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Quick LinksThe Story of A ProphetWhat Makes A Prophet Such a Beloved Film?An American Remake of A Prophet Was Nearly Made

When most people think of crime or gangster films, they might think of classic Hollywood portrayals like Goodfellas or Reservoir Dogs, but they rarely include any films from outside the realm of Hollywood as part of the conversation. If the Best Picture win for Bong Joon Ho's Parasite at the 2020 Oscars has served as any indication, it's that some of the most well-made films in the world happen to come from overseas. For any fans of the crime genre, the Academy Award-nominated French film, A Prophet (or Un prophète) is an absolute must-watch. Since its release, A Prophet has gone on to gain a reputation as being one of the best French films ever made. It's a film that has plenty of thought-provoking drama and thrills going for...

By Abe Friedtanzer

It’s always worth keeping track of filmmakers whose first films are nominated for the Oscar for Best International Feature, and sometimes it’s quite a wait to see them return for a sophomore effort. Palestinian director Scandar Copti earned Israel its nine (and third consecutive) nomination in the foreign film category in 2009 along with Israeli co-director Yaron Shani. Fifteen years later, Copti is back with another film that feels very much like his first, probing the complexities of multicultural society in a country that’s very often in the news but not always portrayed in such an authentic and vivid manner…...

When Rami (Toufic Danial), one of the protagonists of Scandar Copti’s cleverly structured drama Happy Holidays, learns that his girlfriend Shirley (Shani Dahari) is pregnant, panic sets in. He is Palestinian and she is Israeli. He fears the reality of raising a child in a country where not even their relationship can be public. Rami asks Shirley to consider an abortion and she refuses.

Their relationship contains the first of several interlocking tensions observed in Happy Holidays, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival in the Orrizonti sidebar. The movie follows Rami, Shirley and members of both their families as they navigate life in Israel. Copti, a Palestinian filmmaker who co-directed the Oscar-nominated Ajami with Israeli helmer Yaron Shani, trains his gaze on the subtle dynamics at play when people live in a heavily militarized and divided nation. How do interpersonal connections echo or question the will of the state?...

From Palestinian filmmaker Scandar Copti, the Israel-set “Happy Holidays” is a piercing, realistic family drama, the inflection points of which reveal deep cultural and political dimensions surrounding gender and ethnicity. Like his Oscar-nominated crime drama “Ajami” (which he co-directed with Yaron Shani), Copti’s second feature follows an ensemble of characters — Arab and Jewish alike — to assemble a multifaceted portrait of life in Haifa, Israel’s third-largest city.

In depicting strained family ties and rocky courtships, “Happy Holidays” veers between anxious and joyful. Copti and cinematographer Tim Kuhn shoot each interaction with an up-close, handheld intimacy that not only magnifies the subtle, powerful performances of the cast (many of them first-time actors), but welcomes the viewer into each scene, as though it were a complicated family reunion. At the center of its sprawling plot are four members of an Arab family, who share several casual, agreeable scenes together, but whose...

Paris-based company Indie Sales has acquired “Happy Holidays,” the sophomore feature of Oscar-nominated Palestinian filmmaker Scandar Copti.

Copti’s feature debut, “Ajami,” co-directed by Yaron Shani, won the Camera d’Or Special Mention at the Cannes Film Festival in 2009 and was nominated for an Oscar in the international feature category.

“Happy Holidays” takes place in contemporary Israel, where a minor accident in Jerusalem triggers a chain of events. “Lies and unspoken truths will sow division among a multi-faceted patriarchal society,” reads the synopsis.

Nicolas Eschbach, Indie Sales’ CEO and co-founder, described “Happy Holidays” as a “highly-expected second feature from Palestinian director Scandar Copti after his Cannes-selected critically-acclaimed debut.”

Currently in post-production, the film is expected to be delivered in the spring. “Happy Holidays” is produced by Red Balloon Film in Germany, together with Tessalit Productions in France, Intramovies in Italy and Fresco Films in Palestine.

Indie Sales will introduce the...

Industry speakers at festival include ‘Quo Vadis, Aida?’ director Jasmila Zbanic, former Marvel exec Karim Zreik.

Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea International Film Festival (Rsiff) has selected 26 feature film projects for its Red Sea Souk Project Market; plus a Work-in-Progress showcase, and speakers for its 360° industry events programme.

The 26 Souk projects hail from Africa and the Arab region. Titles include Djeliya, Memory Of Manding, a documentary from Burkinabe filmmaker Boubacar Sangare, whose third film A Golden Life played at the Berlinale earlier this year.

Scroll down for the full list of projects

Also included is Scandar Copti’s animated documentary A Childhood,...

Schory was head of the Israel Film Fund for 21 years.

