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The festival’s 14th edition opens with Durga Chew-Bose’s Bonjour Tristesse and closes with Giovanni Tortorici’s Diciannove, framing a lineup of 38 premieres, including 20 features, representing 21 countries

Museum of the Moving Image is pleased to announce the complete lineup for the 14th edition of First Look, the Museum’s festival of new and innovative international cinema, which will take place in person March 12–16, 2025. Each year, First Look offers a diverse slate of major New York premieres, work-in-progress screenings and sessions, and fresh perspectives on the art and process of filmmaking.

The 2025 lineup will present 38 films, of which 20 are features, including 4 world premieres and 23 U.S. or North American premieres, from 21 countries. Each day will be anchored by a Showcase screening. The festival will open and close with the U.S. premieres of two scintillating debut features from the 2024 Toronto and Venice Film Festivals, Durga Chew-Bose’s lush, heart-wrenching Bonjour Tristesse...

A yearly highlight of New York programming (and North American options at large), the Museum of the Moving Image’s First Look returns on March 12 with an opening-night, US-premiere screening of Durga Chew Bose’s Bonjour Tristesse, closes March 16 with the stateside debut of Giovanni Tortorici’s Diciannove, and in intervening days combines programming of recent cutting-edge highlights with in-person talks and seminars.

First Look’s fixture “Working on It” will run between March 12 and 14, offering “a laboratory for works in progress and dialogues about process, bringing together festival guests, filmmakers, students, writers, and the general public.” Meanwhile, writers and editors from Reverse Shot “will welcome a new cohort for its Emerging Critics Workshop, with writers attending throughout the festival”; submissions may be made here through February 14.

So says Eric Hynes, MoMI’s Senior Curator of Film and First Look’s Artistic Director:

“In so many ways, First Look serves...

Films from Serbia, Ukraine and Poland were among the winners at the 34th edition of FilmFestival Cottbus and the parallel East-West co-production market connecting cottbus in Germany at the weekend.

Serbian director Iva Radivojević received the main award with a cash prize of €15,000 in the feature film competition for her second narrative feature When The Phone Rang which also garnered the Fipresci jury prize.

The international jury, comprised of Armenian director-producer Inna Sahakyan, Croatian actress-screenwriter Anja Matković and sales agent Xavier Henry-Rashid of Film Republic, praised Radivojevic’s film ‘for its authentic narrative of a country falling apart and its unique,...

The Cairo International Film Festival (Ciff) has unveiled the line-up for its comeback 45th edition, taking place from November 13-22.

The world premiere of Palestinian filmmaker Rashid Masharawi’s Passing Dreams will open the festival, as part of a focus on Palestinian cinema.

Passing Dreams is a drama about a 12-year-old boy who embarks on a journey across Palestine, while chasing a carrier pigeon, convinced it has returned to its original owner.

The line-up includes three Palestinian feature documentaries competing for the best Arab film awards in the Horizons of Arab Cinema programme, and the best Palestinian film award.

Carol Mansour...

On a Friday at 10:36 a.m. in 1992, 11-year-old Lana picks up a phone call whose effects reverberate through her life. So goes the hypnotic refrain that loops through Iva Radivojević’s second narrative feature, “When the Phone Rang” (2024), presented in the Locarno Film Festival’s Concorso Cineasti del Presente section.

And a self-hypnosis it is; the call marks a double trauma for Lana as she simultaneously loses her grandfather and country. Thrust into an extended state of dislocation, Lana experiences a fragmentation of her memories and history. To counter the effects of migration, she obsessively loops back to the phone call to hold fast to what she knows to be true — at a point when she must quickly grow accustomed to her national identity and home being confronted and renegotiated.

The result is a film that is equal parts travelogue and reconstruction of a memory, one that refuses exceptionalism...

Sarajevo Film Festival has selected 18 titles for its Kinoscope strand and seven for its In Focus section, including a range of 2024 festival hits from Berlin and Cannes.

The Kinoscope selection consists of 12 Kinoscope films, and six titles in genre strand Kinoscope Surreal.

Scroll down for the full list of titles

Titles include Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light, which won the Grand Prix in Cannes Competition this year; and Santosh, the debut feature of 2023 Screen Star of Tomorrow Sandhya Suri, which debuted in Un Certain Regard.

Guan Hu’s Black Dog, winner of the Un Certain Regard prize,...

Lights On has taken international sales rights for “When the Phone Rang” and has released the film’s trailer (below) ahead of its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival on Aug. 12.

The film is written and directed by Iva Radivojević, and is based on Radivojević’s personal experience of leaving the crisis-stricken Yugoslavia of the 1990s.

Through a reconstruction of an important phone call, the film “addresses the nature of remembering and dislocation,” according to a press statement. In Lana’s 11-year-old mind the phone call erases her entire country, history and identity.

