VIMOOZ is for lovers of independent films + foreign film + documentary + film festivals. We love championing the little films.
Ning Hao’s Chinese comedy The Movie Emperor will kick off the film lineup for this year’s 23rd edition of Asian Film Festival of Dallas (AFFD) taking place July 25-28, 2024. AFFD’s Centerpiece film will be Marc Marriott’s fish-out-of-water tale Tokyo Cowboy, and the Closing Night film is Soi Cheang’s Hong Kong action-adventure film Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In.
The 41st Munich International Film Festival (Filmfest München) presented the awards in the five international competitions (CineCoPro, CineMasters, CineVision, CineRebels, and CineKindl), the FIPRESCI Prize, the Young Jury Award, and the three Audience Awards, with the most lucrative prize, the 100,000-euro CineCoPro Award, going to the film “To a Land Unknown” by Mahdi Fleifel.
The 58th Karlovy Vary IFF presented awards for the best films at the closing ceremony with A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things directed by Mark Cousins winning the Grand Prix – Crystal Globe. The documentary is an essayistic portrait of a British artist, with deep insights into the world of gender, climate, and creativity. “What a festival, what a hall, what a shock! My film is also about shock, about the transformation of artist Wilhelmina Barns-Graham after she climbed a Swiss glacier in 1949. It’s about a woman who lived her life to the fullest,” said Mark Cousins.
Ivy Vale’s coming of age musical Out of My Comfort Zone will open this year’s 8th edition of Festival of Cinema NYC, the Queens-based film festival, running from August 2-11, 2024. The festival returns to the Regal UA Midway in Forest Hills with additional venues this year including the Queens Public Library at Forest Hills, Yant Tattoo Studios – the Official Filmmaker Lounge and special presentations at the Queens Center Mall in Rego Park. The festival closes with the world premiere of Delfine Paolini’s A Wonderful Way with Dragons.
Fantasia International Film Festival celebrating its 28th edition from July 18 through August 4, 2024, will close with the World Premiere of André Forcier’s Ababouiné. Ababouiné takes us back to the 1950s, when the Catholic Church ruled over Quebec with an iron fist, and as a rowdy group of kids goes to war against the church. In his latest masterpiece, André Forcier (Au Clair De La Lune, A Wind From Wyoming) revisits a dark period of Quebec’s history through an often shocking – yet undeniably and absurdly funny – lens. With a deft hand, Forcier navigates the historical abuses of the church and the hope of a society on the brink of change – with sensitivity, humour, and a lot of heart. Starring in the film are Rémy Girard, Gaston Lepage, Pascale Montpetit, Éric Bruneau, and Mylène Mackay.
Sony Classics debuted the official trailer for Between the Temples, the oddball comedy independent film starring Jason Schwartzman, Carol Kane, Dolly de Leon, Caroline Aaron, Robert Smigel and Madeline Weinstein
Legion M’s critically acclaimed dark comedy film My Dead Friend Zoe which won SXSW Film Festival’s Audience Award this year has been acquired by Briarcliff Entertainment for release later this year. The film is the directorial debut of Kyle Hausmann-Stokes, a former U.S. Army infantry paratrooper and Iraq War Bronze Star veteran.
Homeland Story directed by Glenda Hambley took the top jury award, Best Film by Jury, at the 2024 The Archaeology Channel International Film Festival. This film focuses on the Donydji, a small Indigenous homeland in North East Arnhem Land in the far north of Australia. It charts the Donydji community’s transition from nomadic life to the digital age, starting in the 1960s and all the way to the present day. This is a moving and representative portrait of one family’s struggle to preserve their culture and remain on their homeland despite the severe obstacles they face: sub-standard education, deplorable service delivery, lack of job opportunities for youth, inadequate government policy, bureaucratic mismanagement, and pressure from mining interests.
At the Door of the House Who Will Come Knocking directed by Maja Novaković, the Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina documentary film following an elderly man living in isolation, won the Grand Jury Award for the International Competition at the 31st edition of Sheffield DocFest.
Grasshopper Film revealed the official trailer for The Human Surge 3 (El auge del humano 3), the sequel of the critically acclaimed film The Human Surge (2016), winner of Golden Leopard at Locarno Film Festival.
Ana Fahr’s Valley of Exile was named Best Film (Narrative Feature), and Asley Malcolm Morrison’s Back To Your Corner won the award for Best Documentary Feature at the 19th Harlem International Film Festival (Hi).
The 2024 Bentonville Film Festival announced the winners of their narrative, documentary, short film, and episodic competition program for the 10th anniversary of the festival which ran from June 10-16 in Bentonville, AR.