Feature films, short films, music videos, and more, highlighting a diversity of themes, genres, and styles characteristic of contemporary national and international cinema trends will be presented at the twenty-second Cine Las Americas International Film Festival (CLAIFF22), May 1 to 5, 2019, in Austin, Texas.
The 5th Annual Bentonville Film Festival will open on Wednesday, May 8, with Tom Donahue’s documentary THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING, executive produced by Geena Davis, and featuring her, along with Meryl Streep, Reese Witherspoon, Natalie Portman, Zoe Saldana, Rosario Dawson, Cate Blanchett, and many others as it takes an incisive look into the history, empirical evidence, and systemic forces that foster gender discrimination and thus reinforce disparity in our culture.
After screening 226 films from 78 countries, the 30th Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF) announced this year’s audience award winners – with Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature going to The Grizzlies, and Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature went to The Biggest Little Farm.
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.
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The HUMANITAS Prize which honors film and television writers whose work inspires compassion, hope, and understanding in the human family, has named fifty-eight film and television writers as finalists for the 44th Annual HUMANITAS Prize. All Prize winners will be announced at The 44th Annual HUMANITAS Prize event on Friday, February 8, 2019 at The Beverly Hills Hotel in Beverly Hills, CA.
Six college students have also been named as finalists for The David and Lynn Angell College Comedy Fellowship and The Carol Mendelsohn College Drama Fellowship. The winning writers in each category will be awarded $20,000 in prize money.
HUMANITAS will also honor Marta Kauffman with The Kieser Award and Kenya Barris with the VOICE FOR CHANGE Award.
Marta Kauffman is a critically acclaimed writer/director/producer. She won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series for Friends, a series she co-created. She also co-created HBO’s Dream On, was the co-producer for NBC’s Veronica’s Closet, and is the co-creator of Netflix’s Grace and Frankie.
Kenya Barris is also a critically acclaimed writer/producer and the creator of ABC’s Black-ish and Grown-ish. He won The HUMANITAS Prize for Black-Ish: “Hope” in 2017. He won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series in 2016/17. He has received three nominations for Outstanding Comedy Series at the Primetime Emmy Awards.
Since its inception in 1974, The HUMANITAS Prize has awarded over $3.5 million to more than 360 deserving television and motion picture writers whose work examines what it means to be a fully realized human being in a world struggling with racism, terrorism, sexism, ageism, anti-Semitism, political polarization, religious fanaticism, extreme poverty, violence, and unemployment. By deeply exploring the cultures, lifestyles, sexual orientations, political views, and religious beliefs of people who are very different from ourselves, we can dissolve the walls of ignorance and fear that separate us from one another.
All winners, except for those in the Independent Feature Film and College Fellowship categories, designate a non-profit focused on nurturing the next generation of writers to receive their earnings. Past recipients have included Young Storytellers, Film2Future, P.S. Arts, The Heidelberg Project, Rosie’s Theatre Kids, International Documentary Association, and Inside Out Writers.
“HUMANITAS enjoyed an embarrassment of riches this year,” said HUMANITAS President Ali LeRoi, “There were so many incredible submissions from such gifted writers.”
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The 19th annual Calgary International Film Festival wrapped up this past Sunday, and today the Festival announced the winners of the Audience Favourite Awards and Fan Favourite Award, both of which were determined by audience ballot. The highest rated film by the festival audience was THE GRIZZLIES, directed by Miranda De Pencier, which won in the Canadian Narrative Feature category.
As for the Fan Favourite Award, audience members who saw ten or more films were sent a special ballot to choose their favourite festival feature with this year’s Fan Favourite Award going to CAPERNAUM, directed by Nadine Labaki.
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The Toronto International Film Festival did not forget the kids with the TIFF Kids and TIFF Next Wave selections, guaranteeing something for film lovers of all ages. This year’s selection includes The Elephant Queen, a fascinating documentary following the elephant Athena and her herd, narrated by Chiwetel Ejiofor; Icebox, based on an award-winning short of the same name that follows a twelve-year-old Honduran, Oscar, who faces the harsh reality of navigating immigration after fleeing gang violence in his hometown; Minuscule – Mandibles From Far Away, a story of a young ladybug who works to save the rainforest after being swept away on a grand adventure; and the stunningly animated Tito and the Birds, which follows ten-year-old Tito on his quest to learn more about birds as his town faces a strange new affliction that makes people sick when they get scared.
