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‘Identifying Features’ by Mexican filmmaker Fernanda Valadez wins top prize.

Mexican director Fernanda Valadez’s drama Identifying Features has won the top prize for best feature at the 2020 Zurich Film Festival, which awarded all its top Golden Eye honours to female directors.

Identifying Features is about a woman who travels across Mexico in search of her son, who is presumed dead after trying to cross the border, and teams with a recently deported young man.

The film premiered at Sundance where it won an audience award and screenplay prize, and more recently screened at San Sebastian, where it picked up the Horizons award.

Continually stretching his acting muscles, John Malkovich brings a gravitas few other actors can offer. For Casanova Variations, which is finally getting a release today after touring festivals, the actor gets experimental in meta fashion. Coming from director Michael Sturminger, the story follows Italy’s infamous womanizer Giacomo Casanova in what has been described as cinematic adaptation of a “chamber opera play.”

However, that’s only one strand of the story, as it also stars Malkovich preparing for the stage play, with references of his past work. Today we’re pleased to premiere an exclusive from the film, which depicts a scene from the performance, leading to a duel. Looking like a playful retelling of the Italian adventurer’s life, as well as an ideal showcase for Malkovich’s chops, see our exclusive clip below along with the trailer for the film also starring Veronica Ferres, Florian Boesch, Miah Persson,...

Spectre and Fog In August among projects to tap into incentive.

Entry criteria for national and international projects wanting to access Austria’s film incentive programme known as Fisa (Film Location Austria) have been tightened.

The minimum budget threshold for national or international feature film projects has been raised from the previous $1.09m (€1m) to $2.5m (€2.3m), while applications for the automatic support will now only be accepted from documentaries with budgets of $381,000 (€350,000) and above (previously, $218,000/€200,000).

In addition, Fisa’s non-repayable grant will now amount to 20% of the production costs eligible for support (the so-called “Austrian spend“), down from the previous 25%. Meanwhile, service productions will be able to apply for a grant of up to 25% of the local spend.

In case of ‘service productions’, the guidelines specify minimum budgets of $8.7m (€8m) for feature films and $1.09m (€1m) for documentaries, and a minimum €1m eligible spend in Austria.

While there is concern that the tightening of the...

John Malkovich spoke about privacy, playing himself in films and Casanova as he presented the world premiere of his latest work, Casanova Variations, at the 62nd San Sebastian International Film Festival on Monday. The film, directed by Michael Sturminger, combines layers of theater and opera to reflect on the last years of Giacomo Casanova and features Malkovich as a character using his own name, as well as playing the famous seducer. See more: 35 of 2014's Most Anticipated Movies Referring to one of the film's themes — how myth differs from personal reality — Malkovich said privacy for him as

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Casanova Variations has released its first trailer.

John Malkovich plays Giacomo Casanova and himself in Michael Sturminger's film.

The film tells two stories from the life of the famous lothario, whose name is synonymous with romance and seduction.

It also tells a tale of the production of The Giacomo Variations stage play, which Sturminger directed and Malkovich starred in.

Malkovich famously played a fictionalised version of himself once before in Spike Jonze's 1999 film Being John Malkovich.

Veronica Ferres, Florian Boesch, Miah Persson, Anna Prohaska, Maria João Bastos, Lola Naymark, Kerstin Avemo, Kate Lindsey, Fanny Ardant and Jonas Kaufmann also feature in the film.

Casanova Variations is expected to be released in 2015.

John Malkovich won acclaim in 1988 for wearing a wig in Stephen Frears’ “Dangerous Liaisons,” and he’s going that route again in “Casanova Variations.” In case you were wondering what that looks like in this day and age, there’s now a new trailer for this film about the greatest seduction artist of all time. Directed by Michael Sturminger, who adapted his own stage play (“The Giacomo Variations”), the film tells a pair of stories about Giacomo Casanova, the Italian writer and adventurer who was so famous for his affairs that his name became synonymous with smooth-talking lotharios and womanizers the world over. He was linked to, among others, Marie Antoinette and Catherine the Great. The guy got around. The live version has been described as “a chamber opera play,” featuring the music of Casanova’s contemporaries like Mozart and Lorenzo Da Ponte, and that aspect certainly comes through in this trailer.

Richard Linklater’s 12-year project beats Ida, The Grand Budapest Hotel and Winter Sleep.

Richard Linklater’s Boyhood has been named the best film of the past year by the members of the International Federation of Film Critics, Fipresci.

The poll for the Fipresci Grand Prix 2014 - Best Film of the Year gathered votes from 553 members throughout the world.

In the first phase, participants nominated feature-length films that received their world premiere no earlier than July 1, 2013. This led to a final round between the four finalists: Boyhood by Richard Linklater, Ida by Pawel Pawlikowski, The Grand Budapest Hotel by Wes Anderson, and Winter Sleep by Nuri Bilge Ceylan.

This is the first Linklater has won the prize, which has previously gone to Michael Haneke, Paul Thomas Anderson, Jafar Panahi, Pedro Almodóvar, Jean-Luc Godard and Nuri Bilge Ceylan, among others, since its establishment in 1999.

Boyhood will have a special screening at the San Sebastián Film Festival on Sept...

Seven films will compete for the top prize at the San Sebastian Film Festival.

The films in the running for the Golden Shell at the 62nd San Sebastian Film Festival (Sep 19-27) have been unveiled.

