The Retrospective of the 70th Berlin International Film Festival will be dedicated to the American film director, producer, and screenwriter King Vidor (1894-1982) who holds a central place in the history of US cinema. Considered a key director towards the end of the silent era and in the Golden Age of Hollywood, Vidor left a lasting mark, combining his interest in social engagement with the desire to explore in depth the potential of cinematic language.
Richard Jewell, directed by AFI Life Achievement Award recipient and Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Clint Eastwood, will World Premiere at a Gala at AFI FEST 2019 presented by Audi. Written by Academy Award®nominee Billy Ray, the film stars Academy Award®winners Sam Rockwell and Kathy Bates, Jon Hamm, Olivia Wilde, and Paul Walter Hauser as Richard Jewell. The Gala will take place on Wednesday, November 20 at the historic TCL Chinese Theatre.
From acclaimed auteurs to emerging directors to visual artists that push the limits of documentary film, International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) announced 70 selected documentary film titles to the program sections Frontlight, Masters, Paradocs, Paradocs: Amsterdam Art Weekend at IDFA, and Best of Fests, plus a Lifetime Achievement Award for Jørgen Leth. The new selections include world premieres from Oeke Hoogendijk, Louise Detlefsen, Louise Kjeldsen, and Basir Mahmoud.
Toronto After Dark Film Festival unveiled its Final Wave of new horror, sci-fi and action films for 2019, including collections of Canadian and International Short Films. Highlights include THE MORTUARY COLLECTION a scary fun new horror film starring the iconic Clancy Brown, JAMES VS HIS FUTURE SELF an hysterical new sci-fi time travel comedy, and WEREWOLF the intense new World War II survival horror.
Inspired by Bernard de Fontenelle’s Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds, Around the Sun directed by Oliver Krimpas, and starring Cara Theobold (Downton Abbey) along with Gethin Anthony (Game of Thrones) is now making the regional festival rounds. The film is playing at the young upstart Mystic Film Festival, in Connecticut, this weekend, and at the the Heartland International Film Festival, in Indianapolis next weekend.
Byron Bay Film Festival will close with The Cave, the film that tells a story that will be familiar to nearly everyone – the 2018 rescue of the Wild Boars football team from an underground cave in Northern Thailand, where they had been trapped by floodwaters caused by early monsoon rains.
Sound of Metal by Darius Marder was awarded the Golden Eye for Best International Feature Film at the 15th Zurich Film Festival. The film tells the story of a heavy-metal drummer (Riz Ahmed) who starts to lose his hearing and consequently begins to re-evaluate his place in the world.
Destin Daniel Cretton’s JUST MERCY will open the 28th Philadelphia Film Festival on October 17. This heartrending and inspirational film tells the story of author and social justice activist, Bryan Stevenson, played by acclaimed actor Michael B. Jordan of FRUITVALE STATION, CREED, and BLACK PANTHER fame. Additional Opening Night titles include PARASITE, opening Masters of Cinema; CUNNINGHAM, opening Spotlights; COME AS YOU ARE, opening Made in the USA; BIKRAM: YOGI, GURU, opening Non/Fiction; and THE LODGE opening After Hours.
The Guardian of Memory (El guardián de la memoria), the second feature film by Mexican director Marcela Arteaga, will have its U.S. premiere in the official competition at the 2019 edition of the Margaret Mead Film Festival taking place October 17 to 20 at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.
The much-anticipated drama Ordinary Love, starring Liam Neeson and Lesley Manville, will have its Irish premiere as the opening night film of the 64th Cork Film Festival on Thursday, November 7. Based on a script by award-winning Irish playwright Owen McCafferty, Ordinary Love will launch an outstanding 2019 program of over 120 feature films presented at Ireland’s first and largest film festival. Closing the 11-day festival will be the Irish premiere of new Irish-Belgian drama, The Other Lamb, direct from its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, starring Raffey Cassidy, Michiel Huisman and Denise Gough, on Sunday, November 17.
AFI FEST 2019 presented by Audi will close with the World Premiere of Apple’s THE BANKER. The Closing Night Gala will take place on Thursday, November 21 at the historic TCL Chinese Theatre.
The 20th imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival announced the full lineup of independent films and works by Indigenous screen-content creators for the Festival, running October 22 to 27, 2019 in Toronto, Ontario.