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Yorgos Zois’ Arcadia won all three main prizes at the Hellenic Film Academy’s Iris Awards, including best film, director and screenplay.

The Greek-Bulgarian co-production, about a couple travelling to a remote off-season resort to identify the body of a friend who died in a car accident, world premiered last year in the Berlinale’s Encounters section. It then enjoyed an extensive festival run, winning the best director award for Zois at Sarajevo.

Among the producers are Maria Drandaki, Antigoni Rota, Veselka Kiryakova and Babak Anvari with support from the Greek Film Centre, Ekkomed and Ert Public TV.

Yannis Veslemes...

Thessaloniki Film Festival has revealed its International Competition section, which showcases 12 films by up-and-coming directors from around the world. The selection includes “Julie Keeps Quiet,” which is Belgium’s entry in the Oscars, and “Under the Volcano,” which is Poland’s entry.

Also selected are “Arcadia,” which won best director at Sarajevo for Yorgos Zois; “Happy Holidays,” which won best screenplay in Venice Horizons for Scandar Copti; “On Falling,” which won best director at San Sebastian for Laura Carreira; and “Pierce,” which won best director at Karlovy Vary for Nelicia Low.

The jury is composed of filmmaker and producer Sara Driver, filmmaker Denis Côté and producer Konstantinos Kontovrakis.

The top prize is the Golden Alexander for best feature film, accompanied by a 10,000 euro cash prize. There is also the Silver Alexander for best direction, accompanied by a 5,000 euro cash prize; the best actor and actress awards; and the best screenplay and best artistic achievement award.

Emanuel Parvu’s Three Kilometers To The End Of The World took the Best Feature Film prize at the 30th Sarajevo Film Festival, which gave out its awards yesterday.

The Romanian film, which debuted in Competition in Cannes earlier this year, received the €16,000 prize, co-funded by the Tourism Association of Canton Sarajevo.

Scroll down for the full list of feature winners

Set in a conservative Danube Delta community, it follows a gay teenager’s journey of self-discovery, which clashes with the traditional values of his parents and neighbours.

Yorgos Zois won Best Director for Greece-Bulgaria-us co-production Arcadia, which is made...

Romanian film Three Kilometers to the End of the World, from director Emanuel Pârvu, won the Heart of Sarajevo prize on Friday for Best Feature Film at the 30th Sarajevo Film Festival. The film focuses on the violent attack on a 17-year-old boy and and the aftermath in his home village in the Danube Delta wetlands region in Romania.

“I can honestly say that I really want people, when they are leaving the cinema, to think about themselves,” Pârvu said. “I think that was my goal when I was shooting it. I wanted to make a movie where, at the end, I wanted you not to be happy, not to be sad, but to think very, very much about yourself and your decisions regarding the ones you love.”

Yorgos Zois was named Best Director for Arcadia, a Greek/Bulgarian/U.S. production. Anab Ahmed Ibrahim was tapped for Best Actress for Village Next to Paradise,...

Romanian director Emanuel Pârvu’s “Three Kilometers to the End of the World,” a Palme d’Or contender at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, took home the top prize at the Sarajevo Film Festival Friday night.

The third feature from the actor-turned-director was awarded by the jury headed by U.S. writer-director Paul Schrader (“First Reformed”) that included Swedish actor and producer Noomi Rapace (“Lamb”), Finnish director-writer Juho Kuosmanen (“Compartment No. 6”), Sarajevo-born, Paris-based director, writer and editor Una Gunjak (“Excursion”) and Slovenian actor Sebastian Cavazza (“Men Don’t Cry”).

“Three Kilometers,” which follows a 17-year-old who’s the victim of a homophobic attack in a small town in Romania’s Danube Delta, examines the assault’s fallout on his rural community from multiple perspectives. Variety’s Guy Lodge described it as a “claustrophobic study of personal and institutional prejudice closing in on a community misfit,” praising the “cinematic heritage...

Otros de los títulos seleccionados incluyen ‘Bird’, ‘Emilia Perez’, ‘Kinds of Kindness’ y ‘The Substance’.

La Academia de Cine Europeo ha anunciado la primera selección de títulos que optan a las nominaciones de los Premios del Cine Europeo. Se han seleccionado 29 producciones y en septiembre se ampliará la lista con una nueva tanda de títulos.

En esta primera lista se encuentran tres películas españolas: Un amor, de Isabel Coixet, con siete nominaciones a los premios Goya 2024, O Corno, de Jaione Camborda, ganadora de la Concha de Oro en el Festival de San Sebastián 2023, y Volveréis, de Jonás Trueba, premio a la Mejor Película europea en la Quincena de Realizadores de Cannes.

La ceremonia de los Premios del Cine Europeo tendrá lugar el 7 de diciembre en Lucerna (Suiza). Pueden optar a los Premios del Cine Europeo los largometrajes europeos que, entre otros criterios, hayan tenido su primera proyección oficial entre el...

The first wave of titles in contention for the 2024 European Film Awards include Yorgos Lanthimos’ Kinds Of Kindness and Sundance award-winner Kneecap.

Cannes premieres feature predominantly in the 29 titles unveiled today (August 14), including Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Perez; Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed Of The Sacred Fig; Miguel Gomes’ Grand Tour; Halfdan Ullmann Tønde’s Armand and Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance – all of which picked up prizes on the Croisette.

