News

Five filmmakers from Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia and Ukraine are the recipients of the inaugural Displacement Film Fund, a short film grant scheme recently unveiled by Cate Blanchett and the International Film Festival Rotterdam’s (IFFR) Hubert Bals Fund, and the star was in Cannes on Friday to celebrate the recipients, who include Iranian auteur Mohammad Rasoulof (The Seed of the Sacred Fig), and raise awareness.

The recently unveiled fund is designed to “champion and fund the work of displaced filmmakers, or filmmakers with a proven track record in creating authentic storytelling on the experiences of displaced people.”

Blanchett was joined for the Cannes event by IFFR managing director Clare Stewart, grant recipients Maryna Er Gorbach, the Ukrainian director known for Klondike, and Somali-Austrian filmmaker Mo Harawe (The Village Next to Paradise), along with Rajendra Roy, chief curator of film at The Museum of Modern Art in New York.

“It...

Filmmakers from Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia and Ukraine are the five recipients of the pilot version of theDisplacement Film Fund, the short film grant scheme fromCate Blanchett and the International Film Festival Rotterdam’s (IFFR) Hubert Bals Fund.

The Displacement Film Fund was established to champion and fund the work of displaced filmmakers, or filmmakers with a proven track record in creating authentic storytelling about the experiences of displaced people. It was announced by Blanchett, a Unhcr ambassador, during Rotterdam this year.

In this pilot version of the Fund – which is backed film industry execs, creatives, business leaders and philanthropists...

Cate Blanchett and the International Film Festival Rotterdam’s Hubert Bals Fund have announced the five recipients of the Displacement Film Fund, a new short film grant scheme first unveiled during the 2025 edition of the festival earlier this year.

Spearheaded by actor and producer Blanchett, who is also a Global Goodwill Ambassador for Un refugee agency Unhcr, together with IFFR’s Hubert Bals Fund, the initiative aims to champion and fund the work of displaced filmmakers, or filmmakers with a proven track record in creating authentic storytelling about the experiences of displaced people.

In this pilot version of the Fund – which is backed by a coalition of leading film industry experts, creators, business leaders and philanthropists – each of the nominated filmmakers will be bestowed with a production grant of €100,000. The completed projects will have their World Premieres at IFFR 2026.

The five recipient filmmakers and their projects are Silk Road by...

Happy Holidays, the latest feature from Palestinian Filmmaker Scandar Copti, has taken the top prize at the Thessaloniki Film Festival in Greece.

Copti’s film won the Best Feature Film Award, which comes with a 10,000-euro cash prize. Awarding the prize, the jury, headed by Sara Driver, praised the film for “intricately weaving different narratives and perspectives that fully expose the complexity of national, gender and class dynamics that can divide societies and for seeing the future in the face of a young woman the Golden Alexander goes to Happy Holidays by Scandar Copti.”

Happy Holidays debuted at this year’s Venice Film Festival. The story open after a minor accident sets off a chain of events, unraveling lies and unspoken truths that sow division within a multifaceted patriarchal society.

The festival’s Best Director Award, which comes with a 5,000-euro cash prize, was picked up Leonardo Van Dijl for Julie Keeps Quiet.

Teodora Ana Mihai’s “Traffic” was named the winner of the 40th Warsaw Film Festival on Saturday. The film was written by Cristian Mungiu, who won the Palme d’Or at Cannes with “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” and stars “Happening” lead actor Anamaria Vartolomei.

“Traffic” focuses on Romanian immigrants in Belgium, who go from unwanted second-class citizens to very much wanted criminals, as they decide to stage a heist that will change their lives forever.

You can watch the trailer here:

“I was excited about the opportunity to work closely with Cristian Mungiu, as he was also co-producing the project. I anticipated it would be an intense and challenging experience, but I don’t shy away from challenges, as I demonstrated with [previous film] ‘La Civil,’” Mihai told Variety.

“I believe Cristian and I have always shared a similar understanding of the themes explored in this film, which camouflages...

Exclusive: Twelve new works including a feature-length pic from Palestinian filmmaker Laila Abbas will screen as part of the Meet The Neighbors+ competition sidebar at this year’s Thessaloniki Film Festival.

The jury for this year’s Meet The Neighbors+ comp will feature Ukrainian filmmaker Maryna Er Gorbach, actress Manal Awad, and distributor Vassilis Sourrapas.

The top prize in the Meet The Neighbors+ comp is the Golden Alexander “Michel Demopoulos” for Best Full-length Feature Film. The award comes with a 10,000-euro cash prize, which is shared equally between the producer and film director. The Silver Alexander – Best Director Award comes with a 5,000-euro cash prize.

Abbas’ Thank You for Banking With Us is a Palestine-Germany-Saudi Arabia-Qatar-Egypt co-production. The film will arrive in Greece after screening at the London Film Festival. Abbas, a filmmaker and academic, first gained international attention in 2013 with the doc feature Ice & Dust. The Thank You for...

