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The 8th Malaysia International Film Festival (MIFFest) will open July 19 with “Ninavau,” a Malaysian feature exploring cultural identity and emotional heritage by director Bebbra Mailin, and close July 27 with “Transamazonia,” an environmental epic spanning France, Brazil, Germany, Switzerland and Taiwan from director Pia Marais.

The bookend titles underscore MIFFest’s dual mission of championing homegrown storytelling while embracing international co-productions, as the Kuala Lumpur-based festival positions itself as a key player in the Southeast Asian circuit with a robust 62-film lineup spanning 48 countries.

The fest will honor Hong Kong action icon Ti Lung with a lifetime achievement award. The 78-year-old star, whose career spans the golden age of martial arts cinema, will receive the honor at the Malaysia Golden Global Awards ceremony July 26 at Zepp Kl.

The tribute includes screenings of John Woo’s “A Better Tomorrow” and Jess Teong’s “The Kid from The Big Apple,” with Ti Lung...

Malaysian director Bebbra Mailin’s local drama Ninavau is set to open the 8th Malaysia International Film Festival (MIFFest), which will be closed by Pia Marais’s Transamazonia.

The festival will take place in Kuala Lumpur from July 19-27 and has programmed 62 films from 48 countries, up from the 50 titles selected last year.

Opening film Ninavau marks Mailin’s feature directorial debut and is based on a short she directed in 2019. It tells the story of a Kadazan woman who returns from the peninsula to her devout Catholic family with a change of heart in a film that explores cultural identity.

Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s Hot Milk, Ira Sachs’ Peter Hujar’s Day and James Griffiths’ The Ballad Of Wallis Island are among the 28 features programmed for the third edition of Malta’s Mediterrane Film Festival (June 21-29).

The festival has programmed 10 films in its main competition strand; with 12 out of competition titles; and six films in the environmentally-focused Mare Nostrum section.

Scroll down for the full list of titles

The festival will also present an honorary Golden Bee lifetime achievement award to UK producer Jeremy Thomas.

Thomas will participate in a masterclass conversation with Film London chief executive Adrian Wootton.

Other...

Exclusive: This year’s Manchester Film Festival is set to run from March 14 – 23 and will open with a screening of The Penguin Lessons, directed by British filmmaker Peter Cattaneo and starring Steve Coogan.

Based on the best-selling memoir, the film tells the story of an Englishman’s personal and political awakening during a cataclysmic period in Argentine history, brought about by his unlikely adoption of a penguin.

Manchester will screen 37 features, including 15 UK premieres and 4 world premieres. All films will be screening in Manchester for the first time. This includes the Manchester premiere of the UK’s Oscar selection Santosh from Sandhya Suri, Sundance, and Cannes hit Good One directed by India Donaldson, and South by Southwest Audience Award Winner My Dead Friend Zoe from Kyle Hausmann-Stokes.

Other highlights include the UK premieres of Y2K, A24’s latest horror comedy starring Fred Durst and directed by Kyle Mooney, the...

Exclusive: The women and gender-expansive-focused training initiative Circle has unveiled the line-up for the second edition of its Circle Fiction Orbit in Montenegro, with mentors including award-winning directors Jasmila Žbanić and Pia Marais this year.

The event – unfolding in the Montenegrin resort coastal resort town of Herceg Novi from November 24 to December 1 – is supporting a diverse line-up of six fiction projects with strong international potential.

They include historic drama Tethys Ocean by Polish director Anna Jadowska, who made waves with 2022 bank robbery drama Woman On The Roof, and award-winning Slovenian director Barbara Zemljič’s It Will Fade Away, following a woman who discovers her daughter is being sexually harassed by a child at her kindergarten. (scroll down for full list of projects).

Oscar nominated Romanian producer Bianca Oana, whose credits include Berlinale Golden Bear winner Touch Me Not and Oscar-nominated doc Collective, has returned as head of studies for a second year.

Julie Delpy’s Meet The Barbarians will open the 21st edition of the Seville European Film Festival on November 8. The Spanish festival turns the spotlight on European films during this year’s awards season.

Meet The Barbarians is a satire about the arrival of a group of refugees in a village in Brittany.

The official selection includes 19 titles in competition for its top award: the Golden Giraldillo, named after the statue that crowns Sevilla’s Cathedral, La Giralda.

The prize comes with €40,000 for the Spanish distributor of the winning film or €20,000 for the company that submitted the film to the...

The Chicago International Film Festival is gearing up for its 60th edition with an exciting lineup of global cinema, running from October 16 to 27, 2024. This year’s competition slate promises a wide array of international storytelling, with films spanning from Azerbaijan to Brazil, Japan to Tunisia, all competing for the festival’s prestigious Gold Hugo awards. The films are set to debut across multiple categories: International Feature, International Documentary, and New Directors, along with entries for the OutLook and Shorts competitions.

A remarkable 30 feature films are making their North American or U.S. premieres, with three world premieres adding to the anticipation. Some filmmakers are no strangers to Chicago, returning to the festival after prior successes, like Péter Kerekes, whose film 107 Mothers earned him the Silver Hugo for Best Director in 2020, and documentary powerhouse Joshua Oppenheimer.

Among the festival’s top-tier International Feature Competition, several standout titles have already made waves at Cannes,...

Deep in the Brazilian rainforest, an extraordinary story begins. As a young girl falls from the sky, only by miracle does she survive. But what destiny awaits this solitary survivor in the isolated Amazon? Pia Marais’ intriguing drama Transamazonia follows teenager Rebecca Byrne as she comes of age living among the lush jungle that once witnessed her rebirth.

Guided by missionary father Lawrence, Rebecca has emerged as a healer for the local Indigenous community. Yet shadows from her mysterious past still cling, and forces encroaching on the forest threaten to upset the delicate balance between all who call it home.

Marais crafts a mesmerizing tapestry exploring profound questions of spirituality, belonging, and humanity’s relationship with the natural world. Beautifully photographed by Mathieu de Montgrand, the lush Amazon setting becomes as much a character as any person. Meanwhile, Helena Zengel offers a captivating turn as the enigmatic Rebecca, reticent yet...

Payal Kapadia’s Cannes grand prix winner All We Imagine As Light and Mohammad Rasoulof’s special prize recipient The Seed Of The Sacred Fig, along with Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Venice selection Harvest are among the international competition selections at the 60th Chicago International Film Festival running October 16-27.