The phone call as a recurring event in the story brings together a series of recollections, which are assembled to build a larger story. Each memory is called forth by a phone call. Thus, the film is divided into eleven events, and eleven phone calls. Each event begins with a phone ringing and ends with the packing of suitcases and departure.

Taking place August 7-17, the official selection for the 77th Locarno Film Festival has been unveiled, featuring a stellar-looking slate of highly anticipated films. Highlights include Hong Sangsoo’s second feature of the year, By the Stream, starring Kim Minhee, Kwon Haehyo, and Cho Yunhee; Ramon Zürcher’s The Sparrow in the Chimney, Wang Bing’s second part of his Youth trilogy, Youth (Hard Times), as well as new films by Radu Jude, Bertrand Mandico, Courtney Stephens, Ben Rivers, Gürcan Keltek, Denis Côté, Kevin Jerome Everson, Fabrice Du Welz (featuring Abel Ferrara!), and many more. Also of particular note is the world premiere of Tarsem Singh’s restored cut of The Fall, which features a slightly different edit as he recently noted.

Giona A. Nazzaro, Artistic Director of the Locarno Film Festival said, “We are very excited and happy with our selection for Locarno’s 77th edition, which we believe...

The Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland has unveiled an eclectic lineup for its 77th edition, taking place Aug. 7-17. The fest will screen 225 total films, including 104 world premieres, five international premieres and some debut features, including new films from such directors as Hong Sang-soo, Spanish actress Paz Vega and Radu Jude. Gianluca Jodice’s Le Déluge, starring Mélanie Laurent and Guillaume Canet, will also world premiere and open the fest, with Locarno on Wednesday unveiling that the two French stars will receive the Excellence Award Davide Campari on the fest’s opening night.

Beyond new fare, some of this season’s film festival favorites and classics will screen in Locarno’s main Piazza Grande section, taking place on the town’s main square set up with 8,000 seats. Films to be screened include Cannes hits such as Laetitia Dosch’s Dog on Trial, Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig,...

Exclusive: American Documentary has acquired Elaine McMillion Sheldon’s award-winning documentary King Coal for the upcoming season of Pov, the longest-running nonfiction series on television.

The film set in Central Appalachia premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last January and went on to win prizes at the RiverRun International Film Festival, Woods Hole Film Festival, and Seattle International Film Festival, among other festivals. It is expected to debut in the summer of 2024 on Pov, the public television series whose films have claimed three Oscars, 47 Emmys, 27 Peabody Awards, and more than a dozen duPont-Columbia awards over the span of 36 seasons.

‘King Coal’

“King Coal, through the personal memories of a 4th generation coal miner’s daughter, meditates on the complex history and future of the coal industry, the communities it has shaped, and the myths it has created,” notes a description of the documentary. “Filmed in Central Appalachia, where McMillion Sheldon was raised and lives,...

In Sundance Next selection King Coal, Elaine McMillion Sheldon employs a hybrid approach, blending contemporary imagery with archival material and poetic voiceover to explore the impact that coal — the substance and the industry — has had on Central Appalachia. Below, editor Iva Radivojevic, herself a filmmaker, discusses her collaboration with Sheldon on the picture. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? Radivojevic: Elaine and I had known each other for about a decade prior to making this […]

The post “We Initially Imagined It as a Rectangle That From the Left Starts Off Dark, Gray and Gloomy”: Editor Iva Radivojevic on King Coal first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

In Sundance Next selection King Coal, Elaine McMillion Sheldon employs a hybrid approach, blending contemporary imagery with archival material and poetic voiceover to explore the impact that coal — the substance and the industry — has had on Central Appalachia. Below, editor Iva Radivojevic, herself a filmmaker, discusses her collaboration with Sheldon on the picture. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? Radivojevic: Elaine and I had known each other for about a decade prior to making this […]

The post “We Initially Imagined It as a Rectangle That From the Left Starts Off Dark, Gray and Gloomy”: Editor Iva Radivojevic on King Coal first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

A poetic ode to the blue ridges of Central Appalachia, King Coal often evokes an IMAX educational film in its scope, space, and presence. The film explores the complex history of coal as a specter that looms over the region. The precious rock is celebrated throughout, the picture never veering off-course to engage in a discussion of contemporary politics. It’s instead built on West Virginia itself, a land still tied to mythology in some ways. “Who are we, without a king,” Lanie Marsh (the young star of the picture) asks.

Written and directed by West Virginia native Elaine McMillion Sheldon (who also narrates)––with additional writing by Shane Boris, Logan Hill, Iva Radivojevic, and Heather Hannah––King Coal is a departure from the filmmaker’s previous vérité documentaries Heroin(e) and Recovery Boys, which explore a darker side of her home state. The opioid crisis is a byproduct of...

Kim Maxime Baglieri on In Order To Escort Her: “I wanted to work on a story that would be healing for everyone, or at least help bridge the cultural divides in family alone.”

