IFFR Director Sandra den Hamer has said that both box-office income and admissions are on target this year to ‘slightly exceed’ those of last year. A weary but upbeat Den Hamer, who says she has been buoyed by the ‘smiley, happy faces’ she has encountered over the past 10 days, was revelling in what she called ‘a great festival.’ Geoffrey Macnab asked her for her conclusions from her first solo festival. Perhaps inevitably, the first part of this year’s event was dominated by discu...
During the IFFR 2005 Awards Ceremony on Friday, February 4, 2005 in Concert and Congress Centre 'de Doelen' in Rotterdam, the winning films of the 34th International Film Festival Rotterdam were announced. The three VPRO Tiger Awards were granted to Nemmeno il Destino (Changing Destiny) by Daniele Gaglianone from Italy, El Ciero Gira (The Sky Turns) by Mercedes Alvarez from Spain and the Hubert Bals Fund supported 4 by Ilya Khrzhanovsky from Russia. VPRO Tiger Awards Fourteen films by first or s...
34th International Film Festival Rotterdam26 January - 6 February 2005During the CineMart 2005 Closing Night Party, Wednesday February 2, 2005 in the Rotterdam 'Schiecentrale', the first Arte France Cinema Awards went to CineMart 2005 Projects FIVE WORLDS and DARATT (DRY SEASON) and the fifth Prince Claus Fund Film Grant was awarded to CineMart 2005 Project HAMACA PARAGUAYA.Forty-seven film projects have been selected for the 22nd CineMart, the first and largest co-production market worldwide, h...
Let’s go East!From 6th – 12th April 2005 the goEast – Festival of Central and Eastern European Film Takes Place in Wiesbaden / Škoda Endows the Award for the Best Film / Two New Film Sections are Included in the Programme: “Signature” and “Portrait”.Already well established within the international culture scene, the goEast film festival is now extending its programme. In its 5th year the Wiesbaden-based festival presents two new film sections “Signature” and “Portrait”. ...
VPRO Tiger Award candidate Ilya Khrzhanovsky gets Golden CactusThe Golden Cactus, the first Theo van Gogh Award for Maverick Film Makers, goes to Ilya Khrzhanovsky. The Russian filmmaker's feature film début 4 is selected in VPRO Tiger Awards Competition of the International Film Festival Rotterdam. 4 is supported by the IFFR's Hubert Bals Fund. The Golden Cactus Award was handed over to the filmmaker, prior to the screen premiere of 06/05 by Theo van Gogh, by 06/05 principal actors Tara Elders...
The 34th International Film Festival Rotterdam, running till next February 6, presents the world premiere of TREP HUDEP! (STAY ALIVE!), a post-tsunami short video documentary by Alex Sihar from Indonesia. The film talks about the surviving people in Aceh, North Sumatra, Indonesia. TREP HUDEP! (STAY ALIVE!) screens as part of the IFFR 2005 special programme section SEA Eyes that puts the spotlight on the South East Asian region where independent film production is emerging strongly through a new ...
TROMSO FESTIVAL IS THE CURTAIN RAISER OF THE EUROPEAN FILMFEST SEASON -- The Tromso film festival, located in extreme Northern Norway, precisely six degrees above the Arctic Circle, is not only the Northernmost accredited film festival in the world, but also the first international film festival on the annual Europen calendar, preceding Gotteburg and Rotterdam which come later in the month. This will be the fifteenth installment of this unusual midwinter film fest under the Northern Lights an...
Desert Heats Up With Stars In Winter at Palm Springs International Film FestivalThe Sea Inside and Watermarks Named Audience FavoritesA beautiful starry warm evening greeted filmgoers at the Closing Night event for the Palm Springs International Film Festival. While the rest of the world was braving rain and snow, the Festival was hot with success as they celebrated the Festivals 16th year. This was a record-breaking Festival for Executive Director Darryl MacDonald and dedicated staff and the ...
Rotterdam opens with Depardon's 10E CHAMBREIFFR's Closing Night Film: HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE by MiyazakiWednesday 26 January, the 34th International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) opens with French court documentary 10E CHAMBRE, INSTANTS D'AUDIENCES (THE 10TH DISTRICT COURT, MOMENTS OF TRIALS) by Raymond Depardon. Later that evening the IFFR presents SIDEWAYS by US director Alexander Payne as its first 2005 public screening. The IFFR closes next Saturday February 5 with HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE by Jap...
Fourteen films selected for Rotterdam's VPRO Tiger Awards CompetitionThe International Film Festival Rotterdam has selected fourteen films for the VPRO Tiger Awards Competition of its 34th edition which will open next January 26. The Competition line up counts four world premieres, four international premieres and four European premieres. Three titles were supported by the IFFR's Hubert Bals Fund and one title was previously selected as CineMart Project. Three competition titles have been acquir...
The 34th International Film Festival Rotterdam takes place from Wednesday January 26 till Sunday February 6, 2005. Russian filmmaker and photographer Yevgeni Yufit (1961, Saint Petersburg) has been selected as IFFR 2005 Filmmaker in Focus. The festival honours Yufit with the screening of four feature films (including his latest film BIPEDALISM as world premiere), eight short films and a photo exhibition. After finishing his studies in mechanical engineering in 1983, Yufit took film lessons from ...
34th International Film Festival RotterdamJanuary 26 - February 6, 2005Forty-seven film projects have been selected for the 22nd CineMart, the first and largest co-production market worldwide, to be held January 30 - February 3, 2005 as part of the 34th edition of the International Film Festival Rotterdam.CineMart director Ido Abram: 'The record number of 539 entries provided us with a good overview of the current, very lively market situation for small and medium budget films. The overall high ...