The seven titles are:

Casanova Variations, Michael Sturminger (Fr-Aus-Ger)

Silent Heart, Bille August (Den)

Phoenix, Christian Petzold (Ger)

The New Girlfriend, François Ozon (Fra)

Haemoo, Shim Sung-Bo (S Kor)

Eden, Mia Hansen-Løve (Fra)

The Drop, Michaël R. Roskam (Us)

New titles to join them in the Official Selection will be announced next week.

Casanova Variations stars John Malkovich stars as the legendary seducer. Based on Histoire de ma vie by Giacomo Casanova and with arias from W.A. Mozart and Lorenzo Da Ponte, his story is told both through fiction and on-stage performances to reveal stories of his adventures and fear of death.

The Drop marks the Us debut of Belgian filmmaker Roskam, who arrived on the scene with muscular drama Bullhead. The film...

Cannes slate includes Michael Sturminger’s Casanova Variations.

Paolo Branco’s Paris-based Alfama Films has hired former Le Pacte executive Elisabeth Perlié to head up its international sales and distribution activities.

“I’ve been brought into give some direction to the sales and distribution teams which have been working without a manager for the past few months,’ said Perlié.

At Cannes, Perlié and her sales team will be focusing on two titles: Mathieu Amalric’s The Blue Room and Michael Sturminger’s Casanova Variations.

Actor and director Amalric’s adaptation of a novel by French crime-writer Georges Simenon, about an illicit love affair that takes a murderous turn, will premiere in Un Certain Regard.

Alfama will also give buyers a sneak preview of Michael Sturminger’s Casanova Variations, starring John Malkovich as the Italian womaniser Giacomo Casanova, in the Cannes Marché.

“It’s a select preview for buyers ahead of a festival premiere this summer,” said Perlié...

Exclusive: German director Tom Tykwer is to direct his first TV series, Babylon Berlin, as an internationally financed, German-language production.

The 12-part series is based on a series of books by German writer Volker Kutscher and centre on the figure of Inspector Gereon Rath who hails from Cologne and arrives in the Berlin of 1920s, the epicentre of politicial and social changes of those years.

Speaking exclusively to ScreenDaily, series producer Stefan Arndt of Berlin production powerhouse X Filme Creative Pool explained that Tykwer is working with screenwriters Achim von Borries (4 Tage im Mai) and Hendrik Handloegten (Fenster zum Sommer) on the adaptation of Kutscher’s novels for the small screen.

Last year, X Filme acquired the rights to the four existing Gereon Rath novels and any future books in the books series from publisher Kiepenheuer & Witsch against rival bids from other production houses.

Two of the novels - The Wet Fish and The Silent Death - have...

John Malkovich will be back on stage in New York in June performing in The Giacomo Variations at City Center, as part of the Cherry Orchard Festival. The Giacomo Variations is a collaboration between Martin Haselbock conductor, Michael Sturminger director, and Mr. Malkovich. Malkovich met the press yesterday and you can check out full photo coverage from the big event below...

John Malkovich will be back on stage in New York in June performing in The Giacomo Variations at City Center, as part of the Cherry Orchard Festival. The Giacomo Variations is a collaboration between Martin Haselbock conductor, Michael Sturminger director, and Mr. Malkovich. Malkovich met the press earlier today and you can check out a photo preview from the big event below...

The Giacomo Variations

John Malkovich will re-team with Austrian film director Michael Sturminger for a big screen adaptation of the chamber opera play "The Giacomo Variations".

Malkovich will play the role of an aging Casanova, reliving past exploits in a surreal series of operatic flashbacks. [Source: Screen Daily]

The 34th Battalion

Vinnie Jones and Stephen Lang have joined the ensemble cast of the $20 million saga "The 34th Battalion" about an Australian Army unit that fought heroic battles against the Germans during World War I.

Jones will play the British-born Lt. Colonel who led the battalion. Lang plays a U.S. officer. Luke Hemsworth, Emilie de Ravin, Charles Mesure, Les Hill, Claire van der Boom, Tony Bonner, Andrew Lees and Vince Colosimo also star. [Source: Deadline]

Left Behind

Ashley Tisdale has been cast in the reboot of the Bible-inspired Rapture-themed film series "Left Behind". Tisdale will play Chloe Steele, daughter to Nicolas Cage's Ray Steele character.

New York — It's hard to believe, but John Malkovich has found a way to appear even creepier.

The intense, reptilian actor is currently starring as a serial killer in a deeply odd show that opened Thursday at the Brooklyn Academy of Music which combines elements of opera, chamber orchestra and theater. How odd is it? At several points Malkovich strangles a soprano with a bra in front of several violinists.

It's based on the real-life story of Austrian serial killer Jack Unerweger, who was released from prison in 1990 after writing a celebrated memoir and claiming he was rehabilitated. He went on to kill about a dozen prostitutes in America and Europe before hanging himself when he was sent back behind bars.

In the show, "The Infernal Comedy: Confessions of a Serial Killer," Malkovich plays Unerweger 15 years after his death, as he conducts a ghostly promotional book tour to sell his posthumous story.

Amid the classical music ­programme for the forthcoming season at the Barbican, in London, is an unexpected figure: John ­Malkovich. Next year he will appear in a work called The Infernal Comedy, ­described as a "stage-play for a baroque orchestra, two sopranos and an actor" (Malkovich starred in its premiere in Los Angeles in 2007). Based on the real case of Austrian serial killer Jack Unterweger, the play, by Michael Sturminger, has Unterweger come back from the dead to launch his autobiography. Intriguing.

John MalkovichClassical musicCharlotte Higgins

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