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Even after winning an Oscar, a Palme d’Or and six Cesar awards with Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall,” French producer Marie-Ange Luciani isn’t resting on her laurels. The Paris-based producer, who runs the company Les Films de Pierre, still strives to work with emerging filmmakers and newcomers, such as Laura Wandel, whose second feature, “Adam’s Sake,” opened this year’s Cannes Critics Week to warm reviews. She’s also cultivated relationships with established auteurs, such as Robin Campillo, who won Cannes’ 2017 Jury Prize with “Bpm (Beats Per Minute)” and opened Directors’ Fortnight this year with “Enzo,” which he finished after his close friend Laurent Cantet, the helmer of the Palme d’Or winning “The Class,” died before he could finish the drama.

Aside from developing Triet’s follow up to “Anatomy of a Fall,” Luciani is looking ahead at a busy 2026.

She’ll next work...

Every film festival has a history, but at the Sarajevo Film Festival, the past, as Faulkner might say, is never dead. It’s not even past. Launched during the Bosnian War, in the middle of the nearly four-year siege of the city, the event is inextricably linked to its origin story.

“I don’t know of another festival that was founded in a city under siege, in a city without running water and electricity,” says fest director Jovan Marjanović. “I think the story of the founding of the festival is something that is really in our DNA, it very much informs everything that we’re doing today”

Nearly three decades on — the 29th Sarajevo Film Festival kicked off August 11 and runs through August 18 — Sarajevo remains a sanctuary for cosmopolitan culture in a region still torn by nationalist politics.

This applies to the international line-up, which this year features such festival...

The 57th edition includes new films by directors Pascal Plante, Stephan Komandarev, Tinatin Kajrishvili and Babak Jalali.

Karlovy Vary International Film Festival has unveiled the official selection for its 57th edition, including new features by Pascal Plante, Stephan Komandarev and Tinatin Kajrishvili.

The festival, which runs from June 30-July 8 in the Czech spa town, has nine world premieres and two international premieres in its main Crystal Globe Competition.

Canadian director Plante, whose Nadia Butterfly was in Cannes’ Official Selection in 2020 and Fake Tattoos played in the Berlinale’s Generation strand in 2018, world premieres arthouse thriller Red Rooms about a woman...

The Karlovy Vary Intl. Film Festival, Eastern and Central Europe’s leading cinema event, has unveiled its lineup, which includes new works by Pascal Plante, Stephan Komandarev, Tinatin Kajrishvili and Babak Jalali in the Crystal Globes Competition. They will vie against films by up-and-comers Ernst De Geer, Itsaso Arana and Cyril Aris. The section has nine world and two international premieres. Oscar-nominated actor Patricia Clarkson is one of the jury members.

The Proxima Competition, which made its debut at last year’s Kviff, presents what the festival defines as “bold works,” directed by young filmmakers and renowned auteurs alike. The section comprises of 10 world and two international premieres. The festival says “playfulness, courage and freshness can be found” in the new films by Swiss auteur Thomas Imbach, Poland’s Olga Chajdas, Cyprus-born Kyros Papavassiliou, French filmmaker Émilie Brisavoine and Romanian documentarist Alexandru Solomon, among others.

Eight films will play in the Special Screenings section,...

The 57th Karlovy Vary Film Festival has unveiled its competition lineup for its 57th edition, set to run in the bucolic Czech spa town from June 30 to July 8.

Among this year’s competition highlights are Fremont, from Iranian-born, London-based director Babak Jalali, a dramedy based around Donya, a former Afghan translator for U.S. troops who now works in a fortune cookie factory in Fremont, USA. Empty Nets, from Iranian filmmaker Behrooz Karamizade, a love story set in a small fishing village in contemporary Iran, is also in the running for the festival’s Crystal Globe honor for best competition film.

Outside the competition, Karlovy Vary this year has put a focus on independent Iranian cinema, with a selection of recent works by directors working outside the Tehran regime.

Other 2023 competition highlights include Red Rooms, a Canadian darknet thriller from director Pascal Plante, Itsaso Arana’s Spanish drama The Girls Are Alright...

Dominik Moll’s The Night of The 12th, which world premiered in Cannes in May, has topped the nominations for the 28th edition of France’s Lumière Awards.

The awards are voted on by members of the international press corp hailing from 36 countries based in France.

The Night Of The 12th was nominated in six categories including best film, director and screenplay. The film debuted in the Cannes Film Festival’s non competitive Cannes Première section.

The investigative drama is Moll’s seventh feature. It stars Bastien Bouillon, with support from Bouli Lanners, as a police detective who becomes obsessed with a case involving a complex female murder victim.

Other multi-nominated titles include Albert Serra’s French Polynesia-set drama Pacification five nominations.

Four films received four nominations each: Alice Diop’s Saint-Omer; Rebecca Zlotowski’s Other People’s Children; Louis Garrel’s The Innocent and Gaspar Noé’s Vortex.

Diop,...

