Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) will open its 2019 festival with the world premiere of the documentary The Australian Dream – written by Walkley award-winning Australian journalist Stan Grant. Grant’s moving work is a powerful exploration of race, identity and belonging as told from the perspective of champion AFL footballer and Indigenous rights activist, Adam Goodes.
The Fantasia International Film Festival, celebrating its 23rd Anniversary, today revealed a select first wave of titles. After stunning audiences with his acclaimed 2015 sleeper hit CASH ONLY (a World Premiere breakout at Fantasia), Malik Bader returns to Montreal with the World Premiere of KILLERMAN. A full-throttle knockout crime thriller about dirty cops and dirtier mobsters starring Liam Hemsworth (THE HUNGER GAMES series), Emory Cohen (LORDS OF CHAOS), Diane Guerrero (Orange is the New Black), Nickola Shreli (CASH ONLY), and the great Zlatco Buric (Refn’s PUSHER trilogy), produced by Myles Nestel (WHEELMAN), KILLERMAN is an absorbing, gripping, and exciting look at the underworld, standing as further proof that Bader is one of modern crime cinema’s most ferocious rising talents.
Almost Never Films has completed principal photography on the feature film “Winter Song” starring Grammy Award winner and actress Ashanti. Ashanti who debuted her acting career in “Coach Carter” (starring Samuel L. Jackson) is also known for her roles in the films “The Muppet’s Wizard of Oz” and “Resident Evil: Extinction” (starring Milla Jovovich and Ali Larter). “Winter Song” also stars Stan Shaw, who has appeared in films such as “Fried Green Tomatoes” (starring Kathy Bates and Jessica Tandy), “Harlem Nights” (starring Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor), and “The Monster Squad”.
This year’s 54th Karlovy Vary IFF East of the West competition is showing eight world, three international, and one European premiere, with eight of the competing films being debuts. The opening film is Aga’s House, the feature-length debut by Kosovo director Lendita Zeqiraj, who authentically re-creates the vibrant world of the energetic female protagonists.
This year, Munich Film Festival will recognize the work of Danish documentary filmmaker Mads Brügger and world-renowned Cannes 2019 Palme d’Or winner South Korean writer-director Bong Joon-ho with two separate retrospectives. The two filmmakers will be bringing along their latest work: both Brügger’s true crime documentary “Cold Case Hammarskjöld” and Bong’s celebrated Cannes winner “Parasite” will have their German premiere in the CineMasters competition.
New York filmmaker Diana Peralta’s vibrant feature film debut, DE LO MIO, will World Premiere as the Closing Night film of BAMcinemaFest which runs June 12 to 23. A bittersweet family drama set in the Dominican Republic, DE LO MIO will screen at BAMcinematek on Saturday, June 22 at 7:30 pm.
The documentary competition at the 54th Karlovy Vary IFF will feature eight world and three European premieres. The selection includes Marc Schmidt’s In the Arms of Morpheus and Todd Douglas Miller’s Apollo 11, compiled using unique archival footage from the first mission to the Moon’s surface. The renewed festival interest in Chinese cinema is illustrated by two films about the transformation of Chinese society: While The Fading Village shows the decline of the countryside, Confucian Dream focuses on the urban population’s exaggerated return to traditional ways of life.
The 25th annual Palm Springs International ShortFest will showcase 369 films including 60 World Premieres, 25 International Premieres, 46 North American Premieres, 17 U.S. Premieres and 98 California Premieres. There are 60 curated programs, which will screen June 18-24, at the Camelot Theatres (Palm Springs Cultural Center) in Palm Springs.
Films from Chinese director Zhai Yixiang, Germany’s Jan-Ole Gerster and American director Martha Stephens are among the geographically diverse selections in the 54th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival main competition section.
Ondřej Provazník and Martin Dušek make their feature-film debut out of competition at the 54th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival with the world premiere of Old-Timers, the dramatic story of two aging former political prisoners who set out in a camper van with the goal of finding and killing the communist prosecutor who sent the nation’s elite to its death. Jiří Schmitzer and Ladislav Mrkvička excel in this unusual road-movie.
The 5th Annual Mammoth Lakes Film Festival (MLFF) announced this year’s juried and audience award winners with the top jury awards going to A Great Lamp for Best North American Narrative Feature, and to Best 17 Blocks for North American Documentary Feature. The Jury Award for Best International Narrative Feature went to Cat Sticks, and to Clean Hands for Best International Documentary Feature.
The feminist noir thriller #LIKE, written and directed by Sarah Pirozek, and starring Marc Menchaca along with Sarah Rich will premiere at the Brooklyn Film Festival on Saturday, June 1st.