Other films from Cannes include Andrea Arnold’s Bird; Emanuel Pârvu’s Three Kilometers To The End Of The World; The Count Of Monte-Cristo; and Magnus von Horn’s The Girl With The Needle.

The European Film Academy has revealed the first tranche of film titles that members can consider for nominations for the European Film Awards, which take place on Dec. 7 in Lucerne, Switzerland.

The academy’s selection of 29 titles covers films that had their first official screening between June 1, 2023, and May 31, 2024. Further titles will be announced in September, which will include films that had their premieres in the summer and early autumn festivals, such as Locarno and Venice.

Among the selection are Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Pérez,” Cannes’ best actress and jury prize winner, Miguel Gomes’ “Grand Tour,” Cannes’ best director winner, Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Kinds Of Kindness,” best actor winner at Cannes, Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” jury special prize winner at Cannes, Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance,” best screenplay winner at Cannes, “Armand” by Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel, the Golden Camera winner at Cannes, Matthias Glasner’s “Dying,...

Cannes Competition titles The Substance, The Seed Of The Sacred Fig, and Emilia Perez are among the first set of titles recommended for nominations at this year’s European Film Awards.

Overall, 29 titles have been selected for the first stage of nominations by the European Film Academy Board. The selection includes films from 26 countries. In the coming weeks, the 5,000 members of the European Film Academy will start to vote on the selected films. The winners will be announced at the European Film Awards ceremony in Lucerne, Switzerland, on December 7.

To be eligible for a European Film Awards, films must be European feature films which, among other criteria, had their first official screening between June 1, 2023 and May 31, 2024 and have a European director. The rule book states that should a film director not be European, exceptions can be made if the filmmaker is “provided they have a European refugee or similar status...

The Sarajevo Film Festival will debut 19 feature films across its four competition strands during its 2024 edition, running from August 16 to 23.

A total of 54 films will compete for the festival’s Heart of Sarajevo awards. The festival’s four competition sections for feature, documentary, short, and student films will also screen nine international, three European, and 3 national premieres. This year marks Sarajevo’s 30th edition.

Announcing today’s batch of titles, Jovan Marjanović, Director of the Sarajevo Film Festival, said: “Presenting these 57 premieres, alongside approximately 15 more films in the In Focus and Open Air programs that are yet to be announced, makes the Sarajevo Film Festival once again the place where the broadest audience, as well as film professionals and critics, can gain the most accurate image of film art in Southeast Europe, Ukraine, and the South Caucasus today,” said Jovan Marjanović.”

The festival said today that its programming team led...

The Sarajevo Film Festival, which focuses on films from Southeast Europe, the South Caucasus and Ukraine, has selected 54 films to compete for its Heart of Sarajevo awards. Three films play out of competition. The festival’s 30th edition will run from Aug. 16 to 23.

Jovan Marjanović, director of the festival, said the awards would “amplify voices from the region and bring them closer to the global audience.”

The festival’s four competition sections – for feature, documentary, short and student film – will feature 19 world, nine international, three European, 21 regional and three national premieres.

World premieres include Vuk Ršumović’s “Dwelling Among the Gods,” which plays in the feature film competition program, and Mirjana Karanović’s “Mother Mara,” which is a Gala Screening, playing out of competition.

Marjanović said the program makes the event “once again the place where the broadest audience, as well as film professionals and critics, can gain the most...

Sarajevo Film Festival has unveiled the programme for its four competition sections at its 30th edition (August 16-23), including five feature world premieres.

Eight films will play in the feature film competition, including the world premiere of Vuk Rsumovic’s Dwelling Among The Gods, about a young Afghan migrant woman who comes to Belgrade and learns her brother drowned in the river, so attempts to bury him under her full name.

Scroll down for the full feature selection

The film is a co-production between Serbia’s BaBoon Production, Croatia’s Kinorama and Italy’s Nightswim.

There is one out of competition title,...

Chinese writer and director Jing Zou’s feature film project A Girl Unknown has won the top prize at the Next Step initiative of Cannes Critics’ Week, aimed at supporting filmmakers as they make the move from short films to their first feature.

Inspired by the true phenomenon of generations of girls who were abandoned in China as a result of the country’s one-child policy, A Girl Unknown depicts a young Chinese woman from the age of six through to her thirties, living in three different families.

It is billed as an intimate coming-of-age story that explores existential pain, self-discovery, and how one learns to love. The film is produced by Wang Yang at Paris-based Memoria Films, which works between France and China.

Born in 1984, Zou is a Chinese director and writer based out of Shanghai and Los Angeles. She comes from a literature background, but she found her...

Series projects by filmmakers Kevin Macdonald, Barbera Albert and Erik Matti have won key prizes at the second edition of Seriesmakers, Series Mania’s development lab for film directors moving into series.

Macdonald and producer Femke Wolting won one of two Beta Development Awards worth €50,000 for their series project George Blake which tells the story of the prolific British double agent.

Macdonald has won the Oscar best documentary feature prize for One Day In September, while The Last King of Scotland won an Oscar for lead actor for Forest Whitaker. He was unable to collect the prize which was picked up by Wolting.

Ukrainian drama project Screaming Girl has scooped the top prize at the Berlinale Co-Production Market.

