by Marc Rickenbach In recent months French filmmaker and arts and crafts enthusiast Michel Gondry has been popping his head up all over the place on both sides of the Atlantic. The director, most well known for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Science of Sleep (not to mention numerous music videos, which we’ll get to in a bit), released the big screen version of old time radio and comic book hero The Green Hornet in January. To promote the new film, he guest dir...

Fantastically stupefyingly busy. Sleep depravedand red-eyed. Tremendously excited. That’s the ÉCU 2011 team with only couple of days to go. At ÉCU 2011 we will be screening 77 films from 26 countries competing for 20 awards, with 8 World Premieres and 5 European Premieres. Sixty filmmakers are making their way to Paris to be on hand for their screenings and to participate in the meet-the-director sessions where they can interact with their films audience. I’m guessing they will als...

This month we say au revoir to Rhiannon Hobbins, ÉCU’s Festival Manager for the past four years. Rhiannon was the ultimate resource for all that is ÉCU but she is moving on to her next adventure back in her home country of Australia. It’s hard to express how much she will be missed but her influence will be everlasting as the festival builds upon the fabulous foundations that she put in place. So, without further ado Rhiannon tells us in her own words how the last four years...

by Ana Soares It’s tough to be an artist in the era of copyright, so knowing that organizations like Creative Commons are out there, looking out for your right to be creative, can be at least reassuring. Whether you’re an independent or mainstream filmmaker, a musician or a scientist, a writer or an ayahuasca appreciator – copyright laws concern you. If your job or hobby involves being creative and producing something unique out of whatever influences you, you’...