Author: CWB News Department

Now in its 14th year, the Atlanta-based BronzeLens Film Festival begins August 23 and runs through August 27. In addition to its prime mission of showcasing BIPOC-created and focused content from around the world, the Oscars short film-qualifying event will pay homage to the Writers Guild of America and Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists ongoing strikes. In a press statement, the festival’s executive director, Kathleen Bertrand, said, “BronzeLens Film Festival supports the SAG-AFTRA and WGA members in their fight to achieve a fair and equitable contract.” As such,  BronzeLens’ components of Women Superstar Honors and Sunday…

The feature debut by Johnny Barrington – who came to prominence in 2012 with the darkly surreal and funny, BAFTA-nominated short Tumult – is a strong and confident bow from a director who consistently undercuts the tenets of social realism with hints of the magical and the dreamlike. With its Scottish locale (specifically, the Isle of Lewis) and gentle genre breaking, comparisons to filmmaker Bill Forsyth are probably unavoidable. But, in the case of Silent Roar – which opened this year’s “special edition” of the Edinburgh International Film Festival (see the news) – they are probably appropriate. Dondo (Louis McCartney)…

With the exception of one narrative chiller and a look at singer Karen Carpenter, the best films I saw were documentaries on the lives and careers of significant African Americans. This year’s Woods Hole Film Festival presented a distinctive program of lesser seen narrative and documentary movies. With the exception of one narrative chiller and a look at singer Karen Carpenter, the best films I saw were documentaries on the lives and careers of significant African-Americans. Two of these were real eye-openers. Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project This is an impressionistic documentary on the life and work of the…

Originally premiering at this year’s Canne Film Festival, the new 4k restoration of Jean Grémillon’s Lady Killer (1937), aka Gueule d’amour (1937), is headed for the US, opening August 4th at Metrograph NYC where it will screen for a one-week engagement alongside the film The Strange Mister Victor (1938), a lesser-known film from Grémillon showing off its 4k restoration. Set in 1936, the film follows Lucien Bourrache (Jean Gabin, (Grand Illusion, Port of Shadows)), a handsome non-commissioned officer in the French Spahi. His looks, loose speech, and womanizing habits have earned him the roughish local nickname, “Gueule d’amour,” the “Mouth…

BOBI WINE: THE PEOPLE’S PRESIDENT, is documentary feature film about Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, famously known as Bobi Wine, who is a musician turned politician who is the current leader of the National Unity Platform (NUP) and the People Power MovementBorn in the slums of Kampala. Bobi Wine risks his life and the lives of his wife, Barbie, and their children to fight the ruthless regime led by Yoweri Museveni. Museveni has been in power since 1986 and changed Uganda’s constitution to enable him to run for yet another five-year term. Running in the country’s 2021 presidential elections, Bobi Wine uses…

New films from legendary documentarians Frederick Wiseman and Errol Morris and new work from directors Raoul Peck, Lucy Walker, Roger Ross Williams and Karim Amer will screen at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival, which announced its TIFF Docs lineup on Wednesday. The 93-year-old Wiseman will present the North American premiere of “Menus – Plaisirs Les Troisgros,” a four-hour deep dive into a fabled Michelin-starred restaurant in France. Morris will have the international premiere of “The Pigeon Tunnel,” which is built around a Morris interview with John le Carre that turned out to be the last interview the espionage novelist…

Sure we are about two weeks away from the official announcements for the films that will premiere on the Lido, but we are very much in the eleventh hour now with film teams making plans for waterways and gondola rides or… considering a different path that takes them to Toronto, Donostia-San Sebastian or they play the waiting game for Rotterdam, Sundance and the Berlinale. Artistic Directors in International Critics’ Week’s Beatrice Fiorentino (most likely 9 selections) and Giornate degli Autori’s Gaia Furrer (around 10 feature film selections) will have carved out their line-ups and will likely announce not too much…

On first glance Empty Nets may sound like a typical old-fashioned Iranian film with the oft-used tale of a poor boy in love with a rich girl.  However writer-director Behrooz Karamizadeh distinguishes his film from a flurry of other socially conscious love stories by instilling political overtones and adding a visual panache. Amir (newcomer Hamid Reza Abbasi) is working as a delivery boy for a catering company in a seaside town in northern Iran. His meagre pay just about supports himself while his mother, with whom he lives, earns a little bit by making and selling homemade pickles. Amir is in love…

The 57th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, a non-specialized festival with two competitive categories, took place from June 30th to July 8th. It was organized by Film Servis Festival Karlovy Vary, a.s., with Jiří Bartoška as the president of the festival, Karel Och as its artistic director, Kryštof Mucha as the executive director and Petr Lintimer as the head of production. The 58th Karlovy Vary IFF will be held from June 28th to July 6th 2024. On July 8th, the festival’s juries presented awards for the best films at the closing ceremony of the 57th Karlovy Vary IFF. CRYSTAL GLOBE COMPETITION Crystal…

Of Iran’s many problems, Western viewers may be most familiar with issues surrounding violence against women — most recently with the Woman, Life, Freedom movement and slogan following the death of Mahsa Amini — and freedom of speech, with the films of Jafar Pahani and the travel bans and imprisonment of thinkers and artists like him. Empty Nets [+], the debut feature by German-Iranian filmmaker Behrooz Karamizade, premiering in the Crystal Globe Competition of this year’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, shows that life in Iran can be difficult even when looking at more ordinary situations, away from the more extreme examples of oppression…