The 37th Toronto International Film Festival 2012 announced its award winners today. Sion Sono’s new film, THE LAND OF HOPE received the NETPAC Award.    New this year is the NETPAC Award for the Best First or Second Feature World or International Asian Film Premiere, as selected by a jury from the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema. Jury include Laurice Guillen (Philippines), Shelly Kraicer (Toronto/Beijing) and Azize Tan (Istanbul). &...

69TH VENICE FILM FESTIVAL:  Golden Lion for Best Film to Pieta by KIM Ki-duk  69TH VENICE FILM FESTIVAL:  Silver Lion for the Best Director to The Master by Paul Thomas Anderson (Philip Seymour Hoffman collects award)   69TH VENICE FILM FESTIVAL:  Special Jury Prize to Paradies: Glaube by Ulrich Seidl  69TH VENICE FILM FESTIVAL:  Coppa Volpi for Best Actress to Hadas Yaron  69TH VENICE FILM FESTIVAL:  Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best ...

“It is now established that the main function of a festival is to choose what we can and must see from among the huge blind mass of production”. Far from wishing to refute this claim, which may well be true, I feel I must add a few comments. Not marginal comments, however, if it is true that one of the reasons that led me to return to serving the Venice Film Festival, turns its gaze - in cross-eyed fashion - in a different direction. Nor am I referring to what's left of the f...

                                          VENEZIA 69 WINNERS GOLDEN LION for Best Film to PIETA by Kim Ki-duk (Republic of Korea)   SILVER LION for Best Director to THE MASTER by Paul Thomas Anderson (USA) SPECIAL JURY PRIZE to Paradies: Glaube by Ulrich Seidl (Austria, , ) COPPA VOLPI for Best Actor to ...

The Thessaloniki International Film Festival, wishing to honor the memory of celebrated Greek auteur Theo Angelopoulos, who ed away in January of 2012, organizes a tribute to his work. Angelopoulos was born in Athens in 1935 and studied Law in the University of Athens and the Sorbonne, from which he dropped out to study cinema in the University of Paris IDHEC. He started his career as a film critic and made his first –unfinished– film, Forminx, in 1965. Throughout his life, Angel...

  Today we attended the official presentation of the 60th San Sebastian International Film Festival. Every day since the beginning of September we have been receiving news about films and film stars that will be attending the San Sebastian Film Festival on its 60th Anniversary due from 21-29 of September. Names like Richard Gere,Susan Sarandon,Oliver Stone,Tommy Lee Jones,John Travolta,Ewan MacGregor will be on the red carpet during the festival. Today jet anothe...

  Bangkok  seems to have become a movie-hub, judging by the numerous  film festivals that have been spinning  in the city, almost back-to-back, this year.The Embassies have mostly been  responsible for these , and deserve  credit for whipping up the cinematic pulse of the city.Apart from the French, Italian  and EU film festivals ,which have become regular events in the cinema-calendar of the country  (they are held in both Bangkok and Chiangmai), this year,  we had new festivals from ...

        Set to spark a fervent interest in contemporary Italian cinema among Hong Kong moviegoers, “Cine Italiano! – Italian Film Week in Hong Kong”, a one-week showcase of eight finely selected Italian films, will run from 21 to 26 September 2012 at The Grand Cinema. Curated by the Hong Kong International Film Festival Society (HKIFFS) and Zetema Progetto Cultura, and presented by City of Rome, Rai Cinema, CineCittà Luce, the Consulate Gene...

The Reluctant Fundamentalist, the new film directed by Mira Nair, will be the opening film at the 69th Venice International Film Festival (29 August – 8 September 2012), directed by Alberto Barbera and organized by la Biennale di Venezia chaired by Paolo Baratta. The Reluctant Fundamentalist is produced by Lydia Dean Pilcher and presented by Doha Film Institute. Based on the best-selling novel of the same title, translated into 25 languages, The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a...

THE JURY OF THE FIRST FILMS WORLD COMPETITION    Klaus Eder  Born in Augsburg, , Klaus Eder lives and works in Munich. He studied German literature at the University of Stuttgart and has worked as a film critic since the 1960s. Currently a reviewer for the Bayerischer Rundfunk national radio network he contributes to several German language film magazines. He has published books on numerous international filmmakers, including monographs on Andrzej Wajda, Luis Bunuel, Nikita ...

  Eighty years ago, on the 6th of August 1932 at the Lido di Venezia, on the terrace of the Hotel Excelsior, the first international film festival in the world – conceived and organized by the Biennale di Venezia – was inaugurated. At 9:15 PM, on a screen set up outdoors for the occasion, under sporadic rain showers, it began with a showing of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.Hyde by Rouben Mamoulian. The screening was followed by a grand ball in the Excelsior ballroom. “Stemming di...