In the third in a series of Doc NYC conversations with filmmakers from the Hunter College Mfa Program in Integrated Media Arts (see Neville Elder on his Anamnesis [Part One] and Lidiya Kan on Morkovcha (Korean Carrot Salad)), I discussed with Kim Maxime Baglieri the influence of Aleph director Iva Radivojevic, Michael Gitlin, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Kidlat Tahimik, and Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko, the impact of migration and family separation, generational storytelling, resilience, hope and magic, belief in the supernatural, the malunggay plant, and the mysterious nature of her title In Order To Escort Her. Kim brought up that she watched Brett Morgen’s documentary Jane on Jane Goodall while in the process of making her film.

Kim Maxime...

“One September day,” begins the title card at the head of the New Directors/New Films-premiering Aleph, “I met Rodrigo near 23rd Street for lunch. He talked about microcosms, labyrinths, connectness and Borges…” And with those deceptively casual opening lines, filmmaker Iva Radivojevic takes us on a globetrotting (10 countries on five continents!) journey through the porous borderlands of documentary and fiction that’s as much philosophical as it is observational. Traversing both map and territory, Aleph draws its inspiration from the Jorge Luis Borges short story of the same name, a brief tale that literalizes the Hamlet quote (“O God! I […]

The post “Everything You’re Feeling or Seeing in the Moment Comes Into the Story”: Director Iva Radivojevic on Her Borgesian Tale of Wanderlust and Connection, Aleph first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

“One September day,” begins the title card at the head of the New Directors/New Films-premiering Aleph, “I met Rodrigo near 23rd Street for lunch. He talked about microcosms, labyrinths, connectness and Borges…” And with those deceptively casual opening lines, filmmaker Iva Radivojevic takes us on a globetrotting (10 countries on five continents!) journey through the porous borderlands of documentary and fiction that’s as much philosophical as it is observational. Traversing both map and territory, Aleph draws its inspiration from the Jorge Luis Borges short story of the same name, a brief tale that literalizes the Hamlet quote (“O God! I […]

The post “Everything You’re Feeling or Seeing in the Moment Comes Into the Story”: Director Iva Radivojevic on Her Borgesian Tale of Wanderlust and Connection, Aleph first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Juja Dobrachkous on the girls in Bebia, À Mon Seul Désir: “Most of the actors were non-professional actors and I wanted this absolutely natural effect.”

Juja Dobrachkous’ debut feature Bebia, À Mon Seul Désir, produced with Olga Dykhovichnaya, and shot by Veronica Solovyeva in black and white, joins Amalia Ulman’s El Planeta and Jonas Bak’s Wood And Water as the third highlight of the 50th anniversary edition of New Directors/New Films that confronts a child’s relationship to a looming-large mother. Iva Radivojevic’s not-to-be-missed Aleph is the other early highlight.

Juja Dobrachkous: “I kind of enforced my structure with the Greek classical structure, which just enriches and makes it fun to write and shoot it.”

Told in two time strands, we see little Ariadna (Anushka Andronikashvili) interact with her surroundings and observe the strained dynamics at home. When 17-year-old Ariadna (Anastasia Davidson), now a model in London,...

Films and references to cultural traditions may flicker past your inner eye in Iva Radivojevic’s Aleph, a luminous take on Jorge Luis Borges, narrated by Anne Waldman, which is a highlight of the 50th anniversary edition of New Directors/New Films. The Thai ghost may be Uncle Boonmee’s brother from Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s picture. An ad for Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson graces the back pages of a newspaper in Buenos Aires and Oscar Wilde’s Happy Prince is not the only one who is able to see without eyes.

The woman who disappears into the painting in Aleph feels strangely related to the old couple who befriend and haunt Naomi Watts in David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, only to appear downsized out of a paper bag later on.

During my conversation with the filmmaker, I learned that Roland Barthes is responsible for the like/dislike structure in...

Aleph director Iva Radivojević: “The idea is that each character leaves us off with a clue as to where we’re going next.”

On the afternoon of the 93rd Academy Awards, a reference to David Lynch and a scene in Mulholland Drive, Luis Buñuel’s The Phantom Of Liberty, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives and Luminous People (segment in State of the World), Likes And Dislikes by Roland Barthes, Andy Warhol, Alain Resnais, Aleph’s narrator Anne Waldman, and a short story by Jorge Luis Borges all came up in my conversation with Iva Radivojevic, the director/writer/editor/ of Aleph, a highlight of the 50th anniversary edition of New Directors/New Films.

Iva Radivojević on Jorge Luis Borges’ Aleph: “I used the story, the myth of this portal of Aleph as a starting point, the search for this portal. The whole film starts...

Covering the limits of this planet a la Herzog, celebrated filmmaker Iva Radivojevic has been working on this multi-character multi-storied docu project for half a decade now. Alpeh has benefitted from support funds from the top organizations including Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program and she was the recipient of the 2017 Sundance Art of Non Fiction Fellowship. Supported by Cinereach, this could easily land at fests such as Rotterdam or Locarno.