CineLink Industry Days, the industry platform of Sarajevo Film Festival, has selected nine projects for its 2024 edition; and appointed Ishak Jalimam as its new head.

Jalimam will work with Masa Markovic, who continues as head of industry for the third year. He replaces Amra Baksic Camo, who had run CineLink since its inception in 2003, and will now focus on developing new projects under the Sarajevo Film Festival umbrella.

Scroll down for the full list of CineLink projects

A graduate of the Sarajevo Academy of Performing Arts, Jalimam is founder and president of Bosnian production company Realstage Productions, through which he...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Cat Person (Susanna Fogel)

The talk of the internet in late 2017, Kristen Roupenian’s New Yorker story about a date gone horribly awry lit a short-lived fire of discourse surrounding gender and power dynamics. About five years later does the big-screen adaptation arrive, and while it expands details of the original text in a few compelling ways, its new third-act addition calamitously renders the whole experience a pointless, heavy-handed, misjudged exercise that relies heavier on horror tropes than any sense of humanity. – Jordan R. (full review)

Where to Stream: VOD

The Holdovers (Alexander Payne)

This film, in the best possible way, is a time machine. Comfortable, bittersweet, and very funny, it captures a moment that is nostalgic without the syrup. Paul Hunham...

An expectant husband-and-wife’s lives are shattered when their home in Donbas is hit by a bomb in Maryna Er Gorbach’s powerful drama

Although this Ukrainian drama mostly unfolds in and around a small farmhouse on the Donbas steppes in 2014, it contains on a microcosmic scale all the fundamental components that have contributed to the conflict in the region. There’s the inherent tension between Ukrainians and Russians, symbolised in the marriage between Ukrainian wife Irka (Oxana Cherkashyna) and ethnically Russian husband Tolik (Sergiy Shadrin); the interventionist forces from Russia and Chechnya we see tramping through the area stirring up hatred and bloodshed; and the fatal blend of machismo, sheer fecklessness and trigger-happiness that causes stupid acts of destruction. In the space of a single opening shot that pans 360 degrees around one room, heavily pregnant Irka and Tolik go from being ordinary expectant parents, cheerfully bickering over where Irka’s hospital bag is,...

Festivals past are populating a busy specialty market this weekend with films from Sundance and Venice. Sony Pictures Classics is giving Randall Park’s Shortcomings a substantial 400+ screen release. See Deadline review. Mubi is out with Passages in New York and LA – both premiered to critical acclaim in Park City.

There’s been some drama around the latter after the MPA gave the Ira Sachs film an Nc-17 rating, which Mubi “officially rejected.” The distributor/streamer/producer said it “remains committed to releasing Passages nationwide in its original version as the filmmaker intended, with our full backing, unrated and uncut.” Rates a 94% with critics on Rotten Tomatoes, Deadline review here.

Casey Affleck and Noah Jupe-starring Dreamin’ Wild from Roadside Attractions on 400 screens follows the life of singer-musician brothers Donnie and Joe Emerson. Deadline review. Magnolia’s A Compassionate Spy, coming in the wake of blockbuster Oppenheimer, is an espionage...

The war in Ukraine has lasted for 18 months, with no signs of stopping. But for those living in parts of the country where the battles have been the fiercest, it’s been going on for much longer — more than 9 years, in fact, starting in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea, with separatist forces taking over swaths of the Donbas region in the east.

Director Maryna Er Gorbach’s unsettling and aesthetically gripping fourth feature, Klondike, revisits that harrowing period in recent Ukrainian history from the viewpoint of an expectant couple, Irka (Oksana Cherkashyna) and Tolik (the late Sergiy Shadrin), living in the rural enclave of Hrabove as the nascent war surrounds them on all sides.

If the name Hrabove rings a bell, that’s because the village made world news in July 2014 when a Malaysian airliner tragically crashed there after being shot down by a Russian anti-aircraft missle. That disaster looms large over Klondike,...

If nothing else, Ukrainian director Maryna Er Gorbach’s first solo-helmed feature Klondike can be credited with uncanny timing. A vivid look at an ordinary farming family in the occupied Donbas region of Ukraine, who just happen to have a full wall of their home destroyed by an errant missile, its European premiere at the 2022 Berlinale was followed only days later by Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country, which of course continues unabated. It would be one of the last Ukrainian features to conclude production before the war broke out, a prophetic missive from a country that has stunned the world with its resilience in the face of crisis.

Er Gorbach, who’s based in Istanbul and previously co-directed several features with her spouse Mehmet Bahadir Er, reveals herself as a filmmaker able to conjure an imposing sense of scale, and creditably evoke with massive props (and some post-production...

