Tag Archives: Filmmaking

Venice International Film Festival

4 questions about Konchalovsky’s ‘Paradise’

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What is the film about?

The action takes place in France during World War II. Russian émigré and Resistance member Olga Kamenskaya is detained by the police for trying to save two Jewish children. Jules, a French policeman and a Nazi collaborator, is willing to make concessions for her, but Olga winds up in a concentration camp where she meets S.S. officer Helmut, a Chekhov admirer who joined the S.S. in hopes of creating a paradise on Earth.

The scenes in the film alternate with interviews with the protagonists in which each talks about his or her childhood, family life, profession and the reasons they chose to support one side or the other.

Who stars in the film?

Olga is played by actress Yulia Vysotskaya, who is also director Konchalovsky’s wife. Helmut is portrayed by Christian Claus, and Jules, by Philippe Duquesne. Other actors include: Jakob Diehl, Peter Kurth, Viktor Sukhorukov and Vera Voronkova.

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Olga, played by actress Yulia Vyotskaya, who is also director Konchalovsky’s wife, plays up her feminine wiles with Jules, played by Phillip Duquesne, a French-Nazi collaborator assigned to investigate her case. (Photo courtesy of ASAC Images/Biennale Cinema di Venezia)

Which awards has the film received?

The film premiered on Sept. 8, 2016 at the Venice Film Festival and won the Silver Lion for Best Director.

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In the last 10 years, Russian films and directors had received five prizes in Venice: Nikita Mikhalkov (Special Lion, 2007), Alexei German, Jr. (Silver Lion for the film The Paper Soldier, 2008), Mikhail Krichman (Golden Osella for Best Cinematography for Silent Souls, 2010), Alexander Sokurov (Golden Lion for Faust, 2011) and Konchalovsky himself (Silver Lion for The Postman’s White Nights, 2014).

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Rooftop scene from Andrei Konchalovsky’s Paradise. (Photo courtesy of ASAC Images/Biennale Cinema di Venezia)

*Featured image: Paradise director Andrei Konchalovsky . Photo courtesy of ASAC Images/Biennale Cinema di Venezia.

(Source: http://www.rbth.com)

Student Academy Awards

Top Student Academy Awards Go to AFI, USC, Berkeley, Columbia

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All winners, including foreign films from Germany and Israel, are now eligible for the Oscars shorts categories

Posted by Larry Gleeson

By Steve Pond

Films from the American Film Institute, USC, the University of California, Berkeley and Columbia University were the gold-medal winners at the Student Academy Awards, which were handed out on Thursday night at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.

The 17 winning films were revealed in August, but the Academy does not announce whether each film has won the gold, silver or bronze medal until the awards ceremony, which caps a week-long series of industry events for the student filmmakers.

David Henry Gerson won the gold medal in the alternative category for “All These Voices,” a short about an SS officer encountering an acting troupe, which he made at AFI. Silver and bronze awards went to Yvonne Ng for “Cloud Kumo” and Johnny Coffeen for “The Swan Girl,” respectively.

Alicja Jacina from USC won the animation gold for “Once Upon a Line” — which, as the title suggests, consists of simple line drawings. Echo Wu won the animation silver for “The Wishgranter,” while Carter Boyce took bronze for “Die Flucht.”

The narrative gold medal went to “Nocturne in Black,” a film about a musician in a Middle Eastern conflict zone by Jimmy Keyrouz from Columbia University. “Art is a mighty tool that helps us fight extremism and terrorism,” said Keyroux in his acceptance speech. Silver and bronze in the category went to two films from Chapman University, Brian Robau’s “It’s Just a Gun” and Brenna Malloy’s “Rocket.”

In the documentary category, the top prize was won by Berkeley student Daphne Matziaraki for a film about refugees in the Mediterranean, “4.1 Miles.” Rongfei Guo won silver for “Fairy Tales” and Elise Conklin won bronze for “From Flint: Voices of a Poisoned City.”

Gold medals in the foreign-film categories went to the University of Television and Film Munich (Alex Schaad’s “Invention of Trust”), the Academy of Media Arts Cologne (Ahmad Saleh’s “Ayny”) and Tel Aviv University (Maya Sarfaty’s “The Most Beautiful Woman”).

The 17 winners consisted of nine women and eight men and made up a distinctly international group: Many of the students from U.S. film schools came from other countries.

Joel Edgerton, Lucy Liu, Daisy Ridley and Parker Sawyers served as presenters at the ceremony. Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs began the program by pointing out that a record 385 Academy members served as judges for the competition, while Student Academy Awards Chairman Gregg Helvey, a past winner himself, said that the Academy received a record 1,749 entries from 381 different film schools.

