SXSW Film Festival announced the Audience Award winners of the 29th edition of the festival. The Audience Awards follow the previously-announced 2022 Jury Awards and the 40 Years of Massive Talent Award presented to Nicolas Cage at The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent screening on Saturday night.
South by Southwest (SXSW) Conference and Festivals announced the full program for the 29th edition of the SXSW Film Festival set to take place in-person from March 11-20, 2022, with select films available online.
LUCE directed by Julius Onah, will open the 17th IFFBoston on Wednesday, April 24 at the Somerville Theatre in Davis Square. A married couple (Naomi Watts & Tim Roth) is forced to reckon with their idealized image of their son, adopted from war-torn Eritrea, after an alarming discovery by a devoted high school teacher (Octavia Spencer) threatens his status as an all-star student.
The Florida Film Festival will screen 184 films representing 41 countries for the 28th Annual Festival, April 12-21, 2019, in Maitland and Winter Park, Florida. The festival will open with Woman in Motion, directed by Todd Thompson, a fasciniation documentary on Nichelle Nichols who played Lieutenant Uhura, the communications officer aboard the Starship Enterprise
The Dallas premieres of the Beto O’Rourke documentary Running With Beto, Alex Ross Perry’s Her Smell, and Zhang Yimou’s Shadow are among the first ten film titles announced for the 13th annual Dallas International Film Festival (DIFF) powered by Capital One, held from April 11 to April 18.
IFC Center announced the full slate of the 2019 What The Fest!? film festival, a five-day showcase of outrageous content — horror, sci-fi, documentary, thrillers, and beyond — from March 20th through March 24th.
This Changes Everything, a pivotal documentary examining historic and contemporary gender inequity in the American film and television industries, will open the 36th edition of Miami Dade College’s acclaimed Miami Film Festival, on Friday, March 1st at the historic Olympia Theater. Appearing on camera are leading Hollywood women Meryl Streep, Geena Davis, Sandra Oh, Rosario Dawson, Zoe Saldana, Jessica Chastain, Taraji P. Henson, Cate Blanchett, Amandla Stenberg, Natalie Portman, Reese Witherspoon, Shonda Rhimes, Jill Soloway and many more advocating for meaningful change.
The 34th Edition of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival taking place from January 30 to February 9, 2019, will feature 63 world premieres and 59 U.S. premieres from 48 countries, along with tributes with the year’s top talent, panel discussions, and free community education and outreach programs. The 34th Festival Poster was unveiled, again created by Barbara Boros who has designed the SBIFF poster each year for 16 years, this year highlighting Butterfly Beach.
The 30th annual Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF) will open with All is True directed by Kenneth Branagh on Friday, January 4, and close with Ladies in Black, directed by Bruce Beresford on Sunday, January 13. The Festival will screen 223 films from 78 countries, with a focus on cinema from France, India and Mexico, Premieres, Talking Pictures, Book to Screen, Special Presentations, FLOS: Foreign Language Oscar Submissions, Gay!La, Local Spotlight, Modern Masters, True Stories, World Cinema Now, a 30-film retrospective of selections from past festivals and more.
In All is True, Kenneth Branagh, Judi Dench and Ian McKellen star in Branagh’s intimate, revelatory portrait of William Shakespeare in the last act of his life. His career over, he returns to his home in Stratford-upon-Avon to encounter old ghosts, old loves, and his resentful family. Branagh is expected to attend.
Ladies in Black, set in Sydney in 1959, Oscar®-nominated writer/director Bruce Beresford takes us back to the heyday of glamorous upscale department stores, when a concierge met you at the door and clerks wore gloves. The film from Lumila Films stars Julia Ormond, Angourie Rice, Rachael Taylor, Ryan Corr, Shane Jacobson and Alison McGirr. Beresford, Ormond, Taylor and McGirr are expected to attend.
Shadow, Zhang Yimou[/caption]
The 38th edition of the Hawaii International Film Festival (HIFF) will present 187 films from over 35 countries, from November 8 through November 18, 2018. The festival will open with highly anticipated new film from Zhang Yimou (House of Flying Daggers; Hero; Curse of the Golden Flower), Shadow, which stars Chao Deng (The Mermaid; Detective Dee: Mystery of the Phantom Flame), Li Sun (Fearless; Empresses in the Palace), and Ryan Zheng (The Great Wall; Back in Time), is based storied the “Three Kingdoms” Chinese legend. Shadow had its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival, where audiences were wowed by Zhang’s masterful direction of this unique action-epic.