The feature won the Eurimages Co-Production Development Award, worth €20,000, which went to Kyiv-based producers Forefilms.

Director Antonio Lukich is known for comedy-drama Luxembourg, Luxembourg, which screened in the Horizons strand of the Venice Film Festival in 2022. His debut was My Thoughts Are Silent, which won a special jury prize at Karlovy Vary in 2019.

Screaming Girl centres on a girl who, after the invasion of Ukraine, finds herself in Ireland and pursues her dream of becoming an actress. However, she begins to experience strange and fantastical events that disrupt her life,...

None of Us Strangers: Zois Probes Unrest of Our Shadows

“It is a defect of God’s humor that he directs our hearts everywhere but to those who have a right to them,” states a character in Tom Stoppard’s celebrated 1993 play Arcadia, a word which connotes an Edenic or utopian realm. There’s a much more ironically melancholic context in the similarly titled sophomore film from Greek director Yorgos Zois. A peripheral alumni of the Greek Weird Wave (he had a small role in Yorgos Lanthimos’ 2011 film Alps), Zois is reunited with Angeliki Papoulia in this rather sorrowful study on the stages of grief and the circuitous evolution of love.…...

Deadpan stoicism has become the default mode of the Greek Weird Wave. Though equally strange, the wavelengths of the films by such proponents of the movement as Babis Makridis, Athina Rachel Tsangari, and—before vaulting to Hollywood’s big leagues—Yorgos Lanthimos don’t always align. But there’s a sense of cold, wry detachment that informs the way in which these works probe the friction between human nature and nurtured civility.

The Greek Weird Wave movement’s films are inseparable from their constituent tropes. Many of them set out to concoct visions of a society where human society is seen merely as unhinged, irrational, or paradoxical. That’s not an untrue observation, but it doesn’t help that the experimental potential afforded by absurdism squanders itself so easily by way of uninspired and hackneyed reiterations of the tropes and conventions that define the movement.

Arcadia, Yorgos Zois’s second feature following 2015’s Interruption,...

Greek filmmaker Yorgos Zois, who’s set to bow his sophomore feature, “Arcadia,” in the competitive Encounters strand of the Berlin Film Festival Feb. 18, is developing his first TV series.

“Play” follows a lone cinephile who joins a mysterious group of strangers that reenact scenes from movies in real life. The eight-part mystery-drama series tells the story of ordinary individuals who gradually lose themselves in the hazy realm between reality and fiction.

Zois says the show, which is produced by Athens-based Foss Prods. and repped internationally by Beta Cinema, is his personal attempt to “bridge the gap between cinema and series.”

“I really like exploring new territories,” he tells Variety, noting that he first conceived of “Play” as a feature film. Eventually, however, the director decided that an episodic series would allow him to “experiment” while pushing against the boundaries of a new form.

Zois’ latest feature, “Arcadia,” is a similar,...

A Different Man.The Berlinale have begun to announce the first few titles selected for the 74th edition of their festival, set to take place from February 15 through 21, 2024. This page will be updated as further sections are announced.COMPETITIONAnother End (Piero Messina)Architecton (Victor Kossakovsky)Black Tea (Abderrahmane Sissako)La Cocina (Alonso Ruiz Palacios) Dahomey (Mati Diop)A Different Man (Aaron Schimberg)The Empire (Bruno Dumont)Gloria! (Margherita Vicario)Suspended Time (Olivier Assayas)From Hilde, With Love (Andreas Dresen)My Favourite CakeLangue Etrangère (Claire Berger)Small Things Like These (Tim Mielants)Who Do I Belong To (Meryam Joobeur)Pepe (Nelson Carlos De Los Santos Arias)Shambhala (Min Bahadur Bham)Sterben (Matthias Glasner)Small Things Like These (Tim Mielants)A Traveler’s Needs (Hong Sang-soo)Sleep With Your Eyes Open. ENCOUNTERSArcadia (Yorgos Zois)Cidade; Campo (Juliana Rojas)Demba (Mamadou Dia)Direct ActionSleep With Your Eyes Open (Nele Wohlatz)The Fable (Raam Reddy...

Beta Cinema has acquired all rights except Greece to Yorgos Zois’s Arcadia which world premieres in the Berlinale’s Encounters section.

Greek director Zois’s second feature is a drama fantasy starring Vangelis Mourikis, who was at the Berlinale in 2014 with Yannis Economides’ Stratos and in 2020 with Georgis Grigorakis‘ Digger, and Angeliki Papoulia, best known for her performances in Yorgos Lanthimos‘ Dogtooth and The Lobster.

Arcadia follows neurologist Katerina and Yannis, a former well-respected doctor, heading off to a deserted seaside resort where Yannis has been called to identify the victim of a tragic accident. Together with Yannis, but...

Berlinale co-directors Carlo Chatrian and Mariette Rissenbeek are going out with a bang in their final year, with a lineup unveiled today featuring the latest works by Olivier Assayas, Bruno Dumont, Mati Diop, Hong Sang-soo, Abderrahmane Sissako, Jane Schoenbrun, Alonso Ruizpalacios, Matias Pineiro, Travis Wilkerson, Kazik Radwanski, Annie Baker, and more.