Winners received cash awards of $5,000 for gold, $3,000 for silver and $2,000 for bronze. In addition, all winners qualified for the 2016 Academy Award in either the live-action short, animated short or documentary short category.

In recent years, a number of Student Oscar winners have gone on to receive Oscar nominations, including Luke Matheny’s “God of Love” and Tanel Toom’s “The Confession” in 2010, Max Zahle’s “Raju” in 2011, Talkhon Hamzavi’s “Parvaneh” in 2013 and Patrick Vollrath’s “Everything Will Be Okay” last year.

Past Student Academy Award winners include Spike Lee, John Lasseter, Pete Doctor, Robert Zemeckis, Trey Parker, Bob Saget.

For the first time, the foreign area also included separate awards for foreign animated and documentary films, with only gold medals handed out in those two categories.

The winners and medal placement:

Alternative
Gold: “All These Voices,” David Henry Gerson, American Film Institute
Silver: “Cloud Kumo,” Yvonne Ng, City College of New York
Bronze: “The Swan Girl,” Johnny Coffeen, Maharishi University of Management

Animation
Gold: “Once Upon a Line,” Alicja Jasina, USC
Silver: “The Wishgranter,” Echo Wu, Ringling College of Art and Design
Bronze: “Die Flucht,” Carter Boyce, DePaul University

Documentary
Gold: “4.1 Miles,” Daphne Matziaraki, University of California, Berkeley
Silver: “Fairy Tales,” Rongfei Guo, New York University
Bronze: “From Flint: Voices of a Poisoned City,” Elise Conklin, Michigan State University

Narrative
Gold: “Nocturne in Black,” Jimmy Keyrouz, Columbia University
Silver: “It’s Just a Gun,” Brian Robau, Chapman University
Bronze: “Rocket,” Brenna Malloy, Chapman University

Foreign Narrative
Gold: “Invention of Trust,” Alex Schaad, University of Television and Film Munich (Germany)
Silver: “Where the Woods End,” Felix Ahrens, Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF (Germany)
Bronze: “Tenants,” Klara Kochanska, The Polish National Film, Television and Theatre School (Poland)

Foreign Documentary
Gold: “The Most Beautiful Woman,” Maya Sarfaty, Tel Aviv University (Israel)

(Source: http://www.thewrap.com)

 

Toronto International Film Festival

Filmmaker from Ferozepur gets slice of glory at Toronto fest with ‘India in a Day’

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Posted by Larry Gleeso

By Gaurav Sagar Bhaskar,

A filmmaker from Ferozepur, one of Punjab’s hinterland towns on the border with Pakistan, has brought a slice of glory as video footage submitted by him is part of a feature screened at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this month.

“The one-and-a-half-hour Google documentary film titled ‘India in a Day’ was made with about 16,000 clips of 370 hours, and some footage submitted by me is part of the final film,” explained Sunil Kataria, a resident of a locality in Ferozepur cantonment area who works in Chandigarh.

“The film tries to capture the essence of India through footage shot on a single day. It is co-produced by filmmakers Ridley Scott and Anurag Kashyap while Richie Mehta directed it. It will be theatrically released too in some main towns on Friday,” he added.

What’s the footage? He shot it last October when he was otherwise working in a news channel at Hyderabad. “I recorded the newsroom culture besides some shots from the life of a common man, within 10 minutes,” said Kataria.

“It’s been a wonderful experience watching the film in an online live-stream special screening on Wednesday before its official release. Also, I had a live discussion with director Mehta with other co-directors.”

Two years ago, Kataria’s 41-second micro-film titled ‘Honesty is the Best Policy’ was screened at the Third International Film Festival of South Asia and the Punjabi International Film Festival in Toronto too.

Kataria says he has recently joined a media firm in the state capital but at his heart he remains equally committed to his passion, filmmaking.

(Source: http://www.hindustantimes.com)

*Featured photo – Sunil Kataria, a resident of a locality in Ferozepur cantonment area who works in Chandigarh. (HT Photo)

 

Venice International Film Festival

Oscar 2017 Predictions: Venice Film Festival winner ‘The Black Hen’ Will represent Nepal At the 2017 Oscars

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Posted by Larry Gleeson

By Francisco Salazar

The Black Hen has been selected to represent Nepal at the 2017 Academy Awards. The film, which won the Best Film in the Venice Film Festival’s Critics week, was directed by first time filmmakers Min Bahadur Bham. The movie also played at the Singapore and Taipei Film festivals where it also received acclaimed.