American filmmaker Spike Lee is the winner of the Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory to the Filmmaker 2012 award of the Venice International Film Festival   The Biennale di Venezia and Jaeger-LeCoultre announce that the great American director, screenwriter, actor and producer Spike Lee has been awarded the Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory to the Filmmaker 2012 award of the Venice International Film Festival, dedicated a personality who has brought great innovation to contemporary cinema.   The Direc...

The President: Wim Wenders, Director, Wim Wenders attended the Academy of Film & Television in Munich, worked as a film critic for various German publications, and was a founding member of Filmverlag der Autoren. In 1976 he set up his own production company, Road Movies, and, in 2002, Reverse Angle. Often hailed as one of the most important German directors on the international scene, Wenders has received various international awards, including the Golden Lion (TH...

    Marina Abramovic, Laetitia Casta, Peter Ho-Sun Chan, Ari Folman, Matteo Garrone, Ursula Meier, Samantha Morton, Pablo Trapero to form the Venezia 69 International Jury chaired by Michael Mann The selection has been made for the of the International Jury for the Competition at the 69th Venice International Film Festival (29 August – 8 September 2012), with American director Michael Mann as president. The decision was made by the Boa...

The Reluctant Fundamentalist, the new film directed by Mira Nair, will be the opening film at the 69th Venice International Film Festival (29 August – 8 September 2012), directed by Alberto Barbera and organized by la Biennale di Venezia chaired by Paolo Baratta. The Reluctant Fundamentalist is produced by Lydia Dean Pilcher and presented by Doha Film Institute. Based on the best-selling novel of the same title, translated into 25 languages, The Reluctant Fundamentalist  is a riv...

Day 2 of DIFF was a day of extremes. It was wonderful to see all the film fans studying their guides - some of the guides visibly well-read. I watched three films today and they are very diverse. Chicken with plums (Poulet aux prunes) premiered at Venice. It is a beautiful love story of a musician, played by Mathieu Amalric of The Diving Belle and the butterfly fame, who can't get over the loss of his violin and he decides to rather die. It sounds like a depressing film but it is in...

Yavor Gardev presented his project Contra during the Moscow Co-Production Forum at Moscow Business Square. Contra was first presented during Sofia Meetings, and in Moscow it competed with 23 more projects, selected from more than 100 applications. The selection committee featured Mira Staleva, director of the co-production market at the Sofia Film Festival; Riina Sildos, director of the Baltic Event, Marie-Pierre Valle, creative director of Wild Bunch Distribution; Simone Baumann, G...

The Durban International Film Festival returns for its 33rd year to celebrate the magic of cinema in all its beauty and diversity. From the 19th to the 29th July, Durban will be illuminated by the glow of the silver screen, with over 290 screenings in 10 venues across the city. Alongside world-class cinema from across the globe, comprising 80 feature films, 40 documentaries and 45 short films, the festival offers a comprehensive workshop and seminar programme that facilitates the sharing...

  Euromed Audiovisual to hold first workshop on distribution in the South Mediterranean On July 5 and 6, Euromed Audiovisual will hold a workshop in Jordan on strengthening film distribution in the South Mediterranean, in partnership with Europa Distribution andEuropa Cinemas. It will bring together 18 distributors, selected experts, and sales agents. This first workshop will include presentations on: Existing multi-territorial acquisition structures Network initiativ...

The 65th Festival del film Locarno salutes Johnnie To with a Pardo alla carriera for his exceptional contribution to cinema as a director and producer. The presentation will be accompanied by the European Premiere screening on the Piazza Grande of Motorway (Che sau), To’s latest production, directed by Soi Cheang. Johnnie To, key figure in Asian cinema, has directed over fifty films and has as many to his credit as a producer. Born in Hong Kong in 1955, To began his career in televisi...

Telluride Film Festival, presented by National Film Preserve LTD., is thrilled to announce its 2012 Guest Director, Geoff Dyer. The award-winning writer is set to select a series of films to present at the 39th Telluride Film Festival running over Labor Day Weekend, August 31 – September 3, 2012. The Guest Director program is sponsored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.   Festival directors Julie Huntsinger, Tom Luddy and Gary Meyer annually select one of the world’s grea...

    Siberia Monamour to screen at Twin Rivers Media Festival19th ANNUAL TWIN RIVERS INTERNATIONAL MEDIA AND FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES 2012 FESTIVAL LINEUP   The 19th Annual season of The Twin Rivers Media Festival(TRMF) will celebrate this year with the latest in independent feature, documentary, short and animated films.  The festival runs from May 25th – May 27th 2012 in with features films screening each Friday night until June 22, 2012 at the Phil Mechani...