When the co-directors were asked by Screen Daily about their departure, Chatrian said, “It’s quite simple. Mariette and I had a mandate of five years. It is true that at the beginning I said that I was willing to go on because there was a shared will with the [German] Ministry [of Culture] to go on. But then the people who have the responsibility to see the future of the Berlinale thought this structure of two leaders was not the right one and I don’t consider myself able to run the festival alone. And that was the decision of the Ministry.

The Competition line-up for the 74th Berlin International Film Festival will be announced today at a press conference at 11am Cet (10am GMT).

Scroll down for line-up

Co-directors Carlo Chatrian and Mariette Rissenbeek will reveal the titles for the Competition and Encounters sections at the House of World Cultures in Berlin.

The announcement will also be live-streamed on the festival’s homepage and social channels. Watch it live above.

Screen will update this page with the Competition titles as they are announced. Refresh the page for latest updates.

As previously announced, the festival will open with the world premiere of...

Since the launch of its cash rebate in 2018, which covers up to 40 of qualifying expenditures along with 30 in tax relief, Greece has become one of Europe’s hottest filming destinations. But domestic production is surging as well, and the industry reached new heights in 2022, with the rebate scheme supporting 132 international and domestic projects.

Here’s a round-up of some of the top Greek feature films currently in the pipeline:

Buzzheart

Director: Dennis Iliadis

Producers: Amanda Livanou, Dennis Iliadis

The veteran director, who helmed the 2007 remake of Wes Craven’s “The Last House on the Left,” returns with a film that asks: If you had to make sure that someone could truly love without any moral limitations, how far would you go?

Sales: N/A

My Soul Startled

Director: Syllas Tzoumerkas

Producers: Maria Drandaki, Nadia Trevisan, Julie Paratian

The acclaimed director returns with 18 interwoven love stories of gods, titans, nuns, madmen,...

Greece’s Homemade Films has boarded Mahdi Fleifel’s upcoming feature “Men in the Sun,” currently in the final stages of development. The story, set in Athens, will deal with masculinity, exile and loss, showing young refugees in their 20s hustling to survive in the urban pressure cooker.

The company is also ready to start shooting Sofia Exarchou’s “Animal,” co-producing with Nabis Filmgroup, Ars Ltd., Digital Cube and Felony Productions.

Furthermore, its founder Maria Drandaki recently presented new projects at Venice Gap-Financing Market. “Arcadia,” directed by Yorgos Zois, will see Homemade Films joining forces with Foss Production and Red Carpet. “Titanic Ocean” by Konstantina Kotzamani will be shot in Japan and Singapore in 2023.

“I’m very excited to be working with this group of directors on a variety of different genres that span from drama to fantasy and mystery,” says Drandaki. She added that she is very interested in...

International projects already have at least 70 of funding in place.

The Venice Film Festival’s Gap-Financing Market has selected 33 international feature and documentary projects for its ninth edition this year, which runs from September 2-4.

The international projects nearing completion will have the chance to close their financing through one-to-one meetings at the Market, which is part of the Venice Production Bridge.

Each of the feature and documentary projects has at least 70 of its funding in place.

The countries in focus at this year’s event are France and Taiwan, with a number of projects from each country receiving a special invite to the Market.

New films from Cristian Mungiu, Abderrahmane Sissako, Bertrand Bonello and Nikolaj Arcel have also receieved funding.

French director Houda Benyamina’s All For One and Austrian Jessica Hausner’s Club Zero are two of the 37 European co-productions set to receive of a share of Eurimage’s latest round of funding, totalling €9.1m ($10.3).

Benyamina’s All For One will receive €500,000, the largest share of funding, The co-production between France and Belgium (Versus Production) is the second feature from from Benyamina, whose debut Divines won the Caméra d’Or in Cannes 2016. Her latest title is a Three Muskateers-style adventure, with a female focus.

New films from Cristian Mungiu, Abderrahmane Sissako, Bertrand Bonello and Nikolaj Arcel have also receieved funding.

French director Houda Benyamina’s All For One and Austrian Jessica Hausner’s Club Zero are two of the 37 European co-productions set to receive of a share of Eurimage’s latest round of funding, totalling €9.1m ($10.3).

Benyamina’s All For One will receive €500,000, the largest share of funding, The co-production between France and Belgium (Versus Production) is the second feature from from Benyamina, whose debut Divines won the Caméra d’Or in Cannes 2016. Her latest title is a Three Muskateers-style adventure, with a female focus.

Giorgos Valsamis could not have predicted where his career path would lead almost a decade ago, when, as a student of fine arts and accounting, he bought a camera to photograph the dramatic landscapes of Iceland, where he was on a study-abroad program. “It never crossed my mind that I could be a cinematographer,” Valsamis told Variety. “Until 2013, I didn’t know what a director of photography actually was.”

Seven years and two Palmes d’Or later, Valsamis is a fast-rising talent, and one of eight Greek cinematographers being feted this week as part of the Thessaloniki Film Festival’s Meet the Future program, which launched last year to give a boost to emerging film professionals from across Europe.

For its first edition, Meet the Future showcased 15 promising young Greek directors who were developing their first feature films. This year, the program trained its lens on up-and-coming local cinematographers. “The...

There was a time not long ago when any talk of Greek cinema quickly turned to a movement loosely characterized as the Greek Weird Wave, known for a certain deadpan aesthetic that was popularized with the breakout success of Yorgos Lanthimos (“Dogtooth”) and Athina Rachel Tsangari (“Attenberg”).

