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The initiative will run on private investment, potentially in a reduced form.

Fred at School, the initiative run by Fred Film Radio designed to help educate secondary school children in film literacy, will go ahead in its second year despite having its funding from Creative Europe pulled.

Speaking to ScreenDaily, Fred Film Radio founder Federico Spoletti said: “We are struggling, Creative Europe didn’t confirm the grant for next year, but we are working hard to keep the project alive.”

Taking place between January and May 2015, the first edition of Fred at School involved students in eight countries (the UK, Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Croatia, Romania and Iceland) watching four European films selected from previous editions of the Lux Prize and then providing critical responses on Fred Film Radio.

Last year, Creative Europe provided 60% of the project’s funding as part of its Audience Development/Film Literacy initiative, this year they have rejected Fred’s application for backing...

Exclusive: Talks underway for a new European Audience Prize.

The European Commission (EC) has dropped its Media Prize, presented during the Cannes Film Festival since 2012.

The Prize had been awarded by a jury of independent experts, the EC and the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (Eacea) to the best project with box office potential from applications submitted for Media development support.

The prize has previously gone to Asghar Farhadi’s The Past, which played in Competition in Cannes a year later in 2013; Thomas Vinterberg for his project The Commune; and Bosnian director Danis Tanović for What Are You Looking At?.

But despite discontinuing the award, there are talks underway with the European Parliament and European Film Academy to replace the prize with a new audience award.

Speaking exclusively to Screen Daily, an EC official said: “The European Commission considers that a unique European film prize, able to build on a more active participation of the European...

English-language thriller set on French Riviera in the 1950s due to shoot July 2015.

Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz’s upcoming thriller The Beauty of Sharks was one of the hot projects at the inaugural edition of the Paris Coproduction Village, which unfolded off the French capital’s Champs Elysees last week.

Two French buyers were rumoured to be circling the thriller about a group of Us expatriate hustlers living on the French Riviera, who are trying to get a piece of an elderly socialite’s millions.

It is based on an original screenplay by UK writer Rob Green who recently worked on Billy O’Brien’s horror romance Scintilla.

The feature is produced by Filip Jan Rymsza of Royal Road Entertainment, which is based out of Los Angeles with satellite offices in New York and Luxembourg. Rymsza, who has a dual Us and Polish nationality, also takes a co-writing credit.

“The plan is to raise finance both out...

Rome-based sales company Adriana Chiesa Enterprises (Ace) will launch sales on Roberto Faenza’s English-language Anita B., about a young Auschwitz survivor trying to re-build her life after the war, at the Efm.

Eline Powell, who got her big screen break in Dustin Hoffman’s Quartet, plays Anita opposite Robert Sheehan, as a young man with whom she embarks on a passionate affair.

Rising star Sheehan, best known for his roles in TV series Misfits and fantasy feature The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, is also set to star in Tiago Mesquita’s Caesar and Gren Wells’ The World Within this year.

Life is Beautiful producer Elda Ferri of Jean Vigo Italia and Luigi Musini of Cinema Undici co-produced the film.

Ace is handling all international rights except for the Us. The picture’s Us co-producer Ron Stein of Four of a Kind Productions is handling North America rights. Stein also co-produced Faenza’s last film Someday This Pain Will Be Useful To You...

★★★★☆ Italian documentarian Andrea Segre's debut feature about the exploitation of immigrant workers in his native country, Shun Li and the Poet (2011), packs an undeniably powerful punch. A young, unmarried Chinese woman, Shun Li (Tao Zhao), is in debt to the men who arranged and paid for her travel to Rome. Li is effectively enslaved; she works for free, lives in cramped quarters and endures long hours in a textile factory while waiting for the news that will reunite her with her eight-year-old son. Things begin to look up for Li when she is sent to work in a bar on Chioggia, a small island situated in the Veneto lagoon.

Li is quickly befriended by one of the bar regulars, Bepi (Rade Serbedzija), a Yugoslavian fisherman nicknamed 'The Poet' because of his love of rhyme. Bepi has recently lost his wife and is about to retire. Yet, despite having lived...

Valeria Golino’s Un Certain Regard selected Miele, Felix Van Groeningen’s Berlin Film Fest entry The Broken Circle Breakdown and Clio Barnard’s Directors’ Fortnight selected The Selfish Giant are the remaining three selections for the 2013 edition of the Lux Prize (the top ten was once again announced at Karlovy Vary this year). Promoting break-thru Euro cinema with film narratives that “illustrate the diversity of European traditions, shed light on the process of European integration and provide insights into the building of Europe“, the annual Lux Prize Official Selection which nominates ten films (the 17 member selection panel which includes Karlovy Vary’s Karel Och and former Directors’ Fortnight head-honcho Olivier Père) and then dwindles down the process to a vulnerable three, before crowning one winner in the final month of the calender year, has been awarding the prize since 2007 with winners that include the originally titled: Io sono Li...

