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When push comes to shove, the Transilvania Intl. Film Festival has always prided itself on pushing the envelope, preferring to err on the side of provocation where other fests might choose to play it safe. That mentality has been encoded into the fest’s DNA since its beginnings in the tumultuous post-Communist era, when civil liberties and artistic freedom were still far from guaranteed in the newly democratic Romania.

Yet after a turbulent period of unprecedented disruption, brought on first by the coronavirus pandemic and then by the widespread humanitarian and economic crises spurred by Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine, even TIFF founder Tudor Giurgiu admits, “These were tough years.” The temptation might have been there to tinker with a formula that has made the festival such a success for the past two decades.

But for its 22nd edition, which runs June 9 – 18 in the picturesque medieval city of Cluj,...

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,...

The Romanian film festival runs June 9-18.

Transilvania International Film Festival has announced the line-up for its 22nd edition which takes place in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

The official competition is made up of 12 features while the documentary strand, entitled What’s Up Doc?, will screen 10 titles. All of the films are from first and second-time directors.

Among the competition selection is Ion Bors’ Carbon which premiered in San Sebastian’s New Directors strand last year, having won the festival’s Wip Europa Industry and Wip Europa awards the previous year. The dark comedy, surrounding the Transnistrian conflict of the 1990s, is...

A fresh new voice in nonfiction filmmaking, Ahsen Nadeem never intended to make the doc that became “Crows Are White” as deeply, disarmingly personal as it turned out, but in re-centering the focus on himself, he arrived at a much more honest movie. Approaching the subject in the vulnerable, open-book tradition of cine-essayists Ross McElwee (“Sherman’s March”) or Caveh Zahedi (“I Am a Sex Addict”), Nadeem, who was raised Muslim in Saudi Arabia, works through why he found himself so conflicted about his religious upbringing, as well as how to break the news to his parents that he intended to marry a non-Muslim woman. The result is an introspective — and at times uncomfortably irreverent — journey for both him and the audience.

Nadeem’s original intention was to investigate the “marathon monks” of Mount Hiei, Japan, who seek spiritual enlightenment by walking a repetitive course known as the kaihōgyō, equivalent to the circumference of the Earth,...

As Crows Are White begins, and for most of its running time, Ahsen Nadeem, its director and central onscreen subject, is keeping a secret from his mother and father. Across the many miles that separate them from their oldest child, all they want is for him to find a nice Muslim girl and settle down; Dawn Blackman, the woman Nadeem loves, is not Muslim. “I’ll be honest with you,” he announces to the audience in the opening seconds of his tender and often quite funny documentary. “I’m a fantastic liar.”

In order to keep the charade going with his folks, who live in Ireland, the Los Angeles-based Nadeem has two phones: “one for my life, and the other for my parents.” That’s dedication. But beyond lying to his parents, Nadeem is exceptionally good at lying to himself, a reality that viewers will glean well before it hits home for him.

A first-person film that documents one filmmaker’s lifelong quest to reconcile ancient religious doctrines with the messy realities of modern life (translation: it’s about a guy from a strict Muslim family who wants to marry his secret white girlfriend), Ahsen Nadeem’s “Crows Are White” borrows its koan-like title from a story about a Buddhist monk who was taught never to question his teachers, even when they said things that were objectively wrong. Nadeem’s film, by contrast, invites people to pick it apart at every turn. “I’ll be honest with you,” he says at the start of a simpering voiceover track so constant that it feels like the missing lyrics of Logan Nelson’s lushly composed score, “I’m a fantastic liar. But I’m trying something new here — I’m going to try to tell the truth.” By the time the movie was over, I only half-believed him.

Beginning as a cultural and religious exploration of the Japanese Monks that reside on the top of Mount Hiei near Kyoto, then transforming into a profoundly personal reflection on director Ahsen Nadeem’s own life, “Crows Are White” is an acute meditation on the powers, and limitations, of religious fervor.

The film begins in the fog of the mountains, as Nadeem — and his small band of filmmakers — are finally given access to the monastery after years of asking.

Continue reading ‘Crows are White’ Review: A Personal Reflection on the Limitations of Faith [SXSW] at The Playlist.

In-person festival to run in Austin, Texas, from March 11-20.

A starry SXSW 2022 film line-up announced on Wednesday (2) includes world premieres of new work from Antonia Campbell-Hughes, Richard Linklater and Nicolas Cage, among many others.

The Austin, Texas, festival ran online editions over the past two years and is planned to take place from March 11-20 as an in-person event against a backdrop of declining Omicron infection levels across the United States.

The roster includes Irish filmmaker and actor Campbell-Hughes’s It Is In Us All (pictured) in Narrative Feature Competition starring Cosmo Jarvis, Claes Bang and Campbell-Hughes about a...