That has changed, if the label ever truly fit to begin with. “I don’t believe that there is a specific Greek wave,” says Christos Nikou, whose debut feature, “Apples,” about a lonely man who becomes a victim of an unexplained surge of amnesia in his city, is being sold by Alpha Violet during the Cannes virtual market.

“My intention was to make a movie more close to the cinema I love as a viewer,” he continues. “Movies that create their own worlds and have conceptual ideas and at the same time have an unusual and complete story to narrate.”

It’s an artistic vision that,...

Next Step programme helps directors make move from shorts to first feature.

French director Camille Degeye has won the second €5,000 Cannes Critics’ Week Next Step prize, for her debut feature project Sphinx.

The drama is about a young medical intern who is excluded from the neurosurgery department where she works. She finds a job as a medic for a trendy Paris nightclub, where she embarks on a passionate love affair with an enigmatic figure on the Paris drag queen cabaret scene.

Spearheaded by outgoing Critics’ Week manager Rémi Bonhomme, the Next Step initiative was launched in 2014 to help directors of...

New films from Pepa San Martín and Golden Bear winner Adina Pintilie among the line up.

The films selected for the Berlinale Co-Production Market (February 22-26) have been revealed and top 50% by female directors in the official project selection for the first time.

Scroll down for full list of titles

A total of 36 features from 34 countries will be showcased by producers seeking co-production partners through one-to-one meetings with distributors, financiers and sales agents.

For the official project selection, 21 projects with budgets ranging from €750,000 to €5m were selected from more than 300 submissions. With 11 projects by female directors, the proportion here has exceeded 50% for the first time.

Competition jury member Teona Strugar Mitevska won the top co-production prize.

Sarajevo Film Festival’s industry arm CineLink has crowned the winners for its 25th edition, in a ceremony at the city’s National Theatre on Thursday (August 22).

Winners included North Macedonian project The Happiest Man In The World, or Lessons In Love from director Teona Strugar Mitevska and her family-run company Sisters and Brother Mitevski, which took the €20,000 Eurimages co-production development award.

See below for the full list of winners.

Mitevska recently directed Berlinale 2019 competition title God Exists, Her Name Is Petrunija, and was on the Competition jury at...

“Take Me Somewhere Nice,” Bosnian director Ena Sendijarević’s coming-of-age story about a teen raised in the Netherlands who returns to Bosnia to visit her ailing father, won the top prize at the Sarajevo Film Festival Thursday night, earning the Amsterdam-based helmer the coveted Heart of Sarajevo Award.

The jury heralded the “beautifully photographed, acted, scripted and directed movie,” praising its ability to capture the spirit of modern youth while feeling “timeless.” The Bosnian-born Sendijarević was visibly overwhelmed receiving the award in front of her home audience, dedicating it to a festival that celebrated its 25th edition this year.

In announcing the award winners, jury member and Rotterdam festival director Bero Beyer praised filmmakers that “reached out to our hearts as they were exploring modernity versus tradition, rootedness in history against individuality, and who with their films celebrated not so much the brotherhood of men, but rather the sisterhood of human beings.

Yorgos Zois, whose feature “Interruption” was screened at numerous festivals, including Venice and Palm Springs, is in Cannes Critics’ Week with a new film.

“Third Kind” is a 32-minute short about three archaeologists who return to Earth after it has been abandoned for a long time, as humanity finds refuge in outer space. But a mysterious five tone signal is coming from Earth, so they decide to go back to find where it is coming from.

The film screens Saturday, May 12 and Monday, May 14.

Salaud Morisset handles international sales.

The lineup for the 2018 Cannes Critics’ Week (La Semaine de la Critique) has been announced.Opening FILMWildlife (Paul Dano)COMPETITIONChris the Swiss (Anja Kofmel)Diamantino (Gabriel Abrantes & Daniel Schmidt)One Day (Zsófia Szilágyi)Fugue (Agnieszka Smoczyńska)Woman at War (Benedikt Erlingsson)Sauvage (Camille Vidal-Naquet)Sir (Rohena Gera)Special Feature SCREENINGSOur Struggles (Guillaume Senez)Shéhérazade (Jean-Bernard Marlin)Special Short SCREENINGSLa Chute (Boris Labbé)Third Kind (Yorgos Zois)Apocalypse After (Bertrand Mandico)Short & Medium LENGTHAmor, Avenidas Novas (Duarte Coimbra)Hector Malot: The Last Day of the Year (Jacqueline Lentzou)Pauline, Enslaved (Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet)La Persistente (Camille Lugan)Raptor (Felipe Gálvez)Schächer (Flurin Giger)The Tiger (Mikko Myllylahti)A Wedding Day (Elias Belkeddar)Normal (Michael Borodin)Closing FILMGuy (Alex Lutz)...

On the heels of the Cannes 2018 lineup (which still has a few titles to add), it’s now time for the sidebars of the festival and first up is the annual Critics’ Week, which is focused on emerging filmmakers. Opening the festival is one of our favorite films of Sundance, Paul Dano’s directorial debut Wildlife starring Carey Mulligan and Jake Gyllenhaal.

