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Egyptian producer Mohamed Hefzy and Algerian director Merzak Allouache will be honored this week by Variety at the Red Sea Film Festival in the port city of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.

Hefzy will receive the Variety International Vanguard Producer Award, while Allouache is being bestowed with the Variety International Vanguard Director Award. Both honors are given in recognition of their achievements over the course of their careers.

Hefzy will receive his award on stage on Dec. 9 before the Red Sea screening of his film “Abdo & Saneya,” which starts 5 P.M. Allouache will receive his award before the premiere of his film “Front Row” on Dec. 8, starting at 5.15 P.M. Both screenings take place in the auditorium in Culture Square in Jeddah.

Hefzy and his Cairo-based production company Film Clinic have a reputation for promoting emerging Egyptian filmmaking talents such as Abu Bakr Shawky (“Yomeddine”), Omar El Zohairy (“Feathers”) and Mohamed Diab...

Producer Konstantinos Kontovrakis has left Heretic Films, the Athens-based production and sales company he co-founded with Giorgos Karnavas in 2013.

Kontovrakis has not announced his post-Heretic plans yet, but said he was “very much looking forward to the challenges and discoveries of our ever-new cinema landscape”.

He told Screen: “After over a decade of setting up and running a successful company and making great films, I found myself losing sight of the broader landscape. So much changes in our industry so fast that the time felt right for me to be immersed in it once more and to expand my...

South Korean director Hong Sang-soo was awarded the El Gouna Gold Star for best narrative film for his meditation on art and relationships, “In Our Day,” as the delayed edition of the El Gouna Film Festival held its closing ceremony on Thursday. The Italian animated film “A Greyhound of a Girl,” directed by Enzo D’Alò, and the Brazilian director Guto Parente’s “A Strange Path” picked up the Silver and Bronze Stars respectively.

The jury comprised of Indian director Anup Singh, Jordanian actress Saba Mubarak, Palestinian actress Yasmine Al-Massri, French Lebanese actress Manal Issa and Egyptian filmmaker Omar El Zohairy.

In the non-fiction category, Ibrahim Nash’at’s acclaimed documentary “Hollywoodgate” took the top prize, with “Seven Winters in Tehran” and Mila Turajlić’s Serbian film “Non-Aligned: Scenes from the Labudović Reels” sharing the Silver Star, and “On the Adamant,” directed by French director Nicolas Philibert, taking the Bronze Star. The...

Critical Zone.International Competition(Jury: Lambert Wilson, Zar Amir Ebrahimi, Lesli Klainberg, Charlotte Wells, Matthijs Wouter Knol)Golden Leopard: Critical Zone (Ali Ahmadzadeh)Special Jury Prize: Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World (Radu Jude)Best Direction: Stepne (Maryna Vroda)Best Performance: Dimitra Vlagopoulou (Animal)Best Performance: Renée Soutendijk (Sweet Dreams)Special Mention: Nuit Obscure - Au Revoir Ici, N'importe Où (Sylvain George)Filmmakers Of The PresentGolden Leopard: Dreaming & Dying (Nelson Yeo)Best Emerging Director: Katharina Huber (A Good Place)Special Jury Prize: Camping Du Lac (Éléonore Saintagnan)Best Performance: Clara Schwinning (A Good Place)Best Performance: Isold Halldórudóttir and Stavros Zafeiris (Touched)Special Mentions: Excursions (Una Gunjak), Negu Hurbilak (Colective Negu)First Feature(Jury: Omar El Zohairy, Devika Girish, Isabel Sandoval)First Feature Award: Dreaming & Dying (Nelson Yeo)Pardi Di Domani(Jury: Ewa Puszczyńska, Matthew Rankin, Amos Sussigan)Best...

The pair join jury president French actor Lambert Wilson in the international competition strand

Aftersun director Charlotte Wells and Holy Spider star Zar Amir Ebrahimi are among the jurors for the 76th Locarno Film Festival (August 2-12).

The Scottish filmmaker and Iranian actor will sit on the international competition jury, led by French actor Lambert Wilson, alongside European Film Academy president Matthijs Wouter Knol and Lesli Klainberg, president of film at the Lincoln Centre.

Films competing at Locarno this year include Radu Jude’s Do Not Expect Too Much From The End Of The World, Lav Diaz’s Essential Truths...

Aftersun director Charlotte Wells and Holy Spider star Zar Amir Ebrahimi have joined the jury of the 76th Locarno International Film Festival and will judge the 2023 competitors for the festival’s Golden Leopard award. Ebrahimi also stars in Noora Niasari’s Sundance audience award winner Shayda, which will be the closing film in Locarno this year.

French actor Lambert Wilson, known for his performances in the Matrix films, will head up this year’s Locarno international jury as president. Also in the 2023 jury are European Film Academy director and CEO Matthijs Wouter Knol and Lesli Klainberg, President of Film at New York’s Lincoln Center.

The films of Locarno’s Concorso Cineasti del presente sidebar, featuring works from first and second-time directors will be assessed by a three-person jury of Beatrice Fiorentino, general delegate of Film Critics’ Week at the Venice Film Festival, the French-Tunisian director Erige Sehiri (Under the Fig Trees...

