 1965 debut, "Yesterday Girl" (which still seems remarkable, more than four decades on), it was the Korean films that I chose to focus upon. It only made sense, having come so far to South Korea... [ read more in On The Scene ] April 23, 2008 REVIEW | Knock Off: Claude Lelouch's "Roman de gare"
by Nick Pinkerton (April 23, 2008) [An indieWIRE review from Reverse Shot.] Sixties art-house standby Claude Lelouch is, as it turns out, alive and well and living in Paris. He's even directed a new film; the title, "Roman de gare," incessantly punned with in the film, apparently refers to those cheap paperback thrillers available at train stations, tawdry stuff good for a vacation perusal. A glance at my unusually thick press kit shows an interviewed Lelouch defensive about his alleged status as a "popular" or "mass" director (everything is relative) -- hence his adoption of X material. [ read more in Movies ] April 21, 2008indieWIRE INTERVIEW | "Roman de Gare" Director Claude Lelouch
by Erica Abeel (April 21, 2008) That the number of French films to find distribution here continues to dwindle is hardly news. What's less noted is that while American cinephiles are familiar with French art film -- Jacques Rivette, Olivier Assayas, Arnaud Desplechin come to mind -- they've had less exposure to France's "boulevard" crowd pleasers. (Exceptions, of course, are art crossovers "Amelie" and "La Vie en Rose"). Now along comes "Roman de Gare" from Claude Lelouch, a thriller with the pace and jolting twists of a studio film. It proudly flaunts its pop creds: roman de gare translates as "airport reading' or "potboiler" and Lelouch embraces the strong suit, as he sees it, of commercial fare. [ read more in People ]  VAR | Belladonna, Matson form partnership
Launching "a yearlong film festival," Belladonna Productions and Matson Films will join forces to acquire and distribute six Latin American films per year in 20 U.S. cities. The initiative is called the New World Cinema Series (NWCS), according to Variety.  [permalink] [ filed under Festivals, World Cinema ] April 14, 2008VAR | 'Warlords' dominates HK film awards
Peter Chan's "The Warlords" was the big winner at the Hong Kong Film Awards on Sunday, reports Variety. [permalink] [ filed under Honors, World Cinema ] April 2, 2008 iW PROFILE | "My Blueberry Nights" Director Wong Kar Wai
by Benjamin Crossley-Marra (April 2, 2008) "I don't think of this as a road movie," filmmaker Wong Kar Wai told New Yorkers last night, during a conversation about his new movie, "My Blueberry Nights," which was partially filmed in Lower Manhattan. "The original idea was to have the film just be about Norah and her relationship with the owners of this restaurant," Wong Kar Wai revealed. "But it was too expensive to shoot just in New York and the characters began to expand across the country." [ read more in People ] March 29, 2008 REVIEW | Such Great Heights: Hou Hsiao-hsien's "The Flight of the Red Balloon"
by Chris Wisniewski (March 29, 2008) [An indieWIRE review from Reverse Shot.] Like his 2004 film "Cafe Lumiere," Hou Hsiao-hsien's sublime new movie "The Flight of the Red Balloon" finds the director in a foreign country paying homage to another filmmaker. With "Lumiere," Yasujiro Ozu was Hou's reference point and Tokyo his canvas; here, Hou reimagines Albert Lamorisse's classic 1956 short "The Red Balloon" as a Parisian family melodrama. Hou's film, much like Lamorisse's, opens with the magnificent titular object hovering barely out of the reach of seven-year-old Simon (Simon Iteanu); as he gets on the Metro, it floats just above the station, drifting up into the trees. The balloon, and by proxy Lamorisse's film, serves as our point of departure -- our way into Simon's world and our guide through the streets of Paris -- but the delicate, charming, quietly heartbreaking portrait of childhood and family that follows is distinctively and unforgettably Hou. [ read more in Movies ] March 20, 2008 indieWIRE INTERVIEW | "Love Songs" Director Christophe Honore
by Lisa Rosman (March 20, 2008) Whatever it is that Americans glamorize about Paris, the films of Christophe Honore possess in spades. Stylish, irreverent, gorgeously rendered and unabashedly romantic, his features are both modern and classically Gallic and "Love Songs," a musical that IFC Films opens in the U.S. this Friday theatrically (and also on demand), may be his best yet. indieWIRE couldn't have been more enthused to talk with him about this film and on the state of French film in general during an interview during NYC's Rendezvous With French Cinema series. [ read more in People ] March 12, 2008iW NEWS | "Amal" To Open LA Indian Film Fest
Richie Mehta's "Amal" has been announced as the Opening Night Gala of the 6th Annual Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles. The festival additionally announced that the world premiere of "Mumbai Cutting: A City Unfolds," which features the work of ten top Indian directors, will be its Closing Night Gala presentation. This year, the festival will honor the work of Madhuri Dixit with a tribute and screening of her films "The Death Sentence" (Mrityudand) and "My Heart is Crazy" (Dil To Pagal Hai). The festival will take place April 22-27, 2008 at the ArcLight Hollywood Cinemas in Los Angeles, and will feature close to 40 films. [Peter Knegt] [permalink] [ filed under Festivals, World Cinema ] March 10, 2008iW NEWS | Fortissimo Acquires "Captain Abu Raed"
2008 Sundance Film Festival award winner "Captain Abu Raed" has been acquired for worldwide rights outside the Middle East and North America by Fortissimo Films. "Captain," directed by Amin Matalqa is the first Jordanian feature film to ever be exported for the world's cinemas. It garnered the World Cinema Audience Award and Best Actor for Nadim Sawalha at Sundance, and will have its market premiere at upcoming Hong Kong Filmart and the Cannes Market. [Peter Knegt] [permalink] [ filed under Acquisitions, World Cinema ] February 29, 2008 FESTIVALS | French Vets Reign Supreme in a Roller Coaster Rendez Vous
