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The death penalty will forever be a hot-button issue in the U.S. and overseas. Dating back three decades, Ukraine joined other European nations in banning the ultimate penalty, but what about the years leading up to the small country's monumental decision? Kyiv-native filmmaker Philip Sotnychenko chose to base his new feature in the months leading up Ukraine's official declaration, a key factor in his disjointed narrative involving a complex and ultimately despondent murder investigation. Just as some authors are deemed a "writer's writer," La Palisiada is indeed cinema for cinephiles, a challenging but ultimately rewarding film that proves the country's talent behind the lens.

The 2025 Oscars are panning out to be another tight competition, of course, with the International Feature category ever a hot contender. If Academy members are up for challenging work, then perhaps Ukraine's latest entry into the race might just hold a candle to the top-five list.

History, when told well, is a muddy, muddled thing. There are no neat narratives or happy endings. Philip Sotnychenko “La Palisiada” takes that truism and braids it into a suitably complex form: This 1996-set noir of sorts chronicles a pivotal moment in Ukrainian history by focusing on a murder investigation. But as its two leads burrow themselves in the hunt for a guilty party, their journey turns out to be as dirtied and disorienting as the very systems from which the former Soviet country was weening itself, just a few years after their independence.

A murder opens “La Palisiada,” though it’s not the one with which Sotnychenko’s film is concerned. Instead, the shocking gunshot that precedes the film’s title card sets the table for a flashback to the past. Here is a tale not just of violence but the root of that violence, and its continued consequences.

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 3, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) 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 November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 3, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) 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 November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Milica Tomovic’s Serbian project Big Women headed the winners at Sarajevo Film Festival’s CineLink industry platform for 2024, taking the €20,000 Eurimages co-production development award.

Produced by Dragana Jovovic and Jelena Radenkovic, the film will follow two friends who embark on an unplanned trip to the Montenegrin coast, where they uncover long-buried secrets.

Scroll down for the full list of CineLink 2024 winners

Tomovic’s debut feature Celts premiered in Panorama at the 2021 Berlinale, before winning the best director prize at Sarajevo later that year.

The awards were distributed during a ceremony at Sarajevo’s new Festival Garden on Thursday,...

Milica Tomović’s “Big Women” and Philip Sotnychenko’s “Times New Roman” won big at the Sarajevo Film Festival‘s CineLink, its industry section that featured projects from Southeast Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.

Serbian director Tomović’s sophomore feature, which is produced by Dragana Jovović of Non-Aligned Films and Jelena Radenković for Big Time Production, won the Eurimages Co-Production Development Award, a cash prize of €20,000.

The film follows two wild women who embark on an unexpected trip to the coast of Montenegro, where they’ll settle forgotten bills, rediscover their friendship and uncover long-buried secrets. It’s the director’s follow-up to her critically lauded Berlinale and Sarajevo player “Celts.”

Sotnychenko’s second feature, which is produced by Valeria Sochyvets for Contemporary Ukrainian Cinema, won the Eurimages Special Co-Production Development Award, a cash prize in the amount of €20,000.

Set against the backdrop of Russia’s invasion, the...

Across more than two decades as the parallel arm of the Sarajevo Film Festival, CineLink Industry Days has grown into the leading film and TV industry event in the Balkan region, an incubator of talent from Southeast Europe — and, increasingly, beyond — and a crucial stop for globetrotting industry executives looking to discover fresh cinematic voices.

The mid-summer event, which this year takes place Aug. 17 – 22, traditionally comes on the heels of the Locarno Film Festival and wraps in the run-up to Venice and Toronto, occupying a perhaps fitting slot in the calendar. “Not too big, but not small at all,” is how Maša Marković, now in her third year as the festival’s head of industry, characterizes it. As a result, Sarajevo “manages to create this sense of being the place to be.”

Marković credits the event’s “curatorial approach” for ensuring that both the selection of projects for its influential...

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...

Debut fiction features by Romania’s Cristian Pascariu, Ukraine’s Valeria Sochyvets and Turkey’s Alkim Özmen are among 10 projects selected for Transilvania Pitch Stop (Tps) on June 20-21.

The international co-production platform takes place during the Transilvania International Film Festival in Cluj, Romania, and is part of the industry strand Ro Days.

Titles selected include Cristian Pascariu’s A Flower Is Not A Flower about an 11-year-old girl Ana who escapes from a communist Romanian orphanage into the sewers of Bucharest where she has to use her ingenuity to survive. It is a Romanian-Latvia co-production between Point Film and Riga-based Air Productions.

