• George Clooney to be honored at 2011 Palm Springs International Film Festival

    [caption id="attachment_1847" align="alignnone"]George Clooney in The Ides of March[/caption]

    The 23rd annual Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF) will present Academy Award® winner George Clooney with its prestigious Chairman’s Award for The Descendants and The Ides of March.

    “George Clooney brings new definition to the word ‘star,’” said Film Festival Chairman Harold Matzner. “A consummate actor, director, producer and screenwriter, he’s demonstrated that no discipline within the film industry is beyond his reach.  In The Ides of March as an actor, director, producer and screenwriter, Clooney exposes the gritty world of political campaigns where winning is the only option, no matter how devastating the consequences. In The Descendants, he gives a bravura performance as a reluctant patriarch, living in a Hawaiian paradise, who is thrust into making life and death decisions affecting his entire family.  To this star of many talents, whose career, fortunately for all of us who admire him, is still a work in progress, the Palm Springs International Film Festival is proud to present the 2011 Chairman’s Award to George Clooney.”

    Past recipients of the Chairman’s Award include Ben Affleck, Dustin Hoffman and Nicole Kidman.

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  • Academy Awards $455,000 to US Film Festivals in 2012

    The Academy Foundation of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has awarded $455,000 to 25 U.S. film festivals for the 2012 calendar year.

    The 2012 film festival grants allocations are as follows:

     

    $50,000

    • Chicago International Film Festival – World Cinema Spotlight program
    • Cleveland International Film Festival – Focus on Filmmakers

    $30,000

    • Los Angeles Film Festival – Free Screenings program
    • San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival – World Cinema Spotlight program

    $20,000

    • Ann Arbor Film Festival (MI) – 50th Anniversary Archival program
    • Chicago International Children’s Film Festival – Directors in the Schools, Educational
      Curriculum Development and free tickets
    • Full Frame Documentary Film Festival (Durham, NC) – Thematic program
    • Outfest: The Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Film Festival – “30 Years of Outfest” retrospective program
    • Palm Springs International ShortFest – Filmmaker Forums
    • Santa Barbara International Film Festival – Field Trip to the Movies program
    • True/False Film Fest (Columbia, MO) – Visiting Filmmaker program; SWAMI Mentoring program; Film Academy Student Track; Outreach to Students and Minorities
    • Virginia Film Festival (Charlottesville) – Community Outreach and Education program

    $15,000

    • RiverRun International Film Festival (Winston-Salem, NC) – 2010 Spotlight program: Landmark Science Fiction Films
    • St. Louis International Film Festival – Women in Film Sidebar

    $10,000

    • Athens International Film and Video Festival (Ohio) – “Let’s Talk About Water” screening and seminar program
    • Berkshire International Film Festival (Great Barrington, MA) – Talent Campus
    • Big Sky Documentary Film Festival (Missoula, MT) – Retrospective Programming and the
      Reel Sounds Sidebar
    • Cucalorus Film Festival (Wilmington, NC) – Voices program
    • Indie Memphis Film Festival – Visiting Filmmakers and Community Outreach
    • Maryland Film Festival (Baltimore) – New Waves in World Cinema program
    • Pan African Film Festival (Los Angeles) – StudentFest

    $5,000

    • New York Arab and South Asian Film Festival (New York City) – Retrospective Program
    • South East European Film Festival (Los Angeles) – Audience Development
    • Tallgrass Film Festival (Witchita, KS) – Filmmaker Hospitality

    Since its establishment in 1999, the Academy’s Festival Grants Program has distributed 277 grants totaling $4.85 million in funding.

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  • Final Deadline For Entries For 55th San Francisco International Film Festival.

    The San Francisco Film Society is now accepting submissions for the 55th San Francisco International Film Festival. Works in all genres, forms and lengths are considered. The final deadline for short films is Monday, December 5; and the final deadline for features is Monday, December 12.

