Director Lucrecia Martel (Zama, La mujer sin cabeza) will be the president of the International Jury of the Competition at the 76th Venice International Film Festival (August 28 – September 7, 2019), which will assign the Golden Lion for Best Film, as well as other official awards.
The Swiss director, screenwriter, Fredi M. Murer will be honored with the Pardo alla carriera at the 72 Locarno Film Festival. The tribute to the Swiss master will be accompanied by screenings of some of the landmark titles from his more than forty years of friendship with the Festival: Grauzone (1979), Wir Bergler in den Bergen sind eigentlich nicht schuld, dass wir da sind (1974), Höhenfeuer (1985) and Der grüne Berg(1990).
The 2019 Palm Springs International ShortFest announced its Festival juried award winners with the Romanian film The Christmas Gift, directed by Bogdan Muresanu, winning the Best of Festival Award. The prize for Best International Short went to Guaxuma directed by Nara Normande; and Manila is Full of Men Named Boy directed by Andrew Stephen Lee won for Best U.S. Short.
IFC Midnight released the trailer for Trespassers directed by Orson Oblowitz which opens in theaters starting Friday July, 12 in New York at the IFC Center and Los Angeles at the Arena Hollywood, and On Demand.
Tilman Singer’s LUZ, starring Luana Velis and Jan Bluthardt, which played at the prestigious Fantasia Film Festival, Fantastic Fest, Berlin International Film Festival, and Sitges Film Festival, will open in New York and Los Angeles on Friday, July 19 with a national release to follow.
Locarno Film Festival announced the featured films selected for the Black Light Retrospective – an unprecedented overview of Black film in the 20th century. The festival will pay its own homage to the Retrospective with a Prefestival screening of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989) presenting the restored copy on the occasion of the film’s 30th anniversary.
Continuance Pictures has selected the Top 25 script submissions for the first Continue Short Film Initiative, which aims to establish a platform for Australian talent and provide opportunities for emerging filmmakers everywhere. Unexpectedly, the Continue initiative proved popular internationally, with filmmakers from all corners of the globe submitting their film and television scripts. A third of submissions came from female screenwriters, and of the top 25 finalists, over a third were written by women.
Emmy-winning director Carlos Puga “Full-Dress,” an experimental feature film that keeps its audience guessing at every turn, will World Premiere as an Official Selection at 2019 Dances With Films film festival.
Jahmil X. T. Qubeka’s Knuckle City much anticipated fourth feature film will be the opening film for the 40th edition of the Durban International Film Festival (DIFF). Dissecting notions of inherited toxic masculinity and the underbelly of the fighting world, Knuckle City is a riveting exploration of the psychology of a fighter from the Mdantsane township known as the boxing mecca of South Africa.
Following its world premiere at the 23rd annual American Black Film Festival in Miami, Florida, UMC (Urban Movie Channel) acquired the romantic comedy film His, Hers and the Truth. Written and directed by Coke Daniels, the film will premiere on UMC in December of this year.
Tel Aviv on Fire, a refreshing comedy about the Israeli Palestinian reality, from New York based Israeli Director Sameh Zoabi, will open in theaters on August 2nd. The film will open on August 2nd at the Quad and Landmark 57 in New York and Laemmle Royal in LA.
Five boundary-pushing nonfiction film project teams will convene at the Sundance Resort in Utah on June 21, for the Sundance Institute’s 2019 Documentary Edit and Story Lab.