Burbank, CA – January 12th, 2019 – Today Eldoradi (Switzerland), directed by Markus Imhoof, was announced as the winner of GoE Bridging the Borders Award, presented by Cinema Without Borders at 2019 Palm Springs International Film Festival This year’s award ceremony festival was held at Grand Ballroom of Riviera Hotel in Palm Springs. The Editor-in-Chief of CWB, Bijan Tehrani, filmmaker, jury member Susan Morgan Cooper and Adam Shepherd from GoEnergistics (Award and prize sponsor) presented the award for this year’s GoE Bridging the Borders award winner. The winner received a cash award of $2500 from CWB’s generous sponsors. The 7…
Author: Bijan Tehrani
Bijan Tehrani
Bijan (Hassan) Tehrani Founder and Editor in Chief of Cinema Without Borders, is a film director, writer, and a film critic, his first article appeared in a weekly film publication in Iran 45 years ago. Bijan founded Cinema Without Borders, an online publication dedicated to promotion of international cinema in the US and around the globe, eighteen years ago and still works as its editor in chief. Bijan is has also been a columnist and film critic for the Iranian monthly film related medias for 45 years and during the past 5 years he has been a permanent columnist and film reviewer for Film Emrooz (Film Today), a popular Iranian monthly print film magazine. Bijan has won several awards in international film festivals and book fairs for his short films and children's books as well as for his services to the international cinema. Bijan is a member of Iranian Film Writers Critics Society and International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI). He is also an 82nd Golden Globe Awards voter.
Roma wins Best Motion Picture – Foreign Language at Golden Globe Awards tonight. Roma (Mexico) is a 2018 drama film written and directed by Alfonso Cuarón. Cuarón also produced, co-edited and photographed the film. It stars Yalitza Aparicio, Marina de Tavira, Marco Graf, Daniela Demesa, Enoc Leaño and Daniel Valtierra. Set in the early 1970s, the film is a semi-autobiographical take on Cuarón’s upbringing in Mexico City, and follows the life of a middle-class family and its live-in housekeeper. The title refers to the Colonia Roma district of the city. https://vimeo.com/309801206 Roma film had its world premiere at the 75th Venice…
The 20th Anniversary Scandinavian Film Festival L.A. (SFFLA) will be in residence at the Writers Guild Theater 135 S. Doheny in Beverly Hills January 5, 6, 19 20 with “top films from the top of Europe” featuring “Oscar” submissions and other current films from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and with BalticFilmExpo@SFFLA–Baltic neighbors Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. To learn more about the festival we had an interview with festival’s director and founder James Koenig. James Koenig is someone whose voice is heard in various arts arenas. He graduated from Northwestern University with bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in voice continuing studies…
Shoplifters is about life on the margins of Tokyo, where a dysfunctional band of outsiders are united by fierce loyalty, a penchant for petty theft and playful grifting. When the young son is arrested, secrets are exposed that upend their tenuous, below-the-radar existence and test their quietly radical belief that it is love—not blood—that defines a family. Shoplifters is directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda and is in Oscar Shortlist for the Best Foreign Language Film Award and also a nominee for the Best Foreign Language Film category at the Golden Globe Awards. The following is Cinema Without Borders interview with Kaoru…
Burbank, California – December 19th 2018 – TodayCinema Without Borders announced The ICEBOX a HBO movie directed by Daniel Sawka as winner of its 2018 GoE Bridging The Borders Award for its outstanding artistic values to address an important social justice issue. Susan Morgan Cooper, a Cinema Without Borders artistic adviser and Jury member says: “We are delighted to present our Cinema without Borders Award, sponsored by Go Energistics to the heartbreaking and very timely HBO narrative film, ICEBOX. The film chronicles 12-year-old Oscar’s journey to the U.S.seeking asylum. After fleeing his native Honduras and traveling on foot all through Mexico,…
The Marriage, directed by Blerta Zeqiri, is Kosovo’s Oscar entry. In The Marriage Their, Anita and Bekim, wedding in only two weeks, are adding the final touches to their big day. Despite expecting news of Anita’s parents, declared missing since the 1999 Kosovo War, and with Bekim’s controlling family in turn, the couple seem to manage somehow with the preparations. But when Bekim’s secret gay ex-lover, Nol, returns from abroad unexpectedly, the situation becomes complicated, especially when Bekim realizes that Nol is still in love with him. Inevitably, the wedding banquet becomes loaded with tension when the unusual love triangle starts…
“I do not care if we go down in history as barbarians.” These words, spoken in the Council of Ministers of the summer of 1941, started the ethnic cleansing on the Eastern Front and now its title of a new film by Radu Jude, the Romanian filmmaker. The amazing film with its rich satire and fresh look, attempts to comment on the above statement. “I do not care if we go down in history as barbarians.” Is Romania’s entry for the Best Foreign Language Film Award and we had a brief interview with Radu Jude. Radu does not believe that…
In A MOMENT IN THE REEDS, having moved to Paris for university, Leevi returns to his native Finland for the summer to help his estranged father renovate the family lake house so it can be sold. Tareq, a recent asylum seeker from Syria, has been hired to help with the work, and when Leevi’s father must return to town on business, the two young men fall in love and spend a few days discovering one another during the Finnish midsummer. The following is Cinema Without Borders interview with Mikko Makela, director of A MOMENT IN THE REEDS. Mikko Makela is…
Never Look Away, a Golden Globe nominee for the Best Morion Picture – Foreign Language and Germany’s Best Foreign Language Oscar entry is directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. Never Look Away is inspired by real events and spanning three eras of German history, NEVER LOOK AWAY tells the story of a young art student, Kurt (Tom Schilling) who falls in love with fellow student, Ellie (Paula Beer). Ellie’s father, Professor Seeband (Sebastian Koch), a famous doctor, is dismayed at his daughter’s choice of boyfriend, and vows to destroy the relationship. What neither of them knows is that their lives are already…
THE GOALKEEPER, Bolivian Oscar Entry is a thought-provoking thriller about a former iconic goalkeeper, Jorge “Muralla” Rivera, whose fame has run out and he is now scraping out a living as an alcoholic bus driver.His son is desperately sick and he does the unthinkable to save his child but to no avail.Racked with guilt and haunted by ghosts, Jorge seeks redemption to rescue the young girl he sold, even if it means his own downfall.THE GOALKEEPER is a powerful story that addresses the sad and frightening facts that approximately eight children a day disappear from the streets of La Paz…