    The Festival’s Golden Gate Awards include 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 documentaries, shorts and works for television.

    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.

    Entry form and information

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  • 15 Documentary Features make 2011 Oscar Shortlist

    [caption id="attachment_1842" align="alignnone"]Under Fire: Journalists in Combat[/caption]

    The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced that 15 films in the Documentary Feature category will advance in the voting process for the 84th Academy Awards®. One hundred twenty-four pictures had originally qualified in the category.

    The 15 films are listed below in alphabetical order by title, with their production company:

    “Battle for Brooklyn” (RUMER Inc.)
    “Bill Cunningham New York” (First Thought Films)
    “Buck” (Cedar Creek Productions)
    “Hell and Back Again” (Roast Beef Productions Limited)
    “If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front” (Marshall Curry Productions, LLC)
    “Jane’s Journey” (NEOS Film GmbH & Co. KG)
    “The Loving Story” (Augusta Films)
    “Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory” (@radical.media)
    “Pina” (Neue Road Movies GmbH)
    “Project Nim” (Red Box Films)
    “Semper Fi: Always Faithful” (Tied to the Tracks Films, Inc.)
    “Sing Your Song” (S2BN Belafonte Productions, LLC)
    “Undefeated” (Spitfire Pictures)
    “Under Fire: Journalists in Combat” (JUF Pictures, Inc.)
    “We Were Here” (Weissman Projects, LLC)

    The 84th Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on Tuesday, January 24, 2012, and the Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2011 will be presented on Sunday, February 26, 2012.

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  • Go See the Indie Comedy “Rid of Me”

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    by Francesca McCaffery

    RID OF ME, James Westby’s latest black comedy that follows Meris, (an awesome Katy O’Grady!) an awkward young woman trying too hard to perfect her marriage, amongst a new group of friends. RID OF ME follows Meris’ rejection from the cool crowd down a path towards truth and salvation which includes a job at a local candy shop, a group of punk friends, community gardening and a newfound love for Cambodian rock music! (Yes!)

    I think this was one of the hidden gems of the Tribeca Film Festival, and it is opening at Cinema Village West Theater tomorrow in New York City, November 18th- RUN OUT TO SEE IT ASAP THIS WEEKEND! We LOVED it, and so will you.  Let’s make this small wonder a huge hit! Check out the awesome reviews below:

    “Bracingly original, alarming and droll! The domestic meller and the horror movie have met, wed, and proven fruitful.” –John Anderson, VARIETY

    MEAN GIRLS for adults! Few recent movies are as darkly funny.” –Steven Zeitchik, LA TIMES

    “RID OF ME, if there’s any justice, should make actress Katie O’Grady a star.” –S.T. VanAirsdale, MOVIELINE

    “RID OF ME is cheerfully obscene, hip, and wickedly funny! Director James Westby is a talent on the march.” –Erica Abeel, HUFFINGTON POST

    RID OF ME was officially selected to play in the Tribeca Film Festival, Michael Moore’s Traverse City Film Festival, San Diego Film Festival, and Bend Film Festival. Winner of Best US Narrative at the Traverse City Film Festival

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  • Mamitas wins Best Film at Inaugural Napa Valley Film Festival

    [caption id="attachment_1838" align="alignnone"]Mamitas[/caption]

    Napa Valley Film Festival (NVFF) announced its Jury and Audience Awards for the inaugural film festival which ran November 9 – 13, 2011.

    The coming-of-age film Mamitas, based on director Nicholas Ozeki’s award-winning short film of the same name took the top prize Best Narrative and the cash award of $10,000. In the film, cocky teenager and self-proclaimed Casanova Jordan Juarez thinks he knows everything about girls. But one day, while teaching his best friend how to pick up “hot mami chulas,” he learns just what it means to be a man who can truly connect with a woman.

