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Two films that engage directly with the experiences of the October 7 attacks and their aftermath took top honors at the 2025 Jewish Film Festival Berlin Brandenburg (Jfbb), Germany’s largest Jewish film festival.

Of Dogs and Men, a docudrama from Israeli director Dani Rosenberg, shot at the Nir Oz kibbutz just weeks after the attacks, won the Gershon Klein Feature Film Award, the Jffb’s top prize, with the jury praising the movie’s “courageous gesture” of choosing to film in a war zone and its artful blending of fiction and documentary storytelling. The jury also highlighted Ori Avinoam’s lead performance as a teenage girl who, after narrowly escaping the attack, returns to the kibbutz to search for her lost dog.

The Gershon Klein Documentary Film Award went to Holding Liat by U.S. filmmaker Brandon Kramer, which chronicles the experience of a family whose daughter and son-in-law were kidnapped...

France’s César Awards mark their 50th ceremony at the Olympia Theatre in Paris this evening with swashbuckler The Count of Monte Cristo, star-crossed romance Beating Hearts and Mexico-set, Spanish language musical Oscar hopeful Emilia Pérez leading the nominations.

Other multi-nominated titles include asylum seeker drama Souleymane’s Story, thriller Misericordia and The Marching Band, a feel-good movie set in a declining manufacturing town in northern France.

Voted on by the just under 5,000 members of the Academy of Cinema Arts and Techniques, or César Academy, France’s equivalent of the Oscars or Baftas celebrate French productions released in the country between January 1 to December 31 of a given year.

“We’re particularly happy this year because there’s a rich variety in the nominations. There’s everything from popular mainstream cinema to more difficult, demanding films, which have found success in festivals, which is also a reflection of the DNA and diversity of French cinema,...

The Count of Monte Cristo has topped the nominations for France’s prestigious César awards, followed by Beating Hearts and Oscar frontrunner Emilia Pérez.

The film has made it into 14 categories in the nominations, which were announced in Paris on Wednesday morning. Beating Hearts clinched 13, followed by Emiia Pérez with 12.

Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de la Patelliere’s lavish and fast-paced adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ classic novel starring Pierre Niney was one of France’s top performing movies at the local box office in 2024, drawing close to 10M spectators and its top international export.

Gilles Lellouche’s modern Romeo and Juliet tale Beating Hearts – co-starring François Civil and Adèle Exarchopoulos – has also performed well at home, drawing more than five million spectators.

The 12 nominations for Jacques Audiard’s Cannes Jury prize-winning musical film Emilia Pérez continue its buzzy awards season run which has seen it clinch four Golden Globes and...

It’s been a long year at IDFA, Amsterdam’s renowned documentary film festival. Last year, the festival faced major scrutiny after pro-Palestinian protestors took over the stage during the event’s opening ceremony with a slogan seen as a chant of liberation to Palestinians, but viewed as an expression of hostility by those who support Israel. A head dive into murky waters ensued, with filmmakers withdrawing from the festival as the team tried to navigate a complicated political climate just five weeks after the events of Oct. 7.

This year’s edition, which runs from Nov. 14-24, comes after an “elaborate process of discussions, thinking and introspection,” says the festival’s artistic director Orwa Nyrabia, who recently revealed he will step down at the end of June. “Today, a lot of the spirit of defending the way we do things comes across a little bit like George W. Bush saying...

La Piscine Photo: Criterion Collection The French Film Festival is returning to cinemas next month across the UK with a programme of French and Francophone films, mostly UK Premieres, spreading over 60 screenings.

Talents in attendance include actor and director Mathieu Amalric and filmmakers Jean-Marie Larrieu, Arnaud Larrieu, Claire Simon, Emmanuel Mouret, Payal Kapadia, Isabelle Prim and Yolande Zauberman.

Cinemas showing films include the French Institute in Edinburgh and the city's Dominion, Glasgow's Gft, Chichester Cinema and London's Ciné Lumière.

Holy Cow Photo: Laurent Le Crabe Among the current crop of Francophone films that will screen is Emmanuel Courcol's The Marching Band, which recently won the Audience Award at San Sebastian Film Festival, charming coming-of-age film Holy Cow and Belgian #MeToo drama Julie Keeps Quiet.

Classic movies in the line-up include Claude Sautet's César And Rosalie and Jacques Deray's sultry La Piscine.

Read more about the festival and...

The Mediterrane Film Festival announced its complete program ahead of its second edition, taking place in Malta’s capital of Valetta from June 22-30. New titles selected include recent Cannes highlights in Coralie Fargeat’s Demi Moore-led body horror “The Substance” and Roberto Minvervini’s “The Damned,” which join previously announced films like Yorgos Lanthimos’s “Kinds of Kindness” and Jane Schoenbrun’s “I Saw The TV Glow.”

