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Hayao Miyazaki might as well be called a legend in the animation field, and rightly so – after all, he has given fans even Oscar-winning pieces like The Boy and the Heron through his Studio Ghibli. His works have been so iconic that the visionary might as well have inspired many artists worldwide. And yet, when it comes to his own self, very few things manage to inspire Miyazaki.

Hayao Miyazaki. | Credits: 大臣官房人事課/Cca-4.0/Wikimedia Commons.

As much of an incredibly creative artist as he is, the Japanese animator is also a staunch critic of many things. To say the least, a lot of the pieces Hollywood fans would consider masterpieces have faced the wrath of the manga artist. This included Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola’s best film after The Godfather, which Miyazaki unhesitantly revealed he felt was pointless.

Hayao Miyazaki Has Harsh Criticism for Apocalypse Now

Released in 1979, Apocalypse Now...

The Jirí Mádl-directed movie Waves, a new take on the time before and after the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Soviet Union-led Warsaw Pact troops, is the Czech Republic’s submission for the best international feature race at the 2025 Oscars.

The film, which had its world premiere at the 58th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff) where it won the audience award, was unveiled as the official Czech contender on Tuesday.

“The film revolves around the international news office at Czechoslovak Radio, a place full of talented individuals possessing broad insight, linguistic skills and above all a commitment to honest journalistic work with a focus on the truth,” whose broadcasts played a key role during the Soviet invasion and occupation of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, according to a synopsis. “An epic, dynamically shot, rewarding film, which embraces uncommon heroism in the face of an oppressive regime, the strength...

Screen is profiling every submission for best international feature at the 96th Academy Awards.

Entries for the 2024 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 96th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 10, 2024 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between December 1, 2022, and October 31, 2023. The deadline...

Screen is profiling every submission for best international feature at the 96th Academy Awards.

Entries for the 2024 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 96th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 10, 2024 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between December 1, 2022, and October 31, 2023. The deadline...

Somewhere in the middle of Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, the eponymous young character (Asa Butterfield) dreams of a catastrophe in which a steam train runs over him, careens through the Gare Montparnasse railway terminal, and takes a nosedive into the street outside. While it isn’t made clear, or mentioned at all after he wakes up, the disaster he dreams about is based on a real crash at the same station that happened in 1895, mere months before the public exhibition of the Lumière brothers’ seminal actuality film Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat.

As the persistent but largely embellished filmic chestnut has it, audience members who first witnessed the Lumières’ cinematographic train fled the screening room in Paris in a panic, reacting as if they were in real danger of being run over. If you “print the legend” regarding these perhaps apocryphal, panicking spectators, it’s not too much...

Early last year, Stefan Kitanov, director of the Sofia International Film Festival, thought that after two years of lockdowns and online events, things were finally getting back to normal.

“For two years I was out of all festival events and travels, I avoided all public events and spent time in our family house outside the city,” says Kitanov, who started Bulgaria’s biggest film event 27 years ago. “[Then], just as we thought the pandemic is finally over, the war in Ukraine broke out, just a month before our 2022 edition.”

The festival lineup was already locked down, but Kitanov quickly adjusted to the new reality. And made Sofia’s allegiance clear.

“We decided to withdraw Russian films and call off Russian talents and guests,” recalls Kitanov, who has many friends among both Ukrainian and Russian filmmakers and fellow festival colleagues. “[Ukrainian director] Oleg Sentsov was selected to serve on the main jury, but he...

On the heels of crowning the class of 2023, Variety is marking 25 years of keeping a keen eye on the next generation of filmmakers with its annual 10 Directors to Watch franchise.

Over the past quarter-century, the editorial initiative has cast an important career spotlight on such future boldface-name directors as Alfonso Cuaron, Christopher Nolan, Ava DuVernay, Wes Anderson, Chloé Zhao, Barry Jenkins, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Steve McQueen, Taika Waititi, Kasi Lemmons, Michael Winterbottom, Sarah Polley, Catherine Hardwicke, Lulu Wang, Jay Chandrasekhar, David Gordon Green and Fernando Meirelles.

The scouting for 10 Directors to Watch goes on all year among Variety‘s editorial staff. The series was birthed in January 1997 by veteran Variety editor Steven Gaydos, executive VP of global content and leader of the Focus features department. The goal is to identify hot helmers before they pick up any significant hardware — aka major award wins, Gaydos said.

Variety‘s Steven Gaydos

“We look for a distinctive voice,...

Keep track of all the submissions for best international feature at the 2023 Academy Awards.

Entries for the 2023 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

Scroll down for profiles of each Oscar entry

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between January 1, 2022 and November 30, 2022. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 3, 2022.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is...

This year’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Aug 20 -28) will honor actors Johnny Depp and Michael Caine, and director Jan Sverak.

Depp, who is also set to be feted at San Sebastian this year, is set to attend the Czech festival which “will recognize and pay tribute to the acclaimed actor’s extensive career and lasting legacy on the film industry globally”.

