Kazakhstan’s official entry to the Academy Awards this year, the oscar nominated Genghis Kahn bio-pic, “Mongol”, directed by Sergei Bodrov, took home six Nika Awards on Friday, including an award for best film of the year.Mr. Bodrov, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Arif Aliyev, won the Nika for best director. “Mongol” also won awards for best cinematography, sound design, art direction, and costumes. Mongol beat out a slate of strong slate of Russian films nominated for best picture, including “Simple Things”, “Cargo 200”, “Traveling With Pets”, and “The Mermaid”.The other top awards of the night included best screenplay for…
Author: CWB News Department
The Oscar nominated animated feature, “Persepolis”, will be coming back to a select number of theaters in April, this time in English. Released by Sony Pictures Classics, the English version will reach 100 screens nationwide on April 11. Originally in French, the film by Iranian writer Marjane Satrapi, who also co-directed with Vincent Paronnaud, was released in December in a limited number of theaters. Satrapi and Paronnaud directed the English actors while the original French version was being completed. “Persepolis”, based on Satrapi’s internationally best selling autobiographical graphic novel, tells the story of a young girl growing up in Iran…
Lisa Jackson’s, The Greatest Silence: Rape In The Congo, which won the Sundance Special Jury Prize, began its world tour on the opening night of the One World Human Rights Documentary Film Festival in Prague. It is being reported that the film, produced in association with HBO Documentary Films and the Fledgling Fund, played to a packed, standing-room-only audience for both its screenings.After seeing the film, the director of the One World festival, Igor BlaževiÄ, began a donation fund to assist the women of the DRC. The festival’s organizer, People in Need, then announced that it is donating $10,000 to…
Director Sarah Polley’s “Away From Her” took home virtually all the major prizes at Canada’s Genie awards ceremony this past week. Held by the Academy Of Canadian Cinema & Television, the 28th annual Genie Award ceremony honors the best achievements in Canadian film over the past year. This year’s ceremony was held on March 3rd.The top prize of the night, Best Motion Picture, was awarded to “Away From Her”. The film—about the story of a woman undergoing symptoms of Alzheimer’s, and the love and sacrifices that it takes for her husband to cope with her disease—was nominated for two Academy…
For the fifth time the international Francophone TV channel TV5MONDE, official partner of the Berlin International Film Festival, the Berlinale and the German-French Youth Office (FGYO) have asked German and French film fans to apply for the jury to award the prize “Dialogue en perspective”. Now the seven cineastes who will enjoy the Berlinale 2008 as jury members have been selected. At the end of this year’s Berlin International Film Festival they will present the prize “Dialogue en perspective” to their favourite film of the Berlinale section Perspektive Deutsches Kino. As in former years it was once again a challenge…
This year’s Luis Buñuel Retrospective will commence and conclude at the Volksbühne with two special presentations focusing on Buñuel’s famous directorial debut: his silent film Un chien andalou (France 1929) is to be screened four times, and each time it will be accompanied live by different works of contemporary music. On February 9, 2008, Un chien andalou will be shown alongside another masterpiece of surrealistic film, Jean Epstein’s La chute de la maison Usher (The Fall of the House of Usher, France 1928), on which Buñuel worked as assistant director. Both films will be presented in restored versions and accompanied…
January 2, 2008 (New York, NY) – Film Movement (www.filmmovement.com), announced that ADAM’S APPLES, a black comedy from Denmark & Burkina Faso/French Drama, DREAMS OF DUST will be available on DVD beginning Tuesday, January 8, 2008.The DVD will be available at Film Movement (www.filmmovement.com), and also through major retailers such as Blockbuster, Amazon, Netflix and at Passion River Films (www.passionriver.com).Adam’s Apple is the story of Ivan is an insanely optimistic preacher who takes in convicts to help around the remote, rural church he ministers to. His current charges are a psychotic Saudi immigrant addicted to robbing gas stations and an…
Legendary 20 time Emmy winner Phil Donahue comes to Palm Springs Int’l Film Festival with his National Board of Review Award Winner for Best Doc 2007 and Best Doc Audience Winner (Toronto/Hamptons Fests) Body of War; New Korean master Lee Chang-Dong brings his Cannes Best Actress winning feature Secret Sunshine (official Oscar entry from Korea); young Serbian Srdjan Golubovic directs suspenseful neo-film noir The Trap (official Oscar entry from Serbia); Milcho Manchevski, previous Oscar nominee for Before the Rain, unveils his supernatural, sexy, revealing work in Shadows (official Oscar entry from Macedonia).Body Of WarDirected by Ellen Spiro & Phil Donahue…
Tehran Times – The Iranian film “10+4” by Mania Akbari shared the Best Director Award with the Argentinean film “XXY” by Lucia Puenzo at the 12th International Film Festival of Kerala which was held from December 7 until 14 in India. 10+4 features the character Mania, a woman suffering from cancer, and depicts how the illness ultimately affects her life. The film’s psychological theme is the discovery of hope even at times of utter despair. Celebrated Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi was amongst the members of the gala’s jury. The films competed in several sections entitled Competition (restricted to films produced…
The German director and producer Peter Sehr will be jury president of the award “Dialogue en perspective” at the 58th Berlin International Film Festival. In 2008, the independent jury prize will be awarded for the fifth time to a film in the Berlinale section Perspektive Deutsches Kino. It will also be the fifth year of the partnership between the Berlin International Film Festival and the francophone TV channel TV5MONDE, which is awarding the prize in co-operation with the German-French Youth Office (FGYO). One special feature of the award is that the jury will consist of seven German and French film…