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Three titles received €500,000.

Ildikó Enyedi’s Silent Friend is among 29 projects to receive a share of €8.1m in Eurimages’ latest round of co-production funding.

The new feature from Hungarian filmmaker Enyedi, who won Berlin’s Golden Bear for On Body And Soul in 2017, is a co-production between Germany, France and Hungary, and received €500,000 – the largest amount awarded in this round of funding. The film focuses on an ancient tree in the Botanical Gardens of the university town of Marburg to explore the relationship between man and nature.

Scroll down for full list of titles

Two more titles received €500,000: The Captive...

Gaza Mon Amour Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net linked from Rotten Tomatoes by: Harvey Karten Director: Tarzan Nasser, Arab Nasser Screenwriter: Tarzan Nasser, Arab Nasser Cast: Hiam Abbass, Salim Dau, Maisa Abd Elhadi, George Iskander Screened at: Critics’ link, NYC, 10/29/21 Opens: November 5, 2021 Gaza may have never been associated with love before, a […]

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Gaza Mon Amour Samuel Goldwyn Films Reviewed for Shockya.com by Abe Friedtanzer Director: Tarzan Nasser and Arab Nasser Writer: Tarzan Nasser and Arab Nasser Cast: Salim Dau, Hiam Abbass, Maisa Abd Elhadi, George Iskandar Screened at: Critics’ link, Il, 11/10/21 Opens: November 5th, 2021 It’s often said that it’s never too late to fall in […]

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Hany Abu-Assad, the acclaimed Dutch-Palestinian director of Oscar-nominated “Paradise Now” and “Omar,” has broken new ground with “Huda’s Salon” which world premiered Sept. 9 at Toronto in the competitive Platform section.

The female-driven tense spy thriller is headlined by Maisa Abd Elhadi (“The Angel”) who stars as Reem, a young mother who falls into a trap during a visit at a hair salon run by Huda, a seemingly friendly woman working for the Israeli secret service. While being blackmailed by the Israeli secret service, Reem has to cope with her controlling husband and a Palestinian resistance agent who suspect she is a traitor.

“Huda’s Salon” marks the helmer’s follow up to Fox’s “The Mountains Between Us” with Kate Winslet and Idris Elba. Abu-Assad produced the film with his wife, Amira Diab, through their recently launched banner H&a Production, alongside Egyptian producer Mohamed Hefzy, who runs the Cairo Film Festival,...

Films include Emerald Fennell’s ‘Promising Young Woman’ and Blerta Basholli’s ‘Hive’.

More films than ever before are eligible for this year’s European Film Awards’ feature film and documentary film selection, with 40 feature films and 15 documentary films, and further feature film titles to be revealed in September.

Titles in the feature film selection include Blerta Basholli’s Sundance hit Hive and Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman. The latter is eligible despite being listed as a film of US origin. The European Film Academy (Efa) told Screen this was because the film reaches the number of points in...

Ammonite, Apples, Promising Young Woman, Supernova, The Dig, The Father and The Mauritanian are among the first wave of movies recommended by a European Film Awards committee for nomination at this year’s event.

A record number of movies have been suggested by the committee this year in light of the pandemic disruption. More than 40 films have been revealed today — features and docs — with more set to be revealed in September.

The feature films have been selected by a committee of the Academy Board and a range of European industry professionals. The documentary films have been selected by Efa Board Members Graziella Bildesheim (institutional/Italy) and Ada Solomon (producer/Romania), Katja Gauriloff, Kathrin Kohlstedde (festival programmer/Germany), Veton Nurkollari (artistic director/Kosovo), Orwa Nyrabia, Rada Šešić (festival programmer and filmmaker/Bosnia & Herzegovina/The Netherlands), Rajesh Thind and...

Salim Dau and Hiam Abbas in Gaza Mon Amour Gaza Mon Amour has be named the best film at the fifth edition of the Critics Awards for Arab Films.

The film, directed by twin Palestinian brothers Arab and Tarzan Nasser, sees a fisherman (Salim Daw) attempt to woo a seamstress, played by Hiam Abbass, who picked up the best actress accolade in the awards, which are voted on by 160 critics from 63 countries.

200 Meters Ameen Nayfeh won the best director award for 200 Meters, about a man who is separated from his family by Israel's West Bank Barrier, and his lead, Ali Suliman, was named best actor.

The best screenplay gong went to Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania for his Oscar-nominated The Man Who Sold His Skin, which considers the "commodification of a Syrian refugee.

Lift Like A Girl, a fly-on-the-wall study of an Egyptian weightlifting training gym, directed by Mayye Zayed won best documentary.

