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Every culture has its creation myths, from the Mayans’ “Popol Vuh” to the two separate accounts contained in the Judeo-Christian book of Genesis. The commonality across latitudes is the desire to make sense of our presence in this plane of existence, to understand ourselves in the context of a larger plan written by the hand of a higher power. With distinctly stylized animation, the Hungarian feature “Four Souls of Coyote” from director Áron Gauder retells another version of events, focused on how Turtle Island (what’s now known as North America) and the creatures that inhabit it, including humans, came to be. The tale is shared among multiple Northeastern Indigenous peoples in this continent.

The frame narrative occurs in the present. As an unscrupulous oil company attempts to start a pipeline project before addressing environmental concerns, a group of protesters, Native American and otherwise, tries to stop the groundbreaking. One of them,...

"Nothing is eternal, but the Earth and the mountains." Gebeka has posted an official US trailer for an indie animation film titled Four Souls of Coyote, debuting in US theaters starting this weekend. The film first premiered last year at a few other film festivals, and it also just played at the 2024 Annecy Film Festival this year. Four Souls of Coyote is actually a Hungarian production from a Hungarian animation director named Áron Gauder, though telling a distinct story about Native Americans. They worked with Charles Cambridge on the script, and cast voice actors from America & Canada, along with hiring several Native musicians for music in the film. In Four Souls of Coyote, Indigenous teenagers confront an oil pipeline project, which is located just downhill from their ancestral land. The grandfather evokes the ancient tale of their Creation, reminding all of us that we need to find our place in the great circle of creatures.

Exclusive: Juno Films has claimed U.S. rights to Four Souls of Coyote, the animated feature that marks Hungary’s official entry for the Best International Feature Oscar in 2024. Premiering at the Annecy Animated Film Festival, where it won the Jury Award for Best Feature, the film is now poised for an extended festival run into the spring of 2024, when it will be released in theaters.

Aron Gauder directed this retelling of the Native American creation myth set in the modern context of environmental crises. The film goes back to the creation of the world, when Old Man created life from mud. His every creation is new and unknown and affects the rest of the world. Desire and emotions are unknown as well, and with the evolution of those, the world becomes more complicated. Through adventures filled with animals, magic, hunger, greed and the sacred circle of all creations, the...

Oscar voters in the Best International Feature Film category have received their group assignments for this year’s initial round of voting, with 89 films included on the seven lists that the Academy has sent to members.

The lists, which were obtained by TheWrap, include presumed favorites “The Zone of Interest” (United Kingdom), “The Taste of Things” (France), “The Promised Land” (Denmark) and “Perfect Days” (Japan), along with a number of documentaries, among them Estonia’s “Smoke Sauna Sisterhood,” Brazil’s “Pictures of Ghosts” and Ukraine’s “20 Days in Mariupol.”

The 89 films are four short of the record of 93 qualifying films in the category. The list of group assignments does not make up the Academy’s official list of eligible films; it’s possible that assigned films might still fail to qualify before first-round voting begins on Dec. 18. For the most part, though, films that are included in the group...

Annecy Cristal Prize winner Áron Gauder, who won the festival’s top prize in 2005 for his time-traveling love story “The District!”, returned to the prestigious French animation event this year with “Four Souls of Coyote,” an epic adventure inspired by a Native American myth about the creation of the universe that scooped the festival’s Jury Award.

Produced by Budapest-based animation studio Cinemon Entertainment and written and created by Gauder, the 2D-animated project is Hungary’s selection for the best international feature film race at the 96th Academy Awards and plays next at the Hungarian Film Festival of Los Angeles, which runs Oct. 27 – Nov. 2. World sales are being handled by Gebeka International.

Speaking to Variety recently from Budapest, Gauder describes “Four Souls of Coyote” as a long-gestating labor of love that highlights the increasingly dire stakes for mankind to live in harmony with the natural world before it’s too late.

