News

Sweden has won the Eurovision Song Contest 2023.

Swedish contestant Loreen came first with her song “Tattoo,” beating out 25 other countries to garner 583 points. Her win means the contest will likely be held in Sweden next year.

Traditionally the winning country hosts the following year’s contest.

Sweden was followed by Finland’s Käärijä with 526 points and Israel’s Noa Kirel with 362 points, who took second and third place respectively.

This year’s Eurovision took place in Liverpool, U.K. on behalf of last year’s winner Ukraine after it was deemed too dangerous to hold Eurovision in the country following the Russian invasion. Ukrainian entry Kalush Orchestra won last year’s contest followed by the U.K.’s Sam Ryder in close second.

Remarkably it is Loreen’s second Eurovision win: she previously won the contest in 2012 with her song “Euphoria.”

Eurovision, which is run by the European Broadcasting Union...

Thirty-seven countries are competing in the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest. This marks the 67th year of this international competition. To date, 27 countries have claimed bragging rights at least once. Ireland has come out on tops a record seven times. Sweden is close behind with six. France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and the UK have five wins each.

Israel have won four times while Denmark, Italy, Norway, and Ukraine (last year’s winner) have won three times each. Austria, Germany, Spain, and Switzerland have won twice. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Latvia, Monaco, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Turkey, and Yugoslavia have all won once.

There will be 26 countries who will feature in the May 13 final. Last year’s winner, Ukraine, qualify for the final automatically — as do the Big Five. The Big Five is comprised of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK and they get such privilege as they contribute the most...

The Eurovision Song Contest is the biggest and brightest music competition in the world. Organized by the European Broadcasting Union (Ebu), the contest pits various European countries against each other, who have to qualify via one of two semi-finals.

The top 10 in each semi-final then go through to the final, where they are joined by the host country (the winner of the previous year) and the Big Five — who all qualify automatically. Then, each country performs and vies for votes.

After the performances, every member of the Ebu dials in and dishes out 1-8, 10, and 12 points to their favorite songs – with the points decided via a combination of public votes and jury decisions in each country. Whichever country amasses the most points wins.

However, we don’t actually know the full roster for the final, which takes place on May 13, just yet as the semi-finals (May 9 and 11) haven’t taken place yet.

A heavyweight roster of world premieres from the leading lights of Canada’s film industry will grace the Toronto International Film Festival next month.

New work from Deepa Mehta, Bruce McDonald and Chloé Robichaud are among the Canadian features set to receive their world premieres, while Xavier Dolan and Kim Nguyen earn North American premieres for their latest films following their Cannes debuts.

Wednesday’s announcement included the slate of Canadian short films, the festival’s four Rising Stars, and participants in the Talent Lab and Telefilm Canada Pitch This! programmes.

Talent Lab alumnus Andrew Cividino is named the 2016 Len Blum Resident. The film-maker will take up residency at the Festival Tower for three months later this year and receive one-on-one script consultations with screenwriter Blum, mentoring from Tiff’s industry and programming teams, and support from Tiff partners.

Cividino will work on his screenplay, We Ate the Children Last, a feature...

A heavyweight roster of world premieres from the leading lights of Canada’s film industry will grace the Toronto International Film Festival next month.

New work from Deepa Mehta, Bruce McDonald and Chloé Robichaud are among the Canadian features set to receive their world premieres, while Xavier Dolan and Kim Nguyen earn North American premieres for their latest films following their Cannes debuts.

Wednesday’s announcement included the slate of Canadian short films, the festival’s four Rising Stars, and participants in the Talent Lab and Telefilm Canada Pitch This! programmes.

Talent Lab alumnus Andrew Cividino is named the 2016 Len Blum Resident. The film-maker will take up residency at the Festival Tower for three months later this year and receive one-on-one script consultations with screenwriter Blum, mentoring from Tiff’s industry and programming teams, and support from Tiff partners.

Cividino will work on his screenplay, We Ate the Children Last, a feature...

Montreal's Fantasia International Film Festival, widely acclaimed as one of the largest and most influential genre film festivals in the world, has just announced the Off-Frontières selections of the fourth edition of its Frontières International Co-Production Market.

Read on for a complete listing of all the titles being pitched at the event!

From the Press Release

Following the selection of the official Frontières line-up of film projects for the Frontières International Co-Production Market, another 12 projects have been chosen for the return of the Off-Frontières selection, for the market’s 4th edition.

The Off-Frontières projects line-up features a predominance of Canadian projects, complemented by projects from American, Mexican, Irish, British, French, German and Australian directors and producers. Highlights include the next features by Dario Argento (Suspiria) and by Jacob Tierney (The Trotsky), as well as follow-up features by Fantasia alumni Rob Grant (Mon Ami), Pat Kiely (Who Is Kk Downey?), Kerry Prior...