HIFF’s Closing Night Presentation will be the world premiere of Moananuiākea: One Ocean. One People. One Canoe, directed by Na’alehu Anthony. This documentary looks at the latest worldwide voyage of Hōkūleʻa, four decades after its maiden voyage sparked the Hawaiian Renaissance and continues to inspire a new generation of navigators and voyagers to gather their courage and sail beyond the horizon of the Pacific.
This year’s Centerpiece Presentation is Green Book, which world premiered at the Toronto Film Festival; where it won the coveted TIFF 2018 People’s Choice Award, an early barometer of being an Oscars favorite. The drama, follows Tony Lip (Viggo Mortensen), a bouncer from the Bronx, is hired to drive Dr. Don Shirley (Oscar winner Mahershala Ali), a world-class Black pianist, on a concert tour from Manhattan to the Deep South, they must rely on “The Green Book” to guide them to the few establishments that are safe for African Americans. Green Book won the coveted Audience Award at the recent Toronto Film Festival. Produced by Jim Burke (The Descendants, HIFF 2012), who will be in attendance at HIFF, and directed by Peter Farrelly (There’s Something About Mary), Green Book infuses heartfelt drama in an unlikely friendship that stood the test of time.
HIFF audiences will critically acclaimed titles in the Awards Buzz section; which presents high profile films straight from major festivals like Cannes, Venice, Toronto and more. These must-see films are major players in the awards season, including: the Mexican drama Roma, directed Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity); If Beale Street Could Talk, directed by Barry Jenkins (Moonlight); Iranian director Asghar Farhadi’s (A Separation) Spain-set thriller Everybody Knows starring Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz; and Natalie Portman’s new film Vox Lux, directed by Brady Corbet.
This year HIFF presents a special spotlight on world renowned auteur Wong Kar-wai with the Filmmaker in Focus series. HIFF is proud to present In The Mood For Love (2000), Happy Together (1997), and Chungking Express (1994). A special extended Q&A with Director Wong Kar Wai will follow the screening of Chungking Express.
In Special Presentations, HIFF will present the West Coast premiere of Wake, a comedy/drama directed by Cyrus Mirakhor. Wake follows a widowed mortician, struggling with agoraphobia, who receives a birthday gift from her mother and daughter as a joke. The gift, a life-size male doll named Pedro, goes from funny to fantastical, complicating her ties with her family and friends. Wake stars James Denton (TV Series Good Witch), Caroline Lagerfelt (TV Series The Blacklist), and features the acting debut of Filipino-American stand-up comedian, Jo Koy. The popular comedian will attend the screening, and join director Mirakhor for the post-screening Q&A.
The always popular Sound x Vision category offers must-see films for music fans and cinephiles. HIFF will host the North American premiere of The Legend of the Stardust Brothers, directed by Macoto Tezuka. This fascinating musical narrative, made in 1985, begins when Macoto Tezuka (son of the great manga artist Osamu Tezuka) met musician and TV personality Haruo Chicada who had made a soundtrack to a movie which didn’t actually exist: The Legend of the Stardust Brothers. With Chicada as producer, Tezuka then adapted this “fake soundtrack” into the real movie story of “The Stardust Brothers”. Tezuka assembled a cast of some of Japan’s most famous musicians of the time, including such greats as Kiyohiko Ozaki, ISSAY, Sunplaza Nakano and Hiroshi Takano, alongside many famous names in Manga such as Monkey Punch (Lupin the 3rd), Shinji Nagashima (Hanaichi Monme), Yosuke Takahashi (Mugen Shinsi) and even many upcoming film directors of the time such as Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Tokyo Sonata) and Daihachi Yoshida (The Kirishima Thing). The resulting film The Legend of the Stardust Brothers is the exact definition of a cult film. Despite the huge array of talent on board with a large budget, the film is totally unknown even to this day in both Japan and worldwide. More than 30 years since its release, The Stardust Brothers will finally make itself known worldwide with a new master and a brand new Director’s Cut.
For the first time, the festival will present the HIFF VR Lounge; bringing together a selection of exciting contemporary Virtual Reality projects from around the world to SALT At Our Kakaako. Free and open to the public November 10th through 12th, the HIFF VR Lounge will feature virtual reality technologies bring us closer to the action than ever before, face-to-face with some of the most vital issues and stories in the world today. Audiences can visit the lounge and experience: Age Of Sail (Dir.: John Kahrs), Chasing Coral: The VR Experience (Dir.: Jeff Orlowski), Finding Haka (Dir.: James Hedley) and Songbird (Dir.: Lucy Greenwell).