The film takes place in 2001 when a ceasefire brought a break to the small war-torn village in Northern Nepal and tells the story of two young friends who start raising a hen given to Prakash by his sister, with hopes to save money by selling her eggs. However, the hen goes missing. The film has obtained rave reviews and could surprise if the Academy is interested in taking challenges and being unpredictable.

Though Nepal’s history with the Academy is short, the country was nominated in 1999 for its first submissions Caravan. However, since then the country has not been able to pick up another nomination. Last year Nepal submitted Talakjung vs. Tulke,  a film that never caught on with the Academy or with audiences worldwide.

This year represents an unusually strong year for the Foreign Language category. Among the frontrunners to be nominated are Toni Erdmann, Julieta, House of Others, Sieranevada, The Ardennes, Chevalier, and Mother.   Other films that will also be strong competitors include El Classico, From Afar, and Neruda.

The Academy is known for choosing some of the most critically acclaimed films out of the festival circuit and usually nominate films from Venice, Cannes, Toronto, Sundance, Berlin, Tribeca and Locarno Film Festivals. Last year Hungary took home the Oscar for the Cannes favorite Son of Saul while in 2014 the Toronto Film Festival and box office hit Ida  won.

The Foreign Language Film deadline to submit is Oct. 3. On Jan. 17 the Academy will announce the nine finalists from among the eligible films and on Jan. 24 nominations will be announced. The winner will be announced at the Oscar ceremony on Feb. 26.

(Source: http://www.latinpost.com)

#tiffjp, Tokyo International Film Festival

ANIME NEWS: One-day anime event a feature of the Tokyo film festival this year

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The Boy and the Beast (Photo credit: The Boy and the Beast Film Partners)

The 29th Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) will open with the British film “Florence Foster Jenkins” and close with one about shogi titled “Satoshi: A Move for Tomorrow.”

Organizers also announced that a one-day special anime event TIFF Ani!! will be offered for anime fans on Halloween on Oct. 31.

The 10-day festival will be held from Oct. 25 to Nov. 3 at the Roppongi Hills complex, EX Theater Roppongi and other venues in the capital.

The TIFF was started in 1985. In recent years, it has shone the spotlight on anime films. Last year, it screened “Garakowa: Restore the World,” “Miss Hokusai,” “Ajin: Demi-Human” and other works, in addition to covering the “Mobile Suit Gundam” robot anime franchise.

Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant, who starred in Stephen Frears’ “Florence Foster Jenkins,” will visit Japan for the occasion.

“Satoshi: A Move for Tomorrow” starring Kenichi Matsuyama is about Satoshi Murayama, a shogi Japanese chess master who died at a young age.

In addition to a special evening event at Kabukiza theater, the festival will host the TIFF Ani!! event at the Tokyo International Forum.

Little advance information has been disclosed, but it will focus on anime songs.

This year, the TIFF will also feature Mamoru Hosoda in a special program titled “The World of Mamoru Hosoda.”

Hosoda is a leading anime director whose latest work is “The Boy and the Beast,” which opened in 2015. More details about the program will be unveiled in late September.

Visit the festival’s official website at (http://2016.tiff-jp.net/en/).

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(Source: http://www.asahi.com)

Tamil

‘Visaranai’ is India’s official entry to Oscars 2017

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Tamil film director Vetrimaran’s Visaranai has been selected as the official entry to Oscars 2017 in the Foreign Language Film category. The film, based on police brutality, had bagged three National Film awards.

Visaranai, produced by Dhanush’s Wunderbar Productions, and based on M. Chandrakumar’s novel Lock Up, has already received international accolades, including at the 72nd Venice Film Festival, before its theatrical release.

A pleased Vetrimaaran confirmed to The Hindu that he had indeed heard from the officials about the submission.

The movie was chosen out of 29 contenders, said secretary general of Film Federation of India Supran Sen.

The other Tamil films to be officially selected in the past for the Oscars are Jeans, Indian, Kurithipunal, Devar Magan, Anjali, Nayagan, Deiva Magan.

 The 89th Academy Awards event is scheduled for in February 2017 in Los Angeles.
(Source: The Internet Desk http://www.thehindu.com)
#SBIFF, Santa Barbara International Film Festival, Showcase Series

Note from Roger Durling – Fatima

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Post by Larry Gleeson

Dear Cinephiles,

FATIMA was the “small miracle of a film” that won the Best Picture at this year’s Cesars – France’s equivalent of the Oscars.  It’s such a profoundly enriching experience watching this tale about mothers and daughters and immigrants in France.

