Author: CWB News Department

Jafar Panahi’s Taxi won Berlin’s prestigious Golden Bear earlier this year and the FIPRESCI International Critic’s Prize last week, and now Kino Lorber announced today it has acquired all North American rights to the film. It will be released theatrically in the fall.In the film, Panahi himself drives through Tehran with a camera set on the dashboard of a yellow cab and interviews the diverse characters that make up his fares.Panahi achieved international recognition with his feature film debut, The White Balloon, which won the Caméra d’Or at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival, the first major award won by an…

Hollywood – Feb 22 – Tonight IDA directed by Paweł Pawlikowski from Poland won Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. “Ida” (Poland), directed by Paweł Pawlikowski. As she prepares to take her vows, a young novitiate (Agata Trzebuchowska) who has grown up an orphan in a convent in post-war Poland learns that she is Jewish. She joins her aunt (a judicial official with a taste for liquor and men, played by Agata Kulesza) and sets off on a journey to uncover her parents’ fate,This haunting drama of self-discovery, shot in shimmering black and white, won the European Film Awards’ top prize…

(Reuters) – Banned Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s “Taxi,” which shows a cabby driving an odd assortment of people around Tehran but is really a condemnation of censorship, won the Golden Bear for best film on Saturday at the Berlin International Film Festival.The award, which the director was not in Berlin to accept, was hailed by German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier in a statement as “an important sign for the freedom of art.”On an Instagram account said to be Panahi’s, Iranian journalists at a post-awards news conference said he had posted a message in Farsi saying: “This is an important artistic…

Sleeper hit at this year’s Santa Barbara fest, Serbian director Darko Lungulov’s Monument to Michael Jackson was awarded today the top prize in the Eastern European (Eastern Bloc) competition. Festival’s executive director Roger Durling announced the winners earlier today at the Fess Parker hotel. “It is a great honor to win the award at such an amazing film event,” said Lungulov who attended the festivities. “International filmmakers have a great opportunity in Santa Barbara to present their work to highly educated and sensitive audience. I was so fortunate to have the U.S. premiere of my film at the Santa Barbara International…

A spur-of-the-moment trip to the South provided unexpected inspiration to filmmaker Vera Mulyani, who will be screening two short films and a new animation project on Feb. 9, 2015 at a fundraising event in Santa Monica.Following her passion for new creations, Mulyani traveled to Shreveport, La., for an inventors’ event. While there, Mulyani met the mayor of Shreveport, who was so impressed with her filmmaking background that he asked her to create a film to promote the city.Despite the city’s beauty, what struck Mulyani most was the poverty she observed — especially children trying to make a life in unimaginable…

Memoir films – what some have called diaristic or first-person documentaries – have a long and accomplished tradition in independent cinema. Among many standouts, one thinks of Alan Berliner’s ”Nobody’s Business,” (about a recalcitrant father), or Ira Wohl’s classic duet “Best Boy” and “Best Man” (about a challenged family with a severely retarded “man-child”). Other strong examples hail from Lithuanian-born filmmaker and World War II exile Jonas Meklas, whose 70-year film career essentially documents a relentless, lifelong quest to find a place to call home. Within this diary genre is a sub-genre of what might be dubbed the cancer documentary…

The 16th Scandinavian Film Festival L.A. (SFFLA) continues on January 24, 25 from across North Atlantic and Baltic waters offering its annual cargo of the representative “latest and best” of Nordic film with offerings from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden along with “Baltic Film Expo at SFFLA” adding films from Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia to the program of its annual “cinema cultural exchange” from the top of Europe at the Writers Guild Theater 135 S. Doheny in Beverly Hills,“Call it a cargo of culture, commerce, and collaboration,” says festival founder/director James Koenig. “And we have an exciting program that follows…

Academy Awards nominees for the Best Foreign Language Film Award for 2015 missed a great film: Corn Island. It is not difficult to guess that for many obvious reasons, Oscar most probably will go to Ida. There are no films from countries that have won most of the Oscars in this category in the past, France, Italy and Germany. “Ida” (Poland), directed by PaweÅ‚ Pawlikowski. As she prepares to take her vows, a young novitiate (Agata Trzebuchowska) who has grown up an orphan in a convent in post-war Poland learns that she is Jewish. She joins her aunt (a judicial…

The 16th Scandinavian Film Festival L.A. (SFFLA) sails into town Jan 17, 18, 24, 25 from across North Atlantic and Baltic waters offering its annual cargo of the representative “latest and best” of Nordic film with offerings from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden along with “Baltic Film Expo at SFFLA” adding films from Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia to the program of its annual “cinema cultural exchange” from the top of Europe at the Writers Guild Theater 135 S. Doheny in Beverly Hills,“Call it a cargo of culture, commerce, and collaboration,” says festival founder/director James Koenig. “And we have an exciting…

A Russian film, ‘Leviathan’, by renowned director Andrey Zvyagintsev has won the Golden Globe for best foreign language film, for the first time in almost 50 years.The feature is based on the Book of Job and puts it into a modern perspective, focusing on a man who attempts to contradict a powerful and corrupt mayor in a provincial Russian seaside town, after finding out that his house is going to be demolished. “Thank you, we are extremely happy! We are very grateful to the Hollywood press, to the public, we would like to thank you,” said Andrey Zvyagintsev.“We are very…