Katriel Schory, former long-time head of the Israel Film Fund, has received a lifetime achievement award from the Israel Academy of Film and Television.

Schory was presented with the award at a special event on August 27, ahead of the Ophir Awards ceremony on September 10 – the main ceremony for the Israeli Academy.

“Israeli cinema would not look the same without Katriel Schory,” read a statement from the Academy, which selected the executive for the award “for his work and public achievements over the past 30 years, with great respect and endless appreciation.

The Iranian series The Actor from director Nima Javidi picked up the top Grand Prize jury award at Series Mania, the international TV festival that wrapped in Lille, France on Friday night.

The drama from Iran is led by the Venice best actor winner Navid Mohammadzadeh and follows two down and out actors struggling to make ends meet as they run a derelict theater in Tehran with wealthy Iranians as patrons.

The international jury, led by screenwriter and producer Lisa Joy, also gave its best actor trophy to Michael Sheen for his performance the U.K. series Best Interests, while the best actress prize went to Margot Mancilhon for her star turn in the French series Haven of Grace.

The Series Mania international jury also gave the best writing trophy to John Kâre Raake for The Fortress series from Norway.

In other prize giving, the International Panorama jury, led by French writer Herve Le Tellier,...

Series Mania has always been about discovery: Of drama series as an art form, in its early days from launch in 2009; then of key players on a burgeoning international premium TV scene.

Series Mania’s International Panorama now catches a new wave of creatives transitioning from film to scripted TV – Israel’s Yaron Shani with “Innermost,” Spain’s Isaki Lacuesta and Isa Campo with episodes of “Apagón”; and highlights notable emerging auteurs: Denmark’s Kasper Møller Rask, Canada’s Alexis Durand-Brault, Spain’s Fran Araujo, Pakistan’s Assim Abassi and Germany’s Jakob and Jonas Weydemann.

But for having already bowed at national festivals, some of the 12 titles below could well have been in the running for a Competition berth.

Below, the Series Mania’s rich 2023 International Panorama:

“Apagón,” (“Offworld,” Spain)

One of Variety’s Best International TV Shows of 2022, a realistic, sophisticated disaster thriller from Movistar+ and Buendía Estudios...

Israel’s Yaron Shani, best known for his feature debut “Ajami,” nominated for the Best International Feature Oscar in 2010, is presenting his debut television series, “Innermost,” at Series Mania.

Variety is unveiling an exclusive first look at the series, which world premieres March 20 at the prominent television event unspooling in Lille, France over March 17-24.

The six-episode limited series, world premiering in Series Mania’s International Panorama section, follows three characters whose lives intersect. Among them is a police officer, played by Eran Naim, a former cop himself, who first appeared in “Ajami.” The second is an upcoming writer who struggles to recover from a traumatic experience, while the third is a young aspiring musician who chafes against his parents’ wish to do his duty and join the military service, mandatory in Israel.

“ ’Innermost’ dives into a multi-layered reality of violence and grace, storming under the calm blanket of modernity in contemporary Tel Aviv,...

Event closes with Anna Winger’s Netflix series Transatlantic.

Series Mania will kick off its 2023 event with Cédric Klapisch’s Amazon French Original series Greek Salad before serving up 32 world premieres, an industry Forum, and closing with Anna Winger’s Netflix series Transatlantic.

The International Competition of the annual television festival and industry event includes Franco-Belgian Arte series Grace of Heaven, Apple TV+, France Televisions and Hulu Japan’s Drops of God, Paramount+’s Spanish Fleeting Lies, Reshet 13’s Israeli series Red Skies, Viaplay’s Norwegian The Fortress and Prime Video’s US series The Power. Among the titles from...

Cinemas are looking to bounce back from a week of bad news.

France, opening Wednesday September 23

UFO Distribution and Potemkine Films joined forces this week for a rare general release of a medium-length film to launch Gaspar Noé’s 51-minute work Lux Æterna on 47 prints. Co-starring Beatrice Dalle and Charlotte Gainsbourg as a director and actress locked in a hellish shoot, the work debuted Out of Competition in Cannes in 2019.

Noé’s cult status at home ensured plenty of press and according to France’s Cbo Box Office the picture came in fifth out of 15 new releases on its first day in cinemas,...

Leonine is opening Russell Crowe thriller ‘Unhinged’ in Germany.

As cinemas begin to reopen again in many territories, Screen is tracking which films are being released in key territories each week.

Cinema reopening dates around the world: latest updates France, opening Wednesday July 15

The French box office entered its fourth full week of activity on July 15, following the reopening of cinemas on June 22 after their 14-week Covid-19 hiatus.

New films on release this week include Francois Ozon’s young adult drama Summer Of 85. Diaphana Distribution pushed the launch forward from France’s typical Wednesday release day to Tuesday, to...