Further program additions include Mahdi Fleifel’s Directors’ Fortnight standout “To a Land Unknown,” which Variety labeled “a confident, angry, fully-realized drama,” and Truong Minh Quy’s Un Certain Regard breakout “Viet and Nam.” An extended version of the Malta-shot “Jurassic World: Dominion” will play as part of the Malta Expanded strand, while on the retrospective end of the program, the festival will honor David Bowie with screenings of Nicolas Roeg’s “The Man Who Fell to Earth” and Lisa Azuelos’s “My Way,...

The Mediterrane Film Festival has unveiled the line-up for its second edition (June 22-30), with Cannes premiere The Count Of Monte Cristo set to open the event.

Scroll down for the full line-up

Directed by Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patellière, the film is among seven titles in the out of competition strand, which also includes Jane Schoenbrun’s Sundance title I Saw The TV Glow and Tarsem Singh’s Dear Jassi.

The 15-strong competition section features Cannes competition titles Kinds Of Kindness and The Substance, and Berlin premiere The Strangers case starring Omar Sy,

Seven films compete in the environment-themed Mare Nostrum section,...

Malta’s Mediterrane Film Festival has set the full competition and industry lineup for its second edition, which runs June 22 to 30 in the country’s capital, Valletta.

The programme includes 15 films in competition, seven out-of-competition, and seven films competing in the environment-themed Mare Nostrum section, topped up by 14 immersive projects.

Select competition titles include Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest Kinds of Kindness, Coralie Fargeat’s body horror The Substance, and The Damned by Italian filmmaker Roberto Minvervini. All three films debuted at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Scroll down to see the full lineup. Deadpool and Terminator: Dark Fate director Tim Miller will serve on the competition jury.

The festival has also set its industry lineup, featuring a series of masterclass sessions. Speakers include editor Yorgos Mavropsaridis, production designer Nathan Crowley, casting director Margery Simkin, and composer Simon Franglen...

Somewhere in Yolande Zauberman’s overly diffuse documentary La Belle de Gaza is a sturdier and more clarifying film. But as it stands, the project, which premiered at Cannes, is a sprawling mass of missed opportunities.

The film loosely follows a group of Arab trans women on Hatnufa Street, an under-lit back street in Tel Aviv. Zauberman encountered her subjects while shooting her documentary M. In that project, which premiered at the Locarno Film Festival in 2018, the director investigated sexual abuse in an Orthodox community in Israel. According to press notes for her new doc, in order to make a scene in M work, Zauberman needed to film a trans woman walking away from the camera. The girls she met on Hatnufa agreed. It wasn’t until later, when Zauberman returned to Paris, that her partner Sélim Nassib, who did sound for La Belle de Gaza and was present, told...

The entrance to the Palais in Cannes was closed briefly Saturday afternoon after a bomb scare due to a “suspicious” item.

The Cannes press office confirmed that there was a suspicious package found on the street but not inside the Palais.

Police officers shut down part of the Croisette, the street that runs in front of the Palais, and prevented pedestrians from crossing in either direction. A specialist police unit was observed inspecting a rucksack in the middle of the crosswalk. Both La Croisette and the Palais entrance were reopened at 3.10 p.m. local time.

“There was something they thought was a bomb, but there was no bomb,” a woman manning the Information Desk at the Marche told Variety. “They closed the street when I was going to lunch, but then I heard it’s open again by the time I came back.”

Another woman working for the festival’s security office said,...

It was on a backstreet in Tel Aviv while filming her last film, M — which would go on to win a César Award for best documentary — that the French documentarian Yolande Zauberman found the subject for her latest, La Belle de Gaza (The Beauty of Gaza).

Zauberman was filming three young Arab trans women, one who told her filmmaking partner in Arabic that she walked from Gaza to Tel Aviv. “I thought it was such a nearly impossible path,” recalls Zauberman. “First, to be a man, becoming a woman, coming from Gaza to Tel Aviv, and being a Muslim in Tel Aviv. I really wanted to find this woman and to see how she was seeing the world.” After losing contact with the woman, Zauberman began searching for her. That journey would become the impetus for — and title of — her latest doc, La Belle de Gaza.

The finished film, which...

Yolande Zauberman’s documentary The Belle from Gaza follows a population under permanent threat, recording their courage and surprising faith

The Belle from Gaza premieres at the Cannes film festival on Friday – an achievement made the more remarkable as there was a point last year when it looked as if it would never be seen.