Amongst the lineup is also the psychological thriller Fugue, which is directed by The Lure helmer Agnieszka Smoczynska. Of Horses and Men director Benedikt Erlingsson is also back with the drama Woman At War, while most of the other directors come from first-time directors. Featuring a jury headed by Joachim Trier, and also including Chloe Sevigny, Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, Eva Sangiorgi and Augustin Trapenard, see the line up below.

Features – Special Screenings

Wildlife, dir: Paul Dano (opening film)

Our Struggles, dir: Guillaume Senez

Shéhérazade, dir: Jean-Bernard Marlin

Guy,...

The Critics’ Week sidebar of the Cannes Film Festival has announced its lineup with Paul Dano’s feature directorial debut Wildlife as the opening night film. Billed as a Special Screening, the Sundance premiere will run out of competition and stars Carey Mulligan and Jake Gyllenhaal. Alex Lutz’s Guy has been set to close the section, also out of competition.

Among the seven films competing are five from first-time directors. The two sophomore efforts are psychological thriller Fugue from Polish director Agnieszka Smoczynska (The Lure) and Woman At War from Iceland’s Benedikt Erlingsson about a woman who fights a war on her own to protect an endangered planet. For the full list, as well as the 10 shorts in selection, see below

Further Special Screenings include Our Struggles from Guillaume Senez and starring Romain Duris, and Shéhérazade, a Marseille-set debut form Jean-Bernard Marlin.

Dano’s Wildlife is inspired by...

“Wildlife,” Paul Dano’s adaptation of a Richard Ford novel starring Carey Mulligan and Jake Gyllenhaal, has been chosen to screen in the International Critics’ Week sidebar at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival.

Critics’ Week is run independently of the main festival but takes place concurrently. The selection is devoted to first and second films from new directors — and its directorial debuts, including “Wildlife,” are eligible for Cannes’ Camera d’Or for the festival’s best first film.

“Wildlife” debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January, where it won positive reviews and was acquired by IFC Films. The only American film screening in Critics’ Week, it will be presented as a special opening-night screening in the sidebar.

Also Read: 'Wildlife' Review: Paul Dano's Directorial Debut Is an Austere Portrait of a Family in Crisis

Guillaume Senez’s “Our Struggles” will also be presented as a special screening, while Alex Katz’s “Guy” will close the section. The seven competition titles in Critics’ Week will include Agnieszka Smoczynska’s “Fugue,” Benedikt Erlingsson’s “Woman at War,” Anja Kofmel’s “Chris the Swiss,” Rohena Gera’s “Sir” and Sofia Szilagyi’s “One Day.”

International Critics’ Week (Semaine de la Critique) is organized by the French Union of Film Critics, which is made up of 244 critics, writers and journalists. The oldest parallel section to the Cannes Film Festival, it began in 1962.

The winners will be chosen by a jury headed by Danish director Joachim Trier and also including American actress Chloe Sevigny, Argentinian actor Nahuel Perez Biscayart, festival programmer Eva Sangiori and French journalist Augustin Trapenard.

Critics’ Week also announced 10 short films in competition and another three in special screenings.

Also Read: Cannes Lineup Reaches From Spike Lee to Jean-Luc Godard

Filmmakers who first screened in Cannes as part of Critics’ Week include Bernardo Bertolucci, Ken Loach, Guillermo del Toro, Jacques Audiard and Alejandro G. Inarritu.

The other main sidebar that runs concurrently with the festival, Directors’ Fortnight, will announce its lineup on Tuesday.

This year’s Cannes Film Festival will run from May 8 through May 19.

The Critics’ Week lineup:

Special screenings:

“Wildlife,” Paul Dano

“Nos Batailles” (“Our Struggles”), Guillaume Senez

“Sheherazade,” Jean-Bernard Marlin

Feature film competition:

“Fuga” (“Fugue”), Agnieszka Smoczynska

“Kona Fer I Strid” (Woman at War”), Benedikt Erlingsson

“Sauvage,” Camille Vidal-Naquet

“Diamantino,” Gabriel Abrantes & Daniel Schmidt

“Chris the Swiss,” Anja Kofmel

“Sir,” Rohena Gera

“Egy Nap” (“One Day”), Sofia Szilagyi

Closing night:

“Guy,” Alex Lutz

Short films competition:

“Amor, Avenidas Novas,” Duarte Coimbra

“Ektoras Malo: I Teleftea Mera Tis Chronias” (“Hector Malot: The Last Day of the Year”), Jacqueline Lentzou

“Pauline asservie” (“Pauline, Enslaved”), Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet

“La Persistente,” Camille Lugan

“Rapaz” (“Raptor”), Felipe Galvez

“Schacher,” Flurin Giger

“Tiikeri” (“The Tiger”), Mikko Myllylahti

“Un Jour de Marriage” (“A Wedding Day”), Elias Belkeddar

“Ya Normalniy” (“Normal”), Michael Borodin

“Mo-Bum-Shi-Min” (“Exemplary Citizen”), Kim Cheol-Hwi

Short films special screenings:

“Third Kind,” Yorgos Zois

“La Chute” (“The Fall”), Boris Labbe

“Ultra Pulpe,” Bertrand Mandico

Read original story Paul Dano’s ‘Wildlife’ to Open Cannes Critics’ Week Sidebar At TheWrap...

Wildlife, directed by Paul Dano and starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Carey Mulligan will open the selection.