Line-up includes new features by Dario Argento, Jacob Tierney and Fantasia alumni Rob Grant and Kerry Prior.

Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival has announced the Off-Frontières selection for this year’s Frontières International Co-Production Market.

The line-up of 12 projects features projects from Canada, Mexico and the UK, among others, and includes the next features from Dario Argento and Jacob Tierney as well as follow-up features from Fantasia alumni Rob Grant, Pat Kiely, Kerry Prior and Olivier Sabino.

Stephanie Trepanier, Frontières creative director, told Screen: “The Off-Frontières line-up of project always allows us to include more projects we believe in, but couldn’t fit in the official 12-projects selection because of quota limitations or because the project is more advanced than the scope we set for the official Frontières line-up.

“I’m particularly happy that this selection allowed us to feature four more feature projects by Quebec talents, as well as a Canadian co-production to be directed...

For their 5th annual edition, the Minneapolis Underground Film Festival is heating up by returning to the summer after being a winter event for the past three years. The fest will run on Aug. 17-19 with a killer lineup of films from all over the world — most of which probably will not be able to be seen in Minnesota except at this 3-day event.

Plus, there are two programming blocks of short films all made by local filmmakers, including Pam Colby’s Fertile Ashes, Ryan Becken’s Buffalo Shampoo, Janelle Sorenson & Melany Joy Beck’s Bring It 2 Peter, Jl Sosa’s Some of Angela and more.

The feature films screening this year cover an extremely diverse swath of subject matter, from every day people’s murder fantasies fulfilled — cinematically, at least — in Michal Koskowski’s German documentary Zero Killed; a tattoo comes to live to torment its wearer in...

This Week’s Must Read: The guys at Stag Films have been maintaining a blog about their “green filmmaking” philosophy and, more importantly, about their latest upcoming epic, President Wolfman. Some great articles on their working process that you need to check out.The Glen Park Association has a gallery report and pictures from a new show of the late Bruce Conner’s work at the at the Gallery Paule Anglim. The show is made up of photographs that Conner took about the San Francisco punk scene.Cineflyer gives props to Winnipeg animator Leslie Supnet, whose praises need to be sung about more frequently all over the ‘net.Landscape Suicide points out a few highlights of Newcastle’s Av Festival, including work by Bela Tarr and James Benning.Luke Black posts some highlights from this year’s $100 Film Festival that was just held in Calgary. He’s got a bunch...

This year mark’s the amazing 20th anniversary of $100 Film Festival, making it Calgary’s oldest film fests and one of the last ones devoted solely to film. The cinematic fun will run at the Stanford Perrot Lecture Theater on March 8-10 with three nights of short movies produced on 16mm and 8mm film.

What began as a modest affair simply to promote local filmmaking efforts, the $100 is now an international festival with movies this year from the U.S., Germany, Spain, Japan and, of course, Canada. The fest is also celebrating the work of American filmmaker Robert Todd, who will be on hand to screen some of his movies as well as host a workshop on experimental documentary filmmaking techniques.

Each night of the festival kicks off with a live music and film performance. The first night features the a jam film by local filmmakers Brenda Lieberman, Luke Black,...

Oh yeah, it feels weird typing “2012″ in the post title. Guess we’re — as in the “collective we” — still getting our legs under us for the new year, so not too many links again:

Making Light of It, making a nice return of things, has lots of gorgeous film stills from Brakhage’s Unconscious London Strata. Plus, a comparison of Ezra Pound’s The Return with Nathaniel Dorsky’s The Return.Donna k. suggests some places where one can read about women artists.Luke Black debuts the very fine poster for his latest film Beef Barley Brothers.The Horror Club very nicely put Paul Campion’s The Devil’s Rock on its Best of 2011 list.Congrats to Bill Plympton on his recent nuptials! I really want some of that cake or whatever it is he and his bride are posing in front of…The Phantom of Pulp lists his Best...

Over at Scribble Junkies, professor Patrick Smith launched an ambitious series of articles on crafting stories for short films. I read the intro, which has loads of great, helpful advice I agree with, but you might want to read the whole series and get yourself an online education. Other installments: The Image, The Conflict and Resolutions and Endings.Speaking of education, donna k. gives an example of why it’s important to rope kids early into the history of our medium.Super preservationist Mark Toscano writes about preserving Peter Mays’ 1966 underground film The Death of the Gorilla, which is typically ignored in most underground film histories.Electric Sheep interviews Ruggero Deodato about Cannibal Holocaust.In this news article about the New Jersey Chapter of Media Communications Association Professionals (McA-i), Kevin Lonano of Robot Hand! gets a shout-out and a quote.Ay-yi-yi, SnuffBox Films lets us know that the recently released...