Author: CWB News Department

On October 14th,2023, An Internationally prominent and acclaimed Iranian filmmaker, Darioush Mehrjui, and his scriptwriter wife, Vahideh Moahmmadifar, were slaughtered in their home in Iran. A few months before this tragic event, Mehrjui protested publicly against the censorship of his films and dared Iranian authorities to kill him. Featuring rare and intimate footage from Mehrjui and his wife in the last months of their lives, this documentary offers a unique chance to see the life of an artist in a closed society. Here, a murdered filmmaker is talking about his legacy in battling with censorship in his country. Cinema Without…

If you have a burning passion for filmmaking and are eager to launch your dream career, selecting the right college is essential. From learning the intricacies of cinematography to mastering video production, a degree from one of the best filmmaking colleges can set you on the path to success. Whether you’re interested in directing, editing, or acting, there are colleges that cater to all aspects of the film industry. Picking the perfect school might seem daunting, but rest assured, you’re not navigating this journey alone. Plenty of colleges for film and colleges with film majors offer outstanding programs that will…

A New Year’s party rapidly becomes a ‘New Fears’ party for three couples. Blurred Lines explores brave and relevant subject matter and  conveys it on screen in a captivating way. The female lead, Chris (played enchantingly by Siobhan Aislinn) is noticeably disturbed and distracted throughout the party. The subtextual implication is that Lucas (Mark Agar) had recently taken advantage of her with unwanted sexual contact. He’s not only a member of her peer group, but he’s the boyfriend of her best friend Jane (Vanessa Schaefer). Jane also seems very unsettled at the party. Her hesitation to drink alcohol and apprehensive demeanour imply a…

Sing Sing. The maximum security prison just north of New York City is hosting its own film festival today, showing documentaries about the criminal justice system, and the judges of this competition are incarcerated. Samantha Max of our member station WNYC reports. Filmmaker El Sawyer is teaching the judges of the prison’s upcoming film festival how to evaluate movies. He’s brought along some rubrics. The group will judge quality and structure, whether the movies bring a fresh perspective. Whether these movies get the criminal justice system right. The nonprofit criminal justice newsroom The Marshall Project is organizing the film festival.…

The 14th International Short Film Festival of Cyprus (ISFFC) concluded with an awards ceremony at Rialto Theatre, presided over by Deputy Minister of Culture Dr Vasiliki Kasianidou. In the international competition, Haitian director Samuel Suffren’s “Dreams like Paper Boats” secured the €4,000 First Prize for Best Short Film. The jury praised its post-colonial narrative and black-and-white cinematography. Finnish entry “Pena’s Special Hauling” by Anssi Kasitonni claimed the €1,500 Second Prize. Brazilian filmmaker Moara Passoni received the €2,500 Best Director Award for “My Mother is a Cow”, whilst Belgian director Emmanuel Van Der Auwera’s “White Cloud” won the €3,000 Best Documentary Prize. The…

dris Elba has said he is planning to move to Africa as part of his plans to bolster the sub-Saharan film industry, saying “it’s going to happen”. Elba, star of hit TV shows Luther and The Wire as well as films including Beasts of No Nation and Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, spoke to the BBC while attending the Africa Cinema Summit in Accra, Ghana. Having previously announced plans to build a film studio in Tanzania, Elba said that his ambitions for developing African film-making would require him to relocate. “It’s going to happen. I think [I’ll move] in the next five, 10 years,…

Emmy and Tony-nominated actor Arian Moayed has signed on to executive produce Iranian-Canadian director Jasmin Mozaffari’s short film drama Motherland. Moayed was born in Tehran, Iran, and immigrated with his family to the U.S. when he was 5 years old. He played Stewy Hosseini in HBO’s Succession and also has TV credits in Netflix’s Inventing Anna, HBO Max’s Love Life and Disney’s Ms. Marvel, in addition to a host of theatrical stage credits. Moayed will help with an Oscar campaign for Motherland, which is set in 1979 and centers on Babak, played by Behtash Fazlali, who travels to meet the parents of his fiancé (Oriana Leman), only to discover the…

Researchers found that after watching a true crime drama about the efforts to free a wrongly convicted prisoner on Death Row, people were more empathetic towards those who have been jailed and more supportive of criminal justice reform. The 2019 film “Just Mercy” – starring Jamie Foxx, Michael B. Jordan and Brie Larson – is ​​based on a book by the lawyer and social justice activist Bryan Stevenson. Stevenson’s book focuses on his campaign to overturn the sentence of Walter McMillian, a black man from Alabama who in 1987 was sentenced to death for the murder of an 18-year-old white girl, despite “overwhelming” evidence…

Algiers was Paris on the Mediterranean, a bustling café city under shady palm trees. Looming overhead the modern district was the medieval Casbah whose white cubed structures foreshadowed modernism. The Casbah was largely inhabited by indigenous Algerians but was home to others as well. In The Blond Boy from the Casbah, the boy protagonist, Antoine, fair-faced and Jewish, grew up in that district whose impressions indelibly shaped his imagination. The Blond Boy from the Casbah may be French director Alexandre Arcady’s answer to Cinema Paradiso. Like Salvatore in Paradiso, Antoine grew up to be an esteemed filmmaker who revisits his hometown after an absence…

What does a country’s national cinema look like when many of its most vital filmmakers no longer live there? In Cuba, a nation wracked by poverty, political repression, and international disinvestment, hundreds of thousands of citizens have emigrated over the past decade, including a disproportionate share of artists, writers and intellectuals. Among these emigrants is Lázaro González, a doctoral candidate in Film & Media at UC Berkeley and an award-winning filmmaker who was born, raised and educated in Cuba before coming to the United States in 2016. González has partnered with the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive on…