Annual award voted on by 160 critics from 63 territories.

Palestinian fraternal directorial duo Arab and Tarzan Nasser’s romantic drama Gaza Mon Amour has won best film at the fifth edition of the Critics Awards for Arab Films.

Palestine’s Hiam Abbass also won best actress for her role in the film as a seamstress who is courted by a local fisherman, played by Salim Daw.

The Gaza Strip-set romance is inspired by the real-life discovery of an ancient statue of Apollo in the waters off the territory.

Speared by the Cairo-based Arab Cinema Centre (Acc), the awards are voted on by 160 film critics from 63 countries.

Actress’s recent credits include Gaza Mon Amour, Tel Aviv On Fire and The Reports On Sarah and Saleem.

Palestinian actress Maisa Abd Elhadi was injured on Sunday while participating in a protest in the Israeli city of Haifa against Israeli police brutality and the planned expulsion of Palestinian families from their long-time homes in East Jerusalem.

A source close to the actress said she had been filming the demonstration on Haifa’s central Ben Gurion Avenue when Israeli police moved in to clear the hundreds of protestors. She was hurt when a police stun grenade exploded on the back of her right leg.

‘Gaza Mon Amour’ directed by Tarzan and Arab Tarzan Nasser was Palestines Academy Award submission, premiering in Venice and Toronto 2020

Continue reading on SydneysBuzz The Blog »...

Although this year’s Middle Eastern/North African Oscar submissions have yet to generate a strong buzz, there are titles among the 10 films that could be contenders for the international feature short list.

Chief among them is “Sun Children” from veteran Iranian helmer Majid Majidi, whose 1997 “Children of Heaven” landed a foreign-language film nomination. This gripping drama about exploited urban street kids is cast with charismatic, non-pro performers and earned an acting award at the Venice fest for its resilient young protagonist. Strand Films will release.

A possible dark horse is “Broken Keys,” the feature debut of Lebanese multi-hyphenate Jimmy Keyrouz. It marks an expansion of his 2016 Student Academy Award-winner “Nocturne in Black” about a musician in a Syrian town controlled by Isis. Sporting the Cannes Label, this tense drama, with a score by Keyrouz’s famous compatriot Gabriel Yared, shares the combination of real-life crisis and sweeping emotion that characterizes some past nominees.

Every year since its creation in 1956, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) invites the film industries of various countries to submit their best film for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. The award is presented annually by the Academy to a feature-length motion picture produced outside the United States that contains primarily non-English dialogue and that was released theatrically in their respective countries between 1 October 2019 and 31 December 2020.

Here are the Asian Submissions for Best International Feature Film. There are some excellent movies in this bunch and we have seen and reviewed already some of them.

Armenia

“Songs of Solomon” by Arman Nshanian

Bangladesh

“Sincerely Yours, Dhaka” by eleven different directors

Bhutan

“Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom“ by Pawo Choyning Dorji

Cambodia

“Fathers” by Huy Yaleng

China

“Leap” by Peter Chan

Georgia

“Beginnin” by Dea Kulumbegashvili

Hong Kong

“Better Days” by Derek Tsang

India

“Jallikattu...

The title “Gaza Mon Amour” carries threatening echoes of those cutesy auteur short anthologies in which assorted drifting souls find love in the same scenic city streets. Happily, Palestinian twin filmmakers Arab and Tarzan Nasser’s entirely self-contained feature is nothing so slick or glib, though it boasts internationally flavored romantic whimsy in spades. Mixing a minor-key midlife love story with gently politicized farce against the turbulent backdrop of the Gaza Strip, the Nassers’ amiably shaggy film does, in fact, feel a little like a gossamer-weight short that has been stretched to breaking point at a hair under 90 minutes — only just sustained by its vivid sense of place and the unforced charisma of stars Salim Daw and Hiam Abbass.

Such charms have made “Gaza Mon Amour” well-liked on the festival circuit: It secured spots at Venice and Toronto in the fall, before being named Palestine’s submission for the international feature Oscar.

Other winners included Russian drama ‘Conference’ and Egyptian documentary ‘Lift Like A Girl’.

Ben Sharrock’s UK drama Limbo was awarded three top prizes at the Cairo International Film Festival (Ciff) on Thursday, including the Golden Pyramid for best film.

The asylum seeker drama, which received a Cannes 2020 label and world premiered at Toronto, also won the Henry Barakat award for best artistic contribution and the Fipresci critics award. It follows a best film win at the Macao international film festival in China earlier this week.

The 47th edition of the festival, which took place as a physical event in the Egyptian capital,...

