In the run-up to the 2019 Berlin International Film Festival, so far 16 feature-length films have been selected to compete in the 42nd edition of Generation’s two competitions, Kplus and 14plus.
Film Festivals
-
Berlin International Film Festival Reveals First Films in 2019 Generation – Kplus and 14plus Competitions
Sena Nakashima, Keita Ninomiya, Mondo Okumura, Satoshi Mizuno. We Are Little Zombies. Regie/director: Makato Nagahisa. Foto/photo: © 2019 “WE ARE LITTLE ZOMBIES” FILM PARTNERS
-
Berlin International Film Festival Unveils 2019 Posters
When the Berlin International Film Festival takes place from February 7 to 17, 2019, Berlin will again be under the sign of the bear. The Berlin International Film Festival unveiled the 2019 official posters today, continuing the theme of bears, with this year’s twist – paying homage to the audience.
-
24 Short Films in Ammodo Tiger Short Competition at 2019 International Film Festival Rotterdam
The Glamorous Boy of Tang by Su Hui-yu International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) has selected 24 short films for the 2019 Ammodo Tiger Short Competition. Selections include exciting newcomers like German filmmaker Lucia Margarita and Moroccan artist Meriem Bennani, as well as filmmakers who have been in competition in Rotterdam before, such as Belgium-based artist Vincent Meessen or Taiwanese artist Su Hui-yu. Sara Cwynar (Rose Gold) and Daniel Jacoby (Mountain Plain Mountain), both winners of an Ammodo Tiger Short Award in 2018, return to Rotterdam in 2019 to present their films Red Film and Nehemías. Familiar names such as Simon Liu, Mike Hoolboom, Luke Fowler and Kevin Jerome Everson have shown several films at IFFR in the past, and this year make their competition debuts.
-
Berlin Film Festival Reveals First Films in 2019 Panorama Program, Featuring Jonah Hill, Tilda Swinton
Kislota (Acid) Berlin Film Festival today revealed the first 22 films in the 2019 Panorama program, including directorial debuts from actors Jonah Hill and Alexander Gorchilin. The 17 feature films and five documentary films, represent a total of 21 production countries. 14 of the films will be celebrating world premieres in Panorama. Nine of the selected works are first films,
-
2019 Animation First Festival in NYC, Dedicated to French Animation Announces Lineup
Funan by Denis Do Building on its wildly successful inaugural year, the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) announced the 2019 Animation First festival, showcasing the vast history, enduring ingenuity, and diversity of France’s renowned animation studios and schools. This year’s schedule includes 17 premieres, provoking feature-length films, exciting shorts, immersive exhibits, video game demonstrations, panels with filmmakers, a special spotlight on the City of Bordeaux’s animation industry, and much more. It will take place from Friday, January 25 through Sunday, January 27, 2019, at FIAF in New York City.
-
Beaufort International Film Festival Announces 2019 Finalists
In the Orchard The thirteenth annual Beaufort International Film Festival will host thousands of film lovers from around the world starting February 19 through February 24, 2019, in the historic coastal town of Beaufort, SC.
-
Spain to be Country Focus of 2019 Edinburgh International Film Festival
Abracadabra Spain will be the country focus at 2019 Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF), and will see work by new and emerging Spanish filmmakers screen alongside that of the country’s best-known filmmakers with a range of industry and special events complementing the cinema program. The 73rd edition of EIFF runs from June 19 to 30, 2019.
-
Actress Charlotte Rampling to Receive Honorary Golden Bear at Berlin International Film Festival
Charlotte Rampling. Sous le sable (Unter dem Sand / Under the Sand). Regie/director: François Ozon. Foto/photo: © Jean-Claude Moireau / Studiocanal British film and stage actress Charlotte Rampling will receive the Honorary Golden Bear at the 69th Berlin International Film Festival for her lifetime achievement, as well as dedicating the Homage to a selection of her films.
On February 14, 2019, in conjunction with the award ceremony for the Honorary Golden Bear, the festival will be showing Il portiere di notte (The Night Porter, Italy, 1974), directed by Liliana Cavani.
