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The Asian representation in Vienna Shorts this year was quite restricted with just 8 movies in the program. However, among those, there are definitely a couple of gems, while the diversity is impressive, since experimental, animation, comedy, horror, drama are just some of the elements that appear in the film. Without further ado, here is a list of all the Asian entries, in random order.

Click on the titles for the full articles. The roundup will be updated.

Hito (2023) by Stephen Lopez

Stephen Lopez can easily be described as one of Khavn's “students”, since his chaotic style of filmmaking with the many, absurd vignettes, the constant mocking of a number of concepts including the title and his filmmaking itself, the music video aesthetics and the sociopolitical commentary are all elements found in Khavn's cinema. At the same time though, Lopez is somewhat more grounded in terms of his script,...

Mohammad Valizadegan was born in Tehran in 1986. He graduated from the School of Art and Architecture with a master's degree in theatre directing and works as an actor, dancer and filmmaker. He played the role of Javad in “There Is No Evil”, which won the Golden Bear in Berlin 2020. “And Me, I'm Dancing Too” is his debut as a director. which won the Crystal Bear for the Best Short Film 14plus in Berlinale.

“And Me, I'm Dancing Too” is screening at Vienna Shorts

The movie begins with a camera turned on the protagonist, Saba, who passionately explains her disgruntlement for people not dancing every chance they get. With the camera placed in the bottom and shooting upwards, we watch a number of people dancing to ambient-like music, wearing white shirts, in a sequence that is soon revealed to be a rehearsal. The same girl then is the showed shooting a documentary,...

On the Adamant.Competition(Jury: Kristen Stewart, Golshifteh Farahani, Valeska Grisebach, Radu Jude, Francine Maisler, Carla Simón, Johnnie To)Golden BearOn the Adamant (Nicolas Philibert)Silver Bear — Grand Jury PrizeAfire (Christian Petzold) (read interview)Silver Bear — Jury PrizeBad Living (João Canijo)Silver Bear for Best DirectorPhilippe Garrel (The Plough) (read more)Silver Bear for Best Leading PerformanceSofía OteroSilver Bear for Best Supporting PerformanceThea Ehre (Till the End of the Night) (read more)Silver Bear for Best ScreenplayAngela Schanelec (Music) (read more)Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic ContributionHélène Louvart (Disco Boy)HereENCOUNTERS(Jury: Dea Kulumbegashvili, Angeliki Papoulia, Paolo Moretti)Award for Best FilmHere (Bas Devos)Special Jury AwardOrlando, My Political Biography (Paul B. Preciado)Samsara (Lois Patiño)Award for Best DirectorTatiana Huezo (The Echo)Generation — Kplus(Jury: Venice Atienza, Alise Ģelze, Gudrun Sommer)Crystal BearSweet As (Jub Clerc)Special MentionSea Sparkle (Domien Huyghe)Best Short FilmQueenie (Lloyd Lee Choi)Special...

The documentary “On the Adamant” has been named the best film of the 2023 Berlin International Film Festival, Berlin organizers announced on Saturday.

The film from director Nicolas Philibert follows life in a daycare center located on the Seine in Paris for adults with mental disorders. It is the first documentary to win the festival’s top prize since “Fire at Sea” in 2016.

German director Christian Petzold won the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize, essentially the runner-up award, for his drama “Afire,” while Philippe Garrel won the directing award for “The Plough.” The gender-neutral acting prizes went to Sofia Otero for “20,000 Species of Bees” in the leading performance category and Thea Ehre for “Till the End of the Night” in the supporting category.

The jury president was actress Kristen Stewart. The other jurors were actress Goldshifteh Farahani, directors Valeska Grisebach, Radu Jude and Carla Simón and Johnnie To and casting director Francine Maisler.

The Berlin Film Festival’s youth-focused sidebar Generation 14plus is set to open with “When Will It Be Again Like It Never Was Before,” the anticipated next film of Sonja Heiss and und Zeevonk von Domien Huyghe.

