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Danish-Palestinian director Mahdi Fleifel’s second feature To A Land Unknown added to its long list of prizes when it received the €10,000 Transilvania Trophy of this year’s Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF) in Romania at the weekend.

Berlin-based Noaz Deshe won the €3,500 best director prize for his second feature Xoftex, which had its world premiere at last year’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.

The special jury prize went to Chinese-American filmmaker Julian Castronovo’s first film Debut which investigates the ethics and aesthetics of forgery, while thebest performance award was presented to Ghjuvanna Benedetti for her role in...

The 24th edition of the Transilvania International Film Festival has wrapped up in Romania.

During Saturday Night’s closing gala at the National Theatre in Cluj-Napoca, British director Mahdi Fleifel’s To a Land Unknown took home the Transilvania Trophy, the festival’s 10,000-euro top prize.

The film is described as an intense drama about two Palestinian refugees living in Athens, caught between petty scams and the hope of a better life in Germany. Amid a climate of despair and moral compromise, one spirals deeper into a cycle of manipulation and exploitation of those around him.

“It was more about survival than storytelling. We struggled for nearly ten years to make it,” said Fleifel, adding of the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict: “The problem in Palestine is not the Palestinians, it’s the occupation—and that must end.”

German director Noaz Deshe’s Xoftex won the €3,500 Best Directing Award, sponsored by the Romanian Cultural Institute.

Mahdi Fleifel’s “To a Land Unknown” won the Transilvania Trophy at the Transilvania Film Festival, Romania’s most prominent film fest. Noaz Deshe took the best directing award for “Xoftex,” while the Special Jury Award went to Julian Castronovo’s “Debut, or, Objects of the Field of Debris as Currently Catalogued.” Other award winners at the 2025 edition, which wraps this Sunday, June 22, include Bogdan Mureșanu’s “The New Year That Never Came,” Daniel Tornero’s “Saturn,” and Arjun Talwar’s “Letters From Wolf Street.”

This year’s festival, which saw over 200 features across the ten-day event, opened with Brendan Canty’s Berlinale entry “Christy” and wraps Sunday with a buzzy Cannes title in Oliver Laxe’s award-winning “Sirât.” 16 national features played within Romanian Days, from veterans such as Andrei Ujică (“Twst – Things We Said Today”) and Radu Jude (“Kontinental ‘25” and “Sleep #2”) to up-and-coming talent such as Mihai Dragolea...

The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival has unveiled the official selection for its 59th edition, including new features by Bence Fliegauf, Miro Remo and Ondřej Provazník.

Scroll down for full lineup

The festival, which runs from July 4-July 12 in the Czech spa town, has announced 11 titles for its main Crystal Globe Competition, comprising nine world premieres and two international premieres.

Artistic director Karel Och said that one more title from Iran will be added to the Competition closer to the festival, with the announcement postponed “for the safety of its makers.”

Hungarian director Bence Fliegauf, whose Forest - I See...

Mahdi Fleifel’s To A Land Unknown and Eva Libertad’s Deaf are among the 12 films selected to play in competition at the Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF), taking place in Romania from June 13-22.

Films by first and second-time directors are in the running for the €10,000 Transilvania Trophy, while 10 works pushing the boundaries of the documentary form have been selected to screen for the top cash prize of €2,000 in the What’s Up Doc? Doc section.

In addition to the debut films from Danish-Palestinian director and Spain’s Libertad are Corsican filmmaker Julien Colonna’s The Kingdom, and second...

Laila Abbas’s debut feature Thank You for Banking With Us! swept top honors at the 9th Critics Awards for Arab Films, held May 17 during the Cannes Film Festival. The Palestinian director received Best Film and Best Director for her drama, which exposes gendered inheritance rules under Islamic Sharia law as two sisters race against time to claim their father’s estate.

Morocco’s Everybody Loves Touda earned Best Screenplay for Nabil Ayouch and Maryam Touzani, while lead actress Nisrin Erradi won Best Actress for her portrayal of a village poet determined to chase her dreams despite familial obligations. The film premiered last year in Cannes’s Premiere section and drew praise for its compassionate telling of a woman’s quest in rural Morocco.

Adam Bessa took Best Actor for Ghost Trail, a French-Tunisian thriller in which his character tracks Syrian regime figures across Europe and confronts his own former captor.

Palestinian director Laila Abbas’ female empowerment drama “Thank You for Banking With Us!” won best film and director at the 9th Critics Awards for Arab Films at an event held on the sidelines of the 78th Cannes Film Festival.

“Thank You for Banking With Us!” tackles the hot button issue of sexist Middle Eastern inheritance rules dictated by Islamic Sharia law, under which a man has a right to take double the share of a woman.

Morocco’s “Everybody Loves Touda,” written by Nabil Ayouch and Maryam Touzani, won the screenplay award, and best actress for Nisrin Erradi.

Adam Bessa won best actor with French-Tunisian film “Ghost Trail.”