A packed line-up also brings Joshua Oppenheimer’s Telluride entry The End to the International Feature Competition, along with the North American premiere of The Quiet Son from Delphine Coulin and Muriel Coulin, which debuted on the Lido.

There are world premieres for Clarissa Campolina and Sérgio Borges’s Suçuarana...

Payal Kapadia’s Cannes grand prix winner All We Imagine Is Light and Mohammad Rasoulof’s special prize recipient The Seed Of The Sacred Fig, along with Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Venice selection Harvest are among the international competition selections at the 60th Chicago International Film Festival running October 16-27.

A packed line-up also brings Joshua Oppenheimer’s Telluride entry The End to the International Feature Competition, along with the North American premiere of The Quiet Son from Delphine Coulin and Muriel Coulin, which debuted on the Lido.

There are world premieres for Clarissa Campolina and Sérgio Borges’s Suçuarana...

Filmfest Hamburg has unveiled the full programme for its 32nd edition, which is set to open with Louise Courvoisier’s Cannes prize-winner Holy Cow and close with Pedro Almodovar’s Golden Lion-winner The Room Next Door.

French filmmaker Courvoisier will be accompanied by lead actors Clément Faveau and Malwéne Barthelemy at the opening gala on September 26 for the German premiere of her debut feature, which premiered in Un Certain Regard at Cannes where it won the Youth Prize. The coming-of-age film will be released by Pandora Film in German cinemas on January 2.

The Filmfest’s new director Malika Rabahallah and...

Plunging headlong into the murk of exploitative missionary work and environmentally destructive capitalism, Transamazonia is a film with undeniable import and sociopolitical urgency, which its muddled narrative can’t completely dampen. Pia Marais’s fourth feature centers around American faith healer Lawrence (Jeremy Xido), who preaches the Gospel to an impoverished Brazilian village in the heart of the Amazon, aided by his daughter, Rebecca (Helena Zengel), the sole survivor of a plane crash that killed her mother. Their role in the community is troubled when a conflict arises between a local Indigenous tribe and a violent gang in the employ of the logging industry laying waste to their homeland.

Following a striking, wordless sequence in which an infant Rebecca is discovered in a rainforest clearing and carried to the relative safety of a hospital room, where her new status as a global media sensation disrupts a reunion with Lawrence, a...

There’s a distant, otherworldly aura to Rebecca Byrne, the teenage protagonist of “Transamazonia,” that is quite befitting of someone who literally dropped from the sky. As a small girl, a plane she was on crashed in the remote depths of the Amazon basin, leaving her the only survivor of the tragedy. Hailed by the media as a miracle child, she has since remained where she fell, carving out a reputation in the rainforest as a Christian faith healer. It’s a testament to Helena Zengel’s arresting, secretive lead performance that we’re never sure if miracles are Rebecca’s blessing or her branding. This central enigma informs the other, manifold ambiguities of Pia Marais’s intriguing environmental fable — in which religious mission work and industrial deforestation both pose threats to Indigenous identity.

Premiering in Locarno’s main competition, with a New York Film Festival slot to come, this...

A major note about this year’s New York Film Festival line-up: 19 of 34 directors have never been featured in the Main Slate. Debuting at Locarno before stopping stateside is Transamazonia, Pia Marais’ first feature since 2013’s Layla Fourie, which is seeking distribution. Ahead of these showings, there’s a first trailer from The Party Film Sales that suggests a work of scale and ambition.

Here’s NYFF’s synopsis: “In the eerie quiet of the vast, verdant Amazon jungle, a young girl stirs to life. Rescued by a member of the local Indigenous tribe, the child, Rebecca, is the only survivor of a plane crash. Years pass, and Rebecca (Helena Zengel) has become something of a local celebrity after her father (Jeremy Xido), an American missionary, has cast the teenager as a faith healer capable of miracles. Just as Rebecca is beginning to have a will of her own, doubting...

The best-curated film festival of the year has unveiled its first complete section. The 62nd New York Film Festival has dropped its Main Slate lineup, featuring surprise world premieres from Julia Loktev and Robinson Devor, along with the latest from Pedro Almodóvar, Sean Baker, Brady Corbet, David Cronenberg, Nelson Carlos de los Santos Arias, Mati Diop, Miguel Gomes, Alain Guiraudie, Hong Sangsoo, Jia Zhangke, Payal Kapadia, Dea Kulumbegashvili, Mike Leigh, Philippe Lesage, Julia Loktev, Carson Lund, Pia Marais, Steve McQueen, Roberto Minervini, Rungano Nyoni, Mohammad Rasoulof, RaMell Ross, Paul Schrader, Neo Sora, Trương Minh Quý, Athina Rachel Tsangari, Wang Bing, Yeo Siew Hua, and Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, and Rachel Szor.

“The festival’s ambition is to reflect the state of cinema in a given year, which often means also reflecting the state of the world,” said Dennis Lim, Artistic Director, New York Film Festival. “The most notable...

New York Film Festival (NYFF) has announced a varied Main Slate featuring anticipated Venice world premiere The Brutalist from Brady Corbet as well as a raft of Cannes and Berlin winners including Sean Baker’s Cannes Palme d’Or winner Anora.

The line-up of 33 films announced on Tuesday morning includes Payal Kapadia’s Cannes grand prize winner All We Imagine As Light, Miguel Gomes’s best director winner Grand Tour, and Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed Of The Sacred Fig, recipient of the special prize.

Mati Diop’s Berlin Golden Bear winner Dahomey takes its place in the selection, as...

Thirty-three films will make up the Main Slate of the 62nd New York Film Festival, including the latest from David Cronenberg, Sean Baker, Payal Kapadia, Mike Leigh, Mati Diop, Hong Sang-soo and Julia Loktev. The festival will take place Sept. 27 — Oct. 14, 2024.

“The festival’s ambition is to reflect the state of cinema in a given year, which often means also reflecting the state of the world,” the festival’s artistic director Dennis Lim said in a statement. “The most notable thing about the films in the Main Slate — and in the other sections that we will announce in the coming weeks— is the degree to which they emphasize cinema’s relationship to reality. They are reminders that, in the hands of its most vital practitioners, film has the capacity to reckon with, intervene in, and reimagine the world.”

The movies in this year’s Main Slate come from 24 different countries.

New York Film Festival has revealed the Main Slate titles for its 62nd edition, which runs September 27 through October 14. The selection includes feature films from 24 countries, with 18 directors making their NYFF Main Slate debut, and two world, five North American, and 16 U.S. premieres. As previously announced, the festival will open with RaMell Ross’ “Nickel Boys” and close with Steve McQueen’s “Blitz” and will feature Pedro Almodóvar’s “The Room Next Door” as its Centerpiece.