As a young boy growing up in Budapest, a town that would come to be known as “Hollywood on the Danube,” Béla Bunyik dreamed of being in the pictures. “I fell in love with movies in Hungary back in the ’50s,” Bunyik tells Variety. “When I was 12 years old, I started to work as an extra in a few movies…. In 1953, I spent a whole summer with a bunch of kids and some of the best Hungarian actors at the time.”

He recalls being picked up after school by talent scouts and cutting his teeth on the sets of films like Viktor Gertler’s 1954 adventure-comedy “Me and My Grandfather.” “Seeing how a movie was done was very exciting for me and I was sad when the summer ended, and the film was shut,” he says. But those formative years sparked a lifelong obsession. “I got hooked.”

Bunyik would later emigrate to the U.

The Indigenous-focused programme includes recent prize-winners from the Annecy and Tribeca festivals.

The Red Nation International Film Festival, which spotlights American Indian and Indigenous cinema, has announced the line-up for its twenty-eighth edition, running November 1-12 in Los Angeles.

The festival, staged by the Red Nation Celebration Institute (Rnci) at the Fine Arts Theatre in Beverly Hills, will open with Aron Gauder’s animation Four Souls Of Coyote, best feature jury award winner at this year’s Annecy, and Madison Thomas’ post-apocalyptic drama Finality Of Dusk.

Spotlight screenings include Riley Keough and Gina Gammell’s 2022 Cannes Camera D’Or winner...

Predicting the eventual five Oscar nominees for Best International Feature is made difficult by the three-step process that begins after the October 2, 2023 deadline for countries to submit entries. To be part of the selection process for this category, which was called Best Foreign Language Film before 2020, requires a great deal of dedication. (Scroll down for the most up-to-date 2024 Oscars Best International Feature predictions.)

In the days following the deadline for submissions, the academy determines each film’s eligibility. Then the several hundred academy members who serve on the International Feature screening committee are divided into groups and required to watch all their submissions over a six-week period that ends in early December. Their top 15 vote-getters will make it to the next round. That list of semi-finalists will be revealed on December 21, 2023.

These 15 films will be made available to the entire academy membership who can cast ballots for the final five...

Hungary has selected Annecy-winning title Four Souls of Coyote as its official entry for the International Oscar race this year.

The 2D animation, which is Áron Gauder and produced by Réka Temple’s Cinemon Ent., is a retelling of the Native American creation myths whilst also reflecting on present day. The project explores issues of climate crisis when a company and the natives come face to face over the laying of oil pipelines. The community protests for its home and recalls the creation story and through the adventures of the mythical Coyote, which brings the wisdom of the indigenous people close to the audience and shows that it is easier to shape the future in the right direction by listening to the experiences of the past.

Four Souls of Coyote premiered at Annecy in the main competition this summer, where it was given the Jury Award and went on to...

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...

Further winners included Spanish documentary ‘Muyeres’.

Kazuyoshi Kumakiri’s Japanese drama Yoko scored a hat-trick of prizes at the Shanghai International Film Festival’s (Siff) Golden Goblet Awards including best film.

The film’s Japanese lead Rinko Kikuchi was named best actress for her performance of Yoko, a 42-year-old single woman who embarks on long journey to her hometown after the death of her estranged father. The film also won the best screenplay prize.

Scroll down for full list of winners

Kikuchi previously received an Oscar nomination for 2006’s Babel and worked with director Kumakiri on Hole In The Sky...

Further winners included Spanish documentary ‘Muyeres’.

Kazuyoshi Kumakiri’s Japanese drama Yoko scored a hat-trick of prizes at the Shanghai International Film Festival’s (Siff) Golden Goblet Awards including best film.

The film’s Japanese lead Rinko Kikuchi was named best actress for her performance of Yoko, a 42-year-old single woman who embarks on long journey to her hometown after the death of her estranged father. The film also won the best screenplay prize.

Scroll down for full list of winners

Kikuchi previously received an Oscar nomination for 2006’s Babel and worked with director Kumakiri on Hole In The Sky...

Japanese drama feature “Yoko” won the Golden Goblet best picture award at the Shanghai International Film Festival.

The jury Grand Prix was awarded to Spain’s “Muyeres” with China’s Liu Jin winning the best director prize. The trio also collected additional prizes making them the only multiple winners in a ceremony that sprinkled its awards widely.