The awards highlight the best achievements in Arab filmmaking over the past year, with this year’s winners selected by a panel of 281 film critics from around the world.

The awards are organized by the Arab Cinema Center in collaboration with Mad Solutions,...

Laila Abbas’s Thank You For Banking With Us has scooped best film at the ninth Critics Awards for Arab Films, which will celebrate its winners in Cannes today (May 17).

The Palestinian drama, which debuted at the BFI London Film Festival, also picked up best director for debut feature filmmaker Abbas. The story follows two sisters, played by Clara Khoury and Yasmine Al Massri, who race against time to secure their father’s inheritance.

Also picking up two awards was Nabil Ayouch’s Moroccan film Everybody Loves Touda, which bowed in the Cannes Premiere section of last year’s festival.

Continuing its tradition of celebrating excellence in Arab cinema, the Arab Cinema Center (Acc) has announced the nominees for the ninth edition of its annual Critics Awards for Arab Films.

Leading the pack with five nominations each this year are four films: Thank You For Banking With US; Everybody Loves Touda; Ghost Trail and Seeking Haven For Mr. Rambo. Following close behind them, with four nominations, is: AÏCHA.

Several other films also had multiple nominations including: The Village Next To Paradise; To A Land Unknown; Voy! Voy! Voy! and Norah.

This year’s winners will be revealed during a ceremony held on May 17th as part of the Cannes Film Festival. The event is organized in collaboration with Mad Solutions and the International Emerging Film Talent Association (Iefta), and attendance is by invitation only.

The Critics Awards for Arab Films have become a prestigious and anticipated highlight of the festival calendar.

Thank You For Banking With Us, Everybody Loves Touda, Ghost Trail and Seeking Haven For Mr. Rambo lead the nominations for the 9th Critics Awards for Arab Films, which will take place during the upcoming Cannes Film Festival.

All four features have received five nominations apiece for the awards, which spotlight Arab films that premiered outside the Arab world in 2024.

Mehdi Barsaoui’s Aïcha follows closely behind with four nods. Several other films also had multiple nominations including: The Village Next To Paradise, To A Land Unknown, Voy! Voy! Voy! and Norah.

Some 281 jury members from 75 countries will vote on the nominees,...

The Arab Cinema Center (Acc) has announced the nominations for the 9th Critics Awards for Arab Films, the ceremony which will take place on the fringes of the Cannes Film Festival in May.

Four films are in the lead, making it into five categories each: Laila Abbas’ Thank You For Banking With Us (Palestine), Nabil Ayouch’s Everybody Loves Touda (Morocco); Jonathan Millet’s Ghost Trail (Tunisia) and Khaled Mansour’s Seeking Haven For Mr. Rambo (Egypt)

Mehdi Barsaoui’s Aïcha (Tunisia) follows with four nominations. Other films in the running include Mo Harawe’s The Village Next To Paradise (Somalia) Mahdi Fleifel’s To A Land Unknown (Palestine); Omar Hilal’s Voy! Voy! Voy! (Egypt) and Tawfik Alzaidi’s Norah (Saudi Arabia)

This year’s winners will be revealed during a ceremony on May 17 in Cannes. The event is organized by the Acc in collaboration with Mad Solutions and...

Premiering in Karlovy Vary where it won a Special Mention in the Crystal Globe Competition, and then screening in Thessaloniki where it won the Best Director Award in the Film Forward Competition, “Xoftex” is a truly different film about the lives of immigrants in the Greek refugee camps. The movie is the result of Noaz Deshe‘s work with NGOs and refugee organisations between 2016 and 2019, notably in a notorious camp in northern Greece named Softex, so-called because the site was a former (toilet) paper factory. There he found rampant corruption and poor conditions, but he also established a fertile collaboration with an Italian theatre company, running drama workshops with stateless migrants. Much of the film’s dramatised scenes are drawn from these interactions with real-life asylum seekers. Meanwhile, Neshe is also working on a documentary about the Softex camp’s real former residents and how their stories developed. (source: The...

Palestinian filmmaker Scandar Copti’s Israel-set family drama “Happy Holidays” won the top prize Sunday at the Thessaloniki Film Festival, taking home the Golden Alexander for best feature film.

Copti’s sophomore feature, his first film since his Oscar-nominated 2009 debut “Ajami,” premiered in the Venice Film Festival’s Horizons sidebar, winning the best screenplay prize. Variety’s Siddhant Adlakha described it as “a piercing, realistic family drama, the inflection points of which reveal deep cultural and political dimensions surrounding gender and ethnicity.”

“Happy Holidays” follows four interconnected characters who share their unique realities, highlighting the complexities between genders, generations and cultures. The ensemble cast — comprised of Arab and Jewish characters alike — creates a multifaceted portrait of life in Haifa, Israel’s third-largest city.

The Thessaloniki jury, which included filmmaker and producer Sara Driver (“Boom for Real”), filmmaker Denis Côté (“Vic + Flo Saw a Bear”) and producer Konstantinos Kontovrakis (“How to Have Sex...

