The 30th Annual Hawaii International Film Festival (HIFF) is honored to host the return of dear friends Roger and Chaz Ebert to Hawaii and to present them with it's "Vision in Film" award. An American icon in film reviews, Ebert has paved the way for critics for nearly 50 years. Roger Ebert is a conduit; a bridge between the hallowed film criticism world that he helped create, ranging from Cahiers du Cinema and the French New Wave, to the likes of Gene Siskel, Pauline Kael, and other American ...

                         ACADEMY-AWARD WINNER For BEST FOREIGN FILM 2009   It was full house yesterday at the 1200-seater Teatro Giovanni Theatre in Udine for the European premiere of DEPARTURES. After an introduction on duplex from Japan by Yojiro TAKITA, the Director, who called attention to the producer Yasuhiro MASE, seated in the theatre, who would report to him following  the screening, the audience was drawn into the s...

  Departures         2009 Far East Film Festival in Udine       Best Foreign Film 2009, DEPARTURES will celebrate the return of Takita Yojiro to Udine, whom the Far East Film Festival had already discovered in the year 2000, and brought to Europe (where he presented his much appreciated film Secret) UDINE - After defeating the Israeli film Valzer con Bashir (the bookies absolu...

Sunday, August 31-------The Montreal World Film Festival is saluting the fine work done by the Kawakita Memorial Film Institute, a Japanese organization that promotes both classic and contemporary Japanese films, by showcasing three classic Japanese films here. The Film Institute was founded by Madame Kashiko Kawakita to promote Japanese cinema abroad. The Institute's mission in the past 35 years has been to collect and protect films and other items of film heritage and to make them available to...