The Hubert Bals Fund of the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) has selected twenty-five film projects that receive grants for script development, digital production, postproduction, distribution or workshops. In its Fall 2012 selection round, the Fund gives 330,000 Euro to projects from seventeen Asian, Eastern European, Latin-American and African countries. (See full list below)   From many strong applications for workshop initiatives, the Hubert Bals Fu...

Interview with Amir Manor for ‘Epilogue’ (2012). Amir Manor is an Israeli director who has made four short films ('Pouring Sun', 2006; 'Reds', 2007; 'Ruin', 2008; 'Lands', 2008) and one feature film, ‘Epilogue’ (2012), which screened in the international competition at the 53rd Thessaloniki International Film Festival. The film won four awards at TIFF: Special Jury Award for Originality and Innovation, Best Screenplay Award, Human Values...

The Rural Route tour is set to kick out great dates in 2013! That includes Iowa shows in Donna Reed’s hometown of Denison and across the state at the spiffy Oneota Film Festival in Decorah.  We dip down in the desert to Oro Valley Library, AZ, then come back SE with a mini Appalachian tour that includes stops at Abingdon Community College in VA, Appalshop in KY, and Mechanical Eye in Asheville, NC.  Later on, shows back east at universities and art spaces in Boston and Phil...

Interview with director Cristian Mungiu   Romanian director Cristian Mungiu is a prolific filmmaker with each of his feature films having held premiers at the Cannes Film Festival. His first feature ‘Occident’ (2002) screened in the Directors Fortnight at Cannes. He later won the Palme d’Or for his film ‘Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days’ (2007). His most recent film ‘Beyond the Hills’ (2012) was nominated for the Palme d’Or and won aw...

Interview with director Cristian Mungiu   Romanian director Cristian Mungiu is a prolific filmmaker with each of his feature films having held premiers at the Cannes Film Festival. His first feature ‘Occident’ (2002) screened in the Directors Fortnight at Cannes. He later won the Palme d’Or for his film ‘Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days’ (2007). His most recent film ‘Beyond the Hills’ (2012) was nominated for the Palme d’Or and won aw...

  Maxim Australia Celebrates Hot 100 At Halloween Bash With Special Guest Sophie Monk         Maxim Australia Celebrates Hot 100 At Halloween Bash With Special Guest Sophie Monk;  Marquee, Sydney – The Star...   Maxim Australia enjoyed its Hot 100 Halloween Bash - party at Sydney's famous Marquee nightclub tonight.   It was obvious to the trained eye that one or two VIP's - high rollers, hot models and blonde's a plenty were...

Resurrection of an Important Festival, after 3 years   Lekha Shankar, in N.Delhi The Osian’s Cinefan Film Festival of Indian, Asian and Arab Cinema, one of the pioneering festivals for Asian cinema, founded by the dynamic Aruna Vasudev, made  a come-back after three years, to New Delhi, India, pleasing the many film buffs  in the country. After all, this is the Indian capital city’s only film festival, at a time when nearly every city in the country, ...

 14th Annual EROS Film Festival - From Iran to Ganymede: Strange Encounters, Best Friends and Family Ties   Out Film CT, the organizer of Connecticut’s two annual LGBT film festivals, is pleased to announce the line-up for the 14th EROS Film Festival, which takes place Nov. 7 – 11 at Cinestudio, on the campus of Trinity College. The event is sponsored by EROS (Encouraging Respect Of all Sexualities), Trinity’s gay/straight student alliance, and showcases a broa...

With the exception of an alluring red carpet, its' safe to say that BUFF has pretty much rolled out everything else in its power to deliver this year's annual showcase of British urban filmmaking of which, at the time of writing has been 1 week removed.  A showcase is of course nothing without the undoubted stars of the show - the filmmakers. It has been a blast this year with 3 UK premieres ("Sparkle", "12" and "Melvin"), 2 venues packed out to the r...

   'OTELO BURNING' One of most talked-about films in S. Africa today.  One of the most talked-about contemporary  films  from South Africa, is ‘Otelo Burning ’, which combines sport, racism, politics, family and peer  relationships with gentle but awesome power. It will have a special screening at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand (FCCT),in  Bangkok .  The film is the debut feature of Sara Blecher, who has made many notewort...

  Beki Probst is the head of the EFM, European Film Market, for Berlinale since 1988. Before this position, she worked for the Berlinale as the film festival’s delegate for Turkey and Greece for seven years. Beki was born in Istanbul, Turkey where as a student she studied law and journalism and wrote for Turkish newspapers ‘Tercuman’ and ‘Hayat’. It was when she moved in Switzerland in 1960 that her career in cinema began where she managed the ...