The UK’s Reason8 has locked in North American deals for Philip Sotnychenko’s Ukrainian Rotterdam premiere La Palisiada and Czech erotic drama Her Body with Film Movement.

Further sales include Her Body for UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand (Tmp), German-speaking Europe (Busch Media Group), Korea (Entermode/Evrit Consulting), Japan (At Entertainment) and Poland (Media4Fun).

Venice title The Red Suitcase, from Nepal’s Fidel Devkota, has sold to Dekanalog for North America, while Romanian Tudor Giurgiu’s Libertate has landed in French-speaking Europe (Destiny Films), Spain and Andorra (Twelve Oaks Pictures), Poland (Media4Fun) and Taiwan (Time Vision Co).

Belgium drama Skunk,...

Jeonju Jaunt

Korea’s second largest generalist film event the Jeonju International Film Festival has set eight fiction films by first or second-time feature directors, for its main competition.

They are “Cu Li Never Cries,” by Pham Ngoc Lan; “Junkyard Dog,” by Jean-Baptiste Durand, “La Palisiada,” by Philip Sotnychenko; “My Endless Numbered Days,” by Shaun Neo; “Oxygen Station,” by Ivan Tymchenko; “Practice,” by Laurens Perol; “The Major Tones,” by Ingrid Pokropek; and “The Permanent Picture,” by Laura Ferres.

Additionally, two documentary features also compete: “After the Snowmelt,” directed by Lo Yi-Shan and “Kix,” by Balint Revesz and David Mikulan.

The Covid-pandemic continues to affect filmmaking and festival selection, organizers said. “Even films planned to be made beforehand had to extend their production period due to the pandemic, and many works highlighted the limitations of the production environments, such as smaller cast numbers and minimal locations,” said chief programmer Chun Jinsu.

South Korea’s Jeonju International Film Festival (May 1-10) has revealed the full programme for its 25th edition, which will include a series of screenings to mark the 10th anniversary of the Sewol ferry disaster.

The festival will comprise 232 films from 43 countries, opening with Sho Miyake’s romantic drama All The Long Nights and closing with Kazik Radwanski’s Canadian drama Matt And Mara. Both screened at the Berlinale in February.

Among the line-up are six films to commemorate the sinking of the Sewol ferry on April 16, 2014, in which more than 300 people died, most of them high school students on a field trip.

Sales rights to Ukrainian filmmaker Philip Sotnychenko’s feature debut and Rotterdam 2023 award winner La Palisiada have been acquird by UK outfit Reason8.

La Palisiada won the Fipresci award at last year’s festival, and was nominated in the European Discovery section at the European Film Awards.

The feature shot predominantly in Kyiv in 2021 and is set in 1996, five months before the moratorium on the death penalty. It follows two old friends, a police detective and a forensic psychiatrist, as they investigate a murder of their colleague.

Cast includes Andrii Zhurba, Novruz Hikmet, Valeria Oleinikova and Oleksandr Parkhomenko. Producers are Halyna Kryvorchuk,...

2023 was a year of seemingly seismic change for the film industry, as superhero movies (especially Marvel) lost their grip on the box office while more auteur-led efforts such as Oppenheimer and Barbie made serious bank. Audiences seem hungry for a return to thoughtful and engaging efforts, voting for their wallets against a decade of cape-clad hegenomy in favour of more challenging (and visually interesting) cinema. But as with the majority of contemporary film analysis, these are mostly concerns for Hollywood. The international arthouse scene plugs away as usual, providing a diverse range of exciting visions that once again expand the very possibilities of the cinematic form. I went back and forth on this list several times, only coming to a final top ten this very morning. With courtroom drama, oddball romance, epic character study and even outright horror, this year’s selection subverted and expanded genre norms, showing that great cinema,...

French director Justine Triet’s Cannes Palme d’Or winning film Anatomy Of A Fall swept the awards at 36th European Film Awards in Berlin this evening, winning Best European Film, Director, Screenplay (with Arthur Harari) and actress for Sandra Hüller.

There was a strong selection this year with other films and directors leading the nominations including Aki Kaurismäki with Fallen Leaves, Agnieszka Holland with Green Border, Matteo Garrone with Me Captain, Jonathan Glazer with The Zone Of Interest.

The European Films Awards haul for Anatomy Of A Fall will likely ramp up growing Academy Awards buzz around the film and its star Sandra Hüller.