Keeping the walking dead off the top spot and dominating the box office for a second week? That looks like a job for Superman

The winner

Topping the chart for a second week in a row, Man of Steel is only the second film this year to reach £20m after just two weekends of play. Les Miserables, the top-grosser for the year with £40.65m, stood at £17.36 at this stage of its run. Iron Man 3 reached £24.57m after two weekends, an 11-day figure. Man of Steel is behind the pace of the summer's top earner, with £21.33m so far. That's already nearly £5m ahead of the lifetime total for Superman Returns, which maxed out here with £16.4m. It's a similar amount ahead of Man of Steel producer Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins, which reached £16.6m in total.

Man of Steel suffered a second-weekend drop of 55%, which compares unfavorably with the...

World War Z | Before Midnight | Spike Island | Fire In The Night | Like Someone In Love | Snitch | I Am Nasrine | The Seasoning House | Shun Li and The Poet | Black Rock | I Am Breathing | A Haunted House

World War Z (15)

(Marc Forster, 2013, Us/Mal) Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos, James Badge Dale. 116 mins

In the end, the much-reported delays, reshoots and overspend have at least resulted in a watchable disaster epic, even if this brings little to the zombie apocalypse party save for a huge guest list. Forster's film finds Pitt pitted against insect-like hordes of the sprinting dead, as his Un agent trots round the globe trying to trace the source of the epidemic, save his family and avoid getting chomped. Mild spoiler alert: blame Wales.

Before Midnight (15)

(Richard Linklater, 2013, Us) Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy, Walter Lassally. 109 mins

A satisfying return for the comfortable screen couple, now together but burdened by history,...

★★★★☆ Averting his gaze from the picturesque yet familiar refinement of Venice, Italian director Andrea Segre has discovered a more subtle beauty in the neighbouring fishing village of Chioggia. After several years spent as a documentary filmmaker, the Italian has now turned his hand to narrative features with serenely paced debut Shun Li and the Poet (Io sono Li, 2011). With the ever-present lagoon serving as a tonal touchstone, themes of immigration, prejudice and loneliness are deftly navigated by Segre and his impressive cast, whilst great care is also taken to steer clear of the grittier course a film such as this might typically follow.

Rather than tackling broader social issues head on, Segre's atmospheric tale focuses on the minutiae of a burgeoning relationship between two outsiders, Li (Tao Zhao) and Bepi (Rade Serbedzija). Li arrives in Chioggia at the behest of her employers to whom she is effectively indentured. That is...

In merely a coincidental set of circumstances, Andrea Segre’s Shun Li and the Poet arrives in UK cinemas on the very same day as Like Someone in Love – as two completely separate films that both focus in on the tale of an oriental woman, building the unlikeliest of platonic relationships with a man twice her age. However unlike the Abbas Kiarostami production, Shun Li and the Poet is a somewhat blander, more conventional depiction of such a story – though matches the aforementioned title in sincerity and sentiment.

Set on a small island in the Veneto lagoon, we follow Shun Li (Tao Zhao), a thirty something immigrant from China who takes a job at a local bar to raise enough funds to ensure her 8-year-old son can soon join her. Feeling isolated in this foreign land, she befriends the ageing fisherman Bepi (Rade Serbedzija), who, although having lived in Italy for 30 years,...

Day six of the 21st Annual Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival is upon us!

Sliff’s main venues are the the Hi-Pointe Theatre, Tivoli Theatre, Plaza Frontenac Cinema, Webster University’s Winifred Moore Auditorium, Washington University’s Brown Hall Auditorium and the Wildey Theatre in Edwardsville, Il

The entire schedule for the 21st Annual Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival be found Here.

http://cinemastlouis.org/sliff-2012

Here is what will be screening at The 21st Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival today, Tuesday, November 13th

Band Of Sisters

Band Of Sisters plays at 5:00pm at the Tivoli Theatre

nspired by Vatican II (a 1962-65 council of Catholic bishops) and the great social movements of the 1960s and .70s, U.S. nuns left their convents, found their mission with the poor, and grew in their spirituality . often to the chagrin of the Vatican hierarchy. Against this backdrop, .Band...

Last night was the kick-off with just one film, Silver Linings Playbook, but today the real meat of the fest is served with films screening all day and all evening. Sliff’s main venues are the the Hi-Pointe Theatre, Tivoli Theatre, Plaza Frontenac Cinema, Webster University’s Winifred Moore Auditorium, Washington University’s Brown Hall Auditorium and the Wildey Theatre in Edwardsville, Il

The entire schedule for the 21st Annual Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival be found Here.

http://cinemastlouis.org/sliff-2012

Here is what will be screening at The 21st Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival today, Friday, November 9th

Chained plays 7:00pm at the Tivoli Theatre with director Jennifer Lynch in attendance (read the Wamg interview with Ms Lynch Here

At the end of an afternoon excursion, Sarah Fiddler and her young son step into a taxi to head home. They never get there. The cab...

