exground filmfest 32 concluded its ten-day celebration of independent cinema with a gala awards ceremony. As best feature-length film, the audience chose PAPICHA by Mounia Meddour. Audience members selected PINKY PROMISE by Sophie Linnenbaum (who placed 2nd in 2018 with RIEN NE VA PLUS) as the winner in the German Short Film Competition. Second prize went to EARLY BIRDS by Benjamin Kempf-Siemens and Rainer Binz, and Felix Karolus was honoured with third prize for his film MENUETT.
CUFF.Docs, the 7th Annual Documentary Film Festival presented by Calgary Underground Film Festival (CUFF), starts this Wednesday night, November 27, with the Sundance hit THE AMAZING JOHNATHAN DOCUMENTARY, about the final tour of a dying magician, “The Amazing Johnathan”, which turns into an unexpected and increasingly bizarre journey as the filmmaker struggles to separate truth from illusion. The 5-day festival runs until Sunday, Dec 1 at Globe Cinema.
Directors Heidi Hassan and Patricia Pérez Fernández are the winners of the 2019 International Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary with In a Whisper. The film centers on two emigrated Cuban filmmakers whose passion for film, friendship, and freedom reunites them after years apart.
Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon in Hollywood tops the nominations list for the 3rd Annual Hollywood Critic Awards (previously known as The Los Angeles Online Film Critics Society) with a total of eleven nominations, while Netflix’s The Irishman and A24’s Waves each earn nine. Lulu Wang’s The Farewell, which premiered at Sundance back in January, scored a total of seven nominations. Todd Phillips’ controversial Joker received quite a bit of love from the members of the HCA with a total of seven nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Joaquin Phoenix. Noah Baumbach’s widely praised Marriage Story received six nominations, including Best Actor for Adam Driver and Best Actress for Scarlett Johansson.
From an open call for submissions, SFFILM and the Sloan Foundation have awarded the 2019 Sloan Science in Cinema Filmmaker Fellowships to Gina Hackett to develop her screenplay A Bridge Between Us, and to Josalynn Smith for her project Something in the Water.
AARP The Magazine today announced the nominees for the upcoming 19th Annual Movies for Grownups Awards, with A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Bombshell, Little Women, Marriage Story, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, The Farewell, The Irishman, and The Two Popes contending for Best Picture/Best Movie for Grownups category.
Gille Klabin’s psychedelic sci-fi adventure-comedy The Wave starring Justin Long and Donald Faison, which world premiered at Austin’s famous Fantastic Fest is headed to nationwide theaters and VOD on January 17th, 2020 from Epic Pictures Group.
Krakow Film Festival, announced the first titles of the next year’s 60th anniversary program including “Sunless Shadows” by Mehrdad Oskouei, the opening film of the IDFA festival in Amsterdam and the documentary film “My Father and Me” by British film-maker, Nick Broomfield.
Key West Film Festival announced the winners of the 8th edition of the festival which ran November 20-24, 2019. Waves directed by Trey Edward Shults which closed the festival was voted winner of the Audience Award. After Parkland by Emily Taguchi & Jake Lefferman won for Best Documentary Feature, A Name Without A Place by Kenny Riches won for Best Florida Feature and Portrait of a Lady on Fire by Celine Sciamma won for Best LGBT Feature.
Japanese director Hikari’s “37 Seconds” was awarded the Best Film prize at the 18th edition of the RIFF – Rome Independent Film Festival. “Japan. In a world that seems to be hundreds of miles away from the European life, the film offers in a delicate and touching way, evergreen topics: trying to position itself in a competitive society. “
