Another International Film Festival is a different film event which tries to focus on traditional film making, where the story and characters are basically used to draw the audience towards the movie. This year’s ‘AIFF‘ will take place at Micon Downtown Budget Cinemas, Wisconsin on November 13-14, 2015. Recent news from this corner is regarding the selection of Sohan Roy‘s ‘DAM 999‘ for this year’s screening.
‘DAM 999‘ as we all known is one of the most demanded flicks which has been receiving huge amount of appreciations and accolades from film festival circuits for the past four years. The movie’s demand in festival platforms is still on the higher side, and its selection in AIFF clearly indicates this trend.
‘DAM 999‘ showcases an emotional story in the backdrop of an outdated dam. The film also finely depicts the ancient concept of Indian Navarasas and Ayurveda. Ashish Vidyarthi, Joshua Frederich Smith and Vimala Raman are the key actors in this movie.
AIIFF is a fund raiser for Chippewa Valley Community Television. The funds obtained through this festival will go directly to helping Chippewa Valley Community Television.
Todd Haynes, renowned American Independent Filmmaker and screenwriter has been selected receive the Director Tribute at the 25th Annual IFP Gotham Independent Film Awards. The Award ceremony will be conducted in New York on November 30, 2015.
As per the film festival norms, the Director Tribute award is usually given out to a veteran filmmaker with unique vision who has made a significant contribution to the motion picture industry.
The career of Todd Haynes is bit cinematic in nature, and it has some ups and downs which are quite common in the life of all legendary personalities. During 1987, he made his first noted short film, ‘Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story’. This short film showcased the life of American Pop Singer Karen Carpenter, and Todd narrated the story with the help of Barbie dolls.
His debut feature film ‘Poison’ was released in 1991. The movie won the grand jury prize at the highly competitive Sundance Film Festival. Some of his other movies includes, ‘Safe’, ‘Velvet Goldmine’, ‘Far From Heaven’ and ‘I am not there’.
Todd Hayne’s latest film is ‘Carol’. The movie had its world premiere at the Cannes on May 17, 2015. The film will have a theatrical release in United States of America on November 20, 2015.
‘Carol’ will showcase the story in the backdrop of early 1950 where young women of 20 years fall flat for an older married woman. The movie stars Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Sarah Paulson, Kyle Chandler and Jake Lacy.
With the addition of Best Script award, this year’s Gotham Independent Film awards will give out awards in eight categories which includes, best feature, best actress, best actor, best documentary, Bingham Ray Breakthrough Director, breakthrough actor and audience award.
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts better known as BAFTA has revealed the key dates for next year’s British Academy Film Awards. As reported earlier, the much celebrated award ceremony will take place on February 14, 2016 at the Royal Opera House in London’s Covent Garden.
Films which are been released in United Kingdom between Jan. 1, 2015, and Feb. 12, 2016 are eligible to submit the entries for next year’s awards. November 09, 2015 is the entry deadline, while the round one voting will start from December 09, 2015. Before December 17, 2015, the qualified films should get screened in front of BAFTA panel members.
Please read down to know more about the complete key dates in next year’s BAFTA program.
Nov 9 – Entry deadline
Dec 9 – Round One voting opens
Dec 17 – Qualified films must screen to BAFTA members before this date
2016
Jan 4 – Round One voting closes (12.00 GMT)
Jan 6 – EE Rising Star Award Nominations Announcement
Jan 8 – Nominations Announcement; Round Two voting opens
Feb 10 – Round Two voting closes (18.00 GMT)
Feb 12 – Latest date for entered films to have been on general release
Feb 14 – EE British Academy Film Awards
Norwegian International Film Festival has an unquestionable place in International Film Festival circuit. The event usually garners huge number of spectators from all corners of the world, and many eminent personalities in World Cinema used to walk the Red Carpet. The 43rd edition of this festival is scheduled from August 16 – 21 in Haugesund.
