29 July: Day 5 Day 5 was a great day with outstanding movies, a nice chat with the manager of the festival and a sold out premiere! The source (La source des femmes) is a fantastic film, fresh from its debut at Cannes. It's set in North Africa or the Middle East in a very conservative society and it must have rocked the boat of the Muslim community when it was released. I've never seen a film set in such a society that dares to talk about sex so openly. In the film, the women of the v...

To celebrate Dieter Kosslick’s 10th year as director of the Berlinale, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York is dedicating a film series to him. Entitled “Carte Blanche: Dieter Kosslick, the Culinary Cineaste”, MoMA will be screening eleven films from August 22 to 30, 2011.Director of the Berlin International Film Festival since May 2001, Dieter Kosslick has long been engaged in issues related to food, pleasure and ecology, as well as their cultural significance and cinematic present...

Lars Von Trier       Jafar Panahi  The 64th edition of the Cannes Film Festival is now history, but two standout personalities on opposite poles of the spectrum have defined this year as one of the most unusual in memory. In one corner, we have the Danish filmmaker provocateur Lars Von Trier whose verbal missteps about Nazism at his press conference led...

7 .............                                                                                                                                                          NEWSLETTER N° 509: May 20, 2011 Follow this LINK if you cannot read the newsletter properly  Contact the Editor to Advertise with us  This weekly newsletter reaches 90 952 film professionals. Dail...

Lars von Trier poses during the photocall of "Melancholia" (AFP/File, Francois Guillot) Lars von Trier poses during the photocall of "Melancholia" (AFP/File, Francois Guillot) Cannes barred provocative Danish director Lars von Trier Thursday amid a growing backlash over his remarks about Adolf Hitler, but his film remains in the race for the festival's top prize. Blackballing one of Europe's most prominent film-makers, festival organizers declared the 55-year-o...

Lars von Trier poses during the photocall of "Melancholia" (AFP/File, Francois Guillot)Cannes barred provocative Danish director Lars von Trier Thursday amid a growing backlash over his remarks about Adolf Hitler, but his film remains in the race for the festival's top prize.Blackballing one of Europe's most prominent film-makers, festival organizers declared the 55-year-old auteur "persona non grata" -- telling him in effect to stay away from the world's biggest cinema jamboree.In a statement, ...

The Festival de Cannes provides artists from around the world with an exceptional forum to present their works and defend freedom of expression and creation. The Festival's Board of Directors, which held an extraordinary meeting this Thursday 19 May 2011, profoundly regrets that this forum has been used by Lars Von Trier to express comments that are unacceptable, intolerable, and contrary to the ideals of humanity and generosity that preside over the very existence of the Festival. ...

CANNESDanish director Lars von Trier apologised on Wednesday for remarking at the Cannes film festival that he sympathised "a little bit" with Adolf Hitler.    "If I have hurt someone this morning by the words I said at the press conference, I sincerely apologize," he said in an email sent to AFP by Meta Louise Foldager, a producer of his latest film "Melancholia".    "I am not anti-Semitic or racially prejudiced in any way, nor am I a Nazi." ...

Melancholia is the most recent movie by the Danish director Lars von Trier, starring Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg. The film premiers at the Cannes Film Festival today, May 18. At the press conference, director Lars von Trier used a funny but somewhat dark (and maybe inappropriate) attitude to answer different questions. When asked if he would consider making a comedy after directing so many melancholic movies, Lars cleverly stated that the problem is that most of his "melancholi...

Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg look on in disbelief as the "Melancholia" director shocks at Cannes press conference. Danish director Lars Von Trier pulled a Mel Gibson in Cannes Wednesday, giving a shocking and hilarious press conference for his new film Melancholia in which he admitted to being a Nazi, to understanding Hitler and speculated that his next movie could be The Final Solution. Von Trier has never been very P.C. and his Cannes press conferences alway...