Sometimes a single image can be strong enough to support the weight of an entire film, even a film as heavy as Maryna Er Gorbach’s horrifyingly domestic anti-war drama “Klondike,” which fixes its gaze upon a feisty pair of Ukrainian farmers who live along the Russian border. It does so by blowing a giant hole into the side of Tolik (Serhill Shadrin) and Irka’s (Okshana Cherkashyna) house in the opening scene, as an errant mortar shell — misfired by the Kremlin-friendly separatists next door in the middle of the night — obliterates the outer wall of the married couple’s living room as they argue over whether or not to flee Hrabove and raise their unborn child somewhere else.

The exasperated husband wants to avoid conflict at any cost, while his very pregnant wife refuses to abandon their home just because the impotent local men are determined to play war...

"Did you see who shot down the plane?" Goldwyn Films has revealed an official US trailer for an acclaimed Ukrainian film titled Klondike, from filmmaker Maryna Er Gorbach. This premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival just weeks before Russia attacked Ukraine in the war that started last year. It's actually set in 2014 in another part of Ukraine, called the Donetsk Region, where the Donbas war was already underway. The story of a Ukrainian family living on the border of Russia & Ukraine during the start of the Donbas war. Irka refuses to leave her house even as the village gets captured by armed forces. Shortly after they will be at the center of the air crash catastrophe on July 17, 2014 - Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 is shot down by Russian forces. This film really stunned me, it's incredible, a powerful story told with such grace with outstanding cinematography. Starring Oksana Cherkashyna, Sergey Shadrin,...

One of the most acclaimed titles from last year’s Sundance Fim Festival, where it picked up the top directing awards in its World Cinema Dramatic section, Maryna Er Gorbach’s Klondike premiered just weeks before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Set in 2014, Ukraine’s Oscar entry for International Feature follows a pair of expectant parents living in eastern Ukraine near the start of the Donbas war. After an international air-crash catastrophe elevates the tension enveloping them, pregnant Irka (Oksana Cherkashyna) refuses to be evacuated and leave her home, even as their village is captured by armed forces. Ahead of an August 4 theatrical release from Samuel Goldwyn Films, we’re pleased to exclusively premiere the U.S. trailer and poster.

Here’s the synopsis: “July 2014. Expectant parents Irka and Tolik live in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine near the Russian border, disputed territory in the early days of the Donbas war.

Bali International Film Festival (Balinale) kicks off its 16th edition from Thursday, 1 June until Sunday, 4 June 2023 bringing together a diverse group of acclaimed filmmakers and prominent professionals from the film, entertainment, and creative industries to celebrate cinema.

Balinale showcases the finest Indonesian and International movies.

Over our 4-day event will present forty-five films from thirteen countries at Park23 Creative Hub Cinema Xxi, Tuban Kuta, Bali. Several of these films are world, Asian, and international premieres. Opening Balinale is A Guilty Conscience directed by Jack Ng. actor, Dee Ho, will be at the festival to present the film.

Notable films include Sisu from Finland, directed by Jalmari Helander; Klondike from Ukraine, directed by Maryna Er Gorbach; Where the Wind Blows from Hong Kong, directed by Philip Yung; and Women Talking from the United States, directed by Sarah Polley.

In competition 2023

In 2023, the festival's juried competition will present awards in several artistic and technical categories: Narrative Features,...

Distribution

Anthony Lapaglia‘s upcoming factual series “The Black Hand” is set to be distributed internationally by eOne.

The three-part series will explore Australia’s Italian community, looking at the difficulties they face, their politics, the threat of war and the mafia. According to the series synopsis, The Black Hand is the name for a gang of Italian criminals in Australia.

Alan Erson, Lapaglia, Michael Tear exec produce. Adam Grossetti and Kate Pappas produce. “The Black Hand” is directed by Kriv Stenders and written by Grossetti, Stenders and Anya Beyersdorf.

The series was produced by Wildbear Entertainment for ABC in Australia. The deal with eOne excludes Australia and Scandinavia.

“The Black Hand is truly the definition of premium factual,” said Kate Cundall, eOne’s VP for acquisitions. “We’re very excited about the opportunity to take to market a hugely popular genre like true crime with some amazing auspicious.”

***

Meanwhile,...

Klondike Photo: Courtesy of Sundance Institute This year's Sands: International Film Festival of St Andrews will run over the weekend of April 14 to 16.

On the 15th Academy-Award nominated actor Stanley Tucci will present his much-loved 1996 film Big Night followed by a Q&a alongside Joe Russo.

Among the other films screening is Sundance Grand Jury prize-winner Klondike, directed by Maryna Er Gorbach and rom-com charmer Rye Lane.

Events include casting director Margery Simkin who will talk about her craft, while Ita O'Brien, Gemma Bodinetz and Kally Lloyd-Jones will discuss intimacy co-ordination in theatre and film.