    The complete list of winners: 


    Jury Awards for Narrative Features:

    Best Narrative Feature ($10,000 Cash Prize presented by Meadowood Napa Valley; wine from Gustavo Thrace) Mamitas, directed by Nicolas Ozeki

    Special Jury Award for Creative Excellence (wine from Hill Family) David, directed by Joel Fendleman and co-directed by Patric Daly

    Mt. Veeder Peak Performance for Best Acting in a Narrative Feature ($1000 Cash Prize and wine from Mt. Veeder Appellation) Amber Jaeger in Take Me Home, directed by Sam Jaeger

    Jury Awards for Documentary Films:

    Best Documentary Feature (wine from Peju) Kumare, directed by Vikram Gandhi

    Special Jury Mention for Social Impact (wine from Trinitas) First Generation, directed by Adam and Jaye Fenderson

    Best Documentary Subject (wine from Chappellet) Jack Sanderson in Becoming Santa, directed by Jeff Myers

    Best Documentary Short Subject (wine from Chiarello) Sin Pais, directed by Theo Rigby

    Special Jury Prize for Artistic Vision (wine from Broman) Library of Dust, directed by Ondi Timoner and co-directed by Robert James

    Jury Awards for Narrative Short Films:

    Best Narrative Short (wine from Laderra) Fatakra, directed by Soham Mehta

    Special Jury Mention for Creative Achievement (wine from Hope and Grace) Grave Dawn, directed by DJ Turner

    Audience Awards:

    Favorite Narrative Feature (wine from Jessup) Mamitas, directed by Nicholas Ozeki

    Favorite Documentary Feature (wine from Cornerstone) Wild Horse, Wild Ride, directed by Alex Dawson and Greg Gricus

    Favorite Documentary Short Subject (wine from Tallulah) Sin Pais, directed by Theo Rigby

    Favorite Narrative Short (wine from Freemark Abbey) Grave Dawn, directed by DJ Turner

    Favorite Lounge Feature (Narrative or Doc) (wine from Houdini) The Other F Word, directed by Andrea Blaugrund Nevins

    The second annual Napa Valley Film Festival will take place November 7 – 11, 2012.

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  • Bahamas International Film Festival Announces 2011 Official Film Lineup

    [caption id="attachment_1836" align="alignnone"]Johnny Depp in The Rum Diary[/caption]

    “The Rum Diary” starring BIFF’s 2009 Career Achievement tributee and Bahamian home owner, Johnny Depp, will open the 8th Bahamas International Film Festival (BIFF) on Thursday, December 1st while sports dramedy “Breakaway” starring Rob Lowe will close the festival on Sunday, December 4th.

    This year, the Festival, which takes place December 1-4, 2011 in Nassau, will showcase 68 films from 33 different countries, including 42 features of which several are international premieres and all are Bahamian premieres. The four competition categories at BIFF are Spirit of Freedom: Narrative; Documentary; New Visions; First Look; and Short Film. Special sections include Caribbean and Environmental sidebars as well as a World Cinema showcase.

    The official BIFF lineup is comprised of the following films: 


    SPIRIT OF FREEDOM (NARRATIVE)

    MOTHERS (Macedonia) / Director: Micho Manchevski

    MAYA (Albania) / Director: Pluton Vasi

    WHERE THE ROAD MEETS THE SUN (USA/Singapore/Indonesia) / Director: Mun Chee Yong

    BETTER MUS’ COME (Jamaica) / Director: Storm Saulter

    VIPS (Brazil) / Director: Toniko Melo



    SPIRIT OF FREEDOM (DOC)