As cinemas begin to reopen again in many territories, Screen is tracking which films are released across the globe each week.

As cinemas begin to reopen again in many territories, Screen is tracking which films are being released in key territories each week.

France, opening Wednesday July 8

The French box office, which runs Wednesday to Wednesday, entered its third full week of activity on July 8, following the reopening of cinemas on June 22 after their 14-week Covid-19 hiatus. Programming for the first 10 days of reopening consisted mainly of re-released films, the theatrical careers of which were put on hold mid-March due to the lockdown,...

The Eurimages Fund is supporting 28 features.

European support body Eurimages has selected 28 features for a total of €6.1m ($6.9m) funding, including new works by Robert Guédiguian and Jim Sheridan.

French filmmaker Guédiguian – who has directed 21 features since 1981 including his most recent, Venice 2019 selection Gloria Mundi – receives €470,000 for France-Canada co-production Bamako Twist.

Ireland’s Sheridan, who has been nominated for six Oscars across his career since his breakthrough debut feature My Left Foot, receives €280,000 for Ireland-uk-France documentary In Absentia, co-directed with Colm Quinn. The documentary looks into the murder of French producer Sophie Toscan Du Plantier in Ireland, in December 1996.

Other...

In today’s film news roundup, Tim Story is in talks to direct Kevin Hart in “Night Wolf,” Michael Moore calls off this year’s Traverse City Film Festival, and New York’s Israel Film Center Festival goes virtual.

Director Attached

Stx Films is in final talks for director-producer Tim Story to re-team with Kevin Hart on the superhero comedy “Night Wolf.”

Story collaborated with Hart on both “Ride Along” movies and the two “Think Like a Man” titles. Hart came on to the “Night Wolf” project last year and will star and produce through his HartBeat Productions.

“Night Wolf,” written by “Detective Pikachu” screenwriters Dan Hernandez and Benji Samit, follows Hart’s character meeting his future father-in-law for the first time only to discover he is secretly the superhero known as the Night Wolf.

Should the deal make, Story will direct and produce through his production company, The Story Company.

Kurosawa is a Cannes regular with films such as Tokyo Sonata (2008), Journey To The Shore (2015) and Before We Vanish (2017).

Paris-based distributor Art House Films has acquired French rights to Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s war epic Wife Of A Spy, which is being sold internationally by Japan’s Nikkatsu.

Art House Films specialises in Japanese cinema and has previously released films including Kurosawa’s Foreboding (Yocho) and Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Happy Hour and Asako I & II, which played in Cannes competition in 2018. Launched in 2018, the company has also acquired films such as Singaporean filmmaker Eric Khoo’s Ramen Teh and Israeli director Yaron Shani’s Chained.

Buenos Aires — Paris-based Alpha Violet has acquired international rights to Fernanda Valadez’s feature debut, “Identifying Features,” which world premieres in World Dramatic Competition at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.

Announced this week, the Sundance selection comes on top of a Films in Progress Prize at this September’s San Sebastian Festival.

Studying at Mexico’s Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica, (Ccc), Valadez directed the short film “400 Maletas,” that earned nominations for the Student Academy Awards and Mexico’s Ariel Awards.

“Identifying Features” follows a mother searching desperately for her son, who has gone missing en route to the U.S.-Mexico border. Instead, she meets the young Miguel, recently deported from the U.S., who is eager to be reunited with his mother in Mexico, a country he hardly recognizes.

The two strike up a sense of companionship as they wander through a desolate, violence-ravaged townships and landscapes of today’s Mexico,...

Yaron Shani is a graduate of Tel Aviv University Film Department. His debut feature-length film Ajami was an Academy Award Nominee for Best Foreign Film and won fifteen international awards, including the Golden Alexander Award at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival. Over the last years, Shani has been working on his highly ambitious project Love Trilogy: Love Trilogy: Stripped premiered at the Venice Orizzonti section, while the second installment Love Trilogy: Chained premiered at the Berlinale Panorama.

On the occasion of “Chained” screening at Thessaloniki International Film Festival, we speak with him his unique procedure of filmmaking, the main protagonist, police tactics, perceiving the world and many other topics

Can you tell me a bit about this unique procedure you implement regarding the acting aspect in your films?

Let’s imagine a surprise party for your grandmother. Let’s imagine it in a fiction film where you see actors performing as if they are surprised,...

Shooting a film with a protagonist as unlikeable as Rashi in “Chained” is and actually making it so captivating, definitely is not an easy task. Yaron Shani, however, has managed just that.