British film “Limbo,” a wry refugee drama, directed by Edinburgh-born director Ben Sharrock and produced by Spain’s Irune Gurtubai, won the Golden Pyramid for best film at the Cairo Film Festival on Thursday.

Told in a pleasing deadpan style, “Limbo” recounts the story of a Syrian musician, played by the BIFA nominated rising star Amir El-Masry, who is placed on a Scottish island when awaiting his request for asylum to be processed. The film, which recently picked up the top prize at the Macau Film Festival, also picked up Cairo’s Henry Barakat Award for best artistic contribution. The film, sold by Protagonist Pictures and staged by Caravan Cinema and presented by Film 4, Screen Scotland and BFI, also took home the Fipresci award.

Russian director Alexander Sokurov was president of the seven-person jury, featuring German director Burhan Qurbani, Egyptian producer Gaby Khoury, Mexican actress Naian Gonzalez Norvind, Brazilian director Karim Ainouz,...

Oscar-winning playwright and screenwriter Christopher Hampton feted with Ciff’s Golden Pyramid Lifetime Achievement prize.

A streamlined edition of the Cairo International Film Festival (Ciff) kicked off on Wednesday evening with a special video message of solidarity and support for the event and its director Mohamed Hefzy from the heads of the Berlin, Cannes and Venice film festivals.

“I wish I was there with you tonight attending the opening ceremony,” said Venice Film Festival director Alberto Barbera, who was one of the few A-list festival directors able to hold a physical edition this year. “We need cinema and we need to show it is alive.

Bookmark this page for all the latest international feature submissions.

Submissions for the best international feature film award at the 2021 Academy Awards have started to come in, and Screen is keeping a running list of each film below.

The 93rd Academy Awards is set to take place on April 25, 2021. It was originally set to be held on February 28, before both the ceremony and eligibility period were postponed for two months due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Submitted films must have been released in their respective countries between the expanded dates of October 1, 2019, and December 31, 2020. (Last year it was October-September).

In another change to the eligibility rules,...

The 9th edition of the Dharamshala Film Festival is going online for the first time. Its highlights include the Indian premiere of Massoud Bakhshi’s Sundance grand jury prize winner “Yalda, a Night for Forgiveness,” and a conversation with Oscar-winner Asif Kapadia (“Amy”).

Nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas, Dharamshala is best known internationally as the seat of the Dalai Lama, who has been based there since being exiled from Tibet in 1959. The festival directors Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam are filmmakers in their own right. Their chronicles of the Tibetan condition like 2005’s “Dreaming Lhasa,” 2010’s “The Sun Behind the Clouds: Tibet’s Struggle for Freedom” and 2018’s “The Sweet Requiem” have received considerable festival play, including at Toronto and Manila.

The Dharamshala festival directors will be in conversation with Kapadia and also with Chaitanya Tamhane, director of this year’s Venice and Toronto award-winning title “The Disciple.

By Shikhar Verma

Arab and Tarzan Nasser are twin brother filmmakers from Gaza. Their sophomore film is a sweet-natured romance within a conservative regime. Funny, charming, and above all, quietly tender and simplistic in its representation of yearning for love, “Gaza Mon Amour” is a captivating romantic comedy set in a turbulent time in Palestine.

The film follows the life of a 60-year-old fisherman named Issa (Salim Dau). He is a lonesome wolf who goes out to fish on his own and mostly lives by himself. Other than the occasional visit from a nosy sister, there’s nothing much to accompany him in his daily life. Sans the occasional chat with a workmate, he almost always keeps it to himself. He isn’t complaining though. The reason why he keeps going is his tender feelings for Siham (Hiam Abbass). She is a dressmaker who runs a shop that passes through the fish market.

Film fund chief Helge Albers reflects on an eventful 12 months in the job.

“It’s definitely not been boring for me here at the film fund over the past 12 months,” reflects Helge Albers, CEO of the local regional film fund Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein (Ffhsh).

“We made changes to the structure and composition of the funding committees, reduced the red tape by streamlining the procedure for funding applications and have now given the jury the opportunity to invite applicants to present their projects via video conferencing during the actual funding session.”

In addition, he says, the fund hopes to “open up...

The 77th Venice International Film Festival is one of the first “big” Festivals that will open its physical doors after the Covid-19 pandemic. The Festival is organised by La Biennale di Venezia and directed by Alberto Barbera; it will take place at Venice Lido from 2 – 12 September 2020.