It plays tonight at 7:30pm at the Riviera Theatre.

See you at the movies!
Roger Durling

 

Review: In ‘Fatima,’ a Muslim Mother Working in France Hits Her Limit

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By Stephen Holden –  The New York Times

“If my daughter is a success, my happiness is complete,” declares the title character of “Fatima,” a small miracle of a film from the French director Philippe Faucon.

Divorced from her husband, whom she followed to France and with whom she is still friendly, Fatima (Soria Zeroual) is a 44-year-old North African woman raising two teenage girls in Lyon. The oldest, Nesrine (Zita Hanrot), 18, is a first-year medical student, and the younger, Souad (Kenza-Noah Aïche), is a sullen, sexy 15-year-old rebel ashamed of her mother for working as a housecleaner.

Souad sneers that Fatima is “a useless she-donkey” and “a living rag.” But her mother, however stung, endures the abuse and chooses her words carefully when firing back. Fatima loves her daughter despite her insolence. Steeped in North African Muslim culture, Fatima has traditional notions of what she calls “respectable” female behavior that don’t apply in France, and she is upset when Souad insists on baring her shoulders.

If the movie, loosely based on two books by Fatima Elayoubi, tells a familiar story of immigrants struggling to make something of themselves in an alien culture (Fatima speaks some French but reads only Arabic), it does so in a tone that is kindhearted but clearheaded, and the performances are low-key and believable. (Mr. Faucon picked Ms. Zeroual, a nonprofessional actress, to play Fatima.) It makes you feel the intense pressures facing Fatima and her family from all sides. When a young man flirts with Nesrine on a train, she politely but with a tinge of regret explains that she has to study.

Some of those pressures come from gossipy female neighbors who are envious, and judgmental. One Moroccan woman fumes that Nesrine didn’t greet her at a bus stop, an incident that Nesrine, lost in her thoughts of school, doesn’t recall. While on the job 12 or more hours a day, Fatima is treated with barely disguised contempt by female employers who brusquely order her around and who, she rightly senses, suspect her of petty theft.

Nesrine nearly cracks under the strain of her studies, which require her to absorb complex medical terminology. She worries most about not disappointing Fatima, who is sacrificing everything to pay for her schooling. Nesrine simply can’t afford to fail.

Eventually Fatima, exhausted, falls down stairs with her cleaning equipment and takes a paid five-month medical leave. But when the time is used up, she complains of continuing shoulder pains, although tests indicate she has recovered. She has simply reached her limit.

To bolster her morale, Fatima has been keeping a bedside journal, written in Arabic. As she reads aloud from it to a sympathetic doctor, her reflections on hardship, sacrifice and life’s unfairness have the tone of a humble manifesto.

“Be proud of all the Fatimas who clean working women’s houses,” she reads, and her words resound with the determination and quiet nobility of a woman who, however downtrodden, knows her own worth.

Fatima” is not rated. It is in French and Arabic, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 19 minutes.

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(Source: http://www.sbiff.org)

#tiffjp, Tokyo International Film Festival

29th Tokyo International Film Festival Announces Lineup for CROSSCUT ASIA #03: Colorful Indonesia

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The 29th Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) is just around the corner!

We are pleased to announce the lineup for CROSSCUT ASIA #03: Colorful Indonesia. The third chapter of the CROSSCUT ASIA series, launched by the Japan Foundation Asia Center and TIFF in 2014 to showcase Asian films, now turns its attention to recent cinema from Indonesia.

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Known as a nation of “tolerant Islam,” Indonesia is made up of more than 10,000 islands and has regional cultural differences that make it the ultimate land of diversity. TIFF has been presenting outstanding Indonesian films, reflecting the nation’s diverse culture, since the 80’s. In this year’s focus, we will showcase 11 films, from the latest works by veterans to the unique, ambitious work of up-and-coming directors.

In the showcase, we will highlight three films by Teddy Soeriaatmadja, whose provocative and powerful work is internationally acclaimed. Along with Soeriaatmadja’s so-called Trilogy About Intimacy, the lineup also includes such rising female directors as Nia Dinata, a pioneer in LGBT films, and Kamila Andini of the Mirror Never Lies.
During the festival, guests from the films will attend the Q&A sessions and symposium.
The 29th TIFF will take place October 25 – November 3, 2016 at Roppongi Hills, EX Theater Roppongi and other venues in Tokyo.