Ambiguous, Kafkaesque and with a deadpan wit, Egyptian director Omar El Zohairy’s debut feature explores a woman’s place in a man’s world

Egyptian film-maker Omar El Zohairy is a brilliant emerging talent with an impressive professional pedigree; he is a former assistant to Yousry Nasrallah (who himself started out as assistant to the celebrated Youssef Chahine) and has won festival prizes with this, his debut feature. It’s a comedy with a little of Woody Allen or Franz Kafka – though with not much of the famous Emily Dickinson quote about what hope is. It is also a social-surrealist parable about a woman’s place in a man’s world. Higher than the animals? Lower than the animals? El Zohairy conjures something elegant and mysterious with a deadpan wit, which coolly encases its compassion. He frames his shots with superb compositional flair – this film actually reminded me of another Egyptian film,...

Egyptian director Omar El Zohairy, whose absurdist social satire “Feathers” won the Cannes Critics’ Week prize in 2021 and went on to make a major splash, is set to helm “Mammals,” an English-language drama that will be a reflection on Western capitalism and family ties.

El Zohairy’s sophomore film, which will feature still unspecified actors from different countries, is being co-written by the buzzed-about auteur with British Egyptian writer-director Mohamed Adeeb, who wrote the hit Egyptian TV series “Bimbo,” directed by Amr Salama.

“Mammals” takes its cue from events in Adeeb’s life which in turn inspired El Zohairy to draw inspiration from the life of his father, who died in 2016 in the United States, where he was an immigrant living under difficult conditions, he said. In the film, a young man visits his distant father in one of the world’s most lavish resorts. When he arrives there he discovers that,...

Exclusive: Leading Egyptian independent production company Film Clinic is gearing up for the shoot of The Inevitable Journey Of Finding The Wedding Dress by Jaylan Auf.

Yasmin Raeis (Looking for Oum Kulthum) and newcomer Asma Galal co-star as a bride-to-be and her best friend who embark on a mad dash across Cairo in search of a wedding dress after a mishap with the original gown on the eve of the ceremony.

“It’s a social drama about two best friends from a low-income neighborhood,” says Film Clinic founder and head Mohamed Hefzy. “The city is very much part of the story and a character in the film.”

Auf previously worked as assistant director on Egyptian features such as Excuse My French, Décor and The Cat Mouse, while her short film Turning Ten played in Competition at the Clermont Ferrand International Short Film Festival in 2019.

“We’ve been trying to get...

There is a particular focus on comedies.

TorinoFilmLab (Tfl) has selected 20 projects for its ScriptLab 2023, plus five story editors, in what it describes as the first ‘fully international’ iteration of the annual development scheme.

The 20 projects come from 20 writer-directors and eight co-writers, and have been selected from 550 submissions.

Scroll down for the full list of participants

Those selected will take part in three week-long residential modules in April, June and November; with two online modules in September and October. The participants will be divided into five groups, and tutored by script consultants Philippe Barriere, Severine Cornamusaz, Aleksandra Swierk, Marietta von Hausswolff and Gino Ventriglia.

Exclusive: Greek production and sales house Heretic has upped its longtime head of sales and acquisitions exec Ioanna Stais to partner.

Stais, who has been with the company since 2014, has been a key driver behind Heretic’s bustling film sales slate which has included Berlin Golden Bear winner Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn from director Radu Jude, and Omar El Zohairy’s Feathers, which won Cannes Critics’ week in 2021. In 2019, the company handled world sales for Retablo, Peru’s official submission for the International Oscar, which was also nominated for a BAFTA Outstanding Debut Award and Best International Film for the Film Independent Spirit Award.

The company recently boarded world sales rights for Jude’s latest project, Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World, as well as Sundance doc And the King Said, What a Fantastic Machine, which it sold widely.

“Having joined the...

Saturday night meant another feather in the cap for Egyptian director Omar El Zohairy, whose Arab-language social satire “Feathers” took the Best Film prize on the awards night of the 5th Joburg Film Festival in Johannesburg, South Africa. His story centers on a father who literally turns into a chicken during a magic show at a son’s birthday party.

“Feathers,” also written by Zohairy, was winner of Cannes Critics’ Week in 2021 and bagged awards at the El-Gouna Film Festival, Carthage Film Festival and Pingyao Film Festival, as well as last year’s Rabat International Author Film Festival.

Meanwhile, “Faya Dayi,” the monochrome docu-drama from first-time Mexican-Ethiopian director Jessica Beshir, about growing the khat plant in Ethiopia, scooped the prize in the Best African Film category at the glitzy in-person ceremony, which took place inside the Nelson Mandela Square’s Theatre on the Square in Johannesburg.

The fest’s Best...

Returning to Johannesburg cinemas for the first time since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, the Joburg Film Festival kicked off its 5th edition with a joyful relaunch on Tuesday night, as local luminaries walked a gold carpet in Nelson Mandela Square in honor of the festival’s slogan, “Our Stories. Our Gold,” and the crowd was serenaded with a soaring performance from South African soprano Zandile Mzazi and singer Thandiswa Mazwai.

The event, which runs Jan. 31 – Feb. 5, bowed with the African premiere of “Xalé” (pictured), from veteran Senegalese director Moussa Sène Absa, a story of female subjugation and self-liberation that opened last year’s BFI Film Festival and was the West African nation’s entry in the 2023 international feature film Oscar race.

