The 11th edition of FEST – New Directors | New Films Festival, to be held in Espinho, Portugal from June 22nd to 29th 2015, is calling for submissions, open until March 15th 2015 at noon.  The competitive sections of the festival are:  Feature Length Films (section dedicated to filmmakers in their first or second feature film): - Golden Lynx – Fiction Competition - White Lynx – Documentary Competition Short and Medium Length Films (section dedicated t...

Exciting news come early morning today for the festival world, as Cannes Film Festival confirms that jury presidents for the upcoming 68th edition in May will be the Coen brothers.  Joel and Ethan Coen have presented their work many times before at Cannes IFF, but now declare estremely honoured as they "have never been presidents in anything" - as the brothers said.  Cannes Film Festival's president Pierre Lescure and general delegate Thierry Frémaux invited th...

Child of indie American cinema, Anderson keeps a sweet tone of bewilderment in his new hors d’oeuvre, which although took time to prepare, is served cold, raw - pleasing, but leaving a mouthwatering effect for a no-show main.      Remembering Anderson’s previous moments with The Master or Magnolia, where a constant flow and amusing disconnection from reality progress with every scene, Inherent Vice is more of a sharp staccato-like nostalgic manifesto for an era of...

  How would you teach filmmaking? Which films would you show?    Some of my favourites, starting with The Godfather. Practicing is where you learn from, though. Only by doing mistakes you learn how to do better.      How has your life impacted your filmmaking?    I had a very bad childhood and my father was not a very nice man. (laughing) I lived in my fantasies, creating stories and creating theatre plays for my friends. At school I used to go a...

Save Cinemas in Morocco is an initiative that started several years ago in Marrakech, led by Tarik Mounim. It’s aim is to discover and preserve deserted old cinemas throughout the country transforming them again to culture patrons and promoting national and independent cinema that is rare these days in Morocco.    During this year’s Marrakech international Film Festival, Save Cinemas in Morocco holds an exhibition at the old Cine Théâtre Palace, where visitor...

    Viggo Mortensen, to whom the 14th edition of the Marrakech International Film Festival pays a tribute, presented his new film Loin des hommes (Far from men) in the presence of the director David Oelhoffen, co-star Reda Kateb and the producers, yesterday evening at the crowded Jemaa El Fna square in the old town of Marrakech. When called on stage, Mortensen greeted the audience with well rehearsed Arabic and continued in French inviting them to the following free screening of th...

  With the announcement that the Berlin IFF will have its man, Dieter Kosslick on board as festival director till 2019, the festival is in full preps for the upcoming 65th edition which will hit the German capital 5 -15 of February.    So far the news are thrilling…   Jury president of this year’s edition will be American director Darren Arronofsky.    Honorary Golden Bear for lifetime achievement will be awarded to German dir...

The 14th edition of the Marrakech International Film Festival (5 - 13 December 2014) just unveiled its line-up and juries, surpassing even last year’s galore of big names in the industry that attended the Moroccan Film Festival.      After making known that this year’s tributes will honour Japanese Cinema, Egyptian actor Adel Imam, British actor Jeremy Irons and the American actor Viggo Mortensen.    The festival stated: “For this year’s ed...

INTERVIEW: Nima Javidi, director of Melbourne, Opening Film of Venice71 Critics Week  Director Nima Javidi opened this year's Critics Week at the 71st Venice Film Festival with his debut feature Melbourne, telling the story of a couple in contemporary Iran whose planned migration to Melbourne is prevented by an unfortunate event few hours before departure. Javidi is the director of six short films and two documentaries. He is mainly known in Iran for his work on televisioncomm...

Numerous plastic bags filled with clothes and personal objects are drained until the very last airdrop is lost and their entire content appears withered, even more soulless than in its actual state. As the opening credits roll down, this stylistic symbol unpacks an array of thoughts and interpretations.  We are transferred to a simple, but modern apartment in Tehran. A couple is packing. Amir (Payman Maadi) and Sara’s (Negar Javaherian) belongings, their lives and future are about ...

Wild, dir. Jean-Marc Vallée, 2014, US      It is rather a common thing to push ourselves beyond the borderline in an attempt to see what it takes to confront our fears. This challenge now has potentially evolved into the journey of encountering our dreams and testing our capability to either pursue or quit them; but is it easy to define a dream as a ‘to quit’ or ‘to live’, before knowing the cost?    Wild is about dreams. Or, to be m...

How did you come up with idea of doing something so different as the experiment in the film, where you take four people and isolate them from the society?    The idea came from a music video that I made with my writing partner and husband. We did this music video with characters that were living isolated and it was a bit more abstract, so we decided to explore it a bit more, play more with people. We were thinking quite a lot of Bergman as well, and we included many personal ideas a...

Leah Meyerhoff whose first debut I believe in Unicorns received its International premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival this June. is a New York based filmmaker. Her short films have won plenty awards and at various film festivals around the world. Her first feature film is a teenage love story between Divina, a girl who lives with her disabled single mother and Sterling, an older boy who takes her on an exciting and passionate journey to discover love and personal liberation.&nb...

REVIEW:Party girlby Marie Amachoukeli, Claire Burger, Samuel Theis / France-Un CertainRegard Three young directorsportray the life of Angelique-a girl that likes to party,agirl that adores life. In anunusual social realist drama with touches of documentary,the firstof the three directorsSamuel Theissets a close-up onhis mother Angelique Litzenburger,rewinding her life andcreating a web of memories mixed with a certain dose of fiction. With mostof the cast actingreal-life, the lines between r...

REVIEW: The captive by Atom Egoyan, Canada – 67e Festival De Cannes Competition The master of psychological thrillers Atom Egoyan returns to the Croisette with a rather stiffand mostly predictable story based on true events from his native Canada. The Captivetakes us to an undisturbed, rather boring small community living around theNiagara Falls. The idyllic atmosphere is smashed ina moment when the nine year oldCassandra disappears without any trace from the back seat of her father&rs...

REVIEW:Darker than midnight (Piu buio di Mezzanotte)by Sebastiano Riso (Italy) – 67eFestival De Cannes / 53e Critic’s Week (La Semainede la Critique) Painfully tender and compassion-generating, Sebastiano Riso’s debutDarker than midnightpowerfully rips the emotional surface to reach thecore of sensitivity from its very first minute. The film depicts a short period in the early adolescence of Davide, a fourteen year old boywho is confronted with his sexuality for the firstti...

  Hungry hearts, dir. Saverio Costanzo, Italy 2014 Venezia71  An Italian girl and an American boy meet accidentally in a Chinese restaurant in New York. The amusement of the first conversation is a corny, lighthearted lead to their upcoming future as a couple. Giving you a plain dose of a typical love story, Hungry hearts tricks you with its misleading rom-com opening, giving an under the belt punch with what's about to follow.      Jude (Adam Driver) and Mina...

Venezia 71 Competition, Birdman, dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu, US  On the huge screen a girl named Sam (Emma Stone) yells at her dad’s face (Michael Keaton) the truth about his pointless, miserable life. On the row behind, a man shouts “Bellissima, bellissima”. Drums are banging, Broadway theatre lights are falling from the roof and Edward Norton gets a hard on onstage. If you need time to decide whether you’re fe...