by Erica Abeel (February 29, 2008) A trio of dazzling films from seasoned directors marks this year's Rendez-vous With French Cinema (running from February 29 to March 9 at the Walter Reade Theater and IFC Center in New York). Claude Lelouch -- known here primarily for his 1966 "A Man and a Woman" -- is in wicked form with thriller and series opener, "Roman de Gare," which hits more curves and speed bumps than Sarkozy's love life. "Paris" by Cedric Klapisch offers an eagle's eye view of the city's lives, while a young man waits for a heart transplant. And Claude Miller's "A Secret," suffused with personal resonance, probes the buried past of French Jews trying to pass as Aryans during the Occupation. Sad to say, though, the remaining twelve films, many from newcomers, are somewhat disappointing. Yes, they offer a hand-tooled look of French film -- always a welcome respite from studio product -- but overall, the selection is a grab bag ranging from worthy but flawed, to mildly entertaining, to duds. This year's uneven lineup raises questions about the always popular Rendez-vous, increasingly presented as a wine-and-cheese event for armchair travelers. Are some films included just to pad the roster and give viewers their French fix? [ read more in On The Scene ] February 27, 2008 indieWIRE INTERVIEW | "City of Men" Director Paolo Morelli
by indieWIRE (February 27, 2008) In 2002, Fernando Meirelles' "City of God" became a $7.5 million foreign-language hit in North America, managing a bunch of Oscar nods with it, including best director. Six years later, longtime Meirelles collaborator Paulo Morelli is releasing a companion piece to that film, "City of Men." Largely based on characters and some storylines developed in television series loosely spawned from "God," "Men" largely uses the same cast as the series, which ran four seasons on Brazil's TV Globo (and was released on DVD in the U.S. in fall 2006). But apart from the setting, "Men" has no actual plot connections to "God," as Morelli's film follows the friendship of two favela teenagers. indieWIRE talked to Morelli about the film, which is being released in 77 locations across North America this Friday. [ read more in People ] February 26, 2008 DISPATCH FROM BRAZIL | Golden Bear Upset: A Look at the Controversy Behind "Tropa de Elite"
by Michael Gibbons (February 26, 2008) Shocking critics and industry insiders in a move that no one saw coming, the 58th Berlin International Film Festival awarded its top prize, the Golden Bear, to the Brazilian film "Elite Squad" (Tropa de Elite). The award was a remarkable coup for the film that made its international premiere with subtitle problems and that Variety had written off as "a one-note celebration of violence-for-good that plays like a recruitment film for fascist thugs." Yet, earlier this month the Berlin jury headed by Costa-Gavras, a renowned political filmmaker, defiantly gave the award in what they said was a unanimous decision. While it may seem like it came from nowhere, "Elite Squad"'s Golden Bear is far from the first time this provocative film has pushed buttons, nor will it be the last. [ read more in Biz ]  FESTIVALS | No !Fs Ands or Buts, Turkey Eats up the Indies
by Kerem Bayrak (February 26, 2008) Although in my last report from the Antalya/ Eurasia Film Festival back in October 2007, I had mentioned that there were two major film festivals in Turkey, it was a comment that I had not wholly given due care. The cities of Istanbul and Ankara have for the past seven years given way to a movement and creation of the !F Istanbul Film Festival whose onus was to promote global independent films to Turkish audiences and to screen international works that would not have necessarily secured a domestic theatrical release. The main event in Istanbul took place between the 14th - 24th February and in Ankara a smaller selection of Istanbul's screenings will be held between 28th February - 2nd March. [ read more in On The Scene ] February 21, 2008 REVIEW | Holding Court: Jacques Rivette's "The Duchess of Langeais"
by Nick Pinkerton (February 21, 2008) [An indieWIRE review from Reverse Shot.] A chamber piece for two tragic almost-lovers, a coquettish Duchess and a noble French General. A chance flirtation at a Fauborg St-Germain party initiates an arduous campaign of romantic outflankings, accomplished through feigned illnesses, epistolary sallies, evocations of God, and threats of force. Abstemious with close-ups, "The Duchess of Langeais" is a two-shot duet for Jeanne Balibar and Guillaume Depardieu. The performances are precise in the extreme, the combatants' war games regulated by elaborate rules of engagement, incremental charges and retreats. In visits to the Duchess's residence, they push and pull their conversations between the bedchamber, drawing room, and foyer, the camera softly slipping after. The Duchess, however, has underestimated the fortitude of this suitor, whose continual, nauseous glowering at his loose forelock hides a master strategian. [ read more in Movies ] February 20, 2008 REVIEW | Money for Nothing: Stefan Ruzowitzky's "The Counterfeiters"
by Michael Koresky (February 20, 2008) [An indieWIRE review from Reverse Shot.] Let's get it out of the way first: Stefan Ruzowitzky's "The Counterfeiters" was nominated for a Best Foreign-Language Film Oscar, controversially at the exclusion of a handful of borderline masterpieces, from Cristian Mungiu's "4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days" to the upcoming "Silent Light" and "Secret Sunshine." Though it feels disingenuous to bring up the most notoriously boorish, nonsensically designed of all Academy Award categories when discussing a film's merits, perhaps it's productive to point out all the reasons why a film such as "The Counterfeiters" gets that slot over more difficult, rewarding, and harder to categorize films that would need the recognition to make any waves outside of small, cinephilic circles. [ read more in Movies ] February 19, 2008 indieWIRE INTERVIEW | "The Year My Parents Went On Vacation" Director Cao Hamburger
