There Is No Evil, directed by Mohammad Rasoulof, was awarded the top Fiction Feature Prize at 2020 Montclair Film Festival. Winner of the 2020 Berlin Film Festival’s Golden Bear for Best Feature, Mohammad Rasoulof’s There Is No Evil is a series of four interrelated short stories set against the backdrop of contemporary Iran.
The Polish film Sweat directed by Magnus von Horn won the Gold Hugo for Best International Feature Film at the 56th Chicago International Film Festival. The film also won the Silver Hugo for Best Art Direction for Jagna Dobesz. The insightful drama about loneliness and insecurity in the digital age chronicles three days in the candy-colored life of social media celebrity Sylwia Zajac played by stage actress Magdalena Kolésnik.
REVOLT will premiere its new documentary “From Pain to Power: A REVOLT Special” that takes a close look at the passionate struggle for social equality happening today, and the robust grassroots efforts propelling the movement forward. “From Pain to Power: A REVOLT Special” will premiere on Monday, Oct. 26.
Óscar Catacora’s acclaimed debut feature, Wiñaypacha (Eternity), -winner of the Best First Film and Best Cinematography awards at the Guadalajara Film Festival and the first Peruvian film shot entirely in the indigenous Aymara language, premieres on Tropical on Demand on Thursday, October 29, 2020.
Showtime released the trailer for the upcoming docu-series The Reagans. Directed by Matt Tyrnauer (Where’s My Roy Cohn?, Studio 54), the four-part series contextualizes the legacy of Ronald and Nancy a generation later while exploring the palace intrigue of the Reagan White House years. The Reagans will premiere on Sunday, November 15 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Showtime.
The Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival announced the award winning films and filmmakers for this year’s 29th edition of the festival with Jessica Earnshaw’s Jacinta winning the jury prize for Best US Feature as well as earning a Special Jury Mention for the Critics Prize. Anabel Rodríguez Ríos’ Once Upon a Time in Venezuela won the jury prize for Best International Feature, and Lisa Molomot and Jeff Bemiss’ World Premiere of Missing in Brooks County earned the award for Best Southern Feature. Ra’anan Alexandrowicz’s The Viewing Booth was the recipient of this year’s HSDFF Critics Prize, and Sami Khan and Michael Gassert’s The Last Out won the Matt DeCample Audience Choice Award.
Netflix released the trailer for the Italian drama “The Life Ahead” (La vita davanti a sé) from director Edoardo Ponti and starring Academy Award® winner Sophia Loren, along with Ibrahima Gueye. In the film set in seaside Italy, a Holocaust survivor Madame Rosa (Loren), takes in 12-year-old street kid Momo (Gueye), who recently robbed her. The two become each other’s protectors, anchoring an unconventional family.
The 43rd Denver Film Festival (DFF43) kicks off tonight, Opening Night, October 22 with Searchlight’s NOMADLAND. The film will also receive DFF43’s Rare Pearl Award which will be accepted by director, Chloé Zhao, in a video presentation before the film screening. The Rare Pearl Award highlights a film whose beauty and uniqueness stand out as finest of the year. Recent Rare Pearl Award winners include Portrait of a Lady on Fire (DFF42) and Roma (DFF41).
The 43rd Mill Valley Film Festival (MVFF43) and the DocLands Documentary Film Festival (which ran in tandem this year) concluded on October 18th after 11 days of virtual and drive-in screenings, panels, and special events.
Samuel Goldwyn Films will release the award winning documentary film Saul & Ruby’s Holocaust Survivor Band on VOD and streaming platforms on November 24.
Tania Cypriano’s “Born to Be” which world-premiered at the 2019 New York Film Festival, will have its exclusive NYC premiere in Film Forum’s Virtual Cinema beginning Wednesday, November 18. Born to Be looks at pioneering surgeon Dr. Jess Ting and his patients at Mount Sinai’s Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery.
Karlovy Vary International Film Festival unveiled films selected for November’s special four-day event “KVIFF 541⁄2” including the psychological British-Canadian drama The Nest starring Jude Law from director Sean Durkin (Martha Marcy May Marlene) that premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival in January.