For its returning section of tribute programmes, the International Film Festival Rotterdam (Jan 26 - Feb 6, 2005) has selected Albanese, Paris based artist Anri Sala as Artist in Focus. A choice of new and older video based works by Sala will be presented in Museum Boijmans and in several IFFR programme sections. The 2005 edition of IFFR's section Exploding Cinema focuses on sound in relation to cinema but also other art forms. Subtitled Sound Check, the section consists of a film programme, sev...
The Latest New Wave: Argentinean Films at the London Film FestivalThe notion of 'new wave' is probably one of the most meaningless concepts used in film criticism. Since the French nouvelle vague of the sixties, each time a nation produces two or three talented directors, the critics start to talk about a new wave. If this term had existed in the twenties, German expressionism and French impressionism would surely have been described as such. In the last four decades, however, there are few new ...
Across three continents, "MONDOVINO" weaves together the family succession sagas of billionaire Napa Valley power brokers, the rivalry of two aristocratic Florentine dynasties and the efforts of three generations of a Burgundian family fighting to preserve their few acres of land. But are all these struggles secondary to the exploits of a gleefully mischievious pirate from Bordeaux who spreads the gospel of modernity from Italy to New York to Argentina?Wine has been a symbol of Western civiliza...
The International Film Festival Rotterdam introduces, during its upcoming 34th edition (January 26 - February 6, 2005), three new programme sections that will replace the Main Programme Features and Hubert Bals Fund Harvest. Together, the new sections contain around hundred fiction features and documentaries. Selected as Film-maker in Focus, French cinéaste Benoit JACQUOT receives a Rotterdam tribute programme of part of his film and television oeuvre along with the screening of his recent feat...
Detroit Docs International Film Festival Is Celebrating Year 3! from November 11-14, 2004 Highlights include this year: Screening over 100 documentaries from all over the world including the U.S., Canada, Scotland, Australia, Germany, Israel, United Kingdom, Poland, and Japan Introducing three new venues; Wayne State University, Detroit Institute of Arts & the Museum of New Art Welcoming 30+ filmmakers and visitors from out of town to attend the festival with their works Festival kicks off with ...
7th IFFR Trainee Project for Young Film Critics34th International Film Festival Rotterdam, 26 January – 6 February 2005The seventh IFFR Trainee Project for Young Film Critics of the International Film Festival Rotterdam offers three young, motivated and talented film critics a chance to get acquainted with the festival and the cinema of the world. The project was created in 1998 motivated by the fact that young and upcoming film critics get less opportunities to explore this range of cinema an...
The 61st Venice International Film Festival has long been an “A” festival of world renown. This year an anti-globalization manifestation on the first day raised the question of how Venice may more and more be bowing to Hollywood glamour and celebrities by staging world premieres to market films outside the US. Many of these films do better in the global box office as proof. The manifestation was designed to blow the horn about the presence of Hollywood movie headliners with top stars as majo...
Belarussian censors attempt to block Moscow Competition screenings of MYSTERIUM OCCUPATIONThe Belarussian Ministry of Culture has by official letter requested its Russian counterpart to remove MYSTERIUM OCCUPATION, a gripping Second World War film trilogy by Belarussian director Andrei Kudinenko, from the new 'Perspectives' Competition programme of the Moscow International Film Festival (June 18-27). MYSTERIUM OCCUPATION, up for its first Moscow festival screening June 23, is banned from cinemas...
The Transilvania International Film Festival ended atmospherically at the National Theatre in Cluj. Special guests, press, public and staff of came to celebrate the winners of the 3rd edition of the biggest film festival in Romania. Cluj was for nine days the Romanian capital of film: 80 titles were screened from 30 countries and more than 280 guests participated at the Festival. Attendance figures indicate a record of 20 000 viewers with open-air screenings being a huge success for the local au...
Rotterdam's Hubert Bals Fund Spring Selection 2004 supports 39 film projectsIn the Spring 2004 Selection Round, the Hubert Bals Fund of the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) grants a total of Euro 525,000 (USD 642,000) to thirty-nine non-Western film-makers. Among the films receiving distribution grants are Juan Pablo Rebella and Pablo Stoll's WHISKY (a former CineMart Project) and IFFR 2004 Competition discovery DAYS OF SANTIAGO. VISITING UNCLE IDRIZ, the opening film of the Sarajevo...
CineMart and Hubert Bals Fund linked titles selected for Cannes 2004Eight films linked to either or both IFFR's Hubert Bals Fund and CineMart have made it into the various Cannes 2004 programmes. This Cannes edition seven CineMart Projects have been selected and four films supported by the Hubert Bals Fund. Rotterdam supported films in Official Competition are LA NINA SANTA by Lucrecia Martel, TROPICAL MALADY by Apichatpong Weerasethakul and NOBODY KNOWS by Kore-Eda Hirokazu. The International F...
TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL 2004The third edition of New York’s newest film cultural event, the Tribeca Film Festival, came to a star-studded finale this weekend as a host of celebrities honored the winners of top Festival awards at a gala ceremony and party in lower Manhattan. THE GREEN HAT, a film exploring its characters struggles to transcend traditional definitions of love in the new China, won two awards for Best Narrative Film and Best New Filmmaker for first-time Chinese director Liu Sen Dou...
Marco Müller has been appointed director of the Venice Film Festival. The new Administration Board of the Venice Biennale headed by newly appointed President Davide Croff took the decision on its first meeting on Thursday, March 4. Marco Müller takes over from Moritz de Hadeln, who had directed the festival for the last two years, and whom the Board thanked "for his contribution to consolidate the event". Marco Müller has been appointed for a period of four years. Marco Müller, born 1953 in ...