Ania Trzebiatowska, Festival Director said: “The idea behind Sands is to create a sense of community and a dialogue between a diverse group of artists and film lovers. We think it’s important to pause and think about not just where we are, but also how we got here, and how to...

Early last year, Stefan Kitanov, director of the Sofia International Film Festival, thought that after two years of lockdowns and online events, things were finally getting back to normal.

“For two years I was out of all festival events and travels, I avoided all public events and spent time in our family house outside the city,” says Kitanov, who started Bulgaria’s biggest film event 27 years ago. “[Then], just as we thought the pandemic is finally over, the war in Ukraine broke out, just a month before our 2022 edition.”

The festival lineup was already locked down, but Kitanov quickly adjusted to the new reality. And made Sofia’s allegiance clear.

“We decided to withdraw Russian films and call off Russian talents and guests,” recalls Kitanov, who has many friends among both Ukrainian and Russian filmmakers and fellow festival colleagues. “[Ukrainian director] Oleg Sentsov was selected to serve on the main jury, but he...

The Sands International Film Festival of St Andrews has set Stanley Tucci as a special guest for this year’s edition, where he will present a screening of his 1996 culinary comedy Big Night.

The film will screen at the festival on April 15 at the Byre Theatre. The screening will be followed by an on-stage conversation between Tucci and writer-director Joe Russo (Avengers Endgame). Russo’s Agbo label is among the backers of Sands.

Set in 1950s New Jersey, the pic follows two brothers who run an Italian restaurant. Business is not going well as a rival Italian restaurant is out-competing them. In a final effort to save the restaurant, the brothers plan to put on an evening of incredible food.

Tucci co-wrote the screenplay for Big Night with his cousin Joseph Tropiano and co-directed with fellow actor Campbell Scott (Jurassic World: Dominion). He also stars in the pic, which debuted at Sundance.

Exclusive: The Sands: International Film Festival of St Andrews, held in northern Scotland, has set the lineup for its second edition, running April 14 – 16.

Over the course of three days, the festival will host a series of official screenings and industry talks from filmmakers and artists such as director Joe Russo, who returns to St Andrews after supporting the inaugural edition in 2022.

Russo will be bringing with him what the festival has described as an “early sneak peek of a hotly anticipated project” that he has executive produced under his Agbo production outfit. The title of the pic will not be unveiled until the screening begins.

The festival has also set Russo as the host of a public discussion on gaming and contemporary storytelling with Epic Games Chief Creative Officer Donald Mustard, who has worked as a creator and director on titles such as Fortnite.

Russo...

Samuel Goldwyn Films has acquired U.S. rights to Ukrainian director Maryna Er Gorbach’s harrowing anti-war drama “Klondike,” a powerful and timely portrait of the horrors of warfare that the company will release in theaters and on digital platforms later this year.

Submitted as Ukraine’s official entry in the best international feature film race for the 95th Academy Awards, “Klondike” had its world premiere at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, where it was the first Ukrainian feature ever selected for the World Dramatic Competition and took home directing honors for Er Gorbach. The film is also playing at this year’s Sundance Film Festival in the Special Screenings section.

“Klondike” tells the story of a Ukrainian family living on a small farmstead on the Ukraine-Russia border around the 2014 outbreak of the Donbass war. Largely told from the viewpoint of the pregnant Irka (Oxana Cherkashyna), the film begins on the...

Legal docudrama Saint Omer was voted Best Picture at the 34th Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival, which announced this year’s juried award winners today.

Saint Omer wins for its ability “to expertly interrogate issues of society, culture, race, and gender,” the festival release stated. “Alice Diop, as screenwriter and director, delivers a film that explores different dynamics of Black women in contemporary France, drawing empathetic lead performances from Kayije Kagame and Guslagie Malanga. By harnessing the skills of her technical team, Diop turns Saint Omer into a shrewd, cogent, ambitious, and overwhelming film which teases a metafictional awareness while remaining clear-eyed and unsentimental.”

The Palm Springs festival took place from January 5-16 and screened 134 films from 64 countries, including 27 premieres. The lineup includes 35 of the International Feature Film Oscar submissions.

The jury award categories included the Fipresci Prize for films...

Sundance Film Festival added several new titles, including a documentary about NBA star Stephen Curry and A24’s sentimental drama “Past Lives,” to its 2023 lineup.

Other newest inclusions are “Beyond Utopia,” a documentary about families escaping oppression, as well as feature films including “Earth Mama” and Flora and Son,” which will screen in the premieres section. “Stephen Curry: Underrated” will play in the special screenings section.

This year’s Sundance Film Festival will take place from Jan. 19-29 in Utah, marking its first return to Park City since the pandemic.