Here are all the Asian Titles on the Programme:

Competition/Venezia 77

“In Between Dying” by Hilal Baydarov

“Laila In Haifa” by Amos Gitai

“Wife of a Spy” by Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Japan)

“Sun Children” by Majid Majidi (Iran)

“The Disciple” by Chaitanya Tamhane (India)

“Nomadland” by Chloe Zhao (USA)

Out of Competition (Fiction)

“Love After Love” by Ann Hui (China)

“Night in Paradise” by Park Hoon-Jung (South Korea)

Horizons

“Milestone” by Ivan Ayr (India)

“The Wasteland” by Ahmad Bahrami (Iran)

“Genus Pan” by Lav Diaz (Philippines)

“Careless Crime” by Shahram Mokri (Iran)

“Gaza Mon Amour” by Tarzan Nasser and Arab Nasser (Palestine/Qatar)

“The Best Is Yet to Come...

The 45th edition of the Toronto Film Festival is still very much a go, although made up of a reduced programme. After announcing that Spike Lee’s filmed version of the Broadway-acclaimed David Byrne’s ‘American Utopia’ will open the festival the full line-up has now been released.

Taking place between September 10 – 19, the festival will see the first 5 days made up of physical screenings. The program will also be made up of drive-ins, digital screenings, virtual red carpets, press conferences, industry talks.

The highlights of this year’s festival will include ‘God’s Own Country’ helmer Francis Lee’s ‘Ammonite,’Chloe Zhao’s ‘Nomadland,’ Florian Zeller’s ‘The Father’ and Werner Herzog’s doco “Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds as well as films directed by Regina King, Viggo Mortensen and Halle Berry.

Also in news – Netflix release first look images from Ryan Murphy’s ‘Ratched’

See the full line-up below;

“180 Degree...

Nicolás Pereda's FaunaToronto International Film Festival have unveiled a dramatically reduced selection of films from their upcoming 2020 edition, including new films by Spike Lee, Nicolás Pereda, Naomi Kawase, and Werner Herzog. The festival's tailored lineup of 50 features, plus five programs of to-be-announced shorts, will screen both physically (for the festival's first five days) and virtually (for the festival's full 10 days.) As previously announced, selected films—such as Chloé Zhao's Nomadland—will premiere in a non-competitive alliance with other major fall festivals in Venice, Telluride, and New York.Opening Night FILMDavid Byrne’s American Utopia (Spike Lee)Closing Night Filma Suitable Boy (Mira Nair)Official SELECTION180 Degree Rule (Farnoosh Samadi)76 Days (Hao Wu, Anonymous, Weixi Chen)Ammonite (Francis Lee)Another Round (Thomas Vinterberg)Bandar Band (Manijeh Hekmat)Beans (Tracey Deer)Beginning (Dea Kulumbegashvili)The Best Is Yet To Come (Wang Jing)Bruised (Halle Berry)City Hall (Frederick Wiseman)Concrete Cowboy...

The feature directorial debuts of Halle Berry and Regina King will be part of the lineup at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival, organizers announced on Thursday.

Berry’s film, “Bruised,” features the actor and director as a mixed martial arts star fighting for custody of her young daughter. King’s “One Night in Miami” is based on a play that fictionalizes a night in 1964 in which boxer Cassius Clay (soon to be Muhammad Ali), singer Sam Cooke, football player Jim Brown and activist Malcolm X met in a Florida hotel room.

Nearly half of the 50 selected features, 23, have a female director or co-director.

Other films among the 50 titles announced by TIFF include Chloé Zhao’s “Nomadland,” a drama from “The Rider” director that stars Frances McDormand; Francis Lee’s “Ammonite,” a female romance set in 1840s England and starring Saoirse Ronan, Kate Winslet and Fiona Shaw; Reinaldo Marcus Green’s “Good Joe Bell,...

Films include ’Ammonite’, ’Notturno’, ’New Order’ and ’Penguin Bloom’.

New work from Francis Lee, Werner Herzog, François Ozon, Gianfranco Rosi, Regina King and Mira Nair are among the line-up for the 45th Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

As previously announced, Spike Lee’s David Byrne’s American Utopia will open this year’s edition, which runs from September 10-19.

The festival will close with Nair’s A Suitable Boy (pictured), a six-part TV drama that debuted on the BBC in the UK last Sunday (July 26). Netflix has online global rights, excluding North America and China.

Scroll down for full line-up...

‘The Furnace.’

Writer-director Roderick MacKay’s debut feature The Furnace, an 1890s drama set during the gold rush in Western Australia, will have its world premiere in the Horizons section of the 77th Venice Film Festival.

Produced by Timothy White (I Am Mother) and Tenille Kennedy (H is for Happiness), the film follows Egyptian actor Ahmed Malek as a young Afghan cameleer who partners with Mal, a mysterious bushman (David Wenham) on the run with two Crown-marked gold bars.