The festival organizers have announced that Norwegian films will open and close the festival this year. Nordic disaster movie ‘The Wave’ will open this year’s festival. The screening will mark the world premiere of the flick, and the makers have huge expectations when it comes to audience response. The movie is directed by Roar Uthaug and it is based on real predictions of a natural disaster, based on events from 80 years ago.
Joachim Trier’s ‘Louder Than Bombs’ has been finalized as the closing film for the festival. The movie stars Jesse Eisenberg in the lead role. ‘Louder Than Bombs’ will portray the emotional story of a father and two sons who confronts their feelings of their deceased wife and mother.
Festival director Tonje Harderson is quite happy about the inclusion of more Norwegian films in the festival. “I am very happy to see that local cinema is so well represented, and in so many genres”, said Tonje.
“It is indeed a pleasure to welcome the grande dame of Danish film and theatre Ghita Nørby, and Danish director Bille August, with their films in the main programme”, added Tonje.
The presence of a Bille August movie has enhanced the fame of this year’s festival. His movie ‘Silent Heart’ will conclude the Scandinavian part of the main selection. The movie showcases the story of a family who joins together for a day to take care of a family member who is suffering from an incurable disease. Ghita Norby, Morten Grunwald, Paprika Steen and Danica Curcic are doing prominent roles in this movie.
Julie Delpy’s Lolo, a high profile comedy starring herself and Dany Boon will be priemiered at Venice Film Festival(Sep 2-12).The number of titles in competition at the independently run section of the Venice Film Festival is now 11.
The world premiere of the film, which will go on to the screen at Toronto has been secured by Venice Days following an agreement with international distributor Wild Bunch.
Delpy, star of Richard Linklater’s Before… trilogy, has written and directed Lolo . The satirical comedy centres on fortysomething workaholic Violette (Delpy), who finds romance while on a spa vacation.
But once back home, the pair have to deal with Lolo, Violette’s brainy, tyrannical son, who has no intention of relinquishing his own control over the family, and the emotions of his mother.
Delpy’s previous features as director include 2 Days in New York(2012), Skylab (2011), The Countess (2009) and 2 Days In Paris (2007).
Venice Days general delegate Giorgio Gosetti said of Lolo: “Julie Delpy’s latest impressive effort packs three fundamental aspects of our programme into a single title: a focus on women’s creativity, a passion for comedy and films that combine intelligence and entertainment – a trademark of French cinema, which has always loomed large on Venice Days lineups.”
Venice Days had been unveiled its with Dani de la Torre’s debut thriller Retribution, starring Luis Tosar, set to open the strand.
French director Laurent Cantet will preside over the jury that will award the Venice Days Award worth $21,000 (€20,000) to the top competition title.
Competition entries will also view for the section’s audience award, while all first works are eligible for Venice’s Luigi De Laurentiis prize for best first work across all the Venice festival sections.
VENICE DAYS 2015 COMPETITION
Arianna, Carlo Lavagna (Italy)
As I Open My Eyes, Leyla Bouzid (Fra-Tun-Bel)
Early Winter, Michael Rowe (Aus-Can)
First Light, Vincenzo Marra (Italy)
Island City, Ruchika Oberoi (India)
Klezner, Piotr Chrzan (Poland)
Lolo, Julie Delpy (France)
Long Live The Bride, Ascanio Celestini (Ita-Fra-Bel)
Retribution, Dani de la Torre (Spain)
The Memory of Water, Matias Bize (Chile)
Underground Fragrance, Pengfei (China)
Oscar contented movie DAM999, directed by Sohan Roy has been recently selected to the first ever Global Revolution festival which runs from August 28-30 in New York. The film will be showcased under world Cinema category of the festival.
With immense praise and appreciations pouring in from various film circuits DAM999 has no doubt, made a special place in the hearts of people across the world. The science fiction disaster film is based on the award winning short documentary ‘Dams- The Lethal Water Bombs’ and the Banquio dam disaster of 1975 that claimed the lives of 250,000 people in china and anticipated calamity for outdated dams in the world.