After Hamas’s attack on 7 October and the Israeli military offensive that followed, its French director, Yolande Zauberman, considered shelving her finished project. “I thought maybe we should not show this movie for the moment, because what’s happening is so big, so huge”, says Zauberman.

Cyprien Vial’s Guadalope-set volcano drama Magma, and Sophie Deraspe’s Bergers, about a man and women who trades in their lives as an ad exec and a civil servant to become shepherds in rural France, head Pyramide International’s busy Cannes Market slate.

Marina Fois, Theo Christine and Mathieu Demy star in Magma, which is produced by Isabelle Madelaine’s Dharamsala and Emilie Tisné’s Darius Films. Fois plays a woman running the Guadeloupe Volcano Observatory who dreams of managing a major eruption and comes face to face with the unpredictable La Soufrière volcano. Shot in Guadeloupe, the film...

Cannes Competition titles Bird by Andrea Arnold and Emila Perez by Jacques Audiard are among the films eligible for the Queer Palm at this year’s festival.

Any title playing in Cannes which deals in anyway with Lgbtqiaa+ themes is eligible for the Queer Palm, whose jury this year will be presided over by Belgian filmmaker Lukas Dhont. Competing films are drawn from all Cannes selections: Official Selection, Un Certain Regard, Critics’ Week, Directors’ Fortnight and Acid.

Bird centres on a 12-year-old who lives with her single father and brother in a squat and seeks attention and adventure elsewhere; among...

The Cannes Premiere section stocked up on films from France with Alain Guiraudie’s Misericorde among the mix, the Out of Competition section added a Canuck oddity from Winnipeger Guy Maddin and co., the Midnight Section Screenings landed Nicolas Cage starring The Surfer by Lorcan Finnegan and Sergei Loznitsa once again drops a docu film on the Croisette with an item in the Special Screenings section. Here are nineteen titles that dropped this morning:

Cannes Premiere

“C’est Pas Moi,” Leos Carax

“En Fanfare” (“The Matching Bang”), Emmanuel Courcol

“Everybody Loves Touda,” Nabil Ayouch

“Le Roman de Jim,” Arnaud Larrieu and Jean-Marie Larrieu

“Misericorde,” Alain Guiraudie

“Rendez-Vous Avec Pol Pot,” Rithy Panh

Out Of Competition

“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” George Miller

“Horizon, an American Saga,” Kevin Costner

“Rumours,” Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson, Guy Maddin

“She’s Got No Name,” Chan Peter Ho-Sun

Midnight Screenings

“I, the Executioner,” Seung Wan Ryoo

“The Balconettes...

Female directors are thin on the ground – plus ça change – but the lineup promises intriguing new films from modern day masters, as well as some unknown hot potatoes

• Donald Trump biopic and new films by Yorgos Lanthimos and Andrea Arnold to premiere at Cannes

The new Cannes selection has been unveiled in one of the most tense and fraught geopolitical situations for years, giving even more of a frisson to the traditional rune-reading activity of scrutinising the festival’s list, and scrutinising cinema itself, for contemporary meaning. There is a very prominent Russian director in competition, Kirill Serebrennikov, with his film Limonov: The Ballad, starring Ben Whishaw as Russian opposition leader and poet Eduard Limonov, based on the novel by the veteran French author and public intellectual Emmanuel Carrère. Of course, the point is that Serebrennikov is a notable anti-government figure.

As far as the Gaza situation goes, there is...

As expected, the Cannes Film Festival line-up is pretty spectacular with new films from Yorgos Lanthimos, Andrea Arnold and David Cronenberg heading to the fest.

As the days are getting longer and there’s a tiny bit more sunshine in between the showers of rain, that can only mean one thing. The Cannes Film Festival is almost upon us.

Of course, us peasants rarely get to go, but it is fun to read the reactions from the glitzy world premieres as the stars gather in the picturesque town of Cannes.

And this year’s festival line-up is a doozy. We already knew George Miller was heading to the Croisette with Furiosa, Francis Ford Coppola is bringing Megalopolis and Kevin Costner will be premiering his new film, too, but there’s a whole heap of great filmmakers heading out to the beach with their films.

The highlights include Yorgos Lanthimos’ Kinds Of Kindness,...

Descubre las películas que estarán en Cannes 2024: una lista completa de todas las secciones.

Esta mañana, Thierry Frémaux ha anunciado la programación oficial de la 77ª edición del Festival de Cannes. La pasada edición del festival fue testigo de los estrenos mundiales de las aclamadas películas “Anatomía de una Caída”, “Killers of the Flower Moon” y “The Zone of Interest”. Unas películas que posteriormente fueron nominadas al Oscar a la mejor película, de modo que este año el listón está muy alto.

