Elia Suleiman’s IT MUST BE HEAVEN was named Best Film at the CineCina Film Festival – THE ROAD, the first edition of its world cinema film festival. At the filmmaker award ceremony Yuri Bykov won Best Director for his work on THE FACTORY, and Na Renhua won for Best Performance for her work in A DOG BARKING AT THE MOON.
Elia Suleiman’s whimsical, yet thoughtful film IT MUST BE HEAVEN – the Palestinian 2020 Oscar submission, will open the 2019 CineCina Film Festival on Friday, October 25 at the DGA New York Theater. The film features the beloved filmmaker observing the goings on around him in Nazareth, Paris and France. Through his eyes, we see moments, and fragments of life and human interaction that can surprise and delight one moment, and be very familiar the next.
The 2019 Outfest Los Angeles LGBTQ Film Festival which ran from July 18th to July 28th, closed on Sunday night with “Before You Know It,” – a quirky Sundance favorite from director Hannah Pearl Utt, that infuses tenderness and complex emotion into the absurd misadventures of Rachel and Jackie, sisters living a dysfunctional life in New York City.
Over $40,000 in prizes were given to the winners of the 2019 Inside Out LGBT Film Festival Toronto with top honors going to Garin Nugroho for MEMORIES OF MY BODY for Inside Out Special Award for Innovation, Xiang Zi for A DOG BARKING AT THE MOON for Best First Feature, and Megan Wennberg for DRAG KIDS for Best Canadian Feature.
The highly anticipated Elton John biopic ROCKETMAN, starring Taron Egerton will kick off this year’s 29th annual Inside Out Toronto LGBT Film Festival (Inside Out), and the festival will close with the Canadian premiere of the Sundance crowd-pleaser LATE NIGHT, from director Nisha Ganatra, starring Emma Thompson and Mindy Kaling.
Synonymes (Synonyms) by Nadav Lapid won the Golden Bear for Best Film at the 2019 Berlin International Film Festival. Based on his own experiences, Nadav Lapid explores the challenges of putting down roots in a new place.
The Panorama program lineup of the 69th Berlin International Film Festival is complete, and will feature a total of 45 controversial, political and challenging films from 38 countries. 34 films celebrate their world premiere and 19 of the films are debut works. Among the 45 films are 29 feature films and 16 documentary films.