Film Comment, the highly respected film magazine that is the publishing initiative of New York's Film Society of Lincoln Center, has thrown its hat into the ring of the current awards season with an announcement this week of its Top Ten Films of the Year. Since the film journal is known for its international and eclectic taste, the list is not a carbon copy of the ones that are the mainstay of the awards roundelay, but point to lesser known titles that are worthy of greater attention....

The New York Film Festival, still after 22 years under the outstanding stewardship of Richard Pena, has completed its 48th edition running from September 24 to October 10. It has remained a most desirable platform for directors and the place to detect tendencies for high quality commercial movie making and for films in the art cinema sector. It is a festival where film tastes are shaped and where an upscale discerning audience derives pointers for serious filmmaking and for features they should...

In a previous post, we mentioned that we were going with a French New Wave theme this year -- it just felt right! And look, we have a Jean-Luc Godard-esque concept. Compare it to the iconic photograph and tell us what you think. We're still working out the kinks but we kind of like it. See the pictures and read the blog here: http://valleyfilmfest.blogspot.com/2010/10/countdown-to-vff10t-minus-21-days-aka.html ...

Earlier this year, our fearless founder, Tracey, had the opportunity to meet icon Jean-Paul Belmondo at the L.A. Film Critics awards, and the seed for our 10th Anniversary theme was planted...50 years of French New Wave. Our desire to embody 1960's cool was reinforced by our move to our new venue, CAP Theatre, which already had its own 60's vibe. With Jean-Luc Godard scheduled to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy next year, and the passing of New Wave director Claude Chabro...

  FILM SOCIALISM (Jean-Luc Godard, Switzerland) Well, one can't say that the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) which opens this evening, does not offer its audience a wide range of choices. On its opening night, film lovers can decide to sample the official Festival Opener, a campy Canadian hockey musical (yes, you read that correctly) titled SCORE: A HOCKEY MUSICAL by local filmmaker Michael McGowan or the latest movie meditation by one of the art form's masters Jean-Luc...

Well, one can't say that the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) which opens this evening, does not offer its audience a wide range of choices. On its opening night, film lovers can decide to sample the official Festival Opener, a campy Canadian hockey musical (yes, you read that correctly) titled SCORE: A HOCKEY MUSICAL by local filmmaker Michael McGowan or the latest movie meditation by one of the art form's masters Jean-Luc Godard. FILM SOCIALISM, presented in the Festival's Masters se...

NEW FEATURE FILMS AND DOCUMENTARIES AT THE VIENNALE As in previous years, the main program of the festival consists of about 130 feature films and reveals a kind of state of production: a representation of current world cinema and its various developments and tendencies. It can, in a way, be considered a survey of "the Continent of Cinema" in which cinematic regions, boundaries, and topo - graphies begin to emerge. And within that continent individual islands and ...

  by Marla Lewin COLCOA’s City of Lights, City of Angels, a Week of French Film Premieres in Hollywood presented a Happy Hour Talk at the Renoir Theatre at the DGA on Friday.   It followed the international premiere and historic screening of the restored film Pierrot Le Fou, directed by Jean-Luc Godard based on a novel by Lional White, and starring Jean-Paul Belmondo,  and Godards’ once wife and muse Anna Karina.  She was to be part of the panel along with  Ser...

By Greta Lorez   Did you know… … Jean-Luc Godard, one of the founding members of the Nouvelle Vague, was the son of a Swiss couple. Born in Paris, he spent his childhood in Switzerland and at the age of 18, moved back to Paris where he studied Ethnology at the Sorbonne. Godard, however, never severed his Swiss connection: many of his movies were shot on location in Switzerland. He lives there now. … the German filmmaker Wim Wenders (Paris, Texas, Wings of De...

With more than sixty French film productions and co-productions included in the line-up, French cinema boasts a strong presence at the 39th International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR). Internationally acclaimed, recent French productions (feature films, short films, performances) will top the bill together with numerous début features, including two films competing for the VPRO Tiger Awards, by a talented and innovative young generation of filmmakers, confirming the IFFR’s role as a major pl...

