The Donostia-San Sebastian film festival on the incredibly picturesque North Spanish coast, ("NAZIOARTEKO ZINEMALDIA" in the exotic Basque language of the region), has opened heavily "front loaded" as the saying goes these days, which means that many of the big guns, films with high prize potential, have already been fired off in the first few days. The festival opener was, appropriately, "Obaba", one of the most eagerly awaited Spanish films of the year based on a Basque language best seller b...
The San Sebastian International Film Festival similarly proposes a yearly rendez vous with the best movies from Latin American countries in its HORIZONTES Selection. This year, twelve films, some of which are being released for the first time ever and others backed by international recognition, will compete for the Horizontes Award, carrying €18,000 by way of a recompense to the director while serving as an incentive to distribution. HORIZONTES SELECTION ALMA MATER, Alvaro Buela, Uruguay-Ca...
The San Francisco International Film FestivalBence NanayFor decades, the San Francisco Film Festival has been probably the most unusual film festival in the United States. It has been unusual because very few American films have been on display here. American film festivals tend to pitch themselves either as independent film festivals of the Sundance ilk or as Hollywood showcases with lots of special guests one could see at the Oscars gala. In either way, American film festivals are about Americ...
The 7th edition of the Buenos Aires Festival Intenacional De Cine Independiente (Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema) ended this past weekend with the announcement of awards in various competition areas.European films had a remarkably strong showing, winning most of the major categories. The Festival hosted nearly 100 films from Europe, making up nearly a third of the overall program. In addition, European Film Promotion, the organization that represents the film promotion ...
Discovering Latin America Film FestivalLondon November 25 - December 5London may seem an unlikely place for a Latin American film festival. Most of the Argentinean, Cuban and Uruguayan films that have won festival prizes in the last couple of years have never been distributed in London (as a matter of fact, outside of Latin America, most of these films have only been distributed in Paris). Also, the English are not known for their unequivocal enthusiasm for anything Argentinean. Nevertheless, on...
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 ...
The Hubert Bals Fund is designed to bring remarkable or urgent feature films and feature length creative documentaries by innovative and talented filmmakers from developing countries closer to fulfillment. The HBF provides grants that often turn out to play a crucial role in enabling these filmmakers to realize their projects. In its Fall 2003 Selection Round, Hubert Bals Fund (HBF) of the International Film Festival Rotterdam grants a total of Euro 467,000 to twenty-eight non-Western film-maker...