Noaz Deshe’s surreal film Xoftex explores the experience of refugees trapped in a camp while awaiting asylum decisions in Greece. As their days blend together in the bleak compound, one resident named Nasser channels his impatience into an ambitious filmmaking project. Deshe filmed Xoftex himself on location using a cast of real asylum seekers, imparting an authentic glimpse into lives suspended in uncertainty.

The director premiered his unconventional work at festivals in Munich and Karlovy Vary, hinting at the challenges of depicting such a sensitive subject. By blending reality with flights of fantasy, Deshe keeps viewers off-balance much like the characters drifting through an endless legal purgatory. Nasser escapes temporarily by directing fellow residents in sketches and dramas filmed on his phone. But as reality sets back in, his visions grow darker reflections of a mind unraveling in the claustrophobic camp.

Through Nasser’s determined art, Deshe navigates complex...

An air of anticipation and intrigue surrounded Noaz Deshe’s film Xoftex as it swiftly won a Special Jury Mention at the Crystal Globe Competition of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival. The groundbreaking film held its world premiere to packed audiences at the festival’s Grand Hall, earning enthusiastic applause and standing ovation, proving to be the talk of the town right from the beginning.

The film didn’t just score with the audience, but also with critics alike. The first batch of reviews lauded the film’s unique take on the refugee crisis. Damon Wise of Deadline celebrated the film for its ability to portray “the disorientation of the stateless mind” in a potent and unorthodox way.

Laurence Boyce from Screen Daily appreciated the offbeat style of storytelling that broke the conventional shackles, offering a fresh outlook on refugee narratives. In a similar vein, Susan Gottlieb of Cineurope admired...

Mark Cousins’ unconventional portrait of an artist “A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things” took top honors at this year’s Karlovy Vary Film Festival, snagging the fest’s iconic Crystal Globe alongside a cash prize of $25K to split by the Scottish-Irish filmmaker and his producing partners.

Featuring the voice work of Tilda Swinton, the award-winning doc follows the life and career of artist Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, a lesser-known master of modern art whose outlook and output underwent a profound spiritual, aesthetic and ideological transformation once the painter had a moment of epiphany atop Switzerland’s Grindelwald glacier in 1949.

The climbing expedition left Barns-Graham with a new set of obsessions and forms of expression – giving her life a new meaning.

Before claiming the Jury Prize, Lilja Ingolfsdottir’s domestic drama “Loveable” also took acting honors for star Helga Guren as well as parallel awards from the Ecumenical Jury, the Europa Cinema Label,...

Mark Cousins’ portrait of a British modernist painter, “A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things,” took the Karlovy Vary Film Festival top prize Saturday, winning over a jury that included Christine Vachon and Geoffrey Rush with its perceptive take on art and seeing.

Cousins said the film’s subject, painter Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, “lived completely, truly and utterly – let’s try to do that.”

Norwegian divorce story “Loveable” won the Crystal Globe jury prize, as well as three other awards categories, taking home the Fipresci, ecumenical and Europa Cinemas Label prizes with its nuanced look at a woman morphing into a new life.

Director Lilja Ingolfsdottir scored big with her first feature-length drama with “Loveable,” telling the audience at the Hotel Thermal Grand Hall the story helped her “find barriers we have built against connections.”

The directing prize went to Nelicia Low for the Singapore/Taiwan/Poland production “Pierce,” an intricate account...

A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things, Mark Cousins‘ documentary essay about Scottish artist Wilhelmina Barns-Graham and her neurodiversity, including diary passages narrated by Tilda Swinton, won the Grand Prix – Crystal Globe, the top award at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff) on Saturday. Clive Owen was honored with a Kviff award at the closing ceremony.

A Sudden Glimpse is “exploring the pivotal 1949 experience atop Switzerland’s Grindelwald glacier that reshaped British modernist painter Wilhelmina Barns-Graham’s artistic perspective for decades to come.” The Crystal Globe comes with a $25,000 prize. “I did not expect this in a million years,” Cousins said in accepting the honor. About Barns-Graham, he said: “She didn’t change the world. But she lived completely, fully and utterly. Let’s try to do that.”

The 58th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival‘s closing ceremony also honored the Norwegian marital drama Loveable, directed by Lilja Ingolfsdottir, with its special jury prize,...

The 58th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (June 28 – July 6) came to a close this evening with an awards ceremony that saw Mark Cousins’ essay film A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things win the main prize in the festival’s Crystal Globe competition. Narrated by Tilda Swinton and — in Cousins’ familiar, idiosyncratic style, exploring themes of gender, climate change and creativity — the UK film offers a creative biography of Scottish artist Wilhelmina Barns-Graham (1912-2004). Coming what most have been a close second to take the Jury Prize — and Best Actress Award for its star, Helga Guren — was Norway’s acclaimed divorce drama Loveable, directed by Lilja Ingolfsdottir.