“Chained” is screening at Thessaloniki International Film Festival

The aforementioned Rashi has been a Tel Aviv police officer for 15 years. He is good in his job and his colleagues appreciate him. However, he is also a kind of sociopath who is used to getting his own way in all aspects of his life, both professionally and inside his house. This tendency of his eventually brings him to an intense clash with his step-daughter, who wants to be a model, and his wife, who has been undertaking fertility treatment, despite the latter’s hard efforts to play the intermediary between the two. Furthermore, during a routine police check that goes a bit too far, Rashi finds himself accused of sexual assault,...

The 60th Thessaloniki International Film Festival invites audience and filmmakers to the large celebration of global independent cinema from October 31 to November 10, 2019, showcasing the best films from all over the world, important guests and tributes, cinematic surprises, as well as a series of parallel events in the city of Thessaloniki.

Here are all the Asian Films in the Official Programme:

International Competition

“Wet Season” by Anthony Chen – Singapore, Taiwan – 2019

Out Of Competition

“Beanpole” by Kantemir Balagov – Russia, 2019

”Abou Leila” – by Amin Sidi-boumediene – Algeria, France, Qatar – 2019

“Sister”

Balkan Survey

“Noah Land” by Cenk Erturk – Germany, Turkey, USA – 2019

”Sister” by Svetla Tsotsorkova – Bulgaria, Qatar – 2019

Film Forward

“From Tomorrow On, I Will” by Ivan Markovic, Wu Linfeng – Germany, China, Serbia – 2019

”Krabi 2562” by Anocha Suwichakornpong, Ben Rivers – United Kingdom, Thailand – 2019

“Africa”

Meet The Neighbors

”Africa” by Oren Gerner – Israel – 2019

“The Criminal Man” by Dmitry Mamuliya – Georgia, Russia – 2019

Special Screenings

”Chained” by Yaron Shani – Israel,...

Alejandro Amenábar’s ‘While at War’ wins international award.

Oren Gerner’s Africa and Yaron Shani’s Reborn have been jointly awarded the top award at the 35th Haifa International Film Festival (Oct 12-21).

Scroll down for full list of winners

As joint winners of the best Israeli feature film award, the prize of 100,000 Nis will be divided between them.

The dramas each won three trophies at the festival’s awards on Saturday (Oct 19).

Africa, the story of how a retiree copes with growing older, also picked up the Danny Lerner award for best Israeli feature debut and the Michael...

Six years in the making, the title had been rejected by all Israeli film funds because of its subject matter.

In its annual ceremony last night, the Israeli Film Academy selected Yaron Zilberman’s Incitement as best picture; it will, therefore, be Israel’s candidate for best international feature at the 2020 Oscars.

The film, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, depicts the infamous 1995 assassination of Premier Itzhak Rabin, presented through the worldview of his assassin.

Six years in the making, the title had been rejected by all Israeli film funds because of its subject matter and was finally brought...

Other winners included Ladj Ly’s Les Miserables for best international feature.

At its awards ceremony last night (August 1), Jerusalem Film Festival (Jff) presented Yaron Shani’s Love Trilogy: Chained with the Haggiag award for best Israeli feature while Ladj Ly’s Les Miserables won the Jerusalem Foundation award for best international feature.

Chained follows an Israeli policeman whose marriage and masculinity are threatened after he is accused of sexual assault by two teenage boys. A Berlinale premiere in February, it’s the second film in Shani’s Love Trilogy following Stripped, which first showed in Venice Horizons last September.

Stripped, Chained and Reborn heading to French cinemas.

Fledgling Paris-based distributor Art House has acquired French rights to all three titles in Israeli director Yaron Shani’s trilogy of films revolving around the theme of love – Stripped, Chained and Reborn.

Art House was launched last year by former EuropaCorp distribution executive Eric Le Bot, who also runs the Version Originale label.

Le Bot plans to release the titles of Chained and Reborn a week apart, as mirror works, one focused on a male character, the other on a female protagonist.

Judging from the first two installments of Yaron Shani’s “Love” trilogy, it’s safe to say the Israeli director has a fatalistic approach when it comes to matters of the heart. In “Stripped,” he juxtaposed a woman suffering the aftereffects of rape and a teenage boy discovering the social signifiers of masculinity. Now, with “Chained,” he focuses on an abrasive cop with a pathological need to subordinate everyone to his ideas of right and wrong, including his wife and step-daughter. As in the earlier film, Shani workshopped the story for months with non-professional actors who, press notes state, are playing versions of themselves. The result is a powerful, often uncomfortable scrutiny of machismo given free rein through a policeman’s uniform, and a bleak picture of the meaning of love.

With “Stripped,” “Chained” and the upcoming feature “Reborn,” the titles alone are a giveaway to Shani’s conception of “Love.

The second film of The Love Trilogy, Chained, premieres in the Berlinale’s Panorama section.

