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Turkish Film Beyond The Hill Wins Top Prize at Sixth Asia Pacific Screen Awards
BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA – NOVEMBER 23: Actor Tamer Levent, director/producer Emin Alper and producer Enis Kostepen accept the award for Best Feature Film, Beyond the Hill at the the sixth annual Asia Pacific Screen Awards on November 23, 2012 in the Brisbane, Australia. (Photo by Chris Hyde/Image.net)
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Deadlines Approaching for Filmmaker Entries to 56th San Francisco International Film Festival
The San Francisco Film Society is now accepting submissions for the 56th San Francisco International Film Festival, recognized throughout the world as an extraordinary showcase of cinematic discovery and innovation in one of the country’s most beautiful cities. Works in all genres, forms and lengths are considered. The final deadline for short films Monday December 3, and the final deadline for features Monday December 10.
HOW TO ENTER Entry form and information: sffs.org
Founded in 1957, SFIFF is the longest-running film festival in the Americas. Refreshingly intimate for a festival of its size and scope, the Festival combines a range of marquee premieres, international competitions, compelling documentaries, new digital media work, live music performances and star-studded gala events.
SFIFF is deeply rooted in the finest traditions of film appreciation both as an art form and as a meaningful agent for social change. SFIFF 2012 presented 289 screenings of 174 films in 41 languages from 45 countries, and brought nearly 300 filmmaker and industry guests to the Festival from more than 20 countries around the globe. More than 70,000 enthusiastic filmgoers flocked to San Francisco to celebrate the best of international cinema.
The Festival’s awards and prizes recognize the best of international and Bay Area talent by honoring superior innovation in documentary, narrative, animation, experimental and television works.
Golden Gate Awards including a juried award for Best Documentary Feature with a $20,000 prize; Best Bay Area Documentary Feature with a $15,000 prize; and awards totaling $20,000 in other categories of shorts, youth-produced and family films.
New Directors Prize A juried cash award of $15,000 to the director of a first-time narrative feature at the Festival.
FIPRESCI Prize Awarded by the International Federation of Film Critics. SFIFF is one of only three festivals in the U.S. selected to present this prestigious award.
Audience Awards for Best Narrative and Best Documentary Features.[source: SFIFF]
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Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt and Other Winners of 2012 Leeds International Film Festival
[caption id="attachment_2918" align="alignnone" width="550"]
Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt [/caption]The 26th Leeds International Film Festival ended on Sunday November 18th, after 18 days packed with 270 screenings and events, and an audience of 35,000. The Hunt was voted by Leeds 2012 audiences as overall favorite from 140 feature films, and a record 14,196 completed votes were cast.
The film is described by the festival as Danish filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg’s best film since Festen, The Hunt is a gripping, provocative and devastating drama about a respected member of a close-knit Danish community whose life is destroyed when a young girl accuses him, falsely, of abuse. Winner of Best Actor in Cannes, Mads Mikkelsen plays Lucas, a 40-year-old, good-natured primary school teacher who is recently divorced and trying to rebuild his relationship with his son. Once the accusation is made, Lucas is deemed guilty by the community-turned-mob, ostracized, and hunted by his former friends and neighbors.