Also taking the stage tonight was Czech actor Ivan Trojan, already perhaps the country’s most garlanded performer, who received the Festival President’s Award for Contribution to Czech Cinema. And following hot on the heels of Viggo Mortensen and Daniel Brühl, British actor...

UK director Mark Cousins’s A Sudden Glimpse To Deeper Things has won the top prize, the Crystal Globe, at this year’s Karlovy Vary Film Festival, while Loveable by Norwegian director Lilja Ingolfsdottir won five awards in total including the special jury prize and best actress award for Helga Guren.

Cousins‘ A Sudden Glimpse To Deeper Things is a documentary portrait of British painter Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, a leading figure in the modernist St Ives group of artists. Screen’s review said that Cousins brought “his distinctively poetic and enquiring approach to this elegiac cine-essay“ to the film. Conic acquired...

Noaz Deshe, whose “Xoftex” had its world premiere this week in competition at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, is in post-production with his next project.

Deshe tells Variety the new film is a documentary set in Ukraine, which is a collaboration with Russian dissident Pyotr Verzilov – an artist and member of the anti-Kremlin performance art group Pussy Riot – and “House of Cards” creator Beau Willimon.

Deshe – a Romanian citizen whose grandfather was Ukrainian – won’t be drawn on the documentary’s title, but says it is “about intimacy and love in a time of love and dreams.”

Deshe’s unsettling sophomore feature “Xoftex” is a deep dive into the world of the “other.” Like his acclaimed 2013 directorial debut “White Shadow,” about an albino boy, “Xoftex” takes viewers into a landscape of alienation and pain that is challenging to watch.

Inspired by a vast Greek refugee camp named Softex just north of Thessaloniki,...

It wouldn’t be a film festival without at least one timely, harrowing emigrant story, but just when you might think the stylistic possibilities have been exhausted — from documentary, to vérité-style fiction and occasionally a dash of deadpan comedy — along comes Noaz Deshe’s audacious, delirious feature Xoftex. Perhaps too out-there in its concepts and execution for mainstream crossover, Deshe’s film should pick up steam on the arthouse circuit, offering an unorthodox, often oblique, but emotionally powerful attempt to recreate onscreen the disorientation of the stateless mind.

The title, which sounds like something Big Pharma might produce, is actually an immigrant compound in Greece, where largely Muslim refugees are housed while they await the outcome of their asylum claims. This, a brusque opening credit tells us, can take up to a year, but the truth is that the process can go on much,...

Syrian and Palestinian asylum seekers in a Greek refugee camp awaiting updates on their status. That is the world director Noaz Deshe (White Shadow, which was executive produced by Ryan Gosling) chose as the setting for his second feature film Xoftex, which had its world premiere at the 58th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival on Monday night.

“To pass the time between interviews with the immigration office, Nasser and his friends film satirical sketches and make preparations for a zombie horror flick,” reads a plot description shared by the festival, which has also posted a film clip online. “Except that the reality of the camp could be taken for a horror scenario itself. The tension between its inhabitants gains momentum and every conflict removes one more brick from the wall which divides reality from dream – or, indeed, nightmare.”

The story is infused with experiences and inspirations of...

Noaz Deshe has had a varied film career as a composer, cinematographer and director. His feature directorial debut White Shadow, the story of a young Albino on the run, won him Lion of the Future Award at the 2013 Venice Film Festival. He has collaborated with Iranian director Babak Jalal as composer on Frontier Blues (2009) and as the cinematographer on Tiger award winning Radio Days (2016).

Deshe’s sophomore feature is German-French co-production Xoftex, which is co-written with Jalal. Xoftex is the name of a a Greek refugee camp for Syrian and Palestinian asylum seekers. To pass the time, camp inhabitants such...

Noaz Deshe has had a varied film career as a composer, cinematographer and director. His feature directorial debut White Shadow, the story of a young Albino on the run, won him Lion of the Future Award at the 2013 Venice Film Festival. He has collaborated with Iranian director Babak Jalal as composer on Frontier Blues (2009) and as the cinematographer on Tiger award winning Radio Days (2016).

Deshe’s sophomore feature is German-French co-production Xoftex, which is co-written with Jalal. Xoftex is the name of a a Greek refugee camp for Syrian and Palestinian asylum seekers. To pass the time, camp inhabitants such...

The programme of the 58th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, which opens on Friday (June 28), is typically wide-ranging, befitting its reputation as a platform for both fresh discoveries and world cinema highights.

The Crystal Globe competition has the world premiere of UK director Mark Cousins’ A Sudden Glimpse To Deeper Things, a documentary portrait of UK painter Wilhelmina Barns-Graham. Also in competiton is Beata Parkanova’s Czech-Slovak title Tiny Lights which follows a family break up as perceived by a child. Parkanova won the best director award at Karlovy Vary in 2022 for Word.

Rising Norwegian writer director Lilja Ingolfsdottir’s...