Gist: Aleph is a mysterious point (an opening) suspended in space and time that contains the entire universe. It’s hidden in a splintered labyrinth where ten characters play a game of magic.…...

Holland’s upcoming feature Charlatan among 51 headed to the Lido.

This year’s Venice Gap-Financing Market, returning for its sixth edition in 2019, has named the 51 projects that will participate across its four strands.

There are 28 features, fiction and documentaries, heading to the Lido this year. Among them is Agnieszka Holland’s upcoming feature Charlatan (Sarlatan), which is being produced by Czech outfit Marlene Film in co-production with Film & Music Entertainment (F&me)’s Irish outpost and Slovakia’s Furia Film.

The project is based on the life of Jan Mikolášek, a Czech healer who lived in totalitarian 1950s Czechoslovakia. Films Boutique is handling sales.

The sixth edition of the Venice Gap-Financing Market (August 30 – September 1), which takes place during the Venice Film Festival, will feature 51 projects in the final stages of development and funding.

Of those, 23 projects from Europe and beyond are narrative features with 70% funding in place. Five projects are documentaries.

Among highlights are Czech feature Sarlatan by Oscar-nominated Polish director Agnieszka Holland (Mr. Jones) about a man gifted with exceptional abilities set against the background of the events of the totalitarian ’50s; Russian film Air by Dovlatov director Alexey German Jr; Grbavica director Jasmila Zbanic’s Euro co-pro Quo Vadis Aida (working title); and Canadian pic Saint-Narcisse by Bruce La Bruce.

Here’s a full list of projects taking part in the market:

28 Selected Fiction And Documentary Projects

Air (Russia) by Alexey German Jr., SAGa, Metrafilms Alam (France, Lebanon, Belgium) by Firas Khoury, Mpm Film A la sombra de los árboles (Chile) by Matías Rojas Valencia,...

Buzz projects include Eurimages prize-winner Journey To Utopia.

Lars von Trier was the talk of Copenhagen on Thursday (March 22) – and for once not because of a film he’s directed but for a documentary that turns the cameras on him.

Producer Sigrid Dyekjaer of Danish Documentary unveiled footage at Cph:forum of The Missing Films, a portrait of von Trier directed by two of his long-time collaborators, Tomas Gislason and Jacob Thuesen.

Attending industry experts were buzzing about the footage shown, demonstrating an unprecedented level of intimacy and access to von Trier that among other sequences shows him in production on his new serial killer story,...

Works in progress to include ‘Reconstructing Utoya’; new science section includes portrait of Oliver Sacks.

Cph:Dox has unveiled the 26 projects to be presented in its Cph:Forum, its financing and co-production event (March 21-22) that works across creative filmmaking.

The projects are from the likes of established directors such as Maxim Pozdorovkin (Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer), Guy Davidi (5 Broken Cameras), Camilla Nielsson (Democrats), Anna Eborn (Pine Ridge) and Grant Gee (Meeting People is Easy).

Topics range from a family trying to find their own utopia in an organic village; a portrait of Lee Miller; the filmic obsessions of Lars von Trier; and Chinese women trying to find a partner by age 27.

For the fifth year, the Forum projects are eligible for the Eurimages Co-Production Development Award of $18,400 €15,000 for the event’s best pitch. Kickstarter provides guidance and promotional support for the Forum projects as well.

More than 150 attending decision makers will include European broadcasters such as...

The future is bright for doc film and is certainly promising for Theo Anthony (Rat Film – our Ioncinephile of the Month), Garrett Bradley (American Rhapsody), Sierra Pettengill (The Reagan Show) and Iva Radivojevic (Aleph) as the quartet have been selected as Sundance Institute’s Art of Nonfiction Initiative’s 2017 Art of Nonfiction Fellows.

Continue reading...

Our bi-weekly Film Festival Roundup column explores notable stories and news updates from the circuit.

Long before Barry Jenkins or Laura Poitras won their first Oscars or Robert Eggers made one of 2016’s highest-grossing indies, or Denis Villeneuve graduated to Hollywood’s A-list, they were still just independent filmmakers with a dream — a dream that needed to be packaged, sold, and produced. Enter Ifp Film Week, home of one of the world’s most forward-thinking film markets, and the U.S.’s only market that presents new works across all platforms, all the better to serve their creator’s visions.

This year’s 2017 Ifp Film Week, presented by the Independent Film Project, has unveiled its slate for this year’s film project section. The lineup includes 110 narrative and documentary projects in development from over 15 countries. Curated by Ifp’s Deputy Director/Head of Programming Amy Dotson and Senior Director of Programming Milton Tabbot,...

Ma director Celia Rowlson-Hall with Anne-Katrin Titze, editor Iva Radivojevic and Dp Ian Bloom at IFC Center Photo: Ed Bahlman

A quintet comprised of Lena Dunham, Hailey Benton Gates, Durga Chew-Bose, Siobhan Burke, and myself moderated the post-screening discussions for Celia Rowlson-Hall's American fairy tale Ma on its opening weekend in New York.