“Yoko,” directed by Kumakiri Kazuyoshi, who earlier this year saw melodramatic “#Manhole” play in Berlin, takes the structure of a road-movie and is a journey of self-discovery of a woman who had been socially isolated in her apartment for many years. Portrayed by global star Rinko Kikuchi, the woman is forced to confront the real world, and herself, when she takes a 658 kilometre cross-country journey to her father’s funeral. Without a cell phone or the money for public transport, she finds herself having to hitch hike. Kikuchi also earned the best actress award.

2D computer animation also took the distribution award.

Sebastien Laudenbach and Chiara Malta’s French-Italian 2D computer animation Chicken For Linda! won the Cristal for best feature film at Annecy International Animation Film Festival this evening.

It was one of two prizes received by the film, alongside the Gan Foundation award for distribution.

Scroll down for the list of feature film winners

Chicken For Linda! (French title: Linda veut du poulet!) follows a mother and daughter, grieving following the loss of the mother’s late husband, who go on a quest across strike-paralysed Paris in search of the key ingredient...

Chicken for Linda! a French and Italian kids feature from directors Chiara Malta and Sébastien Laudenbach, has won top prize, the Cristal award, for best film at the 2023 Annecy International Animation Film Festival.

The 2D feature follows a mother struggling to make a chicken dinner for her daughter Linda, despite the fact that she doesn’t know how to cook and has picked a day when the whole country is on strike, making it nearly impossible to find a chicken to buy. Produced by Dolce Vita Films, Chicken for Linda! also picked up Annecy’s Gan Foundation Award for distribution.

Four Souls of Coyote, a 2D feature about Indigenous creation tales, from director Áron Gauder, took the jury prize, while Japanese feature The Tunnel to Summer, the Exit of Goodbyes, from director Tomohisa Taguchi, took the Paul Grimault Award.

Sirocco and the Kingdom of Air Streams from French director Benoît Chieux,...

Chiara Malta and Sébastien Laudenbach’s hand-painted marvel “Chicken for Linda!” took home dual honors at the Annecy Animation Festival on Saturday, scooping up the festival’s top prize, the Cristal Award for best feature, as well as the Gan Foundation award for distribution.

A bittersweet childhood tale that finds screwball humor in mourning and melancholy, the French-language film premiered to some acclaim out of Cannes’ Acid sidebar last month, and was picked up for North American distribution by Gkids while competing in Annecy.

“We wanted something both funny and affecting,” said co-director Chiara Malta. “The two elements were never in conflict, because we made the film for children, putting ourselves in their perspectives while adopting their language.”

“We wanted a [joyful mess],” added co-director Sébastien Laudenbach. “The film is sad and funny. It’s full of energy and emotion, and as a result, the graphic style is dynamic as well.”

Hungary...

France’s Annecy International Animation Film Festival has unveiled the prize winners of its biggest edition to date, running from June 11 to 17.

Italian-French directorial duo’s Chiara Malta and Sébastien Laudenbach’s Chicken For Linda! has won the top Cristal award for best film.

The heartwarming tale revolves around a mother and daughter struggling to come to terms with a personal tragedy in their lives.

Following a misunderstanding, the mother embarks on a mission to cook her daughter her favorite dish of chicken with peppers against the backdrop of a national strike.

The features is coproduced by Dolce Vita Films, Miyu Productions, and Dorje Film.

Hungarian director Áron Gauder’s Four Souls Of Coyote won the Jury Award.

The adventure tale tackles environmental issues through the prism of a Native American creation myth, revisited by four teenagers trying to save ancestorial land from an oil pipeline project.

Gauder previously won...

The spotlight will be shining both on what’s happening in Chinese animation right now and on what is about to emerge from the genre as the 25th Shanghai International Film Festival, which opened Friday, plays out until June 18.