Desde su primera edición en 1946, el Festival de Cannes se ha consolidado como uno de los acontecimientos cinematográficos más importantes de la industria del cine y la edición de este año ofrece una gran variedad de películas de todo el mundo; desde directores consagrados hasta nuevas voces de la industria. Aunque, por desgracia, España no tendrá representación en el festival este año.

La presidenta del jurado de...

Ahead of a festival kicking off in just about a month, Iris Knobloch, President of the Festival de Cannes, and Thierry Frémaux, General Delegate, have unveiled the selection of the 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival.

Led by the previously announced major highlight, Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, the competition lineup features the latest films from Jia Zhangke, David Cronenberg, Paul Schrader, Andrea Arnold, Sean Baker, Miguel Gomes, Yorgos Lanthimos, Jacques Audiard, Ali Abbasi, Payal Kapadia, and more.

Other sections include the previously new films from George Miller and Kevin Costner, alongside Leos Carax’s personal short C’est Pas Moi, Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, and Galen Johnson’s Rumors, Alain Guiraudie’s Miséricorde, and more.

Check out the lineup below.

Competition

All We Imagine As Light – Payal Kapadia

L’amour Ouf – Gilles Lellouche

Anora – Sean Baker

The Apprentice – Ali Abbasi

Bird – Andrea Arnold

Caught by the Tides – Jia Zhang-ke...

In what looks to be another robust year in the making, the 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival will bring together several iconic filmmakers, including Francis Ford Coppola with “Megalopolis” starring Adam Driver, George Miller with “Furiosa” starring Anya Taylor-Joy, as well as George Lucas who will be feted with an honorary Palme d’Or. Kevin Costner will also be on hand with the first installment of his Western epic “Horizon, an American Saga.”

Some of the high-profile films in the pipeline for this year’s competition include Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Kinds of Kindness,” a stylized three-part story set in the present that reunites the “Poor Things” helmer with Emma Stone and Willem Dafoe; Paul Schrader’s “Oh, Canada” with Richard Gere, based on a novel by the late Russell Banks (“Affliction”); Jacques Audiard’s musical melodrama “Emilia Perez” starring Zoe Saldana and Selena Gomez; Paolo Sorrentino’s “Parthenope” with...

The Cannes Film Festival has unveiled the line-up for its 77th edition (May 14-25)

The competition includes films by Andrea Arnold, David Cronenberg, Yórgos Lánthimos, Paul Schrader and Paolo Sorrentino.

Festival director Thierry Frémaux revealed the Official Selection at a press conference at the Ugc Normandie theatre in Paris alongside festival president Iris Knobloch.

Previously announced titles include Quentin Dupieux’s The Second Act, which will open the festival on May 14 out of competition, George Miller’s Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Kevin Costner’s Horizon, An American Saga and Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis.

Barbie director Greta Gerwig will preside over the jury.

France’s Urban Distribution has shut its doors, the latest independent distributor to fold due to struggling ticket sales following the closure of Rezo Films’ distribution arm in March.

Urban Group’s thriving international sales and production divisions Urban Sales and Urban Factory will continue to operate, but its distribution arm, founded in 2011 by Frédéric Corvez and Mathieu Piazza, was officially liquidated on March 21.

Corvez confirmed the closure to Screen, explaining, “Over the years, we’ve seen our work come up against more and more obstacles” and citing the pandemic as an event that “undoubtedly transformed the industry”.

He described...

The Inventory Will Be Drawn Up At 11a.m. In The Presence Of The Poet’s Wife wins the French competition while the US-directed feature film dominates the international selection. Composed of Rémi Bonhomme (artistic director of the Marrakech Film Festival) and filmmakers Yolande Zauberman, Hassen Ferhani, Laetitia Moreau and Juruna Mallon, the Feature Films Jury of the 43rd Cinéma du Réel Film Festival (which unspooled online) has named the first feature film of US director Ephraim Asili, The Inheritance, its victor within the international competition. The title interlaces the histories of the West Philadelphia–based Move Organization and of the Black Arts Movement with dramatizations of the filmmaker’s life when he was a member of a black activist collective. The Institut Français - Louis Marcorelles Prize for Best Film in the French selection went to The Inventory Will Be Drawn Up At 11a.m. In The Presence Of...

Like most film festivals this year, Locarno Film Festival will not be moving ahead as usual. However, they’ve found inventive ways to both celebrate filmmakers they’ve long admired and present films physically and digitally. After announcing a new initiative to support new films by Lucrecia Martel, Lisandro Alonso, Lav Diaz, Wang Bing, Miguel Gomes, and more, they’ve asked this class of talented directors to select their favorite films in Locarno history.

