Author: CWB News Department

Park City, UT–The Jury, Audience, NEXT! and other special award-winners of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival were announced tonight at the Festival’s Awards Ceremony hosted by Tim Blake Nelson (star of Flypaper which premiered in this year’s Premieres section) in Park City, Utah. Highlights from the Awards Ceremony can be seen on the Festival website, www.sundance.org/festival. Films receiving Jury Awards were selected from four categories: U.S. Dramatic Competition, U.S. Documentary Competition, World Cinema Dramatic Competition and World Cinema Documentary Competition. All films in competition were also eligible for Sundance Film Festival Audience Awards as selected by Festival audiences. The U.S. Audience…

With focus on the universal themes of revenge and love and the topical themes of the delinquency and desensitization of anguished youth, “Confessions” is a showcase for top Japanese stage, film and television actress Takako Matsu who plays the lead role of a middleschool teacher who accuses students in her class of murdering her young daughter. Following the disturbing accusation, the teacher avows that the students will pay for their actions for the rest of their lives; her ultimate revenge reaches the bottom depths of their already damaged psyches.Last week we interviewed Genki Kawamura, the producer of “Confessions”.Cinema Without Borders:…

Park City, UT –The 2011 Sundance Film Festival this evening announced the jury prizes in shorts filmmaking and gave honorable mentions based on outstanding achievement and merit. The awards were presented at a ceremony held in Park City, Utah. These award recipients will also be honored at the Festival’s Awards Ceremony hosted by Sundance Alum Tim Blake Nelson on Saturday, January 29. The 2011 Short Film jurors are Barry Jenkins (director, writer, Medicine for Melancholy); Kim Morgan (Film and Culture writer, Sunset Gun, The Hitlist) and Sara Bernstein (Vice president, HBO Documentary films; supervising producer, Baghdad ER, White Light, Black Rain:…

Santa Barbara, CA — The 26th Annual Santa Barbara Film Festival will honor the cast of THE KING’S SPEECH as the best motion picture ensemble of the year, it was announced today by SBIFF Executive Director Roger Durling. The film, which features performances by an award-winning collection of actors including Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham Carter, Guy Pearce, Derek Jacobi and Claire Bloom, has garnered critical and industry-wide acclaim, recently winning the Producer’s Guild of America’s Best Picture of the Year Award. The honor will be bestowed on Monday, January 31 at Santa Barbara’s historic Arlington Theatre, as part of…

New York – EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP, the self-tagged “world’s first street art disaster movie”, took the top award at the 2011 Cinema Eye Honors for Nonfiction Filmmaking tonight at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, New York.The film, directed by the acclaimed and provocative British artist Banksy and produced by Jaimie D’Cruz, was named the year’s Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking. EXIT also won the Cinema Eye for Outstanding Editing for Chris King and Tom Fulford.Filmmaker Laura Poitras received the Outstanding Achievement in Direction award for her work on THE OATH, which follows the surprisingly…

The 12th Annual Scandinavian Film Festival L.A. continues this weekend–Jan 15, 16 with twelve more “hot films from the cold North.” Drama, action, adventure, animation, a “jaw-dropping” documentary, and, even laughter! “Yes, there are Nordic comedies!” says Festival Founder/Director James Koenig. “While some Nordic films scratch the under-belly of human experience and tough subjects like incest, abuse, addiction, every possible trauma from diapers to dementia, others embrace the things that keep us human– love, laughter, loyalty, sex, and survival, andadrenalin packed adventure.”Saturday opens with the final exciting film from the Millennium Trilogy THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST. Koenig…

This coming Saturday Jan 8 -there will be an screening of Mamma Gogo at the opening day of the 12th Annual Scandinavian Film Festival L.A. Momentum for veteran Icelandic Director Fridrik Thor Fridriksson’s MAMMA GOGO is mounting after a wonderful New York Times review put the film center stage in the race for Foreign Language Film nomination. The film finds the world of cinema converging with Alzheimer’s and the Icelandic economic collapse in a poignant and comic drama that engages cognitive and economic crisis in “pas de troi” with a film makers daily ups, downs, and dilemmas. Fridriksson received an…

The 36th annual Los Angeles Film Critics Association awards ceremony will be held Saturday, January 15 at the InterContinental, Los Angeles. As previously announced, Paul Mazursky will receive the 2010 Career Achievement Award.Award winners are:PICTURE: “The Social Network”. Runner-up: “Carlos”. DIRECTOR: Olivier Assayas, “Carlos,” and David Fincher, “The Social Network” (tie). ACTOR: Colin Firth, “The King’s Speech”.Runner-up: Edgar Ramirez, “Carlos”.ACTRESS: Kim Hye-ja, “Mother.”Runner-up: Jennifer Lawrence, “Winter’s Bone”.SUPPORTING ACTOR: Niels Arestrup, “A Prophet”.Runner-up: Geoffrey Rush, “The King’s Speech”.SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Jacki Weaver, “Animal Kingdom”.Runner-up: Olivia Williams, “The Ghost Writer”.SCREENPLAY: Aaron Sorkin, “The Social Network”.Runner-up: David Seidler, “The King’s Speech”FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: “Carlos” Runner-up:…

The beginning of July marks the official start of the Hubert Bals Fund (HBF) and Jan Vrijman Fund (JVF) Cinema Mondial Tour in Tanzania, then one day later in Rwanda. The two funds, which provide support to filmmakers in developing countries, have set up a joint film programme that will tour film festivals in Africa until March 2011. The film programme consists of a total of 12 fiction films and documentaries, all made with support from the Hubert Bals Fund and the Jan Vrijman Fund, respectively.Cinema Mondial Tour in AfricaThe films included in the programme come from various African countries,…

Palm Springs, CA (June 14, 2010) – The 2010 Palm Springs International ShortFest announced its roster of 314 films, selected from more than 3,000 worldwide entries. Now in its 16th year, ShortFest will showcase 58 World Premieres, 55 North American Premieres and 24 U.S. Premieres. The selection of films for screening and competition features star-studded casts and award-winning films from 43 countries around the world. All selections are structured into 52 themed programs, which will screen June 22-28, at the Camelot Theatres in Palm Springs, CA. See attached or visit www.psfilmfest.org for a complete list of this year’s film programs.Commenting…