The festival’s main Golden Goblet Awards have lined up five films from five countries for its Animation Film section, and they include the hotly anticipated Master Zhong from Chinese streamer iQiYi. The film takes its place in the competition alongside the Iran-Turkey co-production Dolphin Boy (directed by Mohammad Kheirandish), Hungary’s Four Souls Of Coyote (Aron Gauder), Gonta: The Story Of The Two-Named Dog In The Fukushima Disaster (Akio Nishizawa) from Japan and the Belgium-France-Spain effort The Inseparables (Jérémie Degruson).

Master Zhong taps into a much-loved character from archives of Chinese mythology but gives the demon-slaying titular hero a YA-savvy contemporary twist by pairing him with a young woman taking...

The chief of the Annecy Film Festival, Mickael Marin, has addressed the tragic knife attack that injured five people, including four children, on Thursday morning (June 8) at the playground of a busy lakeside park, just days before the start of the international animation film festival.

“We are all shocked here. So far, the only thing that I can say is that we really hope that kids and other people injured will be fine. Of course, we will do something (to express our solidarity). For the time being, the only thing that we can do is to send our thoughts to the people who were attacked,” Marin told Variety.

Two children and one adult are severely injured, according to France Info. The suspect, arrested by police shortly after the attack, is a Syrian refugee who applied for asylum in France and eventually got it from Sweden, according to local reports. France...

Exclusive: Gebeka International has boarded sales on Hungarian director Áron Gauder’s drama Four Souls Of Coyote ahead of its world premiere in Competition at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival (June 11-17).

The new 2D and 3D feature-length is Gauder’s second feature after The District (Nyócker!), which won Annecy’s top Cristal award for best film in 2005.

The new work is billed as an epic adventure tale tackling contemporary issues of global warming and the destruction of the environment through the prism of a Native American creation myth.

Set in the present day, Native American teenagers confront the crew of an oil pipeline project, just down the hill from the land of their ancestors. An elder evokes the ancient tale of their Creation myth and its lesson that the challenges facing humanity are universal.

Gauder has been fascinated with Native American culture since childhood and previously explored its...

The 25th edition marks a return in-person after being cancelled last year.

Han Yan’s Love Never Ends is set to open the 25th Shanghai International Film Festival (Siff), which has also revealed the nominations for its Golden Goblet Awards.

The romance drama is adapted from a cartoon of the same name created by Kang Full. Ni Dahong, Kara Wai, Tony Leung Ka-Fai and Cecilia Yip play two elderly couples who show it is never too late to love.

Director Han previously directed 2015’s Go Away Mr. Tumor and 2020’s A Little Red Flower. Love Never Ends is set for...

The Shanghai International Film Festival unveiled the competition selection for its 25th-anniversary edition Monday, featuring a lineup heavy on local Chinese titles, as well as substantial inclusion from Iran and Japan. Notably, though, festival organizers chose not to include a single film from the U.S. movie industry in their 2023 competition lineup.

The 2023 Shanghai festival, running June 9-18, will be the first version of the event that’s easily accessible to the global film industry since the Covid-19 pandemic began in early 2020. Last year, the festival was canceled in the wake of Shanghai’s monthlong Covid-19 lockdown and the government’s strict travel restrictions at the time. The festival was held the previous two years, but it became an almost entirely domestic Chinese affair, as flights in and out of China were hard to come by at the time (and all travelers had to endure lengthy and expensive hotel quarantines...

The 25th Shanghai International Film Festival, June 9 to 18, has unveiled the titles in contention for awards in its four main feature-length sections: main competition, Asian New Talent, Animation film and documentary. These are eligible for the festival’s prestigious Golden Goblet Awards, winners of which will be announced at the Shanghai Grand Theater on the evening of June 17.

While Siff remains the only mainland China festival to be accredited as a so-called A-list event by the International Federation of Film Producers (Fiapf), its selections are largely separate and distinct from those at other major international festivals.

While the lineup includes nine mainland Chinese titles, two from Hong Kong and five from Iran, there are, for instance, no films that hail from the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand or South Korea.

Feature Film Competition

“All Ears” Dir. Liu Jiayin (China)

“Dust To Dust” Dir. Jonathan Li (China)

“Good Autumn, Mommy” Dir.

