Burning Days directed by Emin Alper won the Grand Jury Prize for Narrative Feature at the 26th annual Sonoma International Film Festival which ran March 22-26, 2023. The Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary Feature went to The Grab by Gabriela Cowperthwaite.
The 25th anniversary edition of Sarasota Film Festival (SFF) taking place in-person across Sarasota through April 2, 2023 opened on Saturday, March 25 with Dawn Porter’s Cirque Du Soleil: Without A Net. The film offers a behind-the-scenes look into “O”, Cirque’s flagship production, on its journey back after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Motherland, a documentary on violence and abuse in the Belarusian military, has won the DOX:AWARD at the 2023 CPH:DOX, Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival.
Alena Lodkina’s new feature film Petrol will have its North American Premiere as part of NYC’s New Directors/New Films (ND/NF). The film starring Nathalie Morris (Black Christmas, Bump) and Hannah Lynch, had its world premiere at Locarno International Film Festival, and its national premiere at the Melbourne International Film Festival.
Films from Bay Area filmmakers bookend the lineup for the 66th San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM Festival), set to take place in theaters across San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley from April 13 to April 23, 2023.
The 2023 San Luis Obispo International Film Festival announces the film lineup for 29th edition running April 25 to May 7. The 29th edition of the festival opens with Matt Johnson’s BlackBerry and will close with Marvin Samel’s IMordecai.
The Old School Kung Fu Fest returns to the Metrograph theater, promising the biggest retrospective of Taiwanese wuxia (sword fighting hero) movies ever seen in New York City.
Flamin’ Hot, the biopic drama directed by Eva Longoria on the story of Richard Montañez, the Frito-Lay janitor who claimed to have invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos won the Audience Award in the Headliners category at the 31st SXSW Film & TV Festival. The film will stream on both Hulu and Disney+ on June 9.
The 7th MidWest WeirdFest wrapped last week and announced the winning films, with the chilling techno-thriller Murmur from director Mark Polish (Twin Falls Idaho, The Astronaut Farmer) awarded the festival’s prestigious “Best Film” award.
The Goya Award-winning film The Beasts, directed by Goya Award-winner and Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Rodrigo Sorogoyen, took the top jury prize, the $25,000 Knight MARIMBAS Award, at the 40th Miami Film Festival. The thriller about a French couple starting a new life in rural Galicia, Spain, also received the Rene Rodriguez Critics Award, and “The Beasts” composer Oliver Arson earned the Alacran Music in Film Award. The award highlights the power of music and film and celebrates the role of the film composer and was selected by the Art of Light (Composer) Award honoree Nicholas Britell.
Raging Grace directed by Paris Zarcilla is the winner of the Grand Jury Award in the Narrative Feature Competition at the 30th SXSW Film & TV Festival. The jury commented, “The story of a Filipina house cleaner and her young daughter confronting Britain’s racial and class divides, Raging Grace is both frank and elusive, a film that subverts expectations on its way to a stirring conclusion.”