The festival wraps with “The Umbrella Men,” by local helmer John Barker (“Wonder Boy for President”), a caper comedy about first-time bank robbers pulling a heist...

Few other figures are so associated in an executive role with the Marrakech Film Festival from its very birth to robust strength two decades later than Faïçal Laraïchi.

Under his stewardship in various roles, the Festival has grown from an event which dazzled with its ability to attract the big names of New Hollywood and way beyond to one which also captures the fast-rising tide of high-caliber new filmmaking talent across the African continent and Arab world. Their joint presence – inspirational big names, inspired newer filmmakers, as Laraïchi says – now lies at the heart of the Marrakech Festival, born out by its high-quality first and second film main competition, Moroccan Panorama, vibrant Atlas Workshops and other sections.

Variety caught up with Laraïchi on the eve of this year’s 19th Festival.

How have your goals entwined with the festival’s larger sweep?

I’ve been administrator for the festival since its creation,...

Netflix Shows To Be Preserved In BFI Archive

Netflix has become the first streamer to have its TV shows and films preserved in the BFI national archive collection. The likes of Bridgerton, Heartstopper an The Dig will be digitally preserved and shown to people for generations to come. A number of broadcasters and studios already have their projects preserved in the archive. The move comes as Netflix celebrates its 10th anniversary in the UK. Creative Industries Minister Julia Lopez visited the archive lsat week and praised how Netflix is “beginning to work with the BFI to protect content being made for digital channels.” Anna Mallett, Netflix Vice President, Production, Emea, UK and Apac, called the moment “historical.”

Channel 4 Indie Freedom Scripted To Adapt Lucy Holden Memoir

Channel 4-backed production company Freedom Scripted is adapting Lucy Holden’s memoir Lucid into a TV series. The Glasgow company, which recently became...

Egypt, which is home to the Middle East and North Africa’s biggest film industry, will not participate in the Best International Film Oscar race this year.

According to Egyptian media reports, confirmed by Deadline, the committee of critics and cinema professionals responsible for selecting the country’s submission decided not to send a film for the lack of a credible candidate.

The four films on the final shortlist comprised Marwan Hamed’s Kira & El Gin, Hadi El-Baghoury’s Full Moon, Sherif Arafa’s The Crime and Magdy Ahmed Ali’s 2 Talaat Harb.

Two films generating potential submission buzz — Nadine Khan’s Abu Saddam and Omar El Zohairy’s Cannes 2021 Critics’ Week winner Feathers — could not be taken into consideration because they did not meet the 2022 theatrical release requirements.

The decision for Egypt to opt out of the race was made at the end of September, but the news has...

Spanish production and distribution company Elamedia has acquired “Tengo sueños eléctricos” (I Have Electric Dreams), the Locarno prize-winning debut by director Valentina Maurel, which will screen in the Horizontes Latinos section of the San Sebastian Film Festival. Elamedia will be releasing the film in Spanish theaters later this year.

Set in Costa Rica, “Electric Dreams” follows Eva (Daniela Marin Navarro), a strong-willed 16-year-old girl who lives with her mother, her younger sister and their cat, but desperately wants to move in with her estranged father (Reinaldo Amien Guttierez). Clinging onto him as he goes through a second adolescence, she balances between the tenderness and sensitivity of teenage life and the ruthlessness of the adult world.

Produced by Wrong Men (Belgium) and Geko Films (France) and co-produced with Tres Tigres (Costa Rica), the film had its world premiere in the international competition at Locarno, where Maurel won the award for best...

Amjad Al Rasheed’s feature debut “Inshallah a Boy” – co-produced by Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Qatar – was awarded La Biennale di Venezia Prize at Final Cut, an industry program at the Venice Film Festival dedicated to films from African and Arab countries.

Shot in February, with mostly Jordanian crew, it was lensed by Kanamé Onoyama.

In the story, a mother and a housewife – played by Mouna Hawa, known for “In Between” – has to face the sudden death of her husband. According to the inheritance law, his family is entitled to most of her belongings, including the home she paid for herself – just because she doesn’t have a son. Desperate, she pretends to be pregnant.

“So many people ask us: ‘Is this real? Do you really have this law?!’ It’s inspired by the experience of someone I know, someone close to me. But when we started to develop the story,...

Heretic, the Athens-based boutique production company and sales agent, has acquired world sales rights for “Runner,” by director Marian Mathias, which will have its world premiere in the Discovery section of the Toronto International Film Festival.

Already sparking upbeat word of mouth, “Runner” follows Haas (Hannah Schiller), an 18-year-old girl who was raised by her father in the rural Midwest. When her father suddenly dies, she must carry out his wish to be buried in the town where he was born. There, she meets a young man named Will (Darren Houle), a lonely, creative soul who is working to support his family back home. The two form a friendship that challenges their understanding of love and loss.

“Runner” was produced by Joy Jorgensen (Killjoy) and co-produced with Nadia Turincev, Omar El Kadi (Easy Riders) and Marian Mathias (Man Alive), whose short film “Give Up the Ghost” was an official selection...

Heretic, the Athens-based boutique production company and sales agent, has acquired world sales rights for “Tengo sueños eléctricos” (“I Have Electric Dreams”), by director Valentina Maurel, which will have its premiere in the Locarno Film Festival’s international competition.

