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The Locarno Film Festival (August 6-16) has unveiled the line-up for the 2025 edition, with world premieres including Radu Jude’s Dracula.

Romanian filmmaker and Berlinale Golden Bear winner Jude’s Romania-Austria-Luxembourg co-production, which competes in the international competition, is a comedy drama shot and set in Transylvania that explores the legend of Dracula through multiple lenses. Luxbox represents sales. Jude returns to Locarno after two films played out of competition last year – Eight Postcards From Utopia, co-directed with Christian Ferencz-Flatz, and Sleep #2.

Locarno’s international competition comprises of 17 world premieres, which will vie for the Golden Leopard awards. Among them...

In a year where Visions du Réel boasts 31 Swiss productions and co-productions in its main program, it is clearer than ever that the country is booming with documentary talent. Another strong proof of that claim is the yearly Swiss Films Previews, organized by the country’s national film agency Swiss Films with the goal of promoting on-the-ground partnerships with programmers, sales agents, financiers and other potential backers.

Although this year’s crop of six projects is diverse in scope, the search for identity in a world of increased displacement is a prevalent theme. Dea Gjinovci’s “The Beauty of the Donkey” sees a filmmaker return to Kosovo alongside her father, who has lived in exile for over six decades; Anne-Frédérique Widmann’s “Shewit” trails the titular refugee over a decade from the moment she first arrived in Geneva after fleeing her home country of Eritrea; and in Benjamin Bucher’s “Sweet Belonging,...

Starring Levan Gelbakhiani (“And Then We Danced”) and Karidja Touré (“Girlhood”), “Don’t Let the Sun (Catch You Crying),” the fiction feature debut of multi-prized Swiss documentarian Jacqueline Zünd has won the Marché du Film’s first Goes to Cannes Award.

The prize, a €10,000 minimum guarantee for international sales, is sponsored by Sideral, a Spain-based studio dedicated to production, distribution and international sales launched by Elamedia at Berlin last year.

After three introspective doc features, portraying the unspoken thoughts of insomniacs, ageing men and children after their parents’ separation, in “Don’t Let the Sun (Catch You Crying),” Zünd creates an alternative universe where Jonah is employed by an agency that offers human relationships. When he’s hired to work as Nika’s father, he begins to lose control of his tightly disciplined life.

“The film portrays a world that is only a small step away from our reality, not...

Unspooling May 18 as part of an overall Swiss Focus at the Marché du Film, Solothurn Film Festival Goes to Cannes marks the first collaboration between the long-standing Swiss festival and the Cannes market, but also a first for many of the talents and producers carefully picked for the event.

Two of Switzerland’s top documentary filmmakers Jacqueline Zünd, winner of a 2019 Crystal Bear nominated for “Where We Belong,” and Nicholas Steiner, director of “Above & Below”, ranked among Variety reviewer Peter Debruge’s Top 10 films of 2015, are set to attract buyers, sales agents and programmers’ attention with their star-stubbed fiction debuts.

In “Do You Believe in Angels, Mr Drowak,” Steiner has hired Karl Markovics, star of the 2008 Oscar winner “The Counterfeiters”, rising acting talent Lune Wedler, Lars Eidinger and Dominique Pinon.

“After two cinematic documentaries that ran worldwide and an original Netflix series [“Dig Deeper-The Disappearance of Birgit Meier”], I was excited to create this technically demanding,...

Swiss documentarian Jacqueline Zünd frequents the distant but intimate lives of people from around the world – the insomniacs, the aged and the children – embracing their delights and disappointments, regrets and hopes, and other contrasting sensations. As these people wander along their paths of ritual, befittingly or misfittingly, they understand life anew with wisdom, dignity and vitality.

Zünd has been a critically acclaimed multi-award winning filmmaker since her debut. Her works have participated in prominent festivals including the Berlin (Germany), Locarno (Switzerland), Moscow (Russia) International Film Festivals, Visions du Réel and Dok Leipzig (Germany) amongst others.

This programme is screening a selection of her three own directorial works and bring two films that have influenced her filmmaking. Audience members are also welcomed to join the virtual After-screening Masterclass in which Zünd will talk about the process of how she transforms intimate human subjects into film.

Co-organizers: Hong Kong Arts Centre, Consulate General of Switzerland...

Co-Presented by the Hong Kong Arts Centre, Consulate General of Switzerland in Hong Kong and Swiss Films, moving image programme Distance and Intimacy: Documentary Film Retrospective of Jacqueline Zünd takes placeat the Louis Koo Cinema, Hong Kong Arts Centre from 17 to 20 November 2022. Swiss documentarian Jacqueline Zünd frequents the distant but intimate lives of people from around the world – the insomniacs, the aged and the children – embracing their delights and disappointments, regrets and hopes, and other contrasting sensations. As these people wander along their paths of ritual, befittingly or unfittingly, they understand life anew with wisdom, dignity and vitality.

Program:

Where We Belong

Goodnight Nobody

Sworn Virgin

Megacities

Almost There

Audience members are also welcomed to join the virtual After-Screening Masterclass in which Zünd will talk about the process of how she transforms intimate human subjects into film.

Individual tickets and a tickets package (Includes 1 ticket each of the 5 films) are available at www.