DESTROYER Starring Nicole Kidman[/caption]
Encompassing a mixture of oddball comedies, genre-bending kaleidoscopic dramas, entertaining crime capers, haunting ghost stories and nail-biting thrillers, the 62nd BFI London Film Festival revealed the ten contenders for the Official Competition, with 50% of the films from a female director or co-director.
The Festival will welcome as Jury President Academy Award-nominated director of ROOM (LFF Official Competition 2015), Lenny Abrahamson, whose long-awaited film adaptation of Sarah Waters’ horror novel THE LITTLE STRANGER will be released this September. For the first time, the winner of the Best Film will receive their Award in front of a public audience at a special screening on Saturday October 20th at Vue Leicester Square.
The 10 films in Official Competition are:
BIRDS OF PASSAGE sees co-directors Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra (Embrace of the Serpent, LFF 2015) return to the Festival with their latest offering – a sprawling, spiritual exploration of family conflict and tribal warfare, laced with heady symbolism and surrealist flashes. Set during the marijuana bonanza, a violent decade that saw the origins of drug trafficking in Colombia bear witness to the thrilling rise and fall of the indigenous Wayuu clan in remote Colombia. A mystical meditation on colonialism, tribalism and modernism.
Nicole Kidman is astonishing, and almost unrecognizable, in Karyn Kusama’s (The Invitation, LFF 2015) brooding thriller DESTROYER. Kidman plays Erin, a jaded police detective haunted by her past and still reeling from the trauma of her experience years later, who is forced to confront her demons in order to close the case that almost destroyed her. The film also stars Sebastian Stan, Tatiana Maslany and Toby Kebbell.
Alice Rohrwacher (The Wonders, LFF 2014) returns to the Festival with HAPPY AS LAZZARO. A delightfully singular time and genre-bending rumination on the fate of innocence when faced with corruption and greed. Set in rural Italy, this is the tale of Lazzaro, a beautiful peasant so sweet natured he is often mistaken for simple-minded. A magnificent blend of Italian class struggle, folk tales, biblical allegory and pop culture reference, Rohrwacher deservedly shared the Best Screenplay award at Cannes for this kaleidoscopic work.
The World Premiere of HAPPY NEW YEAR, COLIN BURSTEAD. is Ben Wheatley’s triumphant return to the Festival after Free Fire (LFF 2016). A poignantly funny and razor-sharp observation of English family dysfunction. Colin has rented a stately country home for his extended family’s New Year celebrations. He’s the centre of attention until his estranged brother David unexpectedly arrives, throwing the family dynamic far off orbit. Starring Joe Cole, Charles Dance, Mark Monero, Hayley Squires, Asim Chaudhry, Doon Mackichan, Bill Paterson, Neil Maskell and Sam Riley.
Peter Strickland (The Duke of Burgundy, LFF 2014) returns to the Festival with IN FABRIC, starring Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Gwendoline Christie. A haunting ghost story, laced with lashings of oddball humour and set against the backdrop of a busy winter sales period in a strange department store, it follows the life of a cursed dress as it passes from person to person, with devastating consequences.
JOY, directed by Sudabeh Mortezai (whose debut feature Macondo competed for the LFF’s Sutherland Award in 2014), presents a vital and hugely affecting drama that tackles the vicious cycle of sex trafficking in modern Europe. It follows the life of Joy, a young Nigerian woman, who works the streets to pay off debts to her exploiter Madame, while supporting her family in Nigeria and hoping for a better life for her young daughter in Vienna.
Iconic director Zhang Yimou presents SHADOW, set during China’s Three Kingdom’s era (AD 220-280). Blood spills in this visually stunning feature, as a great king and his people will be expelled from their homeland, with jaw-dropping combat scenes. Director Zhang presents mind-blowing visual design that revolutionises the colour palette, using water, calligraphy and graphic interpretations of yin and yang.
Academy Award© winner László Nemes follows up his critically acclaimed debut Son of Saul (Official Competition nominee LFF 2015) with his feverishly ambitious second feature, SUNSET. Set in 1913, nearing the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and on the eve of the First World War. Írisz Leiter is a hat maker who returns to Budapest years after her parents, respected milliners, sent her to be fostered under mysterious circumstances. A fugue-like meditation on the end of an empire; the brilliantly willful Írisz is our witness to the flickering innocence of a Europe about to be plunged into hell.
