Author: Ron Holloway

Ron Holloway was Born 26 November 1933 in Peoria, Illinois. Ph.D.at University of Hamburg (1975). Dissertation on "The Religious Dimension in the Cinema, with particular reference to the films of Carl Theodor Dreyer, Ingmar Bergman, and Robert Bresson" (1975). Co-founded Chicago Center for Film Study (1962) and Cleveland Cinematheque (1980). Journalist, film historian, theater and arts critic. Correspondent for Variety, Hollywood Reporter, Moving Pictures, Financial Times (theatre), Herald Tribune (Eastern Europe), Kinema Canada, journals and newspapers in Europe and the United States. Author of six books on cinema and film history. Documentary filmmaker: Film - Made in Germany (ZDF TV) (1985), Sundance (ZDF TV on Sundance Institute) (1986), Klimov (Channel 4 TV on Russian director Elem Klimov) (1988), Parajanov documentary on Armenian director Sergei Parajanov invited to Venice festival) (1994). Journalist awards: Rockefeller Fellowship, Bundesverdienstkreuz (German Cross of Merit), Polish Rings, Gold Medaille Cannes, American Cinema Foundation Award, and Berlinale Kamera Award (with wife Dorothea Moritz), and Diploma for Support of Russian cinema Based in Berlin, the Holloways publish the journal KINO German Film & International Reports since 1979 and founded the website kino-germanfilm.de.

Hardly a coincidence – just days before the opening of the 40th Hungarian Film Week in Budapest (27 January to 3 February 2009), the Hungarian Parliament voted to amend its film law and bring it in line with European Union regulations. Previously, the Hungarian film law had offered hefty tax rebates to international film productions. Now, state subsidies and tax allowances for films are limited to productions with “appropriate cultural content” – meaning that the focus should be on projects that reflect Hungarian and European customs and values. Preferences, however, are given to producers and directors who had won awards…

Read More

Alone the fact that over 90,000 admission tickets were sold made the 37th Belgrade International Film Festival – FEST (20 February to 1 March 2009) one for the books. Thanks for a roving festival staff headed by Miroljub “Mica” Vukovic, top-quality entries were booked from Europe’s leading film festivals (Cannes, Venice, Locarno): Stephen Daldry’s opening film The Reader (USA/Germany), Clint Eastwood’s Changling (USA) Ron Howard’s Frost / Nixon (USA), Gus Van Sant’s Milk (USA), and Darren Arnofsky’s The Wrestler (USA).The “Horizons” section also included choice European hits: Karen Shakhnazarov’s The Vanished Empire (Russia), Matteo Garrone’s Gomorra (Italy), Paolo Sorrentino’s Il…

Read More

Lonely people, desolate urban landscapes, and moral dilemmas are at the core of Michael Klier’s Alter und Schönheit (Age and Beauty) – as found in all films of his self-styled Berlin cycle, a collection of simple stories with penetrating observations by a genuine auteur with a style and vision to match, each lensed by the same French cinematographer, Sophie Maintigneaux. To some extent, these tales reflect the director’s own wanderlust ways. Born in Karlovy Vary in 1943, Klier was driven out of Czechoslovakia with his family, settled later in the German Democratic Republic, where he once served a prison sentence…

Read More