Ma stars Rowlson-Hall with a terrific speechless supporting cast including Andrew Pastides, Amy Seimetz, Jason Kittelberger, Neal Bledsoe, Matt Lauria, Kentucker Audley, Peter Vack, William Connell, George McArthur, and Bobbi Jene Smith. In the tradition of Claudette Colbert in Frank Capra's It Happened One Night or Uma Thurman thumbing a ride in Gus Van Sant's Even Cowgirls Get The Blues, a modern-day Virgin Mary hitchhikes across the Southwest, ultimately arriving in Las Vegas where she meets Nevada showgirls and a tiny singing Queen Victoria lookalike.

Celia Rowlson-Hall: "I really wanted to tell an American story.

Iva Radivojevic is a documentary director and editor. She was born in Yugoslavia, raised in Cyprus and has lived in New York City since she was 18 years old. Much of her work explores belonging, and draws from poetry and personal experience. Her debut feature, Evaporating Borders, examines migration, tolerance and identity through the experience of asylum seekers in Cyprus. The film has received awards worldwide and was nominated for an International Documentary Association (Ida) Award and a Cinema Eye Honors Spotlight Award and screened over 80 times at festivals, including SXSW, Human Rights Watch Ff, Rotterdam Iff, DokuFest and […]...

Iffr’s new artistic director Bero Beyer brings television back to the big screen in Rotterdam.

Following on from the 2013 strand Signals: Changing Channels, Beyer and former Critics’ Week programmer Léo Soesanto have jointly created Episodic/Epidemic - a new strand that highlights filmmakers working within television formats.

The section sits within Perspectives - an over-arching part of the festival Bero considers as “film-making that detours to the left, to the right and upside down of cinema”.

Both Soesanto and Beyer assert it is not another festival trend, which has seen TV strands such as Berlinale’s Special Series and Toronto’s Primetime, but instead an extension of Iffr’s programming.

“This is at the heart of Rotterdam [Iffr] - we want to celebrate all the ways a filmmaker can express themselves. Whether it’s music, art, gaming, Vr or episodic - we want to find the best way to present different types of storytelling,” said Bero.

A...

Today it was announced that Laura Poitras, Aj Schnack and Charlotte Cook will collaborate to launch Field of Vision, the visual journalism arm of The Intercept, of which Poitras serves as a co-editor. The trio will work together to commission between 40 and 50 short-form nonfiction films each year, with the first season debuting on The Intercept on September 29, following the world premiere of Poitras’ Asylum as part of “Field of Vision: New Episodic Nonfiction” at the Nyff on September 27. You can expect new work from 25 New Faces Iva Radivojevic and Dustin Guy Defa, along with Poitras d.p. Kirsten Johnson, […]...

Today it was announced that Laura Poitras, Aj Schnack and Charlotte Cook will collaborate to launch Field of Vision, the visual journalism arm of The Intercept, of which Poitras serves as a co-editor. The trio will work together to commission between 40 and 50 short-form nonfiction films each year, with the first season debuting on The Intercept on September 29, following the world premiere of Poitras’ Asylum as part of “Field of Vision: New Episodic Nonfiction” at the Nyff on September 27. You can expect new work from 25 New Faces Iva Radivojevic and Dustin Guy Defa, along with Poitras d.p. Kirsten Johnson, […]...

Using the island of Cyprus as its setting and object of pointed criticism, Iva Radivojevic’s Evaporating Borders views the third largest island in the Mediterranean as both a place of familiarity and disconnect. With immigrants currently making up 25% of Cyprus’ residents (the majority being Greek and the minority Turkish), an intense feud has developed between the “natives” and the refugees who live in fear of their welfare benefits being confiscated by the government. As rallies and protests broke out magnifying the separation between the communities, Radivojevic, with camera in hand, took to documenting the experience in the form of […]...

Using the island of Cyprus as its setting and object of pointed criticism, Iva Radivojevic’s Evaporating Borders views the third largest island in the Mediterranean as both a place of familiarity and disconnect. With immigrants currently making up 25% of Cyprus’ residents (the majority being Greek and the minority Turkish), an intense feud has developed between the “natives” and the refugees who live in fear of their welfare benefits being confiscated by the government. As rallies and protests broke out magnifying the separation between the communities, Radivojevic, with camera in hand, took to documenting the experience in the form of […]...

Held earlier this month on May 13-17, the epic 22nd annual Chicago Underground Film Festival gave out eight awards and six honorable mentions.

The big winner was Jennifer Reeder who took home this year’s Best of the Fest award for Blood Below the Skin, a 38-minute short film about three teenage girls who forge a special bond in the wake of an unanticipated incident. This marks back-to-back wins for Reeder who won the Best Short Award last year at Cuff for her previous film A Million Miles Away.