Other winners include:
THE LEEDS 2012 MÉLIÈS D’ARGENT WINNERS
Leeds International Film Festival is the UK representative of the European Fantastic Film Festivals Federation and as such holds its Méliès d’Argent competition in the UK for fantasy film. The Méliès d’Argent Jury consisted of Dr Patricia MacCormack, Dominic Brunt and Dave Bryan and announced the following winners:
Best European Fantasy Feature Film
Winner: Eddie the Sleepwalking Cannibal (Dir. Boris Rodriguez, Denmark/Canada, 2011)
Special Mentions: Sightseers (Dir. Ben Wheatley, UK, 2012) + Thale (Dir. Aleksander L Nordaas, Norway, 2012)
Best European Fantasy Short Film
Winner: The Fright (El Espanto) (Dir. J.J. Marcos, Spain, 2012)
Special Mentions: Blinky (Dir. Ruairi Robinson, Ireland / USA, 2011) + Photo (Dir. J Enrique Sanchez, Spain, 2011)
The Méliès d’Argent Jury said:
“Eddie the Sleepwalking Cannibal pipped the others to the post by virtue of its sheer charm and, in the grand traditions of ‘anti-hero’, introduces a character with whom you are happy to invest your emotion and time into. The movie perfectly balances that very difficult task of mixing horror and dark comedy and as such will have appeal to a wide variety of genre fans. Expertly crafted by first time feature director Boris Rodriguez, the movie is well paced with great characterization and a climax which will give even the most hardened horror fan that sense of sentimental satisfaction that is so often missed.”
Both Eddie the Sleepwalking Cannibal and The Fright will now go forward to compete for the coveted Méliès d’Or at Sitges International Festival of Fantastic Film in Spain in 2013.
THE LEEDS 2012 SHORT FILM CITY WINNERS
The International Short Film Jury, judging the Louis le Prince International Short Film Competition and World Animation Award, consisted of Jacqueline Chell (UK), Wannes Destoop (Belgium), Marlena Lukasiak (Poland), Mike McKenny (UK), and Erik Rosenlund (Sweden).
Louis le Prince International Short Film Competition 2012
Winner: Mon Amoureux (My Sweetheart) (Dir. Daniel Metge, France)
Special Mentions: The Return (Kthimi) (Dir. Blerta Zeqiri, Kosovo) + Frozen Stories (Dir. Grzegorz Jaroszuk, Poland)
The International Short Film Jury said of the Winner:
“The jury was blown away by the emotional force of this subtle but impactful film. With skilled and beautifully observed performances that enhance a stunning, perfectly paced script, Mon Amoureuxstood out as a deeply personal story – but one of social value that is too rarely told and shared with audiences.”
World Animation Award 2012Winner: The Pub (Dir. Joseph Pierce, UK)
Special Mention: Body Memory (Dir. Ülo Pikkov, Estonia)
The International Short Film Jury said of the Winner:
“The jury was unanimous in its praise of this film. The Pub manages to seamlessly combine form and narrative, making excellent use of very distinctive rotascope animation – accentuating and exacerbating the character traits of the many familiar faces of ‘the pub’. Capturing a sincere and earnest slice of life, the film manages to be grotesque and beautiful, repulsive yet captivating – all the while being completely recognisable and grounded in reality.”
The National Short Film Jury, judging the British Short Film Competition and Yorkshire Short Film Competition, consisted of David Lilley, Kathryn Penny and Alex Ramseyer-Bache.
British Short Film Competition 2012
Winner: Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared by Joseph Pelling and Becky Sloan)
Special Mentions: Worm (by Bert & Bertie) + Dylan’s Room (by Layke Anderson)The National Short Film Jury said of the Winner:
“The judges felt this was truly different film and an assault on the senses. As soon as the audience has made a judgement on the film the rug is pulled out from under their feet! A brilliant combination of darkness and levity. Wonderfully acted, puppeteered and animated. The judges couldn’t wait to see the film again and look forward to seeing more from these directors.”
Yorkshire Short Film Competition 2012
Winner: The Farmer’s Wife (by Francis Lee)
Special Mention: Kiss (by Cathy Brady)The Natonal Short Film Jury said of the Winner:
“This was a clear winner for the judges. A fantastic central performance and a poignant journey for the central character. Wonderful contrasts of rugged and delicate. A stylish and dignified film which tackled a sad story against a bleak backdrop without being at all depressing.”The 27th Leeds International Film Festival will run from 8th to 22nd November 2013.