“I can’t say whether it will happen or not but yes… now we are in the race and we will continue the campaign in the U.S. and we’re totally involved, let’s see,” Triet said in an press conference after the ceremony.

The ceremony kicks off live from Berlin today (December 9) at 19:30 Cet.

The European Film Awards is taking place in Berlin tonight (December 9), and Screen will be revealing the winners live from the ceremony, kicking off at 19:30 Cet.

German actor Britta Steffenhagen is hosting the awards, which will take place at the Arena Berlin.

Screen will be live-streaming the ceremony below, or you can refresh the page and scroll down to read the winners as they are announced.

Three of the best European film nominees world premiered at Cannes. Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winner Anatomy Of A Fall...

In the disconcerting cadence of two unsettling gunshots, Ukrainian writer-director Philip Sotnychenko orchestrates a symphony of thought-provoking images in his debut feature, La Palisiada (2023). Awarded with the Fipresci prize at IFFR and honoured with the Heart of Sarajevo for Best Director at Sarajevo Film Festival, this innovative investigative drama is also vying for the European Discovery - Prix Fipresci at the European Film Awards.

The film's prologue unfolds amid a family gathering, a seemingly tranquil setting in our time. There's a discontented young man, who recently arrived from western Europe. His dissatisfaction with his homeland transforms him into a veritable headache, an incessant nagging force that challenges Ukrainian values. The tension escalates in the bedroom, culminating in a shocking act that sets the stage for the main story, set in 1996, five years post-Ukraine's declaration of independence and five months before the abolition of the death penalty.

Embarking on judicial scrutiny.

Five European films dominate the nominations.

The European Film Academy has revealed the nominees for the main categories of the European Film Awards which take place in Berlin on December 9.

The Academy has shortlisted five of the highest profile films to come out of Europe this year for its best European film category, with the directors of the five films also all nominated in the best European director category. The five films also dominate the acting and screenwriting categories.

Three of the best European film nominees world premiered at Cannes. Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winner Anatomy Of A Fall...

Five European films dominate the nominations for this year’s Awards

The European Film Academy has revealed the nominees for the main categories of the European Film Awards which take place in Berlin on November 9.

The Academy has shortlisted five of the highest profile films to come out of European this year for its best European film category, with the directors of the five films also all nominated in the best European director category. The five films also dominate the acting and screenwriting categories.

Three of the best European film nominees world premiered at Cannes. Justine Triet’s Palme d...

Jonathan Glazer’s harrowing Holocaust drama The Zone of Interest leads the nominations for this year’s European Film Awards (EFAs), picking up five nominations, including for best film and best director, in nominations announced via video on Tuesday.

Zone of Interest, the U.K. official entry for the 2024 Oscars in the best international feature category, also scored Efa nominations for best screenwriter, for Glazer, and best actress and best actor noms for leads Sandra Hüller and Christian Friedel.

Hüller will be competing against herself in the best actress category, having picked up a second Efa nom for her starring role in Justine Triet’s courtroom drama Anatomy of a Fall. The Palme d’Or winner recieved four Efa noms, including for best European Film, best director for Triet and best screenplay for Triet and co-writer Arthur Harari.

Other best European film nominees include Matteo Garrone’s refugee drama Io Capitano from Italy,...

Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest” and Aki Kaurismäki’s “Fallen Leaves” led the European Film Awards race after nominations for the major categories were revealed Tuesday.

The films were nominated in all five major categories – European film, director, screenwriter, actor and actress.

Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall” was close behind with four nominations – film, director, screenwriter and actress.

All three films were prizewinners at Cannes: “The Zone of Interest” took the festival’s Grand Prize, “Fallen Leaves” won the Jury Prize, and “Anatomy of a Fall” was the Palme d’Or winner.

Agnieszka Holland’s “Green Border,” the Special Jury Prize winner at Venice, took three nominations – film, director and screenwriter.

“Me Captain,” Venice’s best director winner, and “The Teachers’ Lounge” each nabbed two nominations.

“Afire,” “Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry,” “How to Have Sex,” “La Chimera” and “The Promised Land” took one nomination each in major categories.

‘Festival within a festival’ opens with Anna Buryachkova’s Venice’s Orizzonti Extra title Forever-Forever

The Molodist Kyiv International Film Festival is returning to the Filmfest Hamburg for the second year running as a “festival within a festival” to present its national competition of Ukrainian feature films.

The competition line-up opens on October 2 with Anna Buryachkova’s Venice’s Orizzonti Extra title Forever-Forever.