A Journey in the Festival’s History is devoted to Locarno’s 73-year history of showing the best in international cinema. Made up of twenty films, a selection will screen online for those in Switzerland as well as Mubi internationally. On August 5-15, they will also screen in person at Locarno’s theaters.

Lili Hinstin, Artistic Director of the Locarno Film Festival, said, “It would be an impossible task to present a review of the history...

Films by Roberto Rossellini, Chantel Akerman and Marguerite Duras feature in selection.

The Locarno Film Festival has unveiled the selection of 20 classic film titles that will be showcased in its A Journey In The Festival’s History sidebar as part of its special hybrid edition running August 5 to 15.

The line-up is part of the festival’s ’Locarno 2020 – For the Future of Films’ edition which was created after it was forced to cancel its 73rd edition due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The titles have been selected by the directors taking part in its festival’s exceptional The Films After Tomorrow initiative...

High-profile filmmakers including Lucrecia Martel and Lav Diaz have contributed to a retrospective program for the Locarno Film Festival (August 5-15), selecting 20 titles from the event’s 74-year history that will have online and physical screenings next month.

Due to ongoing pandemic disruption Locarno shifted the majority of its festival online this year, though ten of the below list of titles will still have physical screenings in Switzerland. The entire program will be shown online for free in Switzerland by the fest, while it is partnering with streamer Mubi to stream the films outside of the country.

Ranging from 1948 (Locarno’s third edition) to 2018 (its 71st), the titles offer a broad insight into the fest’s history and are directed by filmmakers such as Roberto Rossellini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Jim Jarmusch, Michael Haneke, and Whit Stillman. The selectees are all participating in Locarno’s ‘The Films After Tomorrow’ initiative this year,...

The Locarno Film Festival has unveiled the selection of historic titles that will screen this year as part of the Swiss event's special edition amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Art-house classics ranging from Roberto Rossellini's 1948 drama Germany, Year Zero to Jim Jarmusch's 1984 breakthrough Stranger Than Paradise to Yolande Zauberman's French feature M, which premiered at Locarno in 2018, have been selected by directors taking part in Locarno's Films After Tomorrow section. The filmmakers picked twenty emblematic titles from Locarno's back catalog, which stretches from 1948 to 2019.

"It would be an impossible task to ...

The Locarno Film Festival has unveiled the selection of historic titles that will screen this year as part of the Swiss event's special edition amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Art-house classics ranging from Roberto Rossellini's 1948 drama Germany, Year Zero to Jim Jarmusch's 1984 breakthrough Stranger Than Paradise to Yolande Zauberman's French feature M, which premiered at Locarno in 2018, have been selected by directors taking part in Locarno's Films After Tomorrow section. The filmmakers picked twenty emblematic titles from Locarno's back catalog, which stretches from 1948 to 2019.

"It would be an impossible task to ...

Yesterday, the César Awards, France’s equivalent to the Oscars, were handed out. Taking the top prize, in somewhat of a surprise, was Les Misérables from Ladj Ly. Clearly a top contender for the award, it faced stiff competition from An Officer and a Spy, as well as especially from Portrait of a Lady on Fire. However, France’s submission to the Academy Awards had that upper hand, and in the end, it led the way here. Of course, what was most noteworthy was actress and nominee Adèle Haenel (from Portrait of a Lady on Fire) walked out of the ceremony when it was announced that Roman Polanski had won the Best Director prize for An Officer and a Spy. Her protest made waves throughout the industry, and even thought Polanski was not in attendance, it was a powerful statement, to be sure… Here now are the Cesar Award results: Best Film “La Belle Epoque,...

Updated, writethru: Ladj Ly’s Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize laureate Les Misérables was the big winner at Friday night’s 45th annual César Awards, France’s equivalent to the Oscars, including taking the top honor of Best Film. The night unfolded, however, under tumultuous conditions owing to controversy surrounding Roman Polanski, whose An Officer and a Spy was the leading nominee going in with 12 mentions.

The filmmaker was not in attendance, but his film won three prizes including Best Director — an occurrence that caused walkouts from the Salle Pleyel, which earlier in the evening had been the site of protests by feminist organizations.

Scroll down for full list of César winners.

Polanski on Thursday said he would not attend the local industry’s biggest night. “Activists are threatening me with a public lynching. Some have called for demonstrations, others are planning to make it a platform,” he said. “This...

The 45th César Awards ceremony took place on Friday, February 28, at the Salle Pleyel in Paris to honor the best in French cinema of 2019 — and at a fractious moment for the Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma. The event was emceed by French comedian Florence Foresti, with actress Sandrine Kiberlain presiding. See the full list of winners below.