The Main Slate includes celebrated films from festivals worldwide including Cannes prize winners: Payal Kapadia’s “All We Imagine as Light” (Grand Prize), Sean Baker’s “Anora” (Palme d’Or), Roberto Minervini’s “The Damned”, Miguel Gomes’s “Grand Tour” (Best Director), Rungano Nyoni’s “On Becoming a Guinea Fowl”, and Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” (Special Prize). At this year’s Berlinale, Mati Diop’s “Dahomey” received the Golden...

Taking place August 7-17, the official selection for the 77th Locarno Film Festival has been unveiled, featuring a stellar-looking slate of highly anticipated films. Highlights include Hong Sangsoo’s second feature of the year, By the Stream, starring Kim Minhee, Kwon Haehyo, and Cho Yunhee; Ramon Zürcher’s The Sparrow in the Chimney, Wang Bing’s second part of his Youth trilogy, Youth (Hard Times), as well as new films by Radu Jude, Bertrand Mandico, Courtney Stephens, Ben Rivers, Gürcan Keltek, Denis Côté, Kevin Jerome Everson, Fabrice Du Welz (featuring Abel Ferrara!), and many more. Also of particular note is the world premiere of Tarsem Singh’s restored cut of The Fall, which features a slightly different edit as he recently noted.

Giona A. Nazzaro, Artistic Director of the Locarno Film Festival said, “We are very excited and happy with our selection for Locarno’s 77th edition, which we believe...

The Locarno Film Festival (August 7-17) has revealed the line-up for its 77th edition, with directors including Hong Sangsoo, Wang Bing and Ben Rivers world premiering their latest films in its international competition.

Playing out of competition at Locarno are world premieres from directors including Radu Jude, Fabrice du Welz, Aislinn Clarke, Bertrand Mandico, and Marco Tullio Giordana. Locarno’s famed Piazza Grande screenings include world premieres from Paz Vega, César Díaz and Gianluca Jodice.

Locarno’s international competition comprises 17 films, all of them world premieres, which will vie for the coveted Golden Leopard awards.

Scroll down for full line-up...

Switzerland’s Locarno Film Festival will debut 17 world premieres, including new works by Hong Sang-soo and Wang Bing, as part of its 2024 competition program. This year’s event runs from August 7 – 17.

The festival announced its competition lineups this morning. The Hong Sang-soo feature is titled Suyoocheon (By The Stream) and stars Kim Minhee, Kwon Haehyo, and Cho Yunhee. The Wang Bing feature is a France, Luxembourg, and Netherlands co-production titled Hard Times. Scroll down to see the full Locarno competition lineup, which also includes new titles from Ben Rivers, Mar Coll, and Christoph Hochhäusler.

The festival today also announced that French acting veterans Mélanie Laurent and Guillaume Canet will receive the event’s honorary Excellence Award Davide Campari at the opening ceremony on August 7. Previous recipients of the award include Riz Ahmed and Aaron Taylor Johnson.

Locarno’s separate Piazza Grande lineup features 18 titles, including Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig,...

The Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland has unveiled an eclectic lineup for its 77th edition, taking place Aug. 7-17. The fest will screen 225 total films, including 104 world premieres, five international premieres and some debut features, including new films from such directors as Hong Sang-soo, Spanish actress Paz Vega and Radu Jude. Gianluca Jodice’s Le Déluge, starring Mélanie Laurent and Guillaume Canet, will also world premiere and open the fest, with Locarno on Wednesday unveiling that the two French stars will receive the Excellence Award Davide Campari on the fest’s opening night.

Beyond new fare, some of this season’s film festival favorites and classics will screen in Locarno’s main Piazza Grande section, taking place on the town’s main square set up with 8,000 seats. Films to be screened include Cannes hits such as Laetitia Dosch’s Dog on Trial, Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig,...

What did five of the most critically acclaimed Asian movies that premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival have in common? They all were edited by rising Taiwanese studio Cutting Edge Films.

Formally established only in 2022, the company comprises a small group of film professionals who have worked together for over a decade. They are co-led by French editor Matthieu Laclau (Touch of Sin), known for his long-running collaboration with Chinese auteur Jia Zhangke, and Taiwanese producer Justine O. (The Chinese Mayor, Black Dog), whose work has nabbed a succession of festival prizes in recent years. The company says its recent successes point to the maturity and expanding reach of Taipei’s post-production sector, which has been buoyed by steady government support and a growing reputation for high-quality work at globally competitive prices.

“Taipei’s post-production scene is definitely having a moment,” says Laclau. “For VFX, editing or color grading,...

Paris-based company The Party Film Sales has boarded international rights to “Aicha,” Mehdi M. Barsaoui’s follow-up to the Venice-premiering “A Son,” and “Transmazonia” by Pia Marais (“Layla Fourie”).

WME Independent is repping North America and multi-territory deals on “Transmazonia.” Both films are in post-production and will be teased by The Party Film Sales at the European Film Market where the company will unveil promo-reels.

Set in contemporary Tunisia, “Aicha” is inspired by true events and tells the story of Aya, a woman in her late 20s who lives with her parents, feeling trapped in a life without prospects. One day, she’s involved in a bus crash while commuting to work. As the sole survivor of the accident, she realizes it could be her chance to start a new life. She flees to Tunis under a new identity, but everything is soon compromised after she witnesses a police blunder.

Directors include Huang Hsin-yao, Tom Lin Shu-yu, Lam Sum, Ng Ka-leung and Daishi Matsunaga.

Taiwan’s Golden Horse Film Project Promotion (Fpp) has revealed a diverse selection of 46 films for its 2023 project market, including directors Huang Hsin-yao, Tom Lin Shu-yu and Hsu Chih-yen from Taiwan, Lam Sum and Ng Ka-leung from Hong Kong and Daishi Matsunaga from Japan

The market is scheduled to take place from November 20-22 during the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival with a the total prize pool of nearly $250,000 (Nt$8m), including a grand prize worth $32,000 (Nt$1m). All projects in the selection are eligible to...

The 2023 Golden Horse Film Project Promotion, the project market that accompanies the Golden Horse film festival and awards in Taiwan in November, has laid out a huge 64-title selection for its 2023 edition.

