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The South East European Film Festival in Los Angeles has wrapped its 20th edition with the presentation of jury and audience awards.

DJ Ahmet, directed by North Macedonian filmmaker Georgi M. Unkovski, won SEEfest’s Grand Jury Prize for Best Feature Film.

“A lyrical coming of age story set in a Yuruk village in North Macedonia – manages to be both deeply relatable and rapturously original,” wrote the jury, comprised of Tessa Blake, Robert Bailey, and Marlis Pujol. “With beautiful and evocative cinematography and nuanced storytelling, Georgi M. Unkovski (writer/director) captures the universal pain of a young man trying to find his place in the world. Utilizing the deeply specific details of the setting, Unkovski creates a rich and complex experience, saturating us in Ahmet’s point of view. The performances are gorgeous allowing the film to envelop the audience in its humanist grace.”

‘DJ Ahmet’

DJ Ahmet, starring Arif Jakup,...

The South East European Film Festival in Los Angeles has released its programming lineup ahead of the event’s 20th anniversary.

SEEfest, running April 30-May 7, opens with the L.A. premiere of The New Year That Never Came, directed by Romanian filmmaker Bogdan Mureșanu, winner of the Fipresci Award and Best Film in the Orizzonti program at the Venice Film Festival. The tragicomedy “climaxes with the bang of a firecracker in a highly unlikely pair of hands, effectively kicking off the revolution” that ousted Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu.

The cinematic event, co-presented by the non-profit Elma (European Languages and Movies in America), will showcase more than 50 films, both fiction and nonfiction, including U.S. premieres of work hailing from the culturally rich area of East and South-East Europe. In addition to welcoming an array of European talent, SEEfest will host an Industry Accelerator with panels and workshops (scroll for full...

Game, set and match for Tudor Giurgiu, Cristian Pascariu and Tudor D. Popescu, who co-direct Nasty, a pleasingly hagiographic portrait of Romanian tennis icon Ilie Năstase. What fun tennis must have been in the 1970s, as it was on the turn from a knockabout sport into the sharp-footed profession it is today. Năstase and his contemporaries brought finesse and genius to the game, but tennis hadn’t yet been fully corrupted by corporate greed and mechanical elite athleticism. These players were hardworking and hard-partying in equal measure, and Năstase was a key ringleader for the frivolity, dating models, and canoodling on the mattresses at Studio 54.

He was also the sport’s chief antagonist a generation before John McEnroe took the mantle. Arguing with his fellow players and with the umpires. But he never questioned them when their calls were right, he insists, in one of the rare modern interview clips with Năstase himself.

Fifty years on, a documentary revisits the Romanian player’s stroppy ascent to international stardom

“We’d never seen a player like this,” says one contributor. “When Ilie was on the court, something was always happening,” says another. They are talking in a new documentary about Ilie Năstase, the original bad boy of tennis in the early 70s, which is screening at the Cannes film festival on Friday.

The film’s title is Nasty, the nickname that quickly attached itself to Năstase, whose on-court antics, petulant complaints and confrontations with umpires were barely thinkable in what had previously been a staid and well-behaved sport dominated by amateurism. The “open” era, in which grand slam tournaments started to offer prize money and allow professional players to compete alongside amateurs, had only started a few years earlier in 1968, and Năstase became one of the first high-profile beneficiaries.

There’s a scene early in the documentary “Nasty,” a rollicking portrait of the ’70s Romanian tennis bad boy Ilie Năstase, where the Grand Slam champion’s mentor and longtime doubles partner Ion Țiriac recalls teaching Năstase how to ski. The young prodigy was a fast study — perhaps too fast.

“He skied down perfectly,” says Țiriac, “except he ran into the fence because I hadn’t taught him to stop.”

You’d be hard-pressed to find a better metaphor for the free-wheeling, fast-living Năstase, a “wild child,” “rock star” and “insolent, elegant, angry, whimsical bon vivant” who makes a fitting subject for the documentary, which was directed by Tudor Giurgiu, Cristian Pascariu and Tudor D. Popescu. A co-production between HBO Documentaries Europe and Romania’s Libra Films, the film has a special screening at the Cannes Film Festival on May 23 and will drop across Europe on Max the following day.

Attendees praised the projects, atmosphere and organisation.

Romania-born, Berlin-based director Cosmin Nicolae’s debut feature project Pyrrhic was the big winner at this year’s Transilvania Pitch Stop during TIFF’s industry programme.

The drama, which has already secured more than half of its €1.4m budget, was awarded €25,000 in post-production services as part of the Chainsaw Europe post-production award as well as the CoCo Award’s five-day residency from the Connecting Cottbus East-West Co-Production Market.

Nicolae’s screenplay centres on a 40-year-old woman army veteran returning from Afghanistan to her hometown on the Black Sea coast and making a...

Attendees praised the projects, atmosphere and organisation

Romania-born, Berlin-based director Cosmin Nicolae’s debut feature project Pyrrhic was the big winner at this year’s Transilvania Pitch Stop during TIFF’s industry programme.