    MARATHON BOY (USA/UK/India) / Director: Gemma Atwal

    ZERO PERCENT (USA) / Director: Tim Skousen

    FAMBUL TOK (USA) / Director: Sara Terry

    GIVE UP TOMORROW (USA / UK) / Director: Michael Collins

    DONOR UNKNOWN (UK) / Director: Jerry Rothwell



    NEW VISIONS

    BRINGING UP BOBBY (USA) / Director: Famke Janssen

    YELLING TO THE SKY (USA) / Director: Victoria Mahoney

    JE T’AIME I LOVE YOU TERMINAL (Israel) / Director: Dani Menkin

    RESTLESS CITY (USA) / Director: Andrew Dosunmu

    WITHOUT (USA) / Director: Mark Jackson

    LOVE.NET (Bulgaria) / Director: Ilian Djevelekov



    WORLD CINEMA

    FACE TO FACE (Australia) / Director: Michael Rymer

    SAVAGE (Sweden) / Director: Martin Jern, Emil Larsson

    SWEET LITTLE LIES (USA) / Director: William Saunders

    THE WEDDING PARTY (Australia) / Director: Amanda Jane

    TIRZA (Belgium/The Netherlands/Libyan Arab Jamahiriya) / Director: Rudolf van den Berg

    CAPSULAS (Guatemala) / Director: Verónica Riedel

    TOAST (USA) / Director: SJ Clarkson

    Y-NING? (Trinidad & Tobago) / Director: Emilie Upczak

    BOMBAY BEACH, CALIFORNIA (USA) / Director: Alma Har’el

    THE CREATORS (South Africa) / Director: Laura Gamse, Jacques de Villiers

    BIG IN HOLLYWOOD (India/USA) / Director: Bill Bowles, Kenny Meehan

    DO WOMEN KNOW WHAT THEY WANT (USA) / Director: Michael Baisden

    REAL VOODOO (Canada) / Director: Sandra Whiteley

    SENNA (UK) / Director: Asif Kapadia



    SPECIAL SCREENING


    THE RUM DIARY (US) / Director: Bruce Robinson

    BREAKAWAY (Canada) / Director: Robert Lieberman

    A DANGEROUS METHOD (Germany/ Canada) / Director: David Cronenberg



    FIRST LOOK

    ON THE WINGS OF MEN (USA/The Bahamas) / Director: Calvin Dwight Harris

    ISLANDS OF LIFE (USA/The Bahamas) / Director: Bo Boudart

    COCOON (The Bahamas) / Director: Giovanna Swaby

    TALL TALE OF AN ACCIDENTAL TOURIST (The Bahamas) / Director: Jason Evans

    FIVE BONES (The Bahamas)  / Director: Tyler Johnston

    DEVOTEE (The Bahamas)  / Director: June Collie

    AMOS (The Bahamas)  / Director: Karen Arthur, Thomas Neuwirth



    SHORTS

    ANYTHING FOR YOU (USA) / Director: Laura Belsey

    SEXTING (USA) / Director: Tim Harms

    THE SEA IS ALL I KNOW (USA) / Director: Jordan Bayne

    THIEF (USA) / Director: Julian Higgins

    15 SUMMERS LATER (Norway) / Director: Pedro Collantes

    ALAMBAMENTO (Angola/Egypt/USA) / Director: Mario Bastos

    AUGENBLICKE (Germany) / Director: Martin Bargiel

    HOMECOMING (USA) / Director: Gursimran Sandhu

    CHRISTMAS PIGGY (Denmark) / Director: R.S. Soderstrom

    GOOD MORNING BEAUTIFUL (USA) / Director: Todd Cobery

    MERCY GRACE & CRAB MEAT (USA) / Director: Jonathan Thompson

    MI HATICE (Turkey) / Director: Denis Metin

    MISH MUSH (Syria/Canada) / Director: Amar Chebib

    KILL BRASS (Canada) / Director: Michael Kandinsky

    THE SHORE (Northern Ireland) / Director: Terry George

    LAN (USA/China) / Director: Taylour Chang

    POST-NUP (USA) / Director: Katharine Woodman-Maynard

    TELL-TALE (UK) / Director: Greg Williams

    MY BIG RED PURSE (USA) / Director: Giancarlo Iannotta

    NORTH ATLANTIC (Portugal/UK) / Director: Bernardo Nascimento

    THE BURNT CORK (Australia) / Director: Alexandra Edmondson

    THE HAYMAKER (Canada/USA) / Director: Daniel D’Alimonte

    TORA (Canada) / Director: Glen Samuel, Wendy Ord

    TOY SOLDIER (Australia/France/Israel) / Director: Jeremy Bliss

    10 AVE MARIA (Aruba) / Director: Ryan Oduber, Juan Francisco Pardo

    INCEST! THE MUSICAL (USA) / Director: Grant Reed

    BOFFIN & BOFFIN (USA) / Director: Ed Blythe

    MUMBIA CHARLIE (UK/ INDIA) Director: Deepak Verma

     

