Author: Christopher P. Duffy

The Asian Pacific Film Festival, run by the Asian American media arts center, Visual Communications, has today announced the full slate of films for its 2008 program.In its 24th year, the Asian Pacific Film Festival was formerly known as the VC FilmFest, and has been acknowledged as Southern California’s largest and most renowned Asian American film festival. This year’s program includes over 160 films from Asian filmmakers from America and abroad. When it begins on May 1st at the Directors Guild of America in Los Angeles, the Asian Pacific Film Festival will open its program with Jessica Yu’s comedy, “Ping…

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Filmmaker Rahkshan Bani-Etemad, Iran’s most recognizable and prolific female director, will be presented with an honorary diploma in London next week for her contribution to world cinema and her promotion of Iranian culture and society to the world. Bani-Etemad will receive the diploma from the School of Oriental and African Studies, and will conduct a six-day master class on filmmaking for 12 aspiring directors. Since 1986 Bani Etemad has directed 11 feature films, and is perhaps best known for her 2001 feature, “Zir-e poost-e shahr” (“Under the Skin of the City”). An official selection at a number of international film…

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Internationally recognized as one of the preeminent short film festivals in the World, the 2008 Palm Springs ShortFest has an open call to filmmakers to submit their work for official entry into the upcoming program. In its 14th year, the Palm Springs ShortFest is the largest short film festival in America, featuring over 350 films from 40 countries around the globe. Additionally, the Short Film Market, run in tandem with the festival, offers over 2200 films for purchase. The week long festival will include six categories, and will award twenty filmmakers with cash prizes totaling over $100,000. Along with the…

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The winner of the Cannes Film Festival Critic’s Week Grand Prize in 2007, writer and director Lucia Puenzo’s internationally acclaimed “XXY” will open in New York City theaters on May 2nd. The film will be released in theaters nationally shortly thereafter. “XXY” is also an official selection of the “New Directors, New Films” series at the Film Society of Lincoln Center (http://www.filmlinc.com/ndnf/ndnf.html), and will be screened as part of the program on April 4th and again on April 6th. Based on a short story by Argentine writer Sergio Bizzio, “XXY” is a bold film about Alex (Ines Efron), an adolescent…

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When world-class athletes Charlie Engle and Marshall Ulrich attempt to run across America this summer, a documentary film crew will be following along to capture their historical 3200-mile journey. Produced by NEHST Studios (www.nehst.com), “Running America” (http://www.runningamerica08.com/), will begin shooting this summer when the runners begin their journey from San Francisco to New York City on June 15th. Engel and Ulrich will attempt to break the world record by running across America in 48 days, which will require an average of about 70 miles of running per day. A world-class long distance runner, Charlie Engle was filmed in 2007 for…

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A planned screening of the award winning Chinese documentary, “Yasukuni”, was canceled in four Tokyo theaters yesterday. The film was scheduled to open in Japanese theaters on April 12th, but after Monday’s cancellations, the premiere date is in flux.The film has stirred strong emotions over its depiction of the Yasukuni shrine, a controversial place of worship for fallen Japanese soldiers, a number of who have been convicted of war crimes against Chinese and others during the Second World War. Chinese filmmaker Li Ying’s documentary raises questions over the shrine by depicting various opinions about it, some that may have incited…

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Bosnian filmmaker Srdjan Vuletic’s 2007 comedy, It’s Hard to Be Nice, will be available for Dutch audiences on April 10th when it is released in theaters throughout the Netherlands. Bosnia-Herzegovina’s official submission for the Best Foreign Language Film at this years Academy Awards, “It’s Hard to Be Nice” is a comedy about a Sarajevo taxi driver who faces difficulties when he tries to be an upstanding and honest person. Legendary comedian Sasa Petrovic won the Best Actor prize at the 2007 Sarajevo Film Festival for his role as Fudo, the taxi driver. Srdjan Vuletic, who co-wrote the film with Miroslav…

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For many filmmakers, the world’s most visited museum has served as a prominent location, used for its physical presence and for its psychological, cultural, and historical connotation. This is the theme of an upcoming American Cinematheque program, “The Louvre Cinema”, playing at the Aero Theater in Santa Monica California from April 10th through the 11th. “Band of Outsiders”, Jean-Luc Godard’s 1964 offbeat slapstick about three blundering thieves, who, during their jaunting, have a running visit to the Louvre, will be the first of a double feature on April 11th. Jean-Paul Salome’s “Belphegor, Lefantome Du Louvre”(“Ghosts Of The Louvre”), a 2001…

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Starting next month, London will be the site of the 5th annual Romanian Film Festival < http://www.romanianculturalcentre.org.uk/filmfestival/index.html>, featuring a program dedicated to promoting the best of contemporary Romanian cinema. This year’s program is centered on the theme of Home and Away, and will feature both films were made in Romania and works by Romanian filmmakers who live abroad. Romanian cinema has recently seen a groundswell in critically acclaimed and internationally recognized films by Romanian auteurs, including Christian Mungiu’s “4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days” < http://cinemawithoutborders.com/news/126/ARTICLE/1475/2008-02-18.html>, which won the 2007 Palme d’Or at Cannes. Other Romanian filmmakers, including Christi…

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Eight short films that have been recognized at international film festivals in recent years will be available for the first time next month, when the Film Movement releases its Festivals Shorts Collection on DVD. The short films in the collection were internationally produced, and have been featured at prominent international film festivals, including Cannes, Toronto, and Vancouver. Most of the films included in the DVD collection are award winners, including “Mann Im Mond” (Man in the Moon), a German film by directors Chris Stenner and Avrid Uibel. The 1999 film, about a lonely man living on the moon, was awarded…

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