Twaaga, directed by Cedric Ido
The Seattle International Film Festival, the largest and most highly attended festival in the United States, announced today this year’s ShortsFest Jury Award winners. ShortsFest Weekend, SIFF’s celebration of the short film, takes place every year over Memorial Day Weekend at SIFF Cinema Uptown. This year’s Festival (May 15 – June 8) features 168 short films, including 24 World, 8 North American, and 6 US premieres.
WINTER SLEEP by Nuri Bilge Ceylan
The Jury of the 67th Cannes Film Festival, presided over by Jane Campion awarded WINTER SLEEP by Nuri Bilge Ceylan the winner of the Palme d’or award.The award was presented to director Nuri Bilge Ceylan by actress Uma Thurman and director Quentin Tarantino.
In WINTER SLEEP, Aydin, a former actor, runs a small hotel in central Anatolia with his young wife Nihal with whom he has a stormy relationship and his sister Necla who is suffering from her recent divorce.In winter as the snow begins to fall, the hotel turns into a shelter but also an inescapable place that fuels their animosities…
I Believe in Unicorns
Brooklyn Film Festival (BFF), the largest and longest running festival in Brooklyn and the oldest international competitive festival in New York, announced its feature film line-up for its 2014 festival, themed FORMULA, comprised of bold, brave and unique indie films and new discoveries, many from first-time feature filmmakers from Brooklyn and beyond. The event will run from May 30 through June 8 in Williamsburg at indieScreen (289 Kent Avenue) and Windmill Studios NYC (287 Kent Avenue). The festival will present over 100 film premieres from around the world, selected from over 2,000 submissions. Tickets will be available soon for advanced purchase online.
HOLBROOK/TWAIN: AN AMERICAN ODYSSEY
AFI DOCS announced its full slate of films for the 2014 festival, which runs from June 18 – 22 in Washington, DC, and Silver Spring, MD. The festival will showcase 84 films representing 28 countries, including four World, three U.S. and eight East Coast Premieres. AFI DOCS opens with HOLBROOK/TWAIN: AN AMERICAN ODYSSEY and closes with LIFE ITSELF. The festival’s annual AFI DOCS Charles Guggenheim Symposium will honor Academy Award® -winning documentarian Alex Gibney (TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE). Committed to bringing artists and our nation’s leaders together, AFI DOCS will do this through Catalyst Screenings that include in-depth, expanded discussions with filmmakers, issue experts and policymakers. Launching in this 12th edition of the festival is the Filmmaker Engagement Program – professional development for documentarians.
Theatre at the Ace Hotel
Sundance Institute will present the Sundance NEXT FEST summer festival August 7-10 in Los Angeles, headquartered at the Theatre at the Ace Hotel and offering feature and short film screenings, some paired with live music performances and all celebrating the renegade spirit of independent artists. The event is an extension of the popular NEXT <=> section at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, which showcases stylistically adventurous and bold films, and builds on the Institute’s NEXT WEEKEND event, hosted in 2013. The Sundance Film Festival programming staff will select films and music acts for NEXT FEST.
I Afrikaner
South Africa’s largest and longest-running film festival, the Durban International Film Festival, hosted by the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Centre for Creative Arts, (a special project of the Deputy Vice Chancellor, College of Humanities, Prof Cheryl Potgieter) presents its 35th edition from 17 to 27 July 2014. This year, the ten day celebration of world class cinema will see over 200 screenings of new films from South Africa, the continent and the world, with a number of world premiere screenings of local and international films.
History of Fear
The 57th San Francisco International Film Festival, earlier this month, announced the winners of the juried Golden Gate Award and New Directors Prize competitions. This year the Festival awarded nearly $40,000 in prizes to emerging and established filmmakers from 13 countries around the globe. For more than 50 years, SFIFF’s Golden Gate Awards have honored deserving films independent of commercial concerns, heralding unsung excellence and exposing local and international audiences to unique and innovative works.
MINERS SHOT DOWN
From Saturday 7th June to Thursday 12th June, Sheffield Doc/Fest will screen new work by Martin Scorsese, Penny Woolcock, Kim Longinotto, Peter De Rome, Marshall Curry, Alex Gibney and will recognise Laura Poitras with the Inspiration Award. The festival welcomes Grayson Perry, Sue Perkins, John Pilger, Jon Snow, and Chair of Arts Council England Peter Bazalgette to talk about their varied careers in film and TV documentary, as well as music legends Brian Eno and Kevin Rowland, artist Jeremy Deller and astronaut Captain Eugene Cernan.
On Saturday 7th June the festival kicks off with three must-see events: at City Hall the European premiere of Florian Habicht’s PULP: A FILM ABOUT LIFE, DEATH & SUPERMARKETS attended by band-members Jarvis Cocker, Nick Banks, Candida Doyle, Steve Mackey and Mark Webber; at the Devil’s Arse cavern Thomas Balmes’ award-winning HAPPINESS will transport the audience to a tiny mountain village in a remote corner Bhutan which is finally getting electricity and television; and at the Sheffield Showroom Rehad Desai’s heavy-hitting MINERS SHOT DOWN about the 2012 strike in South Africa which led to the murder of 34 miners by the police in a bid to break the strike will launch the South African focus.
Private Violence
The 25th edition of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival will run from June 12 to 22, 2014 with a program of 22 films that bring human rights struggles to life through storytelling, and remind us that film can be a powerful source of change and inspiration. The festival is co-presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and IFC Center.
Twenty documentaries and two fiction films will be featured, including 19 New York premieres and an unprecedented 16 features by women. The Human Rights Watch Film Festival is especially proud to be celebrating its 25th anniversary. What began as a series of films shown on a modest-sized television in a small New York City theater is now experienced on the big screen by over 100,000 passionate audience members in more than 20 cities worldwide.
THE FIX, a new documentary exploring life after heroin addiction in the Bronx, will have its world premiere at the SOHO International Film Festival on May 19.
Directed by Laura Naylor (Duck Beach to Eternity), THE FIX follows Junior, a young father trying to turn his life around after years of heroin addiction, as he joins forces with a group of fellow hepatitis-C-infected former users in the Bronx to fight the disease in their community. Knitting personal narratives together with a profile of innovative programs at a methadone clinic, the film explores the concept of storytelling as an instrument of change and gives a powerful voice to marginalized members of society.
Frédéric Tcheng’s fashion documentary “Dior and I” which premiered to strong reviews earlier this year at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival, will be released in the US later this year, by Entertainment One Films (eOne). Filmmaker Frédéric Tcheng follows up his work on fashion films, including Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel and Valentino: The Last Emperor, with another masterful exploration of a towering fashion institution.
NOCTURNA. Directed by Adrià García & Víctor Maldonado
The Philadelphia Film Society announced the full line-up of the second Philadelphia International Children’s Film Festival (PICFF). Partnering with New York International Children’s Film Festival, one of the longest running and acclaimed children’s film festivals on the circuit, the three-day festival, held Friday, June 6 – Sunday, June 8, 2014, will offer a variety of animated, live-action and experimental short and feature films from all around the world.