by Alex Deleon for <filmfestivals.com>
The sixteenth edition of the Arab Film Festival (which travels to five cities in California) opened here on Friday, October 19 with a festive reception at the Screen writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills. This is an intensive three day event which will screen as many films as can be squeezed into a long weekend. The opening night film was "Man Without a Cell Phone", a debut feature by Palestinian filmmaker Sameh Zoabi who has won various...
The New York Asian Film Festival (June 29 - July 15) returns - and this year we’re bringing crazy back!
The opening night film is Pang Ho-cheung’s astonishingly filthy, extremely hilarious VULGARIA, a movie about making movies, shot in just 12 days, all about gangsters named Brother Tyrannosaur, sleazy lawyers, the sex film industry, and men who love donkeys a little too much. The Hollywood Reporter calls it a “...laugh-out-loud, aptly titled comedy.” Pang himself, Hong Kong's hotte...
Among 28 international films and two shorts programs, presented in the 41st edition of New Directors/New Films series few would qualify as belonging to traditional genre films or reflecting Hollywood imprinted market oriented productions. To the contrary, the selection committee from the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art picked first or second feature films from relatively unknown directors identifying new trends in directorial and them...
The Quebec director Jean-Marc Vallee first made significant waves in 2005 with his rock-infused coming-of-age film C.R.A.Z.Y., which won major prizes on the international film festival circuit and was sold to almost 50 international territories (a strong statement for a French language Canadian film). Unfortunately, its success was not matched in the United States, where it played at the New Directors/New Films festival and other prestigious events, but never got theatrically released....
For Rajendra Roy, it’s all about the passion. Beginning his fifth year as the Celeste Bartos Chief Curator of the legendary Department Of Film at New York’s Museum Of Modern Art (MoMA), Raj (as he is affectionately known by friends and colleagues) can look back at significant accomplishments during his tenure and substantial challenges ahead. “The film world has changed so much since I started this job”, Roy shared with me in an interview in his intimate, no-frills office. “...
photo still from film TWO EYES STARING (2010) At this year’s ‘Ground Zero’ for fantasy ‘funtastic’ film festival FANTASTIC ZAGREB, the frightful, fearsome, fanciful and freaking fantabulous film to open it with a big bang was the very much talked about new supernatural thriller TWO EYES STARING (2010) by the bold and brilliant Dutch director Elbert van Strien. And what a film to open with! If you have a taste for the paranormal and love a good ghost story, well this is one that will...
At this year’s ‘Ground Zero’ for fantasy ‘funtastic’ film festival FANTASTIC ZAGREB, the frightful, fearsome, fanciful and freaking fantabulous film to open it with a big bang was the very much talked about new supernatural thriller TWO EYES STARING (2010) by the bold and brilliant Dutch director Elbert van Strien. And what a film to open with! If you have a taste for the paranormal and love a good ghost story, well this is one that will keep you quivering long after you’ve seen the ...
The Tribeca Film Festival, which begins on April 20, turns ten years old this year. It seems like only yesterday that the event sparked controversy (and not a little enmity) among the denizens of the city’s arthouse upper crust. Launched a few months after the event of 9/11 by Robert De Niro, a downtown celebrity and major property owner, the Festival was designed to create interest and to attract locals and tourists back to the neighborhoods economically devastated by the colla...
The Tribeca Film Festival, which begins on April 20, turns ten years old this year. It seems like only yesterday that the event sparked controversy (and not a little enmity) among the denizens of the city’s arthouse upper crust. Launched a few months after the event of 9/11 by Robert De Niro, a downtown celebrity and major property owner, the Festival was designed to create interest and to attract locals and tourists back to the neighborhoods economically devastated by the collapse of the Twin...
............. NEWSLETTER N° 503:April 2, 2011 Follow this LINK if you cannot read the newsletter properly Cannes sponsoring and advertising options on call. Email us Become a sponsor of the iPhone application Bundle offer Moving...
OK......let me set up the scene. You and your slacker roommate are living in a cheap rent apartment in one of San Francisco's less tony neighborhoods. One night, you hear an argument of torrential rage coming from behind the paper-thin walls from the apartment next door. Night after night, you are captivated by the hilarious and insidious darkness of the epithets being thrown from one person to the other, and then the bright idea strikes you.......record the madhouse melee for your fr...
While this year's 40th edition of New Directors/New Films, the showcase of debut directors co-presented by New York's Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art, is certainly international in scope, several of the films on tap have a decidedly Spanish accent. For a festival that has in the past 40 years uncovered a strong array of Spanish and Latin American talents, this year's Spanish-accented films are among the strongest in the program.
