Author: World Cinema Reports' Editors

It’s been a year since Cristyn Steward launched the Columbus Black International Film Festival. Does running a film festival get easier in its second year? In a word: No. “It’s easier in terms of navigating what needs to get done and how and when,” Steward says. “This year it was more of that. I know what needs to go into this to make this great, so what can I add to it to make it better?” But she says things became more challenging because the festival is growing. “We have more films, we have more people interested in what we’re…

Several years ago, residents of Roudbar village in northern Iran learned that the existence of their hamlet would be sacrificed to what the Iranian government deemed a higher good: the construction of a dam to produce electricity for the regional grid. https://vimeo.com/285591514 In their documentary film, “Stoppage Dam,” — the second-place winner of the Yale Environment 360 Video Contest — videographers Yaser Talebi and Mitra Roohimanesh speak with villagers who lament their relocation to a barren settlement and the government’s inadequate compensation scheme, which doesn’t begin to cover the cost of building new homes. The Clourd Dam was completed recently; many of…

Ezzatollah Entezami, one of the most prominent actors of the Iranian cinema and theater, has passed away at the age of 94. Born in 1924, he started his theater career in his 20s and later moved to Hanover, Germany, to study theater and cinema in a boarding school. After graduation in 1958, he returned to his homeland and appeared in over 50 feature films, a number of TV series, and dozens of plays. Entezami was the first-ever Iranian actor to win an international award. In 1971, he received the Chicago International Film Festival’s Silver Hugo for Best Actor for his…

Based in Strasbourg, France, the European Audiovisual Observatory is set to take the pulse of the current Russian cinema industry and look at the challenges and chances offered by this dynamic film market. It will hold a conference within the KINO EXPO and St. Petersburg International Content Forum events in St. Petersburg, Russia on September 19, 2018 from 2:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Entry is free, registration to KINO EXPO is not necessary and the conference languages will be English and Russian with translation. All media professionals, journalists, and academics are welcome to attend the conference, which will be opened…

WIM Wenders has been given access to Pope Francis and produced a film that gives the viewer a line that tends to reiterate what many feel is known already – namely, he is the most likeable and progressive Pontiff, well, ever. Called Pope Francis: A Man of His Word, it doesn’t so much tell us about what it’s like to be given such a job, but give him space to talk about inequality and social justice. The interview is hardly Paxman-esque, but still offers an insight as to being the head of the Catholic church today. https://youtu.be/MOmY8i-uBcY • The Negotiator, starring Jon…

The 7th edition of the Persian International Film Festival, which will be held in the Australian cities of Sidney and Melbourne, has announced the official lineup. The Sidney program will be held from August 30 to September 2 and Melbourne will host the festival from September 6 to 9, the organizers have said. “A Man of Integrity”, a drama by Mohammad Rasulof, will open the festival, which will go on with “Redhead” directed by Karim Lakzadeh, “Dressage” by Puya Badkubeh, and “Advantage” by Mohamad Kart. https://youtu.be/LNtKDFzWw5U “Disappearance” by Ali Asgari, “The Charmer” by Milad Alam, “Privacy” by Ahmad Moazzemi, and…

M. Karunanidhi, five-time chief minister of Tamil Nadu and one of the dominant figures in the politics of southern India for half a century, died on Tuesday at the age of 94. An outspoken atheist in a country where politicians often trumpet their piety, Karunanidhi built his political machine as a crusader for social justice, with policies aimed at helping those at the bottom of India’s rigid Hindu caste hierarchy. Thousands of his supporters gathered outside the hospital in Chennai to mourn his demise, as scores of policemen kept watch. Roads outside the hospital and at Karunanidhi’s residence were packed…

IBC2018 visitors will also get a chance to get their hands on ZHIYUN’s award-winning products including: CRANE 2: The world’s first three-axis camera stabilizer with follow focus control was named Winner of the 2018 Red Dot Design Award. Designed for DSLRs weighing up to 3.2kg (7.05lbs), such as the Canon EOS, the CRANE 2 integrates 32-bit × 3 high-speed MCU parallel control technology, which realizes film-grade smoothness and unrivalled stable performance. CRANE 2 was also recognized as outstanding by Australia’s Good Design Award 2018 as Winner in the Product Design category. CRANE PLUS: As a more economic option to prosumers…

Like the recent Brazilian film Araby, Dominican writer-director Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias’s Cocote grafts a fictional narrative onto the sturdy stock of documentary filmmaking. Here, the story concerns Alberto (Vicente Santos), a gardener for a wealthy upper-class family in Santo Domingo who’s forced to return to his remote rural hometown of Oviedo when he receives word of his father’s recent murder by decapitation in retaliation for unpaid debts. (The film’s title refers to the nape of the neck, thus to the wounds inflicted on Alberto’s father.) Tensions quickly arise within Alberto’s family due to the moral and theological conflicts between Alberto’s…

A lot of elements go into making a good movie, but expensive equipment doesn’t necessarily have to be one of them. That’s according to organizers of the Queens World Film Festival, who insists you only need two things to film like the pros: A smartphone and the training on how to use it. They’re giving the latter away for free at a pop-up film school in Jackson Heights on Sept. 15. “You can make a very high quality piece of content, if not a full film, with your cellphone if you understand the apps out there and how to use…