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Ketan Mehta’s Rang Rasiya will be the opening film of the Chicago South Asian Film Festival which will begin on September 30, 2011.

The festival will close with Sonali Gulati’s documentary I Am while Nila Madhab Panda’s I Am Kalam will be screened as the centerpiece of the festival.

Amole Gupte’s Stanley Ka Dabba will also be presented as part of the festival.

The other films that will be screened at the festival are: Athula Liyanage’s Bambara Wallala, Geeta Malik’s Troublemaker, Moinak Biswas and Arjun Gourisaria’s Spring In The Colony, Hemant Gaba’s Shuttlecock Boys, Dr. Bharathy Manjula’s XXWhy, Anu Rana’s Ring Laila, Harjant Gill’s Roots of Love, Nasir Khan’s Made in Pakistan, Pankaj Johar’s documentary Still Standing, and Shelley Saywell’s documentary In the Name of the Family.

The short film section will have Pulkit Datta’s Jason, Sameer Acharya...

Filmmaker Ketan Mehta.s controversial film .Rang Rasiya. has been selected to open the Chicago South Asian Film Festival, which is starting Sep 30. .Rang Rasiya. is the story of artist Raja Ravi Varma.s passions, obsessions and his fierce struggle for creative freedom. He hurt the religious sentiments of the people by painting nudes of Indian mythological characters. Later on, his muse Sugandha inspired him to create exquisite paintings based on mythological themes and classic literature. Nila Madhab Panda.s .I Am Kalam. has been selected as the centrepiece of the film festival, said a statement from the festival. The movie is a heartwarming story of a 13-year-old slum boy who aspires to be like A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, former president of India. Amole Gupte.s .Stanley Ka Dabba. will also been screened in the feature films category of the festival which will end Oct 2. As many as 27 films...

The nominees for the 31st Annual Genie Awards, Canada’s answer to the Oscars, were unveiled at simultaneous press conferences in Montreal and Toronto yeseterday. After being snubbed by the major Hollywood awards, only receiving 1 nomination and win for Paul Giamatti at the Golden Globes, Barney’s Version has been highly recognized by Canadian audiences. This is no surprise as its source material is a novel from beloved Canadian treasure Mordecai Richler and the film was partially shot in Montreal. Barney’s VersionIncendies leads the pack with 11 nominations including Best Motion Picture and populating most of the acting categories including one for Paul Giamatti for a Performace by an Actor in a Leading Role and Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role for Dustin Hoffman. Following closely is the other Canadian darling this year, Incendies , which garnered 10 nominations such as Adapted Screenplay (Denis Villeneuve) and Performance by an Actress...

With Tiff 2010 now at a close, it's time for a quick awards round-up for you guys. Pertaining to our beloved genre, we're happy to announce that Jim Mickle’s Stake Land took home the Midnight Madness Audience Award at the show, beating out some pretty tough competition in The Vanishing on 7th Street, Insidious and more. Congrats to Mickle and company! Read on for more winners.

Tiff 2010 Award Winners

Award For Best Canadian Short Film

The award for Best Canadian Short Film goes to Vincent Biron for Les Fleurs de l'âge, which explores a summer day for a regular group of school kids. The jury remarked: “Director Vincent Biron manages to take a moment of an ordinary childhood summer and render unforgettable art from it. This gem of a film captured the jury’s hearts with its quiet, poignant, but also vivid and wonderfully sympathetic portrayal of ‘a day in...

Amid such high profile entries as Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan, Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours, and Ben Affleck’s The Town, the period drama The King’s Speech entered the Toronto International Film Festival relatively low on buzz. Such is no longer the case, as the Tom Hooper-directed film just walked away from the fest with top honors: the “People’s Choice Award,” as voted by festival audiences. The King’s Speech stars Colin Firth as King George VI as he reluctantly assumes the throne despite a nervous stammer.

Other big winners include writer/director Shawn Ku for his work on Beautiful Boy, and the post-apocalyptic vampire flick Stake Land, honored with the “Midnight Madness Award” by audiences. Hit the jump for the official press release with the full list of winners.

Award For Best Canadian Short Film

The award for Best Canadian Short Film goes to Vincent Biron...

The 35th Toronto International Film Festival announced its award recipients at a reception at the Intercontinental Toronto Centre Hotel today. The top prize, the Cadillac People’s Choice Award, went to Tom Hooper’s The King’S Speech which opens on November 26th. On its Best Picture Oscar hopes, Gregory Ellwood over at HitFix points out:

Previous People’s Choice winners include a slew of past Academy Award Best Picture winners or nominees including “Brokeback Mountain,” “Slumdog Millionaire,” “Precious,” “American Beauty” and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” So, yes, place your money on “Speech” at least garnering a well deserved nomination.

Cadillac People’S Choice Award

The Cadillac People’s Choice Award is voted on by Festival audiences. This year’s award goes to Tom Hooper’s The King’s Speech (United Kingdom/Australia). The King’s Speech tells the story of King George VI. After his brother abdicates, George “Bertie...

Toronto -- The Hot Docs documentary festival on Thursday said it will give Dutch filmmaker Heddy Honigmann, best known for her portraits of displaced people worldwide, an outstanding achievement award at its upcoming event.

