By Liza Foreman By the end of day one, the Tokyo International Film Festival (23-31 October, 2010) was in full swing.Throngs of fans gathered to witness arrivals at the green carpet for openingnight. But by the next day it was down to business with TIFF head Tom Yoda holding a discussion with journalists about the work Japan has to do to catchup with the American content business which Yoda estimated to be five times its size. Still, business and culturego hand in hand at he festival. Cultura...
By Liza Foreman Catherine Deneuve, Jesse Eisenberg and The Social Network scribe Aaron Sorkin all made the trek tothe Japanese capital to join Asian glitterati on the Tokyo International FilmFestival’s green carpet, which snaked through a mass of neon-clad high-rises in Downtown Tokyo to celebrate opening night.After speeches from the festival head Tom Yoda and top Japanese politicos, including the country’sminister for economics, industry and culture, who spoke about the country’s ...
By Liza ForemanThe Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) will hold a press conference to announce the lineup of films and events of the 23rd edition on September 30th, 2010at the Roppongi Hills Mori Tower. The doors open at 1:00 p.m. and the press conference starts at 2:00 p.m. We cordially invite the press members to attend the press conference and obtain the latest information about the 23rd TIFF. ...
By Liza ForemanThe Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) has announced that the award-winning Irish filmmaker Neil Jordan will be the Jury President for the International Competition at the 23rd TIFF. Jordan's films have been honored with numerous awards worldwide including the Oscar (The Crying Game), and BAFTAs for (Crying Game, The End Of The Affair). Company Of Wolves, his second film, was selected for the first year of TIFF's Competition section in 1985. The 23rd edition of the Tokyo Int...
By Liza Foreman This year, the TokyoInternational Film Festival (TIFF) will commemorate Bruce Lee, the king of Asianaction movies, with a showcase of Lee's movies as part of the festival'sWinds of Asia Middle-East section.This special tribute entitled"The 70th Anniversary: Bruce Lee to the Future", will screen the following films -Bruce Lee’s most successfulfilm "Enter the Dragon," and his last film, "Game of Death"(the version that was distributed in Japan in 19...
By Liza ForemanThe 23rd Tokyo International Film Festival will hold a special-focus on films by the nextgeneration of directors from Taiwan to have emerged since the golden age of the great masters HouHsiao-hsien, Tsai Ming-liang, and Edward Yang. "Taiwanese CinemaRenaissance 2010: New Breeze of the Rising Generation," will be part of thefestival’s Winds of Asia Middle-East section.Titles set for thesection include: - "The FourthPortrait" from director: Mong-Hong Chung. ...
By Liza ForemanThe 23rd Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) has announced another eight films for the competition section.The films in the competition section will be competing for six awards, including the prestigious “Tokyo Sakura Grand Prix.” The winners will be announced at the festival's Closing Ceremony on October 31st.The Competition So Far -“Beautiful Boy” - U.S.ADirectors: Shawn KuA shooting massacres in a college. Parents fear their son's safety, but the news they receive ...
By Liza Foreman The Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) has announced that “The Social Network,” by the director, David Fincher, has been selected as the opening film for the 23rd TIFF. The film tells the story of Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of the world's biggest social-networking website, "Facebook," and stars Jessy Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, and Justin Timberlake. The closing film, “The Town,” the second directorial feature by Ben Affleck, is a compelling and powerf...
Los Angeles may mean mainstream when it comes to movie-making, but when it comes to ‘la mode' think maverick. Liza Foreman reports. Paris - The poster boy for far-out fashion, L.A. designer, Jeremy Scott, stuck to his trademark of outrageous, comic designs at Paris Fashion Week Tuesday, with his aptly named Happy Daze Fall/Winter 2007 ready-to-wear collection.Scott’s eccentric line-up of retro-clothing included psychedelic dresses and outlandishly colorful coats. Models sported giant cone ...
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Half the joy, or the downright pain in the neck for fashion week regulars, is carting yourself from one end of Paris to the other to watch the next show. At lunchtime Monday guests gathered on gold rimmed seats round the edge of a lavish, age-old ballroom in the Grand Hotel at Opera to wait for the fall/winter collection from Gaspard Yurkievich. As usual, proceedings didn’t get underway until an hour’s wait when the boos from photographers were embellished with gasps from the front row where...
PARIS - The Oscars last night may be the biggest celebration of the year for the movie biz. But for serious fashionistas the focus was not on the red carpet, but on the City of Lights, where Paris Fashion Week - prêt à porter fall/winter 2007 - kicked off Sunday.If the first days shows were anything to go by, there really is no excuse for not dressing right on the night. Think past winners of worst-dressed Oscar lists, such as Cher and Demi Moore. Paris fashion house Balmains collection Sun...
The Berlin International Film Festival has long reflected the character of its bohemian host city. Think avant-garde filmmaking in the Forum section; gay-themed pictures in Panorama; and the political polemic popular among competition directors, including this time, the Holocaust film, The Counterfeiters.This year’s festival (February 8th-18th, 2007), however, went one step further, taking fest-goers back in time to a bygone era of cinema and the city’s golden age. The opening film La Vie En...
By Liza Foreman
Los Angeles - Bizarre characters are a fact of life at the American Film Market, the annual independent-film bazaar. But this year’s event reached a new level Tuesday when Faye Dunaway emerged from the regular crowd of low-rent producers and Hollywood wannabes.
The last conference staged during the eight-day gathering (November 1st – 8th) was already wild enough with fifteen cinematographers crammed onto a small stage.
They were busy discussing the selected topic of making ar...
By Liza Foreman
Los Angeles – Although the main business here is film, the 27th American Film Market (AFM) managed to produce plenty of records Wednesday.
435 companies from 36 countries are exhibiting this year, with 592 films screening: that’s up from 534 titles last year. All in all, the number of films screening has increased by 50 per cent over the past three years. The figures represent all-time highs for the annual film market, which runs 1 – 8th November 2006.
Part of the growth mu...
The first Rome International Film Festival didn't just draw out the film fans. In town for a long weekend of events were international film business delegates attending the market section of the festival. Players from far and wide had a mostly positive response to the number of initiatives at the festival, which included a popular buyers' terrace at the Bernini Hotel and a so-called business street at the Excelsior Hotel on the Via Veneto.
"I had a meeting arranged with one producer and met fort...
By Liza Foreman
ROME – The Inaugural International Rome Film Festival kicked off without a hitch Friday, with the Nicole Kidman starrer “Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus
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Seven days in, the 59th Festival De Cannes’ Competition section is heating up. While Pedro Almodovar’s Penelope Cruz starrer, “Volver,
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It’s a funny place, Cannes. One minute, it’s a quiet-ish, seaside town, full of spotty boys on noisy mopeds. The next, legions of colorful individuals descend en masse, transforming it into a bizarre bazaar of film festivities. But is it glamorous? As per actress Sarah Michelle Gellar, it’s the most glamorous event an actress can attend. But beware.
Arriving more than a day beforehand, and staying longer than the festival run, is one sure way to dispel any illusions of glamour. The restaur...
Cannes was in full swing Friday with the regulars – old ladies and their dogs – having all but disappeared, and swarms of tourists and film types taking their place for the twelve-day event.
Police were everywhere, as were the blue-suited men and women on hand to check badges and manage the herds of people streaming in and out of festival center, The Palais.
Regular sunbathers were relegated to the far end of the beach with lines of pristine tents, housing private clubs, taking up much of th...
Had director Ron Howard been a woman, how would “The Da Vinci Code
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