Jakarta. The two-day Akatara Indonesian Film Financing Forum, jointly held by the Creative Economy Agency, or Bekraf, and the Indonesian Film Council, or BPI, kicked off on Wednesday (15/11) at the Grand Mercure Hotel Harmoni in Central Jakarta, featuring 40 film projects. Akatara itself is Bekraf’s inaugural film pitching and business matchmaking event. The projects, whose budgets ranged from Rp 20 million- Rp 20 billion ($1.48 million), are set to be pitched to 50 local and foreign participating investors and other buyers, such as distribution and exhibition agents. Out of the 40 films, 12 special projects were presented, 10 of which…
Author: World Cinema Reports' Editors
Paramount Pictures has announced a partnership with a number of big names in the virtual reality industry to create a virtual reality cinema experience. The first movie to be shown in the specialized application will be Top Gun 3D, but if successful, this could pave the way for big movie releases to take place simultaneously in VR and in real-world cinema locations. To make the cinema experience possible, Paramount has partnered with Bigscreen, the developer of the virtual LAN party and movie watching application of the same name. Bigscreen been enabling multiple VR headset owners to hang out in virtual…
Renowned Iranian director Majid Majidi’s Beyond the Clouds, which marks his foray into Indian cinema, will raise the curtains at the controversy-ridden International Film Festival of India (IFFI) on November 20. The film, which stars actor Shahid Kapoor’s brother Ishaan Khattar in his big screen debut and Malayalam actor Malavika Mohanan, has been entirely shot in India with the local cast and crew. Oscar winner AR Rahman has composed its music. Beyond the Clouds revolves around the adoration of love, life and human relationships between a brother and sister which takes place in the ever bustling city of Mumbai. It…
For years, Iran has proved a formidable force in Middle-Eastern cinema. After Majid Majidi’s Children of Heaven lost out to Roberto Benigni’s Life Is Beautiful for Best Foreign Language Film Oscar 1998, Asghar Farhadi eventually emerged as the shining light of Iranian cinema. Cementing himself as the most recognisable name in Persian production of recent times,Farhadi has single-handedly catapulted Iran back onto the world stage not once but twice this decade. Winning the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar for A Separation (2011), Iran and Farhadi again won Best Foreign Language Film at this year’s Academy Awards with The Salesman (2016), an inclusion in last year’s festival. Despite no works…
On November 15th, Butterfly Buzz will present the premiere collaboration of Israeli singer, Yasmin Levy, together with three Iranian guest artists Faramarz Aslani, Shahrokh Moshkin Ghalam and Hamed Nikpay at The Theatre at Ace Hotel DTLA, a delicately restored 1920’s movie palace originated by Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin in the heart of historic downtown Los Angeles. Yasmin Levy is an internationally celebrated singer-songwriter, deeply steeped in the traditions of Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) music, a disappearing musical legacy of the Sephardic Jewish communities driven from Spain in the late 15th century. Her unique style includes a wide range of influences with…
Iranian film maker Mostafa Taghizadeh’s ‘Yellow’ will be the inaugural film of the 23rd Kolkata International Film Festival where films from 53 countries will be screened and UK will be the ‘focus country’. Jean-Luc Godard’s ‘The Rise and Fall of a Small Film Company (Grandeur et Decadence d’un Petit Commerce de Cinema), which had been made for French Television in 1986 and released in cinematic format in October this year in France, will be screened in cinematic format in 23rd KIFF. The 23rd KIFF will be held from November 10 to 17. https://youtu.be/95gnvoa4xhw “This will be the first time that…
Indigenous voices from around the world arrive at Event Cinemas George Street as Winda Film Festival returns for a second year. Nine feature films from Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the USA will screen, as well as 33 short films grouped into four sessions. Winner of major prizes at the Venice and Toronto Film Festivals, Warwick Thornton’s western Sweet Country will open the festival, while closing night’s After the Apology is a documentary exploring the increased number of Indigenous child removals since the days of the Stolen Generation. From the USA comes Mankiller, a powerful documentary about Wilma Mankiller, who defied sexism to emerge as the Cherokee Nation’s first female Principal…
Building on the surprising success of his English language debut The Lobster, Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos puts a further deadpan spin on the horror genre with his new film The Killing of a Sacred Deer, a fatalistic and at times morbidly funny tale in which the sins of a father are visited upon his family in bizarre and horrifying ways. A Greek tragedy transplanted to the decorous environs of New York’s bourgeois professional classes, it stars Colin Farrell as Steven Murphy, a heart surgeon with a seemingly picture-perfect life. His wife Anna (Nicole Kidman) is a successful optometrist and their…
The Square, directed by Ruben Östlund, is the Swedish selection for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. Here at Cinema Without Borders we agree with most of the world cinema film critics that The Square has a good chance to be among the final five nominees for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. The Square tells the story of Christian, a respected curator of a contemporary art museum, a divorced but devoted father of two who drives an electric car and supports good causes. His next show is “The Square”, an installation which invites passersby to altruism, reminding them of their role…
A film shot in Christchurch by celebrated Iranian director Reza Dormishian will debut at a Brazilian film festival this month. Dormishian made his fourth film, which is set in the aftermath of the 2011 Canterbury earthquakes, during his time in Christchurch in late 2015. He was in Christchurch as part of the Vincent Ward Prize, a University of Canterbury scholarship for visionary film directors. The scholarship was awarded to the director at the Shanghai International Film Festival for his social realist film I’m Not Angry. The film is called White Chairs and is the story of love between two young…