Shanghai International Film Festival (Siff) has unveiled the major competition selections for its 25th edition (June 9-18), which will be the first to be held in a fully physical format with international guests since before the pandemic.

The festival’s Golden Goblet Awards comprises five sections – Main Competition, Asian New Talent, Animation Film, Documentary Film and Short Film. Winners will be announced at a ceremony in the Shanghai Grand Theater on June 17.

Siff’s main competition will screen 12 films, including Mom, Is That You?!, from Japanese veteran filmmaker Yoji Yamada; European titles including Muyeres, from Spanish director Marta Lallana, and The Chapel, from Belgium’s Dominique Deruddere; Indian director Haobam Paban Kumar’s Joseph’s Son; and three Chinese titles – Liu Jiayin’s All Ears, Johnathan Li’s Dust To Dust and Chen Shizhong’s Good Autumn, Mommy.

Poland’s Jerzy Skolimowski is heading the jury for the main competition,...

Here’s a rundown of some of the top Hungarian projects in the pipeline or selling at the Cannes Market:

Semmelweis

Director: Lajos Koltai

Producer: Tamas Lajos (Film Positive)

Sales: N/A

Set in 1847, as a mysterious epidemic rages in a maternity clinic in Vienna, this period drama from the Oscar-nominated cinematographer and director Koltai (“Malena”) stars promising young thesp Miklos H. Vecsei as the titular doctor Ignác Semmelweis, who spurns traditional medical theories to find a cure.

The Lefkovicses Are in Mourning

Director: Ádám Breier

Producers: Kázmér Miklós, Felszeghy Ádám, Ausztrics Andrea

Sales: N/A

Breier’s feature debut is a dramedy about a generous but stubborn elderly boxing coach who gets along with everyone except his own son. While the two haven’t spoken in years, they’re reunited during after the death of the old man’s wife and forced to face old grievances.

Cat Call

Director:...

Leading animation festival will open with Benoît Chieux’s Sirocco And The Kingdom Of The Winds.

French director Benoît Chieux’s Sirocco And The Kingdom Of The Wind is to open the Annecy International Animation Film Festival which runs from June 11-17.

The film – about two young sisters who discover a passage between this world and the extraordinary universe of The Kingdom of the Winds - is one of 11 titles selected for the festival’s official competition, where it will compete for the Crystal award.

Scroll down for full list

Neil Boyle and Kirk Hendry’s Kensuke’s Kingdom – which is...

Celebrating six decades as the animation industry’s premier international showcase and cementing a growing position as Hollywood’s preferred French getaway, the Annecy Intl. Animation Festival revealed its 2023 program in Paris on Thursday, unveiling a formidable selection of world premieres and industry debuts.

If only for the breadth of this year’s official selection, Annecy looks set to for its most fulsome and abundant edition.

Among the 11 titles competing for this year’s Cristal – Annecy’s top prize – Jérémie Périn’s sci-fi drama “Mars Express” and Jim Capobianco & Pierre-Luc Granjon stop-motion Leonardo da Vinci epic “The Inventor” will make their world premieres. Other eagerly anticipated titles include “Chicken for Linda!” from Chiara Malta and Sébastien Laudenbach, “Four Souls of Coyote” from by Áron Gauder, and “The Inseparables” by Jérémie Degruson.

Titles like Liu Jian’s “Art College 1994” and Sepideh Farsi’s “The Siren” will arrive in the idyllic French...

The Annecy International Animation Film Festival has unveiled the line-up for its 2023 edition, running from June 11 to 17.

More than 13,000 animation professionals are set to descend on the French festival’s lakeside setting for its traditional mix of screenings programs across all formats, Work-in-Progress and First-Look sneak peeks, and presentations going behind the scenes of upcoming animation productions.

Competition title Sirocco And The Kingdom Of The Winds by French director Benoît Chieux opens the festival. The fantasy follows the adventures of two young sisters as they try to make their way home after getting trapped in the world of their favorite book.

A Cat In Paris and Phantom Boy director Alain Gagnol co-wrote the screenplay for the feature lead produced by Paris-based Sacrebleu Productions.