Italian-born Moretti was the first non-French national to head any Cannes section.

Paolo Moretti will step down as delegate general of Cannes Directors’ Fortnight after its 2022 edition as part of a move to overhaul the 60-year parallel section, its organisers the French Directors Guild announced on Wednesday.

“The board, elected in September 2021, wishes to thoroughly rethink the Directors’ Fortnight, its name, its singularity and its strategic and militant position. As such, and in order to carry out this new project, it will soon be welcoming a new general delegate,” the Srf said in a statement.

“The Srf salutes the work...

The Party Films Sales will screen exclusive images from Julien Guetta’s second feature film “Top Dogs” (“Les Cadors”) at Unifrance Rendez Vous in Paris.

“Top Dogs” is a comedy drama about two estranged brothers from Normandy. Antoine is happily married with two kids and a successful boat driver, whereas Christian is a globe-trotting hustler. When Antoine becomes involved in sleazy activities, Christian comes to his rescue. The film is headlined by Jean-Paul Rouve, the star of one of France’s biggest comedy franchises, “Les Tuches,” as well as Michel Blanc, another French comedy fixture (“Les bronzés”) and Grégoire Ludig (“Mandibules”).

“Top Dogs” marks the sophomore outing of Guetta whose feature debut “The Troubleshooter,” a comedy-adventure, garnered more than 145,000 admissions in France.

Currently in post-production, “Top Dogs” is produced by Maxime Delauney and Romain Rousseau at Nolita Cinéma, and Lionel Dutemple and Benjamin Morgaine at Princesse Beli. It was mainly shot in Cherbourg,...

“Drive My Car” racked up several wins from the National Society of Film Critics January 8, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Actor. As “Drive My Car” won Best Picture, the organization’s rules determined that there would not be a separate Best Foreign-Language Film category.

The winners were a distinctly international affair, with Penélope Cruz winning Best Actress for “Parallel Mothers,” Hidetoshi Nishijima as Best Actor for “Drive My Car,” and Anders Danielsen Lie scoring Best Supporting Actor for “The Worst Person in the World.” Ruth Negga picked up Best Supporting Actress for her role in “Passing.”

The critics group convened in New York and Los Angeles to vote January 8 using a weighted scoring system, choosing winners and runners up across a variety of categories. Hidetoshi Nishijima received the the highest weighted score of any single award winner for his Best Actor prize.

Prior to the start of voting,...

The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) added 65 titles to its lineup Tuesday, unveiling the non-competitive program sections Best of Fests, Masters and Paradocs. The 34th edition of IDFA takes place from Nov. 17-28 in Amsterdam.

Best of Fests honors award winners, critics’ picks and audience favorites from the year’s festivals. The 46 strong selection includes India-set story about estranged lovers “A Night of Knowing Nothing” by Payal Kapadia, documentary award winner at Cannes, wildlife film “The Velvet Queen,” by debut director Marie Amiguet, “Users,” an exploration of humanity’s future by Natalia Almada, and “Taming the Garden,” the slow-cinema feature by Salomé Jashi.

These are joined by buzzy audience films such as Alison Klayman’s Alanis Morissette biopic “Jagged,” and Bing Liu and Joshua Altman’s “All These Sons,” from the filmmaking team behind “Minding the Gap.” The section also pays tribute to the surprise gems from the festival circuit,...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Audrey Diwan's Happening. The Venice Film Festival has come to a close. Check out all of the award winners, which include Audrey Diwan's Happening, Paolo Sorrentino's The Hand of God, and Jane Campion's The Power of the Dog, here.Comedian Norm Macdonald, best known as a former cast member of Saturday Night Live and for his performances in films like Dirty Work, has died at 61. In a tweet dedicated to Macdonald, Adam Sandler described Macdonald as the "most fearless funny original guy we knew." Once titled Soggy Bottom, Paul Thomas Anderson's latest feature has a new title: Licorice Pizza, a reference to the record store chain from the 1970s. Surprise 35mm trailers for Licorice Pizza, described as having similarities to Anderson's Boogie Nights, have been seen playing before films like American Graffiti and Repo Men.

Jean-Gabriel Périot’s slow-burn doc asks current students to re-enact films from a different political era and share their thoughts

Filmed in collaboration with students from Ivry-sur-Seine on the edge of Paris, Our Defeats is a snapshot of their feelings about 21st-century society and commitment, or lack of it, to political change. But it conducts this litmus test with a twist: having them first stage scenes from films, including largely soixante-huitard-flavoured ones by Jean-Luc Godard and Chris Marker, featuring disenchanted workers, fulminating strikers and revolutionary manifestos. And then – comprehension exercise-style – it asks the actors what they think of the ideas expressed in each.

Confronted with teenagers struggling to define “trade union” or “revolution”, initially it feels like juxtaposing them with such fervent material is a passive-aggressive move on the part of director Jean-Gabriel Périot. There is indeed a striking gap between the often highly charged and persuasive performances they give,...