Cannes Critics’ Week, devoted to first and second features as well as shorts, has unveiled the line-up of its 57th edition, running May 9-17.

Wildlife, the directing debut of Paul Dano and starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Carey Mulligan, will open the selection. The film premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and is based on the novel by Richard Ford.

The closing film is Guy, Alex Lutz’s second feature, a “caustic and endearing” comedy about a once famous entertainer.

All seven competition films are by European filmmakers.

Festival also launches new Vr strand.

The full jury line-ups for the 2017 Venice Film Festival (August 30-September 9) have been announced.

Baby Driver director Edgar Wright, actress Rebecca Hall and Hungarian director Ildiko Enyedi, who won a Berlin Golden Bear this year for On Body and Soul have joined the main competition jury presided over by Annette Bening.

They are joined by Mexican director Michel Franco, French actress Anna Mouglalis, Australian film critic David Stratton, Italian actress Jasmine Trinca and Hong Kong director, producer and screenwriter Yonfan.

Director John Landis will head the international jury for a new Venice Virtual Reality (Vr) section. The other Jury members are French screenwriter and director Celine Sciamma and actor/director Ricky Tognazzi.

The Vr jury will award prizes for best Vr film, grand Vr jury prize and best Vr creativity award. A restored version of Landis’ Into the Night will also be screened at Venice this year.

Italian director...

Hedi won best film, while Matt Johnson won best director for Operation Avalanche.

The Tunisian-French-Belgian co-production Hedi by Mohamed Ben Attia has won the best film award, the Golden Athena, at the 22nd Athens International Film Festival (September 22-October 2).

The film was co-produced by Tanit Films, Nomadis Images and the Dardenne brothers production outlet Les Films du Fleuve.

Majd Mastoura stars in the lead role as a young man who tries to break loose from his dominant mother and some of Tunisia’s more conservative social norms.

The film debuted at Berlin Film Festival 2016, winning the best first film award and a best actor prize for Mastoura.

The Aiff awards were decided by a five-member international jury presided over by the BFI programmes curator Nicola Gallani. The jury included German film critic Julia Teichmann (Film Dienst), French producer Sylvia Perel and her compatriot film critic Bernard Nave (Jeune Cinema).

Matt Johnson won the best director trophy for [link...

Radu Jude’s Scarred Hearts among titles; In Focus strand also revealed.

Sarajevo Film Festival (Aug 12-20) has unveiled its competition and in focus titles ahead of the launch of its 22nd edition next month.

The eight features in competition include two world premieres: Ivan Marinović’s debut The Black Pin; and Lukas Valenta Rinner’s A Decent Woman.

The Black Pin, from Montenegro director Marinovic, centres on a priest who finds himself at odds with the other inhabitants of his small, rural parish when he opposes a large property sale. Serbian Vladimir Vasiljević is co-producing.

Austrian filmmaker Rinner, whose Parabellum won the special jury prize at Jeonju and was up for Rotterdam’s Tiger Award in 2015, returns with A Decent Woman, the story of a housemaid working in an exclusive gated community on the outskirts of Buenos Aires who embarks on a journey of sexual liberation at a nudist swingers club.

After winning...

Seven Croatian features comprise the main competition, while Independence Day: Resurgence and Ghostbusters play in the international strand.Scroll down for the full list of titles

Croatia’s Pula Film Festival has revealed the line-up for its 63rd edition, which will take place July 9-16.

Croatian titles

Receiving 105 submissions from Croatian film-makers, festival president Hrvoje Pukšec and artistic directors Mike Downey and Tanja Miličić have selected 16 features and 18 shorts for the Croatian programme.

In competition will be Ivan–Goran Vitez’s second feature Shooting Stars [pictured], after his debut Forest Creatures premiered in Pula in 2010, and Berlinale premiere On The Other Side, the latest feature from Zrinko Ogresta, who has received multiple accolades at Pula for previous features including 1995’s Washed Out and 1999’s Red Dust.

The festival will also host the out-of-competition world premiere of Rade and Danilo Šerbedžija’s Second World War drama The Liberation Of Skopje.

Minority Croatia co-pros selected to play include Mirjana Karanović...

Alexis Alexiou’s neo-noir drama triumphed at an event dominated by the refugee crisis, with honorary award recipient Vanesa Redgrave speaking out against border policies.Scroll down for full list of winners

Alexis Alexiou’s sophomore directorial outing Wednesday 04.45 [pictured] swept the Hellenic Film Academy (Helfiac) Awards (aka the ‘Iris Awards’) on Monday evening (March 28) winning nine awards out of the 13 categories in which it was nominated, including best film and director.

The film, which played in the Tribeca, Karlovy Vary and Jeonju festivals, was also awarded best editing, music, cinematography, production design, sound, special effects and actor for Stelios Mainas.

The Greek, German, Israeli co-production backed by Eurimages, is a neo-noir style drama where a club owner, faced with the 2010 recession and unable to repay a loan secured from a thug, tries to avoid bankruptcy.

Handled locally by distribution powerhouse Feelgood Entertainment and in Germany by the Neue Visionen Filmverleih, and sold internationally...

