The Cleveland International Film Festival (CIFF) will honor ANTHROPOCENE: THE HUMAN EPOCH co-director Jennifer Baichwal with the Director Spotlight Award at the upcoming 43rd edition of the festival. The purpose of the Director Spotlight Award program is to showcase directors with distinguished careers by featuring a retrospective of their past work and screenings of their most recent film available.
Eleven screenwriters have been selected to participate in Sundance Institute’s seventh annual Screenwriters Intensive in Los Angeles, to take place February 28 – March 1, 2019. Part of the Institute’s commitment to introducing the industry to an inclusive pipeline of exciting new storytellers, the Intensive is a two-day workshop for writers or writer/directors from underrepresented communities developing their first fiction feature. Fellows at the Intensive will advance the art and craft of their work under the guidance of experienced filmmakers and in collaboration with Institute’s Feature Film Program.
Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu has been named President of the Jury of the 72nd Festival de Cannes, taking place place from Tuesday May 14 to Saturday May 25, 2019.
The 43rd Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF43) will open on March 18 with the world premiere of Bodies at Rest, Renny Harlin’s Chinese language crime thriller starring Nick Cheung and Richie Jen.
Green Book took home the Oscar for Best Picture at the 91st Oscars. Regina King, Mahershala Ali, Rami Malek and Olivia Colman won in the acting categories and Spike Lee brought home Oscar for the very first time for Adapted Screenplay as a co-writer of BlacKkKlansman, and Free Solo won for best documentary. Roma won three including, best foreign language and another directing Oscar for Alfonso Cuarón.
If Beale Street Could Talk, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, Suspiria, Eighth Grade, First Reformed, Sorry To Bother You, The Wife and You Were Never Really Here. En El Séptimo Día, Won’t You Be My Neighbor and Roma received awards at Film Independent’s 34th Spirit Awards ceremony.
Ralph Fiennes will be presented with the Volta Award, the most prestigious award at the 2019 Virgin Media Dublin International Film Festival, by Irish actor John Kavanagh who Fiennes directed in The Invisible Woman after a screening of The White Crow. The film tells the story of ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev’s defection to the West and which Fiennes both directed and stars in. Alongside Carlos Acosta’s Yuli it is one of two ballet themed films at this year’s festival.
Native Son, directed by first-time director and renowned visual artist Rashid Johnson, that world premiered in January at the Sundance Film Festival, will debut Saturday, April 6 at 10:00 p.m. (ET/PT) on HBO. The film is based on the classic novel by Richard Wright and from a screenplay by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks (“Topdog/Underdog”).
Rooftop Films awarded seventeen cash and service grants to alumni filmmakers, including the Rooftop Films Water Tower Feature Film Grant, which was presented to director Anastasia Kirillova and co-directors Ru Kuwahata & Max Porter. Kirillova will receive $20,000 to help finish her film In the Shadows of Love, and Kuwahata & Porter will receive $10,000 to support their film Dandelion Seed.
Iyengar: The Man, Yoga, and the Student’s Journey, directed by award-winning filmmaker Jake Clennell, focuses on the life and teachings of B.K.S. Iyengar, widely considered to have been instrumental in popularizing yoga in the Western world. An Official Selection of the Vancouver International Film Festival, this illuminating documentary was made with the support and cooperation of B.K.S. Iyengar and the Iyengar family, the Iyengar Yoga National Association of the United States, and students and supporters worldwide.
From March 21st to 31st , the 33rd edition of BFI Flare: London LGBTQ+ Film Festival will showcase the best in contemporary global LGBTQ+ films, over 50 features, more than 80 shorts and a wide range of special events, guest appearances, club nights and much more.
Jan Haaken’s latest documentary feature, Our Bodies, Our Doctors will premiere at the 42nd Annual Portland International Film Festival on International Women’s Day – Friday March 8, 2019.