Alpha Violet has taken over sales on Israeli filmmaker Yaron Shani’s The Love Trilogy, the second film of which Chained premieres in Panorama tomorrow (Feb 9).

The film, revolving around an Israeli police officer who is suspended after he is falsely accused of abusing a minor, was previously handled by Celluloid Dreams. Under the deal, the Paris-based company is also handling the third film in the trilogy Reborn. The first film Stripped premiered at Venice.

“It’s generating strong interest and we’re also already...

22 films in the Panorama programme so far, with nine directorial debuts.

The first 22 titles from the 2019 Berlin Film Festival (Feb 7-17) Panorama programme have been revealed.

Scroll down for the full line-up

The European premiere of UK director Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir, starring Tilda Swinton, her daughter Honor Swinton-Byrne and Tom Burke, and the world premiere of Seamus Murphy’s Pj Harvey documentary A Dog Called Money are among the titles confirmed today.

The line-up also includes the directing debuts of actors Jonah Hill (Mid90s) and Alexander Gorchilin (Acid), and Rob Garver’s documentary What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael,...

The Berlin Film Festival has revealed a large selection of movies for its Panorama strand. Section head Paz Lázaro and co-curator and programme manager Michael Stütz have revealed 22 titles, 14 of which will be world premieres.

Among highlights are Jonah Hill’s directorial debut Mid90s; Jamie Bell starrer Skin, about the USA’s neo-Nazi scene; Tilda Swinton drama The Souvenir; and What She Said: The Art Of Pauline Kael, about the legendary film critic.

Panorama Films:

37 Seconds – Japan

by Hikari (Mitsuyo Miyazaki)

with Mei Kayama, Misuzu Kanno, Makiko Watanabe, Shunsuke Daitō, Yuka Itaya

World premiere – Debut film

Director Hikari, aka Mitsuyo Miyazaki, tells the story of Yuma, a young Japanese woman who suffers from cerebral palsy. Torn between her obligations towards her family and her dream to become a manga artist, Yuma struggles to lead a self-determined life.

Dafne – Italy

by Federico Bondi

with Carolina Raspanti, Antonio Piovanelli,...

Jonah Hill’s directorial debut, “mid90s,” about a 13-year-old skateboarder’s coming of age, and a documentary on influential film critic Pauline Kael are among the works that will screen in the Panorama section of the upcoming Berlin Film Festival.

Films starring Tilda Swinton and Jamie Bell and titles from countries including Israel, Brazil and Japan were also announced in the first batch of 22 Panorama selections unveiled by the Berlinale on Tuesday. Nine of the films are debut works, and 14 will have their world premiere in the German capital. The section is curated by Paz Lázaro and co-curator and program manager Michael Stütz.

“mid90s” follows teenage Stevie as he joins up with four skateboarding punks who take him under their wing. Variety described Hill’s debut film as “a slice of street life made up of skittery moments that achieve a bone-deep reality. And because you believe what you’re seeing,...

Sameh Zoabi’s Tel Aviv On Fire wins top prize.

The 34th Haifa International Film Festival (September 22-October 1) came to a close with Sameh Zoabi’s Tel Aviv On Fire winning the Haifa Cultural Fund Award for the Best Feature Film in the Israeli feature competition. It comes with a $27,000 prize.

Zoabi’s third feature, a comic take on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, made its debut at Venice Orizzonti strand.

This year’s jury comprised Julie Schlez, Philippe Le Guay, Salwa Nakkara, Yaron Scharf, Jordi Rediu

The full list of winners are below.

Best Israeli film

Tel Aviv on Fire (dir.

One of four Israeli films making their bow in Venice this year, Stripped (Erom) in the Horizons section marks the long-awaited return of Yaron Shani, who co-directed the foreign-language Academy Award contender Ajami with Palestinian director Scandar Copti. His first solo feature feels a little disappointing: sometimes touchingly on target and engrossing, at other times tripped up by labored storytelling, narrative inconsistencies and the bizarre faux-censorship of nude scenes. However, the non-pro cast is engaging and believable, reinforcing the cinema verite feeling conveyed by the realistically detailed scenes and preference for close-ups. The film’s exploration of intimacy has a peculiarly ...

One of four Israeli films making their bow in Venice this year, Stripped (Erom) in the Horizons section marks the long-awaited return of Yaron Shani, who co-directed the foreign-language Academy Award contender Ajami with Palestinian director Scandar Copti. His first solo feature feels a little disappointing: sometimes touchingly on target and engrossing, at other times tripped up by labored storytelling, narrative inconsistencies and the bizarre faux-censorship of nude scenes. However, the non-pro cast is engaging and believable, reinforcing the cinema verite feeling conveyed by the realistically detailed scenes and preference for close-ups. The film’s exploration of intimacy has a peculiarly ...

