The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the ABC Television Network today announced the dates for the 87th Oscars. The Academy Awards® presentation will air live on ABC on Oscar®Sunday, February 22, 2015.
Key dates for the Awards season are:
The Salvation
Cannes Film Festival held a press conference earlier today during which the 2014 Official Selection were announced. In addition to opening night film GRACE DE MONACO which was earlier announced, the lineup includes films from David Cronenberg, Jean-Luc Godard, Tommy Lee Jones, Ken Loach and Ryan Gosling debut as a director.
Also included among the lineup is Kristian Levring’s “The Salvation” described as a large-scale western drama rooted in Scandinavia. The story takes place in America in the 1870s. When settler John kills his family’s murderer, he unleashes the fury of the notorious gang leader Delarue. Betrayed by his corrupt and cowardly community, the peaceful pioneer must turn vengeful hunter, slay the outlaws, and cleanse the town’s black heart. Mads Mikkelsen plays the Danish settler John, and the international cast also includes Eva Green, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Mikael Persbrandt and Jonathan Pryce.
Abbas Kiarostami
The Official Selection of films in the Short Films in Competition and in the Cinéfondation Selection competition sections of the 67th Cannes Film Festival was unveiled earlier today. This year, the Selection Committee received 3,450 short films, representing 128 production countries. Nine films will compete in 2014 for the Short Film Palme d’or. In a last minute minor controversy, the Italian film A PASSO D’UOMO by Giovanni ALOI was removed from the Short Films Competition because he was proven to break the rules and regulation of this Selection. The Cinéfondation Selection selected 16 films (14 fiction films and 2 animation films) among the 1,631 submitted this year by film schools from all around the world. The Cinéfondation and Short Films Jury, will be presided over by Abbas Kiarostami, who will nominate the prize-winners for the Short Film Competition and the Cinéfondation Selection.
A River Changes Course
12 independent films will make their digital debut this spring through a variety of platforms and storefronts, via the Sundance Institute’s Artist Services program. Titles began premiering this week, and will roll out through June 3. Among the films making their digital premieres is A River Changes Course, which won the World Cinema Jury Prize: Documentary at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and paints an intimate portrait of the lives of three families struggling to maintain their traditions and way of life amidst the rapid changes and hard choices forced by globalization in Cambodia.
CALL GIRL OF CTHULHU
Maryland Film Festival continued unveiling the lineup for its 16th annual festival, taking place May 7-11, 2014 in downtown Baltimore, announcing 12 more feature films in addition to the 10 announced already. Among the titles announced today are SXSW buzz films Fort Tilden, Evolution of a Criminal, and The Mend; the latest from Oscar-nominated documentarians Joe Berlinger and Marshall Curry; cutting-edge films made in Greece, South Korea, Taiwan, and Nepal; and the premiere of Maryland-made Lovecraftian horror film Call Girl of Cthulhu.
The seventh annual Charleston International Film Festival (Charleston IFF) culminated in an Awards Gala where Grape took home the award for Best Film and Amber Karlins was awarded Best Screenplay for Aurora. 3 Mile Limit, written and directed by Craig Newland, took home the Jury Award for Best Feature, while Harry Grows Up and The Lady in Number 6: Music Changed by Life won Jury Awards for Best Short and Best Documentary, respectively.
Shadows of Time by Sambit Banerjee
Russian Roulette by Ben Aston has won the Official Selection Award and Shadows of Time by Sambit Banerjee has won the Community Choice Award in the Short Film Competition for the third Sundance London film and music festival, taking place April 25 to 27, 2014, at The O2:. Both films will screen at the festival and both filmmakers will receive prizes.
A TROPICAL SUNDAY, directed by Fabian Ribezzo
Aspen Shortsfest 2014 was held April 8-13, and over 40 filmmakers from around the world plus other special guests attended. A TROPICAL SUNDAY, directed by Fabian Ribezzo, about four begging and scavenging street kids at a Mozambique amusement park, won the award for Best Drama, and director Tomasz Sliwinski’s documentary OUR CURSE, on what it’s like to be the young parents of a critically ill infant, won the award for Best Documentary.
LIFE INSIDE OUT
The Palm Beach International Film Festival (PBIFF) announced the winners of the 19th edition, which ran April 3 to 10, 2014. The Jury awarded LIFE INSIDE OUT directed by Jill D’Agnencia the prize for Best Feature Film, and FABERGÉ: A LIFE OF ITS OWN directed by Patrick Mark received the award for Best Documentary Feature. The audience voted CATHEDRAL CANYON directed by Paul Davis, winner of Audience Choice Award for Best Feature Film and LION ARK directed by Tim Phillips grabbing the Audience Choice Award for Best Documentary Feature.
The Cannes Film Festival has unveiled the official poster for the upcoming festival taking place May 14 to 25, 2014. The poster design for the 67th Cannes Film Festival is based on a image taken from Federico Fellini’s 8½, which was presented in the Official Selection in 1963.
OBVIOUS CHILD, directed and written by Gillian Robespierre, and will open in theaters on June 6, 2014, has a new trailer. The comedy film which features a breakout performance by comedian Jenny Slate, premiered earlier this year at Sundance Film Festival and went on to win the Varsity Audience Award for Best Feature at Ashland Independent Film Festival.
The 13th annual Tribeca Film Festival, announced the winners of the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival #6SecFilms competition. Jurors Jerome Jarre, Tiffany Shlain, Julie Klausner, James Curleigh and Bethann Hardison selected four winners from a shortlist of 40 Vines curated by TFF programmers and narrowed down from a field of 536 total entries from 24 countries to name individual winners in the categories of “drama,” “comedy,” “animation” and “genre.” A fifth winner was selected by an online voting audience of 6,000 in the first-ever #6SecFilms Audience Choice award, powered by Pitch’d, a platform for brands to curate their audience’s videos and photos across social networks by hashtag and facilitate voting to find the most popular.