To mark the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue (www.interculturaldialogue2008.eu), City Screen Picturehouse Cinemas and the European Commission Representation in the UK will host Common Language (http://www.picturehouses.co.uk/CommonLanguage), a week of Premieres and preview screenings of films from all over Europe. Playing across the country, with introductions by prominent film-makers and actors, many of these films will have only been seen so far at industry festivals while some may only receive a limited UK distribution. Running between May 30th and June 5th, the festival brings an exceptional opportunity to view the best of European film-making.The festival opens on Thursday 29 May with…
Author: Christopher P. Duffy
“Reprise”, the profound and exceptional debut film by Norwegian director Joachim Trier, explores the emotional fluctuations of artistic young men (passion and confusion abound), and in doing so, offers an insightful new perspective on weighty themes—memory, fate, youth, love, and artistic creativity— that have captured the artistic and intellectual imagination of the cinema’s best filmmakers (the film evokes cinema of the French New Wave in particular). “Reprise” begins in Oslo during the summer as we are introduced to two twenty three year old writers, Erik (Espen Klouman Hoiner) and Phillip (Anders Danielsen Lie), who are best friends. The two, looking…
Running every weekend from May 31-September 27, The Rooftop Summer Series will be screening 19 feature films and over 150 short films in 38 screenings at a dozen outdoor locations all over the city. There will be world premieres of daring new independent feature films, and screenings of award-winning short films in exciting, themed programs. All screenings include live music before the films, and most screenings include after-parties with free drinks. SHORT FILMS ONLINE Rooftop Films will be posting 100 short films online at IFC.com, this year with enhanced blogging from the filmmakers, and the opportunity for you to post…
Last Friday, the awards for the 2008 Documenta Madrid International documentary festival were announced. An assessment of the year’s competition was also presented, offering the most diverse films in present day documentary cinema that were brought together in Madrid between May 2 to 11. The documentary “The Mosquito Problem and Other Stories”, by the Bulgarian Andrey Paounov and the British film “Fairytale of Kathmandu” by Neasa Ní Chianáin won the First and Second Prizes of the Jury in the Full-Length Original Documentary category, with monetary awards of 10,000 Euros and 5,000 Euros respectively. In this same category, the Honorary Award…
Starting next month, the 24th International Hamburg ShortFilmFestival (ISFF) will begin its 2008 program with screenings of 300 short films from 40 countries. The ISFF dedicates its yearly program to showcasing films that present challenging ideas and aesthetics, as well as offering profound new perspectives for its audience members. The festival has yet to announce the full lineup of official selections for the 2008 program, however there will be a number of special programs that have been released. They include: Yoffi! Yalla Bye! – Shorts from IsraelThis year, after the recent programs on Iran and Lebanon, the Hamburg ISFF will…
Contemporary Croatian cinema will be featured next week when Croatian Cinema Today (http://www.newcroatiancinema.com/) — a three-day festival sponsored by the American Cinematheque — begins at the Aero Theater in Los Angeles. Five films will be featured during the program, which begins on Friday, May 16th. “The Living and the Dead”, director Kristijan Milic’s adaptation of Josef Mlakic’s anti war novel, will open the program, followed by a Question and Answer session with the filmmaker. The complete schedule of the festival: Double FeatureSaturday, May 17 – 7:30 PM LA Premiere!TRESSETTE: A STORY OF AN ISLAND (TRESETA)2006, 80 min.Dir. Drazen ZarkovicA bittersweet…
Earlier this week the seventh annual Tribeca Film Festival, announced the winners of its competition categories. This year’s Festival included 121 features and 79 short films from 41 countries. The world competition winners were chosen from 12 narrative and 12 documentary features from 18 countries. Two awards were also given to honor New York films, which were chosen from seven narrative and nine documentary features. Awards were also given for the best narrative, best documentary and student visionary films in the Shorts competition. The winner of the Cadillac Award, best film in the festival as determined by audience vote, will…
Earlier this week in Paris Iranian filmmaker Shohreh Jandaghian (Cinema Without Borders German Cinema Editor) was honored with the Best Spiritual Film Award–the top prize of the festival– at the 2008 European Spiritual Film Festival for her film “Der Lachende Hund”. The plot of the film is described as a “world where adults make wars and destroy each other, a little girl is thinking of nice peace [sic] dreams.”In its first year of existence, the European Spiritual Film Festival dedicates itself to showcasing films that focus on themes of spirituality from around the world. The festival took place from March…
Today the sixth Annual Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles (IFFLA) (www.indianfilmfestival.org) announced the winners of last weeks 2008 program. “Amal”, a film by director Richie Mehta, was the winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Best Narrative Feature. Mehta’s film tells the story of Amal, an auto-rickshaw driver in New Delhi whose life changes drastically after he unexpectedly inherits a great deal of wealth. Shivajee Chandrabhushan’s “Frozen” received a Special Mention in the Best Narrative Feature category. Yunus Vally’s “The Glow of White Women” was named as the winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary with Liz…
The struggles of the Karen people, an ethnic minority that has for years faced severe repression in Burma, is explored in a new documentary being released by Choices Video, “Prayer of Peace: Relief and Resistance in Burma’s War Zones”. The Karen people have been forcibly and systematically removed from their homes since 1962, when they opposed a coup by the Burmese Army that saw the end of democratic rule. Many have accused the Burmese Army of ethnic cleansing. The conflict between carried out by the Burmese Army against the Karen continues, leaving thousands of Karen refugees in its wake. “Prayer…