The first of Shani’s ‘The Love Trilogy’ premieres on August 29.

Celluloid Dreams has unveiled the first trailer for Israeli director Yaron Shani’s emotional drama Stripped ahead of its premiere in Venice’s Horizons sidebar this evening (Aug 29).

The film revolves around the life-changing relationship between successful 34-year-old novelist Alice, who is suffering from acute anxiety, and 17-year-old Ziv, a talented classical musician who is forced to put his passion on hold while he completes compulsory military service.

Stripped is Shani’s debut solo feature, after the award-winning 2009 drama Ajami, which he co-directed with Scandar Copti, and is also...

In a surprise twist no one saw coming The Coen Brothers’ initial anthology series, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, will be featuring at the 2018 Venice Film Festival as a full-length feature in the competition.

The film, which was declared a Netflix original, is made up of 6 of chaptered stories revolving around the American Frontier. As for chapter plot details, information is hard to find. Tim Blake Nelson stars as Scruggs alongside a cast that features names like Zoe Kazan, Liam Neeson and Tom Waits.

“We’ve always loved anthology movies, especially those films made in Italy in the Sixties which set side-by-side the work of different directors on a common theme,” the Coens said in a statement. “Having written an anthology of Western stories we attempted to do the same, hoping to enlist the best directors working today. It was our great fortune that they both agreed to participate.”

The...

Non-FictionThe programme for the 2018 edition of the Venice Film Festival has been unveiled, and includes new films from Tsai Ming-liang, Frederick Wiseman, Sergei Loznitsa, Olivier Assayas, the Coen Brothers, and many more.COMPETITIONFirst Man (Damien Chazelle)The Mountain (Rick Alverson)Non-Fiction (Olivier Assayas)The Sisters Brothers (Jacques Audiard)The Ballad of Buster ScruggsVox Lux (Brady Corbet)Roma (Alfonso Cuarón)22 July (Paul Greengrass)Suspiria (Luca Guadagnino)Werk ohne autor (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck)The Nightingale (Jennifer Kent)The Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos)Peterloo (Mike Leigh)Capri-revolution (Mario Martone)What You Gonna Do When the World's On Fire? (Roberto Minervini)Sunset (László Nemes)Frères ennemis (David Oeloffen)Where Life is Born (Carlos Reygadas)At Eternity's Gate (Julian Schnabel)Acusada (Gonzalo Tobal)Killing (Shinya Tsukamoto)Out Of COMPETITIONFeaturesThe Other Side of the Wind (Orson Welles)They'll Love Me When I'm Dead (Morgan Neville)L'amica geniale (Saverio Costanzo)Il diario di angela - noi...

The Venice Film Festival is celebrating its 75th year in 2018 with a star-studded lineup that includes world premieres from Damien Chazelle, Bradley Cooper, Luca Guadagnino, and Alfonso Cuarón. The festival takes place August 29 to September 8 and marks the official kickoff of the 2018 fall awards season.

As has been previously announced, Damien Chazelle will open the festival with the world premiere of “First Man.” The space race drama stars Chazelle’s “La La Land” Oscar nominee Ryan Gosling as Neil Armstrong and recounts the Apollo 11 mission to the moon. The world premiere will be Chazelle’s second Venice opener after “La La Land.” Also confirmed prior to the announcement lineup was Bradley Cooper’s “A Star Is Born,” which marks the actor’s directorial debut.

Check out the full lineup for the 2018 Venice Film Festival below. This year’s competition jury is led by Guillermo del Toro, who won the...

Jerusalem Film Festival’s industry sidebar, Pitch Point, has unveiled its selection of projects, including new works from Avishai Sivan, Shira Geffen (“Jellyfish”), Keren Yedaya (“My Treasure”), and Tawfik Abu Wael (“Atash”).

Among the 10 projects selected for Pitch Point is “Lot’s Wife,” Sivan’s follow-up to “Tikkun,” which won the top prize at the Jerusalem fest in 2015. Set up at Ronen Ben Tal at Plan b Productions, “Lot’s Wife” centers on a religious couple who, after 10 years of childlessness, has a child born with two heads, named Noah and Lot. Lot is wicked, Noah good-hearted. After Noah dies and his head is detached, Lot sets on a challenge to overcome his nature.

Geffen will present “A Responsible Adult,” which is being produced by Elad Gavish at Marker Films.The project follows Maya, a 13-year-old girl who goes on a school trip and whose father joins the group as...

Tikkun director among Israeli filmmakers presenting at 13th edition of showcase.

Ahead of the 2018 Jerusalem Film Festival (July 26 – Aug 5), the projects for the annual Pitch Point competition have been unveiled.

