The 12th annual ZagrebDox International Documentary Film Festival has come to a close. With more than 160 films in 17 categories this year has seen a growth in entries. The festival also featured many new technologies on the rise, giving the attendees a chance to participate in virtual reality screenings. Big StampFor best film in International Competition Program‘Poet on a Business Trip’ Directed by Ju AnqiThis poetic, provocative, and beautiful film is awarded for its power and for its skill in connecting the unexpected social truths with exciting presentation of art and of personal issues. Poet on a business trip…
Author: Wyatt Phillips
2016’s Best Foreign Language Film at the 2016 Oscars has been awarded to Son of Saul, the Hungarian nominee this year. Directed by Lazlo Nemes, written by Clara Royer and Lazlo Nemes, and produced by Gabor Rajina, Krisztina Pinter, Judit Stalter and Gabor Sipos. This is the ninth Academy Award nomination for Hungary and it’s second win.Breaking ground tonight, underdog nominee Bear Story took home an Oscar for Best Animated Short, marking the first ever Oscar win for Chile. Directed by Gabriel Osorio, produced by Pato Escala, and written by Daniel Castro and Gabriel Osorio. The story is about a…
Impressed by the Columbian director of the Foreign Film Nominee Embrace of the Serpent, Thunder Road Pictures and Film House Germany have signed Ciro Guerra to direct The Detainee. This will be Guerra’s English-language directing debut.The film will be an adaptation of Peter Liney’s novel of the same name. The dystopian Sci-Fi story goes as follows, “When the fog comes down… the inhabitants of the island tremble: for the punishment satellites – which keep the tyrannical Wastelords at bay – are blind in the darkness, and the islanders become prey. The inhabitants are the old, the sick, the poor: the…
In the wake of its Berlin Film Festival win for the Golden Bear, Gianfranco Rosi’s migrant documentary has negotiated a deal with Kino Lorber for all North American distribution rights. Currently, a fall release is in the works for Kino Lorber. Rosi’s film chronicles the effects of the current migrant crisis on a local Italian Island community, Lampedusa. “The major personalities in “Fire at Sea” are a local doctor and a 12-year-old boy whose ordinary life — he would rather climb the rocks by the shore, play with his slingshot or mooch about the port than going to school —…
The Hong Kong International Film Festival recently released its lineup. Opening night will feature Chongquing Hot Pot, a comedy directed by Yang Quing, and Trivisa, a gangster thriller. Ending the festival will be Creepy, a thriller by horror king Kurosawa Kyoshi.Among the screenings will be a celebration of Jet Tone Films’ 25th anniversary, world-renowned director Wong Kar Wai’s film production company. With fifteen of Jet Tone’s films slated to show between HKIFF competitors, festival attendees will have the opportunity to check out two productions never before screened in Hong Kong, The Grandmaster and Eros: The Hand.“Hungarian filmmaker Bela Tarr, Taiwanese…
Darkness clouds the path. Babies and young children are passed from person to person over treacherous terrain. Specs of light on distant horizons leave the hundreds of scurrying feet with only minor bearings as they flee their warring homeland. We begin the documentary Salam Neighbor with a montage of families emigrating Syria in secret. With this intro, lit only by flashlight and shot handheld, directors Zach Ingrasci and Chris Temple find a way to pull you into the human drama inside the refugee crisis from the get-go. Then through a series of new blurbs, the filmmakers connect themselves to the…
How do we as a people relate to the world around us? In what ways have we ignored or listened to the delicate balance of nature? Embrace of the Serpent takes it’s viewers on a tour de force journey through the heart of the Amazon to find the answers to these very questions. Based on the travel diaries of two scientists who, forty years apart, built a relationship with the same shaman, Karamakate, in search of a mythic healing plant. Throughout the film, a dialogue forms around the differences between the way Amazonian natives and the way white imperialists see…
Over black, Borgman begins with a quote, “and they descended upon the earth to strengthen their ranks.” Prompting us to question, who is this “they,” and what do “they” want? No time to answer, we are thrown into the hunt, a barking dog is let out of it’s cage, lead by two farmers and a priest who head into the woods brandishing shotguns and pikes. Below, a ragged unkempt homeless man wakes in his subterranean lair. He hears the approaching hunters and flees. Above, the hunters hack away at the ground, caving in a canvas of brush to reveal an…