Browsing: Festivals

Approximately twenty-five years ago, Israeli’s premiere rock musician left fame and fortune in Israel and came to the United States. Since that time, Meir Fenigstein has become a major force in the entertainment industry, particularly as Founder and Executive Director of the Israel Film Festival. From its earliest beginnings with a few, Hebrew language films (without sub-titles) shown in a dusty theater in a less than stellar section of Boston, it has grown to be the premiere showcase of Israeli films in the world today. This year, the 21st Israel Film Festival will present 35 films in 3 cities to…

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The 4th Annual Other Venice Film Festival Highlights and Schedule 90 Films, 60 World Premieres, Live Music, Art and Parties OVFF is dedicated to screening full-length, short and animated films that embody the spirit, energy and diversity of Venice, CA – an epicenter for LA artists and filmmakers who continue to pave the way toward expanding the language of underground, alternative cinema. The OTHER VENICE FILM FESTIVAL bridges the community of Venice and that of greater LA together in a wild, exciting, fun-filled weekend of movies, music and mayhem. To find out more about this festival we interviewed two of…

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Nearly 200 films will be on hand for the first AFI Dallas International Film Festival, starting March 22nd in Texas. The festival will begin with Steven Sawalich’s “Music Within” and close on April 1st with Sarah Polley’s “Away From Her.” The large list of films has surpassed the expectations of even the organizers. There will be 99 features and 92 short films for the inaugural Dallas event. Organizers have also noted that the Victory Plaza site will also feature film screenings from the AFI 100 Greatest Films list running near 24 hours a day throughout the festival. “Music Within” has…

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MadCat is a highly acclaimed festival that exhibits independent and experimental films and videos directed by women from around the globe. The Festival emphasizes work that is inventive and visionary. MadCat takes place each September in the Bay Area.CALL FOR SUBMISSIONSMadCat Women’s International Film Festival seeks provocative and visionary films and videos directed or co-directed by women. Films can be of any length or genre and produced ANY year. MadCat is committed to showcasing work that challenges the use of sound and image and explores notions of visual story telling. All subjects/topics will be considered.Submission Fee: $10-30 sliding scale. Pay…

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Hollywood, California – February 25, 2007 – Tonight “The Lives of Others” won the Best Foreign Language Film Award, Other movies nominated in this category were After the Wedding. Days of Glory, Pan’s Labyrinth and water. “The Lives of Others” Das Leben der Anderen, the 2007 Oscar winner was the official entry of Germany. 1984. “Before the Fall of the Berlin Wall, East Germany’s Secret Police Listened to Your Secrets”. Directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, “The Lives of Others”, shows us the intricate, extremely methodical system of surveillance imposed upon the masses in former East Germany prior to the…

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1,600 invited guests and millions of TV viewers watched the awards ceremony in the Berlinale Palast. A night of suspense culminated in the announcement of the main prize, the Golden Bear, going to Tu ya de hun shi (Tuya’s Marriage). Jury president Paul Schrader and Berlinale director Dieter Kosslick handed the trophee to Wang Quan’an and Le Wang, the director and the producer of the winning film The International Jury considers only films in the Competition section and awards the festival’s main prizes: • the Golden Bear for the best film, • a Silver Bear as a Jury Grand Prix,…

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Eva Kacerova is the Festival Director for Days of European Film in Czech Republic. After graduation at the Charles University Prague (Faculty of Arts) in 1971, Eva Kacerova worked in Czechoslovak Filmexport, then in the Czechoslovak Film Institute – Film Archive and since 1994 organizing the DAYS OF EUROPEAN FILM festival as a free lance. Bijan Tehrani: Please tell us about the purpose of the Days of European Film? Eva Kacerova: The main purpose is to enrich the offer of European films in CR at least for the 3 weeks of the Festival – we are trying to bring a…

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Santa Barbara, CA – The 22nd Annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival announced the winners of the 2007 festival competition at the Closing Night ceremonies on February 4th. The festival, which began on January 25th, attracted more than 60,000 visitors to the area, bringing attendance to an all-time high. The Jury included many important figures: Jury Chair and film editor Dave Stein and filmmaker Candace Schermerhorn judged documentaries; actors Peter Riegert (“Animal House”/“Local Hero”) and Scott Mechlowicz (“Mean Creek”/“Euro Trip”) juried the Independent Features; for International Features was David Poland of Movie City News and Michael Mayer, director of the…

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Days of European films started to exist thirteen years ago thanks to several Prague ambassadors from the European Union who loved movies. At the beginning OF nineties, there were not so many films in Czech cinemas like today and these diplomats wanted to show the Czech audience the best what could be seen from the European cinematography. With a minimal organizational and technical background they created a film festival that was accepted with great interest and showed that events OF this type are very tempting for Czech public. The first „experimental“year of this festival saw about 6:000 visitors and the 13th…

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Bijan Tehrani: Please tell us about the history of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival and how you got involved with it? Roger Durling: The film festival has been around for 22 years. I took over four years ago when the festival was floundering and it was in dire straits financially. What we did was position the festival smack in the middle of Awards season. The festival now opens two days after the Academy award nominations are announced. Four years ago, we hosted Peter Jackson and Charlize THeron a month before they were to be crowned at the Oscars –…

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