“We’re incredibly honored to welcome to the Festival an icon of the contemporary cinema,” said Kviff’s executive director Krystof Mucha and the Festival’s artistic director Karel Och. “We’ve admired Mr. Depp for such a long time and are thrilled to bestow this honor on him.”

The timing is interesting given that Depp has been caught up in an ongoing and very messy legal feud with former wife Amber Heard. The dispute and its lurid details have seen the star dropped from at least one major studio project.

With many film lovers nervous about returning to movie theaters in the post-covid era, a couple of Czech tech pioneers have come up with a service that enables films to be screened easily and legally in alternative settings, either outdoors or in non-theatrical venues, such as a bar or a restaurant.

On Thursday, Ctirad Hemelík and Vít Krajíček will present their innovative movie distribution service Artinii to industry players as part of Cannes Market’s Next section for cutting-edge cinema technologies. They are primarily targeting their service at community groups who wish to license films in order to stage one-off or limited-run public screenings of movies, while also providing rights holders with an additional revenue stream.

As Artinii is based in the Czech Republic it tested its service with a local film — “The Elementary School” by Oscar-winning director Jan Sverák. This was screened at more than 150 sites on the same day,...

The Czech Film and Television Academy (ČFTA) has announced that "Home Care" (Domácí péce) by Slávek Horák as the country's official Oscar submission in the Best Foreign Language Film category. The film was selected from 39 features including documentaries and animated works.

Read More: Mexico Picks '600 Miles' Starring Tim Roth as Oscar Entry

"Home Care" is Horák's debut feature. The filmmaker's only other major credit is as 2nd Ad in Jan Sverák's "Kolya," which coincidentally is the country's only film to ever win the Academy Award after the split of Czechoslovakia. "Home Care" screened at this year's Karlovy Vary International Film Festival where it won the Best Actress award for Alena Mihulová.

Centered on a devoted home care nurse whose existence revolves around those that rely on her, the film points out that even the strongest of people need to be cared for. This drama, which is said to have comedic undertones, beat other strong contenders such as Jan Prusinovský's "The Snake Brothers," the film that took home the Best Actor award at Karlovy Vary.

Read More: Latvia Selects Gambling Tale 'Modris' as Oscar Entry

International sales are being handled by production company Tvorba Films. U.S. rights are still available.

The last time the Czech Republic was nominated for the award was back in 2004 with Ondrej Trojan's "Zelary."...

The CentEast Market is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year. What was the motivation behind its creation in the first place?

Stefan Laudyn: It all started back in 2000 when we organized for the first time the Warsaw Screenings, and presented a selection of the most recent Polish films with English subtitles to a small group of international festival programmers. I realized that the industry needed this and – believed me or not – back then nobody did it. My motivation was and still is to locate the weakest points in the system and to try to fix them with our limited resources.

How has it evolved? Is the motivation still the same?

S.L.: Generally, the weakest point of film industries in Eastern Europe – apart from the scripts, but this is pretty universal – is the connection with the international film industry. There are still a lot of myths and very little hands on experience about how the international industry works. Over the years, I learned that the situation is pretty much the same all over Eastern Europe, and CentEast was born as a response.

Has it fulfilled your expectations so far?

S.L.: We have several success stories, like last year’s Ukrainian work-in-progress “The Tribe”, which was presented at CentEast and then went on to win three prizes at Cannes.

Can you give us some numbers from this year’s edition and perhaps mention some of the deals that have been made? Who has bought what?

S.L.: It’s too early to say – let’s give the participants time to digest the films they have seen.

How does the market stand on the international commercial side of international film?

S.L.: For Eastern European film, the fact of getting a theatrical deal abroad is already considered a major achievement. Big box office figures almost never happen, with noble exceptions like “Kolya” by Jan Sverák in the mid 1990s or recently “Ida” by Pawel Pawlikowski.

Why do you think an industry segment at the Warsaw Film Festival is indispensible for the festival itself, the Polish Film Industry and, on a wider lever, the International Film Industry?

S.L.: We give another reason to busy international professionals to come to Warsaw. After the Warsaw Film Festival reached a critical mass, it started attracting sales agents, producers, buyers, festival programmers, etc. CentEast, launched in 2007, become one of the key meeting points for professionals interested in Eastern European cinema.

Does the CentEast Market feel threatened by the industry initiatives of the New Horizons Film Festival, namely the Polish Days and the New Horizons Studio?

S.L.: New Horizons copied some of our initiatives – and if something is copied, it’s a proof that the original is in demand.

In what does it differ, especially regarding the Polish part of it? Do they complement each other?

S.L.: We select the films we present. Then we don’t just show the films, but we facilitate communication with foreign festivals, and embrace and support the films and works-in-progress presented at CentEast and Warsaw Screenings. The Polish films that are part of any other event in Poland are not eligible to be presented at CentEast and the Warsaw Film Festival. Producers have to choose between us and other events.