Jean-Gabriel Périot's Our Defeats is exclusively showing on Mubi starting September 15, 2021 in many countries in the series Undiscovered.I just watched Our Defeats—the first time in a while….This film was really an unexpected one. The director of Le Luxy, an art-house cinema in Ivry-sur-Seine, a city closed-by Paris, asked me to participate in a project with high-school students. I had to spend time with them, to work with them and make a “film,” whatever this “film” could be. Usually, workshops with students end up as a collective film or as a series of individual films. There, it was different. The process was supposed to lead to a film that would implicate the students but that would be signed by me as filmmaker. The main idea was to share with those students my own way to make films. Before I started this project, it was obvious that making...

The U.S. lineup for films coming to Mubi this September has been announced, featuring some of my personal favorites of the last few years, notably Philippe Lesage’s severely overlooked coming-of-age drama Genesis, John Gianvito’s Helen Keller documentary Her Socialist Smile, Joe DeNardo, Paul Felten’s formally thrilling Slow Machine, and Robert Greene’s documentary Bisbee ’17, as well as Jia Zhangke’s latest release Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue.

Also in the lineup is Bill Forsyth’s delightful Gregory’s Girl, Ari Folman’s hybrid feature The Congress, and Manoel de Oliveira’s Visit, or Memories and Confession, which was made in 1982, and only allowed to screen after his death.

See the lineup below and get 30 days free here.

September 1 | Yellow Cat | Adilkhan Yerzhanov | Festival Focus: Venice

September 2 | Visit, or Memories and Confessions | Manoel de Oliveira | Rediscovered

September 3 | Slow Machine | Joe DeNardo, Paul Felten | Mubi Spotlight

September...

The strand features titles from Cannes, Berlin and Venice.

Features by Joanna Hogg, Radu Jude and Gaspar Noé are among those set to compete for the Zabaltegi-Tabakalera award at this year’s San Sebastian Film Festival (September 17-25).

The strand, for films of any kind of style or length, includes 13 features and five shorts, with two world premieres.

The selection includes several titles from this year’s Cannes film festival: Kirill Serebrennikov’s Competition title Petrov’s Flu; Kira Kovalenko’s Un Certain Regard winner Unclenching The Fists; Laura Wandel’s Playground (also Un Certain Regard); Gasper Noe’s Vortex, which...

Adapted for the screen by writer/director Jean-Gabriel Périot from the mémoir of Paris-based author and philosopher Dider Eribon, Returning To Reims (Fragments) charts the rise and fall – in both literal and figurative terms, and the changing fortunes and objectives of the French working class, from the post-Second World War period to contemporary times.

A rich, well-edited, patchwork of library footage, intimate historical interviews and snippets of narrative film, employed at various stages as fictionalised representations of the very personal source material, the throughline of this documentary and its largely linear chronology, comes from Adèle Haenel’s narration of Eribon’s words. Contemplative recollections and musings, told with a perhaps surprisingly dispassionate neutrality, focus on the writer’s grandmother, parents and the changing face of the worker’s movement over the course of nearly 80 years.

With a definite affinity for the source text, thanks to his...

The MIT Press describes Didier Eribon’s book Returning to Reims as “a memoir and meditation on individual and class identity, and the forces that keep us locked in political closets.” The author never went back home upon leaving until after his father was moved to a nursing home for those afflicted by Alzheimer’s; and it was only upon his return that he began to recognize the underlying factors that made its community what it became, despite its origins. By looking inward at his own identity as a gay progressive always at odds with a homophobic dad who gradually allied himself with the National Front, Eribon began to uncover the historical events that altered the political landscape enough for a working-class town to embrace the far-right.

Director Jean-Gabriel Périot brings those words to life via an archival-based, visual collage entitled Retour A Reims [Fragments]. With Adèle Haenel narrating excerpts from...

Blue is the Warmest Collar: Periot’s Projects a Sublime Visualization of Potent Memoir

For his third feature length documentary, Jean-Gabriel Périot tackles the celebrated 2009 memoir by Didier Eribon, Returning to Reims (Fragments) (only recently translated into English in 2018). A celebrated writer and professor (his first publication was a lauded autobiography on Michel Foucault in 1991), his memoir provides an intimate anecdotal family history which simultaneously charts the political narrative of France’s working class at large from post-wwii on.

Periot makes this a stellar visual odyssey, tossing in Adele Haenel as narrator to voice Eribon’s prose (the commingling and collapsing of sexual orientations and identities from this creative choice leaves a profound impression), weaving her voice over a series of footage from both documentary and narrative cinematic elements.…...

In one of the biggest deals on titles at this year’s Visions du Réel, Switzerland’s premier documentary festival, Radio Télévision Suisse (Rts), the public broadcasting organization for the French-speaking part of the country, has acquired eleven titles from Visions du Réel’s 2021 selection.

The deal is part of a longstanding partnership between the Swiss doc festival and Rts, which selects around a dozen VdR titles every year.

