Now in its’ 8th year, the Tribeca Film Festival has established itself as a landmark not only in New York’s cultural calender – but also in the world film festival circuit. Although leaner than in previous years (with less films at fewer locations) the program included 85 feature length films and 46 shorts, and there was still more than enough to choose from. Following is a selection of what was offered during the 2009 festival. As there are just too many films to cover in one report, this article will start with the feature films and part two will focus…
Browsing: Festivals
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…
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…
South East European Film Festival, SEE Fest 2009 concluded Monday night in Los Angeles with the screening of two Romanian films, Marian Crisan’s Palme d’Or winner Megatron (short), and feature Elevator by George Dorobantu, at UCLA’s James Bridges Theatre. Hosted by radio personality Hettie Lynne Hurtes, the evening’s guests included directors George Dorobantu (Elevator) and Adela Peeva (Divorce Albanian Style) from South East Europe, and from Los Angeles directors Jennifer Rawlings (Forgotten Voices) and Italian video artist Luigia Martelloni (Journey into Sex Slavery), as well as Gail Kligman, director of UCLA’s Center for European and Eurasian Studies, Bernd Desinger, director…
“SEE Fest has pioneered the concept of regional, cross-border programming with issue-driven films that tell a larger story about the Balkans and South East Europe, where borders of all kinds are fluid and porous just as often as poisonous. With an overarching goal of presenting multiple points of view, the festival unlocks the delicate doors into human existence and concerns of our time. Moral dilemmas of modern marriage (“Behind the glass”, Croatia), or traditional painting of a bride that holds on to ancient customs (“The painted bride”, Bulgaria) exist side by side just as ever-intriguing question of the roots of…
A few weeks back, on a dark and still wintry Sunday night, the second annual CINEMA EYE HONORS awards ceremony was hosted at the elegant and stylish Times Center in the recently opened New York Times Building. A good number of NY’s who’s who of independent documentary filmmaking gathered for a fun and fact filled evening celebration of non-fiction filmmaking. Awards for outstanding achievements in 10 different categories were given out, ranging from the AUDIENCE AWARD, which went to UP THE YANGTZE by Yung Chang, to OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENTS IN INTERNATIONAL FEATURE for Golden Globe winner WALTZ WITH BASHIR by Ari…
Berlin, Germany — Some days into the festival, here is a brief review of what James and myself have been up to so far and what to look forward to on this site. We started our work last weekend of with some sound bites from Tribeca Film Institute CEO Brian Newman, who granted us an interview in a truly cinematic setting at his hotel. Brian talked about his work at the Tribeca Institute and introduced the new online distribution platform Reframe Collection (www.reframecollection.org) – a filmmaker friendly distribution model for independent filmmakers offering their films to download, stream or purchase.…
Palm Springs – January 18, 2008: Today, the Palm Springs International Film Festival named Waltz with Bashir as the winner of Cinema Without Borders “Bridging The Borders Award” at the 2009 Palm Springs International Film Festival. The award luncheon for the 2009 Palm Springs International Film Festival was held at DST Studios in Palm Springs, California. Yael Bar-Tur, acting on behalf of the film’s director Ari Folman, accepted the award from Bijan Tehrani, Editor in Chief of Cinema Without Borders. “At a time in which physical, religious, racial, cultural and economic borders divide the population of our planet and wars…
The second weekend of the 10th Scandinavian Film Festival Los Angeles offers two chances to see the latest work of two actors who have loomed large on the fest’s screen over the last decade. On January 17th and 18th at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills, award-winning writer-director Pernille Fischer Cristensen’s Dancers will feature stunning performances by Trine Dyrholm (P.O.V., The Celebration), memorable from the 2007 SFFLA in Christensen’s A Soap, and Anders W. Berthelsen, seen at the 2002 fest in Italian for Beginners and at the 2000 fest in Mifune. Dancers is the second feature by Pernille Fischer…
Independent producer and International Film Festival Programmer Helen duToit began her career in Vancouver, Canada in the early nineties, working in the art departments of numerous feature films and as production manager on the first 100% 3D computer animated TV series in the world: the groundbreaking ReBoot! In the mid-90’s Helen relocated to Toronto to serve as Programmer for the Perspective Canada section of the Toronto International Film Festival. During this three year tenure, she also produced six short films, including the Genie Award nominated short film Sshhh….by Scott Smith. In 2000 she left her post at TIFF to produce…