by indieWIRE (February 19, 2008) Brazil's official submission for the 2008 Academy Awards (for which it made the "longlist" of finalists but failed to receive one of the controversial nominations), Cao Hamburger's "The Year My Parents Went On Vacation" has made the rounds of over 30 worldwide film festivals, including Berlin and Toronto. Set around the 1970 World Cup, "Vacation" details a couple who leave their son Marco with his grandfather, only to have his grandfather die of a heart attack just after the parents leave. Alone and without knowing where is parents are, Marco stays with his grandfather's next door neighbor Shlomo in the Jewish community of Bom Retiro. Screening in limited release as of last Friday, Hamburger spoke with indieWIRE about his experiences on "Vacation." [ read more in People ] February 14, 2008 indieWIRE INTERVIEW | "The Counterfeiters" Director Stefan Ruzowitzky
by Howard Feinstein (February 14, 2008) No, it's not for his famous flop of an American drag film, "All the Queen's Men," that he received an Oscar nomination. Forty-six-year-old Viennese director Stefan Ruzowitzky learned something facile but important in the industry: actors carry baggage. He had no idea that he cast not Matt LeBlanc as a World War Two interloper in women's clothes trying to learn war secrets, but in fact Joey from "Friends." How should Ruzowitzky know how popular the program was? In fact, his nomination is for Best Foreign Language Film, Austria's selection "The Counterfeiters," with less exposed but better performers who are known quantities, with serious drama outweighing the bad attempts at humor, and about a topic he knows well: the fact-based story of Jews who know how to create fake bills surviving, even living and eating fairly well, in concentration camps in return for their assistance in betraying the Allies in favor of the Nazis by creating money to undermine the enemies' economies. [ read more in People ] February 11, 2008iW NEWS | Benten Films Acquires "Free Will"
Benton Films, the first DVD label run by film critics, has acquired the North American DVD rights to Bavaria Film International's award winning 2006 drama "The Free Will." Directed by Matthias Glasner, the film won the Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution at the 2006 Berlinale, as well as Best Actor awards for Jurgen Vogel at both the Tribeca Film Festival and Chicago International Film Festival. "We're honored to have acquired such a prestigious title," said Andrew Grant, President of Benten Films. "The Free Will" will be released on June 24, 2008. [Peter Knegt] [permalink] [ filed under Acquisitions, World Cinema ] iW NEWS | Filmcatcher Announces Digital Deal
Filmcatcher.com has announced a deal with The Global Film Initiative and its distribution partner, First Run Features, to make GFI's films available on Filmcatcher. "At FilmCatcher, we want our visitors to discover worthy new talent and films," said Alan Klingenstein, co-founder of FilmCatcher, in a statement. "Working with Global Film Initiative, we'll be able to see the best filmmakers from emerging markets around the world, and bring them to our audience, so it's a perfect match." GFI provides funding to filmmakers in various developing countries. Four films, both given grants and distributed by Global Film have represented their countries at the Academy Awards in the Foreign Film Competition category. [Peter Knegt] [permalink] [ filed under New Media & Technology, World Cinema ] iW NEWS | Locarno Announces Moretti Retrospective
The 61st Locarno International Film Festival announced a retrospective for Italian filmmaker, actor and producer Nanni Moretti. Locarno has a tradition of retrospectives that follow the work of contemporary auteurs that alternate with substantial historical monographs and more thematic programmes. Following Youssef Chahine, Abbas Kiarostami, Marco Bellocchio, Joe Dante, and Aki Kaurismaki, 2008 will spotlight Moretti. The festival runs from August 6-16, 2008. [Peter Knegt] [permalink] [ filed under Festivals, World Cinema ] iW NEWS | SPC Announces "12" Pact
Sony Pictures Classics has annonuced a deal for North American rights to Nikita Mikhalkov's "12," an Oscar nomineed in the best foreign language film category this year. The courtroom drama is loosely adapted from Sidney Lumet's "12 Angry Men." SPC also released Mikhalkov's Oscar-winner, "Burnt By The Sun." [Eugene Hernandez] [permalink] [ filed under Acquisitions, Berlin, World Cinema ] February 7, 2008 REVIEW | Grace Notes: Eran Kolirin's "The Band's Visit"
by Michael Koresky (February 7, 2008) [An indieWIRE review from Reverse Shot.] Though it's both a predictable culture-clash comedy and a gentle plea for people of different political backgrounds to "just get along," "The Band's Visit" nevertheless manages to use its central contrivances and inevitable cliches to its favor, and becomes something ethereal and winning. This debut from Israeli filmmaker Eran Kolirin, in which the soft-spoken members of an Egyptian brass band (the stodgy Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra, to be precise) find themselves stranded in a small Israeli town on the way to a gig, parlays its initial good-natured dullness into surprisingly robust drama. Kolirin's schematics, both in its narrative turns and its overtly stylized compositions, threaten to reduce politics to bromides -- yet the filmmaker is wonderfully keyed into the subtleties of human behavior, and evinces a splendid love for all of his characters that borders on infectious adoration. "The Band's Visit" may wear its quaintness too much on its sleeve, but for a dose of what is essentially movie medicine, it goes down awfully easily. [ read more in Movies ] February 6, 2008 IndieWIRE INTERVIEW | "In Bruges" Director Martin McDonagh
by Erica Abeel (February 6, 2008) Talk to Martin McDonagh and the phrase he keeps returning to is "dark and dangerous." Certainly those words -- along with hilarious, twisted, fresh -- capture the "In-Yer-Face Theatre" of this Anglo-Irish writer. He crashed onto the scene at age twenty-three with "The Beauty Queen of Leenane" (which he claims he wrote in eight days), then knocked out a series of plays marked by violence and ghoulish glee, mostly set in Ireland in some "lonesome west" (the title of one play) of the soul. Lionized as an important new playwright, McDonagh at one point had six productions on London stages at the same time. Yet his great love, he claims, has always been film. After getting his feet wet with an Academy Award-winning short, McDonagh now makes the leap to feature length with "In Bruges." [ read more in People ]  FESTIVALS | Rendez-Vous Unveils 13th French Run Across the Pond