The drama, which has already secured more than half of its €1.4m budget, was awarded €25,000 in post-production services as part of the Chainsaw Europe post-production award as well as the CoCo Award’s five-day residency from the Connecting Cottbus East-West Co-Production Market.

Nicolae’s screenplay centres on a 40-year-old woman army veteran returning from Afghanistan to her hometown on the Black Sea coast and making a harrowing...

‘Nasty’ is about the legendary Romanian tennis player and is direted by festival president Tudor Giurgiu.

New films by Tudor Giurgiu and Marian Crisan are to be shown in Ro Days’ Closed Screenings at this week’s Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF) in Cluj-Napoca.

The screenings are open to distributors, festival programmers, and sales agents.

Transilvania festival president Giurgiu’s documentary Nasty about the legendary Romanian tennis player Ilie Nastase includes interviews with Rafa Nadal, Stan Smith, Jimmy Connors, Boris Becker, and Billie Jean King.

At last year’s TIFF, the director had given a sneak preview of around 15 minutes...

“Show me the money” was the memorable battle cry in Jerry Maguire, the 1996 movie about a sports agent who must “deliver” for his manic client.

Matt Damon, the negotiator at the center of his and Ben Affleck’s new movie, delivers big time for his client, and so does the film. Air is an angry, trash-talking movie that somehow, in its final minutes, switches into a “feel good” epic.

In Jerry Maguire, Tom Cruise survives both a love affair and a crisis of conscience. Air is about neither love nor conscience, but the $90 million movie — Amazon reportedly paid $120 million for the rights and package — carries a daunting bundle of expectations about the future of distribution (its producers include Peter Guber and David Ellison).

Its box office numbers for the opening week were auspicious but inevitably did not fully match those expectations. “There’s too much riding on every new theatrical release,...

This review of “The French” was first published on June 17, 2021, after its Metrograph.com streaming debut.

Tennis fans exhausted by two weeks of a Grand Slam competition in Paris that ended last Sunday with a thrilling new champion on the women’s side, and perhaps the cementing of Goat status on the men’s, may believe they’re ready to leave the spring’s red clay season behind for the summer grass and regulation whites at Wimbledon.

But a new reissue of a sports documentary artifact is now available to offer tennis diehards one more rewarding reminder of the enduring thrills and frustrations of battling on the terre battue, William Klein’s movie about the 1981 Roland Garros tournament, “The French.”

Klein, an American-born, French-identified photographer and filmmaker now in his 90s, had long been lauded for his street-smart, irony-laden, instinctively artistic work. His feature debut, the 1966 fashion satire “Who Are You,...

Italian producer Domenico Procacci, after shepherding more than 100 movies and several TV series, including Netflix’s upcoming Elena Ferrante adaptation “The Lying Life of Adults,” via his Fandango shingle, is debuting as a director with six-part documentary series “The Team.” Variety speaks to Procacci exclusively about what prompted him to go behind the camera for what he says is just a one-off experience as a director, and debuts the English-language subtitled version of the trailer, above.

The project is a deeply researched reconstruction of the complex – and sometimes comical – dynamics behind the Italian tennis team that won the 1976 Davis Cup and reached the finals for this trophy three other times between 1976 and 1980.

In “The Team,” which is being presented as a work-in-progress at the Torino Film Festival, the protagonists are the team’s players, Adriano Panatta, Corrado Barazzutti, Paolo Bertolucci, Tonino Zugarelli, and its captain, Italian tennis legend Nicola Pietrangeli.

With this year’s French Open recently concluding, it’s the opportune time to watch one of cinema’s greatest sports documentaries. Capturing the annual tennis event 40 years ago, Muhammed Ali, the Greatest director William Klein’s The Open takes an intimate look at the 1981 French Open with John McEnroe, Chris Evert, Yannick Noah, Arthur Ashe, Martina Navratilova, and Björn Borg. Set to open virtually at Metrograph starting this Friday, we’re pleased to present the exclusive trailer.

As the official synopsis reads, “In 1981, Klein and three camera crews were given exclusive, unprecedented access to the tournament for the first time in its 90-year history, and using that doorway into locker rooms, TV studios, and players’ boxes, he shot the ultimate behind-the-scenes look at the 1981 French Open. With Klein’s customary eagle eye and whirlwind energy, The French showcases the noisy bedlam that accompanies any major sporting event, while also...

The baby countdown is on for Serena Williams.

The tennis star stepped out Monday evening at the Met Gala in New York City, fully showing off her baby bump for the first time since announcing her pregnancy on April 19.

Want all the latest pregnancy and birth announcements, plus celebrity mom blogs? Click here to get those and more in the People Babies newsletter.

Related Video: Serena Williams and Alexis Ohanian Expecting First Child

Williams and fiancé Alexis Ohanian, 34, will welcome their first child this fall, her rep confirmed to People last month following an accidental post the athlete made on Snapchat before quickly deleting.

Following offensive, “racist” comments made about her unborn child, Serena Williams says it’s important to lift women up.

