Krzysztof Zanussi receives Arte Award at the Taormina Film Festival On June 21, 2006 the Polish film director Krzysztof Zanussi received the prestigious "Harry Winston" Taormina Arte Award for Cinematic Excellence at the Italian international film festival held in Taormina, Sicily.Accepting the award, Zanussi stated that he had a special bond with Sicily. About fifteen years ago he staged two works at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo, and presently he is directing a film in Catania and Syracuse cal...

KARLOVY PRIZES ANNOUNCED: AND THE WINNERS WERE ...GRAND PRIX -- CRYSTAL GLOBE (20,000 USD CASH!)Surprisingly, to the American independent film "Sherrybaby" the feature debut of Laurie Collyer, 2005. Former drug addict Sherry (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is released from prison where she did time for robbery, and so on ... Considering that all the other main competition pictures were darkhorses as well, maybe this award is not so surprising. Too bad this festival doesn't have bookies and pari-mutuel bet...

La Biennale di Venezia63rd Mostra Internazionale d’Arte CinematograficaJuan José Bigas Luna, Paulo Branco, Cameron Crowe,Chulpan Khamatova, Park Chan-wook, Michele Placidoin the international Jury of Venezia 63. presided by Catherine DeneuveThe Board of Directors of the Biennale di Venezia, presided by Davide Croff, has approved the proposal by the Director of the Mostra Internazionale d’Arte Cinematografica Marco Müller, regarding the composition of the international Jury of Venezia 63 pr...

The San Sebastian Festival will dedicate a retrospective to French director, Barbet Schroeder The 54th San Sebastian International Film Festival, to take place from 21st-30th September, will dedicate a retrospective to the French director, producer and actor Barbet Schroeder, promoter in the 60s of the earlier work by Nouvelle Vague directors like Eric Rohmer and Jacques Rivette, and author of a filmography as a moviemaker who has always endeavoured to portray the attitudes of his time.A pioneer...

Emden, 11th June 2006 Grand Awards Gala at the 17th Emden – Aurich – Norderney International Film Festival Guest star Maximilian Schell receives Award of Honour Adrian Shergold winner of the Bernhard Wicki Preis No less than six awards were presented at the Gala awards party in Emden’s Neues Theater. The Prime Minister of Lower Saxony, Christian Wulff and Emden’s Mayor Alwin Brinkmann opened the Awards Ceremony in front of a packed house and spoke with enthusiasm about the commitment dis...

BEST OF BAGHDAD – THE RESURRECTION OF IRAQI CINEMAat the 26th CAMBRIDGE FILM FESTIVAL (6th–16th July 2006, Cambridge Arts Picturehouse)www.cambridgefilmfestival.org.ukIraqi Cinema has had a chequered history – from all-singing all-dancing melodramas of the 40s to lavish vanity projects funded by Saddam Hussein in the 80s to total extinction during the Gulf Wars. Now amidst the tensions of the occupation the resuscitation of Iraqi Cinema has gradually begun, heralding a new phase in the slo...

Thursday, June 8-----Every major film festival has its specific focus. At the Troia International Film Festival, first works by up-and-coming directors is a major part of the Festival, having its own competition section named Primeiras Obras. This year, the section boasts 13 films of diverse genres and geographic origins. Films from Europe represents the lion’s share of the section. A SOAP is an unusual love story between an independent woman who has just split with her longtime boyfriend and...

Wednesday, June 7---The political thriller THE WAR WITHIN, which is being shown as part of the American Independents competition at the Troia International Film Festival, has been generating controversy and much discussion. The film, directed by Joseph Castelo, tells the unsettling story of a young Pakistani man who is sent to New York City to be a suicide terrorist. His target is New York's beautiful Grand Central Station, a Beaux Arts train station right in the heart of Manhattan. The Paki...

It is should be news to no one that the Americans and the French are still locked in their love/hate relationship. We Americans do love the French culture and its emphasis on beauty, refinement and good taste. The French do love our the American can-do attitude and our pioneering spirit. But since 9/11, our different geopolitics has driven a wedge into that relationship that has pushed us both into separate corners. Perhaps that is the reason why so many American films that are openly critical ...

Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney s the director of American Blackout for the closing night of the alive! Deep Focus Film FestivalOrganizers of the second annual alive! Deep Focus Film Festival, Columbus’ own festival of great independent film, are happy to announce that Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney will be a guest at the festival’s closing night screening of American Blackout. She’ll a previously announced guest, director Ian Inaba, in introducing the film to Columbus audi...

The revolution may not be televised by the major networks or covered by the mainstream press, but it’s certainly playing on screens large and small somewhere near you. On Saturday afternoon at the San Francisco International Film Festival, Susan Gerhard, the editor/bureau chief of the newly launched web film magazine SF360 (www.SF360.org), moderated a tagged “The Revolution Now Playing: Film as a Tool for Social and Political Change.” Activist filmmakers Jeff Zimbalist (FAVELA RISING...

The 5th annual Tribeca Film Festival opened on Tuesday evening with the world premiere of a controversial 9/11 docudrama. United 93, which opens nationally in theaters this Friday via Universal Pictures, is a dramatized version of the events that occurred on September 11th, 2001, when Al Qaeda terrorists took over a US airplane that was meant to crash into the White House, on the same day that other airplane hijackings attacked the Pentagon in Washington DC, and brought down New York’s World T...