Together the unlikely pair must outwit a zealous police sergeant and his troopers in a race to reach a secret furnace – the one place where they can safely reset the bars to remove the mark of the Crown.

The cast includes Jay Ryan, Erik Thomson (The Luminaries), Baykali Ganambarr (The Nightingale), Trevor Jamieson (Storm Boy), Mahesh Jadu (The Witcher) and Samson Coulter (Breath).

“I’m thrilled at this opportunity for the...

Hot on the heels of the 2020 New York Film Festival releasing its first selection in Nomadland (taking the Centerpiece slot at the fest), Venice is chiming in as well. Not only are they also going to be showing Chloe Zhao’s movie, but the festival has in fact unveiled its entire lineup for this year. It’s a crop of titles that’s low on flashy name recognition, at least for now, but it’s an international group that should hopefully be cause for some celebration in the cinematic world. These days, that’s hard to come by, to say the least. Read on for the entire list… If there’s something else of note besides Chloe Zhao’s Nomadland at Venice right now, it’s either The Duke from Roger Michell, starring Jim Broadbent and Helen Mirren, or The World to Come. The former is a crime comedy, while...

This year’s pandemic-altered Venice Film Festival will include a record number of competition films directed by women, festival organizers announced on Tuesday. And two of those are also the only Hollywood studio films to make the competition lineup — Mona Fastvold’s “The World to Come” and Chloé Zhao’s “Nomadland.”

In all, eight of the 18 competition features have a female director — an improvement from last year, when just two made the cut.

“Nomadland,” a drama starring Frances McDormand released by Searchlight Pictures, will simultaneously premiere through the Toronto Film Festival as well as through the New York Film Festival and the now-canceled Telluride fest (at a special drive-in screening in Southern California). Sony’s “The World to Come” stars Casey Affleck, Vanessa Kirby and Katherine Waterston.

Also Read: Frances McDormand's 'Nomadland' to Get Joint World Premiere From Venice and Toronto Film Festivals

Other top titles screening out...

With Telluride Film Festival forced to cancel their yearly event, what is now the first of the major fall festivals, Venice, has announced their complete lineup. Along with Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland, which was revealed yesterday, the lineup includes more of our most-anticipated films of the year, including Frederick Wiseman’s City Hall, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Wife of a Spy, Gia Coppola’s Mainstream, Abel Ferrara’s Sportin’ Life, Lav Diaz’s Genus Pan, Mona Fastvold’s The World to Come, Kornél Mundruczó’s Pieces of a Woman, Gianfranco Rosi’s Notturno, and more.

There were also a few surprises in the lineup. Luca Guadagnino has directed a new documentary titled Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams, while Alice Rohrwacher and Jr have teamed for the new short film, Omelia Contadina. Quentin Dupieux’s Mandibules will also premiere out of competition.

In perhaps the best surprise of all, a new, recently uncovered film by Orson Welles,...

While the coronavirus pandemic has canceled major festivals such as Cannes and Telluride, the 2020 Venice Film Festival is moving ahead as planned and will be the world’s first major film festival since Sundance and Berlin at the start of the year. Venice 2020’s main selection will be split into three sections: Venezia 77 (aka the main competition), Out of Competition, and Horizons. The titles selected for the main competition will compete for the Golden Lion, which was awarded last year to Todd Phillips’ “Joker.”

As previously announced, Daniele Luchetti’s drama “Lacci” will open the 77th Venice Film Festival on September 2. The movie is the first Italian title to open Venice in 11 years. The last Italian opener was Giuseppe Tornatore’s “Baarìa” at the 2009 festival. “Lacci” is included in this year’s Out of Competition section. Chloe Zhao’s “The Rider” follow-up “Nomadland” was also confirmed for a world premiere...

The Venice Film Festival is unveiling the lineup of its 77th edition, which, barring complications, will be the first major international film event to hold a physical edition following the coronavirus crisis.

Previously announced titles include Chloé Zhao’s road drama “Nomadland,” starring Frances McDormand, which will screen at Venice and Toronto simultaneously on Sept. 11, in both cases preceded by virtual introductions.

The out-of-competition opener will be Italian director Daniele Luchetti’s anatomy of a marriage drama “Lacci” (“The Ties”) (pictured) starring Alba Rohrwacher (“Happy as Lazzaro”) and Luigi Lo Cascio (“The Traitor”) as the couple at the film’s center.

The virtual press conference is scheduled to begin at 11am Cet. This post will be updated live as films are revealed.