by Brian Brooks (February 6, 2008) Fifteen films will screen as U.S. or New York debuts at the 13th Rendez-Vous with French Cinema series hosted by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and Unifrance February 29 through March 9. As previously announced, Oscar-winner Claude Lelouch's thriller "Roman de gare" will launch the popular event at the Walter Reade Theater. Fanny Ardant stars in the films as a best-selling author researching her next crime story. Other veteran French filmmakers making their return this year include Cedric Klapisch ("L'Auberge Espagnole") with "Paris," described as "an emotional tour of the city through the eyes of a man waiting for a heart transplant, starring Romain Duris and Juliette Binoche. [ read more in On The Scene ] February 5, 2008 indieWIRE INTERVIEW | "The Band's Visit" Director "Eran Kolirin
by Erica Abeel (February 5, 2008) After the screening in last year's Cannes, the applause wouldn't stop, keeping the visibly moved filmmakers and cast in the theater. The film was "The Band's Visit," a first feature from Israeli director Eran Kolirin. Arriving without buzz on the Croisette, it quickly emerged as a gem of Cannes '07, and nabbed the international critic's prize for the Un Certain Regard section. "Band" is a quiet, pared-down film, which like a story by Chekhov, strips bare its characters' lives. Toplined by the great Ronit Elkabetz, leading Israeli actor Sasson Gabai, and gifted Palestinian actor Saleh Bakri, it concerns an Egyptian Police band that arrives in Israel to play at an initiation ceremony for an Arab cultural center. [ read more in People ] February 4, 2008iW NEWS | "La Soledad" Wins Big at Spain's Goya Awards
Jaime Rosales's critically acclaimed "La Soledad" was a big winner at Spain's Goya Awards on Sunday night in Madrid, nabbing the prizes for best picture and best director. An arthouse release that only reached a limited audience, the film topped Juan Antonio Bayona's hugely successful "El Orfanato" (The Orphanage) for best film and also won the best new actor prize for Jose Luis Torrijo, but "The Orphanage" did win the best new director prize, and the award for original screenplay, among other awards. Reporting to indieWIRE on the Goya's, a reader reiterated that the victory for Rosales' film was a major upset given that "The Orphanage" sold millions of tickets, while "La Soledad" was a modest release reaching just tens of thousands of moviegoers. [Eugene Hernadez] [permalink] [ filed under Honors, World Cinema ] February 3, 2008iW NEWS | "Persepolis" Wins IFFR Audience Award
As the festival came to a close, Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud's "Persepolis" won the audience award at the 2008 International Film Festival Rotterdam. The event concluded with a screening of Eran Kolirin's "The Band's Visit." [Eugene Hernandez] [permalink] [ filed under Festivals, World Cinema ] January 31, 2008 iW PROFILE | "Caramel" Director Nadine Labaki
by Lisa Rosman (January 31, 2008) "Caramel," the funny, sharp-eyed import about a beauty shop that opens in theaters today, set tongues a-flapping in Cannes last year as well as in 40 countries so far--by far the largest release a Lebanese film has ever received. It also is the first movie made in Beirut that doesn't reference the war. Director/writer/co-star Nadine Labaki, who was 17 when the war ended in 1990, says that omission was "a very conscious choice." During a recent whirlwind visit to NYC, she explained why to indieWIRE. [ read more in People ] iW NEWS | NonStop Paddles "Ping Pong"
Scandinavian-based sales company NonStop Sales has signed international distribution rights to Swedish director Jens Jonsson's "The King of Ping Pong," which won the world cinema jury prize in the dramatic category as well as a world cinematography award at the recent Sundance Film Festival. NonStop Sales will have the film's market premiere at the European Film Market coinciding with the Berlinale. The film centers on an ostracized and bullied teenager who excels only in ping pong descends into an acrimonious struggle with his younger, more popular brother when the truth about their family history and their father surfaces over the course of their spring break. In other NonStop news, the company is touting the box office success in Norway for "The Kautokeino Rebellion" and "Switch," both of which will screen in the European Film Market. [Brian Brooks] [permalink] [ filed under Acquisitions, World Cinema ] January 30, 2008 REVIEW | Caught in the Middle: Andre Techine's "The Witnesses"
by Michael Koresky (January 30, 2008) [An indieWIRE review from Reverse Shot.] Once again, with his new film "The Witnesses," great French filmmaker Andre Techine surveys the intersections of sexuality and politics, while offering up a compelling study in human strength and weakness. Instructive without ever falling into cheap bromides, dramatic without ever veering into overzealous melodrama, "The Witnesses" is a penetrating, even essential narrative. Techine is fascinated by the ways in which lives interact, personalities cross-pollinate, wounds are compounded, exacerbated, or even healed, yet never in that increasingly mundane American style of overlapping stories that prize fate or coincidence; he paints specifically, creating not vague character sketches but full lives, however defined by enigma or contradiction. Here, as in his superlative (and admittedly more vivid) "Wild Reeds," Techine introduces complicated people who may evolve throughout the course of the narrative but who are also unavoidably wedded to their specific time and place in history. [ read more in Movies ] January 20, 2008 REVIEW | The Body Politic: Cristian Mungiu's "4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days"