    Actress/singer Zoe Isabella Kravitz (“X-Men: First Class,” “It’s Kind of a Funny Story,” “Yelling to the Sky”), daughter of legendary American/Bahamian musician Lenny Kravitz and actress Lisa Bonet, will be honored with BIFF’s signature Rising Star Tribute. Kravitz will be on hand for the special award tribute presentation on Friday, December 2nd at the Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island.

    The festival will also bring back the Filmmaker’s Residency Program. For the second year BIFF has broadened the program to include filmmakers from around the world to submit screenplays that are based in The Bahamas or Caribbean region.

    BIFF 2011 begins Thursday, December 1st in Nassau and runs through Sunday, December 4th.

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  • Chinese non-fiction and work by Ai Weiwei to be screened at Film Festival Rotterdam



    Recent films by Chinese documentary makers and films by versatile artist Ai Weiwei will be screened during the 41st edition of the International Film Festival Rotterdam. The films highlight hidden aspects of Chinese society in an intimate and surprising way. These films and Ai’s work will be shown in Hidden Histories, a themed program of the IFFR main Signals section.

    Signals: Hidden Histories

    What the films in Hidden Histories have in common is that their makers focus on hidden aspects of Chinese society such as for example poverty, corruption or misrule. The ‘hidden’ aspect also applies to the films themselves: screenings and distribution are often thwarted. In spite of this, the makers have managed to create convincing, substantively strong and visually impressive work on minimal budgets.

    As part of Hidden Histories, the festival will also be showing works of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei: six long films which he refers himself to as ‘social documentaries’ and four documentary art videos. There is a remarkable difference between Ai’s sometimes highly conceptual art videos and his social documentaries. For the latter, he acts – before and behind the camera – as a committed research journalist, persistent to bring injustice in the open. Hidden Histories is being compiled by IFFR programmers Gertjan Zuilhof and Gerwin Tamsma.

    Documentaries in Hidden Histories

    Hidden Histories will include the film APUDA by He Yuan. This film won the main prize at Yunfest in China and its only other prior screening was during the Vancouver film festival in Canada. APUDA provides a sober portrayal of the daily life of a carpenter and his dying father.

    Hidden Histories will also be showing BACHELOR MOUNTAIN, the new documentary by Yu Guangyi and the sequel to his SURVIVAL SONG, which was screened at IFFR 2009. In BACHELOR MOUNTAIN, Yu returns to the barren north of China and provides an intimate portrait of the uneasy friendship between a lumberjack and the women he has taken a shine to.

    The documentary SHATTERED is filmmaker Xu Tong’s third work. In 2010 and 2011, the IFFR screened his films WHEAT HARVEST and FORTUNE TELLER. In SHATTERED, socially committed Xu once again films the daily lives of those on society’s margins in a very straightforward manner. This time around he follows with his camera a retired railway worker and the former’s daughter, who is also active in the underworld.

    The complete line up of Hidden Histories will be available online at www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com as of Thursday 19 January 2012.

    About Ai Weiwei

    Ai Weiwei, who was born in 1957, is a conceptual artist, political activist and philosopher. He is a multifaceted artist who also engages in architecture, photography and film. He is also known for his criticism of the social and cultural changes in his country, and this has resulted in his being hampered in many ways by the Chinese authorities. Spring 2011, Ai Weiwei was imprisoned for 81 days. He was released after being issued a hefty fine for alleged back taxes. Recently Ai paid the bond raised by supporters from China and abroad.

