Author: CWB News Department

Hans Zimmer had a long guest list for his 67th birthday: some 19,500 people at his sold-out Madison Square Garden concert on Thursday night. The legendary composer rocked the stage for nearly three hours, proving that film scores can captivate audiences just as much as set lists from any other popular artist nowadays, be it Chappell Roan, Linkin Park or Sabrina Carpenter (though Zimmer’s fans skewed a bit more middle-aged — and left the glitter and eye shadow at home). Alongside icons like John Williams, Ennio Morricone and Danny Elfman, Zimmer’s film scores are among the most recognizable in all cinema.…

Organizers of a new film festival planned at the Tahoe Blue Events Center on Oct. 4-6, hope the event causes a spark in its inaugural year. “We’re featuring films that light up the soul,” said festival director and filmmaker Michelle Ficara. That’s Lake Tahoe Documentary Film Festival’s tagline and its full line up of 63 soul-illuminating films just dropped. “A lot of inspiring stories,” Ficara added. The documentary-based film fest features environmental and outdoor-adventure films, social justice documentaries and many family-friendly films. Some of the documentaries were selected to ignite broader conversations with post-screening Q-and-A sessions and panels, potentially with film directors there…

The growing number of Indigenous films at the Toronto International Film Festival speaks to the breadth of work in Indigenous cinema both nationally and globally, according to a programmer. Some 15 Indigenous films will be shown at TIFF, which runs until Sunday: eight by creators from Canada and seven from global creators. “It’s a great privilege, but an incredibly hard task to select a small number of films to showcase,” said TIFF’s international programmer Jason Ryle, who is Anishinaabe from Lake St. Martin First Nation in Manitoba. “We’re living in this time that we dreamed about, you know, those first…

Actors often have more than one project on the boil. The French actress Isabelle Huppert takes multitasking to the next level. For the next 11 days (Wednesday through Sept. 7), Huppert is heading up the jury of the Venice Film Festival, watching nearly two dozen movies (together with the other jurors) and handing out awards, including the coveted Golden Lion. In the days and weeks leading up to the festival, Huppert has been working nonstop. Earlier this week, for two nights in a row, Huppert performed alone onstage at the Ruhr Triennale festival of the arts in Germany, delivering the…

I still remember some of my earliest movie experiences as a little kid, the ones that really amazed me and stayed with me throughout the years. I grew up with Star Wars and Spielberg’s adventure movies—movies that made you dream. The sensation of getting really close to a character on screen, seeing what they see, feeling what they feel, always fascinated me. With time, I realized that a lot of that had to do with the music. Music in film has the power to let us read between the lines, to get under our skin, and to understand things where words fail.…

It’s possible that the issue at the heart of “A Missing Part” will resolve itself in a few years. Japan, currently the only country in the G7 which doesn’t recognize the legal concept of joint child custody, is finally set to modernize in 2026, ending a situation where any contested divorce can result in one party legally blocked from seeing their children until they turn 18. This is the situation in which Frenchman Jay (Romain Duris) finds himself in Guillaume Senez’s third feature. Jay’s Japanese ex has fled to Tokyo with their daughter, who was three years old at the time…

The NVISION Latino Film & Music Festival announces its premier sponsors for the 2024 event, which takes place from October 10 to 12 at Palm Springs Art Museum. With support from top organizations in media, finance, transportation, music and the arts, these valued partnerships solidify the vital role that Latino representation and recognition plays in the entertainment industry. This festival is poised to be a landmark cultural celebration and will significantly elevate Latino voices in film and music. “We are immensely proud to have such renowned brands from various industries rallying behind the NVISION Latino Film & Music Festival,” said…

Iranian director Payam Hosseini’s short film “Khalil” wins two awards at the 30th edition of Lessinia Film Festival, which was held last week in Verona, Italy. The short flick received best short film award as well as special jury award in its global premiere. The film is set in a small village on the Iranian plateau and follows the journey of a 13-year-old boy named Khalil, who has recently lost his father. Overwhelmed by the fear of his father’s fate in the afterlife, Khalil is deeply troubled by the possibility that his father may not receive God’s forgiveness and could…

The follow-up to his anarchic debut feature The Twentieth Century, a postmodern restaging of Canadian history that eschewed accuracy and realism in favor of strange psycho-sexual fetishes and aesthetic fixations, Matthew Rankin’s Universal Language takes a similarly irreverent approach to depicting his country’s geography and socio-political environment. The film initially centers on what appears to be an Iranian middle school, albeit one situated in an incongruously wintry landscape, where an irate teacher (Mani Soleymanlou), ranting at his misbehaving pupils, asks them, “Can’t you at least fool around in French?!” We soon follow two young girls (Saba Vahedyousefi and Rojina Esmaelli) who set out…

The 6th annual Morehouse College Human Rights Film Festival happens this month with a slate of 40 original films exploring subjects including social justice, education, refugee resettlement, real estate redlining and the divisions of 21st century politics. (Courtesy of Morehouse College) International, independent and student filmmakers are celebrating the 6th annual Morehouse College Human Rights Film Festival this month with a slate of 40 original films. The films explore subjects including social justice, education, refugee resettlement, real estate redlining and the divisions of 21st century politics. The film festival will feature internationally recognized films from high-profile filmmakers alongside films of…