Author: CWB News Department

Times are tough for the characters in “Tales,” a Venice Film Festival entry from Iranian director Rakhshan Bani-Etemad. Jobs are scarce, prices are high and drug addiction claims too many young people.One of 20 films competing for the festival’s Golden Lion prize, “Tales” is a series of fictional vignettes set among struggling residents of Tehran – indebted cabbies, impoverished pensioners, unemployed factory workers.The movie never makes the cause of their woes explicit, but the director says she wanted to show the harm that Western sanctions over Iran’s nuclear program were doing to ordinary people.”The economic situation in Iran is critical,…

The following is September calendar of screenings at Echo Park Film Center (workshops still to be announced!). Shows begin promptly @ 8 PM and are $5 suggested donation (unless otherwise noted). EPFC’s microcinema is supported in part by grants from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. Thursday, September 4 – OPEN SCREEN – 8 PMIt’s our cinematic free-for-all, daring you to share your film with the feisty EPFC audience. Any genre! Any style! New, old, work-in-progress! First come, first screened; one film per filmmaker; 10-minute maximum. DVD, VHS, mini-DV, DV-CAM, Super 8, standard…

Los Angeles, CA — Sundance Institute invites Los Angeles-area filmmakers to its first day-long ShortsLab focusing on short-form documentary, taking place September 13 at the Cinefamily.ShortsLab L.A. offers filmmakers the opportunity to participate in an intensive one-day seminar of screenings and discussions with firsthand insight and access into the world of short-form documentary story development, production and exhibition. Among the featured speakers are filmmakers Rodney Ascher (Room 237), Academy Award nominee Kirby Dick (The Invisible War), Lauren Greenfield (The Queen of Versailles), AJ Schnack (Kurt Cobain: About a Son) and Academy Award nominee Lucy Walker (The Crash Reel), as well…

New York – Martin Scorsese, Chair of The Film Foundation, issued the following statement in support of the announcement of Kodak’s decision to continue its production of film stock: We have many names for what we do – cinema, movies, motion pictures. And…film. We’re called directors, but more often we’re called filmmakers. Filmmakers. I’m not suggesting that we ignore the obvious: HD isn’t coming, it’s here. The advantages are numerous: the cameras are lighter, it’s much easier to shoot at night, we have many more means at our disposal for altering and perfecting our images. And, the cameras are more affordable:…

Berlin/Sao Paulo, 1 August 2014 – Berlin based international sales and production outfit, Picture Tree International (PTI), has secured the global distribution rights for the Paulo Coelho biopic “The Pilgrim – the Best Story of Paulo Coelho” from Brazilian production house CUATRO DAMA FILMES. Undoubtedly one of the most accomplished literary figures of the century, Coelho’s 30 novels have been translated into 80 languages, distributed in 224 countries and sold over 165 million copies. Many know the author of “The Alchemist” as an international celebrity, with faithful followers in the four corners of the world. What only few know is…

Norwegian director Bent Hamer’s new feature joins Liv Ullmann’s Miss Julie for world premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival Norwegian director Bent Hamer’s new drama, 1001 Grams (1001 gram), starring Ane Dahl Torp, will have its world premiere in the Masters sidebar for “the most inspiring, audacious, and original filmmakers working in cinema today” at the 39th Toronto International Film Festival, which runs between 4-14 September. 1001 Grams follows a recently divorced, work-obsessed woman scientist in her late 30s, who goes to a seminar in Paris about the actual weight of the kilogram. She falls in love with a French colleague,…

On July 30, 2014, German film director, screenwriter and media artist Harun Farocki died at the age of 70. Harun Farocki was one of the world’s most important representatives of documentary film and media art. The vast majority of his cinematic works are documentaries and experimental films that reflect on the exploration of social and political realities.Over the years six of his films have been presented in the programme of the Forum of the Berlin International Film Festival. Other productions have screened in the Berlinale Special and Retrospective. Among these were: Etwas wird sichtbar (Before Your Eyes, 1982), Bilder der…

LOS ANGELES, Calif. – July 31, 2014 – The first Indonesian film festival in Los Angeles is set to be held on September 3rd & 4th at The Regent Theater in Westwood Village. This 2-Day Festival will screen a number of critically praised feature films and a compilation of short films to showcase Indonesian talents and beauty.Besides inviting the film enthusiasts in L.A. to attend the screening of Indonesian feature and short films, LAIFF also invites the people who work in the film industry to join its workshop program. Focusing on the industry growth and Indonesia as an exquisite location…

July 30th, 2014 (New York, NY) – Drafthouse Films and the Film Society of Lincoln Center are thrilled to announce the Gallery opening of The Dog: Images of a Real Bad Boy – Photographs By Marcia Resnick, in conjunction with the theatrical release of Allison Berg and Frank Keraudren’s documentary The Dog.On Wednesday, August 6th at 7:00pm the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s The Furman Gallery at the Walter Reade Theater will premiere photos taken by Marcia Resnick of The Dog himself, John Wojtowicz, the inspiration for Al Pacino’s character in Dog Day Afternoon, at his most candid in the…

Great Neck, NY (July 30, 2014) – From November 3-9, 2014 the Gold Coast Arts Center in collaboration with the Town of North Hempstead will present the 4th annual Gold Coast International Film Festival (GCIFF), and everyone’s invited—again—to join us for fantastic films, parties, panels, and fanfare!The feature films at the Festival are curated and the category is not open to individual submissions; however there is still room for the very best in short films to make the cut and submissions are being accepted at the website at www.goldcoastfilmfestival.org through the online platform Film Freeway.Short film awards include both a…