At this year’s edition of Locarno’s Alliance 4 Development, both the future of the selected nine projects, and the co-production market as a whole, will be on the table.

The Locarno Film Festival program, which facilitates international co-production for projects from France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland, skipped a year due to Covid-19, but is back stronger than ever.

“We received more than 70 submissions from the four countries,” says program manager Francesca Palleschi. “That testifies to the eagerness to go back to co-development forums, not only to find partners, but also to get together and exchange experiences and best practices.”

There is no question that the co-production market has been hit hard by the pandemic. On top of their usual mountain of problems, producers looking for international partners have had to factor lockdowns, border closures, rocketing insurance costs and complex and expensive Covid protocols into their equations.

However, Palleschi says...

Upcoming features from Brazilian director João Paulo Miranda Maria and Swiss-Rwandan director Philibert Aimé Mbabazi

New projects from Brazilian director João Paulo Miranda Maria and Swiss-Rwandan director Philibert Aimé Mbabazi are among nine projects selected for Locarno Pro’s Alliance 4 Development initiative this year.

The initiative is an integral part of Locarno Film Festival’s Locarno Pro industry strand and is aimed at encouraging co-productions between Switzerland and France, Germany and Italy.

Each participating territory presents two to three projects.

The shortlist was selected from a record 75 submissions this year. “We were delighted with the quality and the sheer number of entries received,...

The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival is announcing the line-up for its 22nd edition today, which will take place in Durham, North Carolina from April 4-7. The festival will kick things off with “American Factory,” the Sundance critical smash that was picked up by Netflix. The festival’s 2019 tribute will be given to the films’ co-directors, Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, which includes a curated retrospective of the two collaborators’ body of work.

25 features will screen in competition in the New Docs category, along with 21 short films. Included in its competition line-up is the world premiere feature “The Watson’s Hotel.” There are also multiple North American premieres, including Iain Cunningham’s “Irene’s Ghost” and “Where We Belong” by Jacqueline Zünd. Plus, U.S. premieres include Tania Hernández Velasco’s “Titixe” and Alexander John Glustrom’s “Mossville: When Great Trees Fall.”

Competition films are eligible for juried awards offering...

Jacqueline Zünd’s Swiss documentary “Where We Belong” world premieres as part of this year’s Generation Kplus selection at the Berlinale, a section dedicated to kids and family content, although the film’s selection in that particular category came as a surprise to the filmmaker.

Herself a single parent, Zünd’s documentary tells, from a kids’ Pov, the account of life growing up in a split-parent home. Zünd focuses on kids from five families who, through everyday life footage combined with interviews, give their own account of life as a child of separated parents.

“Where We Belong” is Zünd’s third directorial feature. She previously scooped best documentary at the Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival for her 2010 feature “Goodnight Nobody,” and was nominated at Moscow and Munich, in addition to a Swiss Film Prize nomination, for her 2016 feature “Almost There.”

The film was produced by Switzerland’s Real Film, with...

‘2040’

Damon Gameau’s innovative documentary 2040 will have its world premiere at next month’s Berlin International Film Festival.

Produced by Good Thing Productions’ Nick Batzias with Anna Kaplan and Virginia Whitwell, the film will screen in the Kplus section of the Generation program, which this this year is tagged: ‘Giving the Oppressed a Voice.’

A three year self-described labour of love, 2040 takes the form of a visual letter from the filmmaker to his four-year-old daughter Velvet, showing her what the year 2040 could look like “if we simply embraced the best solutions that exist today.”

He said: “The point is to tell a new and positive story about our future. We are creating a hub of solutions and actions that people can implement at home or at work.”

It will be his second appearance at the Berlinale where That Sugar Film screened in Generation in 2015. The festival said: “2040 combines elements of...

Today, Montreal's Festival du nouveau cinéma (Fnc), which will take place between October 12 to 23. Here's the complete line-up of feature films according to the press release we received.

Opening and closing

The 40th edition of the Fnc kicks off on Wednesday, October 12, with Declaration of War by Valérie Donzelli (France) at Cinéma Impérial (Centre Sandra & Leo Kolber, Salle Lucie & André Chagnon). This critically-acclaimed second feature by Valérie Donzelli (The Queen of Hearts) tells the love story of Roméo and Juliette who are battling to save their sick child. The director and her producer Edouard Weil will be in attendance.

Ten days later, on Saturday, October 22, Monsieur Lazhar (Quebec/Canada) by Philippe Falardeau will close the Festival. Selected to represent Canada at the Oscars for Best Foreign Language Film, Monsieur Lahzar shows the efforts of an Algerian schoolteacher to help his Grade 6 students come to terms with their teacher’s death.

I will soon post a list of films I have already seen that I highly recommend as well as a list of my most anticipated films screening at this year’s Festival du Nouveau Cinema. For now here is the press release from the festival. Make sure you read carefully because there are a ton of great films to check out.

Montreal, Tuesday September 27, 2011– Montreal’s Festival du nouveau cinéma will be celebrating its 40th edition from October 12 to 23. For the past 40 years, Canada’s oldest film festival has offered film buffs a selection of the year’s most exciting new films — a bold lineup with plenty of whimsical and surprising elements, but one that also turns its lens on social realities and the evolution of film and new technologies. Over the course of this year’s 11-day Festival, audiences of all ages can take in features and shorts, fiction films and documentaries,...