North America's largest documentary festival also said it will stage a retrospective of documentaries by Canadian filmmaker Kevin McMahon, while giving Toronto-based documentary programmer Rudy Buttignol an outstanding industry achievement award.

Hot Docs programming director Sean Farnel cited Honigmann's ability to draw "moments of profound emotional honesty" from people as diverse as cab drivers in Peru and Iranian ex-patriates in Paris in explaining his choice for this year's outstanding achievement award.

Honigmann will attend Hot Docs in Toronto to receive the tribute on April 27. The festival also will present a retrospective of her work, including the 2001 "Good Husband, Dear Son," a portrait of women in post-war Sarajevo who lost their sons or husbands, and "Metal and Melancholy," a 1993 film about cowboy taxi drivers in Peru.

Hot Docs also has programmed Honigmann's latest documentary, "Forever," which is set in Paris' famous Pere Lachaise Cemetery.

Past recipients of the Hot Docs outstanding achievement award include Errol Morris, D. A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, Albert Maysles and Werner Herzog.

In addition, Hot Docs will present "Focus on Kevin McMahon," a retrospective of documentaries from the co-founder of Primitive Entertainment.

McMahon's credits include the 1991 film "The Falls," a portrait of Niagara Falls; "Intelligence" (1998); and "Truth Merchants" (1998) a critique of public relations in the media.

Other filmmakers to receive 'Focus On ..." retrospectives at Hot Docs include Serge Giguere, Larry Weinstein, Nettie Wild, Shelley Saywell and Zacharias Kunuk.

Hot Docs also said that Rudy Buttingnol, most recently creative head of network programming at TVOntario for six years to 2006, will receive the first annual outstanding industry achievement award.

The 14th annual Hot Docs festival runs April 19-29.

TORONTO -- British director Ben Hopkins' 37 Uses for a Dead Sheep grabbed the trophy for best feature documentary at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival on Friday. Hopkins' portrait of the once nomadic Kirghiz tribe adjusting to life in modern Turkey was one of a string of Middle Eastern-themed films to grab prizes in Toronto. Hot Docs' juried competition saw the best short documentary prize go to Badal, Israeli director Ibtisam Ma'arana's investigation into marriage swaps, with an honorable mention going to Danish filmmaker Malene Choi Jensen's Inshallah, the story of a young Muslim woman's struggle with discrimination. The best Canadian documentary feature award went to Shelley Saywell's Martyr Street, a look at the Palestinian-Israeli conflict through the eyes of two young girls living in the occupied territories.

TORONTO -- British director Ben Hopkins' 37 Uses for a Dead Sheep grabbed the trophy for best feature documentary at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival on Friday. Hopkins' portrait of the once nomadic Kirghiz tribe adjusting to life in modern Turkey was one of a string of Middle Eastern-themed films to grab prizes in Toronto. Hot Docs' juried competition saw the best short documentary prize go to Badal, Israeli director Ibtisam Ma'arana's investigation into marriage swaps, with an honorable mention going to Danish filmmaker Malene Choi Jensen's Inshallah, the story of a young Muslim woman's struggle with discrimination. The best Canadian documentary feature award went to Shelley Saywell's Martyr Street, a look at the Palestinian-Israeli conflict through the eyes of two young girls living in the occupied territories.

TORONTO -- British director Ben Hopkins' 37 Uses for a Dead Sheep grabbed the trophy for best feature documentary at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival on Friday. Hopkins' portrait of the once nomadic Kirghiz tribe adjusting to life in modern Turkey was one of a string of Middle Eastern-themed films to grab prizes in Toronto. Hot Docs' juried competition saw the best short documentary prize go to Badal, Israeli director Ibtisam Ma'arana's investigation into marriage swaps, with an honorable mention going to Danish filmmaker Malene Choi Jensen's Inshallah, the story of a young Muslim woman's struggle with discrimination. The best Canadian documentary feature award went to Shelley Saywell's Martyr Street, a look at the Palestinian-Israeli conflict through the eyes of two young girls living in the occupied territories.

TORONTO -- British director Ben Hopkins' 37 Uses for a Dead Sheep grabbed the trophy for best feature documentary at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival on Friday. Hopkins' portrait of the once nomadic Kirghiz tribe adjusting to life in modern Turkey was one of a string of Middle Eastern-themed films to grab prizes in Toronto. Hot Docs' juried competition saw the best short documentary prize go to Badal, Israeli director Ibtisam Ma'arana's investigation into marriage swaps, with an honorable mention going to Danish filmmaker Malene Choi Jensen's Inshallah, the story of a young Muslim woman's struggle with discrimination. The best Canadian documentary feature award went to Shelley Saywell's Martyr Street, a look at the Palestinian-Israeli conflict through the eyes of two young girls living in the occupied territories.

TORONTO -- After her film retrospective at this year's Hot Docs Canadian international documentary festival in Toronto wraps next week, Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Shelley Saywell will fly to Iraq on May 5 to finish a story she began telling nearly a decade ago in the 1995 documentary Fire and Water. "We're going back to Iraq to do an update or a sequel," Saywell said after the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. gave the go-ahead for a documentary on what the "new Iraq" really thinks. Saywell knows the old Iraq well. Her showcase at Hot Docs includes Fire and Water, a portrait of former Iraqi chief nuclear scientist Hussain Shahristani's quest, while in exile, to uncover murder and torture by Saddam Hussein's regime.