Venice Film Festival Lineup

In Competition

“In Between Dying,” Hilal Baydarov

“Le Sorelle Macaluso,” Emma Dante (Italy)

“The World to Come,” Mona Fastvold (U.S.)

“Nuevo Orden,” Michel Franco

“Lovers,...

Competition line-up includes films by Chloe Zhao, Susanna Nicchiarelli, Kornel Mandruczo and Andrei Konchalovsky.

The line-up of the 77th Venice Film Festival (September 2-12) has been announced.

Scroll down for the full line-up

The big talking points from this year’s selection include an improved gender split, with eight women selected for the competition section (compared to two last year), and a lack of major US projects. Venice will be one of the first major film festivals to take place as a physical event following the Covid-19 outbreak.

Among the big-name auteurs selected are Chloe Zhao (Nomadland), Michel Franco (Nuevo...

The Doha Film Institute, which is a leading incubator for quality Arab fare, has announced the 39 projects receiving its Spring grants — roughly half of which are directed by women.

Several of the nearly completed works that made the cut are likely to surface on the international festival circuit, starting with Venice in September.

These include “Gaza My Love,” a buzzed-about comedy about the disruptive effect of the discovery of an ancient Greek statue at the bottom of the Gaza sea, co-directed by Palestinian twin brothers Tarzan Nasser and Arab Nasser, whose Gaza hairdressers-set drama “Degradé” made a splash in 2015; “The Gravedigger” by promising Somalia-born director Khadar Ahmed that tells the story of a Djibouti gravedigger trying to re-unite his family in a time of strife; and Iraqi director Shawkat Amin Korki’s “The Exam,” about two sisters who cheat on a college admissions exam to avoid a forced marriage. Korki...

Doha Film Institute (Dfi) supports 39 projects in spring 2020 funding round.

Upcoming films by Palestinian filmmaking duo Tarzan and Arab Nasser, award-winning Cambodian director Kavich Neang and Iraqi filmmaker Shawkat Armin Korki were among the 39 projects that have been granted support by the Doha Film Institute as part of its spring 2020 funding round.

Three-quarters of the selected projects are from the Middle East and Africa.

The Nasser brothers won support for their fiction feature Gaza My Love (previously announced as Apollo) which is in post-production. It revolves around a fisherman who is emboldened to court a market stallholder he has long...

Total of 37 feature film projects headed to Berlin.

The Berlin International Film Festival’s annual co-production market has unveiled the 37 feature film projects that will form this year’s selection.

There are 22 projects taking part in the Official Selection, including new films from Boo Junfeng, whose The Apprentice premiered at Cannes in 2016, and Uberto Pasolini, whose credits as a director include Still Life and Machan, and as a producer include The Full Monty.

Also attending with a new project is Carla Simón, the director of Summer 1993, which was a hit at the Berlinale in 2017, and brothers Arab and Tarzan Nasser,...

Films from Nsu German History X director Christian Schwochow, BeTipul star Shira Geffen, 7 Days in Havana director Santiago Mitre and The Full Monty producer Uberto Pasolini are among the titles set for this year’s Berlinale Co-Production Market.

The co-pro market, which will see 600 international producers and financiers to come together to explore new partnerships, will host 37 feature film projects. Notably, 20 female filmmaker, 49% of selected titles, are represented.

Schwochow is hosting Je Suis Karl, which is produced by Germany’s Pandora Film Produktion; Geffen has A Responsible Adult, a family drama set against the backdrop of Israel’s mythical Masada plateau with Israel’s Marker Films; Mitre is shopping Petite Fleur from France’s Maneki Films and Argentina’s La Uniòn de los Rìos, and Pasolini is directing Nowhere Special from UK’s Red Wave Films.

The 20 female filmmakers include Marcela Said from Chile, Elina Psykou from Greece, Júlia Murat from Brazil,...

Full line-up of the Stockholm film festival includes feature and documentary competition line-ups.Scroll down for full line-up

The Stockholm International Film Festival (Nov 11-22) has unveiled the line-up for its 26th edition, comprising more than 190 films from over 70 countries.

The Stockholm Xxvi Competition includes Marielle Heller’s Us title The Diary of a Teenage Girl and László Nemes’ Holocaust drama Son Of Saul.

It marks the first time Stockholm has a greater number of women than men competing for the Bronze Horse – the festival’s top prize.

The documentary competition includes Amy Berg’s An Open Secret, an investigation into accusations of teenagers being sexually abused within the film industry; and Cosima Spender’s Palio, centred on the annual horse race in Siena, Italy.

Announcing the programme, festival director Git Scheynius also revealed that Chinese artist Ai Weiwei will visit Stockholm for the first time as chairman of the jury for the first Stockholm Impact Award, which...