-
2019 NY Jewish Film Festival Announces Lineup of 32 Films, Closes with A FORTUNATE MAN
A Fortunate Man, directed by Bille August Among the oldest and most influential Jewish film festivals worldwide, the 28th annual New York Jewish Film Festival (NYJFF) will take place January 9 to 22, 2019. Featuring new work as well as restored classics, the festival’s 2019 lineup includes 32 wide-ranging and exciting features and shorts from the iconic to the iconoclastic. Screenings are held at the Walter Reade Theater, 165 West 65th Street, NYC.
The NYJFF opens on Wednesday, January 9, with the New York premiere of Eric Barbier’s epic drama Promise at Dawn, starring Charlotte Gainsbourg and Pierre Niney. This riveting memoir chronicles the colorful life of infamous French author Romain Gary, from his childhood conning Polish high society with his mother to his years as a pilot in the Free French Air Forces.
The Closing Night film is the New York premiere of A Fortunate Man, directed by Academy Award–winner Bille August (Pelle the Conqueror). In it, a gifted but self-destructive young man leaves his suffocating Lutheran upbringing for metropolitan 1880s Copenhagen, where he’s welcomed into a wealthy Jewish family and strives to realize his grand ambitions.
The Centerpiece selection represents the first time an Israeli television series has been presented at the NYJFF with the three-and-a-half-hour miniseries Autonomies, to be presented all at once, binge-style, with a 20-minute intermission. Directed by Yehonatan Indursky, the dystopian drama is set in an alternate reality of present-day Israel, a nation divided by a wall into the secular “State of Israel,” with Tel Aviv as its capital, and the “Haredi Autonomy” in Jerusalem, run by an ultra-Orthodox Jewish group. A globally relevant tale of identity, religion, politics, personal freedom, and love, this gripping story follows a custody battle that upends the fragile peace of the country, pushing it to the brink of civil war. Indursky will present a master class in conjunction with the screening of Autonomies.
New to the NYJFF this year is an annual initiative that highlights a film made by a woman filmmaker that deserves broader American recognition. Maria Victoria Menis’s Camera Obscura (2008) tells the story of an immigrant woman whose encounter with an itinerant photographer reveals a sense of self she never knew. The film was shot in the lush forests and lagoons of Buenos Aires province in a mélange of visual styles, including elements of hand-drawn animation, World War I archival footage, and early surrealist black-and-white films.
Filmmaker Amos Gitai returns to the 2019 NYJFF with the U.S. premiere of his thought-provoking new drama, A Tramway in Jerusalem. Gitai uses the tramway that runs through Jerusalem to connect a series of short vignettes, forming a mosaic of Jewish and Arab stories embodying life in the city.
The NYJFF will also present the U.S. premiere of Fig Tree by first-time director Aäläm-Wärqe Davidian. Set in Addis Ababa during the Ethiopian Civil War, the film concerns a young woman who plans to flee to Israel with her brother to reunite with their mother. But she is unwilling to leave her Christian boyfriend behind and hatches a scheme to save him from being drafted.
28th New York Jewish Film Festival Film Lineup
-
3rd International Film Festival & Awards Macao – CLEAN UP Wins Best Film
Clean up 11 films competed for nine awards in the Competition section as well as six film in the “New Chinese Cinema” for the Best New Chinese-language Film of the Year at the 3rd International Film Festival & Awards Macao (“IFFAM” or the “Film Festival”). The Film Festival screened 54 spectacular films this year and winners were revealed at the Awards Ceremony on Friday night.
The Competition section once again spotlighted first and second-time feature film directors this year, pitting 11 films against each other for nine accolades attributed by the jury and the Macao Audience Choice Award, of which the winner was voted by local audiences. The 11 films include “School’s Out”, “The Guilty”, “Clean up”, “The Good Girls”, “Ága”, “Scarborough”, “Suburban Birds”, “White Blood”, “All Good”, “Jesus” and “The Man Who Feels No Pain” with Best Film awarded to “Clean up.”
The new competition section “New Chinese Cinema” pitted six films against each other including “Dear Ex”, “Baby”, “Xiao Mei”, “Up the Mountain”, “Fly by Night” and “The Pluto Moment”. “Up the Mountain” took home the Best New Chinese-language Film of the Year.