The line-up also includes Tonia Noyabrova’s Berlinale’s Panorama film Do You Love Me?, Christina Tynkevych’s How Is Katia, which played in Locarno’s Filmmakers of the Present last year, Philip Sotnychenko’s Rotterdam and San Sebastian title La Palisiada,...

The strand is free of style or length constraints.

Films from Jean-Luc Godard, Delphine Girard and Bas Devos will screen in San Sebastian International Film Festival’s Zabaltegi-Tabakalera, a strand of the festival free of style or length constraints.

Godard’s posthumous short film Trailer Of The Film That Will Never Exist: ‘Phony Wars’, which premiered in Cannes, will open the strand alongside Yui Kiyohara’s debut Remerging Every Night which first screened at Berlinale.

Girard’s debut Through The Night is developed from her Oscar-nominated short A Sister (2020) and will premiere at Venice before heading to San Sebastian.

The...

Other prize winners included Philip Sotnychenko’s ’La Palisiada’ and Vladimir Perisic’s ’Lost Country’.

Elene Naveriani’s Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry was the big winner at the Sarajevo film festival’s awards ceremony on Friday (August 18), taking home prizes for best feature and best actress for Ekaterine Chavleishvili.

Scroll down for list of key winners

The Georgia-set romantic drama premiered in Directors’ Fortnight, and stars Chavleishvili as a prickly, self-sufficient woman whose life changes after she narrowly escapes a fatal accident. Totem are handling international sales.

Philip Sotnychenko won the €10,000 best director prize for Ukrainian cop thriller La Palisiada, which premiered at Rotterdam.

Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry, Elene Naveriani’s Georgian drama about a 40-something independent woman who has an affair that triggers an existential awakening, has won the top prize for best film at the 2023 Sarajevo International Film Festival.

Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry star Ekaterine Chavleishvili also took the best actress honor at the Heart of Sarajevo awards, which were handed out in the Bosnian capital Friday night.

The best actor prize went to newcomer Jovan Ginic for his role in Vladimir Perisic’s Lost Country as a Serbian teenager in the 1990s, caught between student protests against the authoritarian regime of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and his loyalty to his mother, who happens to be the spokeswoman for the regime.

Ukrainian filmmaker Philip Sotnychenko won best director for La Palisiada, a slow-burning crime drama about two old friends, a police detective and a forensic psychiatrist, who investigate the murder of their colleague in...

Georgian filmmaker Elene Naveriani clinched the Best Feature Award in the main international competition of the 29th Sarajevo Film Festival with her latest pic Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry. The award comes with a €16,000 cash prize.

The film also picked up the Best Actress award for Ekaterine Chavleishvili, which comes with a €2,500 cash prize. Overall, eleven films battled it out in the main competition, and Mia Wasikowska’s jury—including MoMA Film Head Josh Siegel, actor Zlatko Burić, actress Danica Ćurčić, and director Juraj Lerotić, spread the love quite widely.

The Ukrainian pic La Palisiada won the Best Director Award for Philip Sotnychenko, while Jovan Ginić won the Best Actor prize for the Serbian film Lost Country. In the festival’s documentary section, the top prize went to Bottlemen by Slovenian director Nemanja Vojinović.

Check out the full list of winners below:

Honorary Heart of Sarajevo

Mark Cousins, director and screenwriter

Lynne Ramsay,...

Elene Naveriani’s “Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry” won the top prize, the Heart of Sarajevo Award for best feature film, Friday at the Sarajevo Film Festival. The Georgian film, in which a stoically independent woman in her late 40s experiences a gentle existential awakening during an affair with a local deliveryman, also won the best actress prize for Ekaterine Chavleishvili’s performance.

The award for best director went to Ukraine’s Philip Sotnychenko for “La Palisiada,” and the best actor prize was picked up by Serbia’s Jovan Ginić — who won the Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award at Cannes — for “Lost Country.” Serbian director Nemanja Vojinović’s “Bottlemen” took the documentary film award.

The awards were given by a jury headed by actor Mia Wasikowska (“Club Zero”), which included Danish-Croatian actor Zlatko Burić (“Triangle of Sadness”), Serbian-Danish actor Danica Ćurčić (“The Chestnut Man”), Museum of Modern Art Department of Film...

The Sarajevo Film Festival has unveiled its official selection for this year’s edition, with Elene Naveriani’s Cannes Directors’ Fortnight title Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry among the titles playing in Competition.