Sundance is also hosting encore screenings of “Coda,” which premiered at the 2021 virtual festival and won the Oscar for best picture, as well as “Klondike,” “Navalny” and “Summer of Soul.” It will be the first time those Sundance award winners will screen at the festival in person, with many of the filmmakers in attendance for post-screening panels. Those films were...

The Sundance Film Festival has announced further additions to its lineup for 2023, including five more features that will there make their world premieres, and four award-winners from years past to receive encore special screenings.

Among the features world premiering at the upcoming edition of the Utah festival are Flora and Son and Stephen Curry: Underrated — the latest efforts from returning directors John Carney (Sing Street) and Peter Nicks (Homeroom). The former is a family drama with musical elements starring Eve Hewson, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and more that’s set to play in the Premieres section; the latter, a doc on the Golden State Warriors’ Stephen Curry from producers Ryan Coogler and Erick Peyton, which will play in Special Screenings.

Also returning for another go-round at Sundance this year is filmmaker Madeleine Gavin (What I Want My Words to Do to You), whose film Beyond Utopia will screen in U.S.

Europe is less dominant this year, with Asia, Latin America and Africa represented.

The Academy’s 2023 international feature film shortlist manages to be both predictable and refreshing at the same time.

It’s predictable in that the 15-strong shortlist contains most of the front runners expected to make it to this stage, including France’s Saint Omer, Austria’s Corsage, Denmark’s Holy Spider, Argentina’s Argentina, 1985, Belgium’s Close, South Korea’s Decision To Leave and Mexico’s Bardo. Among the few surprising omissions are Maryna Er Gorbach’s Ukrainian war drama Klondike and Carla Simon’s Berlinale winner Alcarràs.

A camera pans slowly around a modestly comfortable living room. Here is the kitchen corner, with its microwave, coffee machine and jars of newly preserved tomatoes. Here are the inherited cabinets, one full of the best china, one full of books. And now, here is a wall that doesn’t exist any more. Torn plaster and broken wood frames a vast portal to the rolling steppes. There is a single road across those grasslands. It leads to Russia.

Dateline July 17, 2014 in the Donbas region of Ukraine, where local separatists are working with the Russian army and assorted mercenaries to stage an insurrection. Small farmers Tolik (Serhill Shadrin) and Irka (Okshana Cherkashyna) were bombed a couple of days ago. Irka is heavily pregnant and nesting with the driven instinct of a she-bear. Lying in bed, they try to make light of their situation. When this is over, says Irka, we’ll...

Click here to read the full article.

By Nov. 18, when a Dutch court found three men, two of them Russian and one Ukrainian, guilty of murder in absentia for shooting down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, the event had almost vanished from public memory. The court found that on July 17, 2014, a Russian-made missile supplied from Russia and fired by an armed group under Russian control in eastern Ukraine brought down the civilian flight, killing all 298 people on board, including 80 children.

Maryna Er Gorbach hadn’t forgotten. July 17, 2014, was Er Gorbach’s 33rd birthday, and the fateful day when the passenger airline was shot down over the occupied Donbas region is the starting point for her latest film, Klondike, Ukraine’s contender for the 2022 best international feature film Oscar.

“We all remember what happened on Feb. 24, 2022, when Russia started its full-scale war on Ukraine, but who talks about the Malaysian Air catastrophe?” says Er Gorbach.

Strange as it may seem, the Oscar for Best International Feature tends to go to movies that are universal rather than geographically specific. Last year’s winner Drive My Car spoke more about mankind’s default setting to loneliness than it did about the specifics of relationship dynamics in modern Japan, just as the Danish drunks in 2021’s Another Round got hammered in a way that was relatable to boozers in every country from Albania to Zambia. Maybe the Academy feels that real life is better left to docs, but a 2015 win for the harrowing Second World War drama Son of Saul suggests that the door is always open. And after a year that saw the whole world reeling from Vladmir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, this might be one of those years that addresses the fact.

Clearly, the abrupt nature of Putin’s surprise maneuver on February 24 caught many unawares,...

Rita Moreno, Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Sally Field star in ’80 For Brady’ from Paramount Pictures.

The world premiere of 80 for Brady starring Jane Fonda, Sally Field, Rita Moreno, and Lily Tomlin will open the 34th Annual Palm Springs International Festival on Friday, January 6, 2023, and The Lost King from director Stephen Frears will close the festival on Sunday, January 15th. In between, Psiff will screen 132 films including the world premiere of the documentary Shot in the Arm.

“We are beyond excited to welcome back our beloved audience and filmmakers in Palm Springs. We’re especially thrilled to be joined by all four leads of 80 For Brady. The film is brimming with joy and heart, and it’s a perfect film to kick off our 34th edition,” said Artistic Director Lili Rodriguez. “Our programmers have dedicated almost a year to scouting the world for the films that make up this edition.