Held on July 27 and 28, the initiative, now in its 13th year, is an opportunity for Israeli filmmakers to showcase in-progress projects to attending international film industry, with a view to forging co-production ties.

The 2018 showcase includes new works from Avishai Sivan, Shira Geffen, Keren Yedaya, That Lovely Girl), and Tawfik Abu Wael (Cannes 2004 Fipresci prize winner Atash).

The Pitch Point jury this year is comprised of Kirsten Niehuus (Medienboard Berlin...

The film will star Julia Goldani Telles from The Affair, with All This Panic director Jenny Gage at the helm.

Voltage Pictures has struck key pre-sales on After, an adaptation of the Ya publishing phenomenon that marks the first feature from veteran producers Courtney Solomon and Mark Canton’s CalMaple Films.

Constantin has acquired German rights, Sun will distribute in Latin America and Spain, and Leone handles Italy. Julia Goldani Telles from Showtime’s The Affair and the upcoming Slender Man will star opposite Hero Fiennes Tiffin from Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince as the leads.

The partners aim...

First look at project mostly non-professional actors who were were asked to live the lives of their fictional characters for a shooting period of over a year.

Paris-based sales company Celluloid Dreams has taken world rights sales to The Love Trilogy by Israeli director Yaron Shani.

It is Shani’s solo debut feature, after Ajami, which he co-directed with Scandar Copti. That film was Oscar-nominated in the Best Foreign Film category and also won a Caméra d’Or special mention at Cannes Film Festival in 2009.

The first film Stripped is currently ending post-production. Screen is able to reveal an exclusive first look image,...

Exclusive: Producer of Rafi Pitts’ Berlinale Competition title is lining up several new projects.

Twenty Twenty Vision Filmproduktion, the German producer of Rafi Pitts’ Berlinale Competition title Soy Nero [pictured], is lining up projects from Israel and Cyprus.

Twenty Twenty’s managing director Thanassis Karathanos told Screen that principal photography on Israeli filmmaker Veronica Kedar’s Family began at locations in the German city of Halle last week.

Although the film’s story is set in Israel, Family will be shot completely in Germany. It marks another collaboration for Karathanos with Mosh Danon’s Inosan Productions after working together on Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani’s 2009 film Ajami.

Kedar’s second feature had been pitched at the 2014 edition of the Berlinale Co-Production Market where Twenty Twenty’s second project, Christos Georgiou’s Happy Birthday, was also presented to potential co-producers.

A March start is planned for the shooting of Georgiou’s first feature since the 2008 comedy Small Crime and...

People are still talking about that unfortunate year at the Oscars when Paul Haggis' "Crash" won Best Picture over "Brokeback Mountain." The 2004 winner is here on our list (check the bottom portion), but this week, Paul Haggis returns to the same form with "Third Person," which jumps from Paris to Rome to New York as it traces the hidden connections between three very different men played by Liam Neeson, Adrien Brody and James Franco. That got us thinking about our favorite films that have multiple story lines that either run simultaneously, or are interconnected in some way. Here's our list of nine of the best indies that use hyperlinked narratives, and four that aren't so memorable. Let us know your favorites in the comments. "Third Person" opens June 20. "Ajami" Dir. Scandar Copti, Yaron Shandi (2009) "Ajami" is the result of an astonishing collaboration between Palestinian Scandar Copti and Israeli Yaron Shani.

Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf speaks about Iran-Israel relationship.

Tom Shoval’s debut feature Youth, which premiered earlier this year in Berlin’s Panorama section, is the winner of the 30th Jerusalem Film Festival. The story of two brothers who try to help their family’s dwindling finances by kidnapping a classmate and asking for ransom, also collected an acting award for the two real-life brothers, David and Eitan Cunio, playing the leads. Youth also won best editing for Joelle Alexis.

The jury, headed by former New York Film Festival festival head Richard Pena, who was also the recipient of the festival’s Life Achievement Award, gave its second prize to Maya Dreyfuss’ She’s Coming Home, added an acting award for Tali Sharon’s performance in this film and best cinematography for Shai Peleg. Best script award went to writer/director Adi Adwan for Arabani, a feature film shot in a Druze village.

The documentary...

Going into any year’s respective Oscar season, one area of Academy Awards is often unknown to the general public: the foreign film category.

With most of the film’s not getting the chance to screen outside of places like New York or La, many of the films that are nominated for the Best Foreign Film award seem to come out of nowhere, particularly knowing the process behind getting nominated (each country can submit only one film for consideration).

Well, with nominated films like A Prophet and The White Ribbon both hitting DVD earlier this year, and the award winner The Secret In Their Eyes still making its way throughout theaters stateside, Israel’s submission and subsequent nominated film, Ajami, has finally been released on DVD.

