On a boat travelling the canals of the Venice-like Fort Lauderdale,
filmfestivals.com spoke with Iranian director Bahman Ghobadi about A Time
for Drunken Horses that won the Audience Award at the Festival. Clearly a
film well-received by the public, with after-film Q & A going on for an hour
an a half. The voice you will hear is that of the man next to Ghobadi,
Jamsheed Akrami, another Iranian director who also presented his film -
Friendly Persuasion - at the Festival and acted as interpr...
November 17 - 25 (Italy)
Twenty-five-year-old director David
Gordon Greene took the top prize for his drama George Washington....
Banned upon release in France earlier this year, the French film
Baise-moi
is now creating a stir in Canada. Several filmmakers there are enraged
by the Ontario Film Review Board's decision to ban the picture because
it contains a brutal and explicit rape scene. Canadian director
Atom Egoyan wrote a letter to the Toronto Star in which he
basically asked that filmgoers be allowed to see and judge the ...
Jim Sheridan, the Oscar-winning producer/director of My Left
Foot fame, is hoping to match Ewan McGregor and Kate Winslet
on his next project, East of Harlem. The two would play an
Irish couple who looks for a new life in New York City. ...
According to rumors reported on ifilm.com, screen star Julia Roberts
is in negotiations to buy the rights to 80s TV show "Bewitched"
so that she can play the role of the beautiful blonde witch, Samantha
Stevens, originally played by Elizabeth Montgomery. Another boob-tube
program that may soon hit the big screen is "The Incredible
Hulk" with Universal Pictures. Gossip has it that Chris
...
Already huge in terms of sales, blood and gore, Gladiator
will take on mammoth proportions when the film is projected on Imax
screens throughout the US starting this week. DreamWorks pictures
announced plans Monday to re-release Gladiator,
which earned some $186 million in the US during its general domestic
release, in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and other
cities. It is not known ho...
Fans of the comedy TV show "In Living Color" will be delighted
to know that the show will soon be honored at the 2001 US Comedy
Arts Festival. The early-90s sketch program was created by the Keenen
Ivory Wayans and launched the careers of siblings Damon, Kim, Marlon,
and Shawn, as well as Jennifer Lopez (who was one of the sexy "Fly-girl"
dancers). Cast members will reunite at the festival in Asp...
Oi! Warning directed by German twins Dominik and Benjamin
Reding, has generated so many death threats and hate e-mails that
the duo have been forced to cancel appearance with the cast of their
film in the East German towns of Erfurt, Chemnitz, Neubrandneburg,
and Greifswald. Oi Warning was first screened at Sundance,
and has since won many awards on the festival circuit. The story
follows two twins g...
French director Gabriel Aghion is set to direct a film adaptation
of UK TV series "Absolutely Fabulous." Nathalie Baye and Josiane
Balasko will portray the crass Patsy and Edina, alongside Marie
Gillain, Vincent Elbaz and Chantal Goya. Shooting begins this month
for a late-2001 release....
Faye Dunaway has caught the digital bug. Inspired by Lars Von Trier's
Dancer
in the Dark, the actress has decided to direct a short digital
film version of Tennessee Williams' play Yellow Bird. James
Coburn, Brenda Blethyn and Michael Pitt will star in the film, and
shooting is planned for this spring....
Russell Crowe will have a chance to show off his brain rather than
his brawn as he plays mathematician John Nash in A Beautiful
Mind, to be directed by Ron Howard. Adapted from the book by
Sylvia Nasar, the feature film will tell the true story of Nash,
a schizophrenic and paranoid mathematician awarded the Nobel Prize
in 1994. Shooting begins next March. In the meantime, Russell Crowe
will appear in...
Oscar-winning actress Jessica Lange wowed London theater critics
last week as a heroin-addicted mother in Eugene O'Neill's "Long
Day's Journey Into Night." Her appearance in the Shaftesbury
Avenue theater adds to a list of Hollywood actors attracted by the
London stage. "If all the imports are as good as Ms. Lange, then
by all means, let's stuff Shaftesbury Avenue with Tinseltown's finest,"
...
One celebrity who is ready to tie the knot is Oscar-winner Geena
Davis. Her publicist announced this week that Davis, the star of
Thelma and Louise, is engaged to surgeon Reza Jarrahy. They
met through mutual friends a year ago and became engaged this week.
This will be the fourth marriage for Davis, who recently divorced
director Renny Harlin (Cutthroat Island) and who was married
to actor Jeff Gold...
As the festival director of Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival
(held in November), Michael Koetz has very precise perspectives for this not
too big/not too small event which honors newcomers. "We offer films that we
think the audience should discover not films they already know." Audience
attendance was better than ever this year and the filmmakers raved about the
films screened and the convivial atmophere that nurtured exchanges between
them. Koetz expanded on the fest object...
Born in 1967, Rafi Pitts is one the latest Iranian directors to join the new
wave of prize-winners on the international festival circuit. Sanam, his
second feature, just won the Special Jury Prize. His first feature, Season
5 - a Romeo and Juliette type story which Pitts labels as a "present to his
country", had won the same prize at Mannheim-Heidelberg in 1997. Sanam
relates a poignant depiction of injustice and its aftermaths in a child's
heart....
Columbia Pictures has snagged Willem Dafoe for its upcoming Spiderman
with Tobey Maguire. Dafoe will incarnate the Green Goblin, Spiderman's
next-door neighbor who acquires superhuman powers during a science
experiment gone awry. Based on the Marvel Comics story, the film
adaptation is slated to begin shooting in January under the direction
of Sam Raimi. In the meantime, Dafoe appears in Lions Gate Films'
...
Festival organizers have decided to postpone the 2000 edition until
February due to the high number of entries sent in from all over
the world. The festival, which was supposed to kick off this week
(November 23 - 26) is known for screening films related
to art and artists' biographies. Organizers noted that the submissions
revealed a major change in techniques employed in the making of
art films and...
By director Taegwan Kim. Yamazaki, a young Yakuza killer of Bolivian-Japanese origin, orders a call-girl who can sing, to calm his nerves on the eve of an important job......
"Hey Fidel, old boy, i still love you," cries Marita Lorenz to the picture of the bearded leader on television. This temperamental women, who today lives in New York, knows what she is talking about......
Prague stories about growing up: Hanka and Petr toss a coin to decide whether or not they want to stay together....
A few friends meet up again many years later at Sirje's, to play together at her wedding with their garage rock band......
by director Willem Wallyn. A man and his father enter the courtroom on the first day of the so-called "Agusta-Dassault" trial, concerning the largest corruption scandal in Belgian history....
Gregory Von Hausch, fest director, along with special guest John Waters cut
the film strip that announced the longest festival in world open.
...
Tout avait mal commencé. La première mouture du scénario de Pleure pas Germaine était très en deça du roman de Claude Jasmin (découvert par Alain dans un aéroport) et le film n'avait toujours pas de réalisateur. Et puis Eric pensa à Alain, avec lequel il avait déjà fait un téléfilm et écrit un portrait d'Hergé. Les deux compères se remettent donc à la colle et accouchent d'un film profondément attachant, dont la brillante carrière festivalière laisse désormais présager d'u...
Au pied du viaduc de Vilvorde, dans la banlieue de Bruxelles, par une chaude nuit d'été, une famille entasse l'indispensable sur une remorque. Gilles Bédard et sa femme Germaine, d'origine espagnole, sont au bout du rouleau. Peu auparavant, leur fille aînée Rolande été été retrouvée morte sous le pont. Et puis, leur petit chien est mort écrasé sur la route. Alors, la famille Bédard part vers les Pyrénées espagnoles... avec toutou!...
