New Orleans local land surveyor Rodney Ray’s second major film, “Flag of My Father” featuring renowned actors William Devane and John Schneider, will be screened at the Big Easy International Film Festival in New Orleans. The film, which was produced and shot in northeastern Louisiana, revolves around a U.S. military nurse who serves in Iraq and struggles to convince her older siblings to let her have the flag from her father’s casket. John Schneider plays […]
This year’s Palm Beach Jewish Film Festival opens today, Wednesday with Anita, an Argentine drama about an adult with Down syndrome lost in Buenos Aires after a terrorist attack; and ends December 12 with the Israeli film Jaffa, a film about how a family tragedy forces a young Jewish woman to reassess her interfaith romance with a Palestinian man. Stories about strong women drive the official lineup with films like Berlin ’36, a biography of […]
Nominations were announced this morning for the 2011 Film Independent Spirit Awards. Eva Mendes and Jeremy Renner served as presenters and 2011 Spirit Awards host Joel McHale was also on hand. Nominees for Best Feature include 127 Hours, Black Swan, Greenberg, The Kids Are All Right and Winter’s Bone. Please Give was selected for the Robert Altman Award, which is given to one film’s director, casting director and ensemble cast. 2011 SPIRIT AWARD NOMINATIONS BEST […]
The BigPond Adelaide Film Festival (BAFF) announced its 2011 slate of new screen works which have received funding through the Adelaide Film Festival Investment Fund (AFFIF) and will world premiere at the 2011 festival. The list includes three fiction and four factual features, three cross platform works and four short films. Festival Director Katrina Sedgwick says, ‘Each of the Festival fund directors have previously created works that have delighted local and international audiences, and here […]
The Palm Beach International Film Festival returns for 16th year, but it’s returning to its nine-day schedule after reducing to a budget-cutting five days in 2010, reports the Palm Beach Daily News. The festival will be held March 23-March 31, 2011 at various venues throughout the county. It’s moved from its usual April dates to avoid conflicting with the new Palm Beach Women’s International Film Festival and the Delray Beach Film Festival, the festival Executive […]
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced that 10 animated short films and 10 live action short films will advance in the voting process for the 83rd Academy Awards®. Thirty-three animated short films and seventy-six live action short films had originally qualified in the category. The 10 animated short films are listed below in alphabetical order by title, with their production company: “The Cow Who Wanted to Be a Hamburger,” Bill Plympton, […]
Debra Granik’s ‘Winter’s Bone’ followed up a big win at the recent Stockholm International Film Festival and the winner of the 2010 Sundance Grand Jury Prize, to take the top prize of Best Film in addition to Best Ensemble Performance Award at the 20th Anniversary Gotham Independent Film Awards ceremony in New York City. The Gotham Independent Film Awards™ is one of the leading awards for independent film and the first major honors of the […]
Irvin Kershner, who directed the Star Wars sequel “The Empire Strikes Back” and the James Bond film “Never Say Never Again,” has died at age 87. Kershner died Saturday at his Los Angeles home following a 3½-year battle with lung cancer, said longtime friend and Hollywood publicist Dick Guttman. Read more.
A Los Angeles judge today ruled against the food company Dole, and awarded $200,000 in attorneys fees and costs as punishment for filing a defamation lawsuit against the filmmakers behind the documentary Bananas!*. Here is the press release from the filmmakers: Holding that the film Bananas!*, a “documentary on the topic of [Dole’s] treatment of its workers and use of pesticides” was an exercise of the “right of free speech,” a Los Angeles Superior Court […]
The Bahamas International Film Festival (BIFF) announced that Academy Award® winner Alan Arkin ( Little Miss Sunshine, ) will be honored with the prestigious Career Achievement Award at this year’s Film Festival, taking place December 1-5 in Nassau. Arkin will be on hand for the tribute, with the special award presentation coming from actress Abigail Breslin, who received an Oscar® nomination for Best Supporting Actress starring alongside Arkin in Little Miss Sunshine. BIFF’s Career Achievement […]
The Santa Barbara International Film Festival, January 27 – February 6, will open the 2011 Festival with the film SARAH’S KEY. Already receiving critical acclaim across the world, the French film will make its U.S. premiere at the Santa Barbara Festival’s opening night event. The film stars Kristin Scott Thomas and is directed by Gilles Paquet-Brenner, both of whom are scheduled to be in attendance. Opening night will take place at the Arlington Theatre on […]
Oscar-nominated director and screenwriter Mario Monicelli, considered one of the fathers of the Italian comedy of the 1940s-1960s, died Monday after jumping from a fifth-story hospital window, the hospital said. He was 95. Monicelli was being treated at Rome’s San Giovanni hospital for pancreatic problems and leaped to his death Monday night, said Anna Scoltore, who heads the hospital’s media office. She said he had been admitted a few days ago and that it appeared […]