by Chris Wisniewski (January 21, 2008) [An indieWIRE review from Reverse Shot.] Cristian Mungiu's Palme d'or winner "4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days" is as good as you've heard -- ravaging, provocative, deeply moving, and expertly crafted -- but it may not be what you expect. Billed by many as the "Romanian abortion movie" (something akin to labeling "There Will Be Blood" the "American oil movie"), "4 Months" isn't simply about abortion, even if the film uses it as its structuring conceit. So yes, Mungiu's film concerns two friends, Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) and Gabita (Laura Vasiliu), who attempt to procure an illegal abortion for the latter in the waning days of the Ceausescu regime, but it is not an "abortion movie" in the vein of Mike Leigh's excellent "Vera Drake" or Alexander Payne's "Citizen Ruth." Otilia -- and not Gabita -- occupies the film's narrative and moral center, and through this character, magnificently rendered by Marinca and insistently studied by Mungiu's handheld camera, "4 Months" becomes something far more expansive than a simple plot description could imply -- a tense, riveting thriller (of a sort) that subtly evokes the experiences of women in a society that fiercely regulates their lives and bodies, often reducing them to commodities to be bought, sold, and bartered, no different at the extreme from the Kent cigarettes and orange Tic Tacs traded on the Bucharest black market. [ read more in Movies ] January 18, 2008 PARK CITY '08 INTERVIEW | "Eat, For This Is My Body" Director Michelange Quay
by indieWIRE (January 19, 2008) EDITORS NOTE: This is part of a series of interviews, conducted via email, profiling first-time feature directors who have films screening at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Screening in the New Frontier program at Sundance '08, Michelange Quay's first feature uniquely discusses the evolution of power and the relationship between black boys and white women in the director's native Haiti. As Sundance's Shari Frilot explains, "Eat" "seductively begs the viewer to abandon the rules of traditional storytelling and instead embrace a poetic, cinematic language." Frilot finds a "muscular confidence and inspired dreamlike quality to Quay's filmmaking." He "evocatively blends gorgeous imagery with an infectious musical energy to create a story that is largely free of dialogue and entirely visceral in effect." [ read more in People ] January 16, 2008iW NEWS | Samuel Goldwyn Takes "Fugitive Pieces"
Writer/director Jeremy Podeswa's Toronto Fest '07 opener "Fugitive Pieces" has been acquired by Samuel Goldwyn Films, the company announced Tuesday. The film will have its U.S. premiere at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival on February 2nd. Goldwyn VP of acquisitions Peter Goldwyn negotiated the deal John Sloss of Cinetic Media on behalf of the filmmakers. Based on the international bestselling novel by Anne Michaels, "Fugitive Pieces" is described by Goldwyn as a poetic and emotionally charged film about "love, loss and redemption." The film tells the story of Jakob Beer, a man whose life is haunted by his childhood experiences during World War II. As a child in Poland, Jakob is orphaned during wartime only to be saved by a compassionate Greek archeologist. Over the course of his life, he attempts to deal with the losses he has endured. Samuel Goldwyn plans a May release. [Brian Brooks] [permalink] [ filed under Acquisitions, World Cinema ] January 14, 2008 REVIEW | Missing Persons: Jia Zhangke's "Still Life"
by Michael Koresky (January 14, 2008) [An indieWIRE review from Reverse Shot.] Jia Zhangke, who has emerged as one of the great artists from the "Sixth Generation" of Chinese filmmakers, is one of those directors whose work will always be embraced and discussed by a number of devoted followers but whose discursive, searching approach to narratives and the people who inhabit them keep his films from appealing to a wider audience. At this juncture, I can't recall any of his earlier features creating much of an art-house stir once they found distributors after their North American festival debuts; it's a shame because, despite their refusal of cinematic conventions, Jia's films are hardly ossified, self-contained art works--in fact, today there are no films reaching American screens that reveal quite so much about the state of contemporary China, as important a topic as anything else going on in the world today (despite the understandable glut of films on Iraq and Darfur). [ read more in Movies ] January 10, 2008 ROTTERDAM '08 | "Lamb of God" Opening 2008 Rotterdam Fest; 14 More Films Also in Tiger Competition
by Eugene Hernandez (January 10, 2008) Fifteen films will screen in competition at the 2008 International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) later this month and the festival will open on January 23rd with the world premiere of Lucia Cedron's "Lamb of God" (Cordero de dios) from Argentina. The film is described as, a family drama about the kidnapping of 77-year old man during Argentina's economic crisis in 2002, forcing his daughter to return from exile to Buenos Aires. Produced by Lita Stantic, who also produced "The Holy Girl" and "Paraguayan, Hammock" the film was supported by IFFR's Hubert Bals Fund. [ read more in On The Scene ] AFP: French film exports flounder
French film exports fell for the second year running in 2007, with ticket sales down to 53.7 million against 55.8 million the previous year, the export promotion board Unifrance said Thursday. AFP reports. [permalink] [ filed under Biz, World Cinema ]  PARK CITY '08 INTERVIEW | "Up The Yangtze" Director Yung Chang
by indieWIRE (January 11, 2008) EDITORS NOTE: This is part of a series of interviews, conducted via email, profiling first-time feature directors who have films screening at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Premiering at Sundance '08 in the Documentary Competition program, Yung Chang's "Up The Yangtze" examines the effects of the construction of the massive Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River. The dam is to become the largest hydroelectric power station in the world, but with this comes the displacement of millions of residents and the destruction of landmarks. Yang follows two young people effected by the project, and the result provides "a final snapshot of a rapidly disappearing cultural landscape," says Sundance's Rosie Wong. Wong notes that "juxtaposing the Yangtze's stunning panorama with the reality of Yu Shui's poignant story, Chang shows the tenuous balance between China's rich cultural past and its modernized future." [ read more in People ]  PARK CITY '08 INTERVIEW | "Nerakhoon (The Betrayal)" Director Ellen Kuras