Other winners include Iva Radivojevic’s rumination on asylum seekers in Cyprus, Evaporating Borders, which won Best Feature; while David McMurry’s meditation on the world’s first nuclear town, Arco, Idaho, Atomic City, won Best Documentary. Also, ethnographic documentarian Ben Russell won the Poseidon’s Trident Award for Experimental Mythologies for Atlantis; and Laura Harrison’s animated The Lingerie Show...

Chicago – One of the funkiest and offbeat film festivals is taking place in Chicago through Sunday, May 17th, 2015. The 22nd Chicago Underground Film Festival (Cuff) showcases independent, experimental and documentary films from around the world. This year’s festival takes place all at the Logan Theatre – 2646 North Milwaukee, Chicago – and the films are augmented by nightly parties and concerts.

Official Cuff Poster

Photo credit: Chicago Underground Film Festival

Founded in 1993, The Chicago Underground Film Festival is a year-round organization dedicated to the work of film and video makers with defiantly independent visions. The full weekend schedule for Cuff is mapped out below. Prime time features and documentaries are highlighted for each of the remaining days of the festival. and you can click here for full film descriptions (including all the short films in each compilation) and for ticket purchasing information.

Friday, May 15th

”Shorts #2: Humanity I Love You”

Five short films in this program.

The 22nd annual Chicago Underground Film Festival presents five days of devastating celluloid provocations on May 13-17 at the Logan Theatre.

The fest kicks off on May 13 with the incredibly haunting short film Echoes by Jaimz Asmundson and the Filipino romantic crime drama Ruined Heart: Another Lovestory Between a Criminal and a Whore by the single-named director Khavn.

Highlights of the fest include the new slacker-ific comedy by Lev Kalman and Whitney Horn, L for Leisure; the Spanish socio-political documentary Speculation Nation by Bill Brown and Sabine Gruffat; the pastoral friendship drama For the Plasma by Bingham Bryant & Kyle Molzan; and the joyful pop doc Living Stars by Gastón Duprat and Mariano Cohn.

There are also loads of un-missable short films, such as the gritty modern film noir Bite Radius by Spencer Parsons; and amazing new films by Jennifer Reeder (Blood Below the Skin), Zachary Epcar (Under the Heat Lamp...

Further reminding us that the Academy Awards are irrelevant in year-end discussions for the best in documentary film, according to the experts at the Cinema Eye Honors’ voting committee, Laura Poitras’ Citizenfour, Steve James’ Life Itself and Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard’s 20,000 Days on Earth would be among the best docu films of the year, leading the pack in almost all categories. Not to be overlooked, Jesse Moss’ The Overnighters and Robert Greene’s Actress received kudos in Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking and Outstanding Achievement in Direction while the major surprise of the noms belongs to Orlando von Einsiedel’s Virunga (presented at the Tribeca and Hot Docs Film Fests) grabbing a total of three. Left completely off the scorecard, Manakamana failed to produce a single nom. The Cinema Eye Honors winners will be announced on Wednesday, January 7 at New York’s Museum of the Moving Image.

The International Documentary Association (Ida) announced nominations for the 2014 Ida Documentary Awards today, with awards being bestowed December 5th at the Paramount Theatre on the studio lot. The top films nominated in the best feature category include the critically-acclaimed Citizenfour from filmmaker Laura Poitras about Edward Snowden and the state of surveillance of civilians post 9/11 which has been enjoying a theatrical run and Nick Broomfield’s Tales Of The Grim Sleeper about the serial killer who terrorized South Central Los Angeles over 25 years. In the limited series category is Playtone’s CNN doc The Sixties, among others. Best episodic include Oprah Winfrey’s Master Class and HBO’s Vice exec produced by Bill Maher (and others). In addition, Robert Redford will receive the Career Achievement award from the Ida.

Winners in the Best Feature and Best Short categories are selected by Ida’s international membership. Screening committees of industry professionals based in New York City,...

Held at the Film Society of Lincoln Center and IFC

The annual Human Rights Film Festival goes where so many fear to tread by devoting attention to people and issues that are so often ignored and neglected. Travel to distant countries, and observe how different cultures and societies are run.

“Evaporating Borders: A Story in 5 Parts” directed by Iva Radivojevic, is a 73 minute film about migrants who travel from Syria to the island off the coast of Syria and Lebanon, Cyprus.

Sharing the viewpoints from many perspectives; the migrant, the case worker, the locals, and the government, the film’s impact is extremely powerful.

Screening on:

June 15, 2014 at 7pm at IFC, and on

June 17, 2014 at 9:15pm at Film Society of Lincoln Center

Screening followed by discussion with filmmaker Iva Radivojevic

Presented with: Independent Filmmaker Project, http://www.ifp.org

Part 1: An Island in the Sun

The viewer is reminded how migrants risk their lives on a daily basis, traveling by boat from countries in turmoil with the hopes of settling in an EU country. For example, many travel from Tunisia to Croatia and Italy, or journey from Syria to Cyprus, because it is considered one of the easiest ports of entry. All too often, the outcome is unsuccessful.