Best European Film Amour (Love) Austria/France/Germany, 127 min Written & directed by Michael Haneke Produced by Margaret Menegoz, Stefan Arndt, Veit Heiduschka & Michael Katz Barbara Germany, 105 min Written & directed by Christian Petzold Produced by Florian Koerner von Gustorf & Michael Weber Cesare Deve Morire (Caesar Must Die) Italy, 76 min Directed by Paolo & Vittorio Taviani Written by Paolo & Vittorio Taviani, in collaboration with Fabio Cavalli Produced by Grazia Volpi Intouchables (Untouchable) France, 108 min Written & directed by Olivier Nakache & Eric Toledano Produced by Nicolas Duval Adassovsky, Yann Zenou & Laurent Zeitoun Jagten (The Hunt) Denmark, 111 min Directed by Thomas Vinterberg Written by Thomas Vinterberg & Tobias Lindholm Produced by Morten Kaufmann & Sisse Graum Jørgensen Shame UK, 96 min Directed by Steve McQueen Written by Steve McQueen & Abi Morgan Produced by Iain Canning & Emile Sherman European Director 2012: Nuri Bilge Ceylan for B?R Zamanlar Anadolu’Da (Once Upon a Time in Anatolia) Michael Haneke for Amour...

Director Marco Tulio Giordana's Romanzo Di Una Strage has landed 16 nominations for Italy's David di Donatello Awards just two weeks after the film's release.

The stirring movie, which chronicles the 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing, picked up Best Film, Best Director and Best Producer nods, while leading man Valerio Mastandrea was nominated among the Best Actor hopefuls.

The film was released in Italy on 30 March to huge national acclaim.

Close behind Giordana's film among the nominees announced on Thursday, were Nanni Moretti's comedy Habemus Papam (15 nods) and Paolo Sorrentino’s This Must Be the Place (14 nods), which features Sean Penn as a fallen rock star.

Also up for Best Film: Cesare deve moriere and Terraferma, while Mastandrea will fight it out with Frenchman Michel Piccoli (Habemus Papam), Elio Germano (Magnifica presenza), Fabrizio Bentivoglio (Scialla!) and Marco Giallini (Posti in piedi in paradiso) for the Best Actor award.

The Best Actress nominees are: Donatella Finocchiaro (Terraferma), Micaela Ramazzoti (Posti in piedi in paradiso), Claudia Gerini (Il mio domani), Valeria Golino (La kryptonite nella borsa) and Chinese actress Zhao Tao (Io sono Li).

Roman Polanski’s Carnage, Melancholia, Le Havre, Oscar winner The Artist and Intouchables are all up for the Best European Union film trophy, while Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive, Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, Ides of March, The Tree of Life and Asghar Farhadi’s Best Foreign Film Oscar winner A Separation will compete for the Best Foreign Film prize.

The awards will be announced on 4 May.

Cinema Made In Italy, London

Though we don't get to see that much of it here, Italian cinema is still going strong. This renamed festival shows some of the depth, with new films at Ciné Lumière, and older stuff at the Italian Cultural Institute. The new movies cover some familiar Italian preoccupations: organised crime (boxing thriller Tatanka, from a story by Roberto "Gomorrah" Saviano), family (Kryptonite) and coming of age (Summer Of Giacomo). But there are also new angles on Italian culture, such as Li And The Poet, dealing with a Chinese immigrant in Venice, and sci-fi The Last Man On Earth. Many of the films on show are UK premieres, including Scialla!, and there are films selected by the Corriere della Sera's top critic, TV sporting dramas and a tribute to the late Sicilian documentarian Vittorio De Seta.

Ciné Lumière, SW7, Sat to Thu; Italian Cultural Institute, SW1, Thu to 30 Mar

Flatpack Film Festival,...

Angelina Nikonova's Twilight Portrait Angelina Nikonova's Russian drama Twilight Portrait was given the Reykjavik International Film Festival's Golden Puffin Discovery Award last Saturday, Oct. 1. Twilight Portrait has absolutely nothing to do with vampires or werewolves. Instead, it's a sociopolitical revenge drama set in modern-day Russia. Special jury mentions went to Andrea Segre’s Shun Li and the Poet and Joachim Trier’s psychological drama Oslo, August 31st. Runar Runarsson's family drama Volcano, Iceland's submission for the 2012 Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award, received awards from the International Federation of Film Critics (Fipresci) and the Church of Iceland. The Audience Award went to Aki Kaurismäki's Le Havre, Finland's submission — and a strong contender — for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. Le Havre deals with the issues of immigration and xenophobia in modern Europe. The Reykjavik festival jury was led by actor Ulrich Thomsen (In a Better World,...

Towards the end of his interview on the New York Times Book Review podcast, John Lithgow, whose new memoir, Drama: An Actor's Education, is reviewed by Ada Calhoun, along with Hal Holbrook's Harold: The Boy Who Became Mark Twain, tells Book Review editor Sam Tanenhaus that acting "really only exists while it's happening…. The more that an actor can accommodate himself to the truth that he will eventually be forgotten, the better off he is." Naturally, Tanenhaus asks, "Even film performances?" That's when Lithgow recounts an "appalling moment" from the days when he was working with "my dear young protege," Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who overheard some of the older actors talking on the set of 3rd Rock from the Sun, and asked, "Who's Cary Grant?"

Of course, Gordon-Levitt was young at the time — this would have been well over ten years ago now — but for anyone needing a refresher, do...