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Jewish Film HAVA NAGILA (The Movie) – opens in NYC on March 1 and in LA on March 15
Hava Nagila (The Movie), directed by Roberta Grossman and produced by Marta Kauffman (Friends) will open in theaters in NYC, LA and Miami in February 2013. The film had its World Premiere at a sold-out screening at the Castro Theater for the Opening Night of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, and will open and close dozens of upcoming Jewish film festivals around the world. A national release will follow.
Featuring interviews with Harry Belafonte, Connie Francis, Glen Campbell, Leonard Nimoy, Regina Spektor and others, Hava Nagila (The Movie) follows the song from the shtetls of Eastern Europe to the kibbutzim of Palestine to the cul‐de-sacs of America. It excavates the layers of cultural complexity with humor, depth and heart – traveling the distance between the Holocaust to Dick Dale and his surf guitar, sometimes in the same sentence. It stops at key places—Ukraine, Israel, the Catskills and Greenwich Village, where Belafonte performed a hopeful version in the late 1950s, only to be countered by Bob Dylan, who butchers the song in his version Talkin’ Hava Negiliah Blues. The film covers Allan Sherman’s parody Harvey and Sheila, and Lena Horne’s civil rights anthem Now—both set to the tune of Hava Nagila. The film spotlights Italian-American crooner Connie Francis, who made the song the first track on her famous album of Jewish favorites; and Glen Campbell, who released an instrumental version of Hava on the B-‐side of his theme song from True Grit. It also dissects the proliferation of pop culture references to Hava Nagila in film and TV and brings the song up to the present, where it’s a rallying tune at sports games, a hot dance number in nightclubs and a global hit online.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQC3twmjSzw
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Steve McQueen SHAME Leads Nominations for the 25th European Film Awards
[caption id="attachment_2914" align="alignnone" width="550"]
Steve McQueen SHAME[/caption]At the Seville European Film Festival the European Film Academy announced the nominations for the European Film Awards 2012.
Nominated are:
EUROPEAN FILM 2012:
AMOUR (Love)
Austria/France/Germany, 127 min
Written & directed by Michael Haneke
Produced by Margaret Menegoz, Stefan Arndt, Veit Heiduschka & Michael Katz
BARBARA
Germany, 105 min
Written & directed by Christian Petzold
Produced by Florian Koerner von Gustorf & Michael Weber
CESARE DEVE MORIRE (Caesar Must Die)
Italy, 76 min
Directed by Paolo & Vittorio Taviani
Written by Paolo & Vittorio Taviani, in collaboration with Fabio Cavalli
Produced by Grazia Volpi
INTOUCHABLES (Untouchable)
France, 108 min
Written & directed by Olivier Nakache & Eric Toledano
Produced by Nicolas Duval Adassovsky, Yann Zenou & Laurent Zeitoun
JAGTEN (The Hunt)
Denmark, 111 min
Directed by Thomas Vinterberg
Written by Thomas Vinterberg & Tobias Lindholm
Produced by Morten Kaufmann & Sisse Graum Jørgensen
SHAME
UK, 96 min
Directed by Steve McQueen
Written by Steve McQueen & Abi Morgan
Produced by Iain Canning & Emile Sherman
EUROPEAN DIRECTOR 2012:
Nuri Bilge Ceylan for BIR ZAMANLAR ANADOLU’DA (Once Upon a Time in Anatolia)
Michael Haneke for AMOUR (Love)
Steve McQueen for SHAME
Paolo & Vittorio Taviani for CESARE DEVE MORIRE (Caesar Must Die)
Thomas Vinterberg for JAGTEN (The Hunt)
EUROPEAN ACTRESS 2012:
Emilie Dequenne in A PERDRE LA RAISON (Our Children)
Nina Hoss in BARBARA
Emmanuelle Riva in AMOUR (Love)
Margarethe Tiesel in PARADIES: LIEBE (Paradise: Love)
Kate Winslet in CARNAGE
EUROPEAN ACTOR 2012:
