The rise of the rapid distribution and exhibition changes driven by the challenge of global screening services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Hulu and their deep pocketed impact provided the background for the 2020 Berlinale.  Their role in the funding of film productions and national as well as global distribution had already been passionately discussed during the last two Berlinales before the 70th edition took place from February 20 to March 1, 2020 under...

  The World Premiere of Abel Ferrara’s out of competition film Piazza Vittorio at the Venice Film Festival (Sept 9) is an evocative document on one of Rome’s most beloved squares in Esquilino, the XV "rione" or district. Ferrara shows how the area has developed since the last century with historic footage. The open-air markets of that time were packed with people who sold fruit, vegetable, bread, cheese and meat. This kind of market is disappearing and...

The World Premiere of Abel Ferrara’s out of competition film Piazza Vittorio at the Venice Film Festival (Sept 9) is an evocative document on one of Rome’s most beloved squares in Esquilino, the XV "rione" or district. Ferrara shows how the area has developed since the last century with historic footage. The open-air markets of that time were packed with people who sold fruit, vegetable, bread, cheese and meat. This kind of market is disappearing and in the case of Piazza...

THE ONGOING publicity surrounding the insults being traded by Werner Herzog and Abel Ferrara over whether “The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans” is a remake of Ferrara’s 1992 original or not, maybe of interest to the industry, and particularly to film critics, but is of little interest to movie-goers. Both versions tell the story of a drug-addled cop trying to solve a case of murder, but the interpretation is as different as chalk from cheese. Herzog, more highly thou...

“THE NEW YORK INTERNATIONAL INDEPENDENT FILM AND VIDEO FESTIVAL RETURNS TO LOS ANGELES FOR 8 DAYS OF 100 SCREENINGS, RED CARPET PREMIERES, PARTIES, PANELS AND AWARDS CEREMONY & A NEW FEST PRESIDENT, ABEL FERRARA, THE KING OF INDIE FILM!”Featuring the talents of Susan Sarandon; Taryn Manning; Walter Cronkite; Arthur Laurents; Topmodel Venantia Otto; DJ Qualls; Mercedes McNab; Poet Steven Vincent Benét; Pulitzer Prize-Winning Composer Douglas Moore; Tony Randall (final performance, The Od...

 Abel Ferrara wins the “Ciak di Corallo” for his career achievements at the Ischia Film Festival seventh edition (July 5-11), the only international contest dedicated to the filming locations.The American director, born July 19 1951 in the Bronx, will receive the cinema’s world tribute thanks to his work, that has always been visionary, original and restless in a unique way in the international movie scene.The Ischia Film Festival will present a short preview of Ferrara’s docufiction ex...

This Saturday's New York International Independent Film and Video Festival reception at 2nd Avenue's Pangea restaurant was a convenient walk across the street from the Village East Cinemas where Filmmakers, actors, and artists assembled from Japan, China, Austria, Botswana, South America, Italy, India, and all across the USA. Though interpreters were used to translate across language barriers - no translators were necessary to convey the passion and pride these Independents showed for each oth...

  Thursday, March 12-----It is not as unusual as it may at first sound…..a filmmaker with over 40 years of experience and over 25 films in the can is lionized in Europe but underappreciated in his home country. That has been the fate of many of the original American indies of the 1970s, including such celebrated auteurs as Jim Jarmusch, Hal Hartley, Amos Poe and Susan Seidelman, and a more recent crop that includes Harmony Korine and Todd Solondz. Most prominently on this list is the idi...