The Palm Springs Film Festival has unveiled the lineup for its 34th annual edition, announcing that Paramount Pictures’ 80 for Brady will world premiere as its opening night film on January 6, with IFC Films’ The Lost King closing it out on January 15.

Directed by Kyle Marvin, 80 for Brady is inspired by the true story of four best friends living life to the fullest when they take a wild trip to the 2017 Super Bowl Li to see their hero Tom Brady play. Cast members including Academy Award nominee Lily Tomlin, Academy Award winner Jane Fonda, Academy Award winner Rita Moreno and Academy Award winner Sally Field are expected to be among those in attendance at the fest to rep the film slated for release in theaters on February 3, 2023.

Related Story Palm Springs Film Festival Awards: Austin Butler Latest Honoree For January Gala Related Story '80 For Brady' Trailer: Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda,...

Maryna Er Gorbach’s drama Klondike revolves around a Ukrainian couple on the cusp of parenthood whose lives are turned upside down by the rise of the Russia-backed separatist movement in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.

The pair are impacted further by the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over the region in July 2014, which leaves debris strewn over their property and further ratchets up tensions in the area.

Related: The Contenders International – Deadline’s Full Coverage

“MH17 was very a shocking event for Ukraine, but after this shock we thought it would be a really symbolic event, because it was not so easy to ignore, and that there would be an international judgment in the court for answers on who was responsible,” Er Gorbach said Saturday during a Contenders International panel for the Protim film.

“But at the time, it was totally ignored. There was this mirage that it was a local war,...

The first calendar year to see the physical return of almost every major film festival since the pandemic, 2022 has been a huge morale booster for filmmakers from all around the globe. And now, with the third edition of Deadline’s Contenders Film: International kicking off Saturday at 8 a.m. Pt, that outreach expands even further: leaving a carbon-free footprint, our online event will showcase the myriad films that soared at Sundance, beguiled Berlin, captivated Cannes, thrilled Telluride, vitalized Venice and touched Toronto, all the while shining a spotlight on the must-see movies that might have flown under your radar.

Click her to register for and watch today’s Contenders livestream.

Since submissions accepted for the Best International Feature Film Oscar category continue to grow — up by something like 30 from just 10 years ago, buoyed no doubt by the boundary-breaking success of 2019’s Parasite — it is harder than ever before to see...

‘Snow And The Bear, ‘Black Night’, ‘Pure White’ also score deals.

Germany-based sales agent ArtHood Entertainment has secured sales across its slate, including on Ukrainian Sundance winner Klondike, which has sold to Medallion Media Co. for Japan.

Klondike won the directing award in the World Cinema – Dramatic competition in Sundance for Maryna Er Gorbach; it has gone on to play festivals including Berlin, BFI London Film Festival, Busan and Tokyo.

Selcen Ergun’s Turkish-German-Serbian co-production Snow And The Bear has sold to Periscoop Film for Benelux, following a world premiere at Toronto and winning prizes at Turkey’s Bosphorus and Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival.

Valentina Maurel’s “I Have Electric Dreams” continued its winning streak this week at the Thessaloniki Film Festival, where the Costa Rican director’s coming-of-age drama took home the Golden Alexander for best feature film.

Maurel’s debut follows a restless 16-year-old girl experiencing her sexual awakening. Desperate to leave the house she shares with her mother and younger sister, she opts to move in with her estranged father, a troubled artist.

The film won the prizes for best director, actress and actor at the Locarno Film Festival, where it bowed in the main competition, as well as the San Sebastián Film Festival’s Horizons Award.

The jury in Thessaloniki, which was comprised of Mexican producer and Pimienta Films founder Nicolas Selis, Polish writer-director Tomasz Wasilewski and Greek filmmaker Penny Panagiotopoulou, praised the film for its “beautiful and gentle portrait on how to love the flaws in a person you love.

Just two days after a Russian airstrike in Kyiv killed three citizens, damaged a power plant, and caused significant blackouts, the Ukrainian National Film Critics Circle went ahead with their annual award ceremony.

Known as Kinokolo, the ceremony took place in an underground bunker in Kyiv on Thursday, with national broadcaster Suspilne Kultura airing the event live. First established in 2018, Kinokolo recognizes the best in national Ukrainian cinema, and is hosted on the first day of the annual Kyiv Critic’s Week. This year’s Critic Week runs until October 26.

“Pamfir,” which premiered this year in Cannes’ Director’s Fortnight section, was the big winner of the night, taking the best feature prize. Director Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk, who made his feature film debut with the drama about a man who returns to his small town and is sucked back into his criminal past, nabbed best director, best film screenplay, and discovery...

Click here to read the full article.

In yet another example of courage under fire from the citizens of Ukraine, the country’s film critics have managed to hold the country’s first post-war awards ceremony. The Ukrainian National Film Critics association handed out its Kinokolo Awards Thursday night, broadcasting the ceremony from a bunker studio in Kyiv. The event was carried on national public TV channel Suspilne Kultura.