Some are co-productions under the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation’s pact with the audiovisual industry to increase subsidies for independent Swiss production, including “Radiograph of a Family” by Iranian director Firouzeh Khosrovani.

An IDFA best feature winner, it tells the story of Tayi, who, on her wedding day, marries the photo of Hossein. Joining him in Switzerland, the distance that separates them persists from one country to the other, deepening over the years, and invades the smallest corners of their home.

“The...

The lineup for the 2021 Directors' Fortnight (Quinzaine des Réalisateurs) at Cannes has been announced. See also the full lineups of the Official Selection and Critics’ Week.Our MenFEATURE Films A Chiara (Jonas Carpignano): The story of 15-year-old Chiara whose close-knit family falls apart after her father abandons them in Calabria. Chiara starts to investigate to understand why her father disappeared and as she gets closer to the truth, she is forced to decide what kind of future she wants for herself.Ali & Ava (Clio Barnard): Both lonely for different reasons, Ali and Ava meet through their shared affection for Sofia—the child of Ali’s Slovakian tenants, whom Ava teaches. Over a lunar month, sparks fly and a deep connection begins to grow.Between Two Worlds (Emmanuel Carrère)The Braves (Anaïs Volpé)A Brighter Tomorrow (Yassine Qnia)Clara Sola (Nathalie Álvarez Mesen)The Employer and the Employee (Manuel...

Moretti has just announced the selection for 53rd edition after last year’s pandemic hiatus.

Italian-born Paolo Moretti was appointed artistic director of Directors’ Fortnight in 2018, after a decade of programming across Europe at institutions such as the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Spanish Cinematheque in Madrid as well as festivals including Venice, Rome, FIDMarseille and Leeds.

After last year’s pandemic hiatus, he announced his second selection at the helm on Tuesday (June 8), comprising 24 features and nine shorts by established and emerging filmmakers.

Is 2021 the 52nd or 53rd edition?

We counted last year as the 52nd edition because...

Moretti has just announced the selection for 53rd edition after last year’s pandemic hiatus.

Italian-born Paolo Moretti was appointed artistic director of Directors’ Fortnight in 2018, after a decade of programming across Europe at institutions such as the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Spanish Cinematheque in Madrid as well as festivals including Venice, Rome, FIDMarseille and Leeds.

After last year’s pandemic hiatus, he announced his second selection at the helm on Tuesday (June 8), comprising 24 features and nine shorts by established and emerging filmmakers.

Is 2021 the 52nd or 53rd edition?

We counted last year as the 52nd edition because...

The lineup for the Cannes Directors Fortnight was revealed on Tuesday, featuring new films by Clio Barnard, Joanna Hogg and Alice Rohrwacher. Of the 24 films selected for the lineup, exactly half have at least one woman director.

The 12 of 24 films in the Cannes Directors Fortnight, which is the independent arm of the Cannes Film Festival kicking off next month, dwarfs the number of female directors in the Cannes main competition lineup, in which only four of the 24 selected movies were directed by women. However, some of the movies for the Directors Fortnight feature women as co-directors, so 12 of 29 of the total directors are women.

The Directors Fortnight will host a special screening of Hogg’s “The Souvenir Part 1,” as “Part 2” will be playing in competition. Other notable films include “A Night of Knowing Nothing,” the first feature by actress Payal Kapadia, and “Hit the Road,” another debut feature by Panah Panahi,...

On the heels of yesterday’s announcement of the Cannes Critics’ Week lineup, now comes confirmation of the 25 movies that will screen in the festival’s other prestigious sidebar section, Directors’ Fortnight. The lineup includes eight debut features, including “Hit the Road” by Jafar Panahi’s son, Panah Panahi. Directors’ Fortnight 2021 opens with Emmanuel Carrère’s “Between Two Worlds,” starring Juliette Binoche as an author experiencing job insecurity. Other notable titles include “A Chiara,” the latest movie from “Mediterranea” and “A Ciambra” director Jonas Carpignano.

Perhaps the biggest draw for U.S. audiences will be the world premiere of Joanna Hogg’s “The Souvenir Part II,” starring Honor Swinton Byrne, Tilda Swinton, Charlie Heaton, Harris Dickinson, and Joe Alwyn. The film is executive produced by Martin Scorsese, who is also an executive producer on Fortnight title “Murina” (directed by Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović). Hogg’s original “The Souvenir” was one...

A full picture of the Cannes Film Festival is now coming into focus with the unveiling of the Directors’ Fortnight lineup. Following the Official Selection and the Critics’ Week lineups, this sidebar features Joanna Hogg’s highly-anticipated sequel The Souvenir Part II, as well as new films by Miguel Gomes, Jonas Carpignano, Clio Barnard, Pietro Marcello, Alice Rohrwacher, Matías Piñeiro, and more.

See below.

