Browsing: Feature Story

Cinema Without Borders is proud to announce its partnership with Lucas International Festival for Young Film Lovers of Germany and offer GoE Bridging The Borders Award at this amazing film festival. CWB is also a Media Partner of Lucas LUCAS – International Festival for Young Film Lovers, is Germany’s oldest festival for young audiences. To learn more about this festival Yeganeh Taheri, CWB’s German Office Editor sat down with Marie Wolters, Head of Film Literacy and school cooperation at Lucas for a video interview. https://vimeo.com/288668511 LUCAS – International Festival for Young Film Lovers celebrates its 41st edition this year from September 20th…

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Sweden has selected Ali Abbasi’s Cannes winner “Border” as its entry for best foreign-language film at this year’s 91st Academy Awards. The Swedish Film Institute announced the choice Tuesday. Abbasi said he was “overwhelmed” that his film had been selected. “I thought it was impossible to even get to Cannes, but as the film has grown and now is being screened at festivals all over the world, the Oscars [don’t] seem so far away all of a sudden,” said Abbasi, who was born in Iran and educated in Denmark. The film was chosen by the seven members of the Swedish Oscar Committee, which was…

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I had the privilege and honor of meeting Anthony Quinn, a legend and multidimensional artist, in the early ‘90s. I ended up working with him, learning from him and producing one film with him in the middle of that same decade. During the production of Seven Servants, this classic actor and I found much to bond over and the two of us became very close. I became a trustee of sorts for him and he offered me the opportunity to produce his next film. The regular meetings and meals I subsequently had with him, sometimes with his beloved family, resulted…

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The Promise, a powerful and beautiful film by Terry George is now available to watch on DirectTV NOW (Showtime on demand). This is a MUST SEE! At Cinema Without Borders we had the opportunity of talking to the Academy Award winner director of The Promise, Terry George about the process of making it. The Promise happens in 1914. As the Great War looms, the mighty Ottoman Empire is crumbling. Constantinople, the once vibrant, multicultural capital on the shores of the Bosporus, is about to be consumed by chaos. https://youtu.be/vHaxt_FpPvY Michael Boghosian (Oscar Isaac), arrives in the cosmopolitan hub as a…

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MON AMOR, MON AMI(France/Italy ), directed by Adriano Valerio, as the winner of GoE’s 2018 Bridging the Borders Award, presented by Cinema Without Borders at the Palm Springs International ShortFest. This year’s award ceremony festival was held at Grand Ballroom  of Riviera Hotel in Palm Springs. The Editor-in-Chief of CWB, Bijan Tehrani, filmmaker, jury member Susan Morgan Cooper and  Adam Shepherd from GoEnergistics (Award and prize sponsor) presented the award for this year’s GoE Bridging the Borders awardwinner. The winner  received  a cash award of $2500 from our generous sponsors. The 16 nominees for the 2018 GoE Bridging The Borders Award…

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Burbank, CA – May 3rd, 2018: Tonight at the closing ceremony of 2018  SEEfest, (South East European Film Festival LA.), POMEGRANATE ORCHARD, from Azerbaijan, directed by Ilgar Najaf, won GoE Bridging The Borders Award, presented by Cinema Without Borders and sponsored by GoEnergistics. Nominees for the Bridging The Borders Award were: HAWAII, COMIC SANS, ENEMIES, GOGITA’S NEW LIFE, THE GREY WAR, MEN DON’T CRY, THE MARRIAGE, THE MINER, POMEGRANATE ORCHARD, SECRET INGREDIENT and UNWANTED. POMEGRANATE ORCHARD Azerbaijan, 2017, 90’ Director/Producer: Ilgar Najaf Producer: Mushfiq Hatamov Main Cast: Gurban Ismayilov, Samimi Farhad, Ilaha Hasanova Even with the help of his daughter-in-law and grandson, Shamil is too old to take care of his vast and lush pomegranate orchard, which…

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Milos Forman, the celebrated Czech filmmaker, actor, scenarist and teacher, passed away on Saturday, April 14, 2018, at Danbury Hospital, near his home in Warren, Connecticut. He was 86. His twelve feature films were nominated for 33 Academy Awards. Three of these were for Best Director, two of which received the prize: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) and Amadeus (1984). Forman’s tone could be ironic, metaphoric, and allegorical, but his humane observations and subversive touch were the true key to his success. Two of his earliest productions received Oscar nominations for Best Foreign Film, a significant mark of…

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Burbank, CA – April 10, 2018: Cinema Without Borders is proud to present its Bridging The Borders Award for the 10 Consecutive year at the prestigious SEEfest, South East European Film Festival LA. Bridging The Borders Award offered by Cinema Without Borders and sponsored by GoEnergistics, goes to the Best Feature Film screened at SEEfest and for the 13th Edition of the festival it will be announced at the Award Ceremony on May3rd at the Writer’s Guild theater. Jury members for Bridging the Borders Award assigned by SEEfest are: Therese Hayes has programmed films for the Palm Springs International Film…

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Surfing the Facebook page of Kamran Shirdel, a wonderful friend and artist and also pioneer of documentary filmmaking in Iran is always a delight.  On his wall you come across many interesting and sometimes nostalgic stories about cinema. What I share with you here is a latter from the legendary Iranian filmmaker, Amir Naderi that was posted by Kamran Shirdel. B.T. “I never met my father and my mother died when I was five years old, so I consider myself to have been raised by Cinema. I was born with it in my blood, and it is an inseparable part of…

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Cruising along Highway 192 in Central Florida, Sean Baker came upon the Magic Castle, a seedy bright-pink motel in the outer orbit of Orlando’s Walt Disney World Resort. It was the perfect setting for his next film. The Florida Project would explore the “hidden homeless”—people living hand-to-mouth in cheap motels after losing jobs and homes in the Great Recession. However, a few days into filming, Baker hit a 100-decibel snag. A company selling helicopter rides set up shop right across the street from their location, wreaking havoc with deafening noise at all hours of the day. “At first, it was a nightmare—the…

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