These include 39 film projects at various stages of development and financing; a further seven works in progress; and the 18-previously announced series at project stage.

The event, which runs Nov. 20-22, offers a $31,000 (Nt$1 million) first prize and a total prize pool of $250,000 (Nt$8 million) from sponsors and industry sources. All selected projects are also eligible to apply to two Taicca funding initiatives: the Creative Content Development Program and the International Co-funding Program.

Among the Taiwanese filmmakers: Huang Hsin-yao, the director of “The Great Buddha+” and “Classmates Minus,” takes on the legend of Taiwanese treasure hunters in “Super-Reasoning Treasure Hunt”; Tom Lin Shu-yu, director of “Winds of September” and “The Garden of Evening Mists,” teams up with Kimi Hsia...

15 projects participated in the online market aimed at finding partners for socially and environmentally-engaged works.

French director Émilie Frèche’s In A Perfect World, about a couple who end up on the wrong side of the law when they help a young illegal migrant, has won the top prize for a fiction film at the debut edition of the French Cinema for Change co-production market.

An initiative of the Paris-based Le Temps Press film festival, the inaugural edition of the co-financing event ran April 7-8, with the aim of finding partners for film, TV and digital projects that raise awareness around environmental and societal issues.

Devoted to projects in the final phase of development and funding, the 7th Venice Production Bridge Market will unspool between 4- 6 September with Steve McQueen and Pia Marais among the selection. Fifty-two projects, including 28 fiction films and documentaries, will be presented at the seventh edition of the Venice Gap-Financing Market (4-6 September), an event dedicated to works in the final stage of development and funding and organised as part of the Venice Production Bridge, in the 77th Venice International Film Festival. Over the course of the three-day-long Venice Gap-Financing Market, these 52 projects, chosen from among 270 works hailing from all corners of the globe, will be given the opportunity to complete their financing through one-to-one meetings with international professionals. Jostling among the selected works are 22 fiction feature films (17 European and 5 international) and 6 documentaries (all European) looking to round off their funding packages with...

Gap financing event to present 56 feature film and Vr projects.

UK director Steve McQueen’s upcoming documentary The Occupied City is among 56 projects selected for the Venice Production Bridge, the gap financing event of the Venice Film Festival, which is due to take place from September 2-12.

The three-day industry event, running September 4-6, will unveil 28 feature-length fiction and documentary projects and 12 immersive story projects.

It will also present 13 Vr projects and three cinema projects developed under the auspices of the Biennale College Cinema programme aimed at supporting emerging talents.

More than 270 project were submitted in total.

The event, involving pitches and one-on-one meetings,...

Award-winning documentary filmmakers take part in pan-European TV project.

Forty-five European documentary directors are taking part in the marathon TV project 24h Europe – We Are The Future (working title) that wraps today (Monday June 18) after a four-day shoot across the continent.

The directors include Germany’s Thomas Riedelsheimer, Serbia’s Mila Turajlic and Romania’s Alexandru Solomon.

It follows 60 protagonists in 25 European countries from Bulgaria to Iceland and focusing on the hopes, fears and desires of young people between the ages of 15 and 30.

The project is a co-production between Berlin-based zero one 24 and France’s Idéale Audience, and is backed by Arte,...

Other big winners were Home, Layla M, The Fixer and Lady Macbeth.

Glory won best film at the 8th Les Arcs European Film Festival, which finished Friday (December 16) in the French Alps.

The second feature by Bulgarian directorial tandem Kristina Groseva and Petar Valchanov, it was awarded the festival’s top prize by the jury headed by filmmaker Radu Mihaileanu.

Produced by Abraxas Film, Graal Sa, Screening Emotions and Aporia Filmworks (sales handled by Wide), this story about a railroad worker who accidentally finds a lot of money on the tracks and decides to give it back to the police also won the Press Prize.

Another big winner at the festival was the Belgian production Home (by Prime Time Entertainment and Communication Versus Production). Directed by Fien Troch, it picked up the grand jury prize. Troch is an experienced Flemish director in the international film festival circuit and former participant at the Cannes Cinéfondation.

The best actress...

Houda Benyamina [pictured], Jessica Hausner and Rebecca Daly among directors due to attend the festival.

The Les Arcs European Film Festival will champion female filmmakers at its eighth edition unfolding in the heart of the French Alps Dec 10-17.

A sidebar titled The New Women of Cinema will screen features by 10 female directors including Houda Benyamina’s Caméra d’Or-winning Divines, Rebecca Daly’s Mammal and Rachel Lang’s Baden Baden.

Older titles such as Jessica Hausner’s Lourdes, Agnes Kocsis’ Fresh Air and Nanouk Leopold’s Brownian Movement are also included in the line-up

The initiative is an extension of the festival’s Femme de Cinema award introduced in 2013, the recipients of which have included Bosnian director Jamila Zbanic and Poland’s Małgorzata Szumowska.

Alongside the screenings, there will also be a presentation on a specially-commissioned study of emerging female directors, as well as round-tables and a master-class by one of the attending female directors.

The programme...

Houda Benyamina [pictured], Jessica Hausner and Rebecca Daly among directors due to attend the festival.

The Les Arcs European Film Festival will champion female filmmakers at its eighth edition unfolding in the heart of the French Alps Dec 10-17.

A sidebar titled The New Women of Cinema will screen features by 10 female directors including Houda Benyamina’s Caméra d’Or-winning Divines, Rebecca Daly’s Mammal and Rachel Lang’s Baden Baden.

Older titles such as Jessica Hausner’s Lourdes, Agnes Kocsis’ Fresh Air and Nanouk Leopold’s Brownian Movement are also included in the line-up

The initiative is an extension of the festival’s Femme de Cinema award introduced in 2013, the recipients of which have included Bosnian director Jamila Zbanic and Poland’s Małgorzata Szumowska.

Alongside the screenings, there will also be a presentation on a specially-commissioned study of emerging female directors, as well as round-tables and a master-class by one of the attending female directors.

The programme...

It’s become a great breaking in the new year traditional here at Ioncinema.com. We begin our countdown to the our most anticipated foreign films (anything outside the U.S.) with our own Nicholas Bell curating the best bets for 2016. Here are the titles and filmmakers that didn’t make our final Top 100 cut, but are nonetheless “radar” worthy.

