News

This year’s gathering, which was held purely online, has handed out its most high-profile awards to the Spanish production directed by Fon Cortizo and to Daria Woszek’s Polish effort. As announced in a previous article (see the news), for its 2020 edition, the Gijón International Film Festival was held on the Ficx.TV, festhome and filmin platforms, and in addition, it split its official selection into three strands, dubbed Retueyos, Albar and Tierres en Trance. In Retueyos, the Best Film Award was split between 9 fugas by Galician helmer Fon Cortizo and Marygoround, the colouristic feature debut by Poland’s Daria Woszek, in accordance with the verdict of the jury, consisting of Pilar Monsell, Michael Zam and Mihai Chirilov. Furthermore, the Best Actor gong was conferred upon the lead in Poppy Field, Romanian thesp Conrad Mericoffer, while the Distribution Award...

The Fantasia International Film Festival closed out its 2020 edition yesterday, having successfully transitioned to a cutting-edge digital event in the wake of the global Covid-19 pandemic. Canadian audiences proved dedicated to the long-running festival, and flocked to the digital edition, which saw over 85,000 spectators watch films and special events across the country and beyond. Of special interest to audiences were the fest’s twenty-five World Premiere features, including bows for Come True, The Block Island Sound, Hunted, Undergods, Tiny Tim: King For A Day, The Paper Tigers, The Curse Of Audrey Earnshaw, Pvt Chat, Slaxx, The Oak Room, and Unearth.

The 24th edition of the festival also saw a record amount of media coverage, with 475 accredited journalists from around the world promoting Fantasia and its ground-breaking content. From Canadian and U.S. media to popular, top-tier outlets as far away as Japan and Portugal, Fantasia’s media presence has never been stronger.

In today’s Global Bulletin, Telepool finds its new CEO in Jan Frouman, Edinburgh TV Festival recognizes freelance advocate Adeel Amini, Fantasia announces its winners, Spain’s Weird Market goes hybrid and Noah Media Group provides a first look at its upcoming documentary “Finding Jack Charlton.”

Hiring

German licensing, distribution and production company Telepool has appointed Jan Frouman as the company’s new CEO and managing director effective immediately, replacing André Druskeit, who stepped down to pursue other opportunities.

Working out of the company’s Munich offices, Frouman will head development, financing and production activities for the company, as well as overseeing Telepool’s subsidiary companies including Global Screen, video game publisher Wild River Games, EuroVideo Medien and Netleih.

In 2018, Telepool was acquired by Will Smith and Swiss investor Elysian Fields. In 2019, Smith, his wife Jada Pinkett Smith and partners Miguel Melendez and Ko Yada launched Westbrook Studios, where Frouman...

Marygoround Photo: Courtesy of Fantasia

Described by the jury as a "visually arresting aria of a uniquely female experience," Marygoround has won Best Film at this year's Fantasia International Film Festival with its director, Daria Woszek, receiving the Best Director award, it was announced today. Star Grazyna Misiorowska won Best Actress for her "tour de force performance...a masterclass in spellbinding stunning nuance, heart-stopping vulnerability, emotional authenticity and true comic genius." Misiorowska also received a special mention from the New Flesh jury, which focuses on début films: "This dynamic lead performance took a protagonist from virginal innocence to wild, untamed experience, requiring great skill and deft to transform a character from scene to scene and often within a single scene."

Speaking to Eye For Film, Woszek described herself as "overwhelmed and happy and shocked" and praised Fantasia for the experience they had managed to create online, giving her the chance to interact with viewers.

The virtual edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival had a killer lineup that included feature-length and short genre films from around the world, and they have officially announced their award winners:

03 September 2020 - Montreal, Quebec - The Fantasia International Film Festival closed out its 2020 edition yesterday, having successfully transitioned to a cutting-edge digital event in the wake of the global Covid-19 pandemic. Canadian audiences proved dedicated to the long-running festival, and flocked to the digital edition, which saw over 85,000 spectators watch films and special events across the country and beyond. Of special interest to audiences were the fest’s twenty-five World Premiere features, including bows for Come True, The Block Island Sound, Hunted, Undergods, Tiny Tim: King For A Day, The Paper Tigers, The Curse Of Audrey Earnshaw, Pvt Chat, Slaxx, The Oak Room, and Unearth.

The 24th edition of the festival also saw a record amount of media coverage,...

John Carpenter recevied Cheval Noir Lifetime Achievement Award.

Daria Woszek’s Polish comedy Marygoround was a big winner at the 24th Fantasia International Film festival on Wednesday night (September 2), earning the Cheval Noir Award for best film, director and actress.

Grazyna Misiorowska stars in the story about a virgin approaching the menopause who undergoes hormone therapy and experiences an awakening when her free-spirited niece shows up.

’Marygoround’: review

Brea Grant’s US entry 12 Hour Shift won best screenplay, and Jacky Heung was awarded the best actor prize for Hong Kong’s Chasing Dream.

The festival reported more than...

The Polish comedy Marygoround nabbed the Cheval Noir trophy for best feature, director and actress at the Fantasia International Film Festival during prizegiving on Wednesday night.

Daria Wosjek’s fantasy pic, which bowed at SXSW, earned the top jury prize, the best director trophy and a best actress award for Grazyna Misiorowska as Marygoround portrays a woman facing menopause on her 50th birthday and starting hormone therapy, despite remaining a virgin.

The Cheval Noir competition also gave the best screenplay prize to Brea Grant for the black comedy thriller 12 Hour Shift, and the best motion picture score went to Shiro Sagisu ...

The Polish comedy Marygoround nabbed the Cheval Noir trophy for best feature, director and actress at the Fantasia International Film Festival during prizegiving on Wednesday night.

Daria Wosjek’s fantasy pic, which bowed at SXSW, earned the top jury prize, the best director trophy and a best actress award for Grazyna Misiorowska as Marygoround portrays a woman facing menopause on her 50th birthday and starting hormone therapy, despite remaining a virgin.

The Cheval Noir competition also gave the best screenplay prize to Brea Grant for the black comedy thriller 12 Hour Shift, and the best motion picture score went to Shiro Sagisu ...

Early on in Daria Woszek's daring dark comedy, we see heroine Maria (Grazyna Misiorowska) visiting her doctor. It's her 50th birthday and she's struggling with hot flushes brought on by menopause. Deeply uninterested in her experience, he asks if there has been any change in her condition - if she is, in fact, still a virgin. it's a medically irrelevant question but represents the sort of intrusiveness that many female viewers will be accustomed to, and it reflects attitudes to Maria more widely. She's a freak, a tragic figure, or just someone whom there is no point in paying heed to at all. There is an implication that her personhood is defined by her sexual status, and that that, in turn, is determined by what she does with her body.

From Maria's perspective, things look very different.

Superficially, this is a story about awakening and change, but the clue is in the.

Marygoround Photo: Courtesy of Fantasia

This year’s Fantasia International Film Festival is notable for including a number of films about the life experiences and sexual identities of women in their fifties and up, a subject that has long been neglected by mainstream cinema. Among the standouts is Daria Woszek’s Marygoround (known as Maryjki in its native Poland) which tells the story of Maria (Grazyna Misiorowska), a grocery store clerk who experiences an intense sexual awakening when she is prescribed hormone treatment for menopause, causing her to question a great many things about her life. Although English is not her first language and no translator was available, Daria bravely agreed to discuss the film, including the complex ways that it uses symbolic imagery and its protagonist’s fantasies to explore issues around femininity and how older women are shaping their lives within and, sometimes, in opposition to today’s world.