    Ai grew up in Sianking in the northwest of China. Because his father – a famous writer, painter and poet – was banished to a labour camp twice during the 1950s and 1960s, the family lived in poverty. In 1975 they moved to Beijing. Ai enrolled at the film academy and was a classmate of, among others, Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige. After living in New York for 12 years, Ai returned to Beijing. In 1999, he founded the gallery Chinese Art Archive & Warehouse in the south of the city with Dutch artist and collector Hans van Dijk and the Flemish art collector Frank Uytterhaegen. From the mid-1990s onwards, Ai often exhibited his large-scale installations in and outside China, founded a firm of architects, wrote books on the new generation of artists in China and collaborated on the design for the Olympic stadium (the bird’s nest) in Peking. At the moment, Ai is China’s most famous artist and this year he topped the magazine ArtReview’s ‘Power 100 List’.

    The International Film Festival Rotterdam has a long tradition of screening independently made feature films, shorts and documentaries from China. In recent years, some of these films came about thanks to contributions from the Hubert Bals Fund, including, for example, the epic TIE XI QU: WEST OF THE TRACKS by Wang Bing. In 2012, the IFFR intends to continue on this course and will select films from China for several parts of the programme. On Thursday 19 January 2012, the full festival programme will be made available as an insert in the Volkskrant newspaper and online at: www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com. The 41st edition of the festival is set to take place from 25 January – 5 February 2012.

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  • Durban International Film Festival Announces 2012 Dates, and Call for Films

    The 33rd DURBAN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL will take place from July 19 to 29, 2012, and will present over 200 screenings of films from around the world, with a special focus on films from South African and Africa. Screenings will take place throughout Durban, South Africa,  including township areas where cinemas are non-existent. The festival will also offer an extensive seminar and workshop programme featuring local and international filmmakers.  2012 will also see the return of Talent Campus Durban and the Durban FilmMart.

    The festival calls for entries from around the world. Feature films, short films and documentaries are all welcome. The festival does have a competition component.

    The deadline for entries is March 16, 2012 for short films and documentaries; April 6, 2012 for feature films. Early submissions are encouraged.


    All submissions can be done via the Festival’s Eventival online system.

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  • REVIEW: Le Havre

    Shot in the picturesque French port city of the same name, “Le Havre,” directed by Aki Kaurismaki, looks like it truly could have been created forty-five years ago. It’s an amazing and lovely film about community and solidarity, without any maudlin nostalgia to muck it up in the middle. It’s truly an original, and already feels like a dyed-in-the-wool classic. 

    A shoe-shine man (the glorious Marcel Max), making a meager living and relying on the unconditional adoration of his wide Arletty, (the sad-eyed Kati Outinen) one afternoon spots a young black African boy (Blondin Miguel), who has come here illegally in a freight container with his extended family. The boy has escaped police after temporary capture, and is hiding out in chest-deep seawater underneath a dock, where Andre has been lunching. After his wife must go to the hospital and stay there for treatment, Andre brings the boy into his home, hiding him away from the kind but thorough police captain ( an implacable Jean-Pierre Darroussin), who may or may not have some history with Andre. The entire neighborhood then becomes deftly enlisted in helping Andre with is new mission- getting the boy to London- where his family awaits him.

    This film is built so solidly on these beautiful performances, and bears the stamp of a director who knows how to disappear into the ether- making a truly charming, enriching tale of love and community. This is how they used to make ‘em, and it’s amazing that the marriage of all these nameless elements comes together to bring us a tale that is both timeless as well as genuinely topical. The way the director and production designer, (Wouter Zoon) with the obvious help of a genius DP (Timo Salminen), have merged to make a film that seems simultaneously so anchored in time as well as feeling absolutely timeless. (When we see the word “Alchieda” in a newspaper headline, it’s almost jolting) The era or time simply do not matter here. It’s the story that, finally, truly counts.