Based on Joachim Meyerhoff’s eponymous novel, “When Will It Be Again Like It Never Was Before” tells the comedic and moving story of a childhood and youth spent on the grounds of a psychiatric clinic.

Meanwhile, Domien Huyghe’s moving film “Sea Sparkle” will kick off the Generation Kplus competition. The film follows 12-year-old Lena who relentlessly battles with the tides of her grief after the death of her father, which she blames on a sea monster.

The Generation selection pans 25 feature-length and 31 short films, including 40 world premieres. The Berlinale team said this year’s lineup will invite audiences on an “exploration of young perceptions of the world.”

“The films in this...

There Is No Evil (Sheytan Vojud Nadarad) Kino Lorber Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net linked from Rotten Tomatoes by: Harvey Karten Director: Mohammad Rasoulof Writer: Mohammad Rasoulof Cast: Ehsan Mirhosseini, Shaghayegh Shourian, Kaveh Ahangar, Mohammad Valizadegan, Mahtab Servati, Mohammad Seddighimehr, Baran Rasoulof, Jilla Shahi Screened at: Critics’ link, NYC, 5/4/21 Opens: May 14, 2021 Jean-Paul […]

The post There Is No Evil Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

Out of the total number of death penalties conducted globally in the year 2017, over half were done in Iran. The percentage has been dropping since, but Iran is still in the lead in that regard. Another thing, as we learn from Mohammad Rasoulof’s newest film that just won at the official competition of Berlinale is that death penalty is rarely being executed by professional staff, but in most cases the military conscripts, which means that the regular citizens are being made accomplices in the country’s crimes against humanity.

“There is No Evil” won the Golden Bear at Berlinale 2020

The symbolic empty chair for the director Mohammad Rasoulof who has been banned from leaving the country.

Rasoulof’s film deals with the issue of the death penalty and the ethics behind it in a series of short, loosely connected stories. The first one follows a seemingly ordinary man Heshmat...

Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof won Cannes’s Un Certain Regard award in 2017 with his bruising, brilliant drama A Man of Integrity, which explored how an oppressive regime crushes independent thought. On his return to his home nation, he was arrested, thrown in prison for a year, banned from leaving Iran, and forbidden from filmmaking for life. Not that it stopped him. Just three years later, he’s made a major work of recent Iranian cinema. Not since A Short Film About Killing has a filmmaker produced such a thrilling case against capital punishment, an enraging, enthralling, enduring testament to the oppressed.

With There is No Evil, Rasoulof has secretly filmed an anthology film of four stories–apparently because Iranian authorities are less concerned with short films than features. And yet even with those difficulties, the director has produced a work of clarity that should rank him alongside Golden Bear winner...

“There Is No Evil” spends 30 minutes establishing its premise, and another two hours taking it in surprising new directions. Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof’s unfolds across four stories about military men tasked with executions as they grapple with their options, contend with the fallout, and witness the impact it has on the people closest to them.

Rasoulof, who has been barred from leaving his country since 2017, has made an absorbing ride defined by the paradoxes of its people. Nobody in “There Is No Evil” has it easy: There’s no simple moral code when every possible option leads to a point of no return.

The four stories that comprise “There Is No Evil” involve a range of diverse men and women enmeshed in various hardships impacted by the executions their jobs demand of them. Some of them do it, some of them refuse, but they’re all trapped by the same troublesome quandary.

In Iran, executions are often carried out by conscripted soldiers, which puts an enormous burden on the shoulders of ordinary citizens. And what are we to make of the condemned, for whom guilt can sometimes be a capricious thing, dictated by a severe and oppressive Islamic regime — the same one that accused Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof of “endangering national security” and “spreading propaganda” against the government?

When Rasoulof returned from Cannes in 2017, following the premiere of his film “A Man of Integrity,” he was banned from filmmaking for life and sentenced to a year in prison. But as a man of integrity himself, the director could not stop. His latest film, “There Is No Evil,” premiered in competition at the Berlin Film Festival, where instead of being silenced, the government put on him.

The resulting feat of artistic dissidence runs two and a half hours, comprising four discrete chapters, each...