2006 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival Announces Awards2007 Festival Tenth Anniversary Dates Set for April 12-15, 2007Ninth annual Full Frame Documentary Film Festival came to a close Sunday April 9th with record-breaking attendance. The final ticket number for the 2006 festival was 20,121, with an estimated 2540 additional viewers coming for the films showing post-barbecue bringing the total number of tickets to 22,661 for 2006. Last year, as of Sunday's Southern Style Barbecue and Awards Ce...

Sheffield International Documentary Festival is delighted to announce the appointment of its new Director. Heather Croall, formerly Director of the Australian International Documentary Conference, will start in post early April. Heather’s career in the Australian screen industry has included working as a company director, independent documentary producer, festival director and consultant. Heather has also worked for government film funding agency the South Australian Film Corporation, has ga...

Vaclav Havel presents his own prize to “Total Denial” at the One World Int’l Human Rights FestivalMilena Kaneva’s feature documentary, “Total Denial” has been awarded the Vaclav Havel humanitarian award in Prague, presented by the poet, playwright and former president of the Czech Republic himself. “Total Denial” tells the story of Ka Hsaw and his ongoing struggle to save the Karen tribes people of Burma. Great cultures have always been built on the backs of slaves. Unfortunatel...

New York Jewish Film Festival, January 11-26, 2006Among the more than 60 Jewish film festivals held in the United States the NY Jewish Film Festival (NYJFF) has after 15 editions become well established and is now considered as important as the Sans Francisco Jewish Film the oldest and biggest at 23 years. Organized by the influential Jewish Museum of New York, the NYJFF’s alliance with the Film Society of Lincoln Center has added to its prestige.As a community based film festival, th...

The Sheffield International Documentary Festival is delighted to announce the launch of its UK Tour at the NATIONAL FILM THEATRE from the 2nd – 5th February 2006. Returning for the seventh year, it features the ‘best of the fest’ from the Festival which took place in October 2005. The four day event marks the beginning of a three month UK tour visiting numerous towns and cities including Belfast, Bradford, Bristol, Brixton, Chichester, Derby, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Hammersmith, Hereford, Lee...

Further ing its ongoing campaign to promote European films, Europa Cinemas will return to this years Berlin Film Festival, awarding its Label prize to the best European film in the Panorama section (February 9-19).This marks the second year that the Europa Cinemas Label will be awarded at Berlin, and complements the Labels awarded at the Directors' Fortnight in Cannes and the Venice Days section of the Mostra del Cinema.A jury of four Europa Cinemas exhibitors will award the Label at Berl...

Vancouver International Film Centre, Vancity Theatre presents MASTERS OF HORRORJanuary 13-17,19"For people who are really scary movie fans, this is nirvana."-John LandisShot mostly in Vancouver throughout 2005, and only seen thus far on digital cable and at selected film festivals, the MASTERS OF HORROR series brings together a baker's dozen of the genre's greatest directors. Given free reign and a limited budget, they pieced together a mini-series of B-movie throwbacks, alternately terrifying, ...

The 5th edition of Dooint – Helsinki Documentary Film Festival takes place in January 25-29th, 2006. Let’s celebrate!NEW FINNISH DOCUMENTARIESDooint screens a selection of the best new Finnish documentary films every year. For our 5th edition, 18 films were selected to the programme. The selction was made by a preselction jury.Films chosen to the programme are:Child in Time by Kai Nordberg (37 min)The Magician of America by Sami Kuokkanen (51 min)Y in Vyborg by Pia Andell (50 min)The Sea...

Florence hosts the 46th edition of Festival dei PopoliDecember 2 - 8The competition section proposes thirteen films; all Italian premieres, all representative of the new trend of the contemporary documentary cinema for style, language and content. Over 900 titles, which came from 65 different countries, participated at the pre-selection: these figures established an absolute record for our festival and we consider this a tangible sign of the extraordinary attention that Festival dei Popoli recei...

Olga, the opening film of the festival was the major attractions for all filmgoers in the iffi-Goa and directorate of the festival have to schedule repeat screening on demand.The film is a adoption of Fernando Morais’ best seller of the same title chronicles the true life story of the German revolutionary Olga Benario Prestes from her youth in Munich to her romance with communist leader Luis Carlos Prestes and finally to her death in Gas chamber under Hitler’s Nazi regime. Olga was born in J...

Digital Living Room® addresses the technologies and services that are transforming the living room into a digital hub.2 day event December 5-6, 2005Crowne Plaza Foster City, CA Attend the DIGITAL LIVING ROOM® and Venture Forum Business Summit which addresses the technologies and services competing to transform the living room into a digital hub.This thought leader summit attracting hundreds of executives and investors will feature the business leaders, journalists and analysts defining consume...

The Fort Lauderdale Film Festival concluded its 20th edition this past Sunday, with the announcement of its awards. The Festival, which has the distinction of being the longest in the world, running almost 40 days, had a year like none other; having survived a Category 3 Hurricane and a week of no electricity, phone service or internet connection.The Festival, which featured over 200 films, premiered on October 14 with the premiere of THE MATADOR, starring Pierce Brosnan and Greg Kinnear. Closin...

While an astonishing number of American independent features and documentaries are receiving at least a token theatrical distribution in US theaters, there are many deserving films that are falling through the cracks. These films may have won a slew of awards at prestigious festivals, been invited all over the world to screen outside their home country, and even secured enthusiastic reviews in the trade press, but in the end, they go undistributed.A group of six of these “Festival orphans” a...