This year in Toronto is a particularly strong year for Africa and Palestine, with films from Ethiopia, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and South Africa. The list includes world premieres but also films that launched their career in the Berlinale, Cannes and Venice.

Read More: Hany Abu-Assad’s 'The Idol' to World Premiere at Tiff!

Below are listed the titles, just click on the link for full programming note and screening dates.

"3000 Nights" dir. Mai Masri "As I Open My Eyes" dir. Leyla Bouzid "Cuckold" dir. Charlie Vundla "Dégradé" dirs. Arab & Tarzan Nasser "The Endless River" dir. Oliver Hermanus "The Idol" dir. Hany Abu-Assad "Lamb" dir. Yared Zeleke "Let Them Come" dir. Salem Brahimi "Much Loved" dir. Nabil Ayouch "Price of Love" dir. Hermon Hailay "Starve Your Dog" dir. Hicham Lasri "Story of Judas" dir. Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche "Very Big Shot" dir. Mir-Jean Bou Chaaya "Nasser" dir. Jihan El-Tahri

Some short films from Africa and the Middle East were selected out of the thousands of shorts submitted to Tiff. Brilliant emerging voices, including Ely Dagher (Lebanon) who won the award for short film in Cannes.

"Waves '98" dir. Ely Dagher "New Eyes" dir. Hiwot Admasu Getaneh "The Call" dir. Zamo Mkhwanazi "The Society" dir. Osama Rasheed...

While the Toronto International Film Festival looks around the world and in all genres to find features for its annual incarnation, one area that receives focus is films aimed at children. With the understanding both that quality cinema is not dependent on its target audience, and that cinephiles can begin at any age, the festival’s Kids Programme highlights such features.

The Discovery Programme, on the other hand, brings together films from first and second time directors, with an eye on emerging talent. The festival has now announced the lineups for both Programmes in the 2015 incarnation of the event, along with further additions to the Cinematheque and Vanguard lineup. The Discovery lineup joins previously announced Canadian features. The films, with their official synopses, can be seen below.

Tiff Kids

The Boy and the Beast, directed by Mamoru Hosoda, making its International Premiere

A young boy in modern-day Tokyo stumbles into...

With about two weeks left until the ’15 edition kicks off, the festival heads at Tiff have made the final announcements to their upcoming edition with the unveiling of the Discovery programme. With thirty offerings from several first time filmmakers, the section is populated by items that have preemed elsewhere in the awards tipped, Sundance sensation James White from Josh Mond, to the Cannes debuted Les Cowboys from scribe and now director Thomas Bidegain, to the world premiere of Maris Curran’s Five Nights in Maine starring David Oyelowo, Dianne Wiest and Rosie Perez. Here are the offerings:

Discovery

“The Ardennes” Robin Pront, Belgium

“Beast” Tom McKeith, Sam McKeith, Australia/Philippines

“Black” Adil El Arbi, Bilall Fallah, Belgium

“Born to Dance” Tammy Davis, New Zealand

“Dégradé” Arab Nasser, Tarzan Nasser, Palestine/France/Qatar

“Desde Allá” Lorenzo Vigas, Venezuela

“Downriver” Grant Scicluna, Australia

“Eva Nová” Marko Škop, Slovakia

“Five Nights in Maine” Maris Curran,...

Films set to show at the 40th Toronto International Film Festival (Tiff), updated as announcements are made in the run up to the event.

Tiff will open on September 10 with Jean-Marc Vallée’s Demolition starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Naomi Watts.

Tiff 40

Key: Wp = world premiere; Nap = North American premiere; IP = international premiere; Cp = Canadian premiere.

GALASBeeba Boys (Canada), Deepa Mehta, WPDemolition, Jean-Marc Vallée WPDisorder (Maryland) (France-Belgium), Alice Winocour NAPThe Dressmaker (Aus), Jocelyn Moorhouse, WPEye In The Sky (UK), Gavin Hood WPForsaken (Canada), Jon Cassar, WPFreeheld (Us), Peter Sollett, WPHyena Road (Canada), Paul Gross, WPLolo (France), Julie Delpy, NAPLegend (UK), Brian Helgeland, IPMan Down (Us), Dito Montiel NAPThe Man Who Knew Infinity (UK), Matt Brown, WPThe Martian (Us), Ridley Scott, WPMiss You Already (UK), Catherine Hardwicke WPMississippi Grind (Us), Ryan Fleck, Anna Boden CPMr. Right (Us), Paco Cabezas WPThe Program (UK), Stephen Frears, WPRemember (Canada), Atom Egoyan, NAPSeptembers Of Shiraz (Us), Wayne Blair, WPStonewall ([link...