Set in Costa Rica, the film follows Eva (Daniela Marin Navarro), a strong-willed 16-year-old girl who lives with her mother, her younger sister and their cat, but desperately wants to move in with her estranged father (Reinaldo Amien Guttierez). Clinging onto him as he goes through a second adolescence, she balances between the tenderness and sensitivity of teenage life and the ruthlessness of the adult world.

Produced by Wrong Men (Belgium) and co-produced with Geko Films (France) and Tres Tigres (Costa Rica), the film straddles the fine line between love and hate, in a world where aggression and rage are intertwined with the vertigo of female sexual awakening.

“‘I Have Electric...

The debut film by Yorgos Gousis won prizes for best film first-time director, screenplay and actress.

Newcomer Yorgos Gousis’s Magnetic Fields and Grigoris Karantinakis’ second film Smyrna have dominated the 2022 Iris film awards of the Hellenic Film Academy.

Magnetic Fields won for best film, first- time director, screenplay and best actress prizes, while Smyrna was awarded the trophies for best cinematography, production design and costume design.

Scroll down for the full list of winners

Magnetic Fields is a road movie about a man and a woman who have met by chance on a boat and decide to stick together...

Cannes competition title “Pacifiction,” from “Liberté” director Albert Serra, has been acquired for the U.S. by specialty distributors Grasshopper Film and Gratitude Films.

Serra won the Un Certain Regard section’s Special Jury Prize in 2019 for “Liberté” and cracked the festival’s official selection this year with “Pacifiction.”

The film is set on the French Polynesian island of Tahiti, and centers on the High Commissioner of the Republic and French government official, whose role brings him to navigate both the high-end “establishment” and shady venues where he mingles with the locals. Lately, he’s had to contend with a rumor about the sighting of a submarine whose ghostly presence could herald the return of French nuclear testing.

Grasshopper and Gratitude will release the movie in theaters in late 2022.

“Pacifiction” stars Benoît Magimel, Pahoa Mahagafanau, Cécile Guilbert, Matahi Pambrun and Sergi López. It was produced by Serra, Pierre-Olivier Bardet, Montse Triola,...

Holy Spider actress Zar Amir-Ebrahimi will star.

UK outfit Hanway Films has acquired international rights to Australia-based Iranian writer-director Noora Niasari’s feature Shayda.

Holy Spider actress Zar Amir-Ebrahimi will star in the film as a young Iranian mother who finds refuge in an Australian women’s shelter with her six-year-old daughter during the two weeks of Iranian New Year (Nowrooz). As they seek their freedom in this new world they come up against the violence they tried so hard to escape.

Niasari is best known for her award-winning short film Waterfall, which screened at the 66th Melbourne International Film...

Egyptian director Omar El Zohairy’s absurdist social satire “Feathers,” in which the good-for-nothing husband of a woman with three children is turned into a chicken, is the big winner of the sixth edition of the Critics’ Awards for Arab Films.

The biting black comedy, winner of last year’s Cannes Critics’ Week prize, scooped best film, director and screenplay at the prizes organized by Cairo-based Arab Cinema Centre (Acc) and voted on by 167 film critics from 68 countries, who viewed the films on Festival Scope.

Nominees are chosen among Arab-language films that premiered on the festival circuit outside of the Arab world in 2021. The awards were announced on Sunday in Cannes.

“Feathers,” which took six years to get to the big screen, was produced by Juliette Lepoutre from Still Moving (France), in co-production with Mohamed Hefzy’s Film Clinic (Egypt), Shahinaz Al Akkad from Lagoonie Film (Egypt), Derk-Jan Warrink and...

167 film critics from 68 countries voted on the awards organised by the Arab Cinema Centre.

Egyptian director Omar El Zohairy’s social satire Feathers, which won the top prize at Cannes Critics’ Week last year, has swept the board at the sixth edition of the Critics’ Awards for Arab Films.

The film, which was nominated in four categories, won best film, director and screenplay.

This year’s edition of the awards, spearheaded by the Cairo-based Arab Cinema Centre (Acc), focuses on Arab-language films that premiered on the festival circuit outside of the Arab world in 2021.

It was voted on by 167 film critics from 68 countries,...

Past best film awards from the previous five editions include Wajib, Yomeddine and Gaza Mon Amour.

Jordanian director Bassel Ghandour’s The Alleys and Egyptian director Omar El Zohairy’s Feathers lead the nominations in the sixth edition of the Critics Awards for Arab Films.

The films each garnered nominations in four categories, including best film, director and screenplay.

Spearheaded and run by the Cairo-based Arab Cinema Centre (Acc), this edition focused on Arab-language films that premiered on the festival circuit outside of the Arab world in 2021.

It was voted on by 167 film critics from 68 countries, who viewed the films on Festival Scope.

Derk-Jan Warrink, co-founder of Keplerfilm, will represent The Netherlands as Producer on the Move at the Cannes Film Festival, May 17–28. The coproduction ‘The Woodcutter Story’**, directed by Mikko Myllylahti is set to premiere in Cannes’ Semaine de la Critique. Keplerfilm will also celebrate the world premiere of Fleur van der Meulen’s debut feature ‘Pink Moon’** at Tribeca next month and Michiel ten Horn’s family film ‘Hotel Sinestra’** is currently in post-production.