Pamfir from director Dmytro Sukholytkyi-Sobchuk was the night’s big winner, taking home best film, best director and best screenwriter honors, as well the discovery of the year prize for the best full-length debut. Pamfir star Oleksandr Yatsentyuk also took best actor for his performance in the film as a man who returns to Ukraine from abroad and gets drawn into his criminal past. Pamfir premiered in Cannes in Directors’ Fortnight.

‘Pamfir’

Maryna Er Gorbach’s war drama Klondike, which debuted at Sundance this year,...

Iranian action drama “World War III,” which won two awards at the recent Venice festival, will feature among the main competition titles at next month’s Tokyo International Film Festival.

The festival will operate as an in-person event with foreign filmmakers, media and other guests in attendance from Oct. 24-Nov. 2, 2022.

“World War III” is joined in the competition section by the world premiere of Milcho Manchevski’s “Kaymak,” Spanish director Carlos Vermut’s “Manticore” and Roberta Torre’s “The Fabulous Ones,” Michale Boganim’s “Tel Aviv Beirut,” and Youssef Chebbi’s debut film “Ashkal.”

The 15-strong competition also includes two Japanese films Imaizumi Rikiya’s “By The Window” and Matsunaga Daishi’s “Egoist” and two Japanese co-productions, Fukunaga Takeshi’s “Mountain Woman,” and Kyrgyzstan director Aktan Arym Kubat’s “This Is What I Remember.”

Winners from the competition section will be chosen by a jury headed by Julie Taymor, along with Joao Pedro Rodrigues,...

Finland’s leading film festival Love & Anarchy is ready to celebrate its 35th edition, free of Covid restrictions and finally able to focus on the films and the audience, says executive director Anna Möttölä in Helsinki. But it has been a bittersweet time, marked by the loss of Jean-Luc Godard and Lina Wertmüller back in December, whose 1973 film gave the event its name.

While Wertmüller will be celebrated with a screening of “Seven Beauties,” another tragedy is on the team’s mind: the sudden death of Charlbi Dean, the star of Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or winner – and the festival’s opening film – “Triangle of Sadness.”

“It will be a memorial screening,” says artistic director Pekka Lanerva. Dean’s co-star, Zlatko Burić, is expected to attend.

Anna Möttölä, Pekka Lanerva

“All our thoughts go to her family and to the cast and crew. To have such a promising career,...

Indonesian thriller ‘Autobiography’ and Mexican documentary ‘Sanson And Me’ among line-up.

Australia’s Adelaide Film Festival (Oct 19-30) has unveiled its first line-up since shifting from a biennial to an annual event, including 12 titles in competition.

This year’s event comprises 129 films, of which 22 world premieres, from more than 40 countries.

The competition features include Indonesian thriller Autobiography, which scooped a Fipresci prize at the weekend after playing in the Horizons strand of the Venice Film Festival. The debut feature of film critic-turned-director Makbul Mubarak is about a young man who keeps house for a retired general, finding himself torn between...

Keep track of all the submissions for best international feature at the 2023 Academy Awards.

Entries for the 2023 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

Scroll down for profiles of each Oscar entry

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between January 1, 2022 and November 30, 2022. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 3, 2022.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is...

The film has now won big at Sarajevo and Locarno.

Juraj Lerotic’s Croatian drama Safe Place was the big winner at Sarajevo Film Festival this evening (Friday 19), taking the prizes for best feature film and best actor for Lerotic.

The film continued its success from its debut at Locarno Film Festival earlier this month, where it won the best first feature award.

Scroll down for the full list of feature winners.

Safe Place stars Lerotic as a forty-something man who tries to save his depressed younger sibling from suicidal tendencies over the course of a single day.

Ukrainian filmmaker...

Three men from the film team are fighting in Ukraine’s defence forces.

Ukrainian director Maryna Er Gorbach is presenting her film Klondike at Sarajevo Film Festival alongside women who worked on the film, while several men from the production are fighting in the country’s defence forces against the Russian invasion.

Producer, cinematographer and Gorbach’s creative partner Svyatoslav Bulakovskiy - ‘Slava’ - has been fighting for his country since the early days of the invasion in February; as have actors Oleg Shcherbina and Oleg Shevchuk.

The trio are in different regiments of the Ukrainian forces, and have avoided physical injury.

The Sarajevo Film Festival has unveiled its competition line-up for this year’s festival, with Marie Kreutzer’s Corsage and Ukrainian helmer Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk’s documentary ‘Liturgy Of Anti-Tank Obstacles’ selected in the feature film and documentary categories respectively.

A total of 51 films will compete for the fest’s coveted Heart Of Sarajevo awards across four competition sections: feature films, documentary, short and student film. The selection includes 20 world premieres, eight international premiers, one European premiere, 21 regional premiers and one Bosnia & Herzegovina premiere.

