ANIMATION IS FILM FESTIVAL is a major animation festival produced by GKIDS in collaboration with Annecy International Animation Film Festival, Variety, and ASIFA Hollywood. The inaugural event takes place October 20-22, 2017 at the historic Mann’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood (TCL Chinese 6 Theater) and features a highly selective showcase of the best animated films from around the world, plus red carpet, filmmaker Q&As, special events, receptions, short film programs, VR Lounge, and both juried and audience awards. https://youtu.be/YjoPsMc3UqU ANIMATION IS FILM fills a gap in the market by launching a world class animation festival in the US, with its…
Author: World Cinema Reports' Editors
Three films from Iran, ‘No Date, No Signature’, ‘A Man of Integrity’ and ‘The Skier’ have earned nominations at the 11th Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA), slated for November 23 in Australia. Actor Navid Mohammadzadeh has been nominated by the jury panel in the category of the best performance by an actor for his role in the film ‘No Date, No Signature’ directed by Vahid Jalilvand; Mohammad Rasoulof’s acclaimed movie ‘A Man of Integrity’ is nominated for the best feature film award and ‘The Skier’, directed by Fereydoun Jafari, is nominated for the best youth feature film, cinematicket.org reported. Established…
The Maryland Film Festival and PNC Bank are paying homage to Hispanic Heritage Month by hosting the Latin American Visionary Cinema series. Screenings began on Sept. 16 and will continue through Oct. 15. The series includes screenings of 12 films from filmmakers across the Latin American community. These films span an array of genres and represent 10 countries. Many of them are also films that were not widely distributed in theaters across the U.S., so this series was an opportunity for audiences to view films that they may not have had access to otherwise. The series includes four films by…
Under president Park Geun-hye, thousands of people and organizations working in the arts in South Korea found themselves on a government blacklist over work that appeared critical of the conservative government. The targets of the government’s crackdown included some of the most revered names in the arts in the country, and one of Asia’s top film events, the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF). With many artists cut off from vital public funding, and authorities discouraging the showing of their work, the film festival became embroiled in a battle over its independence that divided the country’s film-makers. The event’s executive director Kang Soo-youn…
Iranian director Ashgar Farhadi twice walked off with an Oscar in the Best Foreign Language Film category this decade, first in 2012 and again in 2016. Now the country is hoping for similar success from Narges Abyar, whose “Nafas” (Breath) is in the running. Abyar is primarily a writer, but the 2004 film “Turtles Can Fly” directed by compatriot Bahman Ghobadi inspired her to film her own books. “At the beginning I did everything purely instinctively, because I did not have any academic film training,” the 46-year-old says, expressing surprise at the success her films have enjoyed. “Nafas” is now…
Agnes Varda, the 89-year-old Belgian-born filmmaking legend, emerges from her hotel room having dressed up for an evening event at Lincoln Center. She holds out the large silver heart-shaped medallion strung around her neck. “I have a big heart,” she says with a smil A truer thing has never been said. Since her 1962 New Wave breakthrough, the real-time masterwork “Cléo From 5 to 7,” and running up until her latest, the richly ennobling road trip documentary “Faces Places,” Varda’s much-distinguished career has been defined by a soul-searching warmth, an abiding, compassionate curiosity, and a deep desire, above all, to…
German Film in 2017 is alive and highly visible from Film Festivals such as Berlinale to Cannes, Venice to Toronto, and all the way to the Academy Awards. The best new German, Austrian, and Swiss Cinema will once again be celebrated at the American Cinematheque, during the 11th Annual GERMAN CURRENTS FILM FESTIVAL from Friday, October 13th – Monday, Oct 16th, 2017 at the historic Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. Over the past decade, German Currents has offered a unique insight into German speaking cinema, bringing diverse and thought-provoking narratives, and “must-watch” documentaries to Los Angeles. German Currents is excited to…
here are 13 features in official selection, 10 of which play in competition. Six of the 13 are directed by women, including the world premiere of Aida Begic’s Turkey-Bosnia co-production Never Leave Me which opens the selection out of competition. Dorota Kobeila and Hugh Welchman’s animation hybrid Loving Vincent will close the selection, also out of competition. Titles playing in competition include Sean Baker’s warmly-received The Florida Project, which premiered in Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, and Michel Hazanavicius’s Jean-Luc Godard biopic Redoubtable, which played in this year’s Cannes competition. Each of the competition titles will be eligible for seven awards -…
Oil painting was arguably the dominant visual art form for nearly 500 years before being replaced in the early 20th century by film. But no one has had the courage to fully combine the two mediums until now. Loving Vincent, an astonishingly beautiful new movie about the life and death of Vincent van Gogh, is the brainchild of Polish filmmaker Dorota Kobiela, who directed it with English moviemaker Hugh Welchman and wrote it with Welchman and fellow Pole Jacek Dehnel. It took them and a team of more than 100 artists over six years to hand-paint the film’s 65,000 frames.…
This absurdist drama is a departure for France’s rom-com topliner Virginie Efira. Here she stars as Victoria, a fast-sinking lawyer and borderline sex-addict at loggerheads with an ex-husband set on exposing her every tryst on his incendiary blog.To make matters worse, she is roped into defending a friend accused of stabbing his fiancée at a wedding. It all spirals into mayhem when the only witness, a guest’s monkey, takes to the stand in the most bizarre murder trial in cinematic (and legal) history. Against all odds, the manic comedy and its lead scooped Césars nominations for best film and actress. Lurching between…