Derk-Jan Warrink

www.see-nl.com

Besides Derk-Jan’s place in Cannes this year, Netherlands has secured a place in the Festivl Competition with Close directed by Lukas Dhont, a coproduction of Belgium, Netherlands, France. Internationl sales agent (Isa) The Match Factory is selling this story of Leo and Remi, two thirteen-year-old boys whose close friendship suddenly thrown into disarray as the prospect of adolescence looms. Trying to understand what has gone wrong, Leo seeks comfort and grows closer to Remi’s mother, Sophie, as the boys pursue forgiveness and reconciliation to try and get their friendship back together. Lukas Dhont directs from a screenplay by Dhont and Angelo Tijssens, reteaming after their first feature film Girl.

Directors’ Fortnight is screening A Male/ Un varón directed by Fabian Hernández, a coproduction of Colombia, France, Germany, and Netherlands. Critics’ Week Competition is premiering The Woodcutter Story / Metsurin tarina directed by Mikko Myllylahti, a copro of Finland, Denmark, Netherlands, and Germany.

In L’Atelier is Anna 1st directd by Rosanne Pel of Netherlands.

To return to Derk-Jan who founded Keplerfilm together with Koji Nelissen in 2016 after having worked on award-winning films such as The Lobster* (by Yorgos Lanthimos), Bullhead (Michaël R. Roskam), Blind* (Eskil Vogt) and Monos** (Alejandro Landes), Keplerfilm has established itself as a (co-)production company of high-quality independent international feature films such as Semaine de la Critique 2021 Grand Prize winner Feathers* (Omar El Zohairy), Netflix Original Captain Nova** (Maurice Trouwborst) and Buladó** (Eché Janga) which was awarded Best Film at the National Film Awards.

Keplerfilm strongly values building a creative breeding ground on which exceptional and talented writers and directors can grow to their full potential, with an eye for an equal number of female and male directors. They have founded a writer’s residency which offers filmmakers the opportunity to work on a film plan for a month. Keplerfilm focuses on feature film and has the ambition to tell stories about real people, with inescapable struggles and genuine desires, while at the same time always aiming to entertain the audience intellectually.

Derk-Jan Warrink is one of the in total 20 promising, up-and-coming European producers who have been selected for Producers on the Move, European Film Promotion’s high profile hybrid promotion and networking platform. The exclusive group of producers will be put in the spotlight before and during the Cannes Film Festival and take part in a tailor-made hybrid program in order to foster international co-productions, intensify the exchange of experiences and help create new professional networks. The Pre-Festival online program, which started May 3rd and runs until May 5th, includes 1:1 speed meetings, roundtables and pitching sessions. Producers will then meet personally during the Festival de Cannes from 19 to 23 May and take part in a five-day on-site program including case studies, social events and an extensive promotional campaign via the international trade magazines.

Previous Producers on the Move from the Netherlands include Iris Otten of Juliet — Pupkin(2021), Joram Willink of Bind Film (2019), Frank Hoeve of Baldr (2018), Julius Ponten of New Amsterdam Film Company (2017), Janneke Doolaard of Doxy Films (2016), Ellen Havenith of Prpl (2015), Harro van Staverden of Phanta Basta (2014), Marleen Slot of Viking Film (2013) and Trent of Oak Motion Pictures (2012).

*supported by the Netherlands Film Fund

**supported by the Netherlands Film Fund and Netherlands Production Incentive

Derk-Jan Warrink, Keplerfilm

Ph: +31 20 737 0608

derkjan@keplerfilm.com

www.keplerfilm.com

European Film Promotion

info@efp-online.com

www.efp-online.com

See Nl, a collaboration between Eye Filmmuseum and the Netherlands Film Fund, is dedicated to the international promotion of Dutch films, film professionals and film culture.

www.see-nl.com / www.eyefilm.nl

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Critics Week (or La Semaine de la Critique), the selection dedicated to first and second films running alongside the Cannes Film Festival, will boast a jury presided over by Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania (“The Man who Sold his Skin”).

Ben Hania has directed four features, including “Beauty and the Dogs” which competed in Un Certain Regard in 2017, and “The Man who Sold his Skin” which played at Venice in 2020 and was the first Tunisian film nominated for the Oscars’ international feature film race.

The jury of the 61st edition will be completed by French-Greek actress and director Ariane Labed, Icelandic director Benedikt Erlingsson (“Woman at War”), Belgian cinematographer Benoît Debie, and South Korean journalist and Busan Festival’s topper Huh Moon yung.

Four prizes will be handed out by Ben Hania’s jury, the La Semaine de la Critique Grand Prize, the French Touch Prize of the Jury, the...

Tfl has also unveiled the 10 writers picked for the inaugural edition of its SeriesLab – Talents scheme.

The TorinoFilmLab (Tfl) has unveiled the 20 new projects selected for its 2022 ScriptLab, and the 10 writers picked for the inaugural edition of its SeriesLab – Talents scheme.

The ScriptLab is a nine-month scriptwriting programme involving feature films at an early stage of development. This year’s iteration focused on comedies, with eight of the 20 projects written by women.

Composed of two week-long residential workshops, one in Turin and one in Finland, as well as three online modules, the ScriptLab also feeds in to TorinoFilmLab annual industry event the Tfl Meeting.

The 11th annual First Look festival at the Museum of the Moving Image released its star-studded lineup February 7.

