Author: CWB News Department

Over the past two decades, Belgian cinema, be it from Flanders or from the French speaking part of the country, has risen to prominence in the international filmmaking arena, boasting richly diverse films that consistently garner critical praise and worldwide anticipation. From the unsettling but still urgently relevant MAN BITES DOG which rocked the Cannes Film Festival in 1992 and the quirky and vibrant tale of identity mix-up in TOTO THE HERO, to the monumental saga of DAENS or the Oscar nominated EVERYBODY FAMOUS, the outstanding thrillers MEMORY OF A KILLER and DOSSIER K, and the string of critically-lauded dramatic…

ArcLight Cinemas is kicking off the first ArcLight Cinemas’ Documentary Film Festival, which offers talented, independent filmmakers a chance to share their work with fellow film-enthusiasts. The winning documentary producer will receive $10,000.In a film festival first, fans were asked to vote on trailers on the ArcLight Cinemas YouTube page. The top ten “most liked” trailers would be admitted into the film festival. The festival received over 150 entries that drew more than 100,000 views and more than 30,000 votes.The documentaries range in content and style as they take a deep look into the world of YouTube, the beginnings of…

New York, NY –Tickets are now on sale for the 5th Annual Other Israel Film Festival, which today announced its full program schedule. Taking place in New York City from November 10th – November 17th, the Other Israel Film Festival will present award-winning films and NY premieres by and about Arab citizens of Israel, as well as other minority populations in Israeli society. The festival goes beyond the films like no other major festival, with in-depth high profile conversations in the SpeakEasy Cafe. With the impending UN vote for a Palestinian state, this fall promises to place the Palestinian population…

MEDIAS, Romania — With Europe slouching toward its own version of The Great Recession and economists divining the death of the euro, you wouldn’t think heading to Romania to check out another first-time film festival would be in sync with the global gestalt. Who has the resources to cover such small fry anymore? And why should anyone care about yet another one of these local festivals, which are spawned mainly to be municipal coffer-fillers anyway? Although they’ll probably stick around longer than the euro, these get-togethers rarely offer movies with any “legs” that can “travel” to non-regional cinemas. But you’d…

Now you can watch. About Elly, another great Iranian film on GLBOX or glwiz.com. About Elly, a film by Asghar Farhadi won several international awards and was the Iranian selected film for the Best Foreign language Film Award at Oscars.Here is what Variety writes about this film: “About Elly,” the fourth feature from talented Iranian helmer-scribe Asghar Farhadi, casts a revealing light on the elaborate culture of deceit that’s part of modern Iranian society with this talky, overlong drama about upper-middle-class Tehranis on a catastrophic seaside holiday. Ironically, the domestic audience for whom the pic would be most appealing won’t…

The 12th Annual Polish Film Festiva,l Los Angeles has returned to Los Angeles and on Thursday October 20 you could attend the screening of short and feature films from Poland. All films will be screened at Laemmle’s Sunset 5 Theatre, 8000 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA, 90046 (323/848-3500). Thursday, October 19, 2011(in person: Balbina Korzeniowska, Ludek Drizhal) 5:00 PM Shorts:RAT (Szczur) by Piotr Tylko-Tylczynski (2010, 17 min.)RYSZARD by Mateusz Glowacki (2011, 26 min.)A MODERN DAY MATCHMAKING AFFAIR by Balbina Korzeniowska (2011, 7 min.)THE OUTCAST (Chce wstapic do policji) by Agnieszka Mania (2010, 29 min.) 7:00 PM HOLY BUSINESS (Swiety interes) by…

This year’s selection of recent Spanish cinema highlights everything from the most exuberant genre pieces to dramas notable for their restrained subtlety. Selections include Daniel Sanchez Arevalo’s comedy COUSINHOOD, about a trio of cousins on a pilgrimage back to the pueblo; Montxo Armendariz’s DON’T BE AFRAID starring Belen Rueda, which looks with intense yet wrenching care at the long-term effects of a young woman’s abusive upbringing; the nuanced and subversive ANYTHING YOU WANT from director Achero Manas and starring Juan Diego Botto, a gender-questioning family drama about a widowed man raising his young daughter; Pau Frexias’ FOREVER YOUNG, about a…

Over the past two decades, Belgian cinema, be it from Flanders or from the French speaking part of the country, has risen to prominence in the international filmmaking arena, boasting richly diverse films that consistently garner critical praise and worldwide anticipation. From the unsettling but still urgently relevant MAN BITES DOG which rocked the Cannes Film Festival in 1992 and the quirky and vibrant tale of identity mix-up in TOTO THE HERO, to the monumental saga of DAENS or the Oscar nominated EVERYBODY FAMOUS, the outstanding thrillers MEMORY OF A KILLER and DOSSIER K, and the string of critically-lauded dramatic…

The Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles pays homage to one of the most exciting eras in the history of Italian cinema with its photographic exhibition “The Neo-Realist Moment: Film Frames 1941-1952.” With 37 emotionally poignant images extracted from Italian Neo-Realist films, the black and white photographs on display range from the unforgettable Anna Magnani in the final scene of Rossellini’s “Roma Città Aperta” (Rome, Open City), to the feminine figures dressed in black in Visconti’s “Terra Trema” (The Earth Shakes), and finally to the desolate gaze of Lamberto Maggiorani in De Sica’s “Ladri di Biciclette” (The Bicycle Thief). The…

The Los Angeles Irish Film Festival has announced the program for the 2011 Los Angeles Irish Film Festival (Thursday, September 29 through Sunday, October 2, 2011) including the U.S. premiere of “Dreaming the Quiet Man” and the West Coast premiere of “The Swell Season”. On Opening Night, the festival will also honor the renowned Irish actress Fionnula Flanagan (“The Guard,” “The Others,” “Waking Ned Devine,” “Some Mother’s Son”) accompanied by a special screening of Sony Classics’ critically acclaimed box office hit “The Guard,” a comedic thriller written and directed by John Michael McDonagh (“Ned Kelly”), starring Brendan Gleeson, Don Cheadle…