by indieWIRE (January 10, 2008) EDITORS NOTE: This is part of a series of interviews, conducted via email, profiling first-time feature directors who have films screening at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. With the rise of a communist government in Laos, lillings and arrests became common among those afflicted with the former govenrment and the Americans. Families were torn apart -- some finally emigrating to the U.S. Spanning 20 years, vet D.P. Ellen Kuras debuts her first directorial effort "Nerakhoon (The Betrayal)"with Laotian co-director Thavisouk Phrasavath, who is the main subject of the film. The Sundance Film Festival's Cara Mertes comments in this year's fest catalog, "'Nerakhoon (The Betrayal)' is an exquisitely crafted tale about a country, a family, and a young man who discovers the power and resilience of the human spirit. The film is screening in SFF's documentary competition. [ read more in People ] January 9, 2008 PARK CITY '08 | Don't Overlook the World: 10+ International Films to Watch at Sundance '08
by Anthony Kaufman (January 9, 2008) Next week, the global film industry will turn to Park City, Utah for the Sundance Film Festival. But does Sundance, in turn, look back at the rest of the globe? The answer, of course, is sort of. While press, paparazzi and moviegoers will be tracking the every movement of this year's American celebs (Josh Hartnett, Charlize Theron and Jack Black, just to name a few), Sundance has increasingly tried to boost its international competition sections, with more prizes and more prestige value for the festival's global entrants. [ read more in Biz ] January 8, 2008 REVIEW | You've Got Male: Hong Sang-soo's "Woman on the Beach"
by Michael Joshua Rowin (January 8, 2008) It's clear that South Korean director Hong Sang-soo knows a thing or two about human relationships, of longings, self-delusions, attitudinal dead ends, and, once in a very miraculous while, he has a revelation or insight suggesting a new way to conduct them. On the basis of six heralded films, including 2004's "Woman Is the Future of Man" (his only one before "Woman on the Beach" to have gained distribution in the U.S.) Hong has been labeled an Asian Rohmer. At first glance he seems to have learned lessons directly from the French master in how to tell conversation-heavy, behavior-observant stories by means of an "economic" visual grammar, which in Hong's case includes long, patient single takes punctuated here and there by zooms or intrusive (and sometimes incongruously light) soundtrack music. [ read more in Movies ] January 7, 2008 PARK CITY '08 INTERVIEW | "Donkey Punch" Director Olly Blackburn
by indieWIRE (January 7, 2008) EDITORS NOTE: This is part of a series of interviews, conducted via email, profiling first-time feature directors who have films screening at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Sex, drugs and beautiful people on board a luxurious yacht in the Mediterranean--not your typical setting for a horror film, but "Donkey Punch" isn't your typical horror film, according to the '08 Sundance Film Festival catalog. Three beautiful women vacation in a Mediterranean beach town and meet three guys eager to show them a good time, and take them to the yachts where they serve as crew. With the owner away and the sexual tensions rising, the group heads out to sea -- and the terror begins... Says Sundance's Trevor Groth, "Blackburn's gut-wrenching, nerve-shredding 'Donkey Punch' stimulates the senses and shatters conventions." Co-writer/director Olly Blackburn's "Donkey Punch" will screen in the upcoming Sundance Film Festival's Park City at Midnight section. [ read more in People ] January 4, 2008 PARK CITY '08 INTERVIEW | "Anvil! The True Story of Anvil" Director Sacha Gervasi
by indieWIRE (January 4, 2008) EDITORS NOTE: This is the first in a series of interviews, conducted via email, profiling first-time feature directors who have films screening at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. At 14, Toronto school friends Steve "Lips" Kudlow and Robb Reiner made a pact to rock together forever. Their band, Anvil, went on to become the "demigods of Canadian metal," releasing one of the heaviest albums in metal history, 1982's Metal on Metal. The album influenced a musical generation, including Metallica, Slayer, and Anthrax, and went on to sell millions of records. But Anvil's career took a different path--straight to obscurity. Director Sacha Gervasi, according to the Sundance Film Festival's John Cooper, has "concocted a wonderful and often hilarious account of Anvil's last-ditch quest for elusive fame and fortune. His ingenious filmmaking may first lead you to think this a mockumentary, but it isn't...'Anvil! The True Story of Anvil' is a timeless tale of survival and the unadulterated passion it takes to follow your dream, year after year." The film will screen in Sundance's Spectrum section. [ read more in People ] December 27, 2007 REVIEW | Scare Quotes: Juan Antonio Bayona's "The Orphanage"
by Kristi Mitsuda (December 26, 2007) [An indieWIRE review from Reverse Shot.] The organic foreboding conjured by an opening prelude torn from the past -- depicting children at play outdoors on a beautiful summer day full of pollen and petals, their caretakers looking on from inside a looming manor -- calls to mind elusive, unclassifiable films like Lucile Hadzihalilovic's "Innocence" rather than genre movies of the horror variety to which "The Orphanage" belongs. Too bad, then, that this beguiling subtlety is quickly upended as the opening credits roll -- kicking off with a big "Guillermo del Toro Presents" banner that signals the film's bald bid to become this year's "Pan's Labyrinth" (a dubious prospect if you happened to find that Foreign Language Oscar nominee overhyped, as I did) -- to the tune of a score distractingly reminiscent of "Psycho" and indicative of the more well-worn path Spanish filmmaker Juan Antonio Bayona's feature debut will follow. [ read more in Movies ] December 20, 2007 indieWIRE INTERVIEW | "Persepolis" Co-directors Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud
by Erica Abeel (December 20, 2007) When "Persepolis" screened in competition in Cannes this past May, Iran raised a ruckus, protesting to the French government about the film's negative take on Islam. But it will take more than Iran's ire to stop this baby, an adaptation of Marjane Satrapi's acclaimed graphic novels. Not only did France wave off the protests from Teheran, "Persepolis" -- co-directed by Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud -- has continued to reap honors, including the Cannes Jury Prize, Oscar contender for Best Foreign Picture (France), winner for Best Animated Feature from the New York Film Critics Circle and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, a Golden Globe nominee for Best Foreign Film, and the list goes on and on. [ read more in People ] December 18, 2007 DISPATCH FROM HAVANA | Celebrating Latin Film and Contradictions
by Howard Feinstein (December 18, 2007) A healthy if strange disconnect colored the Havana Film Festival (December 4-14), officially the Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano--but then Cuban society is a textbook model of disjunction. Take opening night, a tripartite schizorama in the 4800-seat Teatro Karl Marx that could only succeed in this surreal capitol of contradictions (which go far beyond the overly circulated images of the shells of '50s American cars that hide engines from God-knows-where or the crumbling facades of powerful, no-longer-pristine Deco houses). [ read more in On The Scene ] December 17, 2007REVIEW | Design for Living: Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud's "Persepolis"
by Kristi Mitsuda (December 17, 2007) [An indieWIRE review from Reverse Shot.] At a moment in history where Iran, famously dubbed one-third of an "Axis of Evil" by Dubya, has again been making headlines as the next country with whom the Republicans wanna preemptively rumble (though the NIE's latest report on its lack of a nuclear weapons program throws this political gambit into a tailspin), Marjane Satrapi's autobiographical and surpassingly exquisite "Persepolis," co-written and directed with fellow comic book artist Vincent Paronnaud, is a corrective bomb of beauty launched lovingly into a terrified world. Based upon Satrapi's likewise superlative graphic novels and detailing her upbringing in Iran and eventual departure to (and return from) Austria amidst the Islamic Revolution, the personal-is-political telling deconstructs the absolute Otherness attributed to Iranians in an era scarred by boys who cry terrorist, even as the film rises to the status of coming-of-age classic. [ read more in Movies ] December 13, 2007 DISPATCH FROM DUBAI | Re-branding Arab Film with Only an Eye to the West
by Charlie Olsky (December 13, 2007) The Dubai International Film Festival, like the city itself, does not want for extravagance. Every night, there's a major gala screening followed by a lavish after-party, one for each section of DIFF's programming. Tuesday night's gala celebrated the festival's Arabian Nights program, a selection of non-competition films from Arab filmmakers with a focus on the interaction between Arabs and the Western world, with a screening of Moroccan director Nabil Ayouch's exceedingly sweet-natured "Whatever Lola Wants." The movie, about an American dancer's friendship with an Egyptian belly-dancer, demonstrated the festival's progressive nature by showcasing a positive gay Arab character and a sexually active unmarried woman, but it did so as inoffensively as possible. [ read more in On The Scene ] December 5, 2007ROTTERDAM '08 | Kiarostami, Fiennes, Puiu and Panahi Projects in Upcoming 25th Cinemart
by Brian Brooks (December 5, 2007) Thirty-nine projects have been selected to participate in CineMart, the co-production market taking place January 27 - 31, which coincides with the 37th International Film Festival Rotterdam. This year's 25th CineMart, which focuses on low and medium budget films, includes projects by Abbas Kiarostami, Sophie Fiennes, Cristi Puiu, Jafar Panahi and Alex van Warmerdam. "The aim for the selection of the 25th anniversary of CineMart was a more focused and selective line up of projects," commented CineMart manager Marit van den Elshout in a statement. "In order to give each project the exclusivity it deserves, we have brought down the number of projects to below 40 projects. Considering the fact that a record number of applications was received this year, this meant an even more difficult selection process." [ read more in On The Scene ] December 1, 2007iW NEWS | "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days", "The Band's Visit" Win Big at European Film Awards
Christian Mungiu's "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days," from Romania, won the award for best European film and Mungiu won the best director award at the European Film Awards in Berlin tonight. The film, winner of the Palme d'Or in Cannes this spring, is set for an awards qualifying run from IFC Films & Red Envelope Entertainment in the U.S. later this month. Sasson Gabai from "The Band's Visit" won the award for best actor and the film was named European discovery of the year at the ceremony. It will also open for a qualifying run this month. Helen Mirren was honored as best actress for "The Queen." Fatih Akin won the best screenplay award for "The Edge of Heaven" and the festival's FIPRESCI critics prize went to Alain Resnais' "Coeurs." Giuseppe Tornatore's "La Sconosciuta" won the people's choice award at the ceremony. indieWIRE plans to publish a dispatch from the European Film Awards on Sunday. [Eugene Hernandez] [permalink] [ filed under Awards Watch, Honors, World Cinema ] November 29, 2007 DISPATCH FROM GREECE | Festival Vets, Master Classes and an Eclectic Line up for 48th Thessaloniki Fest