By Sophie Nellis   Belmondo and Seberg    The French New Wave – known as la nouvelle vague– was a celebration of youth, Paris and, above all, cinema. Many people don’t know that the term nouvelle vague was first used in 1957 to describe the new generation of French youth, emancipated 18 to 30 year olds who were free-thinking and keen to throw off the legacy of the Second World War. It was only following the success of François Truffaut’s Les...

Cannes Classics, the Festival program of landmark films of the past, will be closing today with the 3pm screening of a print of the spaghetti western Once Upon a Time... The Revolution (1971), by Sergio Leone. The Cineteca di Bologna and the lab Immagine Ritrovata can take credit for the restoration. At 7pm, festivalgoers are invited to discover Two of the New Wave, to be presented by the director of the documentary, Emmanuel Laurent. Celebrating the fifty-year anniver...

Godard, Losey, Antonioni, Visconti, Tati, Franju et Sergio Leone once again in the Official Selection? Pierrot le Fou, Eyes Without A Face or Senso in Competition against L’Avventura or Once Upon A Time…the Revolution? Martin Scorsese is the honorary President of Cannes Classics 2009, a section established in 2004 to accompany the contemporary films of the Official Selection with a program of restored  and rediscovered films, to be released theatrically or on DVD. The film...

 On Saturday, 15th of November at the John Kassavetes Theater, Luc Dardenne, the awarded cinematographer, opened the series of masterclasses organized by the 49th Thessaloniki's International Film Festival (TIFF). Elise Domenach from ‘Positif' magazine was the co-ordinator of the masterclass. ‘Despite the fact that Jean Pierre and Luc Dardenne have won the Golden Phoenix in the Cannes Film Festival twice and have gained the respect of the European film community, they prefer keeping a low ...

The annual festival trailer has been one of the Viennale’s special features for quite some time now. This is not a commercial trailer as such, but rather a small, autonomous piece of cinema, standing on its own and for the festival alike. At the Viennale’s invitation internationally renowned directors have created these one-minute films for the festival in the last few years, among them Stan Brakhage, Jonas Mekas, Leos Carax and Agnès Varda.Festival director Hans Hurch has been trying for q...

 Wednesday, May 7-------This May marks a milestone in recent world history. It is the 40th anniversary of the “events of 1968”, a series of revolutionary protests that spanned the globe and created social and political turmoil, particularly in the United States, England and France. While the protests centered on the escalating war in Vietnam, the main engine was a discontent with politics as usual. In France, in particular, art mixed with politics, as leading filmmakers, artists and philoso...

Tuesday, December 4----------The year 2007 will be remembered for many things.....but one of the biggest surprises, at least in the worlds of film and media, has been the emergence of the former Communist state of Romania as the hottest film producing territory, not only in Europe, but also worldwide. Of course, a few international arthouse hits does not a thriving industry make, but if one wanted to get a sense of where the energy and inspiration in contemporary cinema could be coming from next...

Friday, July 13-----To celebrate Bastille Day (and the general love of all things French), the Jacob Burns Film Center, the prominent arthouse complex north of New York City, is hosting The French New Wave film series, reminding us all what it was about the French that we fell in love with in the first place. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the French "Nouvelle Vague" (New Wave) was the most dynamic cinema on the planet. It literally exploded when a group of young Cahiers du Cinema ...

 Friday, June 16--------The BamCinematek, the repertory arm of the BAM Rose Cinemas at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, is presenting a newly restored film print of a true classic from iconic director Jean-Luc Godard  for a limited run starting this evening. PIERROT LE FOU, a 1965 milestone from the most innovative director of the French New Wave of the 1950s and 1960s, will have a special 10 day revival, reminding audiences of the audacity, sexiness and visual splendor of this iconic director&...

The NoDa Film Festival returns from Sunday, February 25 to Tuesday, February 27 to the historic Neighborhood Theater. This time we’re celebrating “French New Wave Cinema,” the movement that transformed movies and paved the way for today’s independent film culture. Co-sponsored by the Alliance Francaise, the festival is FREE and open to the public. The New Wave took movies away from the studios and gave them back to the filmmakers themselves. Shot on location and on the fly, French New ...