Earlier this month, the entire board of directors of the French academy announced their planned resignation after the publication of an open letter from hundreds of members calling for a complete overhaul of the organization. The announcement unspooled in the wake of allegedly dodgy financial practices, an overall lack of transparency, and the repeated omission of filmmakers Claire Denis and Virginie Despentes from the Academy’s annual Dîner des Révélations event, focused on emerging talent. The young guests are asked to nominate talent they’d like to see at the event,...

Updated: Nominations for the 45th César Awards were unveiled this morning in Paris, led by Roman Polanski’s Dreyfus Affair drama An Officer And A Spy with 12 including Best Film, Director and Actor (for Jean Dujardin). While Polanski remains a controversial figure owing to his 1977 child sex conviction and subsequent flight from the United States, as well as a more recent allegation (which he has denied), there has been a divide between U.S. and European perspectives in the #MeToo era. An Officer And A Spy premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2019, winning the Grand Jury Prize. In November, it opened No. 1 at the French box office.

France’s equivalent to the Oscars, the Césars are handed out by the Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma. In 2017, the Académie made headlines over its appointment of Polanski as President of that year’s ceremony. The move was followed by...

With three awards including Best Film, Ladj Ly’s feature debut comes on top, with other winners including Noémie Merlant, Roschdy Zem, Jérémy Clapin and Yolande Zauberman. Handed out by foreign journalists stationed in Paris to the best French and French-speaking films and artists, the 25th Lumières Awards have crowned Les Misérables, which thus receives three more awards in addition to the many others it has received since its Jury Prize win in Cannes: the Lumières award for Best French Film of 2019, the award for Best Script (written by the director together with Giordano Gederlini and Alexis Manenti), and the award for Most Promising Actor. Nominated for the International Feature Film award, the feature was produced by Toufik Ayadi and Christophe Barral for Srab Films, co-produced by Rectangle Productions and Lyly Films, distributed in France by Le Pacte and...

The French cinema-focused awards are regarded as the country’s equivalent of the Golden Globes.

Ladj Ly’s Oscar hopeful Les Misérables was the big winner at France’s Lumiere awards in Paris on Monday evening (January 27), winning best film for the explosive drama revolving around a stand-off between youngsters and police officers on a tough Paris housing estate.

The French cinema awards - overseen by the Lumière Academy comprising some 130 international correspondents hailing from 40 countries based in France – are regarded as the country’s equivalent of the Golden Globes.

Ly also won the best screenplay prize for Les Misérables,...

Cannes Jury Prize winner is also France’s submission to the Oscars this year.

Ladj Ly’s debut feature and Cannes Jury Prize winner Les Misérables, revolving around social tensions in a tough Paris suburb, is the frontrunner in the 25th edition of France’s Lumière awards this year, with seven nominations.

The awards which are voted on by some 130 international correspondents hailing from 40 countries are France’s equivalent of the Golden Globes.

Les Misérables has been nominated for best film, director, screenplay, cinematography, first film and twice in the best new actor section for two of its cast members,...

Efa members will now choose five nominations from the list.

Waad al-Kateab and Edward Watts’ Syrian war documentary For Sama and Sundance award winner Honeyland are among the 12 titles on the documentary longlist for the 2019 European Film Awards.

Scroll down for the full longlist.

For Sama launched at SXSW in the Us, before joining the Cannes official selection as a special screening. The film shows the female experience of the Syrian conflict through the lives of al-Kateab and her young daughter Sama. Republic Film Distribution has UK rights on the title, with PBS Distribution handling a Us theatrical release.

Honeyland,...

The award comes with €10,000 cash prize and was presented at the Marché’s Doc Day.

Lina Soualem’s Their Algeria won the inaugural documentary works-in-progress prize at the Cannes Marche’s Doc Corner.

The award, which comes with €10,000 cash prize, is supported by International Emerging Film Talent Association (Iefta) and was presented at the Doc Lovers Mixer which closed Doc Day on Tues (May 21).

Their Algeria, part of the Palestinian Showcase, was one of the of 24 docs-in-progress from six countries participating in the Marché’s ‘Docs-in-Progress Showcases at the Doc Corner’ program. The countries were Argentina, Canada, Chile, Norway, Palestine and South Africa.

French-Moroccan actor Kamel Labroudi to star as Tunisian street vendor who took his own life as a protest.

German production outfit DETAiLFILM and Paris-based Cinenovo are teaming with Us companies Beachside Films and Anonymous Content on Before The Spring, a drama based on the life of Mohamed Bouazizi.

Bouazizi was a Tunisian street vendor who set himself on fire in protest of his treatment by officials; the act of defiance was one of the catalysts for the Tunisian Revolution and the wider Arab Spring.