And I have to say, it was well worth the wait.

Ajami, named after an area of Jaffa where Jews, Christians, Palestinians and Arabs attempt to live together,...

 Reviewer: Jeffrey M. Anderson 

Rating (out of 5): ***

Scandar Copti, a Palestinian, and Yaron Shani, an Israeli Jew, teamed up to direct the crime drama Ajami. It received an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language film, which seems more a result of that behind-the-scenes achievement than anything that occurs onscreen. Indeed, comparing it to some of Amos Gitai's better films (Yom Yom, Kadosh, etc.) it feels rather graceless, and compared to something like City of God,Ajami feels practically inert.

And yet the film is still effective in its own, small way. It follows several characters in five overlapping chapters, all set in one multi-ethnic section of Jaffa, near Tel Aviv. It begins as a man working on a car is gunned down in the street. It turns out that the real target was the neighbor who sold him the car, Omar (Shahir Kabaha), an Arab Israeli. Worse, Omar...

A look at what's new on DVD today:

"$5 a Day" (2008)

Directed by Nigel Cole

Released by Image Entertainment

A refugee of the bankrupt Capitol Films, this dramedy starring Christopher Walken as a raconteur who claims he's able to live a full life on the titular Lincoln bill is finally seeing the light of day after premiering at the 2008 Toronto Film Festival. Alessandro Nivola co-stars as his son who drives him to New Mexico when he falls ill. Sharon Stone and Amanda Peet are along for the ride.

"2:22" (2008)

Directed by Phillip Guzman

Released by Inception Media Group

A quartet of thieves scheme to rob a boutique hotel on New Year's Eve, but find out that what's waiting for them on the inside is even colder than the snow-caked streets outside. Just as he did for his 2006 crime thriller "Played," star/co-writer Rossi called upon famous pals Gabriel Byrne and Val Kilmer...

The Secret In Their Eyes scooped the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at this year’s award ceremony, beating other nominees Ajami (Scandar Copti, Yaron Shani), The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke), A Prophet (Jacques Audiard) and The Milk of Sorrow(Claudia Llosa). Now, after month’s of waiting, the film is being released in the UK.

Synopsis: In 1999, retired Argentinian federal justice agent Benjamín Espósito is writing a novel, using an old closed case as the source material. That case is the brutal rape and murder of Liliana Coloto. In addition to seeing the extreme grief of the victim’s husband Ricardo Morales, Benjamín, his assistant Pablo Sandoval, and newly hired department chief Irene Menéndez-Hastings were personally affected by the case as Benjamín and Pablo tracked the killer, hence the reason why the unsatisfactory ending to the case has always bothered him. Despite the department already having two other suspects,...

Taking its name from a benighted neighbourhood of the ancient coastal city of Jaffa, Ajami represented Israel with a nomination in the foreign language category at the Academy Awards earlier this year. It is, however, co-directed and co-scripted by Yaron Shani, an Israeli Jew, and Scandar Copti, who carefully calls himself a "Palestinian citizen of the Israeli state". As their film shows, what you are and where you're from ultimately defines your destiny in Ajami.

The film borrows from the techniques of Gomorrah and the Mexican new wave as typified by, say, Amores Perros, in weaving characters and storylines to create a tapestry of lives. The drama is kickstarted by a drive-by shooting that kills an innocent boy, mistaken for one of the main characters, Omar (Shahir Kabaha). It's the result of a vendetta between two crime clans and revenge for the shooting of a Bedouin weeks earlier.

Terrorised, Omar's...

Ajami (15)

(Scandar Copti, Yaron Shani, 2009, Isr/Ger) Shahir Kabaha, Ibrahim Frege, Eran Naim. 125 mins.

If any situation justifies the multi-angled Crash/Amores Perros-style treatment, it's modern-day Israel. Co-written and directed by an Israeli and a Palestinian, mostly using non-professional actors, this is more hip, streetwise and even-handed than we're used to. Set in a mixed neighbourhood of Tel Aviv, the plot skilfully juggles intertwined stories of feuds, families, drugs and violence involving characters from all faiths.

Trash Humpers (18)

(Harmony Korine, 2009, Us/UK) Brian Kotzue, Travis Nicholson, Rachel Korine. 78 mins.

Korine preserves his enfant terrible reputation with a scrappy, seedy home video following a group of masked delinquents around. It's a vaudeville of depravity (they literally hump dustbins) that manages to be grimy without being explicit.

Wild Grass (12A)

(Alain Resnais, 2009, Fra/Ita) André Dussolier, Sabine Azéma. 104 mins.

Veteran Resnais crafts a silky, genre-hopping middle-aged romance that's full of wonders and mysteries.