The festival, which is set to take place March 16–20 at the MoMI museum in Astoria, Queens, will open with the New York City premiere of Camera d’Or winner “Murina.” Director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović was honored with the title at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival for Best First Feature, and the film is executive produced by Martin Scorsese.

“Murina” is a coming-of-age story set in a scenic coastal Croatian town. Also on March 16, Tsai Ming-Liang’s ode to Hong Kong, “The Night,” will host its New York premiere. Closing Night selection and 2021 Locarno Grand Prix winner “The Balcony Movie” finishes off the festival.

The First Look festival features “new and innovative international cinema.” Spotlight screenings include the New York premiere of “Zero Fucks Given,” starring Adèle Exarchopoulos as a flight attendant in crisis,...

The pop-up initiative showcases independent cinema within the framework of the Diriyah Biennale.

Burgeoning Saudi exhibitor Muvi Cinemas and content production and distribution company Telfaz11 have launched joint pop-up venture Wadi Cinema aimed at fostering arthouse cinema-going in the country.

Unfolding within Saudi Arabia’s first-ever art biennale, running in the historic city of Diriyah on the outskirts of Riyadh from December 16 to March 11, the initiative consists of a temporary cinema and a programme of recent arthouse titles.

It opens on Thursday (December 23) with a screening of Oscar-nominated The Man Who Sold His Skin by Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania,...

Turkish director Selman Nacar’s “Between Two Dawns,” a taut moral thriller exploring ethical and familial responsibilities over the course of one 24-hour period, took home the top honor at the 39th edition of the Torino Film Festival, which ran from Nov. 26 – Dec. 4.

Chaired by director Ildikó Enyedi, and made up of actor Alessandro Gassmann, composer Evgueni Galperine and sales exec Isabel Ivars, this year’s jury commended Nacar’s filmmaking, calling the winning title “a mature film, directed with intelligent sobriety, which reveals a new, big talent.” The prize came with a purse of €18,000.

No doubt glad to return to in-person, restriction free screenings after last year’s online only edition, the jury spread the love around, offering special jury prizes to both Omar El Zohairy’s “Feathers” and Amalia Ulman’s “El Planeta.” Ulman’s film also won the Fipresci prize. Acting honors went to South Korea’s Gong Seung-yeon,...

Marrakech International Film Festival’s project incubator showcased 15 projects in development and nine projects.

Moroccan filmmaker Asmae El Moudir’s The Mother Of All Lies and Tunisian-French director Erige Sehiri’s Under The Fig Trees have won the top post-production prizes at the Marrakech International Film Festival’s Atlas Workshops talent and project incubator.

The films were among 15 projects in development and nine projects in post-production presented in the fourth edition of the workshops, running online from November 22 to 25 and attended by more than 300 international film professionals.

The post-production jury comprised Nuha Eltayeb, director of content acquisitions for the Middle East,...

Italy’s Torino Film Festival, the pre-eminent event for young directors and indie cinema — now being revamped after going virtual due to the pandemic — will somewhat symbolically kick off its upcoming 39th edition with the international premiere of “Sing 2” with director Garth Jennings in tow.

“It’s a hymn to going back into movie theaters,” says Torino artistic director Stefano Francia di Celle on choosing the animated musical comedy, featuring more than 40 rock, rap and pop tunes, as opener for the Nov. 26-Dec. 4 event. It will be Italy’s first festival held in venues with 100% seating capacity since Covid-19 struck.

“Sing 2,” he points out, is also only the second feature helmed by Jennings, who cut his teeth in the indie world making videos for many of the best pop acts of the 1990s such as Blur, Radiohead and Beck, before he was able to get Universal on board for his impressive “Sing” debut.

Celebrating its 70th anniversary this year, the International Film Festival Mannheim-Heidelberg (Iffmh) is for the first time taking place in cinemas across both cities, introducing new sections, and looking back at its rich history with a special retrospective.

“Being 70 in a way is a starting point for reflection,” says festival director Sascha Keilholz. “What was the festival like in the past? What is it now? Where do we want to go in the future? The festival is in a transformational process that we started last year and was actually quite successful.”

Indeed, after adopting a new brand image last year, the Iffmh won the 2021 German Brand Award for brand strategy and design.

After being forced online last year amid the pandemic, going back into theaters was one of this year’s main goals, Keilholz says. “This is more important than ever.”

In celebrating its return to cinemas as well...

The international premiere of animated musical comedy “Sing 2” will open the upcoming Torino Film Festival, Italy’s preeminent event for young directors and indie fare, which will be honoring Monica Bellucci with a lifetime achievement award.

Director Garth Jennings will be on hand in Torino for the overseas festival bow of his sequel to 2016’s “Sing,” which follows a koala named Buster Moon, voiced by Matthew McConaughey, as he and his cast of performing animals prepare for their biggest concert yet in Redshore City, and must convince a reclusive rockstar (Bono) to join them.

Bellucci, besides coming to be celebrated and to hold a masterclass, will also be attending the fest to launch her latest film “The Girl in the Fountain,” directed by Italy’s Antongiulio Panizzi, in which she plays the iconic Anita Ekberg, a role for which she died her hair blonde.

Charlotte Gainsbourg will also be...

Egyptian Red Sea event marked its fifth edition from October 14-22.

Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival, running in its namesake Egyptian Red Sea resort from October 14-22, got off to a memorable start this year when a fire broke out on the red carpet of the main festival plaza area on the eve of the opening ceremony.

By the next day, there was no sign of the near-disaster after hundreds of workers toiled through the night to repair the damage.

This freak accident would set the scene for an eventful edition, however, marked by guest deportations and cancellations, a...

In other prizes Mounia Akl’s Costa Brava, Lebanon clinches Fipresci prize and inaugural Green Award.

Finnish director Teemu Nikki’s dark comedy-drama The Blind Man Who Did Not Want To See Titanic scooped the El Gouna Film Festival’s $50,000 Golden Star award for best narrative film over the weekend.

Its star Petri Poikolainen also won best actor for his performance as a blind man who ventures out of his small apartment and onto the streets to travel by train to spend time with his long-distance girlfriend.

The film world premiered in Venice’s new Horizon Extras where it won the audience award.

Teemu Nikki’s Venice and Antalya winner “The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanic” won the Golden star for best film at the 5th El Gouna Film Festival in Egypt, which wrapped Friday. The award carries a cash prize of $50,000.

The film’s lead Petri Poikolainen won best actor, while Maya Vanderbeque, the young star of “Playground,” won best actress.

Egyptian filmmaker Omar El Zohairy’s Cannes winner “Feathers,” which also won the Variety award at El Gouna earlier, won best Arab narrative film.

Directors Aleksey Chupov and Natasha Merkulova’s “Captain Volkonogov Escaped” won the Netpac award and bronze in the narrative category.

Michel Franco’s “Sundown” won silver in the narrative competition, while Aditya Vikram Sengupta’s “Once Upon a Time in Calcutta” scored a special mention from Netpac.

Mounia Akl’s “Costa Brava, Lebanon” won the Fipresci award and the Green Star award for tackling environmental issues.

Amir Ramses, artistic director of the ongoing El Gouna Film Festival in Egypt, is understood to have resigned in the final days of the event. It’s believed he may have stepped down due to growing local opposition to Cannes-winning film “Feathers,” by Egyptian filmmaker Omar El Zohairy.

The film follows a family thrown into disarray after its patriarch is accidentally turned into a chicken by a magician during a children’s birthday party. “Feathers” debuted at the Cannes Critics’ Week, where it won the grand prize and the Fipresci prize. Following its screening at El Gouna, several prominent local critics took issue with the portrayal of Egypt in the film, though it is still unclear whether there is a link between the film’s premiere and the director’s resignation.

The festival has declined to comment.

On Wednesday, El Zohairy won the Variety Middle East and North African Region Talent Award,...

Deadly flooding did not divert this year’s Pingyao International Film Festival from running its full course, with the event drawing to a close Monday with an award ceremony honoring Egyptian director Omar El Zohairy, India’s Natesh Hegde, and China’s Kong Dashan and Wei Shujun with top prizes.

Many anticipated that this fifth edition of the festival would be different, given the shifting role of its co-founder and leading light, director Jia Zhangke. He unexpectedly stepped down last year, only to recant and come back in the nebulous role of “chief experience officer” months ago.

Instead, this year’s iteration has been more memorable for the backdrop of historically heavy rains that have left at least 15 dead, more than 120,000 relocated, and an estimated 1.8 million people affected in the inland Shanxi province.

The show went on in Pingyao, even though some three dozen parts of the picturesque ancient capital...

Amid ongoing disruption in the Arab world’s unstable fest landscape, Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival is staying the course and increasingly proving its mettle in promoting the cream of the region’s cinematic crop while also providing key support in nurturing new works.

El Gouna chief Intishal Al Timimi proudly points out that the fifth edition of the Oct. 14-22 event has secured eight high-profile features from Arab directors, most of which will be having their Middle Eastern premieres in the Egyptian Red Sea resort after bowing in Cannes and Venice.

They comprise French-Moroccan veteran Nabil Ayouch’s high-energy hip-hop drama “Casablanca Beats”; and two works from Lebanon: Mounia Akl’s dramedy “Costa Brava, Lebanon,” which targets Lebanon’s political malaise; and Ely Dagher’s “The Sea Ahead,” about a young woman who returns from Paris to Beirut and reconnects with the life she had left behind. There...

China’s Pingyao International Film Festival got under way on Tuesday with the gala screening of Zhang Lu’s new drama film “Yanagawa.” The festival will unspool Oct. 12-19 with a familiar package of competition screenings a work in progress section, a film lab, a project market and a tribute section dedicated to Tsui Hark.

Organizers announced an ambitious twelve-title competition section (“Crouching Tigers”) for first second and third films from around the world.

These include: “Amparo,” directed by Simón Mesa Soto; “As Far As I Can Walk,” directed by Strahinja Banovic; “Feathers,” directed by Omar El Zohairy; “Mama, I’m Home” directed by Vladimir Bitokov (Russia); “Pedro” directed by Natesh Hegde (India); “Playground” (Un Monde) directed by Laura Wandel (Belgium); “Prayers for the Stolen” (Noche de Fuego) directed by Tatiana Huezo; “Rehana” (Rehana Maryam Noor) directed by Abdullah Mohammad Saad; “The Tale of King Crab” (Re Granchio) directed by...

Festival, which opens today, also annouced its Crouching Tigers and Hidden Dragons competition sections.