(Source: www.tiff-jp.net )

#SBIFF, Santa Barbara International Film Festival

Warren Beatty to Receive SBIFF’s Kirk Douglas Award for Excellence in Film

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Academy Award® winner Warren Beatty will be honored with the eleventh annual Kirk Douglas Award for Excellence in Film. Known for his iconic roles in BONNIE AND CLYDE, REDS, and DICK TRACY, Beatty will next be seen as Howard Hughes in 20th Century Fox’s RULES DON’T APPLY, which he also wrote and directed. The award will be presented at Bacara Resort & Spa in Santa Barbara on December 1, 2016 with all funds raised supporting SBIFF’s free year round educational programs.

Since 2006, the annual Kirk Douglas Award for Excellence in Film, which this year coincides with Douglas’s 100th birthday, has been awarded to a lifelong contributor to cinema through their work in front of the camera, behind, or both. Past honorees include Jane Fonda, Jessica Lange, Forest Whitaker, Robert DeNiro, Michael Douglas, Harrison Ford, Quentin Tarantino, Ed Harris, and John Travolta.

“Warren Beatty upholds the highest artistic standards of the film industry,” says Kirk Douglas, original award recipient. “His choice of material has entertained us as well as made us think more deeply about the world we live in. I’m delighted he is accepting this recognition of his extraordinary talent.”

The event starts off with an outdoor cocktail reception where attendees mingle with each other and watch the honoree and other special guests walk the red carpet. Following the reception, attendees are seated for an extravagant dinner and tribute in an intimate setting. Following the three-course meal, special guests will take the stage to recognize the honoree’s complete body of work with various montages and clips. The evening culminates with the honoree being presented with the award and addressing the attendees. These events are truly a once in a lifetime experience and will be remembered by its attendees for many years to come.

Tickets are available here.

The 32nd Santa Barbara International Film Festival s scheduled to run February 1-11, 2017.

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(Source: http://www.sbiff.org)

 

Feature Film

THE LOVE WITCH: A film by Anna Biller

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the-love-witchTHE LOVE WITCH, a film written, produced, and directed by Anna Biller starring Samantha Robinson, Laura Waddell, Jeffrey Vincent Parise, Gian Keys, Jared Sanford, Robert Seeley and Jennifer Ingrum is “an astonishingly lush, entrancing marvel that debuted at the Rotterdam Film Festival.”

Oscilloscope Laboratories is scheduled to release THE LOVE WITCH in 35mm in Los Angeles at the Nuart on November 11th and in New York on November 18th, with additional screenings at select theaters across the country.

Biller is known for her use of classic and outdated film genres to talk about female roles within culture, coding feminist ideas within cinematic aesthetics and visual pleasure. She creates all of her own costumes and set designs, making many or the props and paintings as well as composing and scoring for her films. THE LOVE WITCH, was made using only traditional film processes.

Elaine (Samantha Robinson), a beautiful young witch, is determined to find a man to love her. In her gothic Victorian apartment she makes spells and potions, and then picks up men and seduces them. However, her spells work too well, leaving her with a string of hapless victims. When she finally meets the man of her dreams, her desperation to be loved will drive her to the brink of insanity and murder.

With a visual style that pays tribute to Technicolor thrillers of the ‘60s, THE LOVE WITCH explores female fantasy and the repercussions of pathological narcissism.

 

Here’s what leading critics are saying about THE LOVE WITCH:

“Extravagantly fulfills the filmmaker’s intention to create ‘visual pleasure for women.”

Steve Dollar, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

 

“Biller shot it, ravishingly, on 35mm and furnished every frame with uncanny precision; the result really could pass as a relic of the era. That it’s quite funny and charming seems almost beside the point.”

Calum Marsh, THE VILLAGE VOICE

 

“Sex, death, Satanic rituals, God-level costume design, and cinema’s greatest tampon joke ensue, as Biller spins an arch but hyper-sincere story about the true price of patriarchy. A spellbinding homage to old pulp paperbacks and the Technicolor melodramas of the 1960s, Anna Biller’s THE LOVE WITCH is a throwback that’s told with the kind of perverse conviction and studied expertise that would make Quentin Tarantino blush.”

David Ehrlich, INDIEWIRE

 

“A metaphysical astonishment. The costumes and furnishings, Biller’s own handmade versions of the era’s candy-coated extravagances, are as exquisitely arch and theatrical as the performances and the action, which—for all their comic exaggeration—echo with an uncanny symbolic power.”

Richard Brody, THE NEW YORKER

Check back for a full review coming soon…

See you at the movies!

(Excerpt from The Love Witch press materials courtesy of Marina Bailey PR)