Author: World Cinema Reports' Editors

The 2018 Toronto International Film Festival is just around the corner with hundreds of features, short films and documentaries from around the world. TIFF also has virtual reality experiences, conferences, presentations by legendary directors and even a few parties beginning Sept. 6 and running through Sept. 16. This “festival of festivals” began in 1976 and has grown to be one of the premiere festivals in the world as both seasoned filmmakers and up-and-comers walk the red carpet and wait for the audience’s reactions to their creations. Thom Firzgerald’s newest film, “Splinters,” will make its world debut at TIFF, and I had…

Errol Morris’ look at Steve Bannon, Alexis Bloom’s dissection of Roger Ailes, and James Longley’s unflinching portrait of life in war-torn Afghanistan are just a few of the politically charged documentaries that will screen as part of this year’s New York Film Festival. The annual gathering for cinephiles and Oscar hopefuls has unveiled the complete lineup for its Spotlight on Documentary section, and it’s filled with some of the biggest names in non-fiction filmmaking. These directors are turning their cameras not just on agitprop masters and geopolitical hotspots, they’re also highlighting artistic giants, social justice champions, and off-beat fashion photographers. The…

No Date, No Signature, the new movie from director Vahid Jalilvand, is an engrossing family drama that feels quite similar to Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation, which won the Oscar and may prove prophetic come awards time this year. Both Iranian films detail gripping tales involving families that become undone by bad luck and human frailty. In Jalilvand’s film, the car of Dr. Nariman (Amir Aghaee) hits a family riding on a motorbike. The accident causes the mother and father on the bike (David Mohammadzadeh and Hediyeh Tehrani) to begin an argument and check the health of their two children, who were…

Movie-goers to a special film screening will be helping Syrian refugees build a kitchen garden half a world away. Timaru is getting an extra film from the New Zealand International Film Festival’s line-up to raise funds for the charity Syria’s Forgotten Families. The one-off screening, of Lebanon film The Insult, is scheduled for 7pm on September 4, four days after the conclusion of the film festival at local cinema Movie Max. Fundraiser co-organizer Jayne Blakemore said money made from selling tickets at $20 would go towards providing the basics of a small kitchen garden for refugee families living in a camp in…

Under the lively direction of Christian Sida-Valenzuela, the Vancouver Latin American Film Festival returns for its 16th year with a roster of solid festival hits and a handful of more challenging titles. Opening the festival on Thursday (August 23) at SFU Woodward’s, small-town tale Retablo sets the tone for this year’s focus on the Andean cinema of Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador. Told partly in the Quechua language, Retablo also happens to square with VLAFF’s interest in Indigenous and queer subject matter, further explored in its Indigenous Films From BC and Beyond series—featuring the tough but astonishing DTES-located mini-doc, “The Still Life of Harley Prosper”—and…

Few would have dared touch Delphine de Vigan’s bestseller, Based on a True Story, with a ten-foot pole. Hailed as gloriously “un-adaptable” – warning off salivating directors everywhere – translating the introspective ‘autobiographical novel’ to the big screen seemed tantamount to career suicide. That is, for lesser filmmakers than Roman Polanski. And he’s coaxed quite the thrill-fest out of the original. Crippled by writer’s block after the double-edged response to her last book, Delphine is on the brink of depression when she crosses paths with L, a bewitching ghostwriter. The parasitic woman wastes no time in making herself insidiously indispensable by…

Auth The first Danube Film Festival (DFF) was officially opened yesterday with the screening of the film that also opened the Cannes Film Festival called “Everyone Knows” by Asghar Farhadi, staring Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem. At the first DFF, a total of 35 films made by the filmmakers from 10 Danube countries will take place in different locations. The Festival’s guest host is Jugoslav Pantelic, the Yugoslav Cinematheque Director and Artistic Director of FEST, with eight films competing, including the Hungarian “The Whiskey Bandit” by Nimrod Antal, “The Lemonade# by Romanian director Joanna Uricaru, “The Interpreter” by Martin Sulik…

Yeganeh Taheri, a graduated as a film editor from School of Television and Cinema in 1980 and left Iran for Germany in 1989 where she started her career as a stage actress. Yeganeh’s first performance on stage was with Farhad Majedabadi in A House in a suitcase.  This was followed by a few puppet shows for kids in TV with Nargess Vafadar (The stories of Ghandi and his Mother & Jewel Box)  and two other acting performance directed by Nilufar Beyzaee (Marjan, Mani and a few small problems & Face to face at the threshold of the cold season). Yeganeh Taheri…

Angelena Bonet, founder and CEO of her companies Crystal Heart Productions and Crystal Heart Records, has won another three prestigious Awards of Recognition from the IndieFEST Film Awards and The Accolade Global Film Competition. One award was given for Bonet’s biopic documentary feature film “Angelena: Change The World” in the Liberation/Social Justice/Protest category and two awards for “Tragic Fairytale” in the Best Music Video category. Bonet has created three documentary films thus far, including the soundtracks, which she has written, directed, edited and produced in their entirety. https://youtu.be/ozal73tDn-M Angelena Bonet’s multi-award winning documentary feature film “Angelena: Change The World” and documentary short film “Change The World” both feature the soundtrack she co-wrote from her heart…

To contrast Franklin J. Schaffner’s 1973 Papillon with its remake is to underscore certain differences between commercial films of two distinct generations. The original is the sort of pungent prison drama that could have only been made in America in the late 1960s or ’70s, as it evinces a grasp of detail and cruelty that’s almost entirely absent in contemporary mainstream cinema. Michael Noer’s remake is more generic and romantic, with a duller sense of character and setting. It’s a reasonably diverting genre exercise, but Schaffner’s original humbles it by every criterion of excellence. https://youtu.be/5UnbHKp1cQo Also based on the novel by Henri…