News

Quentin Dupieux awarded screenplay prize ex-aequo with himself for Smoking Causes Coughing and Incredible But True.

Finnish production Sisu directed by Jalmari Helander took the main award at the 55th edition of Sitges, marking the director’s second time winning the prestigious Catalan genre event’s best feature award after his 2010 selection Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale.

Helander’s third feature also earned best actor at Europe’s biggest genre film festival for Jorma Tommila, cinematography for Kjell Lagerroos, and music for Juri Seppä and Tuomas Wäinölä. Handled by Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions (excluding Nordics), the Second World War survival...

The Sitges Film Festival, the biggest genre film event in Europe, has unveiled its Sitges Fanpitch and WomanInFan winners as the Catalan fest, one hour’s drive south of Barcelona, rapidly ramps up its industry program.

Sitges Fanpitch feature film winners were “Bloody Mary,” “Rain Catcher” and “Krampusnacht.” “Super-Over” (“Superada”) scooped the Sitges Fanpitch Scripted Series award.

Spanish director Joseph Díaz “Bloody Mary” nabbed the Blood Window – Spanish Screamings plaudit for a tale of female empowerment as heroine Mary is beaten to death by a cult leader, only to be possessed by the vengeful spirit of ancestor Helena, burnt at the stake for witchcraft.

Ventana Sur’s genre platform Blood Window unspools Nov. 28-Dec. 2 in Buenos Aires.

U.K. director Michele Fiascaris scored the Bifan-Naff Award with “Rain Catcher,” produced by Filippo Polesel at Yellow Pill. In it, a voyeur ends up getting stalked himself, a modern social-stalker story.

The selection screenings for the independent expert jury who will be making a decision on the German entry for the 88th Oscar® competition in the category for Best Foreign Language Film will begin in Munich on 25 August 2015 . The film then being sent into the race for Germany will be announced on the morning of Thursday, 27 August 2015 .

The following eight titles were submitted by German producers:

"13 Minutes" by Oliver Hirschbiegel

(Lucky Bird Pictures, Delphi Medien, Philipp filmproduction)

"Sanctuary" by Marc Brummund (Zum Goldenen Lamm Filmproduktion)

"Head Full of Honey" by Til Schweiger

(Barefoot Films, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Seven Pictures Film)

"Labyrinth of Lies" by Giulio Ricciarelli

(Claussen + Putz Filmproduktion, naked eye filmproduction)

"Jack" by Edward Berger

(Port-au-Prince Film & Kultur Produktion, cine plus Filmproduktion, Neue Bioskop Film, Mixtvision Mediengesellschaft, zero west filmproduktion)

"Schmidts Katze" by Marc Schlegel

(Ffl Film- und Fernsehlabor Ludwigsburg)

"Victoria" by Sebastian Schipper

(MonkeyBoy, deutschfilm, RadicalMedia) – submission accepted with reservations. Until the final decision by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences regarding the proportion of English in the film.

"We Are Young. We Are Strong." by Burhan Qurbani

(Ufa Fiction, cine plus Filmproduktion, Ufa Cinema)

The decision on the German entry for the Oscar® in the category of Best Foreign Language Film is taken by a selection committee which is appointed anew each year and consists of nine representatives from various associations and institutions active in the field of cinema.

German Films is entrusted as the responsible umbrella organization with the preparation and organization of the selection procedure for the German candidate who will then compete for the Oscar® in the category of Best Foreign Language Film.However, German Films, is not represented in the selection committee.

Sebastian Schipper’s Victoria awaiting a decision over the proportion of English in the film.

Eight films have been submitted for selection as Germany’s entry to the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 88th Academy Awards.

Selection screenings for the independent jury who will make the decision will begin in Munich on Aug 25 and the film chosen to represent Germany will be announced on Aug 27.

The entries include Sebastian Schipper’s Victoria, a film shot in a single take about a party girl who finds herself pulled into a bank robbery, which won three prizes at this year’s Berlinale and a further six at the German Film Awards.

However, the submission of Victoria has been “accepted with reservations” and awaits the final decision by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences regarding the proportion of English in the film.

Victoria is played by Spanish actress Laia Costa, who speaks...