You can be excused if you believe that new starlet Jessica Chastain is in every movie opening this season. The busy actress can currently be seen on the big screen in three major summer movies, including Terrence Malick’s THE TREE OF LIFE, the best seller adaptation THE HELP and the espionage actioner THE DEBT. At the recent Venice Film Festival, she regally walked the red carpet along with co-star and director Al Pacino for WILDE SALOME, his meta-textual adaptation of the Oscar Wilde ...

                 In its 20th edition, the New York Jewish Film Festival presented 36 features and shorts from 14 countries; 31 premiered in New York.  As in past years a balanced program provided perspectives on the Jewish experience and included several outstanding productions on the holocaust period and its aftermath.                In LILITH (Eytan Harris, ISRAEL, 2010), a documentary; prejudices and resentments are revealed when a mother...

The Santa Barbara International Film Festival will honor Academy Award® winning actor Geoffrey Rush with the Montecito Award at the 26th edition of the Festival, which runs January 27– February 6, 2011, it was announced today by SBIFF Executive Director Roger Durling. The Tribute will take place Monday, January 31, 2011, at the historic Arlington Theatre.The Montecito Award was created in recognition of a performer who has given a series of classic and standout performances in his/her career...

The 23rd Israel Film Festival will kick off in New York on October 29th at the Ziegfeld Theatre and run through November 13th at the Clearview’s 62nd & Broadway Cinema. Meir Fenigstein, Founder and Executive Director, announced today the full lineup of films for this year’s Festival which showcases more than 30 new feature films, provocative documentaries, ground-breaking TV dramas, and innovative student films celebrating Israeli life and culture. List of films to follow. The Israel Film F...

The 23rd Israel Film Festival, the largest showcase of Israeli films in the United States, will screen close to 60 Israeli features, documentaries and award-winning student films, including 13 U.S., West Coast and Los Angeles Premieres, in Los Angeles from June 12th – June 26th, 2008. In honor of Israel’s 60th anniversary, the Festival will host an unprecedented Retrospective of classic Israeli movies, including all seven Israeli films nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, it...

The 23rd Israel Film Festival, the largest showcase of Israeli films in the United States, will screen close to 60 Israeli features, documentaries and award-winning student films, including 13 U.S., West Coast and Los Angeles Premieres, in Los Angeles from June 12th – June 26th, 2008. In honor of Israel’s 60th anniversary, the Festival will host an unprecedented Retrospective of classic Israeli movies, including all seven Israeli films nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, it...

Considered to be with the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival among the most important Jewish Film Festivals in the United States, the New York Jewish Film Festival provides a significant platform for new features and documentaries about and from Jewish life in and outside of Israel. Held this year from January 9th to 24th it has retained its importance among the close to 60 US Jewish film festivals staged currently in the United States(not counting those specifically focused on the Holocaust and...

 Tuesday, January 15---------The Palm Springs International Film Festival, which just ended its run on Sunday, has the distinction of being the first festival event of the New Year. The Festival, now in its 19th year, prides itself on its international scope and its diverse programming strands. The Festival screens nearly all of the international films up for Academy Award consideration in the Best Foreign Language race, along with choice indie gems and some heavy hitter studio projects. In man...

The Palm Springs International Film Festival, which just ended its run on Sunday, has the distinction of being the first festival event of the New Year. The Festival, now in its 19th year, prides itself on its international scope and its diverse programming strands. The Festival screens nearly all of the international films up for Academy Award consideration in the Best Foreign Language race, along with choice indie gems and some heavy hitter studio projects. In many ways, it is the kinder, gent...

The 19th Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival came to a successful close on Sunday, January 13, 2008 and announced this year's award winners at a luncheon at Spencer's Restaurant. The Festival, which ran from January 3-14, 2008, screened 212 films from 66 countries, including 65 premieres and 55 of the 63 foreign entries for this year's Academy Awards. Palm Springs' increasingly popular Festival continues to expand its diverse programming of quality independent and foreign films, se...

Launching it’s 12th Year The New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival continues To Explore the Cinema of this Rich and Diverse Culture:February 7-14, 2008The American Sephardic Federation/Sephardic House, in association with Yeshiva University Museum, announces the 2008 New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival line up, celebrating a dozen years of exciting and thought provoking films. With the expansion to multiple locations, this one-of-a-kind event running February 7 – 14, 2008 will offer a...

As International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam puts finishing touches on its 20th edition, set to launch November 22-December 2, festival director Ally Derks takes a moment to muse on this year’s standout themes, the joys of playing with a three-million-euro budget and the merry mischief of hiding a fake film for audiences to smoke out. Filmfestivals.com reached her in Amsterdam during the calm before the storm. FF: Is it a challenge to program a documentary festival that comes a week af...

Documentary features are beginning to come into their own, not only on the festival circuit but in selected commercial cinemas as well, as more and more perceptive moviegoers, tired of paying ten dollars a shot for mainstream mindlessness, are beginning to look for films that actually have something to say. Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" was a real ground-breaker when it was awarded the top prize at Cannes two years ago, the first time a documentary film was so recognized at this topper of al...

Munich certainly makes you think; it might be about the silly continuity error of a man spectacularly falling dead on his chest crushing a large bag of his shopping, in the lift lobby of his apartment block, seen a moment later lying flat on his back. The odd thing is, there is no need at all for the second shot. This thought might keep bothering you for a while, until it is disturbed by one of the many unguarded conversations that various undercover groups have in very public places, ranging fr...

SOMETHING IN THE “WATER” FOR AUDIENCE AWARDS At 15TH Anniversary Washington Jewish Film FestivalThe 15th Washington Jewish Film Festival: An Exhibition of International Cinema revealed the winners of its Audience Awards for Best Feature, Best Documentary and Best Short film. As luck would have it, the three winners are all Israeli films. Coincidences continue, as two of the films have the word “water” in their titles. Best Feature -- Walk on Water(Director: Eytan Fox, Israel)www.walk...

JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL IN WARSAWBy Alex Deleon-PevnyTHE First International Festival of Jewish films ever to be held in Warsaw --officially "FILMS ON JEWISH MOTIFS -- '04"-- took place from 18 to 27 April. Produced essentially on a shoestring budget, by Mirek Chojecki,himself a veteran documentary film maker, it was also given a good dose of moral support by various luminaries of the Polish film world, including Andrzej Wajda, awarded a Hollywood Oscar for his life's work two years ago. Sixty f...