François Cluzet & Omar Sy in INTOUCHABLES (Untouchable)
Michael Fassbender in SHAME
Mads Mikkelsen in JAGTEN (The Hunt)
Gary Oldman in TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY
Jean-Louis Trintignant in AMOUR (Love)
EUROPEAN SCREENWRITER 2012:
Michael Haneke for AMOUR (Love)
Tobias Lindholm & Thomas Vinterberg for JAGTEN (The Hunt)
Cristian Mungiu for DUPA DEALURI (Beyond the Hills)
Olivier Nakache & Eric Toledano for INTOUCHABLES (Untouchable)
Roman Polanski & Yasmina Reza for CARNAGE
CARLO DI PALMA EUROPEAN CINEMATOGRAPHER AWARD 2012:
Sean Bobbitt for SHAME
Bruno Delbonnel for FAUST
Darius Khondji for AMOUR (Love)
Gökhan Tiryaki for BIR ZAMANLAR ANADOLU’DA (Once Upon a Time in Anatolia)
Hoyte Van Hoytema for TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY
EUROPEAN EDITOR 2012:
Janus Billeskov Jansen & Anne Østerud for JAGTEN (The Hunt)
Roberto Perpignani for CESARE DEVE MORIRE (Caesar Must Die)
Joe Walker for SHAME
EUROPEAN PRODUCTION DESIGNER 2012:
Maria Djurkovic for TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY
Niels Sejer for EN KONGELIG AFFÆRE (A Royal Affair)
Elena Zhukova for FAUST
EUROPEAN COMPOSER 2012:
Cyrille Aufort & Gabriel Yared for EN KONGELIG AFFÆRE (A Royal Affair)
François Couturier for IO SONO LI (Shun Li and the Poet)
George Fenton for THE ANGELS’ SHARE
Alberto Iglesias for TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY
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Any Day Now Starring Alan Cumming Opens in New York and Los Angeles on December 14th
Music Box Films will release “Any Day Now” in New York and Los Angeles on December 14th.
Directed by Travis Fine, and starring Alan Cumming, Garret Dillahunt, Isaac Leyva, Frances Fisher, Gregg Henry, Chris Mulkey, Any Day Now tells a story of love, acceptance, and creating your own family.
In the late 1970s, when Marco (Isaac Leyva), a teenager with down syndrome who’s been abandoned by his mother, is taken in by committed couple Rudy (Alan Cumming) and Paul (Garret Dillahunt), he finds in them the family he’s never had. However, when their unconventional living arrangement is discovered by the authorities, Rudy and Paul must fight a biased legal system to adopt the child they have come to love as their own.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fblnjKPqrdc
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21 Animated Features Submitted For 2012 Oscar Race
[caption id="attachment_2910" align="alignnone" width="550"]
A Liar’s Autobiography: The Untrue Story of Monty Python’s Graham Chapman[/caption]Twenty-one features have been submitted for consideration in the Animated Feature Film category for the 85th Academy Awards®.
The 21 submitted features, listed in alphabetical order by title, are:
“Adventures in Zambezia”
“Brave”
“Delhi Safari”
“Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax”
“Frankenweenie”
“From Up on Poppy Hill”
“Hey Krishna”
“Hotel Transylvania”
“Ice Age Continental Drift”
“A Liar’s Autobiography: The Untrue Story of Monty Python’s Graham Chapman”
“Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted”
“The Mystical Laws”
“The Painting”
“ParaNorman”
“The Pirates! Band of Misfits”
“The Rabbi’s Cat”
“Rise of the Guardians”
“Secret of the Wings”
“Walter & Tandoori’s Christmas”
“Wreck-It Ralph”
“Zarafa”Several of the films listed have not yet had their required Los Angeles qualifying runs. Submitted features must fulfill the theatrical release requirements and comply with all of the category’s other qualifying rules before they can advance in the voting process. At least eight eligible animated features must be theatrically released in Los Angeles County within the calendar year for this category to be activated.
