The Santa Barbara Film Festival’s Silver Anniversary edition was a rousing 10 days of films, panels guests and parties. SBFF is a dream destination for Los Angeles cinephiles. The fest unrolls at five venues, all on or within walking distance of State Street. A trolley serves the route, passing every 15 minutes. No traffic, ho hassles, convenient restaurants, and the parking is easy.Santa Barbara has become a part of the Oscar Campaign route and the exuberant Fest Director Roger Durling gets a lot of credit for drawing down such celebrity firepower. Emily Blunt, Carey Mulligan, Saoirse Ronan, Gabourey Sidibe and…
Browsing: Festivals
Ten film-filled days and nights are over—all the bears are gone, and nearly 400 films later, here is a wrap-up of this year’s 60th birthday edition of the Berlinale. Serious films with important messages seemed to dominate the festival. A trend also reflected in the winning films. The top award, the Golden Bear, went to HONEY (Bal, 2010) by Turkish filmmaker Semih Kapalanoglu. HONEY completes Kapanaloglu’s Yusuf trilogy, that started with EGG (Yumurta, 2007) and MILK (Sut, 2008) and sensitively and slowly reveals and examines the close relationship between Yusuf, a 6 year old child, with his father, a bee…
A new crop Of Brazilian music documentaries rocked the LABRFF 2010. Brazil’s new generation of filmmakers is coming on strong. This group of memorable documentaries fills in the story of Brazil’s popular music for International audiences.Directors Raphael Alvarez and Tatiana Issa’s “DZI Croquettes” is an arresting portrait of a performance group that ‘acted up’ in the face of the brutal Military dictatorship that ruled Brazil for decades. This outrageous gender bending, love-generation troupe of transvestites created an international cult following and, more importantly, spoke to individual freedom at a time when civil liberties were suspended in their country.Interviews with a…
Cinemagic is a charity that embraces the magic of film, television and digital technologies to educate, motivate and inspire young people through the medium of workshops, film screenings and industry led master classes. Cinemagic currently delivers festivals in Belfast, Dublin, Glasgow, Nottingham, France and now plans to open in New York and L.A. in 2010 with further US cities planned for 2011 – 2013. Sponsors of the festival are: Tourism Ireland, Culture Ireland, NI Bureau, American Consulate, Sesame Street, The Jim Henson Company, REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater) International Children’s Film Festival, Ghetto Film School, Irish Arts Center, ELMA,…
Martin Scorsese’s highly anticipated psycho-thriller SHUTTER ISLAND, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Kingsley, Mark Ruffalo, Michelle Williams and Patricia Clarkson, lived up to its hype during the second day of the Berlin Film Festival, with the press conference mobbed by hundreds of press folk from over 40 countries. CWB international editor James Ulmer and lead reporter Tanja Meding were there to catch the confusion on their portable Flip HD video camera, and managed to squeeze their way in to the entrance of the jam-packed conference without even scoring a seat ( no surprise, given the shoebox-sized conference room) .That’s what happens…
We’ve just wrapped up the 11th Annual Scandinavian Film Festival L.A. I kept telling the audience– we’ve started a second decade of Nordic film’s annual residency in Southern California! I was really pleased with the festival– we had more films than ever, more audience than ever, and a wonderfully diverse mix of people which I found better than ever. The film industry is really a global industry. It’s only human to be territorial or nationalistic–but I’m more interested in bridges than borders. I always hear questions like “Which Scandinavian country are you from?” or “Are you Scandinavian?” Some, I’m sure,…
Palm Springs – January 17, 2010: Today, the Palm Springs International Film Festival named Letters to Father Jacob as the winner of Cinema Without Borders’ Bridging The Borders Award at the 2010 Palm Springs International Film Festival. The award luncheon for the 2010 Palm Springs International Film Festival was held at Spencer’s Restaurant in Palm Springs, California. Finland’s Los Angeles Consul General Kirsti Westphalen and the New York’s Consul General Ambassador Ritva Jolkkonen accepted the award on behalf of Klaus Haro, director of Letters To Father Jacob, from Bijan Tehrani, Editor in Chief of Cinema Without Borders. “First of all,…
After the Black Tie Awards Gala of the Palm Springs International Film Festival, I interviewed Darryl Macdonald, the director of the festival, about the event and the upcoming festival in January 2010. It is our strong belief at Cinema Without Borders that the Palm Spring International Film Festival is among the best film festivals of the world in regards to the introduction of international cinema.At the Palm Springs International Film Festival, Cinema Without Borders offers its Bridging The Borders Award to the best international film which helps bring the people of our world closer together. Bijan Tehrani: Please tell us…
The American Cinematheque and the Consulate General and Promotion Center of the Argentine Republic in Los Angeles presented “Argentina: New Cinema ’09”, November 20-22 at The Egyptian Theatre. The seventh annual Argentine series showcased six films. This newer generation of Argentine directors is turning out polished thrillers and sophisticated romcoms. The opening night, hosted by activist and performer Nacha Guevara, featured Juan Jose Campanella’s stylish genre-bending thriller “The Secret In Their Eyes” (El secreto de sus ojos)Writing with Eduardo Sacheri, Campanella (who shot many episodes of Argentina’s “Law and Order”) adapted Sacheri’s novel “La pregunta de sus ojos”. Working as…
During this year’s Berlinale, CWB’s James Ulmer and Tanja Meding caught up with Cian Smyth, programmer of the MAYSLES BROTHER DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION at the BELFAST FILM FESTIVAL, to learn a little more about this festival. Founded in 1995 as the West Belfast Community Festival, the festival grew rapidly over 5 years and became a city-wide event in 2000. This coming edition in 2010 will mark the 10th anniversary of the Belfast Film Festival. As Smyth recalls, from the very beginning the festival has been committed to programming films that address important socio-policital themes and bringing the community together to debate…