by Rania Richardson (November 29, 2007) In a twist of fate, a film by a native of Thessaloniki garnered the most awards at Sunday night's closing ceremony of the 48th Thessaloniki International Film Festival. "PVC-1," directed by Spiros Stathoulopoulos, is a thriller made with one continuous 81-minute take, and earned the Silver Alexander, the audience award, and several other honors. The jury looked to China to award the festival's Golden Alexander top prize to "The Red Awn," a father-son drama directed by Shangjun Cai. Located in a northern port city on the Greek Aegean Sea, the festival continues to grow under the leadership of Despina Mouzaki, a whirlwind of energy with a charming, elegant demeanor. Variety recently named the 10-day event one of "50 Unmissable Fests" and The New York Times dubbed the city a counterculture center or "the Seattle of the Balkans." [ read more in On The Scene ] November 14, 2007 WORLD CINEMA | Gone Today; Here Tomorrow: Foreign Flicks Wait Out, Then Face Award Season Glut
by Anthony Kaufman (November 13, 2007) Foreign cinema lovers are facing a severe drought in U.S. movie theaters. During the crowded rush of award-season, when both the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times have recently published stories titled, respectively, "Not Just Some Movies: This is A Glut of Cinema" and "Arthouse Depression," there's one type of non-studio film that's nearly absent from both theaters and the debate surrounding the packed release calendar: world cinema. [ read more in Biz ] November 13, 2007 DISPATCH FROM NEW YORK | Iberoamerica: That's the Way We Are
by Howard Feinstein (November 13, 2007) At the beginning of November Mexico, Brazil, and, to a lesser extent, Spain and Portugal celebrated the Day of the Dead, a festive holiday whose symbol is a human skull. These cultures do not deny the finality of it all as do we North Americans, who mummify our decaying faces and bodies while we are still alive rather than in preparation for an afterlife. So it is absolutely natural that death, whether treated as comedy, tragedy, or simply generically, is a major presence in the cinema of Spain and Portugal and their former colonies in Latin America. The narratives and documentaries might be character or politically-driven, but they rarely stray from the netherworld. (We're talking real death, not the mindless mowdown perpetuated by the Hollywoodites who would sell their kids for a map to the Fountain of Youth). [ read more in On The Scene ] October 30, 2007 DISPATCH FROM TURKEY | Mysteries, Whirling Dervishes and Ancient Treasures Unfold at Antalya Fests
by Kerem Bayraktaroglu (October 30, 2007) In the mystical and ancient Mediterranean coastal city of Antalya, sometimes referred to as the Turkish Riviera, international buyers and sellers from all over the world recently attended the Eurasia International Film Market (October 22 - 25), running parallel with the Antalya Film Festival and the third Eurasia International Festival, respectively (October 19 - 28th). Although one may instantly presume that Turkey has only one international film festival to offer, in the form of Istanbul, it is in fact Antalya that garners the most prestige and respect, as the country's oldest and more lavishly funded (by TurkSak). [ read more in On The Scene ] October 10, 2007 WORLD CINEMA | The Foreign-Language Oscar Race: Where (Almost) Anything Can Happen
by Anthony Kaufman (October 10, 2007) You've got to hand it to Bulgaria, Chile, and the Philippines: Year after year, the countries proudly enter their most celebrated films into the race for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film--with not a chance in hell of winning. And poor Portugal: it holds the record for most submissions without ever receiving a nomination. With the exception of Bosnian director Danis Tanovic's "No Man's Land" victory in 2002, the prize has never gone to a director from a developing country. [ read more in Movies ] October 9, 2007 DISPATCH FROM KOREA | Storms Brew for Korean Cinema, Though Pusan's Opening Night was Drenched with Fans
by Doug Jones (October 9, 2007) Rain crashed the party last Thursday at the opening night ceremony of the Pusan International Film Festival. With over 8,000 enthusiastic fans inside and out the open-air venue and a parade of Asian stars on the red carpet, the weather made itself felt for the first time in the festival's twelve-year history. For the pessimists in the crowd in search of a metaphor, the clouds overhead encapsulated the rough time Korean cinema has had this year. (Investment in film production is down from last year, and tickets sales for domestic films are at their lowest levels since 2001.) But for festival organizers, the rain was just a challenge to be meet with smiles, oversized umbrellas for the denizens of the red carpet and disposable plastic raincoats for everyone else. [ read more in On The Scene ]  DISPATCH FROM ICELAND | Reykjavik Turns Out for Young Fast Growing Festival
by Brian Brooks (October 9, 2007) Hungarian director Csaba Bollok took home the Reykjavik International Film Festival's "Discovery of the Year" award over the weekend, capping the eleven-day event in Iceland's capital. Though the festival is somewhat overshadowed Stateside by the New York Film Festival, which takes place concurrently, its northern counterpart has continued to attract an impressive list of guests, including this year Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki, who received the festival's Creative Excellency Award from the President of Iceland as well as other special guests, including American filmmakers Larry Fessenden and Oscar-nominated doc director James Longley. [ read more in On The Scene ] October 8, 2007iW NEWS | IFC Gets 2 From NYFF: "Girl" & "Actresses"
IFC Entertainment has announced its acquisition two French films screening at the New York Film Festival, Claude Chabrol's "A Girl Cut in Two" and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi's "Actresses." Already a box office hit in France, Chabrol's thriller opened there this summer and also screened at the Toronto and Venice festivals. Bruni Tedeschi's comedy "Actresses" was an award-winner at the Cannes Film Festival. Both films will be released theatrically and via cable V.O.D. next year. ]Eugene Hernandez] [ |