A total of 49 films will compete for the Heart of Sarajevo awards. The Festival’s four competition sections – feature, documentary, short, and student film – will feature 22 world, two international, 22 regional, and three national premieres.

Additional titles featured in the main competition program include Animal by Greek filmmaker Sofia Exarchou, Tigru by Andrei Tănase, and the Turkish series Rumi from producers Ahmet Okur, Kerim Ayyildiz, and director Can Ulkaj playing as a special screening.

The festival said Creative Director Izeta Građević saw 935 films submitted for consideration, including 200 feature fiction films, 235 documentaries, 500 shorts, and student titles.

The Sarajevo Film Festival competition programme is open for films and filmmakers from Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Georgia, Hungary, Kosovo*, North Macedonia,...

Submissions to the competition sections up 23% for this year’s festival.

Sudabeh Mortezai’s Europa is one of 10 feature world premieres set to screen in competition at the Sarajevo Film Festival next month (August 11-18).

Europa is the fifth feature from Austrian-Iranian filmmaker Mortezai, and follows an ambitious executive working at a mysterious corporation looking to expand into the Balkans. Mortezai’s previous feature Joy debuted at Venice in 2018; while her 2014 title Macondo premiered at the Berlinale.

Five of the 10 titles in the feature film competition are directed by women. Also having its world premiere in the feature film competition...

Producer Of Disney+’s ‘A Thousand Blows’ Staffs Up

Fifth Season-backed London indie The Story Collective is gearing up for buzzy Disney+ drama A Thousand Blows (Wt) by staffing up. Elouise West has joined as Head of Commercial, Legal and Business Affairs from Des producer New Pictures and Ceci Mazzarella signed on as Head of Development from Operation Mincemeat maker See-Saw Films. The Story Collective’s debut scripted project, A Thousand Blows, comes from Peaky Blinders writer Stephen Knight and has a cast including Stephen Graham (The Virtues), Malachi Kirby (Small Axe) and Erin Doherty (The Crown).

Juliette Hagopian Launches Film Studio In Canada

Canadian film producer Juliette Hagopian has launched the development of a new film and television studio named Jette Studios in the Manitoba province of Canada. The project will be operated and owned by Hagopian’s company Julijette Inc. alongside production house Volume Global, with a C$30M ($21.9M) investment.

The European industry has created support initiatives, including for funding, co-production and raising awareness.

How do you keep an industry going when your cities are being bombed, some of your leading directors are fighting on the front line and your local sources of funding have dried up?

This is the question Ukrainian filmmakers have been asking themselves over the last 12 months, since the full-scale invasion by Russia on February 24th, 2022.

To the outside eye, it may seem the industry is doing remarkably well. From Pamfir and Butterfly Vision in Cannes last year to Iron Butterflies and 20 Days In Mariupol in Sundance,...

Political dramas and documentaries were the big winners at this year’s International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), as socially relevant features from Africa, Sri Lanka and the Middle East came away with the top honors.

Cyrielle Raingou’s Le Spectre De Boko Haram, a documentary that follows a group of children living in the far north region of Cameroon whose lives are overshadowed by the threat of Islamist terrorist organisation Boko Haram, won the main prize, the 2023 Tiger Award, which comes with 43,000 (€40,000) in prize money, announced at a gala ceremony in Rotterdam on Friday night.

Endless Borders, a minimalist thriller from Iranian director Abbas Amini, the story of an exiled Iranian teacher living in a border village between Iran and Afghanistan, won the IFFR’s Big Screen Award for best film in the IFFR’s main sidebar section.

The award came just hours after dissident Iranian director Jafar Panahi was released from prison in Iran,...

Cyrielle Raingou’s documentary “Le Spectre de Boko Haram” won the Tiger Award, the top prize of the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Friday. The film follows a group of children in the north of Cameroon, an area dominated by the terrorist organization Boko Haram. Raingou is from the area herself.

“When I received this unforgettable call, I started crying. I couldn’t believe it. This recognition means the world to me and my people,” Raingou said on a video message played during the awards ceremony.

The jury deemed Raingou’s feature debut “a story that centers on its filmmakers’ patient and honest gaze on the hovering presence of violence, seen through the eyes of innocents.”

The Tiger Award, which aims to “raise the profile of and reward up-and-coming international film talent,” is accompanied by a €40,000 cash prize, to be shared between the film’s director and producer. This year’s...

Visakesa Chandrasekaram’s ’Munnel’ and Artemis Shaw and Prashanth Kamalakanthan’s ‘New Strains’ also won awards.