Besides the above awards, an array of other accolades was presented at the Awards Ceremony to commend outstanding films and filmmakers for their achievements. Internationally-acclaimed film director and Jury President of the 3rd IFFAM, Chen Kaige, directed his first film “Yellow Earth” in 1984, which garnered a number of awards and ushered in the new era for Chinese cinema. Recognized as one of the Chinese film classics, his acclaimed masterpiece “Farewell My Concubine” (1993) won the Palme d’Or at the 46th Cannes Film Festival in the same year, making Chen the only Chinese director who has received this top accolade to this day. At the Awards Ceremony, Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture of the Macao SAR Government, Alexis Tam, presented the “Spirit of Cinema” Achievement Award to film director Chen Kaige.
In addition, the NETPAC Award went to “Suburban Birds” (presented by Mimi Plauché, Sunny Joseph and Marco Martins, jury members from the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC)). The Asian Blockbuster Film 2018 went to the film “Crazy Rich Asians”, whereas the Variety Asian Star: Up Next Award went to five actors and actresses as follows: Anne Curtis, Iqbaal Ramadhan, Zaira Wasim, Xana Tang and Ryan Zheng Kai.
3rd International Film Festival & Awards Winners
-
Cine Las Americas International Film Festival Announces 2019 Dates + Debuts VR 360º Showcase
The 22nd Annual Cine Las Americas International Film Festival (CLAIFF) is scheduled for May 1 – 5, 2019 with events taking place at venues around the Austin, Texas during the five-day festival. As a new program for May’s festival, CLAIFF will present a VR 360º showcase, hosted and sponsored by Originator Studios.
Cine Las Americas is committed to offering a diverse program of national and international feature and short films as well as music videos, experimental, animation selections, and this year a VR 360º video program. The festival showcases films and videos from all the Americas (US, Canada, North Central, South America, and the Caribbean) and the Iberian Peninsula. Selected works screen in competitive and non-competitive sections. There are eleven award categories, including the annual Hecho en Tejas Awards. This year, the coordinating committee is pleased to offer cash awards to prize categories, including for Audience Awards for Best First or Second Dramatic Feature, Best Documentary Feature, Best Hecho en Tejas Film, and Best Music Video.
As an extension of its mission to support Latinx and Indigenous artists across media arts, Cine Las Americas announced the expansion of our VR 360º video program for the 22nd festival. In 2017 CLAIFF presented Tracy Rector’s 360º video Eagle Bone (Ch’aak’ S’aagi), one of the first VR pieces ever by a Native American filmmaker, hosted by Originator Studios. In 2018, also thanks to Originator Studios’ sponsorship, youth from the Austin-based Latinitas’ organization shared their 360º Latinx Culture in East Austin documentary experience with attendees.
In 2019, Originator Studios will team up with CLAIFF to present an official selection of VR 360º videos at their facilities. Filmmakers are invited to submit their VR 360º videos as part of the festival’s annual call for entries.
-
Brooklyn Horror Film Festival Announces 2019 Dates + Open for Filmmaker Submissions
Brooklyn Horror Film Festival Following the festival’s biggest year yet, Brooklyn Horror Film Festival will return October 17 to 24, 2019, for its fourth edition. BHFF will once again grow in 2019 with the addition of Cobble Hill Cinemas as one of the primary screening locations and continue its engagements with Nitehawk Cinema, Made in NY Media Center at IFP, and various locations throughout Brooklyn.
The festival also announced a new partnership with Gunpowder & Sky’s recently launched horror brand, ALTER. Selected short films will be eligible for review for distribution on the platform. “ALTER has quickly established itself as a premium platform for emerging, diverse, and established filmmakers and we couldn’t be more excited to help them discover the great talent we have at the festival.” said Festival Director Justin Timms.
Brooklyn Horror made new staffing changes as Montreal-based Vanessa Meyer, Programming Manager for the Frontières Co-Production Market, joins the programming team, Development Manager Jackie Goldstein will be promoted to Director of Development, and Wynton Wong comes on as Festival Operations Manager.
Submissions are now open via FilmFreeway and Withoutabox for short and feature films, and badges are on sale via the official website.