It is often said that it takes talent and luck to land a role. Today, proactivity and grace are added to this list of skillsets. In contemporary times, recognition seems less of a far-fetched notion than before thanks to the state of the art technology and interconnectivity. However, film festivals of the likes of Berlin play a substantial role as the gridiron for the discovery of new European talent as well as the creation of new roles and new relations, prompted by the ever so popular and widespread practice of co-productions on European turf. Among these relations is the one between actors and casting directors.

European Shooting Stars

Every February, for the past 18 years, European Shooting Stars, a unique pan-European initiative, takes place at the Berlinale, shining a little light on Europe’s most prominent up-and-coming young actors and placing them at the top of the busy film program that unfolds year after year at the festival. These ten emerging acting talents, hailing from across the Old Continent, are selected by a jury of experts who hand-picks them among a long list of potential candidates nominated by the member organizations of the European Film Promotion (Efp).

During the craze of the festival’s first weekend, the Shooting Stars connect and network with casting directors, talent agents, directors and producers with the objective of broadening and strengthening industry alliances. They are involved in a wide range of activities that include presentations to the film industry and the press as well as one-on-one meetings with international casting directors, a reception and an Awards Ceremony at the Berlinale Palast.

The Shooting Stars program kicked off in 1998 during the Berlin International Film Festival. But, why the Berlinale? The project finds unique support in this particular festival. Moreover, its director, Dieter Kosslick is especially enthusiastic about the initiative as well as supporting young talent. According to Karin Dix, the project director of the European Shooting Stars, the Berlin International Film Festival “is an ideal platform for Shooting Stars,” pointing out that the Efp would not receive such exposure anywhere else.

Bridging Cultures Through Actors

Behind the glamour of film festivals, is a world, unknown to audiences, where films are made and discussed by the movers and shakers of the industry. Everyone sees the actors’ and directors’ work during the production of a film. But, very few people are aware that before the shooting even starts, casting directors have already dove deep into the script and spent hours, days and months researching the right people for a specific role. This demands intrinsic skills and gut instincts. The important work is felt behind the scenes, indeed, but when it comes to the public presentation it is often already forgotten.

Therefore, in 2005, the Efp acknowledged that the art, craft and business of casting should not only be incorporated in its activities but also better transmitted to the international industry. That is how and why the International Casting Directors Network (Icdn) was founded during the Berlinale, that year, by fifteen casting directors from seven countries. Today the network counts seventy-four casting directors from twenty-four countries world-wide. They meet annually on occasion of Shooting Stars in Berlin.

These casting directors come to the Berlin International Film Festival to “shop” for new talent, collaborate, and meet their fellows. Some will also meet the Shooting Stars who have already sent them tapes, like for instance María Valverde, for whom the human interaction is an important factor, “I think it’s a nice thing to just be yourself talking to them, not as a character in a certain role”, she remarks. On the other hand, for Londonderry Entertainment’s Sheila Wenzel, who works with top young female stars and holds a strong and well-respected deal-making reputation, “the world has gotten so much larger”. And, in that larger world, she is constantly looking for new talent anywhere.

In that regard, apart from offering support and publicity to these fresh faces of the big screen as they step from national fame into the international spotlight, the endeavor also highlights the vital role new actors can play in the marketing of European films. And, this year’s Shooting Stars are very well aware of that.

For Daphné Patakia, the Greek star of "Interruption" (Yorgos Zois), it is a “great opportunity to open in a European way and meet people from all over Europe,” adding she hopes to find work in different languages. The international cooperation and linguistic dimension of Shooting Stars are something that fellow Dutch Shooting Star Reinout Scholten van Aschat and former Shooting Star and this year’s jury member, Anamaria Marinca, also share, “…everyone is involved in co-productions so there is place for someone from Croatia or France or Spain in an international production spoken in English, or Spanish or another language and because they have these aptitudes and they can act in another language, not only speak it,” the latter observes. Scholten van Aschat, a fan of European film, and in particular the Danish film industry, is especially sensitive to the aforementioned aspects. Not only does he have great respect for casting directors but he also feels the need to improve his language skills (German and English) and believes that the Dutch still have to learn from the Danes, “and the way to do that, of course, is to work together,” he admits.

Impactful and Inimitable

With the recognition as a Shooting Star, the impact is often instantaneous. For Anamaria Marinca, it has given her the opportunity to meet French casting director Nicolas Ronchi who offered her her first French script, which led her to being represented by French talent agent Annabel Karouby, and thereby “facilitated a possible career in France”. Her time in Berlin as a Shooting Star “kind of started these other possible languages [she] could work in.” Former Shooting Stars include such talent as Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz, Alicia Vikander, Carey Mulligan, Daniel Brühl, Mélanie Laurent or this year’s Berlinale International Jury member Alba Rohrwacher.

What’s more, the Shooting Stars initiative is inimitable and unique. Indeed, many have tried to copy the concept but no one has the expertise of the Efp’s member organizations, according to Dix who also concedes that the fact that each country nominates one actor is a guarantee for the high quality of the selected actors and actresses from Europe.

On the European film market where co-productions are common practice today, familiar actors help the audience relate to a particular “foreign” film. As harsh as it sounds, bankability is the key of the film biz. In that, actors are the faces of the films. They move the audiences, create their enthusiasm and need for films and are the personalities that promote them. Casting directors stand right behind them and make it happen. They bridge the gaps between cultures and open new horizons and possibilities. They help actors speak the European language of film. They are its unsung heroes.