This year’s Pingyao International Film Festival (Octobner 12-19) will open with Korean-Chinese director Zhang Lu’s Yanagawa and close with Xu Lei’s The Great Director.

Starring Ni Ni, Zhang Luyi and Xin Baiqing, Yanagawa revolves around two brothers who travel to Japan in search of the woman they both loved in their youth. The film, which is receiving its world premiere at Busan in the Icons section, is produced by Midnight Blur Films and sold internationally by Hishow Entertainment. The Great Director is described...

New York-based distribution company Grasshopper Film and Gratitude Films have jointly acquired U.S. distribution rights to Italian director Michelangelo Frammartino’s Venice Special Jury Prize winner “Il Buco,” about a group of speleologists who in 1961 discover Europe’s deepest cave.

The deal was negotiated by Ryan Krivoshey of Grasshopper Film with Nadine Rothschild of Paris and Berlin-based Coproduction Office on the eve of the U.S. premiere of “Il Buco” at the New York Film Festival.

Gratitude, which is based in Los Angeles and Mumbai, is headed by Anu Rangachar, a producer and the former programmer for the Mumbai Film Festival.

With “Il Buco” Frammartino, whose dialogue-free “Le Quattro Volte” made a global splash in 2010, has segued with another similarly eclectic pic that has no dialogue or music.

His latest work reconstructs the young cave scientists’ journey to explore the depth of the Bifurto Abyss, 700 meters below Earth in the pristine Calabrian hinterland.

Also deals for Berlin winner ‘Bad Luck Banging’.

Arrow Films has acquired UK rights to Chema Garcia Ibarra’s Locarno 2021 competition title The Sacred Spirit from Greek film production and sales firm Heretic, and is planning to give it a theatrical release.

HBO Europe has acquired the film for its European territories and will release on its online platform HBO Max.

Ibarra’s debut feature follows Jose Manuel and the devoted members of a UFOlogy association, who meet weekly to exchange information on extraterrestrial messages and abductions; while a Spanish investigation into the disappearance of a little girl picks up pace.

Finnish writer-director Khadar Ayderus Ahmed, born in Mogadishu, continues to enjoy his first feature’s successful festival run. Screening this week in Toronto, “The Gravedigger’s Wife” premiered at Cannes Critics’ Week in July.

“We finished the shoot in 2019. We were invited to Cannes last year, but decided to wait for better times,” explains the helmer. “In Cannes, me and my family, and my actors, we were the only Somalis in the audience. Now, in Toronto, there is this big Somali community. They are excited and waiting for the film – people are sending me screenshots of their tickets!”

Inspired by a sudden death that happened in his family 10 years ago in Helsinki, the film shows a man who “hunts bodies for a living,” waiting in front of hospitals for new corpses to bury. But when his wife (Canadian model Yasmin Warsame) needs expensive surgery, gravedigger Guled (Omar Abdi) and his young...

The Marrakech International Film Festival has opted to postpone its 19th edition, citing the current global health situation. However, the Festival Foundation will continue to present its industry and talent development program with the fourth edition of the Atlas Workshops to be conducted online from November 22-25 with the support of Netflix. This follows a similar path to 2020 when the Moroccan fest was also canceled and the Atlas Workshops, which launched in 2018, were moved online.

The mission of the workshops is to support the new generation of Moroccan, Arab and African filmmakers through bespoke consultation, as well as to expose them to the international market through the presentation of their projects at a co-production market.

In 2021, two winners of the Atlas Prize for Post-Production were selected for competition at the Cannes Film Festival’s Critics’ Week: Khadar Ahmed’s The Gravedigger’s Wife and Egyptian filmmaker Omar El Zohairy’s Feathers,...

Egyptian producer Mohamed Hefzy’s production shingle Film Clinic –– at Venice with “Amira,” Mohamed Diab’s drama about Palestinian children conceived behind bars with smuggled sperm –– is getting a financial boost that will triple its resources just as two new film and TV projects go into production.

Film Clinic is having an outstanding festival presence this year. They recently took the top Cannes Critics’ Week nod with Omar El Zohairy’s “Feathers,” and are now in the Venice Horizons section with “Amira” (pictured); it will soon be in Toronto with Hany Abu-Assad’s “Huda’s Salon.”

Now the company will have the financial muscle to take things to the next level thanks a new partner, government-affiliated outfit Ergo, which is taking a 49% stake in Film Clinic, while Hefzy and other partners will retain control of the remaining 51%.

Hefzy underlined that while the seed money comes from a government bank, the company is private,...

It speaks volumes that we get to know the woman’s back, hunched over dishes or laundry, against cracked tiles rimmed in dirty grout, before we get a proper look at her careworn face. And even then, the eyes of this Egyptian housewife (a superbly self-contained Demyana Nassar), the mother of two grimy, wriggling little boys, remain downcast as her husband (Samy Bassiouny) barks a grocery order and carefully metes out dirty banknotes from a meager supply. It seems, briefly, as though Omar El Zohairy’s Cannes Critics’ Week winner “Feathers” will continue in this vein, as a beautifully framed, sharply observed, quiet depiction of social inequity, squalor and the subjugation of women in an Egyptian factory town. But that’s before the husband turns into a chicken.

Strangeness runs through El Zohairy’s tremendously impressive and complete feature debut like an electrical current, but it is treated with absolute,...