News

Today starts the 16th edition of Ibero-Latin-American Film Festival of Montreal, Festivalissimo, with the Canadian premiere of La Vida De Los Peces (The Life of Fish), by Chilean filmmaker Matías Bize, presented tonight, at Cinema Impérial (1430 de Bleury Street, Montreal).

Right after its opening ceremony, the 16th edition of Festivalissimo will be continuing at Nfb Cinema (1564 St-Denis) with the presentation of major movie premieres of films that have participated to the most important film festivals in the world, such as Cannes, Venice, Locarno, Berlin, Guadalajara and San Sebastián.

During the first days of its new edition, Festivalissimo will therefore host the Canadian premieres of La Mirada Invisible (The Invisible Eye) of Argentinean filmmaker Diego Lerman, presented in 2010 at the Directors Fortnight.

There will also be a screening of Post Mortem, by Pablo Larraín, sacred Best Latin American film at the 2011 Guadalajara Film Festival for its daring and terrifying replay Chilean...

The 3rd annual Migrating Forms is set to run on May 20-29 at the Anthology Film Archives with yet another stunning lineup of current and classic experimental and avant-garde films and videos.

New work includes the U.S. premiere of Melanie Gilligan’s experimental sci-fi feature Popular Unrest for the fest’s Opening Night event. Then, throughout the fest, will be Jacqueline Goss‘ meteorology meditation The Observers, Liu Jiayin’s two-part family drama Oxhide and Oxhide II, Madison Brookshire’s light processing experimentation Color Series, Oliver Laxe’s meta-documentary You Are All Captains for the Closing Night event, and more.

New short works in the group programs include films and videos by Adele Horne, Andrew Lampert, Kevin Jerome Everson, Shana Moulton, Fern Silva, Olga Chernysheva, Dani Leventhal and more.

Classic retrospectives include Brazilian films by Glauber Rocha and French films written by Georges Perec. Electric Arts Intermix presents little-seen personal videos by L.

Migrating Forms has just revealed the full program for its third edition, running May 20 through 29 at Anthology Film Archives in New York. And it's pretty impressive, so we're going to go the quickest route here and reproduce the release below the jump.

Special Events

Georges Perec Double Bill

Serie Noire Dir Alain Corneau (1979)

Georges Perec wrote dialogue made up almost entirely of cliches and aphorisms for this adaptation of Jim Thompson's A Hell of a Woman. "The only Thompson adaptation to truly express the author's deeply personal darkness." - Moving Image Source

Un homme qui dort (The Man Who Slept) Dir. Georges Perec and Bernard Queysanne (1974)

Adapted from Georges Perec's novel of the same name. Structured as a filmic sestina, Perec and Queysanne reimagine the framework of the novel while maintaining much of the original narration (read by Shelly Duvall in the English version!).

The Art of the...

The 16th annual Festivalissimo, the Ibero-Latin-American film festival of Montreal, opens May 18th and runs until June 5 with a selection of thirty films culled from the international festival circuit. The competition for the El Sol prize for best feature film, best actor and actress will open with Matías Bize’s La Vida De Los Peces (The Life of Fish, and closes with Federico Vieroj’s La Vida Util (A Useful Life). In addition to the Official Selection films in competition, Festivalissimo also presents a series of films out of competition which represent Latin-American society of the past and present, and a selection of the most commercially successful films at the Latin American box office.

A few must-see films from this year’s lineup:

La Vida Util (A Useful Life) Federico Vieroj, Uruguay-Spain, 2010

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Synopsis:

After twenty-five years, Cinemateca Uruguaya’s most devoted employee, Jorge (real-life Uruguayan film critic Jorge Jellinek...

Well, after about two weeks, the Cannes Film Festival has just come to a close, and the jury has come in with what they think are the best of the best from this year’s festival.

Jury head Tim Burton and company have come in, and it appears as though they’ve picked some interesting choices. The Palme d’Or went to Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s film Uncle Boonme Who Can Recall His Past Lives. The film beat out Xavier Beauvois’ Of God And Men, with the latter garnering the most buzz as a possible Best Foreign Film Oscar contender this year. Big names have taken home the top acting prizes, with Javier Bardem and Juliette Binoche taking home best actor and actress for Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s polarizing Biutiful and Abbas Kiarostami’s beloved Certified Copy respectfully. The final big award was also quite a shocking pick, as Best Director...

South Korean comedy Hahaha (no, we’re not laughing, that’s the title of the winner!) received the top prize during the Un Certain Regard section of the 63rd annual Cannes Film Festival!

Hahaha

So, Asia picked up its first Cannes honors on Saturday, and director Hong Sangsoo has a lot of reasons to be satisfied. That’s why we’re here today to have a little chat about his interesting project, and to share the rest of winners in this category….

The latest film by Hong Sang-soo is about “old buddies Mun-kyeong and Jung-sik who reunite after a long time. They realize that they both recently travelled to Tongyeong, where they each got involved in a series of romantic mishaps. It turns out however that they crossed paths with the same people”.