Cyrielle Raingou’s Le Spectre De Boko Haram has triumphed at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), taking home the main prize, the €40,000 Tiger award, at the ceremony which unfolded tonight (February 3), held in-person for the first time since 2020.

Scroll down for the full list of winners

Raingou’s debut feature is a documentary following a group of children living under the threat of terrorist organisation Boko Haram in the far north region of Cameroon – the region Raingou herself is from.

The winner was...

Rachel Wolther, Alex H. Fischer to direct from 2018 Blacklist screenplay.

Octavia Spencer, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Lucy Liu are attached to star in the comedy Nobody Nothing Nowhere, which The Exchange is introducing to EFM buyers in Berlin this month.

Rachel Wolther and Alex H. Fischer will direct from their 2018 Blacklist and Sundance Screenwriter Labs original screenplay about Ruth, one of the Non-People, human-looking beings designed and trained for the sole purpose of filling in a realistic world for a bland guy named Dave, the only person that actually exists on Earth.

Tired of serving as an extra in someone else’s life,...

The producers hail from Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands and Canada.

Four innovative rising producers from Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands and Canada have been selected for the inaugural ’Port of Production’ residency programme.

They are: Danielle Guirguis of the Netherlands’ Smart House Creative Impact Studio, whose Number Eighteen is playing in the Tiger Competition at this year’s Rotterdam festival; Mette Mikkelsen of Denmakr’s New Tales, Patricia Bergeron of Canada’s Production Leitmotiv; and Fabian Driehorst of Germany’s Fabien&Fred.

The programme has been created and backed by Hamburg’s regional film fund Moin, the Danish Film Institute, National Film School of Denmark,...

The director’s film ’Killing A Traitor’ is playing in the Harbour strand.

Iranian director, screenwriter and producer Masoud Kimiai has been prevented from travelling to International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) from Iran owing to his support of the protests currently happening in the country.

Kimiai was due to attend IFFR where his title Killing A Traitor is receiving its international premiere in the festival’s Harbour strand.

IFFR festival director Vanja Kaludjercic confirmed the reason for Kimiai’s lack of attendance yesterday (January 31) at a talk held by the International Coalition for Filmmakers At Risk (Icfr). She said: “Masoud...

Awards handed out to projects in 40th anniversary edition of CineMart.

Italy-France co-production Heads Or Tails (Testa o Croce)? and Ukrainian title Consider Vera were the major winners at Rotterdam’s IFFR Pro industry awards recognising projects from International Film Festival Rotterdam’s co-production market, CineMart.

The co-production market marks its 40th anniversary this year and hosted 20 features and five immersive projects. Itd ran from January 29 to February 1.

Heads Or Tails? from Italian-American directors Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis took home the Eurimages Co-production Development Award of €20,000. It is produced by Ring Film and Shellac Sud and follows...

Goteborg will screen nearly 250 films in 700 screenings, making it the largest film festival in Scandinavia.

The 46th Goteborg Film Festival (Jan 27-Feb 5) will kick off with the world premiere of Exodus, directed by Abbe Hassan, about a smuggler who tries to save a Syrian girl; the closing film will be Camino, directed by Birgitte Stærmose, about a 30-year-old woman on a long hike with her father to honour her mother’s last wish.

Goteborg will screen nearly 250 films in 700 screenings, making it the largest film festival in Scandinavia.

About 50 of the films – including all in the International Competition – will be...

The Göteborg Film Festival has unveiled the competition titles selected for its 46th edition, which runs from January 27 – February 5. (Scroll down for the full list).

Göteborg is split into four competition strands. The main strand is the Nordic Competition, which features nine films from the Nordic region. The competition’s winner takes home the Dragon Award and a Sek 400 000 cash prize. The rest of the festival comprises the Nordic Documentary Competition, the Ingmar Bergman Competition for first-time filmmakers, and the International Competition.

Among the Nordic highlights is Swedish filmmaker Isabella Carbonell’s thriller Dogborn, starring Swedish rap star Silvana Imam. The pic debuted at Venice last year and follows two homeless twins and their struggle to survive. Hlynur Pálmason’s well-received period piece Godland also screens in competition. Set in the late 19th Century, the drama revolves around a young Danish priest who travels to a remote part of...

