VIMooZ

After announcing that the 8th Beijing Independent Documentary Film Festival has been cancelled, the festival’s artistic director, Zhu Rikun, has reportedly resigned from the festival’s foundation, closed his production house, Fanhall Studio, and fled the Chinese capital. Zhu Rikun has worked on many independent Chinese documentaries including “Karamay” (2010), in which director Xu Xin carries out a forensic examination of a fire that broke out in the far western Chinese province of Xinjiang in 1994. […]

Tim Hetherington, the director and producer of the Oscar-nominated Afghan war documentary “Restrepo,” was killed while covering the Libyan conflict in the city of Misurata on Wednesday, and three photographers working beside him were wounded, one fatally, when they came under fire. He was 40 years. Reports said they had been working together near the front lines when they were struck by a rocket-propelled grenade. Restrepo, winner of Grand Jury Prize at the 2010 Sudance […]

Oscar winning actress Catherine Zeta-Jones has quit as patron of the Swansea Bay Film Festival and her image has been removed from the festival’s website. This follows the resignation of actor Michael Sheen, who quit as vice president of the festival last month The festival has reportedly received lots of negative feedback from festival-goers including filmmaker Steve Rosen, who made a documentary about the festival, describing it as “unquestionably the worst event of its kind.” […]

Two-time Academy Award-winning actress Elizabeth Taylor, died earlier today, Wednesday in Los Angeles. She was 79. A spokeswoman at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center said Ms. Taylor died at 1:28 a.m. Pacific time. Her publicist, Sally Morrison, said the cause was complications of congestive heart failure. In a career of more than 70 years and more than 50 films, she won two Academy Awards as best actress, for her performances as a call girl in “Butterfield 8” […]

Gary Winick, a pioneering producer and director of independent digital films who found mainstream success with such movies as “13 Going on 30” and “Letters to Juliet,” has died. He was 49. Winick, who was diagnosed with brain cancer about two years ago, died Sunday at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City, said Niels Mueller, a longtime collaborator. When Winick went to the Sundance Film Festival in 2002, he didn’t even have an […]

We here at Vimooz just love it when an incredibly hard-working player from the independent film scene crosses over into the big-time, especially when you it’s someone who will keep their sense of humor, soul and integrity intact. That is why we are pushing for John Hawkes to win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar this weekend for his role as “Tear Drop” in this year’s little indie-that-really-did-it:  Winter’s Bone. I have had the pleasure of […]