Noaz Deshe’s “Xoftex,” which has its world premiere July 1 in the Crystal Globe Competition of Karlovy Vary Film Festival, has debuted its trailer (below). Mad World is attached as the film’s sales agent.

“Xoftex” is Deshe’s second feature film. His feature debut, “White Shadow,” about the hunting of a young Albino, won the Lion of the Future Award at Venice Film Festival, and was showcased at Sundance Film Festival.

The screenplay for “Xoftex” is by Deshe and Babak Jalali, who directed and co-wrote “Fremont,” best director award winner at Karlovy Vary last year.

“Xoftex” centers on a Greek refugee camp called Xoftex, where Syrian and Palestinian asylum seekers anxiously wait for news of their refugee status. To pass the time between interviews with the immigration office, Nasser and his friends film satirical sketches and make preparations for a zombie horror movie.

However, the reality of the camp...

Karlovy Vary International Film Festival has unveiled the official selection for its 58th edition, including new features by Mark Cousins, Noaz Deshe, Oleg Sentsov and Beata Parkanova.

The festival, which runs from June 28-July 6 in the Czech spa town, has selected 34 films for its official selection, which spans the main Crystal Globe Competition, the Proxima Competition and Special Screenings.

Scroll down for full selection

There are 11 world premieres and one international premiere in the Crystal Globe Competition. UK director Cousins world premieres A Sudden Glimpse To Deeper Things, a documentary portrait of British painter Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, a leading figure in...

The Karlovy Vary Film Festival has unveiled the official selection for its upcoming 58th edition. The lineup comprises 32 films across three sections and a host of world and international premieres. Scroll down for the full list.

Among the lineup is A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things, the latest film from prolific documentary filmmaker Mark Cousin. The film’s synopsis reads: One of the most important women in British modern art, the painter Wilhelmina Barns-Graham was a highly inspirational figure, whose work was deeply impacted by a pivotal event in her life. In May 1949, this leading representative of the modernist St Ives group of artists climbed to the top of the Grindelwald glacier in Switzerland, an experience which was to transform the way she saw the world. She spent the rest of her life capturing its shapes and colors, indeed its very essence. In his essayistic portrait documentarist Mark Cousins delves into complex themes of gender,...

The 32-strong official selection of the 58th edition of Karlovy Vary Film Festival, Central and Eastern Europe’s leading cinema fete, will feature 15 directorial debuts as well as the latest works of established filmmakers such as Mark Cousins, Oleh Sentsov, Noaz Deshe, Antonin Peretjatko, Beata Parkanova and Burak Cevik.

Karel Och, artistic director of Karlovy Vary, said Tuesday that he’d identified a number of themes and genre in the selection, which included “a freshly revisionist take on the esthetical canons of a period film; a balanced, caring but also provocative look on the fate of a woman in the contemporary society in any moment of her life; and the immediate influence of political events on the life of an individual human being anywhere in the world.”

The festival, which runs June 28-July 6 in the Czech Republic, has also revealed the juries of the Crystal Globe and Proxima competitions. The...

The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff) has unveiled its competition and other lineups for its 58th edition, set to run in the Czech spa town from June 28 to July 6. It also set its competition jury, including indie film producer Christine Vachon who will be joined by Australian actor Geoffrey Rush, Hungarian director Gábor Reisz, Icelandic poet, novelist and screenwriter Sjón and Czech actress Eliška Křenková.

Organizers highlighted 15 directorial or feature-directorial debuts in this year’s official selection and various world premieres.

In its special screenings lineup, Kviff will present the world premiere of Ukrainian filmmaker and former Kremlin prisoner Oleh Sentsov’s new documentary Real. Sentsov “is currently defending his homeland as a lieutenant in the Ukrainian army, which he joined in the first days of the Russian invasion in February 2022,” the film description provided by the fest reads. “During one assault, his infantry fighting vehicle was destroyed by enemy artillery.

If Cannes has come to an end that means a slew of summer festivals is about to pop up around the globe. New York will see the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival debut next week while the 2024 Annecy International Animation Festival begins on June 9. At the end of the month, one of Europe’s longest-running tier A1 festivals, the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, will return for its 58th edition. This morning, Kviff revealed a majority of its world premiere and competition slate and it includes new films from Mark Cousins, Oleh Sentsov, Moaz Deshe, and others.

Continue reading Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2024 Includes New Films From Mark Cousins, Oleh Sentsov, & Noaz Deshe at The Playlist.

Italian filmmaker’s second film has an ensemble cast that includes Alba Rohrwacher and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi.

Leading German sales agent The Match Factory has acquired international rights to Ginevra Elkann’s upcoming Italian drama I Told You So.

It marks the second feature to be directed by the London-born Italian filmmaker after If Only (Magari), which opened Locarno Film Festival in 2019.

I Told You So, which has the Italian title Te l’avevo detto, is described as “a turbulent mosaic of intertwined stories amidst the inescapable Italian heat”, with an ensemble cast that includes Marisa Borini, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi,...