  Melancholia from Zentropa on Vimeo. The trailer for Lars von Trier's MELANCHOLIA is launched online today and available to view at www.melancholiathemovie.com. A beautiful movie about the end of the world. MELANCHOLIA is written and directed by von Trier and produced by Meta Louise Foldager and Louise Vesth for Zentropa Entertainments27. Artificial Eye will release in the UK on July 1. ...

  Six current Shooting Stars, an exclusive club of up-and-coming European actors that  are selected annually by an international jury and introduced at the Berlin International Film Festival by the European Film Promotion organization, are making an appearance in films being shown this week at POFF, the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.   With a strong focus on European cinema both in and out of competition, the Festival is one of the places to catch current trends and ...

AWARDS CONFERRED BY THE INTERNATIONAL JURY An international jury presided by Sergio Castellitto, and composed of journalist and writer Natalia Aspesi, director Ulu Grosbard, writer Patrick McGrath, director Edgar Reitz, and the director of the Multimedial Arts Museum in Moscow, Olga Sviblova, judged the films in Competition within the Official Selection. The international jury conferred the: - Marc’Aurelio Jury Award for Best Film: Kill Me Please by Olias Barco- Marc’Aurelio Grand Jury Award...

51st THESSALONIKI INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVALDecember 3 - 12, 2010Three diverse and distinctive directors are being celebrated this year in the 51st edition of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival:Polish filmmaker Dorota Kedzierzawska and Danish director Susanne Bier, who will both attend the Festival to present and discuss their films, and the late Werner Schröter. DOROTA KEDZIERZAWSKA SPOTLIGHTDorota Kędzierzawska was born in 1957 in the Polish city of Łódż, home to th...

The Danish film-maker, Thomas Vinterberg (Festen, It's all about love, Dear Wendy) will be the president of the 2010 Jury of Les Arcs European Film Festival. It is now time for you to be introduced to this talented film-maker.- The Dogme 95 movement initiated a Danish new wave. In 1995, Thomas Vinterberg and Lars von Trier initiated a film-making movement, the Dogme 95. Opposed to Anglo-saxon film productions, they believe in the high artistic value of realism. Many film-makers followed the ten ...

I have arrived yesterday 28 July and what a day it was! Flying in from Johannesburg was memorable as I saw two South African singing sensations making out at the drop-off. They can be compared to Bollywood stars as they have just starred in a local film together called Jakhalsdans where they fell in love on the set! It was something to behold to see thse two kissing as they would have been arrested in places like Dubai. The flight down - just under 50 mins - was routine and then Durban hit me...

Hello out there! This is my first entry for my trip to the 31st Durban International Film Festival. The festival kicks off with the world premiere of the SA film, State of Violence, on Thursday 22 July.  I'll be in Durban from 28 July till the end of the festival on 1 August. More about my programme and what's to offer at DIFF in my next blog entry. First I have to thank the organisers for allowing me, a small-town journo, to travel to their city and attend their esteemed event. This wil...

  The 26th edition of FESTROIA, the oldest and most prestigious film event in Portugal, concluded last weekend with the announcement of the Golden Dolphin Awards. This has been a rough period for cultural organizations in Portugal, with an already uncertain economy facing new challenges from what could be a long period of austerity. However, despite this, Festival Director Fernanda Silva continue the traditions begun by Festival founder Mario Ventura to create an event that reaches hig...

  Manyar I. Parwani, age 34, is an Afghan film director and screenwriter who is currently making films in Denmark. He was born in Afghanistan and has lived in Denmark for 23 years, but feels neither Afghan nor Danish. He just wants to be a creative filmmaker who tells stories that touch people across cultures. He has wanted to be a filmmaker ever since he worked as an usher in a Copenhagen cinema and dreamed about seeing his own name on a poster over the ticket counter. He didn’t ...

   SUBMARINO (Thomas Vinterberg, Denmark) Twelve of the best European films produced during the last year are competing for the main award of the 26th edition of FESTROIA. The prestigious Gold Dolphin will be determined by an international jury and announced on the final night of the Festival on June 12. The film directors of the above films are a mix of newcomers to Portugal, as well as directors long admired here. Amongst the returnees are the Danish director Thomas Vinterbe...