Features

A Chiara (Jonas Carpignano)

Ali & Ava (Clio Barnard)

Between Two Worlds (Emmanuel Carrère)

The Braves (Anaïs Volpé)

A Brighter Tomorrow (Yassine Qnia)

Clara Sola (Nathalie Álvarez Mesen)

The Employer and the Employee (Manuel Nieto)

Europa (Haider Rashid)

Futura

Întregalde (Radu Muntean)

The Hill where Lionesses Roar (Luàna Bajrami)

Hit the Road (Panah Panahi)

Magnetic Beats (Vincent Cardona)

Medusa (Anita Rocha da Silveira)

Murina (Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović)

Neptune Frost

A Night of Knowing Nothing (Payal Kapadia)

Our Men (Rachel Lang)

Returning to Reims (Fragments) (Jean-Gabriel Périot...

The Directors’ Fortnight parallel section of the Cannes Film Festival has unveiled its lineup for the 2021 edition which runs from July 7-17. Scroll down for the full list.

Fortnight chief Paolo Moretti, who took over the reins in 2019, presented the roster from the Forum des Images in Paris, saying, “After a very painful year for everyone, we are happy to present a selection of discovery.” Out of 24 features, 22 filmmakers are showing their films for first time at Cannes. Half of the films this year are directed or co-directed by women including Clio Barnard’s Ali & Ava; documentary Futura from Alice Rohrwacher, Pietro Marcello and Francesco Munzi; and Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir: Part II with Tilda Swinton and Richard Ayoade.

There are eight debut features in the lineup, including Jadde Khaki (Hit the Road), the first film from Jafar Panahi’s son Panah Panahi, and Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović’s Murina...

After canceling its last edition due to the pandemic, Directors’ Fortnight, a section running alongside the Cannes Film Festival, will be back with a stylish and eclectic international lineup, including Joanna Hogg’s highly anticipated “The Souvenir Part II,” Clio Barnard’s “Ali & Ava,” Jonas Carpignano’s “A Chiara,” Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman’s Rwanda-set sci-fi film “Neptune Frost,” and Alice Rohrwacher, Pietro Marcello and Francesco Munzi’s “Futura.”

The highlight of this edition will likely be the world premiere of “The Souvenir Part II,” which will mark the first presence of Hogg, an acclaimed British writer-director, at Cannes. The romance-drama is headlined by Tilda Swinton — who will also be in Cannes for “The French Dispatch” and “Memoria” competing in the festival’s Official Selection — as well as Richard Ayoade, Charlie Heaton and Harris Dickinson. Executive produced by Martin Scorsese, the film revolves around a student who begins to...

One highlight at Switzerland’s doc film festival Visions du Réel (VdR) is the Pitching section on its Industry platform. 29 projects have been invited to participate. One of them, an exciting new documentary project on the Siege of Sarajevo by award-winning French filmmaker Jean-Gabriel Périot (“A German Youth”), promises to attract many potential collaborators.

The new project, “Facing Darkness,” brings innovative storytelling techniques to the documentary format by fusing personal archive footage with present-day interviews.

Périot’s ambition is to divide the film into two parts. The first will consist of a montage of film extracts made during the four-year-long Siege of Sarajevo, mainly by local amateur filmmakers who signed up to become soldiers to protect their city and country. Périot spent the last four years researching these archive films, regularly traveling to Bosnia-Herzegovina. After looking through hundreds of them, he expects to choose around 45 films, using around a minute’s extract per film.

Several award-winning filmmakers to pitch latest projects at industry platform, which has added three new cash prizes.

Swiss documentary festival Visions de Réel has revealed the industry projects that will be pitched and presented at its 2021 edition, including new features from UK director Mark Cousins and Oscar-nominated US filmmaker Elaine McMillion Sheldon.

In total, 29 projects will participate across the VdR-Pitching, VdR-Work in Progress and VdR-Rough Cut Lab. Industry activity will take place from April 14-22 both online and physically in Nyon, subject to pandemic restrictions.

Full list of projects below

The work in progress strand will include the latest...

Documentary film festival Visions du Réel, which runs April 15-25, has unveiled the 29 projects that will be presented in its industry program, VdR-Industry.

The project will participate in the three key forums in the industry section: VdR-Pitching, VdR-Work in Progress and VdR-Rough Cut Lab. Industry activities will take place from April 14-22, both online and on site in Nyon, Switzerland – if sanitary measures permit.

The VdR-Industry Awards, including three new cash awards, will be granted by an international jury gathering Eurimage’s executive director Roberto Olla, Italian film director Roberto Minervini and Rasha Salti, independent film and visual arts curator, as well as commissioning editor for La Lucarne, Arte France.

“This year’s selection depicts not only the incredible diversity of contemporary documentary filmmaking, but also its ever wider ranging influence,” said Madeline Robert, new head of industry and artistic advisor of Visions du Réel.

VdR-Industry is designed as a springboard for projects,...

Getting Ready For Departure: 8 Days To Go!