THE OLD MAN & THE GUN, directed by David Lowery, stars Robert Redford, in what will be his final big screen performance after recently announcing retirement. A brilliantly entertaining crime caper, based on the true story of Forrest Tucker, the self-styled ‘Houdini’ whose many audacious prison breaks included an Alcatraz flight in a homemade kayak, and whose last robbery was committed when he was 79. Offering bittersweet reflections on time and age, THE OLD MAN & THE GUN is a testament to a free-spirit who steadfastly refused to go quietly. The film also stars Sissy Spacek and Casey Affleck
TOO LATE TO DIE YOUNG is a woozily gorgeous evocation of life on the fringe of society. Set during the summer of 1990, after Pinochet’s fall, democracy has returned to Chile. Three youngsters drive up to a woodland commune below the Andes, where they idle the summer away while their parents debate the future. In their isolated community, Sofia, Lucas and Clara face their first loves and fears while building up for New Year’s Eve. Youthful desire, ennui and mischief have rarely felt so tangible. The film is directed by Dominga Sotomayor.
Chinese director Zhang Yimou will be awarded the 2018 Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory to the Filmmaker of the 75th Venice International Film Festival. The award, dedicated to a figure who has left a particularly original mark on contemporary cinema, will be conferred on Zhang Yimou on September 6 2018 in the Sala Grande (Palazzo del Cinema), before the world premiere screening Out of Competition of his new film Ying (Shadow).
Regarding this acknowledgment, the Director of the Venice Film Festival Alberto Barbera has stated: “Zhang Yimou is not only one of the most important directors in contemporary cinema, but with his eclectic production, he has represented the evolution of global language of film, and at the same time, the exceptional growth of Chinese cinema. Zhang Yimou has been a pioneer thanks to his capacity to translate authors, stories and the richness of Chinese culture in general into a unique and unmistakable visual style. His unforgettable debut, Red Sorghum (1987), adapted from Nobel award winner Mo Yan, brought him international recognition as one of the most important directors of the Fifth Generation. Since then, his talent in combining the elegance of form with a universal type of narrative structure has won him important acknowledgments, including two Golden Lions for The Story of Qiu Ju (1992) and Not one less (1999). At the turn of the century, the martial arts film Hero (2002) – his third nomination for an Oscar as best foreign-language film – established him as an icon of the Chinese cinema at the global level, and won him the direction of the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympic Games in Beijing (2008), followed by a series of major productions with International film stars. With Shadow (2018), to be presented in its world premiere screening at the 75th Venice International Film Festival, Zhang Yimou returns to martial arts films with the formal elegance and remarkable inventiveness that has always distinguished his cinema”.
Ying (Shadow) is a martial arts (wuxia) film about the conflict between two feudal groups. In China, during the period of the Three Kingdoms (220-280 circa A.D.), an exiled king and his people develop a plot to regain control of their land. The events are told from the points of view of the king, his sister, his commander, the women trapped in the royal palace and a common citizen.
Four times in Competition at the Venice Film Festival – in 1991 with Raise the Red Lantern, in 1992 with The Story of Qiu Ju, in 1997 with Keep Cool and in 1999 with Not One Less – winner of two Golden Lions, respectively in 1992 and in 1999, a Silver Lion in 1991 and a Coppa Volpi for Best Actress (Gong Li, in 1992 for The Story of Qiu Ju), Zhang Yimou is the only director to have won all the most important prizes of the Venice Film Festival in less than ten years.
Jaeger-LeCoultre is for the fourteenth consecutive year a sponsor of the Venice International Film Festival, and for the twelfth of the Glory to the Filmmaker award. The prize has been awarded in past years to Takeshi Kitano (2007), Abbas Kiarostami (2008), Agnès Varda (2008), Sylvester Stallone (2009), Mani Ratnam (2010), Al Pacino (2011), Spike Lee (2012), Ettore Scola (2013), James Franco (2014), Brian De Palma (2015), Amir Naderi (2016), Stephen Frears (2017).
The 75th Venice International Film Festival will be held on the Lido from August 29th to September 8th 2018, directed by Alberto Barbera and organized by the Biennale chaired by Paolo Baratta.