By Liza Foreman Los Angeles - Considering that The Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF), (22-30October 2011), and its market arm TIFFCOM, two of Japan’s premiereentertainment industry events, place such a dedicated focus on initiatives tosave the planet – in keeping with Japan’s generally eco-friendly positioning - lastweek’s tragedy there seems all the more poignant. Still, as the Japanese government works to find a solution to its nuclearpower crisis and the devastating consequenc...

After the intense (and enjoyable) experience of sitting through at least 15 documentary feature films over 4 days at the just concluded AFI-Discovery Channel Documentary Festival, the question organically arose: do documentaries really matter? As someone who trained in documentary filmmaking techniques (and who made a few, best to be forgotten non-fiction nothings) and an admirer of the stamina, grit and determination of the documentary filmmaker, my answer appeared more hopeful than det...

Spring has sprung and Kino pavasaris" (or Cinema spring) is fast approaching. This year the motto of the Festival is "Reborn at the Cinema" and from March 18 to April 2 you are all invited to rediscover the magical world of film.                             2010 marks the 15th anniversary of the Festival an...