This year’s TIFF Next Wave lineup features 11 titles selected by the TIFF Next Wave committee, a group of young film aficionados responsible for picking the films they believe their peers would most enjoy. From the Ethiopian civil war ( Fig Tree) to the Closing Night Film of Midnight Madness ( Diamantino), Next Wave champions new and diverse voices. This year’s lineup boasts five films helmed by women and eight feature filmmaking debuts, including the world premieres of Jonah Hill’s nostalgic coming of age film, Mid90s, and Jasmin Mozaffari’s skillfully tenacious Firecrackers, made by an almost entirely female key crew.
The 43rd Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 6 to 16, 2018.
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The Toronto International Film Festival added another 19 Canadian titles to the Festival’s 2018 lineup. The selection includes nine films directed by women and six exciting debut features. From personal dramas exploring identity to documentaries that spotlight a world at risk and democracy in jeopardy, this year’s lineup is rich in stories that tap into contemporary Canadian and International anxieties.
“We’re especially proud to present such a diverse group of films,” said Steve Gravestock, Senior Programmer, TIFF. “Ranging from science fiction to fantasy, myth to documentary, and romance to a dystopic vision of our neighbours to the south, this year’s Canadian films come from every region in the country, stretching from east to west and north to south.”
TIFF presents the World Premieres of three films that showcase Indigenous talent: Gwaai Edenshaw and Helen Haig-Brown’s Edge of the Knife, the first feature-length film made in Haida, which is classified by UNESCO as an endangered language; Darlene Naponse’s Falls Around Her, a moving portrait of healing and resilience, starring renowned Métis actor Tantoo Cardinal; and Miranda de Pencier’s feature directorial debut The Grizzlies, a creative collaboration between De Pencier and Inuit producers Alethea Arnaquq-Baril and Stacey Aglok MacDonald that tells an inspiring, true story and that was shot on location in MacDonald’s home community in Nunavut.
“We’re thrilled with this year’s lineup of compelling and distinctive films,” said Danis Goulet, TIFF Canadian Features Programmer. “The films feature characters who push hard against prescribed boundaries, asking vital questions about the state of the world and the status quo. We are especially excited to have a strong slate of bold and dynamic women-centric stories. Forty percent of the Canadian film slate this year is directed by women.”
This year’s lineup also includes works by legendary Canadian documentary filmmakers that look at contemporary culture through a critical lens, such as Jennifer Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier, and Edward Burtynsky’s highly anticipated documentary Anthropocene, Ron Mann’s Carmine Street Guitars and Thom Fitzgerald’s Splinters; Festival alumnus Igor Drljača is making his feature-documentary debut at the Festival with The Stone Speakers, and veteran Barry Avrich returns with Prosecuting Evil: The Extraordinary World of Ben Ferencz, a portrait of the United States’ chief prosecutor during the Nuremberg trials.
A highlight of the festival will be a Special Event World Premiere and tribute showcasing the illuminating documentary Sharkwater Extinction, the final work by the late filmmaker and conservationist Rob Stewart. Other works by TIFF alumni premiering at the Festival include Canadian master Denys Arcand’s The Fall of the American Empire; Bruce Sweeney’s Kingsway; Sébastien Pilote’s The Fireflies Are Gone; Maxime Giroux’s The Great Darkened Days; and Astra Taylor’s What is Democracy? Renée Beaulieu is at TIFF for the first time with Les Salopes or the Naturally Wanton Pleasure of Skin, a study of a professor’s hidden desires.
The Canadian feature debuts at this year’s Festival are: Gwaai Edenshaw and Helen Haig-Brown’s Haida epic Edge of the Knife; Akash Sherman’s sci-fi fantasy drama Clara ; Jasmin Mozaffari’s Firecrackers; Andrea Bussmann’s first solo project, Fausto; Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein’s Freaks and Miranda De Pencier’s Grizzlies.
This year’s slate also features performances by multiple Canadian and international stars, such as Amanda Crew, Graham Greene, Brigitte Poupart, Salma Hayek, Maria Bello, and Kyle MacLachlan. Other talent includes TIFF 2018 Rising Star Michaela Kurimsky ( Firecrackers) and former TIFF Rising Stars Sarah Gadon ( The Great Darkened Days) and Karelle Tremblay ( The Fireflies Are Gone).
All 23 Canadian feature films at the Festival are eligible for the Canada Goose ® Award for Best Canadian Feature Film. All five Canadian feature directorial debuts are eligible for the City of Toronto Award for Best Canadian First Feature Film. This year’s Canadian feature-film jury is composed of award-winning Montreal filmmaker Mathieu Denis ( Those Who Make Revolution Halfway Only Dig Their Own Graves), renowned Toronto journalist and documentarian Michelle Shephard ( Guantanamo’s Child: Omar Khadr), and legendary Turkish director Ali Özgentürk, who wrote the screenplay for The Girl with the Red Scarf .
The 43rd Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 6 to 16, 2018.