Egyptian-British filmmaker Lotfy Nathan is making his narrative feature debut on the project. Nathan’s documentary 12 O’Clock Boys,...

The Adam Driver-starrer “Annette,” Leos Carax’s long-gestating English-language romantic musical, is being revived. Charles Gillibert’s CG Cinema, whose credits include Kristen Stewart-starrer “Personal Shopper,” has come on board to help revive the on-again-off-again project, which will start shooting in mid-August. Amazon will release the film in the U.S.

Tracing the rise and fall of two star-crossed Hollywood lovers and the exceptional destiny of their daughter, “Annette” will bring together the rock band Sparks, which is composing original songs, and celebrated music producer Marius de Vries, who is known for his work on “La La Land,” “Moulin Rouge” and “Cats.”

CG Cinema will be producing “Annette” with Paul-Dominique Vacharasinthu at Tribus P Films. Co-producers include the French-German channel Arte, with Kenzo Horikoshi from Japan’s Eurospace, Fabian Gasmia from Germany’s Detail Film, and Geneviève Lemal and Benoît Roland from Belgium’s Scope Picture & Wrong Men.

Other winners include Guillaume Senez and Jafar Panahi.

Belgium’s Guillaume Senez, Iceland’s Benedikt Erlingsson and Iran’s Jafar Panahi were among the award-winners at this year’s Filmfest Hamburg, which ended yesterday (6 October).

The Art Cinema Award went to Benedikt Erlingsson’s political comedy Woman At War which opened the Filmfest on 26 September and will be released in German cinemas by Pandora Filmverleih.

Senez’s second feature Our Battles (his debut was Keeper) won the Critics’ Choice Award which was presented for the first time in collaboration with the Association of German Film Critics (Vdfk).

The family drama...

The documentary M is not only hard to Google — if you just use the title — but it is also hard to describe. Winner of a special jury prize in Locarno, it investigates the sexual abuse of children in the ultra-orthodox Haredim community in Israel through the story of Menachem Lang, a now grown-up singer with the horrible nickname “the porno kid.” Shot on the fly with apparently zero interest in aesthetics by French director Yolande Zauberman, much like her smudgy, shot-on-the-street documentary Would You Have Sex With an Arab? from 2011, this is a ...

The documentary M is not only hard to Google — if you just use the title — but it is also hard to describe. Winner of a special jury prize in Locarno, it investigates the sexual abuse of children in the ultra-orthodox Haredim community in Israel through the story of Menachem Lang, a now grown-up singer with the horrible nickname “the porno kid.” Shot on the fly with apparently zero interest in aesthetics by French director Yolande Zauberman, much like her smudgy, shot-on-the-street documentary Would You Have Sex With an Arab? from 2011, this is a ...

A Land Imagined director Yeo Siew Hua Below you will find the awards for the 71st Locarno Festival, as well as an index of our coverage.AWARDSInternational CompetitionGolden Leopard: A Land Imagined (Yeo Siew Hua) Special Jury Prize: M (Yolande Zauberman) Special Mention: Ray & Liz (Richard Billingham) Best Direction: Dominga Sotomayor (Too Late to Die Young) Best Actress: Andra Guti (Alice T.) Best Actor: Ki Joobong (Hotel By the River)Filmmakers of the Present Golden Leopard: Chaos (Sara Fattahi) Special Jury Prize: Closing Time (Nicole Vögele) Prize for Best Emerging Director: Tarik Aktas (Dead Horse Nebula) Special Mention: Fausto (Andrea Bussmann)Rose in Matthieu Bareyre's L'EpoqueSigns of Life Best Film: The Fragile House (Lin Zi) Mantarraya Award: The Glorious Acceptance of Nicolas Chauvin (Benjamin Crotty)First Feature Best First Feature: Alles Ist Gut (Eva Trobisch)Art Peace Hotel Award: Acid Forest (Rugile Barzdziukaite)Special Mention: Erased, Ascent of the...

Since its launch in 2012, the Sarajevo Film Festival’s Kinoscope sidebar has presented challenging, experimental and genre-bending titles from around the globe.

This year’s lineup includes an eclectic showcase of feature and documentary works from mostly young directors, half of them women, including Nicolas Pesce’s U.S. thriller “Piercing”; Dominga Sotomayor’s “Too Late to Die Young”; Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani’s “Let the Corpses Tan”; and Gustav Möller’s Danish thriller “The Guilty,” this year’s opening film.

Kinoscope programmers Alessandro Raja and Mathilde Henrot sat down with Variety to discuss the section and this year’s lineup.

Q: Half of your films are by female filmmakers. Is there a conscious effort on your part to present works by women?