Cyprus, a multicultural island with a Greek Cypriot majority and a Turkish Cypriot minority, consists of a population made up of 25% immigrants from Sri Lanka and the Phillipines, Russians, Christian Orthodox, Eastern Europeans who fled the Balkan Wars, Romanian’s and Bulgarians, and Bangladeshi, Chinese, and African college students.

The Capital of Cyprus, Nicosia, is the only military divided city in Europe.

In 1974, Greek Cypriot nationalists attempted a coup d’etat, and Turkey invaded Cyprus, turning many Cypriots into refugees.

Part 2: The Visitors

Many refugees make their way from Syria, Iran, Sudan, Afghanistan, Egypt, and Palestinians from Iraq, and register as asylum seekers at the immigration center in Cyprus. As can be imagined, they come searching for stability and a future for their children, because, in Syria, many of their families have been killed, have disappeared, or have been threatened.

50 year old Palestinian professor and Physics researcher, who was born in Baghdad, Iraq, and left Syria with his wife and son to escape the suffering, have traveled into Cyprus using fake Algerian passports. He shares his heart wrenching story of the discrimination he has faced.

Part 3: Fear’s Invention

Shares the side of the story from the case workers, and their conundrum of where the migrants are supposed to live and work in the small nation of only 800,000 people.

The migrants will often lie about their religious beliefs, and health status, in order to be eligible for benefit pay. Resentment builds by the locals who work for low wages, while they see that the refugees receive pay for doing no work.

The Anti-Fascist parties also share their negative feelings regarding the migrants, and believe the migrants bring problems to the country, such as, unemployment.

Part 4: Imagined Identity

The harsh reality. Tent cities, benefits being taken away, long hours, low wages, missing children, hunger strikes and suicide plagues the area.

Part 5: Evaporating Borders

Migrants starting to believe they are criminals who have overstayed their welcome. The EU’s assistance towards the Cyprus Government in order to cover the benefits for the Asylum seekers. The laws the asylum seekers are entitled to.

Following “The Women of Sundance” article in our print and online additions, Danielle Lurie continues her coverage of female filmmakers with a series of interviews highlighting women directors at SXSW. In this interview, she talks with the director of the hybrid documentary, Evaporating Borders, Iva Radivojevic. Filmmaker: Why this movie? Why did you decide to do it? Radivojevic: It was one of those ideas that keeps churning in your stomach for years and years and finally finds a way to come out. The film is also personal and has to do with who I am and my experience (although […]...

Following “The Women of Sundance” article in our print and online additions, Danielle Lurie continues her coverage of female filmmakers with a series of interviews highlighting women directors at SXSW. In this interview, she talks with the director of the hybrid documentary, Evaporating Borders, Iva Radivojevic. Filmmaker: Why this movie? Why did you decide to do it? Radivojevic: It was one of those ideas that keeps churning in your stomach for years and years and finally finds a way to come out. The film is also personal and has to do with who I am and my experience (although […]...

In recent years, the island of Cyprus has become something of an unforgiving melting pot. The often life-threatening emigration of Iranians and Syrians to the once predominately Greco-Turkish enclave presents a tense social fabric that is poetically probed in Iva Radivojevic’s debut documentary Evaporating Borders. Radivojevic adopts an aesthetically meandering and unique approach to the film, which is almost paradoxically structured into character-based chapters. Filmmaker spoke with the Yugoslavian-born Radivojevic about her personal connection to Cyprus, the process of voicing the film’s narrator and other traditionally fiction form elements at work in the film. Evaporating Borders premieres today in the Visions section at […]...

In recent years, the island of Cyprus has become something of an unforgiving melting pot. The often life-threatening emigration of Iranians and Syrians to the once predominately Greco-Turkish enclave presents a tense social fabric that is poetically probed in Iva Radivojevic’s debut documentary Evaporating Borders. Radivojevic adopts an aesthetically meandering and unique approach to the film, which is almost paradoxically structured into character-based chapters. Filmmaker spoke with the Yugoslavian-born Radivojevic about her personal connection to Cyprus, the process of voicing the film’s narrator and other traditionally fiction form elements at work in the film. Evaporating Borders premieres today in the Visions section at...

Sundance just ended, and we are already preparing for the next big film festival, South By Southwest. Not too long ago, the festival announced a few of the films premiering this year, but now they’ve announced the main slate. The midnight selections and some inevitable late-breaking additions are still to be announced, but this should be more than enough to get you excited. Along with many World Premieres, and Sundance favorites like Richard Linklater’s Boyhood and Gareth Evans’ The Raid 2, the line up also includes an anniversary screening of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and an extended Q&A screening of The Grand Budapest Hotel with Wes Anderson. SXSW 2014 runs March 7 through 15 in Austin, Texas. Check out the line up after the jump.