Films submitted in the Animated Feature Film category may also qualify for Academy Awards in other categories, including Best Picture, provided they meet the requirements for those categories.
The 85th Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on Thursday, January 10, 2013, at 5:30 a.m. PT in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater.
Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2012 will be presented on Sunday, February 24, 2013, at the Dolby Theatre™ at Hollywood & Highland Center®, and televised live on the ABC Television Network. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 225 countries worldwide.
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TALAASH Starring Bollywood megastar Aamir Khan Opens in Theaters on November 30 | Trailer
Bollywood superstarAamir Khan makes his long-awaited return to the big screen, in the mystery thriller TALAASH which opens in theaters worldwide on November 30. The award-winning actor and producer will be joined by not one, but two of India’s most popular actresses – Rani Mukherji and Kareena Kapoor.
TALAASH finds Khan playing an inspector investigating the death of a film star which could be an accident, or a crime. Following the suspicious death of a popular film star who plunged into the waters in his car, Inspector Shekhawat (Aamir Khan) investigates in order to determine whether it was an accident, or a crime. To find the truth in this complex case, he will be forced to confront his past.
The actor starred in and produced 2001’s Lagaan, India’s last motion picture to earn an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. Khan’s last film, 2009’s Three Idiots, smashed box office records becoming reportedly the highest-grossing Bollywood movie of all-time in North America. No film since has come close to its record.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn5QXaHpKGU
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Last Week to Check Out DOC NYC Fest at the IFC Center and SVA Theaters!
We told you guys about it last week, but this year’s DOC NYC Fest is truly shaping up to be one of the premiere film festivals in the entire City. The programming is impeccable, on-point, and there is an almost giddy feeling in all of the recent screenings- whether it was watching the astounding doc about story-book creator and illustrator Tomi Ungerer (whose work turned towards pornography later in life) in director Brad Bernstein’s nspiring Far Out Isn’t Far Enough, or the brilliant homage to Wonder Woman and other great female heroines in recent pop culture in Kristy Guevara-Flanagan’s Wonder Women, to the plight of the New York City taxi driver in Joshua Z Weinstein’s excellent Drivers Wanted, to Treva Wurmfeld’s Shepard and Dark- the fascinating story of the forty-plus year friendship between actor and playwright Sam Shepard and pal Johnny Dark- which managed somehow to be incredibly exhilarating and haunting, simultaneously (no mean feat that!) Also of note: Girl and a Gun, Artifact, Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp, Rafea-Solar Mama, and Sweet Dreams…Not to mention a NYC-heavy rotation of wonderful documentaries-including Zipper, about the fate of Coney Island’s Boardwalk and park, the above mentioned Drivers Wanted, and Men at Lunch- the story behind the iconic photo of eleven steel workers casually having lunch while sitting atop a steel beam, precariously dangling 59 stories above New York.
The DOC NYC Fest ends this Thursday evening, (November 15th) with a gala screening of Ken Burns’ Central Park Five, which focuses upon the five African-American and Latino youths who were wrongfully imprisoned for the 1989 Central Park Jogger rape and battery case. Ken Burns and members of the cast will also be there in person.
The DOC NYC Festival must become a must-view for ANY film fan in the City. Get your tickets here- it is truly an embarrassment of riches just trying to decide what to see!
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Last Week to Check Out Amazing DOC NYC Fest at the IFC Center and SVA Theaters!