Do you think the Polish Film Industry is healthy?

S.L.: It’s definitely healthier than it used to be in the 1990s. The financing system works and quite a lot of money is available.

What is its weakest point? And, the strongest?

S.L.: The weakest point is that we practically have only one single source of film financing in Poland. The strongest points are the Polish cinematographers and the fact that almost 100% of Polish people speak the same language.

What is your perception of Eastern Europe in terms of the film industry? What are its strengths and weaknesses? What place does the CentEast Market hold there?

S.L.: There is no such thing as an Eastern European film industry. Film is a national sport. National industries are based by the national film subsidies – without them, there would be hardly any films made. In most countries you cannot recoup the film’s production cost from the local market revenues. Exceptions to this rule happen only in bigger countries like Russia or Poland.

CestEast, which is in October, along with the Sofia Meetings in March, and events in Tallinn in November, are key events for professionals in the region. CineLink in Sarajevo, another great event, is more about Balkans than Eastern Europe.

How involved is the Polish Film Institute with the CentEast Market?

S.L.: Not much. But we hope for better.

Can you talk about the market’s relationship with China and Russia? Why are they important?

S. L.: Look at the map.

What are your aims and focuses for its future? Where do you see it going in the long and short terms?

S.L.: While we are talking, two of our neighboring countries are in the state of war after Russia invaded Ukraine. We can’t ignore it. We want peace first. We want the Russians to free Oleg Sentsov, a Ukrainian filmmaker they captured and arrested. In Warsaw, we have a number of Ukrainian and Russian filmmakers and there is no tension between them.

Where can you see Kermit, the Ninja Turtles, the Skeksis  Tai martial arts puppets, Gizmo, Oscar the Grouch, and even John Malkovitch, all together? Why at BAMcinématek's Puppets on Film this November. Not much to add to this one other than I highly suggest east coasters consider taking a road trip if not already in the New York area. Press release and full schedule follow! BAMcinématek and the Jim Henson Foundation present Puppets on Film, the most comprehensive survey of live puppetry in cinema ever compiled for both children and adults alike over two weekends: Nov 12--14 & Nov 18--20 North American premiere of Kooky by Oscar-winner Jan Sverák, Us premiere of martial arts epic Legend of the Sacred Stone, a total of 54 films...

Every year the Viff programmers throw in a handful of films that are youth friendly. Last year, one of my favourite moments of the festival was sharing a huge room with hundreds of children as Garri Bardin's The Ugly Duckling made children laugh and cry and though this year's kind friendly fare wasn't quite as endearing as the tale of the ugly duck that turns into a beautiful swan, Jan Sverák's tale of a little stuffed animal that overcame adversity to find his way home was equally enchanting.

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Vancouver, Canada – Halfway through the Vancouver International Film Festival, and it’s easy to feel slight fatigue from all the films heavy in social commentary, political, and environmental themes.

The type of films that leave the viewer in a state of melancholy when they leave the theatre, and though the festival is made up of many ‘serious’ films, there are a few exceptions that need not indulge in heavy handed messages to entertain audiences. Which in this case is a delightful film called Kooky, from Jan Sverák of the Czech Republic.

The story of a boy dealing with asthma who lets his imagination run wild, after the loss of his favourite teddy bear, Kooky (voiced by Ondrej Sverák). The fantasy film follows the adventure of the toy as he tries to find his way home after getting thrown out with the trash.

Using a wonderful array of intricately designed puppets,...

Well-established Czech helmer Jan Sverák made a huge splash when he won Oscar for Best Foreign Language film in 1996 for Kolya, his latest film, is not only similar title-wise, but it features a title character in the same age demo. His new film entitled Kooky, shares the name of a dusty teddy bear in a state of disrepair. The bear's owner is a six year-old asthmatic named Ondra. When Ondra's mother throws it away and it finds its way at the city dump, Ondra prays that his beloved teddy bear will somehow his way back home, but when the toddler awakes, he begins the journey of venturing into a creature-filled world, set on a quest to bring him back. "Kooky" works as a live action version of Pixar's "Toy Story", and is dipped in motifs from "Alice in Wonderland" the classic novel, not the recent film. Although the portrait doesn't...

Not long ago I posted the trailer for Kooky's Return, a beautiful-looking film by Jan Sverák (director of the Best Foreign Film Oscar-winning Kolya) that combines live-action and puppets for a slightly off-beat, very imaginative look at childhood. At the time the trailer featured no subtitles. Just after posting, however, I got in touch with the film's production designer, Jakub Dvorský, and he recently mailed to point out that the trailer is now subtitled. So here's an encore presentation. Watch the trailer and read the info below and you'll see why I'm excited about this film. But I was even more excited to find that Jakub Dvorský had a hand in it. Gamers may know Dvorský by his alter-ego, Amanita Design, through which he has been responsible for several truly wonderful flash games: the two episodes of Samorost and, more recently, Machinarium. (If you're unfamiliar with these, you can play...