Director, Luis Garcia Berlanga of Spain, passed away on Saturday at his home in Madrid, Spain’s film academy announced via the BBC. He was 89 years. Berlanga was best known for the 1952 satirical comedy Bienvenido, Mr Marshall! (Welcome, Mr Marshall!). He was nominated three times for the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or award; and his film, Placido, was nominated in 1961 for the Academy Award for best foreign language film.
Ethiopia has its first contender for Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film with (Ateltu) “The Athlete’. Co-directed by Davey Frankel and Rasselas Lakew, the low budget independent film is about Ethiopian barefoot marathon runner, Abeba Bikila who became the first black African to win an Olympic gold medal. Rasselas Lakew, who also wrote the screenplay, plays Abeba Bikila. Running the streets of Rome in 1960, an unknown, barefoot Ethiopian man stunned the world by […]
The San Francisco Film Society announced today the finalists and honorable mention for the second SFFS/Hearst Screenwriting Grant. The grant of $15,000 will be awarded to a mid-career screenwriter who has been a practicing writer for at least five years and who has previously written a minimum of one feature screenplay. The grant is open to writers residing in the United States whose project expresses both a unique personal perspective and an artistic approach to […]
JOAN RIVERS: A PIECE OF WORK, a documentary on the life and career of Joan Rivers, made as the comedienne turns 75 years old, is one of the films screening this weekend as part of the West Virginia International film festival. The festival kicks off Thursday night at the West Virginia State University Capitol Center Theater on Summers Street with a screening of the documentary Papers, the story of undocumented youth and the challenges they […]
Mexican film, “On Childhood”, from director Carlos Carerra bested “Uninhabited” and “Monsters” to take home the Audience Award for Best International Feature Film at the 2010 Canberra International Film Festival in Canberra, Australia. The festival described the film as “A visual masterpiece set in the slums of Mexico, this crime thriller sees a ghost help a young boy deal with the violent father he worships and fears.” Ten-year-old Francisco is no innocent boy, growing up […]
Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis died on Wednesday at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif. He was 91. Mr. De Laurentiis produced more than 500 films over six decades covering a wide range of styles and genres. His long filmography includes several major titles of the early Italian New Wave, including the “Bitter Rice” (1949); two important films by Fellini (“La Strada,” 1954, and “Nights of Cabiria,” 1957); and David Lynch’s “Blue Velvet,” (1986). The […]
Of the hundreds of film festivals held each year in the U.S., Cinema Arts Festival Houston, held November 10-14, 2010, is the only festival specifically programmed to celebrate films by and about visual, performing, and literary artists. With support from city leaders, enthusiastic patrons and a highly developed network of arts organizations, the festival is a truly civic project, conceived to highlight one the most vibrant and diverse arts communities on earth. Joining for the […]
The seventh annual Wavescape Surf Film Festival kickstarts the 2010 summer season in Cape Town with a bumper crop of adrenaline-charged surf movies. Presented by the Save Our Seas Foundation, the festival (from December 1 to 19) focuses on the critical plight of the world’s oceans, and surfing development in South Africa. The festival begins with the Wavescape Surfboard Art Exhibition from December 1 to 7 at the trendy Cape Town restaurant Depasco Cafe. Twelve […]
Festival Founder and Executive Director Leslie Vanderpool today announced the final program details for the 7th edition of the Bahamas International Film Festival (BIFF), which takes place December 1-5, 2010 in Nassau. The Weinstein Company’s highly acclaimed period drama “The King’s Speech” has been selected as this year’s closing night film. Based on the true story of the Queen of England’s father and his remarkable friendship with maverick Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue “The King’s […]
The Bahamas International Film Festival (BIFF), announced that Sony Pictures Classics’ acclaimed comedy “Tamara Drewe” will be the opening film at this year’s festival, which takes place December 1-5 in Nassau. The special event screening will take place on Wednesday, December 1s at the Atlantis Theatre on Paradise Island. The announcement was made by BIFF Founder and Executive Director Leslie Vanderpool. Directed by two time Academy Award® nominee Stephen Frears (“High Fidelity,” “The Queen,” “Dangerous […]
The 20th Anniversary Gotham Independent Film Awards will give a new award called the First Ever Festival Genius Audience Award at this year’s award ceremony on November 29th. This new award celebrates audience award winners from across the Top 50 US and Canadian film festivals. Over 12,000 votes came in to narrow the list of 26 audience award winning films down to the 5 nominees. The nominated films are: Winter’s Bone Waiting for Superman White […]
White Irish Drinkers, now has a US Spring 2011 theatrical release date, after Screen Media Films acquired North American rights. The film which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and won the Audience Award at the 2010 Woodstock Film Festival, was written and directed by John Gray,and stars Nick Thurston, Geoff Wigdor and Leslie Murphy. White Irish Drinkers is set in 1975 in the Bay Ridge area in Brooklyn, an enclave of working-class, hardscrabble […]