Additional titles featured in the main competition program this year include Aida Begić’s A Ballad, Dominik Mencej’s Riders and Ukrainian-Turkish production Klondike. In the documentary section, Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk, whose film Pamfir played in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight earlier this year, will see his Liturgy Of Anti-Tank Obstacles doc have its world premiere in the section.

The program was open for films and filmmakers from Albania, Armenia, Austria,...

Eight international, one European, 21 regional and one national premiere.

Twenty films will have world premieres in the competitive sections of the 28th Sarajevo Film Festival, which runs from August 12-19 this year.

Those films are among a 51-strong programme of titles competing for the Heart of Sarajevo awards, across four competition sections: Feature Film, Documentary Film, Short Film and Student Film.

Scroll down for the full list of features

Eight of the films are international premieres, with one European debut, 21 regional premieres and one national launch.

The main Feature Film section consists of eight titles, of which four are world premieres,...

Skip City International D-Cinema Festival which started in 2004 in Kawaguchi City, Saitama Prefecture, has been held every year as a “gateway for emerging talent” centered on the International Competition and the Japanese Film Competition (features and shorts). The festival launched the careers of Kazuya Shiraishi (Lesson in Murder), Ryota Nakano (The Asadas), Shinichiro Ueda (One Cut of the Dead), Shinzo Katayama (Missing) and many other directors who are leading the Japanese film industry as top runners and whose new movies audiences are looking forward to seeing.

The 19th edition will be held both at theaters and online from Saturday, July 16th in Skip City, Kawaguchi City in Saitama, with the physical screenings for the first time in three years since 2019.

On Wednesday, June 15th, a press conference was held to announce the full line-up, with the attendance of President of the Jury for International Competition, Shinobu Terajima (Actress) and President...

Skip City International D-Cinema Festival, a leading launching pad for emerging Japanese and world filmmakers, has unveiled the line-up for its 19th edition, which will be held July 16-24, 2022, at venues in Kawaguchi, a Tokyo suburb. In addition to its first physical screenings in three years, the festival will present an online segment July 21-27.

The president of the international competition jury is Terajima Shinobu, winner of the best actress silver bear at the 2010 Berlinale for her performance in Wakamatsu Koji’s WWII drama “Caterpillar.” The president of the Japanese film competition jury is cinematographer Ashizawa Akiko.

The opening film is “Deadly School,” a coming-of-age ensemble drama about high school girls prepping for their school festival, directed by three-time Skip City winner Isobe Teppei and adapted from Asakusa Kaoru’s hit play.

The festival will also screen two Ukrainian films from past editions: Alina Gorlova’s “This Rain Will Never...

Drama set in the Donbas region won a directing award at Sundance

Berlin-based ArtHood Entertainment has sold Ukrainian filmmaker Maryna Er Gorbach’s anti-war drama Klondike to Brazil (Providence Filmes/Pandora Filmes), Spain (Filmin), Benelux (Mooov) and Poland (Mayfly) ahead of the company’s first market screenings at Cannes.

The Ukraine-Turkey co-production between Kedr Film and Protim VP received its world premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival where it won the directing award in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition.

It went on to screen at the Berlinale Panorama and has since played the international circuit.

The Euro 75:...

This review contains spoilers.

In light of the recent events in Ukraine, interest in “Klondike” seems to have spiked. The international Turkish-Ukrainian first premiered at Sundance this year, has been acquired by Mubi, and has since been making its rounds to other US film festivals. Most recently, Maryna Er Gorbach’s third feature met packed audiences at Sffilm last week. Little wonder, too – the film meditates upon the long-incoming tensions between Russia and Ukraine at the eastern borderlands in Donetsk.

“Klondike” takes place in July 2014 during the War in Donbas. Here, seven-months-pregnant Irka (Oksana Cherkashyna) lives an isolated life with her husband, Tolik (Serhi Shadrin) in the disputed territory of Donetsk. Their peace is precarious, however. It seems like everyone beyond the farm expects them to take sides while destroying Irka and Tolik’s land. Separatist friends drop by between explosions, expecting Tolik to join the movement. Irka’s nationalist...

Klondike Review Video — Klondike (2021) Video Movie Review, a movie directed by Maryna Er Gorbach, written by Maryna Er Gorbach, and starring Oxana Cherkashyna, Sergey Shadrin, Oleg Shcherbina, Oleg Shevchuk, and Evgeniy Efremov. Crew Zviad Mgebry created the music for the film. Svyatoslav Bulakovskyi crafted the cinematography for the film. Plot Synopsis Klondike‘s plot synopsis: “Armed [...]

Continue reading: Video Movie Review: Klondike (2022): A Modern Tragedy told Beautifully Blunt that Elicits a Powerful Response...