101. El Rey del Once – Daniel Burman

102. The Dancer – Stephanie Di Giusto

103. Le Cancre – Paul Vecchiali

104. While the Women are Sleeping – Wayne Wang

105. Tomorrow – Martha Pinson

106. Spring Again – Gael Morel

107. Crowhurst – Simon Rumley

108. Le Garcon – Philippe Lioret *

109. Marie and the Misfits – Sebastien Betbeder

110. Le Caravage – Alain Chevalier

111. Night Song – Raphael Nadjari

112. Réparer les vivants – Katell Quillevere *

113. Project Lazarus – Mateo Gil

114. Afterimages – Andrzej Wajda

115. Don’t Knock Twice – Caradog James

116. Detour – Christopher Smith

117. The Bride of Rip Van Winkle – Shunji Iwai

118. Three on the Road – Johnnie To

119. Le Vin et le Vent...

While DC and Marvel might already have a lock on several future release dates past the 2015 campaign with the Coen Bros. circling February on their calendars, for the most part, when it comes to American independent and foreign film flavored items, 2016 is still cloudy with a chance of…. 2015 just broke (we already have plenty to look forward to (Top 100 Most Anticipated Foreign Films / Top 25 Most Anticipated Studio Films / Top 100 Most Anticipated American Independent Films – soon!) but we’re already excited about what is in store for several of our favorite auteurs. Here are picks 100 to 6, with our Nicholas Bell providing further analysis on current top five for 2016. Pictured above is Peter Strickland, who sits in our number six spot.

100. Untitled Edward Munch Project – Erik Poppe

99. Bastille Day – James Watkins

98. Live By Night – Ben Affleck

97. Imagine – Benoit Graffin

96. Pete’s Dragon – David Lowery

95. Bella Luna – Ivan Fila

94. Bat, Butterfly, Moth – Sergio Caballero...

Other winners include Ivan Marinovic, Amikam Kovner and Assaf Snir.

Ethiopian-born, Israeli filmmaker Alamork Marsha’s Fig Tree, based on her experiences as a child in war-torn Addis Ababa in 1991, has won the $50,000 top prize at the pitching event of Sam Spiegel school’s Jerusalem International Film Lab.

It was an apt choice as fighting escalated between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, some 70 kilometres down the road, where more than 160 inhabitants have died in Israeli air strikes over the past six days, launched in response to a barrage of rocket attacks on Israel. (In fact air sirens were heard in Jerusalem just 15 minutes before the awards were announced.)

In her pitch, Marsha revealed how Fig Tree was inspired by her childhood, living with her grandmother on the outskirts of the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa during the civil war and her Jewish family’s decision to move to Israel. She said one...

The festival is laying on a packed programme of film industry events this year, headlined by the Jerusalem Pitch Point meeting.

The meeting revolves around a central pitching event on July 14, open to both industry professionals, film students and the public, aimed at connecting Israeli filmmakers with international partners on their upcoming projects.

Participants this year include celebrated experimental director Nina Menkes, established filmmakers Nir Bergman and Dina Zvi Riklis and up and coming director Eitan Gafny, whose Lebanon-set zombie picture debut Cannon Fodder has sold well internationally.

For the first time, the event will also screen a selection of Israeli works-in-progress to selected industry professionals, including Madame Yankelova’s Fine Literature Club, the feature debut of Guilhad Emilio Schenker, whose 2010 short Lavan screened in more than 70 festivals and won numerous prizes.

The projects will compete for a trio of prizes meted out by France’s National Cinema Centre, Franco-German broadcaster...

Ritesh Batra

Lunchbox director Ritesh Batra is one of the thirteen participants of the Jerusalem International Film Lab who will compete for production prizes worth $80,000 at a pitching event during the upcoming Jerusalem Film Festival.

Batra participated in the seven-month lab, that included two residential workshops in Jerusalem, with his second feature project titled “Photograph”.

The lab closes with a pitching event that runs parallel to the Jerusalem Film Festival where the finalized scripts are presented before a panel of international jury members. This year, the closing events will take place between July 9-13, 2014.

After the pitching event, the jury awards production prizes totaling in $80,000 in an award ceremony.

The Jury this year headed by French producer and distributor Michèle Halberstadt consists of Manfred Schmidt (Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung GmbH, Germany), Katriel Schory (Israel Film Fund), Rémi Burah (Arte France Cinema), Charles Tesson (Cannes Critics’ Week), Sonja Heinen (Berlinale Co-Production Market) and German director Pia Marais.

Ritesh Batra, Talya Lavie, Nora Martirosyan among entrants.

Graduates of the Jerusalem International Film Lab 3rd edition will compete for $80,000 in production prizes at a pitching event at the Jerusalem International Film Festival.

Aspiring directors and producers will present 13 full-length film projects to a panel of jurists and industry.

Competing filmmakers include Talya Lavie (Israel), whose her first feature Zero Motivation won the two awards at the Tribeca Film Festival, Ritesh Batra (India), whose his first feature The Lunchbox premiered last year in Cannes Critics’ Week; Nora Martirosyan (Armenia), who won the Arte International Prize in Cannes’ Atelier (2014), and Ása Hjörleifsdóttir (Iceland), who received the Vff Talent Highlight Pitch Awards at the 2014 Berlinale.

The jury, headed by Michele Halberstadt of Arp, comprises Manfred Schmidt (executive director of the Mdm, Germany), Katriel Schory (executive director of the Israel Film Fund), Charles Tesson (artistic director of the Cannes Critics’ Week), Rémi Burah (Deputy CEO of Arte France Cinéma), [link...

English-language thriller set on French Riviera in the 1950s due to shoot July 2015.

Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz’s upcoming thriller The Beauty of Sharks was one of the hot projects at the inaugural edition of the Paris Coproduction Village, which unfolded off the French capital’s Champs Elysees last week.

Two French buyers were rumoured to be circling the thriller about a group of Us expatriate hustlers living on the French Riviera, who are trying to get a piece of an elderly socialite’s millions.

It is based on an original screenplay by UK writer Rob Green who recently worked on Billy O’Brien’s horror romance Scintilla.

The feature is produced by Filip Jan Rymsza of Royal Road Entertainment, which is based out of Los Angeles with satellite offices in New York and Luxembourg. Rymsza, who has a dual Us and Polish nationality, also takes a co-writing credit.

“The plan is to raise finance both out...

Producer Trish Lake is developing White Knuckles, a psychological drama set among middle and lower middle class white Afrikaans who live in fortified residences and gated communities, keeping the outside world at bay and becoming increasingly paranoid and isolated.

The director is Pia Marais, a South African/Swedish woman who grew up in South Africa and now lives in Berlin.