The Berlinale in recent years has been a prime launching pad for Italian films directed by women, which though fewer in number to their male counterparts, make up a considerable portion of the country’s representation on the festival circuit — Alice Rohrwacher (“Happy as Lazzaro”) at Cannes, Susanna Nicchiarelli (“Nico”) at Venice, and Berlin regular Laura Bispuri (“Daughter of Mine”) are all festival faves.

Here is a compendium of new and upcoming Italian films and TV series directed by women including two (out of nine Italian titles overall) in Berlin this year.

“Ordinary Justice”

This first feature by Chiara Bellosi, who previously made several docs, looks at a day in a Turin courthouse where the lives of two women and a young girl on opposite sides of a murder case intersect. In Berlin, Generation 14Plus.

“Faith”

An observational doc by Valentina Pedicini is about a reclusive spiritual sect of kung...

“Magari” is an Italian word without a precise English-language equivalent: somewhere between “maybe” and “I wish,” backed by a particularly Italian tone of cheerful, shrugging flexibility. It’s the original title of Ginevra Elkann’s sweetly ruminative debut feature, though the more blandly whimsical “If Only” has been chosen as its English moniker, which is neither wrong nor quite right. Yet that elusiveness is apt enough in the case of Elkann’s semi-autobiographical film, which presents family tensions and divisions that are at once universally recognizable and firmly rooted in her Franco-Italian upbringing: Following a splintered family’s reconciliation over the course of one shambolic Christmas vacation, it’s a gentle, cool breeze of a memory piece made pleasurable by its richly and specifically accented telling. That might not translate into major global distribution, but this year’s Locarno opener will win friends on the festival circuit.

Elkann has already...

Rai Com is kicking off sales in Berlin on Italian producer Ginevra Elkann’s directorial debut, “Magari” (If Only), which stars Brett Gelman (“Fleabag”), Alba Rohrwacher (“Happy as Lazzaro”), Riccardo Scamarcio (“Loro”) and France’s Céline Sallette (“Les Revenants”).

The multi-language pic is currently shooting in the seaside town of Sabaudia, outside Rome.

Produced by Wildside and Rai Cinema, “Magari” is a sentimental comedy about three kids of divorced parents who, while living in Paris with their bourgeois Russian-Orthodox mother, are suddenly packed off and sent to stay with their unconventional and broke Italian father, Carlo.

Elkann wrote the screenplay with writer Chiara Barzini, author of English-language novel “Things That Happened Before the Earthquake.”

Elkann previously directed the short “Vado a Messa,” which screened at Venice. As a producer she’s shepherded several standout festival titles, including Noaz Deshe’s Swahili-language drama “White Shadow,” which won the 2013 Venice Film Festival’s Lion of the Future.

Iffr panel discuss the need for diverse voices and adversity to risk.

At yesterday’s Reality Check conference at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (Iffr), two panels of film professionals discussed how their careers are changing as the business undergoes radical change.

Moderator Wendy Mitchell / Akua Gyamfi / Nanouk Leopold

Speaking on the day’s first panel, which focused on the increasing popularity of “new” stories, and how these original ideas were unearthing new audiences, Akua Gyamfi took the opportunity to highlight how the industry is now waking up to the benefits of promoting diverse voices.

Gyamfi is the founder of the British Blacklist,...

In this time of division, one thing that most people can agree on is the value of a good pet story. Drawing from tales of furry companions all over the globe, Netflix’s new doc series “Dogs” is looking to warm audiences’ hearts just in time for the end of fall.

Each episode of the series chronicles a separate true story about the relationship between humans and the dogs in their life. As the newest trailer shows, these chapters span four different continents, spanning from Syria to Japan. Some focus on dogs who have effectively become children for families in need, some focus on getting beloved companions out of war zones, and others center on the way that dogs can help make life easier for people with disabilities.

The series comes from prolific doc producer Glen Zipper and the versatile Amy Berg, whose previous work has included directing the Oscar-winning...

Current Mpm Film and Premium Films sales executives Ricardo Monastier and Leslie Saussereau will combine forces on the international sales front.

Paris-based auteur-focused Mpm Film and shorts specialist Premium Films have joined forces to create a single sales entity called Mpm Premium, combining their industry know-how and network.

Under the new structure, current Mpm Film and Premium Films sales executives Ricardo Monastier and Leslie Saussereau will combine forces on the international sales front.

Mpm Film founding chief Marie-Pierre Macia and producer Claire Gadéa and Premium Films founder Jean-Charles Mille will oversee management of the company.

“The market is evolving and we have to adapt. The fusion allows us more flexibility and better reactivity thanks to a bigger team, with complementary abilities and a wide expertise. We plan to optimise our investments and be more present on the international markets,” Macia, Gadéa and Mille said in a joint statement.

“It’s more and more difficult for auteur films to find...

Exclusive: Co-founder of UK distributor, Thunderbird Releasing, departs after 15 years.