We told you guys about it last week, but this year’s DOC NYC Fest is truly shaping up to be one of the premiere film festivals in the City. The programming is impeccable, on-point, and there is an almost giddy feeling in all of the recent screenings- whether it was watching the astounding doc about story-book creator and illustrator Tomi Ungerer (whose work turned towards pornography later in life) in director Brad Bernstein’s nspiring Far Out Isn’t Far Enough, or the brilliant homage to Wonder Woman and other great female heroines in recent pop culture in Kristy Guevara-Flanagan’s Wonder Women, to the plight of the New York City taxi driver in Joshua Z Weinstein’s excellent Drivers Wanted, to Treva Wurmfeld’s Shepard and Dark- the fascinating story of the forty-plus year friendship between actor and playwright Sam Shepard and pal Johnny Dark- which managed somehow to be incredibly exhilarating and haunting, simultaneously (no mean feat that!) Also of note: Girl and a Gun, Artifact, Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp, Rafea-Solar Mama, and Sweet Dreams…Not to mention a NYC-heavy rotation of wonderful documentaries-including Zipper, about the fate of Coney Island’s Boardwalk and park, the above mentioned Drivers Wanted, and Men at Lunch- the story behind the iconic photo of eleven steel workers casually having lunch while sitting atop a steel beam, precariously dangling 59 stories above New York.
The DOC NYC Fest ends this Thursday evening, (November 15th) with a gala screening of Ken Burns’ Central Park Five, which focuses upon the five African-American and Latino youths who were wrongfully imprisoned for the 1989 Central Park Jogger rape and battery case. Ken Burns and members of the cast will also be there in person.
The DOC NYC Festival must become a must-view for ANY film fan in the City. Get your tickets here- it is truly an embarrassment of riches just trying to decide what to see!
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10 Animated Shorts Move Ahead in 2012 Oscar Race
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Tram – Michaela Pavlátová[/caption]The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that 10 animated short films will advance in the voting process for the 85th Academy Awards®. Fifty-six pictures had originally qualified in the category.
The 10 films are listed below in alphabetical order by title, with their production companies:
Adam and Dog,” Minkyu Lee, director (Lodge Films)
“Combustible,” Katsuhiro Otomo, director (Sunrise Inc.)
“Dripped,” Léo Verrier, director (ChezEddy)
“The Eagleman Stag,” Mikey Please, director, and Benedict Please, music scores and sound design (Royal College of Art)
“The Fall of the House of Usher,” Raul Garcia, director, and Stephan Roelants, producer (Melusine Productions, R&R Communications Inc., Les Armateurs, The Big Farm)
“Fresh Guacamole,” PES, director (PES)
“Head over Heels,” Timothy Reckart, director, and Fodhla Cronin O’Reilly, producer (National Film and Television School)
“Maggie Simpson in “The Longest Daycare”,” David Silverman, director (Gracie Films)
“Paperman,” John Kahrs, director (Disney Animation Studios)
“Tram,” Michaela Pavlátová, director, and Ron Dyens, producer (Sacrebleu Productions)
The 85th Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on Thursday, January 10, 2013, and the Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2012 will be presented on Sunday, February 24, 2013.
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French, Jewish, Gay comedy Let My People Go to be Released in US in January 2013
[caption id="attachment_2902" align="alignnone" width="1020"]
Nicolas Maury as Ruben and Carmen Maura as Rachel in LET MY PEOPLE GO! A film by Mikael Buch. A Zeitgeist Films release.[/caption]The French, Jewish, Gay comedy Let My People Go! is coming to America; the film by Mikael Buch will
open at the Quad Cinema in New York on January 11 and in Los Angeles at the Laemmle Royal and Town Center on January 18, 2013. A national release will follow.Described as, A sweet and hilarious fusion of gay romantic comedy, Jewish family drama and French bedroom farce, Mikael Buch’s Let My People Go! follows the travails and daydreams of the lovelorn Reuben (Regular Lovers’ Nicolas Maury), a French-Jewish gay mailman living in fairytale Finland (where he got his MA in “Comparative Sauna Cultures”) with his gorgeous Nordic boyfriend. But just before Passover, a series of mishaps and a lovers’ quarrel exile the heartbroken Reuben back to Paris and his zany family—including Almodovar goddess Carmen Maura (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Volver) as his ditzy mom, and Truffaut regular Jean-François Stévenin as his lothario father.