In times when Ibiza seems further away than ever and, in the interest of the environment and ourselves, flying should be avoided anyway, Vienna Shorts offers you virtual excursions and expeditions as an alternative to geographically distant destinations: In only 8 days the 17th edition of Vienna Shorts will start – online and completely touch-free, with a renewed program structure and maybe an opportunity for well-tempered escapism or two! The complete travel guide is now available on the official website, the ticket to ride is also available from today. Pack your shorts, you’re off to a sea of tulips!

© Spring Break (Total Refusal)

Festivaltrailer 2020: A Digital Spring Break

We have shed our shyness about virtual space and its (so far) unlit corners – but the festival trailer by the Austrian artists’ collective Total Refusal will make you doubt again what awaits us beyond the digital tulip field.

Selection includes 39 titles and 31 world premieres.

This year’s Forum programme at the Berlin Film Festival (Feb 7-17) will feature 39 films, including 31 world premieres.

The Forum brings together challenging and thought-provoking filmmaking that brings together film with visual art, theatre and literature.

Highlights include a Super 8 silent vision of Elfriede Jelinek’s ghost novel ’Die Kinder der Toten’ in a film of the same name by Kelly Copper and Pavol Liska, Ghassan Salhab’s “essayistic collage” An Open Rose for which the filmmaker has used the letters from prison by Polish Marxist Rosa Luxembourg, and the documentary Landless, the...

Benjamín Naishtat wins best director Silver Shell for Rojo.

Spanish production Between Two Waters (Entre Dos Aguas) by Isaki Lacuesta has won the top award at the San Sebastián Film Festival, marking a second Golden Shell for the Spanish director who after claiming the top prize in 2011 for The Double Steps.

Between Two Waters tells the story of two Roman brothers who meet again after years apart, one having spent some time in prison, the other in the army.

The title is a Spanish expression that translates to “neither here nor there”, and is also the title of a classic...

Rotterdam CineMart was the first coproduction market. After being duplicsted by Ifp in New York, Hong Kong Film Festival and Pusan Film Film Festival, its format became the industry standard.

This year it has been streamlined to better serve film professionals to find the right connections. Head of Iffr Pro Marit van den Elshout: “We’ve downsized the selection to 16 projects in order to give each project more care and attention. The projects now start preparations a month in advance with a specially appointed mentor. We’ve also implemented a new structure for the one-to-one meetings, which will be tailored more to the needs of each project. Additionally, CineMart presents a new format called Spotlight, in which the project teams and their mentors discuss each project publicly for all CineMart guests.”

Selected CineMart titles qualify for four awards:

the Eurimages Co-Production Development Award of €20,000 for a European co-production;the...

Close-Up is a feature that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Jean-Gabriel Périot's A German Youth (2016), which is receiving an exclusive global online premiere on Mubi, is showing from October 27 - November 26, 2017 as a Special Discovery.I’ll never accept the tendency of the late capitalistic society, which leads us straight to fascism. You just have to look at what’s happening in the USA.—Gudrun EnsslinIn the last analysis, terrorism is an idea generated by capitalism to justify better defense measures to safeguard capitalism.—Rainer Werner FassbinderWhen fascists began getting punched this summer, and an excited wave of schadenfreude took hold, briefly, of the social-media trashcan, out came the liberal cavalry: in force. Punching Nazis, so went the cry, is at best the first step to moral oblivion and, at worst, already as bad as the people who want you dead. They are nothing if not predictable,...

Dawn City: Frozen Time“A place is thus an instantaneous configuration of positions. It implies an indication of stability. A space exists when one takes into consideration vectors of direction, velocities, and time variables… Every story is a travel story, a spatial practice."—Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday LifeTime is the central tenet of all cinema. The impression of its passing is the enthralling illusion at the medium’s flickering heart; petrified images are reanimated by the whirr of the projector. Even at its most micro level cinema traverses the intersection of time and place, as the static location of a single picture is temporally transported before our eyes by the flurry of subsequent frames. On a macro level, that relationship and those concepts are no less pervasive or vital. In 2006, found footage filmmaker Bill Morrison told Senses of Cinema that: "for better or worse, the projector is...

One of the final performances from the late star to be seen as part of San Sebastian’s New Directors line-up.

San Sebastian Film Festival (Sept 16-24) has unveiled the 14 filmmakers set to compete for the Kutxabank-New Directors award, which comes with a prize of €50,000.

The strand, made up of first or second films from international filmmakers, includes Gabe Klinger’s Porto, which features one of the final performances of Anton Yelchin, who died last month.

The film, which stars Yelchin and Lucie Lucas as a young man and woman who have a romantic encounter, also features the voice of late director Chantal Akerman and is executive produced by Jim Jarmusch.

Porto marks Klinger’s narrative feature debut, having previously directed the Venice-award-winning documentary Double Play: James Benning and Richard Linklater.

Other titles in the strand hail from across Europe, South America and Asia.

New Directors Line-Up

Synopses provided by the festival:

Anishoara

Ana-Felicia Scutelnicu (Germany - Moldova...