Henrot: It’s a conscious selection which doesn’t require too much effort. Since the beginning of Kinoscope we’ve always chosen to have a balanced...

Gadfly filmmaker Yolande Zauberman (“Would You Have Sex With an Arab?”) uses her guerilla-style low-wattage camera to expose rampant sexual abuse among a community of ultra-Orthodox Jews in “M,” a typically confrontational documentary that’s long on outrage and short on aesthetics. Shot entirely at night and largely composed of murky close-ups of Menahem Lang, an actor who was repeatedly raped as a child while growing up in the Israeli city of Bneï Brek, the film is an excoriating attack on the way child abuse has been normalized and covered up within the isolationist Haredi sects of Judaism. The lack of visual interest will likely hamper all but a tiny release, notwithstanding Locarno’s Special Jury prize; Jewish film festivals are its natural outlet.

As a child, Lang was the pride of the Neturei Karta community thanks to his beautiful voice, used in synagogue to sing praises to the Lord.

Paris-based Indie Sales has swooped on Yolande Zauberman’s “M,” which on Saturday night won Locarno’s Special Jury Prize, essentially its runners-up plaudit, making it the top prize winning movie from a woman at this year’s Swiss festival, the biggest film event in Europe between Cannes and Venice.

“M” also took Locarno’s Premio l’Ambiente à Qualité di Vita, awarded by its youth jury. The international sales rights deal was struck Saturday in Locarno. New Story will release “M” in cinema theaters in France first semester of 2019.

Produced by Charles Gillibert and Julie Viez for CG Cinema and Fabrice Biglio and Zauberman for Phobics Films, “M” marks a winning first entry into international documentary feature production by CG Cinema, a company best known for producing high-profile French fiction auteurs Olivier Assayas, Mia Hansen-Love and Deniz Gamze.

Director Zauberman has had a highly impressive career in both documentary and fiction features,...

The 71st edition of the Locarno Film Festival drew to a close over the weekend, with Singaporean writer-director Yeo Siew Hua’s contemporary noir “A Land Imagined” taking the Golden Lion award in the international competition.

Yeo’s first narrative feature since his experimental 2009 debut “In the House of Straw,” the politically infused mystery – about a Singapore police detective on the trail of a missing Chinese construction worker – was not a widely expected winner of the top prize in a diverse competition that included well-received features by Hong Sang-soo, Radu Muntean and Kent Jones. Variety critic Jay Weissberg was less impressed than Chinese auteur Jia Zhangke’s jury, writing that the film “privileges style over coherence.”

At an award ceremony that saw victories for several female filmmakers, France’s Yolande Zauberman took the Special Jury Prize, essentially the runner-up gong, for “M,” a Yiddish-language exploration of Bnei Brak, the Israeli...

The 71st Locarno Film Festival has come to a close, with Singaporean director Yeo Siew Hua’s “A Land Imagined” taking home the coveted Golden Leopard. Joining him on awards night was Dominga Sotomayor, whose “Thursday Till Sunday” follow-up “Too Late to Die Young” earned her Best Director laurels; the 14-hour “La Flor,” however, was not similarly honored.

Carlo Chatrian, who just served his sixth and final year as Artistic Director, said that “Locarno71 was a rich and diversified edition, just as it is in the tradition of a festival which is not afraid to approach extremes and to combine a smile with reflection. The guests who brought their experience and congeniality, were joined by new ideas that were well received.”

Here’s the full list of winners:

Concorso internazionale

Pardo d’oro (Golden Leopard)

A Land Imagined by Yeo Siew Hua, Singapore / France / The Netherlands

Premio Speciale della giuria...

The 71st edition of the Swiss film festival closed with the awards ceremony on August 11.

Siew Hua Yeo’s second feature A Land Imagined has become the first film from Singapore to take home the top honour of the Golden Leopard in the history of the Locarno Festival.

The Singapore-France-Netherlands co-production, which received backing from Rotterdam’s Hubert Bals Fund and Cnc’s World Cinema Fund, follows a police investigator who must find a missing migrant in industrial Singapore.

The International Competition jury headed by Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhang-Ke awarded the special jury prize to Yolande Zauberman’s documentary M,...

Director Yeo Siew Hua on Saturday took home the coveted top prize at the 71st edition of Locarno International Film Festival, winning the Golden Leopard for his film A Land Imagined.

The film follows a lonely construction worker from China who goes missing in Singapore after forming a virtual friendship with a mysterious online gamer and a police investigator who uncovers much more than he bargained for in order to find him.

Among other awards in the main competition, filmmaker Yolande Zauberman won the special jury prize for M; Dominga Sotomayor was named best director for Tarde Para Morir Joven; helmer Richard Billingham ...