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A truncated Panama Int’l Film Festival (Iff Panama) wrapped Dec. 4 on a high note, with the debut doc-feature “Nación de Titanes” by Panamanian Joaquín Horna Sosa snagging the Audience Award, a good indication of its box office potential.

One of only four Panamanian features in competition, “Nación de Titanes” follows six wrestlers during Panama’s golden age of wrestling during the ‘60s through the ‘80s. Doc-feature stars wrestlers Sandokan, Ricardo Díaz, El Greco, El Titán, Cronox II and Johnny González as it chronicles the ups and downs of their respective careers and digs into the origins of the sport.

The three-day festival had encouraging news from Culture Minister Giselle Gonzalez and Panama City Deputy Mayor Judy Meana who both pledged their continued support for the festival.

Pituka Ortega Heilbron, chair of the festival board and foundation, noted that the festival was operating at a fraction of its normal size...

The afternoon sun streams through the windows of the Brooklyn art space ChaShaMa. Steve Keene, possibly the world’s most prolific painter, is hard at work, even though the gallery’s hosting a retrospective of his work. Right now, he’s adding a few blond streaks to Iggy Pop’s hair on the cover of the first Stooges album. Keene’s most famous for painting album covers on plywood panels, dozens per week, then selling them absurdly cheap. “It’s handmade,” he says with his easy grin. “That means somebody...

Crimes of the Future (2022).Aging is a practice of managed decline. Bit by bit, the mind slows, the body goes, acquaintances pass, and, if a person is fortunate enough to survive long past it all, daily life becomes a series of painful trials, a great reduction of experience to the most basic tasks. We spend so much of our lives bathed in our own consciousness, yet only at the extremities of birth and death does it become bitterly clear how yoked the soul is to the body, and once the latter goes, that’s it.Much great art has been made about this process—the works of Terence Davies come to mind—but much has also emerged from experiencing it. Some art historians attribute the sketchy brushwork and spectral figuration of the late-career paintings of Domḗnikos Theotokópoulos, otherwise known as El Greco, to his worsening astigmatism, a phase in which...

Beneficiaries include team behind children’s fantasy film Admiral.Scroll down for full list of projects

The Netherlands Film Production Incentive scheme has backed 21 film projects to the tune of €6.1m in its latest funding round, including 15 feature films, five documentaries and one animated feature.

The average investment was €291,185, with the smallest being €40,000 and the largest sum, €900,000, going to the team behind 2015 fantasy film Admiral [pictured] for their new project Redbad 754 A.D.

Currently in pre-production, Redbad 754 A.D. will be directed by Rob Reiné (who is attached to direct episdoes of Marvel’s upcoming TV series Inhumans) from a script by Alex van Galen. Dutch producers will be Farmhouse TV en Film, with Belgian outfit Bulletproof Cupid co-producing.

The Conductor, directed and written by Maria Peters and produced by Shooting Star Filmcompany, received the second largest grant with €898,111. Peters’ previous credits include romantic drama Sonny Boy and family film Mike Says Goodbye!.

Projects also receiving...