Following the lineups from Slamdance and Sundance, an early look at 2023 in cinema has come into further focus with the announcement of the competition lineup for the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Taking place January 25 through February 5, the festival will open with Henrik Martin Dahlsbakken’s Munch, an experimental biopic of Norwegian painter Edvard Munch. Along with the Tiger and Big Screen competition, seen below, the festival will also Steve McQueen’s latest artwork Sunshine State, a two-channel video projection.

Check out the lineup below via THR.

Opening Film

Munch, dir. Henrik Martin Dahlsbakken

Tiger Competition

100 Seasons, dir. Giovanni Bucchieri

Gagaland, dir. Teng Yuhan

Geology of Separation, dirs. Yosr Gasmi, Mauro Mazzocchi

Indivision, dir. Leïla Kilani

Letzter Abend, dir. Lukas Nathrath

Mannvirki, dir. Gústav Geir Bollason

Munnel, dir. Visakesa Chandrasekaram

New Strains, dir. Artemis Shaw, Prashanth Kamalakanthan

Notas sobre un verano, dir. Diego Llorente

Numb, dir. Amir Toodehroosta

Nummer achttien, dir.

Munch.International Film Festival Rotterdam have announced the lineup for their 52nd edition, which will take place between January 25 through February 5. The festival will be held in-person for the first time since 2020.Opening FILMMunch (Henrik Martin Dahlsbakken)Tiger COMPETITION100 årstider (Giovanni Bucchieri)Gagaland (Teng Yuhan)Geology of SeparationIndivision (Leïla Kilani)Letzter Abend (Lukas Nathrath)Mannvirki (Gústav Geir Bollason)Munnel (Visakesa Chandrasekaram)New StrainsNotas sobre un verano (Diego Llorente)Numb (Amir Toodehroosta)Nummer achttien (Guido van der Werve)La Palisiada (Philip Sotnychenko)Playland (Georden West)Le spectre de Boko Haram (Cyrielle Raingou)Thiiird (Karim Kassem)three sparks (Naomi Uman)Big Screen COMPETITIONAvant l’effondrementBefore the Buzzards Arrive (Jonás N. Díaz)Copenhagen Does Not Exist (Martin Skovbjerg)Drawing LotsEndless Borders (Abbas Amini)Le formiche di Mida (Edgar Honetschläger)Four Little Adults (Selma Vilhunen)La hembrita (Laura Amelia Guzmán Conde)Joram (Devashish Makhija)Luka (Jessica Woodworth)My Little Nighttime Secret (Natalya Meshchaninova...

It will be artistic director Vanja Kaludjercic’s first full physical event since being appointed three years ago.

Norwegian director Henrik Martin Dahlsbakken’s Munch will open the 2023 International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), taking place from January 25-February 5 in the Netherlands. It is the first in-person festival following two online pandemic events and the first physical one for festival director Vanja Kaludjercic since taking over from Bero Beyer after the 2020 event.

Munch, which will screen out of competition, explores the life of the tortured Norwegian artist, celebrated for his painting of ‘The Scream’, and who endured mental turmoil throughout his life.

This year’s International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) has unveiled the 16 films selected for its flagship Tiger Competition. Scroll down for the full list.

As always, the competition selection is a global affair, with features from Sweeden to Sri Lanka. The 2023 jury will grant three prizes: the Tiger Award, plus two special jury awards. On the jury are: Alonso Díaz de la Vega, Anisia Uzeyman, Christine Vachon, Lav Diaz, and Sabrina Baracetti.

Running from January 25 to February 5, the fest is set to return for its first full-scale physical edition since the pandemic. The event will open with Munch, an experimental feature biopic of the Norwegian expressionist painter Edvard Munch by Henrik Martin Dahlsbakken (Returning Home).

The honorary Robby Müller Award will go to French cinematographer Hélène Louvart. Louvart is best known for her work with Claire Denis, including the 1999 classic Beau Travail. Louvart has also worked with directors such as Wim Wenders,...

International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) will open on Jan. 25 with “Munch,” Henrik Martin Dahlsbakken’s take on the Norwegian artist behind “The Scream.”

“Bringing to life the inner world of such a complex character has been a very rewarding experience. We are thrilled to show audiences what inspired [Edvard] Munch and what kept his inner flame alive,” noted the helmer.

Produced by The Film Company and sold internationally by Viaplay Content Distribution, it will premiere in Norwegian cinemas on Jan. 27 and on Viaplay on March 24.

IFFR, set to return for its first full-scale physical edition since the pandemic, will present 16 films in its flagship Tiger Competition. Jurors Sabrina Baracetti, Lav Diaz, Anisia Uzeyman, Christine Vachon and Alonso Díaz de la Vega will grant three prizes: the Tiger Award, worth €40,000, and two Special Jury Awards, worth €10,000 each.