Eve Gabereau is exiting Thunderbird Releasing, the company she founded as Soda Pictures in 2002.

During her 15 years at the UK distribution outfit she amassed a library of more than 350 films, including Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson and Maren Ade’s Oscar and BAFTA nominee Toni Erdmann.

In 2014, Soda was acquired by Canadian production company Thunderbird Entertainment, and the UK distribution arm re-branded as Thunderbird Releasing in April.

She retains a stake in the Thunderbird Entertainment group.

Gabereau’s co-managing director Edward Fletcher will remain as MD of Thunderbird Releasing.

Future plans

Speaking to Screen in Cannes, where she is attending with Directors’ Fortnight pick I Am Not A Witch, on which she is an executive producer, Gabereau said she had several projects on her radar and would also be taking some time out.

Those include her programmer and consultancy role at the Prince Edward Island Film, Food & Ideas...

Projects previously presented at the market include Laszlo Nemes’s Oscar-winning Son Of Saul.

The 14th CineLink Co-Production Market (Aug 18-20), the backbone of Sarajevo Film Festival’s industry section, will this year present 15 projects from South-East Europe, and three guest projects from Qatar and Mexico.

CineLink boasts an impressive track record. An average of 60% of the projects that have taken part at the market in the last 13 years went all the way from development to production.

The most recent success is Laszlo Nemes’ Son Of Saul which won the Grand Prix at Cannes 2015 and Oscar for Best Foreign Language Films.

Other titles developed at the market include two winners of Venice’s Lion of the Future: White Shadow by Noaz Deshe, and Mold by Ali Aydin; two Berlinale Silver Bear winners: Harmony Lessons by Emir Baigazin and If I Want To Whistle, I Whistle by Florin Serban; and Semih Kaplanoglu’s 2010 Golden Bear winner Honey.

The...

CineLink head Amra Baksic Camo discusses the trends around this year’s edition.

The Sarajevo Film Festival is preparing to host the 13th edition of CineLink (Aug 19-22), a development and financing platform that provides the backbone of its industry section, featuring around 25 projects suited for co-production.

The selection - split between a co-production market and work in progress event - has traditionally focused on Southeast Europe but has opened up in recent years to projects from the Caucasus region, while this year will see two projects from Doha and one from Russia.

Ahead of today’s start of this year’s edition, Amra Baksic Camo, head of CineLink, told ScreenDaily she was proud of the mix on offer this year.

“We have an exciting combination of experienced filmmakers and first-timers,” she said. “That is the role of every CineLink: to combine recognisable faces where you know in advance there is quality with fresh discoveries that people...

The Fixer among five projects selected for the CineLink Work in Progress sessions.

The Sarajevo Film Festival (Aug 14-22) has unveiled five projects selected for this year’s CineLink Work in Progress sessions - an industry preview of upcoming films from Southeast Europe.

The presentations are open for invited guests who may engage in the projects completion or distribution, and will run Aug 19-20.

Scheduled to attend are representatives from Wild Bunch, The Match Factory, Pyramide, Memento, Fortissimo as well as the Cannes, Berlin, Sundance and Rotterdam film festivals.

The 2015 project line-up consists of three fiction projects, one animation and one documentary, selected from the festival’s documentary workshop Docu Rough Cut Boutique.

They include The Fixer (Fixeur) from Adrian Sitaru, the Romanian filmmaker who won best director at Locarno in 2011 with Best Intentions and the Daad Short Film Award at the 2010 Berlinale with The Cage (Colivia).

The Fixer is inspired by true events and centres on a young...

The Fixer among five projects selected for the CineLink Work in Progress sessions.

The Sarajevo Film Festival (Aug 14-22) has unveiled five projects selected for this year’s CineLink Work in Progress sessions - an industry preview of upcoming films from Southeast Europe.

The presentations are open for invited guests who may engage in the projects completion or distribution and will run Aug 19-20. Scheduled to attend are representatives from Wild Bunch, The Match Factory, Pyramide, Memento, Fortissimo as well as the Cannes, Berlin, Sundance and Rotterdam film festivals.

The 2015 project line-up consists of three fiction projects, one animation and one documentary, selected from the festival’s documentary workshop Docu Rough Cut Boutique.

They include The Fixer (Fixeur) from Adrian Sitaru, the Romanian filmmaker who won best director at Locarno in 2011 with Best Intentions and the Daad Short Film Award at the 2010 Berlinale with The Cage (Colivia).

The Fixer is inspired by true events and centres on a young...

Miguel Gomes’ Arabian Nights wins Fipresci Jury prize at New Horizons festival.

Belgian director Gust Van den Berghe’s third feature Lucifer has won the $22,000 (€20,000) Grand Prix in the International Competition at the 15th T-Mobile New Horizons International Film Festival (July 23 - Aug 2) in Poland’s Wroclaw.