Engram of ReturningThe selection at this year’s installation of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Art of the Real film festival, an annual showcase dedicated to conveying the spectrum of nonfiction filmmaking, are an intriguing bunch culled from a variety of seemingly opposing cultures, yet still exhibiting a fascination with interrogating the past. That this fixation is explored through a miscellany of aesthetic methods is only testament to the veracity of the festival’s undertaking.As this year’s sidebar retrospective of avant-garde giant Bruce Baillie’s work evinces, the nuances and vagaries of the term ‘“nonfiction” allow for fruitful pairings of works that continue the lineage of the abstract, non-narrative work that comes to define our idea of the American avant-garde with those of more familiar documentary tendencies. Daïchi Saïto’s superlative Engram of Returning, playing as part of the second shorts program,is certainly the film...

Chile is a long country. It takes 12 hours of bus travel from its capital, Santiago, to the city of Valdivia, where one of the most important festivals of the continent happens every October. It’s a two-hour trip by plane, and even that’s surprising considering that the average plane trip from Santiago to Mendoza, the nearest city in Argentina, is only 45 minutes long. So, Chile is also a narrow country, and when you live your entire life in it, one gets used to understand this complex piece of land in terms of dualities or pairs: contradicting forces that give this country its unique identity. For example, you have the dry and hot North (with the second most arid desert in the world), and the rainy cold South (where this festival takes place).To better understand the complex panorama and program that this year’s Valdivia festival had to offer,...

James Vanderbilt’s ‘Rathergate’ scandal drama starring Cate Blanchett and Robert Redford will open the 23rd annual event on October 8.

Topher Grace and Elisabeth Moss round out the key cast on the drama, based on journalist Mary Mapes’ account of the CBS report into former President George W Bush’s dereliction of duty while serving in the National Guard during the Vietnam War.

The government attempted to discredit the 2004 report, which led to the ruining of Rather’s career and the firing of Mapes.

Spc has positioned Truth for a potential awards run and will release it in theatres on October 16. The world premiere is set for Toronto in the Special Presentations strand.

This year’s Narrative Competition feature films include Matt Sobel’s Take Me To The River, Ciro Guerra’s Cannes Directors’ Fortnight winner Embrace Of The Serpent, Avishai Sivan’s Tikkun, Grímur Hákonarson’s Rams and Diastème’s French Blood.

Documentary Competition...

Zabaltegi strand of the festival will feature 24 titles.Scroll down for full list

The 63rd San Sebastian Film Festival (Sept 18-26) has unveiled the features that will comprise its Zabaltegi programme, including Spanish premieres of new films from Laurie Anderson, Eric Khoo, Corneliu Porumboiu, Walter Salles and Alexander Sokurov.

The non-competitive strand includes features, documentaries, animation and shorts, and the first screening of all films in the section will run at the Tabakalera centre for contemporary culture and creation, the hub of Zabaltegi activities from this year.

Titles in the section that played at this year’s Cannes include Porumboiu’s black comedy The Treasure, which won the Un Certain Regard Talent Prize; Tambutti documentary Beyond My Grandfather Allende, winner of the L’Oeil d’Or award for best documentary; and Magnus Von Horn’s debut The Here After, which played in Directors’ Fornight.

Films that will first be seen at Venice (Sept 2-12) include Francofonia, from Russian...

Sarajevo Film Festival’s Laško Sumer Nights line-up revealed.

The 21st Sarajevo Film Festival (Aug 14-22) has unveiled the titles that will make up its Laško Sumer Nights strand, screened at the Open Air Cinema Vatrogasac.

The selection includes Amy Winehouse documentary Amy, directed by Asif Kapadia, which debuted at Cannes, and Laura Poitras’s Edward Snowden doc Citizenfour.

Other titles include:

B-Movie: Lust & Sound In West-Berlin 1979-1989 (Germany)

Dirs: Jörg A. Hoppe, Klaus Maeck, Heiko Lange

Cobain: Montage Of Heck (Us)

Dir: Brett Morgen

A German Youth (Fra-Swi-Ger)

Dir: Jean-Gabriel Périot

One Day In Sarajevo (B&H, Aus)

Dir: Jasmila Žbanić

Paco De Lucía: A Journey (Spain)

Dir: Curro Sánchez

The Wolfpack (Us)

Dir: Crystal Moselle...

I haven’t traveled all I have to Buenos Aires and back to tell you about how this festival, alongside Mar del Plata and Valdivia (this last one in Chile), form the triad of the most important festivals of Latin America, because if you know about it, you know about it. People that have travelled to Argentina for the past 17 years in April have felt the presence of cinema in the streets—and Buenos Aires is a big city. The importance of a festival that brings over 300 titles, some of them for the first time crossing an ocean, is fundamental for the Latino viewer, as well for those who want to make the effort and come to see the movies that play here. On a closer look, what plays here may seem to be eclectic at times, it is purely due to what seems to be the motto of the festival: discovery.