Ukraine’s Philip Sotnychenko “La Palisiada,” “New Strains” by Artemis Shaw and Prashanth Kamalakanthan, and...

Venice will announce its competition at the end of July.

Everyone hoping to go to the Venice Film Festival should sort their accommodation soon as Netflix is understood to be booking plenty of Lido digs in anticipation of another bumper festival.

Leading the Netflix charge are likely to be Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Mexico-set comedy Bardo and Noah Bambauch’s White Noise starring Greta Gerwig and Adam Driver. Sally El Hosaini’s Syrian refugee story The Swimmers, and Sebastian Lelio’s Ireland-set The Wonder, with Florence Pugh.

Pugh also stars in Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling with Harry Styles for Warner Bros,...

Ukrainian industry players gathered in Cannes are determined to show they can provide a variety of new content, as well as stories that look beyond the current Russian invasion.

“I have been repeating this since 2014 — it’s a trap to be only associated with war,” says producer Julia Sinkevych, now behind Marysia Nikitiuk’s upcoming feature “Lucky Girl.”

Presented at the Cannes Market as part of the Ukrainian Features Preview, it shows a successful TV star who has everything, until she is diagnosed with cancer.

As noted by Ukrainian Institute’s Natalie Movshovych, several projects focus on the 1990s, including “When We Were 15” — awarded at Meeting Point Vilnius in April — “Do You Love Me?” by Tonia Noyabriova, Philip Sotnychenko’s “Lapalissade” and “Rock. Paper. Grenade” by Iryna Tsilyk, also behind festival favorite “The Earth Is Blue as an Orange.”

“We have to show as much range as we can now.

Butterfly Vision (completed)

Director: Maksym Nakonechnyi

Producers: Darya Bassel, Yelizaveta Smith

Production: Tabor Productions, 4 Film, Masterfilm, Sisyfos

Sales: Wild Bunch

Lilia, held as a prisoner of war for months, finally returns home. But she is struggling to resume her life as a soldier and wife, while discovering she is pregnant.

Chrysanthemum Day

Director: Simon Mozgovyi

Producers: Alex Chepiga, Artem Koliubaiev

Production: Mainstream Pictures

Young doctor encounters an old woman, known as a healer, who mysteriously survives a nuclear explosion. But she loses her memory and identity along the way.

Company of Steel (documentary)

Director: Yuliia Hontaruk

Producers: Yuliia Hontaruk, Ivanna Khitsinska, Alexandra Bratyshchenko, Uldis Cekulis, Igor Savychenko

Production: Babylon’13, Directory Films

Three veterans return home and try to understand how to live as civilians. The film is an attempt to feel and see the world through the eyes of people who went through war.

Demons

Director: Natalya Vorozhbyt

Producers: Dmytro Minzianov,...

The Cannes Film Marché has unveiled the full lineup of its Ukraine in Focus program which will provide Ukrainian filmmakers and producers with networking, pitching and co-financing opportunities over two days during the Cannes Film Festival, on May 21 and 22.

Under the program, key market initiatives such as Goes to Cannes, Cannes Docs Showcase and the Producers Network will be skewed towards projects and executives from Ukraine in order to support the country which was invaded by Russia on Feb. 24 and has been at war since then. Deadline first reported the news that Cannes was planning a focus on Ukraine program.

The Producers’ Network, organized in collaboration with the Ukrainian Institute, will include six producers, including Denis Ivanov from Arthouse Traffic, Darya Bassel from Moon Man, Natalia Libet from Digital Religion, Sashko Chubko from Pronto Film, Olga Beskhmelnytsina from Esse Production House and Vladimir Yatsenko from ForeFilms.

Docs in Progress, presented...

Goteborg Film Festival has unveiled the first post-production grantees from its new film fund.

Sweden’s Goteborg Film Festival has unveiled the first three features to benefit from a new film fund, created to support cultural expression in areas of the world threatened by economic or political instability.

At a presentation in Cannes, Goteborg Film Fund manager Camilla Larsson and Goteborg Film Festival artistic director Jonas Holmberg announced the titles that would receive post-production grants of $40,000 each. They include:

La Palisiada, directed by Ukraine’s Philip Sotnychenko and produced by Sashko Chubko, Valeria Sochyvets and Halyna Kryvorchuk, which explores a...