-OFFICIAL DDA PRESS RELEASE- ANDREI KONCHALOVSKY / DISTINGUISHED RUSSIAN DIRECTOR / WRAPS HIS 75TH BIRTHDAY YEAR WITH A BANG   The celebrations concluded in style as award-winning film and theatre director ANDREI KONCHALOVSKY wrapped his UK retrospective tour on November 21. A popular screening of his multi-award-winning Uncle Vanya at Warwick Arts Centre marked the final stop in a year-long series of international events and screenings which have taken place across Russia, Slovakia, B...

The celebrations concluded in style as award-winning film and theatre director ANDREI KONCHALOVSKY wrapped his UK retrospective tour on November 21. A popular screening of his multi-award-winning Uncle Vanya at Warwick Arts Centre marked the final stop in a year-long series of international events and screenings which have taken place across Russia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Poland, Montreal, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Madrid and Cannes to celebrate his 75th birthday. The UK retrospective also witnessed ...

In September this year a second edition of the biggest festival of contemporary Polish films will commence in the UK. This is Play Poland Film Festival organised by Polish Art Europe. The event will last for four months, until December 2012. It will take place in Great Britain, Ireland, Norway and Canada. Cinema goers will have the opportunity to see popular Polish movie productions (both full length and short) and exhibitions of the best film posters as well as to participate in meetings with...

Actor Wil Johnson will host the opening night of the 7th British Urban Film Festival in October, the producers of BUFF 2012 have announced.  Johnson, whose previous film and TV credits include “Waking the Dead”, “Waterloo Road” and “Babymother”, will be making his debut as festival presenter having previously featured in starring roles at BUFF in the films ‘Disoriented Generation’ and ‘Colour Blind’.    SERTUC Film Club, which has agreed...

It was a gloriously sunny day but there was a capacity crowd in the East Chapel in Golders Green Crematorium, in north London, for the Celebration of your life, Virginia Dignam, sometime actress, published poetess, film reviewer on  The Morning Star, and long-serving hard-working Honorary Secretary of the UK Critics' Circle("a shrivel of critics" you used to call us, in your pert and often impertinent way).It would have been your 87th birthday, but you'd left us, after a sudden, sh...

 For the first time in Turkey, Malatya International Film Festival‘s held an international symposium on ‘Cinema Productions in Terms of Law of Intellectual and Artistic works’ at Remark Hotel in Malatya.  Governor of Malatya, and Honorary President of the MIFF Ulvi Saran, some of the leading names in the judiciary, foreign filmmakers and academics attended to the symposium.  11th Supreme Court President   Mehmet Kilic  and Decane of Inönü University School of Law and Ankara U...

2nd. Malatya International Film Festival  is beginning on Friday the 18th of November.  With the support of the Malatya Apricot Research, Development and Promotion Foundation and Malatya Governorship, festival  is led by Malatya Governor Ulvi Saran and organized by World Mass Media Research Foundation.    A total of 120 films will be screened during the festival. The festival is holding competitions in three different categories; ‘National Feature Film’, ‘International Feature Film�...

Prix EURIMAGES goes to producer from SpainThe winner of the fifth edition of the EUROPEAN CO-PRODUCTION AWARD - Prix EURIMAGES, an award acknowledging the decisive role of co-productions in the European film industry, was announced this weekend in the framework of the Seville European Film Festival in Spain.This year’s prize will go to an outstanding and dedicated producer who has always joined forces with colleagues in Europe and beyond to develop, produce and promote European cinema: Mariela...

  A DANGEROUS METHOD (David Cronenberg, Canada)  The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) enters its middle stretch this week, offering attending buyers, critics and film lovers a dizzying feast of film treats. Planning what to see is a definite must, since even at 5 films per day (my personal max), there are many that are missed. While here, one must adapt a strategy and raison d’etre……do you attend the highly buzzed titles in the largest cinemas (the ones by name dire...

  Michael Fassbender and Viggo Mortensen in A DANGEROUS METHOD  The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) enters its middle stretch this week, offering attending buyers, critics and film lovers a dizzying feast of film treats. Planning what to see is a definite must, since even at 5 films per day (my personal max), there are many that are missed. While here, one must adapt a strategy and raison d’etre……do you attend the highly buzzed titles in the largest cinemas (the on...