Official Hahaha synopsis: Filmmaker Jo Munkyung plans to leave Seoul to live in Canada. So days before his departure,...

Updated through 5/24.

Claire Denis, president of the Un Certain Regard jury (see the Cannes interview) has announced that the top award goes to Hong Sang-soo's Ha Ha Ha. The jury prize goes to October (Octubre), "a first feature by Peruvian brothers Daniel and Diego Vega," reports the Afp. "The movie tells the story of a Lima loan shark who suddenly finds himself saddled with a baby. The best acting prize went to the three actresses who play women who travel to a remote town to do welfare work among the local poor in the Argentinian film Los Labios, by Ivan Fund and Santiago Loza." More on that one below.

There was enormous surprise Sunday evening at the 63rd Cannes Film Festival where the Palme d’Or was awarded to Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s captivating Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. This film was co-produced by the UK, France, Germany and Spain. At 39, the director confirms his original talent previously lauded at Cannes with the Un Certain Regard Prize in 2002 for Blissfully Yours and the Jury Prize in 2004 for Tropical Malady.

With triple success for France and honours for Italy and Spain, Europe is also well-represented in a prize list that was apparently the subject of intense discussions. The Grand Prize went to Of Gods and Men by French director Xavier Beauvois , while his compatriot Juliette Binoche scooped Best Actress for Abbas Kiarostami’s Certified Copy. Mathieu Amalric completes the French haul with Best Director for On Tour (co-produced with Germany).

Best Actor was shared by Spain...

Celebrity Sightings: Lindsay Lohan looking like she's attending a toga party. Mischa Barton looking like a creepy Stepford Wife. Are these signs that Cannes is winding down?

Deals: Another pickup for IFC: Bertrand Tavernier's The Princess of Montpensier.

News: Hong Sangsoo's Ha Ha Ha (pictured) won the top award in the Un Certain Regard section. A special award was also given to Los Labios actresses Adela Sanzhez, Eva Bianco and Victoria Raposo. The first annual Queer Palm award, given to an Lgbt film, goes to Gregg Araki's Kaboom. Director's Fortnight winners include Pieds nus sur les limaces, Illegal, Le Quatro Volte and Vuk, a dog who co-stars in Le Quatro Volte. And the Cinefondation Awards for student works were spread to films from Finland, France, Serbia and the U.S. (Nyu).

International critics awarded Fipresci prizes to Matthieu Amalric's Tournee (On Tour), Pal Adrienn and Todos vos sodes capitans.

With an eye on the original and different and a commitment to heighten awareness of young international talent the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival is a separate competition than the one for the coveted Palme d'Or, but nevertheless it is a part of the festival some cinephiles pay just as much attention to.

This year, South Korean director Hong Sangsoo has picked up the Un Certain Regard award for his film Hahaha. The jury, led by filmmaker Claire Denis, viewed a total of 19 films this year, and awarded the jury prize (essentially the runner-up) to the Peruvian film Octubre, and actresses Adela Sanzhez, Eva Bianco, and Victoria Raposo from the film Ivan Fund received special recognition, as did Santiago Losa's Los Labios.

Hahaha is the story of two South Koreans who serendipitously meet in Canada and during the course of their conversations, realize they've met the...

Hollywoodnews.com: On May 12, the Cannes Film Festival will start its 63rd edition. The president of the jury is Tim Burton and the jury consists of Kate Beckinsale – Actress / United Kingdom, Giovanna Mezzogiorno – Actress / Italy, Alberto Barbera – Director of the National Museum of Cinema / Italy, Emmanuel Carrere – Author – Screenwriter – Director / France, Benicio Del Toro – Actor / Porto Rico,Victor Erice – Director/ Spain, Shekhar Kapur – Director – Actor – Producer / India and Alexandre Desplat – Composer / France.

For this year’s line-up Scroll Down.

Below letter from one of the Cannes Film Festival bosses, Thierry Frémaux:

“As happens every year, the Festival´s programme was launched in January with the announcement of who would be the President of the Jury: Tim Burton! The news, which was unanimously greeted with enthusiasm, put the world of film in a good mood. The choice of Tim Burton to head the next edition of the Festival brings with...

The Festival de Cannes lives up to its name in its selection of its first 16 Competition Films from 13 countries. But an international cry went up when at the first announcement not a single picture was directed by a woman in the Competition area. (Last year there were directors Jane Campion, Isabel Coixet and Andrea Arnold.) However, the Closing Night film was just announced and it is Julie Bertucelli’s The Tree, starring Charlotte Gainsbourg, Marton Csokas and Aden Young. It will close the 63rd Festival de Cannes on Sunday, May 23rd following the Awards Ceremony. Memento is the international sales agent. Contacts for all films are listed below.

The other women invited can be found in the special screening sidebar where Sophie Fiennes' Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow about the German artist Anselm Kiefer, one of five docs chosen to be in the festival, Sabina Guzzanti's Draquila...