Films from Pe...
678 (Mohamed Diab, Egypt)
There is no doubt that we are living in historic times. The political and social upheaval in the Middle East and northern Africa are among the most stunning events of the new millennium, and it still remains unclear whether this will herald a period of unprecedented stability and its complete opposite. Helping us to understand the turmoil and the inner lives of those cultures, four films in the New Directors/New Film series, entering its first weekend...
New Directors/New Films, the program of film discoveries co-presented by New York's Museum of Modern Art and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, has been a strong launching pad for debut directors over the past four decades. In its 40 years, the event has introduced such leading international cinema auteurs as Chantal Akerman, Pedro Almodóvar, Guillermo Del Toro, Agnieszka Holland, Wong Kar Wai, George Miller and Christopher Nolan, as well as such important American film talen...
When it rains it pours and that’s exactly what it’s doing right now, literally and figuratively. While I have no business complaining about weather because the rest of the country is neck deep in a winter from hell, I’m none too happy with the impending forecast for next Saturday’s outdoor event, especially as a press person. Standing the line is less than fun on the best days, let alone in the rain. That being said, if I have to, there is no other event I’d rather be doing it for...
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...
LITTLE ROCK (Mike Ott, USA)
In anticipation of the Gotham Independent Film Awards, the first significant awards show of the season that has been dubbed the "indie Oscars", the Film Department of the Museum of Modern Art will again host public screenings of the five indie nominees in the awards category Best Film Not Playing At A Theater Near You.
As the title suggests, this category is devoted to films that have not yet been seen in theaters and may never find tra...
In anticipation of the Gotham Independent Film Awards, the first significant awards show of the season that has been dubbed the "indie Oscars", the Film Department of the Museum of Modern Art will again host public screenings of the five indie nominees in the awards category Best Film Not Playing At A Theater Near You. As the title suggests, this category is devoted to films that have not yet been seen in theaters and may never find traditional theatrical distribution. The award is part of the i...
Director: Rigoberto Perezcano.
Andrés reaches the Mexican border to cross into the United States. Between each attempt, he discovers that Tijuana, the city that adopts him, is a troubled one. As he waits there, Andrés is not only confronted with his feelings and what he left behind, but also with those he meets in Tijuana: Cata, Ela, and Asensio.
It has been a decade and a half since Gen Art, the nationwide networking organization devoted to art, fashion, music and movies, first launched a New York-based film festival to highlight works from emerging American independent artists. But different from other festivals of a similar stripe, the Gen Art concept was quite simple: seven films shown over seven nights with audience members invited to an after-party at a hot club or restaurant each evening. This winning formu...
One would imagine that a film entitled I KILLED MY MOTHER would be a wild ride of incestuous violence, but Montreal-based Xavier Dolan’s semi-autobiographical debut feature is more of a testament to the loving bonds between mother and son, no matter how ferocious and unpleasant. The film, which marks the emergence of an enfant terrible auteur in the 20-year-old former child star Dolan, will be the closing night presentation of this year’s New Directors New Films on Sunday ev...
WOMEN WITHOUT MEN (Shirin Neshat)
For most people, a trip to the cinema is a welcome escapism from the harshness of the world and its problems. For others, films with political subjects or contexts are sought out for a population hungry to engage and feeling starved for perspective and analysis. While New Directors New Films is not an overtly political affair, it is hard to avoid the powerful political discourses that careen through some of the films in this year’s pro...
For the first time in memory (if my faulting memory serves me well and it increasingly does NOT), the New Directors New Films showcase opened last evening with a documenary feature. This annual rite of the Spring film season, co-presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Film Department of the Museum of Modern Art, was ushered in by BILL CUNNINGHAM NEW YORK, a fascinating look at the New York Times photographer and his love/hate obsession with the city he calls both his mu...
Film Independent, the non-profit arts organization that produces the Spirit Awards and the Los Angeles Film Festival, announced today that the 2010 Spirit Awards will be held on Friday evening March 5 at LA Live in downtown Los Angeles. The event will be held in a tent on the complexís panoramic event deck beginning at 8:00 p.m. Over the past 25 years, the event has been held at various locations in Los Angeles, including 385 North Restaurant, Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, Beverly Hills Hotel, R...
Don't Let Me Drown
New York City is blessed with a number of established film events for every season, including the New York Film Festival in the Fall, the New Directors/New Films series, Gen Art Film Festival and the Tribeca Film Festival in the Spring, and dozens of other smaller, more specialized events. Add to this a new summer festival to be presented by BAMcinematek, the repertory film program at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, one of the city’s citadels of culture. The Festival ...