The writer is Roger Monk, who was originally inspired by a true story that happened years ago that was the basis of the Cathy Henkel-directed documentary The Man Who Stole My Mother's Face, which won the Tribeca Film Festival in 2004.

Lake aims to shoot the film in Queensland and South Africa, possibly as a co-production with South Africa. Monk is a co-producer, as is Dan Lake.

.White Knuckles is purely fiction, set in contemporary South Africa, but it does explore the sort of themes that were in the original story,...

Inaugural edition of the new co-production market will run June 12-13.Scroll down for full list of projects

Pia Marais, Andrea Segre and Brillante Mendoza [pictured] are among the directors who will be presenting their new projects at the inaugural Paris Coproduction Village in June.

Organised by the same team that runs Les Arcs European Film Festival, in association with the Champs-Elysees Film Festival, the event will take place off Paris’ most famous boulevard on June 12 and 13.

The event was launched in March to replace the respected Paris Project co-production market, which folded after losing its city hall funding.

“We pulled together the line-up in an incredibly short space of time,” said Vanja Kaludjercic, who spearheads the new event alongside Les Arcs CEO Pierre-Emmanuel Fleurantin.

“We were very proactive in terms of chasing projects we knew were coming together. Everyone did their bit and got on the phone. We’re pretty pleased with the resulting selection.”

Fleurantin said: “It...

Karl Baumgartner, the German producer and champion of arthouse cinema who only last month received the Berlinale Camera prize, has died.Click here for full obituary

Baumgartner was born in 1949 and after a stint working in Rome from 1967-70 he relocated to Germany where he eventually launched the producer-distributor Pandora Film with Reinhard Brundig in 1982.

Pandora established itself as a beacon for arthouse cinema and championed the likes of Kim Ki-duk, Aki Kaurismaki and Sally Potter.

As a producer he brought a handful of films to the Berlinale including Emir Kusturica’s Super 8 Stories and most recently Pia Marais’ 2013 entry Layla Fourie.

Baumgartner produced Mostly Martha and Samsara, among others, and his co-producer credits include Kaurismaki’s Le Havre. He served as executive producer on Kusturica’s 1995 Palme d’Or winner Underground.

A Tweet from the Locarno Film Festival read, “Very sad for the loss of great producer and Locarno’s friend Karl Baumgartner, Premio Raimondo...

Karl Baumgartner, the German producer and champion of arthouse cinema who only last month received the Berlinale Camera prize, has died.

Baumgartner was born in 1949 and after a stint working in Rome from 1967-70 he relocated to Germany where he eventually launched the producer-distributor Pandora Film with Reinhard Brundig in 1982.

Pandora established itself as a beacon for arthouse cinema and championed the likes of Kim Ki-duk, Aki Kaurismaki and Sally Potter.

As a producer he brought a handful of films to the Berlinale including Emir Kusturica’s Super 8 Stories and most recently Pia Marais’ 2013 entry Layla Fourie.

Baumgartner produced Mostly Martha and Samsara, among others, and his co-producer credits include Kaurismaki’s Le Havre. He served as executive producer on Kusturica’s 1995 Palme d’Or winner Underground.

A Tweet from the Locarno Film Festival read, “Very sad for the loss of great producer and Locarno’s friend Karl Baumgartner, Premio Raimondo...

Here's a release trailer for a film that we've been following since its premier at the Berlin International Film Festival a year ago, a film that I've been looking forward to seeing, but has yet to screen in my city (at least that I'm aware of). But if you live in France, you should know that the multi-country co-production thriller by director Pia Marais, titled Layla Fourie, will open in French theaters on March 26, just about 2 weeks from now. Recapping... Here's the official synopsis: Layla Fourie, a single mother in South Africa, is given the opportunity to get proper employment as polygraphist for pre-employment tests at a casino complex. In the constant present...

Beginning in 1986, the Berlin International Film Festival has presented the Berlinale Camera to film personalities or institutions to which it feels particularly indebted and wishes to express its thanks. This year, during the 64th edition of the festival, producer and distributor Karl “Baumi” Baumgartner will be awarded the prestigious Berlinale Camera.

Karl Baumgartner is one of Germany’s leading producers and independent distributors. In his capacity as producer, he has brought world cinema to German audiences expanding their horizons in terms of what cinema from abroad can provide.

In 1982, together with Reinhard Brundig, he launched Pandora Film Distribution and it developed into one of the most important companies in the field of art house cinema. Pandora Film discovered filmmakers such as Andrej Tarkovsky, Jim Jarmusch, Sally Potter, Kim Ki Duk, and Aki Kaurismäki, as well as many others. With Jane Campion’s The Piano in 1993, Karl Baumgartner celebrated his first great success as distributor. It was followed by Emir Kusturica’s Palme d’Or winning Underground (1995), executively produced by Pandora Film.

As a producer, Karl Baumgartner has participated several times in the Berlin International Film Festival – in the Competition with the films Super 8 Stories by Emir Kusturica (out of competition, 2001), My Sweet Home by Filippos Tsitos (2001), Sam Garbarski’s Irina Palm (2007), and Jasmila Žbanić’s Na putu (On the Path, 2010). His most recent contribution to the Berlinale Competition was as co-producer of Kebun binatang (Postcards from the Zoo, 2012) by Edwin and Layla Fourie (2013) by Pia Marais.

The Berlinale Camera will be awarded to Karl Baumgartner at 4.00 pm on February 8, 2014 at the CinemaxX 9. It will be followed by the film Boheemielämää (La vie de bohème, 1992) by Aki Kaurismäki who, together with Festival Director Dieter Kosslick, will give a speech in Karl Baumgartner’s honor.

The Berlinale Camera has been awarded since 1986. Until 2003, it was donated by Berlin-based jeweller David Goldberg. From 2004 through 2013, Georg Hornemann Objects, a Dusseldorf-based atelier, sponsored the trophy, which goldsmith Hornemann redesigned for the Berlinale in 2008: Modelled on a real camera, the Berlinale Camera now has 128 finely crafted components. Many of these silver and titanium parts, such as the swivel head and tripod, are movable.

Hosted at one of Hollywood's most iconic venues, The Egyptian Theater, the German Currents Film Festivals brings to Los Angeles an outstanding selection of new cinematic works screening here for the first time. Now in its 7th edition this annual celebration of German-Language is co-presented by the Goethe Institut Los Angeles and the American Cinematheque, in cooperation with Austrian Consulate General and the Consulate General of Switzerland; with support of German Films, Deutsche Welle (Dw), The Friends of Goethe and Elma.