The film, which world premieres in Annecy, is among 11 titles competing for the festival’s Crystal award.

Another three French productions debut in Competition: Chiara Malta and...

Csaba Káel, head of Hungary’s National Film Institute (Nfi), hopes to emulate an 18th century Magyar hussar hero at this year’s Berlinale European Film Market. Swashbuckling Count Andras Hadik occupied Berlin for one day in 1757 — in return for 300,000 silver thalers, left without destroying the city.

Hadik’s adventure is the subject of one of the films the Nfi will be marketing at the EFM. Káel plans to spend more than a day in Berlin, but also hopes Hungarian producers will leave with handsome sales ledgers after the market — without having to raise a ransom, like the handsome hussar.

It is the first EFM for the Nfi, since it was established in 2020, just as the pandemic hit, closing down the Berlinale’s market until this year.

Káel — an award-winning director who has worked with famous cinematographers, including the late Vilmos Zsigmond — was appointed Hungarian government film commissioner following the death in 2019 of Andy Vajna,...

Budapest-based animation studio Cinemon Entertainment has unveiled a teaser (below) for its upcoming animation feature “Four Souls of Coyote,” which is supported by Hungary’s National Film Institute, and is sold internationally by Nfi World Sales.

The film is created and directed by Áron Gauder, whose prior work includes “The District!,” awarded Annecy’s Cristal Prize for best feature in 2005. Géza Bereményi was the co-writer.

“Four Souls of Coyote” is billed as an epic adventure tale of the Native American creation myth. Through a re-telling of the creation of the universe, the film highlights the increasingly pressing need to live in harmony with the environment, before it is too late and humankind destroys the Earth.

The project, which is aimed at a young audience, makes use of both 2D and 3D animation, paintings and drawings by Gauder. The animation director was Zsolt Baumgartner. The film’s music was selected from authentic Native American songs.

The Hungarian film industry is booming, with a record 241 domestic productions — including feature films, shorts, documentaries and TV series — produced in 2021. Here’s a selection of top projects in the pipeline or being sold during the Cannes Market:

As Long as the Grass Grows

Director: Áron Gauder

Producer: Réka Temple (Cinemon Entertainment)

Annecy main prize winner Gauder (“The District”) spins an alternative creation myth, in which mankind is but one of many creatures in the animal kingdom, and offers a hopeful story that it’s not too late to correct course and save the planet.

Blockade

Director: Ádám Tősér

Producer: Tamás Lajos (Film Positive Productions)

Based on the true story of the country’s first democratically elected prime minister, the film follows József Antall’s journey from a freedom fighter during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 to the infamous 1990 taxi blockade that shook the nation.

Sales: Nfi World Sales

The Game...

Nfi World Sales, the institute’s sales arm, is also introducing buyers to Oscar-winning István Szabó’s latest feature Final Report.

Details have emerged at Berlin’s Efm of the latest investments from the Nfi (National Film Institute Hungary) under new film commissioner Csaba Kael.

The latest Nfi grants have gone to János Szász’s Journey by Moonlight, produced by Mythberg Films and adapted from the Antal Szerb novel; a documentary about three-time Olympic swimming champion Katinka Hosszú, produced by Szupermodern Stúdió; and Áron Gauder’s family animation As Long As the Grass Grows, produced by Cinemon Entertainment, which will...

Tiff’s Midnight Madness program turned 25 this year, and for two and half decades, the hardworking programers have gathered some of the strangest, most terrifying, wild, intriguing and downright entertaining films from around the world. From dark comedies to Japanese gore-fests and indie horror gems, the Midnight Madness program hasn’t lost its edge as one the leading showcases of genre cinema. In its 25-year history, Midnight Madness has introduced adventurous late-night moviegoers to such cult faves as Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused and Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs. But what separates Midnight Madness from, say, Montreal’s three and half week long genre festival Fantasia, is that Tiff selects only ten films to make the cut. In other words, these programmers don’t mess around. Last week I decided that I would post reviews of my personal favourite films that screened in past years. And just like the Tiff programmers,...