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Narrative Feature Competition

Eight world premieres, eight unique ways to celebrate the art of storytelling. Selected from 1,324 films submitted to SXSW 2014. Films screening in Narrative...

Today the South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference and Festival announced a diverse features lineup for this year’s Festival, the 21st edition and running March 7 – 15, 2014 in Austin, Texas. The 2014 program expands on SXSW tradition of embracing a range of genres and span of budgets, featuring a wealth of vision from experienced and developing filmmakers alike.

For more information visit http://sxsw.com/film.

Listed in the announcement are 115 of the features that will screen over the course of nine days at SXSW 2014. The lineup below includes 68 films from first-time filmmakers, and consists of 76 World Premieres, 10 North American Premieres and 7 U.S. Premieres. These films were selected from a record 2,215 feature-length film submissions composed of 1,540 U.S. and 675 international feature-length films. With a record number of 6,482 submissions total, the overall increase was 14% over 2013. The Midnighters feature section and the Short Film program will be announced on February 5, with the complete...

After announcing earlier this month that Jon Favreau’s Chef and the Veronica Mars movie will be making their world debuts at SXSW this year, the festival has revealed its full line-up, including further very promising world premieres, alongside appearances from some of the year’s most high-profile films.

The Midnight programme will be announced early next month, along with the Shorts line-up, and the complete Conference slate a little later as well.

Led by Seth Rogen and Zac Efron, Nicholas Stoller’s anticipated R-rated comedy, Neighbors, will be making its world debut at the festival, notably marked out as a ‘work-in-progress’ ahead of its theatrical release in May.

David Gordon Green’s acclaimed Joe will make its Us premiere, having bowed at Venice and then Toronto last year. Early reviews have Nicolas Cage giving one of the finest performances of his career, with Tye Sheridan (Mud) excellent alongside him.

Not sure if there is a Short Term 12 equivalent in this year’s Narrative Feature Comp, but on paper SXSW programmers are serving up a mean (and the usual lean group of 8 out of a whopping 1,324 film entries) for the upcoming competitiuon of eight which includes notable entries (that we’ve been tracking for a good time now) such as Zachary Wigon’s The Heart Machine, John Magary’s The Mend, Leah Meyerhoff’s I Believe in Unicorns and Lawrence Michael Levine’s Wild Canaries. Undoubtedly one of the most anticipated docs of the year, on the non-fiction side we find Margaret Brown’s The Great Invisible. Below you’ll find a breakdown of the other sections (notable world preems in We’ll Never Have Paris and Faults (see Mary Elizabeth Winstead above), some Sundance items with Texan connections and other nuggets.

Narrative Feature Competition

Eight world premieres, eight...

Tonight Filmmaker is holding its special “25 New Faces” screening (sponsored by Sony Creative Software and Arri) at IFC Center in Manhattan, and there are two tickets up for grabs for tonight’s event. The following short films will play, followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers plus previous alums, including Blue Caprice‘s Alexandre Moors: RPG Okc (Emily Carmichael, 2013, 9 mins) Old Man (Leah Shore, 2013, 5 mins) High Maintenance: “Dinah” (Katja Blichfeld & Ben Sinclair, 2013, 12 mins) Social Butterfly (Lauren Wolkstein, 2013, 15 mins) Between Colors of I (Iva Radivojevic, 2013, 9 mins) Palimpsest (Michael Tyburski, 2013, 17 mins) To win, […]...

Tonight Filmmaker is holding its special “25 New Faces” screening (sponsored by Sony Creative Software and Arri) at IFC Center in Manhattan, and there are two tickets up for grabs for tonight’s event. The following short films will play, followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers plus previous alums, including Blue Caprice‘s Alexandre Moors: RPG Okc (Emily Carmichael, 2013, 9 mins) Old Man (Leah Shore, 2013, 5 mins) High Maintenance: “Dinah” (Katja Blichfeld & Ben Sinclair, 2013, 12 mins) Social Butterfly (Lauren Wolkstein, 2013, 15 mins) Between Colors of I (Iva Radivojevic, 2013, 9 mins) Palimpsest (Michael Tyburski, 2013, 17 mins) To win, […]...

It’s lucky 13 for the fun and fabulous Coney Island Film Festival! That’s right, 2013 will see the 13th annual edition of this New York City staple that combines the fine art of filmmaking with the rambunctious art of sideshow performing on Sept. 20-22.

The fest opens on the 20th with the documentary More Than the Rainbow, a profile of Matt Weber, an NYC cab driver who moonlights as an art photographer. The film is directed by Dan Wechsler.

Other docs screening at the fest include the uplifting tale of A Clown’s Recovery, directed by Matthew Broomfield; the sports drama of One Wall: Kings of Coney Island, directed by Joe Glickman; the profile of a Coney Island legend in The Commander in Chief, directed by Jim McDonnell; the struggle of Bending Steel, directed by Dave Carroll; and World Circus, directed by Angela Snow.

But, there are also fiction films in the mix,...