The festival includes narrative feature, documentaries, shorts, and family-friendly films that form part of the 4 day celebration from October 4th-7th. One of the highlights of the program is More Than Honey, which was recently chosen as the Swiss entry for the Foreign Language Academy Award, read more Here, which will be closing the festival on Monday night.

To discuss the film and interact with La audiences some of the filmmakers will also be in attendance:

Rayna Campbell - lead actress, Layla Fourie (North American Premiere)

Matt Sweetwood - director, Beerland (La Premiere)

Jan Ole Gerster - director, Oh Boy

Ennis Rotthoff - composer, Measuring The World (Us Premiere)

For more information click Here

For tickets and information about the Egyptian Theater click Here

Gala Opening Night - Us Premiere

Friday, October 4, At 7:30 Pm Egyptian Theatre

Measuring The World (Die Vermessung Der Welt)

Directed by Detlev Buck

Two of the greatest minds of the 19th century, mathematician Carl Friederich Gauss (Florian David Fritz) and scientist Alexander von Humboldt (Albrecht Abraham Schuch), dedicate their studies to measuring and comprehending the world they live in. Based on Daniel Kehlmann's best-selling novel of the same name, this visually stunning epic is a playful re-imagining of the great men’s lives. Humboldt, a man with a passion for global exploration, is contrasted with Gauss, a man who experiences his world through mathematical theories and figures. Humboldt, aided by his colleague, Aimé Bonpland, travels the globe physically engaging the world he wishes to understand, applying modern, scientific thinking to comparatively unknown regions. Though he remains in the same destitute community for much of his life, Gauss’ interior journey of mathematical discovery proves to be just as rich and visually stunning as Humboldt’s adventures in remote areas of the world. Fact and fiction are mixed, often to humorous effect, to chronicle the findings of two very different men who nevertheless sought the same answers. Measuring The World was nominated for two German Film Awards in 2013, and the film has won Best Costume Design and Best Make-up Design awards at the 2013 Austrian Film Awards.

In Person: Composer Enis Rotthoff

Germany / Austria (2012), 123 min. In German, French, Spanish with English Subtitles

Saturday, October 5, At 7:30 Pm Egyptian Theatre

Double Feature

Oh Boy

Directed by Jan Ole Gerster

Jan Ole Gerster's wry and vibrant feature debut Oh Boy, which swept the 2013 German Film Awards, paints a day in the life of Niko, a twenty-something college dropout going nowhere fast. Niko lives for the moment as he drifts through the streets of Berlin, curiously observing everyone around him and oblivious to his growing status as an outsider. Then on one fateful day, through a series of absurdly amusing encounters, everything changes: his girlfriend rebuffs him, his father cuts off his allowance, and a strange psychiatrist dubiously confirms his 'emotional imbalance'. Meanwhile, a former classmate insists she bears no hard feelings toward him for his grade-school taunts when she was “Roly Poly Julia,” but it becomes increasingly apparent that she has unfinished business with him. Unable to ignore the consequences of his passivity any longer, Niko finally concludes that he has to engage with life. Shot in timeless black and white and enriched with a snappy jazz soundtrack, this slacker dramedy is a love letter to Berlin and the Generation Y experience.

In Person: Director Jan Ole Gerster

Germany (2012), 85 min. In German with English subtitles

Us Distributor: Music Box Films

Saturday, October 5 At 9:30 Pm Egyptian Theatre

Double Feature - L.A. Premiere

Beerland

Directed by Matt Sweetwood

Matt Sweetwood hails from the Midwest. Though he has lived in Germany for over ten years, the people and their culture remain a mystery to him. He undertakes a last-ditch attempt to figure the place out: by exploring the heart of German culture, their beer. If he delves into their rites and rituals, explores all the contradictions and stereotypes, will that make him, finally, a part of them? The infinite variety of beers, breweries and beer fests, the age-old history of beer, is more overwhelming than the American ever imagined. The trail of his research leads him to places far off the beaten tourist path, light-years away from the Oktoberfest. He encounters people whose dialect he barely understands. Amazingly, he finds that a country as small a Germany is subdivided into a thousand different tongues and customs, with beer as the common thread. He discovers a land full of oddities and contradictions. The Germans are deathly serious and silly at the same time, tradition-bound and weirdly visionary. Ultimately, he forms a real bond with them, finding friends where he least expected them.

In Person: Director Matt Sweetwood

Germany (2012), 85 min. In German and English with English Subtitles

Kindermatinee

Sunday, October 6 - 2:00 Pm Egyptian Theatre

The Adventures of Huck Finn (Die Abenteuer Des Huck Finn)

Directed by Hermine Huntgeburth

A lively German language adaptation of Mark Twain’s classic satire. Huck Finn, having found treasure with his best friend Tom Sawyer, is now chafing in the shoes and starched shirts that come with his new wealthy lifestyle. He’d like nothing more than to kick off his shoes and run wild along the river. He gets his chance when his drunken father (August Diehl) arrives and demands a share of Huck’s money. Huck decides to escape downriver and he brings along Jim, the house slave who has recently discovered that he will be handed over to a slave trader. The two travel the Mississippi River on a makeshift raft, hoping to outrun Huck’s violent father and find a place where Jim can be accepted as a free man. Twain’s timeless adventure is exuberantly brought to the screen in a film that can be enjoyed by the whole family.

Germany (2012), 101 min. In German with English Subtitles

Film Workshops

Sunday, October 6 - 1:00 - 1:50 Pm & 4:00 - 4:50 Pm

Join the Echo Park Film Center for an afternoon of cinematic exploration and education with the Epfc "Filmcicle" in the courtyard of the Egyptian Theatre. The "Filmcicle" is a bicycle powered cinema and school on 3 wheels. Using traditional analog motion picture film we encourage audience members - young and old - to spend some time with us creating cinematic wonder.

www.echoparkfilmcenter.org

Sunday, October 6 At 5:00 Pm Egyptian Theatre

Double Feature - Us Premiere

Gold

Directed by Thomas Arslan; starring Nina Hoss

Official selection (competition) at the 2013 Berlin International Film Festival, Gold is a Western about seven German immigrants who set out in search of gold in the backwoods of British Columbia during the Klondike Gold Rush in 1898. Each have their motives: an older couple seeking security, a father (Lars Rudolph) hoping to help his impoverished family, an unpleasant newspaperman (Uwe Bohm) chronicling the journey, and a mysterious packer (Marko Mandic) with a past to outrun. The last to join is Emily Mayer (Nina Hoss), a metropolitan woman whose delicate demeanor masks a steely determination to survive. Assembled by a deceptively confident businessman of questionable motives, the settlers must travel through a relatively uncharted stretch of Canadian wilderness to reach their goal, the gold fields of Dawson. As the path grows more treacherous, betrayals come to light and desperate choices are made. Following in the footsteps of McCabe and Mrs. Miller and Meek’s Cutoff, Gold is an epic that offers an unconventional take on the well-worn Western genre.