The 58th San Francisco International Film Festival opens tonight with Alex Gibney's Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine. There'll be awards for and special evenings with Richard Gere, Guillermo del Toro, Douglas Trumbull, Paul Schrader and Kim Longinotto. Rachel Kushner will introduce a screening of Barbara Loden's 1970 classic Wanda. Cibo Matto will perform their new score for Yoko Ono's Fly. Plus: Jean-Gabriel Périot's A German Youth, Stanley Nelson's The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon's Best of Enemies and more picks and previews. » - David Hudson...

The 58th San Francisco International Film Festival opens tonight with Alex Gibney's Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine. There'll be awards for and special evenings with Richard Gere, Guillermo del Toro, Douglas Trumbull, Paul Schrader and Kim Longinotto. Rachel Kushner will introduce a screening of Barbara Loden's 1970 classic Wanda. Cibo Matto will perform their new score for Yoko Ono's Fly. Plus: Jean-Gabriel Périot's A German Youth, Stanley Nelson's The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon's Best of Enemies and more picks and previews. » - David Hudson...

Documentary festival to focus on

DocAviv, Israel’s top documentary festival, has finalized the selection for its 17th edition (May 7-16).

With a solid reputation to defend, the festival will kick off with Laura Poitras’ Academy Award winner Citizenfour, whose theme, the onging Edward Snowden saga, fits one of the festival’s main concerns - “(un)Free World”.

Some 13 Israeli films have been selected to compete in the Docaviv Isreali Film Competition.

A total 11 world premieres are competing for The Sarah and Michael Sela Prize

The $18,000 (Nis 70,000) award is the largest prize for documentary filmmaking offered anywhere in Israel.

Some 75 Israeli films have been submitted to the Israeli competition. Well known names among the contenders include: Reuven Brodsky with 7 Days in St. Petersburg, whose previous film Home Movie has won the 2012 Docaviv competition, Avigail Sperber produced Girsa De’Yankuta by Noa Roth, Censored Voices by Mor Loushy which premiered in Sundance and Twilight of a Life, which...

Films will be competing for nearly $40,000 in total prizes in various narrative and documentary categories.

San Francisco Film Society has unveiled the films in competition for this year’s Golden Gate Awards (Gga).

Films from 20 countries will compete for nearly $40,000 in total prizes at this year’s San Francisco International Film Festival, running April 23-May 7.

The winners of the Gga New Directors Prize and the Gga Documentary Feature will each receive $10,000, while the Gga Bay Area Documentary Feature winner will receive $5,000. Independent juries will select the winners in all categories with the winners announced on May 6.

In addition, the Gga will include competitors in six short film categories. These films will be announced on March 31.

The full list of nominees is as follows:

2015 Gga New Directors Prize (Narrative Feature) COMPETITIONBota, Iris Elezi, Thomas Logoreci, Albania/Italy/Kosovo – North American PremiereEl Cordero, Juan Francisco Olea, ChileCourt, Chaitanya Tamhane, India A Few Cubic Meters of Love, Jamshid Mahmoudi, Iran/AfghanistanFlapping...

Last week, the Berlinale's Panorama program rolled out its narrative features. Today, the section adds 18 documentaries to complete its lineup for the 2015 edition running from February 5 through 15. Notes in quotes come from the festival. Included are Liz Garbus's portrait of Nina Simone, Brett Morgen's glimpse into the life of Kurt Cobain, Walter Salles's film about Jia Zhangke and modern China and Jean-Gabriel Périot's documentary on the upheavals in West Germany in the 1970s. » - David Hudson...

Last week, the Berlinale's Panorama program rolled out its narrative features. Today, the section adds 18 documentaries to complete its lineup for the 2015 edition running from February 5 through 15. Notes in quotes come from the festival. Included are Liz Garbus's portrait of Nina Simone, Brett Morgen's glimpse into the life of Kurt Cobain, Walter Salles's film about Jia Zhangke and modern China and Jean-Gabriel Périot's documentary on the upheavals in West Germany in the 1970s. » - David Hudson...

Finnish documentary expert Leena Pasanen has been appointed as the first non-German in the almost 60-year history of Dok Leipzig to succeed Claas Danielsen as its festival director.

Pasanen previously worked in documentary programming at public broadcaster Yle and as the director of the European Documentary Network in Copenhagen, among others.

She will take up her post on January 1, 2015 with an initial five-year contract .

Claas Danielsen, who has headed Dok Leipzig as festival director for the past ten years, will open his swansong edition on Oct 27 with Citizenfour, the final part of Laura Poitras’ 9/11 trilogy, centred on Nsa whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Sergei Loznitsa’s Maidan and Ulrich Seidl’s Im Keller are among 12 titles selected for the International Competition for Feature Documentaries to compete for the €10,000 Golden Dove.

Other films in this competitive section include Fernand Melgar’s The Shelter, which premiered at Locarno in August; Zuzanna Solakiewicz’s 15 Corners Of The World; Giovanni Donfrancesco’s [link...