  Even as one waits eagerly for French director Luc Besson's fictional film on Burmese freedom fighter Aung Sang Suu Kyi,'The Lady', with Maggie Cheung playing the lead,  a new, real-life docu film on Burma's most famous political leader 'Lady of No Fear' has won applause at many Human Rights Festivals, and will now do the rounds of many  international film festivals around the world .  Infact, it's told that Luc  Besson studied this  docu at length, before he began his ...

The 16th Portobello Film Festival runs from 1 to 18 September at the Pop Up Cinema and Westbourne Studios, Acklam Road W10. All shows are free admission. Highlights this year include the premiere of Ebony Road by 18 yr old filmmaker Mya Krall Fry and John Tiberi’s Sex Pistols in Stockholm 1977 on the Opening Night (1 Sept, Pop Up), JC Carrol from The Members’ Golborne Road Opera on 2 Sept at the Pop Up, and 6 days of dedicated London premieres from 6 – 11 September at the Pop Up inc...

Probably the most successful of the still-sustained 'national' film festivals that flourish, with greater and lesser degrees of success in London and around the British Isles (dare I still call them that without fear of political uncorrectness?) is Kinoteka, which celebrated its 9th edition from 24th March to 13th April, 2011.(Since the German Film Weeks are now but a fond memory, this Polish filmic-extravaganza now surely takes the crown, in the face of all kinds of film 'festivals' that vie...

  Interview with director Zeina Durra. THE IMPERIALISTS ARE STILL ALIVE (USA, 2010) screened at this year's Sofia International Film Festival in Sofia, Bulgaria.    Some weeks ago, I had the opportunity to speak at length with Zeina Durra in Thessaloniki, Greece about her feature film debut, ‘The Imperialists Are Still Alive' (2010). We had a fun conversation about imperialism and proletariat, conventions, nonconformists, clothes, getting naked... and just eve...

Film Independent, the non-profit arts organization that produces the Spirit Awards and the Los Angeles Film Festival, has launched a new Documentary Lab, sponsored by Latino Public Broadcasting, with 14 filmmakers and 9 projects participating. Taking place in Los Angeles, the Documentary Lab is an intensive seven-week program, with a main focus of assisting documentary filmmakers on their works-in-progress and providing creative feedback. All of the Film Independent Labs are designed to suppor...

On London's famous Piccadilly street the Royal Academy has been receiving some very mixed notices for its latest block-busting exhibition Modern British Sculpture, filling the Main Galleries (until 7 April 2011). But this palace of the arts in the heart of London houses a number of historic institutions within its wings, and in the premises of the Geological Society a new Architecture Programme has just been launched with ten panels and lectures running until 21st May 2011.Critic's Choice brin...

Sundance Institute announced members of five juries awarding prizes at the upcoming Sundance Film Festival which runs January 20-30, 2011. The juries are comprised of 23 individuals spanning the global arts community. Juror photos and extended biographies, in addition to the complete Festival lineup and schedule, are available at www.sundance.org/festival. All awards will be announced the evening of January 29 at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival Awards Ceremony. The Short Film Awards will als...

Interview with director Zeina Durra.   Some weeks ago, I had the opportunity to speak at length with Zeina Durra in Thessaloniki, Greece about her feature film debut, ‘The Imperialists Are Still Alive' (2010). We had a fun conversation about imperialism and proletariat, conventions, nonconformists, clothes, getting naked... and just everything about film in general.   Zeina is a spirited and passionate young woman and once you get her going, it's hard t...

Interview with director Zeina Durra     Some weeks ago, I had the opportunity to speak at length with Zeina Durra in Thessaloniki, Greece about her feature film debut, ‘The Imperialists Are Still Alive' (2010). We had a fun conversation about imperialism and proletariat, conventions, nonconformists, clothes, getting naked... and just everything about film in general.   Zeina is a spirited and passionate young woman and once you get her goin...

With a reputation as being Scandinavia's largest festival devoted to fantasy films, the 16th Fantastisk Filmfestival (23 September to 2 October,2010) in Lund, a lovely University city in the south of Sweden, was a notable success, and a memorable discovery for myself,  as a first-footing member of the International Jury alongside my colleague from London, the noted Gothophile Kim Newman and the lively Finno-Swedish critic Andrea Reuter.The historic venue- a sort of Swedish Oxford that appare...