Germany (2013), 101 min. In German with English Subtitles

Sunday, October 6, At 7:00 Pm Egyptian Theatre

Double Feature - North American Premiere

Layla Fourie

Directed by Pia Marais

Winner of the Jury Special Mention at the 2013 Berlin International Film Festival, Layla Frourie is a film about Layla, who is a single mother living with her son in Johannesburg and getting by with casual work. After training as a polygraph operator she manages to secure a job with a company specialising in lie detectors and security. On her way to her new workplace she is involved in an accident which will fundamentally change her life. Layla becomes entangled in a web of lies and deceit. The truth could lead to the loss of her son. For her third feature film Pia Marais - who has lived in Berlin for many years - returned to South Africa where she grew up to make this classic thriller. She uses the genre to take a look at a country which still bears the scars of apartheid. In this way, everyday life in South Africa enhances the tension in the screenplay which she co-wrote with Horst Markgraf. Almost casually, Layla Fourie develops into a political thriller which takes the audience into the paranoia, fear and mistrust of a society that is still profoundly affected by racial conflict.

Germany (2013), 108 min. In English

In Person: lead actress Rayna Campbell

Monday, October 7 At 7:30 Pm Egyptian Theatre

Double Feature - L.A. Premiere

The Shine of the Day (Der Glanz Des Tages)

Directed by Tizza Covi & Rainer Frimmel

Philip (Philip Hochmair) is is a young and successful actor working for the most important theatres in Vienna and Hamburg with a committed and single-minded approach to his craft. During a season in which he is busy with a production of Buchner’s Woyzeck, Philip is visited by the elderly Walter (Walter Saabel), who introduces himself as the uncle he’s never met. Walter is a former circus artist and the two men soon bond over stories of their careers. These two entertainers, both at different stages in their lives, learn from each other’s experiences. As his conversations with Walter grow more philosophical, Philip slowly emerges from his once isolated lifestyle. He is even inspired to enlist Walter’s assistance in helping a Moldavian neighbor with an immigration issue. The actors, though not related, essentially play themselves and the largely improvised script was developed around their personal experiences. The result is a rare onscreen friendship that feels warm and sincere. Co-directors Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel draw on their documentary filmmaking background to create a naturalistic atmosphere in which these performances can flourish.

Austria (2012), 101 min. In German with English Subtitles

Monday, October 7 At 9:15 Pm Egyptian Theatre

Double Feature

More Than Honey

Directed by Markus Imhoof

Winner of multiple awards, including 2013 German Film Award (Lola) for Best Documentary film, More Than Honey, directed by Oscar-nominated director Markus Imhoof (The Boat Is Full) tackles the vexing issue of why bees, worldwide, are facing extinction. With the tenacity of a man out to solve a world-class mystery, he investigates this global phenomenon, from California to Switzerland, China and Australia. Exquisite macro-photography of the bees (reminiscent of Microcosmos) in flight and in their hives reveals a fascinating, complex world in crisis. Writes Eric Kohn in Indiewire: "Imhoof captures the breeding of queen bees in minute detail, ventures to a laboratory to witness a bee brainscan, and discovers the dangerous prospects of a hive facing the infection of mites. In this latter case, the camera's magnifying power renders the infection in sci-fi terms, as if we've stumbled into a discarded scene from David Cronenberg's The Fly." This is a strange and strangely moving film that raises questions of species survival in cosmic as well as apiary terms.

Switzerland/Germany/Austria (2012), 90 min. In English and German w/English subtitles

Us Distributor: Kino Lorber...

Premiering stateside at the 7th Annual Festival of German Films - October 4th -7th - in Los Angeles is the Germany/South Africa/France/the Netherlands co-production and thriller by director Pia Marais, titled Layla Fourie - a film that we have been following almost throughout its development; we last posted its first clips and poster back in February.  The film, which premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in February of this year, centers on Layla Fourie, a single mother in South Africa, who "is given the opportunity to get proper employment as polygraphist for pre-employment tests at a casino complex. In...

It was booed by the critics at the Cannes Film Festival but Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn's Only God Forgives won the top prize at the Sydney Film Festival.

Jury president Hugo Weaving conceded the .visually mesmerising and disturbing film. had polarised the jury and said it was a majority decision to award the bleak drama the $60,000 Sydney Film Prize.

Icon is due to release the film, which stars Ryan Gosling, Kristin Scott Thomas and Vithaya Pansringarm, on July 18. It's described as a brutal story of betrayal, rage and redemption set in the Thai underworld..

Typifying the hostile response in Cannes, IndieWire's Eric Kohn said, .Refn stages each scene with the self-serious bleakness of a Robert Bresson picture, but applies such a cheap, one-note premise that his air quote approach to art house aesthetics reeks of student film indulgence."

.I am very honoured and extremely excited to have received...

A still from Monsoon Shootout

Amit Kumar’s debut feature Monsoon Shootout has been selected for competition at the Sydney Film Festival. Ship of Theseus director Anand Gandhi is on the Jury of the festival.

Actor Hugo Weaving will preside over the Jury that comprises South African-born filmmaker Pia Marais, Anand Gandhi and film programmer Paolo Bertolin.

Monsoon Shootout is a thriller exploring police violence, corruption and the moral quandary facing an idealistic rookie cop. It features Neeraj Kabi, Vijay Verma and Nawazuddin Siddiqui. The film will have a Midnight Screening at the 66th Cannes film festival.

Sourav Sarangi’s multiple-award-winning documentary Char…The No-Man’s Island, Anand Gandhi’s Ship of Theseus and Ian McDonald’s Algorithms will screen at Sydney film festival. Also screening is short film Tau Seru (India-Australia) by Rodd Rathjen, which is part of Cannes Critics Week lineup.

The full program of the Sydney film festival includes 190 films from 55 countries.