DAM999’ in recent times have headed to many film festivals and garnered huge accolades worldwide. It’s array of awards and appreciations includes5 Oscar selections in 3 categories (original score, original song and best picture), the only official selection from India at the Golden Rooster Award, Award of excellence for the Motion Picture Sound Track and Award of Merit for Original Score by Global Music Awards 2012 , Best International Feature Film, Special Jury Award, Best Movie of the Festival at International Film Festival for Environment, Health, and Culture 2013, declared Best English Film at Sangli Film Festival and adjudged as ‘Judges Favorite’ at International Film Festival – Antigua Barbuda.
Apart from these, ‘DAM 999’ has also been selected for screening at various global film festivals such as Tehran Film Festival, 10th Anuual Salento Film Festival, Jaipur International Film Festival, Kuala Lumpur Eco Film Festival, Malaysia, Chain NYC Film Festival, USA, Louisville’s International Festival of Film, USA and Trinity International Film Festival, USA.
The ‘Rathergate’ drama Truth starring Robert Redford and Cate Blanchett will open in New York and Los Angeles on October 16.
“Rathergate” refers to the drama surrounding the story, reported by Mary Mapes and Dan Rather for CBS, that President George W. Bush might have been AWOL from his service in the National Guard for over a year during the height of the Vietnam War. Encapsulating perhaps the final time longer wounds from the Vietnam War would impact U.S. electoral politics, the news rocked the contentious 2004 presidential race, coming just as Democratic candidate John Kerry was facing accusations of falsehoods about his own military service. Very quickly, the authenticity of primary documents obtained for the report was called into question by several experts, ultimately leading to the the discrediting of the entire story. In the ensuing fallout, Mapes was fired and rather forced into retirement.
The report was subsequently discredited by the government, led at the time by George W Bush, and led to the ruining of Rather’s career and the firing of Mapes.
The incident sparked an ongoing dialogue about journalism, big media and government interference.
The film ‘Truth’ has not been part of any autumn festival line-up announcement so far and could be a target for Telluride given the pedigree of the cast and the participation of SPC, whose films often premiere in Colorado.
James Vanderbuilt’s directorial debut from his own screenplay is based on Mapes’ 2006 book Truth And Duty and also stars Topher Grace, Elisabeth Moss and Dennis Quaid.
Bradley Fischer and William Sherak of Mythology Entertainment produce alongside Doug Mankoff and Andy Spaulding of Echo Lake Entertainment and Brett Ratner of RatPac Entertainment.
The 5th On the Edge (Kray Sveta) International Film Festival (Aug 21-28) on the Russian island of Sakhalin has revealed the jury members with Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf as the president. The jury will comprise: Filipino director Lav Diaz, who won Locarno’s Golden Leopard las t year for From What Is Before; leading Russian actor Danila Kozlovsky, who made a recent foray into Hollywood with Vampire Academy; and actress Anna Chipovskaya whose recent credits include Shpion and Yolki 3.
Makhmalbaf’s last feature, The President, will be shown during the festival as a Russian premiere, and there will also be screenings of his documentary Daddy’s School. Diaz’s five-hour epic, Norte, the End of History, is also set to screen at th festival.
The Competition section is set to include such titles as Kim Ki-Duk’s latest feature Stop; Armenian filmmaker Aram Shakhbadzian’s Moskvich, Mon Amour; Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s LUX Prize nominee Mustang; Ella Manzheeva’s feature debut The Gulls; and Geethu Mohandas’ Hindi road drama Liar’s Dice.
The festival will open with Peter Chan’s child abduction drama Dearest – also in Competition – and close with Andrey Zaytsev’s award-winning 14+, which screened in Berlin’s Generation sidebar in February.
On The Edge programme director Alexey Medvedev told ScreenDaily that many of the best films from this year’s Cannes will have their Russian premieres at the festival in Sakhalin since the Moscow Film Festival hardly showed any Cannes titles ¨on the pretext of economising means and Russia becoming independent of the West not only economically, but spiritually as well”.