Set in a Mexican village at the base of a volcano, Lucifer is the third instalment in Van den Berghe’s triptych about the emergence of human consciousness after Little Baby Jesus of Flandr and Blue Bird, previously shown in Wroclaw in 2012.

Lucifer received its world premiere at the Rome Film Festival last October and won the Grand Prix at the Black Nights Film Festival in Estonia’s Tallinn in November.

The International Competition Jury, which included filmmakers Anna Sosnal, Reha Erdem, and Noaz Deshe and festival programmer Diane Henderson, also gave a special mention to Carlos M. Quintela’s Rotterdam winner The Project Of The Century.

Other awards...

Other winners include documentary Welcome To Leith.

Tolga Karaçelik’s Turkish drama Ivy has won the best feature award at the East End Film Festival (July 1-12) in London.

It marks Karaçelik’s second film, after 2010 feature Tollbooth, and was shot by Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Dop, Gökhan Tiryaki.

Set onboard a hulking cargo ship moored off the coast of Egypt, the film follows a skeleton crew of misfit sailors, forced to stay onboard after their paymasters go bust. But it isn’t long before power structures dissolve, leading to tension, threats of violence, and strange apparitions.

Ivy will receive its UK premiere at London’s Rio Cinema tomorrow (July 11).

It was chosen by a jury comprising Eeff’s 2015 Director-in-Residence Noaz Deshe (White Shadow); writer Irvine Welsh (Trainspotting); director Amma Asante (Belle); artist Viv Albertine; and director Ross Clarke (Dermaphoria).

Karaçelik will be invited back to the festival in 2016 as Director-in-Residence.

Jury member...

Exclusive: Greece’s Syllas Tzoumerkas and Hungary’s Adam Csaszi are among 13 international filmmakers selected to each spend three months in Berlin as part of the Nipkow Programme residency.

An international jury under French producer Christine Camdessus decided on the latest intake of Nipkow fellows from 11 countries out of 86 applicants from 30 countries ranging from Bosnia & Herzegovina and Brazil through Uganda and Ukraine to the Us.

The first batch of filmmakers will arrive in Berlin this month for a three-month period, and others will come over subsequent months.

Tzoumerkas, who presented his last feature A Blast in competition in Locarno last summer, will be in Berlin from August to work on his new project The Miracle of the Sargasso Sea, while Csaszi, whose feature debut Land Of Storms premiered in the Berlinale’s Panorama Special in 2014, will be developing the screenplay for a new film High Dive for three months in the same period.

The largest...

Independent distributor IndiePix announced this morning its acquisition of "White Shadow," the first feature from Israeli director Noaz Deshe and an official selection at the Sundance, Venice and Munich film festivals. Executive produced by Ryan Gosling, "White Shadow" is a surreal take on a real-life issue: the albino body part market in Tanzania. From the official synopsis: "Witch doctors offer thousands of dollars for albino body parts which are believed to bring good fortune, prosperity and the ability to cure any illness. As a result, Tanzanian albinos, including children, have been murdered by gangs of men who hack off arms, legs or genitals. Some will pay from $500 to $5000 for an albino limb while the average annual income in Tanzania is $442. There is a saying in East Africa, 'Albinos don't die, they just disappear'" "White Shadow" is the story of Alias (Hamisi Bazili), a young albino boy on the run. After witnessing his father's.

Film-makers across Europe are “in shock” after learning the news that the Nipkow Programm has not received backing from the EU’s Creative Europe programme for 2015-2016.

Speaking exclusively to ScreenDaily, Nipkow Programm managing director Petra Weisenburger explained that the Berlin-based training initiative had not been successful in the latest round of funding for the next two years and would explore alternative strategies for a survival plan.

In the current financial year, Creative Europe had provided nearly 46% (€180,400) of Nipkow’s overall budget, with the remaining €215,543 coming from Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg (Mbb) and Germany’s State Minister for Culture and the Media (Bkm).

Weisenburger said that Mbb’s CEO Kirsten Niehuus had already indicated a desire to see the Nipkow Programm continue to exist, but the situation remains unclear about the funding from Bkm for 2015 onwards.

She added that the Nipkow Programm jury of experts will meet during the next Berlinale in February to discuss the initiative’s future...

From screenings of retro favorites to anticipated new releases, from live radio horror play performance to a Gremlins 30th anniversary Q&A, the 2nd SpectreFest is looking to celebrate the Halloween season in Hollywood on an even bigger scale than it did last year. Fright fans will have the chance to attend events spanning two months at this L.A.-based festival, including an appearance by Clive Barker.

From SpectreVision, the company founded by Elijah Wood, Daniel Noah and Josh C. Waller, the 2nd SpectreFest has events scheduled beginning September 4th and ending on October 31st at the Cinefamily movie theatre in Los Angeles.

Highlighting SpectreFest is the world premiere of Nightbreed: The Director’s Cut, with writer/director Clive Barker in attendance to give a special “Show and Tell” presentation. A double feature of Dead Snow and Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead is also on the calendar,...