At a press conference last week, former world No. 1 tennis star Ilie Nastase was overheard making inappropriate comments about Williams’ baby, telling a reporter: “Let’s see what color it has. Chocolate with milk?” reports Espn.

Williams addressed the hurtful commentary during a Ted talk in Vancouver on Tuesday.

“I’ve been really supportive of my peers and the people that I work with. I’ve been a pro for almost 20 years,” she said. “For me it’s really important to hold women up.

Serena Williams just confirmed her pregnancy announcement was made by accident ... but was only off by about 5 or 6 days. The tennis star admitted to the social media flub Tuesday at a Ted Talks conference in Vancouver with Gayle King -- where she said she had meant to take the pic in private ... but somehow blasted it out to the world. Serena told Gayle ... "On social media, you press the wrong button and thirty minutes later...

Serena Williams has responded to alleged comments from fellow tennis star Ilie Nastase about what color skin her baby will have.

Williams confirmed her pregnancy last week, and on Saturday, Espn reported that former world champ Nastase was overheard telling a journalist in Romanian, “Let’s see what color it has. Chocolate with milk?”

Watch: Surprise! Serena Williams Anounces She’s Pregnant in Swimsuit-Clad Snapchat

In a photo posted on Instagram, Williams, 35, called out her peer’s reported comments as “racist.”

“It disappoints me to know we live in a society where people like Ilie Nastase can make such racist comments towards myself and unborn child, and sexist comments against my peers,” Williams wrote.

“I have said it once and I’ll say it again, this world has come so far but yet we have so much further to go,” she continued. “Yes, we have broken down so many barriers -- however there are a plethora more to...

Right now should be pure bliss for Serena Williams. Not only is she the best tennis player in the world (Nbd) and enjoying a lavish vacation with fiancé Alexis Ohanian, but she's also pregnant with her first child. Unfortunately, because the world is garbage, she was forced to address a racist comment made about her baby by a fellow tennis player via Instagram on Monday: It disappoints me to know we live in a society where people like Ilie Nastase can make such racist comments towards myself and unborn child, and sexist comments against my peers. I have said it once and I'll say it again, this world has come so far but yet we have so much further to go. Yes, we have broken down so many barriers- however there are a plethora more to go. This or anything else will not stop me from pouring love, light and...

Serena Williams on Monday called the alleged comments about her unborn child made by former world number one Ilie Nastase “racist” and applauded the International Tennis Federation for launching a probe into the remarks. Former tennis bad boy Nastase, who won two grand slam titles in the 1970s, was quoted by Romanian and some British […]...

Serena Williams hit back hard at former tennis pro Ilie Nastase over an comment he made about the color of her unborn child. According to Espn and the Telegraph, Nastase was caught on tape Friday ahead of Great Britain’s Fed Cup saying: “Let’s see what color it has. Chocolate with milk?” The 70-year-old former world No. 1 player from Bucharest was referring to Williams’ announcement last week that she is expecting her first baby with fiancé Alex Ohanian. His comment in Romanian is clearly audible during the press conference, Espn reported, and was made to the other players while...

Serena Williams has addressed the comments made by Romanian tennis captain Ilie Nastase about her pregnancy.  The professional athlete shared a lengthy message to Instagram on Monday in which she expressed her disappointment over Nastase's offensive remarks regarding Serena and fiancée Alex Ohanian's unborn baby. During a recent press conference held at the Fed Cup in Romania, Nastase was heard to have said of Williams' child, "Let's see what color it has. Chocolate with milk?" As a result, the International Tennis Federation launched an investigation into the incident, which Williams said she fully supports.  "It disappoints me to know we live in...

Serena Williams is calling remarks made by former world No. 1 tennis star Ilie Nastase about her unborn baby “racist.”

At a press conference on Friday, Nastase was overheard telling a reporter: “Let’s see what color it has. Chocolate with milk?” reports Espn.

Williams, who confirmed her pregnancy with Alexis Ohanian to People last week, penned a response to social media on Monday.

“It disappoints me to know we live in a society where people like Ilie Nastase can make such racist comments towards myself and unborn child, and sexist comments against my peers,” the 35-year-old athlete wrote on Instagram.

Sachin Tendulkar was among a host of sports stars who packed out the royal box on Centre Court at Wimbledon on Saturday, with top internationals and Olympic gold medallists among the throng.India's master batsman Tendulkar and West Indies hero Brian Lara were in attendance from the world of cricket, while England football greats Bobby Charlton and Glenn Hoddle were also invited.Former Wimbledon champions included Martina Navratilova, Budge Patty, Jan Kodes and Australian trio Ashley Cooper, Neale Fraser and Evonne Goolagong-Cawley.Romanian tennis legend Ilie Nastase and former British number one Roger Taylor joined them.From rugby union, the world's most capped forward Jason Leonard, England captain Lewis Moody, and former England internationals Alastair Hignell and Martin Bayfield watched the action.Among the British Olympic gold medallists present were cyclists Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton, athlete Kelly Holmes, canoeist Tim Brabants and skeleton racer Amy Williams.Us skiing gold medallist Julia Mancuso,...