Films set for Sakhalin that were first shown at Cannes include Assassin by Hsiao Hsien, Treasure by Corneliu Porumboiu, and Lobster by Yorgos Lanthimos, among others.
Medvedev revealed that a sidebar entitled Neighbours – Friends will present ¨films connected with personalities who became our friends during the festival’s history”.
¨This section will include a documentary on Jia Zhangke, who was a jury member two years ago, and Silence of the Courts by Prasanna Vithanage of Sri Lanka, who won the Critic’s Prize four years ago with With You, Without You”.
He added that open-air screenings on Sakhalin’s main square will include Empire of the Sun, to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in the Far East, and the restored version of the 1925 film Varieté shown in Karlovy Vary earlier this month.
Moreover, a special programme of the Beat Film Festival will feature documentaries on music and urban culture, including films about such Western icons as David Bowie and the group Blur as well as the Russian rock legend Yegor Letov (Zdorovo i Vechno).
Medvedev confirmed that a pitching forum will be held this year for the first time during the festival and will be open to local filmmakers wanting to present their ideas for fiction shorts or documentaries.
The three best pitches would be recommended for support by an as-yet-to be established regional film fund.
A screening of the Kazakh-Russian film The Last will be used to present the concept of creating a regional film fund in the Sakhalin region.
Lee Choong-jik has been appointed as new festival director for South Korea’s Jeonju International Film Festival (JIFF).
Lee is a professor at Chung-Ang University’s graduate school and previously served as head of the Korean Film Council (KOFIC, known at the time as the Korean Film Commission) from 2002-2005.
He will start his three-year term on August 1.
After graduating from Chung-Ang University’s film and drama department for undergrad and graduate studies, Lee went to the Ecole Supérieur de Réalisation Audio-Visuelle (ESRA) in France and graduated as a film directing major.
His previous experience also includes serving as festival director at the first Seoul International Independent Film Festival; a jury member for the second Busan International Film Festival’s Wide Angle section; head of KOFIC’s committee to promote digital cinema when it was first being integrated in Korea; dean of Chung-Ang University’s graduate school of Advanced Imaging Science, Multimedia & Film; and a member of the JIFF festival committee.
Lee’s producer credits include films such as The Pot, Sogyumo Acacia Band’s Story and Enlightenment Film.
JIFF’s organizing committee cited Lee’s experience in academia, industry and policy in their decision to appoint him.
Lee said he would aim to find ways to build on JIFF’s founding strengths and characteristics of ‘digital,’ ‘independent,’ and ‘alternative’ cinema to “establish an identity that suits in a new way the current times”.
The Venice Film Festival unveiled the list for its main jury, which is being helmed this year by director Alfonso Cuarón.
Joining Cuarón on that panel are Elizabeth Banks and Diane Kruger, as well as French author/screenwriter/director Emmanuel Carrère; Turkish director and 2014 Palme d’Or winner Nuri Bilge Ceylan; Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski (Ida, this year’s Oscar-winner for best foreign language film); Italian director Francesco Munzi; Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien (who won best director at Cannes this year for The Assassin); and British director and screenwriter Lynne Ramsay (We Need to Talk About Kevin).
The lineups for two additional Venice juries were also announced Monday. The “Horizons” jury, with director Jonathan Demme as president, includes French director-screenwriter Alix Delaporte, Spanish actress Paz Vega, Hong Kong director Fruit Chan, and Italian actress Anita Caprioli.
Those on the jury for the “Luigi De Laurentiis” Venice Award for a Debut Film – Lion of the Future Award are Hong Kong producer Roger Garcia, French film critic and historian Natacha Laurent, American director Charles Burnett, and Mexican journalist Daniela Michel, with Italian director Saverio Costanzo overseeing.
The 72nd Venice Film Festival, which runs from Sept. 2-12, will open with Universal Picture’s Everest and feature an out-of-competition screening of Johnny Depp’s Black Mass.The festival’s full lineup will be announced Wednesday.