Concluding on January 29th after a two week run at Lincoln's Center Walter Read Theater and other venues, the 18th annual Jewish Film Festival presented 32 features and shorts from 17 countries. Covering aspects of past and present Jewish (and Israeli) experience, most of these productions had their New York premiere. Among the about 60 Jewish Film Festivals in the United States, the New York festival is rather influential and trend setting given its location and a captive Jewish audience. T...

On Saturday evening, 31 January, the audience awards were announced in the Grand Auditorium of the Doelen in Rotterdam. The KPN Audience Award went to SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE by Danny Boyle and co-director Loveleen Tandan. The Dioraphte Award for Hubert Bals Fund film held in highest regard went to the film TEZA by the Ethiopian film maker Haile Gerima. The IFFR counted 341,000 visitors to the films, exhibitions, live shows and events, including the 8,000 film lovers who attend the fully booked Volk...

For its 38th edition, the International Film Festival Rotterdam 2009 will present 43 world premieres as well as 35 international and 34 European premieres of feature length films. A strong year for Eastern European film is led by ROOM AND A HALF, a fictional biopic about poet Joseph Brodsky by Andrey Khrzhanovsky; MORPHIA, Alexei Balabanov’s latest film, based on a M. Bulgakov adaptation by the late Sergei Bodrov Jr. and acclaimed Armenian director Harutyun Khachatryan’s BORDER. Throughout t...

Alex Deleon offers his choice of ten best and worst films of the past year. Well, it's that time again when many film reviewers and critics compile their lists of Best (and Worst) of the flicks they were exposed to in the preceding year. Given that one can no more tell people which films they "should" like and which they shouldn't, anymore than you can expect everybody to agree with you on the taste of tripe soup or boiled tongue-- or even honey, for that matter -- it should be obvious to any pe...

    ZLIN, Czech Republic - Czech EU Presidency          Zlín Film Festival receives prestigious status and signs new PARTNER contracts   Organizers of the 49th International Film Festival for Children and Youth, which will be held from 31 May until 7 June 2009 in Zlín, the Czech Republic, are proud to announce that the festival as well as its supporting event „Minisalon - Film Clapperboards 2009“ ha...

Prague ReDesign studio is the winner of the public two-rounds tender for the festival design. The AFO director, Petr Bilík, comented on the results of the tender: “The extent of the tender and its quality gives the evidence about the increasing awareness of our festival. Only the concepts of high technical and inventional qualities made it to the final round, resulting in the choice with the most intense visual dynamics and support of its top design studio, which even promises new pos...

Last Sunday morning I ended my tour of the San Francisco International Animation Film Festival with a retrospective of animator Gene Deitch's work for children. Deitch and his wife Zdenka who reside in Prague, were in attendance for the screening. The showing included Oscar Winning Monroe, The Three Robbers, TomTerrific, Maurice Sendak's In the Knight Kitchen, and Where the Wild Things Are, Sylvester and the magic Pebble, Why Mosquitos Buzz in Peoples' Ears, and Tom and Jerry. Seein...

Last Sunday morning I ended my tour of the San Francisco International Animation Film Festival with a retrospective of animator Gene Deitch's work for children. Deitch and his wife Zdenka who reside in Prague, were in attendance for the screening. The showing included Oscar Winning Monroe, The Three Robbers, TomTerrific, Maurice Sendak's In the Knight Kitchen, and Where the Wild Things Are, Sylvester and the magic Pebble, Why Mosquitos Buzz in Peoples' Ears, and Tom and Jerry. Seeing these work...

On Saturday, 15th November, the 18th edition of the FilmFestival Cottbus came to an end with an impressive closing ceremony where prizes to a total value of 67,000 Euros were awarded. The most important cultural event in Cottbus celebrated its coming of age with what looks like being record full cinemas. The festival presented 136 films from 36 countries and attracted around 500 professional guests from around the world to the Lausitz region. The festival thus underlined once more its importance...

Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs Frank-Walter Steinmeier visiting the 18th FilmFestival CottbusOn Tuesday, 11th November 2008, Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Brandenburg's Minister President Matthias Platzeck will be visiting Cottbus as patrons of the 18th film festival. Numerous guests from the world of arts, politics and business are expected at this event in the Grosses Haus of the Staatstheater in Cottbus. Petra Maria Müller and Kirsten Niehuus, managin...

The Feature Film and Short Feature Competitions Ten films from ten countries of Central and Eastern Europe were nominated for the Feature Film Competition, stretching geographically from the Polish neighbour to far-off Kazakhstan. They include three international co-productions, of which two were made in collaboration with German partners. The traditionally strong Czech cinema is represented with two films, while the revived Russian cinematography – by far the most productive film nation of Ea...

  The Brothers Bloom is a cute quirky film quite reminiscent of The Darjeeling Limited and no it wasn't because the film shared the same NYIndieSeen favorite talent Mr. Adrien Brody. BUT...I digress and say that this movie is what I like to call a smunny flick. Smunny movies are films that are smart and funny at the same time. The film is about two brothers played by Indieseen favorites Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo who are both con-artists. They've been conning since...

Ninth Annual Ojai Film Festival spools out its programs November 6 – 9 with 57 independent films, lifetime achievement honor ceremonies, and a seminar to fill in the four-day event. Hosting sponsor and headquarters for the festival is the premiere AAA five-diamond award-winning resort, the Ojai Valley Inn & Spa. Ojai has become a viable path for filmmakers and their work to get noticed. Hollywood producer, Peter Guber said of the Ojai FF at the podium of the Toronto Film Festival last year, ...

  Visiting 72nd Street and Broadway today, one finds the confluence of Sherman Square and Verdi Park. It's a nice little area, complete with statues, tasteful landscaping, and the occasional homeless person scattered among the yuppies and other usual upscale riffraff that haunt the UWS. There's a Gray's Papaya, a Burritoville, a few chain stores and a lot of nice buildings. Physically, it's not far from the area where they filmed exteriors on Music and Lyrics; architecturally, it is ...

XDC, Europe's Finest and Hoverlord have joined efforts to prepare five European classic films to be screened in digital format at the Ghent International Film Festival.The Digital Content Lab of XDC in cooperation with Hoverlord and Europe's Finest - the 'Cinema-on-Demand' service for digital cinemas - has been selected for preparing the digital copies to be screened at the Ghent International Film Festival. With the support of MEDIA, Europe's Finest will present its program in Ghent. The presen...

The 12th MANNHEIM MEETINGS 2008, taking place 12 through 16 November 2008, will introduce 50 new, independent arthouse film projects. The international market for co-production, sales and film distribution, which is attended by about 300 participants annually, will present new productions by noted and established directors such as Karim Traidia or Ivan Fila, as well as debut features of international newcomers.The selection offers a wide geographic distribution, as the projects are coming from 2...

Film Independent [FIND] announced today that Ted Hope will deliver the keynote address for the fourth-annual Filmmaker Forum, which will be held September 26-28 at the Directors Guild of America, Los Angeles. Film Independent’s Filmmaker Forum is a widely attended event, giving attendees access to some of the most innovative names in indie filmmaking, as well as the most useful information available on how to get your movie made, bought, sold, and marketed in today’s changing marketplace.“...

 EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS 2008in alphabetical order (please note that articles (a, the/le, la/el, il, etc) are ignored)3 DIAS (Before the Fall), Spaindirected by Francisco Javier Gutierrezwritten by Juan Velarde & F. Javier Gutierrezproduced by Maestranza Films, Green Moon Prod., PentagramaSynopsis: What would you do if the world was going to end in 72 hours? What would your neighbours, your family, the whole world do? The Secretary General of the Council of Nations has announced that a giganti...

Anyone wondering if there is film festival life in the Czech Republic after Karlovy wouldn't have long to wait. Barely two weeks after the closing of the KV International Film festival on July 12 where Czech films did very well in terms of prizes and recognition, another gathering of the Czech film tribes is taking place in the remote southern town of Uherske Hradiste (in the Moravian region near Brno). While this festival is known here as "The Summer Film School", don't let the name fool you -...