    In the director’s statement, Kaurismaki explains that this is a film about the plight of refugees, in all nations. If this is going to be the shape of politically driven narrative film, this is certainly one way to do it- with an almost unparalleled sense of grand confidence and a purely “cinematic” sense. “Le Havre” will leave you feeling warm inside without the fuzzy, and good without the heinous “feel good” feeling. It’s impossible, in the end, to explain the truly unique charm and beauty of this film: You will just have to go out and see it for yourself…

    by Francesca McCaffery

     

     

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  • WITH EVERY HEARTBEAT and the Complete List of Winners of 2011 AFI FEST

    [caption id="attachment_1831" align="alignnone"]WITH EVERY HEARTBEAT by Alexandra-Therese Keining[/caption]

    AFI FEST 2011 announced the features and short films that took home this year’s Audience and Jury Awards. The audience voted the lesbian themed drama, WITH EVERY HEARTBEAT by first-time writer/director, Alexandra-Therese Keining the winner in the Breakthrough Section.

    The 2011 AFI FEST complete list of winners: 

    AUDIENCE AWARDS

    Breakthrough Section (award accompanied by a $5,000 cash prize)
    WITH EVERY HEARTBEAT by Alexandra-Therese Keining

    New Auteurs Section
    BULLHEAD by Michaël R. Roskam

    World Cinema Section
    A tie: JIRO DREAMS OF SUSHI by David Gelb and KINYARWANDA by Alrick Brown

    Young Americans Section
    WUSS by Clay Liford

    LIVE ACTION AND ANIMATED SHORT FILM SECTION JURY AWARDS
    The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences recognizes each winner as a qualifier for the annual Academy Awards®.

    Live Action Short Film Section
    Grand Jury Prize: FROZEN STORIES from Grzegorz Jaroszuk “for its world of meta-reality suffused with enough context to rend a beautifully nuanced story for the most heightened elements.”

    Honorable Mention: BABYLAND by Marc Fratello “for its assured direction, stunning lead performance and the ability to balance humor and pathos all the way up to its shocking conclusion.”

    Animated Short Film Section

    Grand Jury Prize: THE EAGLEMAN STAG by Michael Please “for its ambitious and elegant storytelling, both narrative and aesthetically, in which the bigness of life and the concept of time are deftly unpacked in a moving nine minutes.”

    Honorable Mention: THE VOYAGERS by Penny Lane “for its skillful juxtaposition of archival footage and personal narrative to tell a moving story of exploration, romance and space travel.”

    NEW AUTEURS SECTION CRITIC’S PRIZE

    Grand Jury Prize: THE LONELIEST PLANET by Julia Loktev “for its bold exploration of societal structures and gender roles, set against a landscape that conveys both profound beauty and profound alienation.”

    Special Jury Prize: ATTENBERG by Athina Rachel Tsangari “for its wit, distinct voice and playful sense of storytelling.”

    Acting Award Prize: BULLHEAD’s Matthias Schoenaerts “for his nuanced and intensely physical embodiment of bruised masculinity.”

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  • Morgan Freeman to receive the Cecil B DeMille award at the Golden Globes

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    Morgan Freeman will receive the Cecil B. DeMille award at the Golden Globes ceremony in January. The award is given every year by the HFPA for outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment.

    Freeman won a best actor Golden Globe in 1990 for Driving Miss Daisy and was nominated three more times, for The Shawshank Redemption, Million Dollar Baby, for which he won an Oscar, and Invictus.

    The Cecil B. DeMille was first given in 1952 to the filmmaker whose name it bears and other recipients have included Walt Disney, Joan Crawford, Robert Mitchum and, more recently, Warren Beatty, Anthony Hopkins, Steven Spielberg and Robert DeNiro among others.

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