Toronto International Film Festival (Sept 10-20) has completed its line-up with the Discovery, New Wave Tiff Kids and In Conversation With… strands and has confirmed the return of Festival Street.

Oscar-winner Julianne Moore, Salma Hayek, Sarah Silverman and Matthew Weiner will take place in separate on-stage conversations as part of the In Conversation With… series, which replaces the Mavericks programme.

For the second year, the Festival Street initiative will see the closure of King Street West between Peter and University Streets, from Sept 10-13.

Events will include Questival, a walking interactive quiz designed by Frontier Design & Innovation; the NewCanadianMusic.ca music stage featuring the world premiere of Titicut Follies – The Ballet inspired by Frederick Wiseman’s 1967 documentary; cinema-inspired installations; magicians; the Slaight Family Zone; and food trucks.

In total, the festival will screen 399 films, of which 289 are features and 110 shorts. Last year’s festival screened 392 in total comprising 284 features and 108 shorts.

Programmers sifted...

Below you will find our favorite films of the Festival de Cannes, as well as an index of our coverage, with more entries, including interviews, to come. We also have an index of the festival's awards.Daniel Kasmantop Picksi. Cemetery of Splendour, The AssassinII. Visit or Memoirs and Confessions, In the Shadow of Women, The Exquisite Corpus, The Lobster, Mad Max: Fury Road, The TreasureIII. Arabian Nights, Journey to the Shore, Mountains May Depart***COVERAGEDay 1: Our Little Sister (Hirokazu Kore-eda), Tale of Tales (Matteo Garrone)Day 2: In the Shadow of Women (Philippe Garrel), One Floor Below (Radu Muntean), Son of Saul (Lazlo Nemes)Day 3: The Lobster (Yorgos Lanthimos), My Golden Days (Arnaud Desplechin)Day 4: Arabian Nights Volume 1: The Restless One, Carol (Todd Haynes)Day 5: Journey to the Shore (Kiyoshi Kurosawa), Louder Than Bombs (Joachim Trier)Day 6: Arabian Nights Volume Two: The Desolate One...

"Although it was shot in Jordan," writes Ben Kenigsberg at RogerEbert.com, Tarzan Nasser and Arab Nasser's Dégradé "is a rare film to depict life in the Gaza Strip. What's more, the movie trains its lens on women's lives, in a part of the world that is often represented in the news through masculinized images of violence." Reviews are mixed. "What a fine actress like Hiam Abbass is doing here is a mystery, but not as great as how the film earned a slot in Cannes’ prestigious Critics Week," writes Deborah Young in the Hollywood Reporter. We have more and a clip. » - David Hudson...

"Although it was shot in Jordan," writes Ben Kenigsberg at RogerEbert.com, Tarzan Nasser and Arab Nasser's Dégradé "is a rare film to depict life in the Gaza Strip. What's more, the movie trains its lens on women's lives, in a part of the world that is often represented in the news through masculinized images of violence." Reviews are mixed. "What a fine actress like Hiam Abbass is doing here is a mystery, but not as great as how the film earned a slot in Cannes’ prestigious Critics Week," writes Deborah Young in the Hollywood Reporter. We have more and a clip. » - David Hudson...

The UK’s Sixteen Films is joining forces with French Le Pacte, German Pandora and Egyptian Film Clinic to co-produce Palestinian filmmaker’s Sameh Zoabi Gaza-set comedy Catch The Moon.

Described as a “dramatic comedy”, it revolves around a father and son’s attempts to a get a brand new Mercedes into Gaza during an Israeli blockade, after the father promises the son’s new bride the car as a gift.

Determined to keep the promise, the pair will go to any lengths to get the prestigious vehicle into the closed territory.

Jean Labadie’s Paris-based production and distribution house Le Pacte is also handling international sales.

Zoabi, whose credits include the comic Man Without a Cellphone, will direct the film from an original first screenplay by writer Anne Koski-Wood.

“Anne’s starting point was imagining what on earth normal life could be like in Gaza… it’s a difficult concept and this evolved into a dramatic...

Exclusive: The former Pretty Pictures acquisitions chief heads to the Croisette with her freshly minted consultancy and a prestige stable of clients and films.

Featurette will advise on acquisitions, co-productions and strategic planning as it aims to provide a one-stop shop to clients in what is becoming a rapidly evolving landscape.

Matits is currently working with Eric Le Bot’s Version Originale and Pim Hermeling’s September Film, formerly known as Wild Bunch Benelux.

“We are delighted that we can rely on Aranka’s expertise, taste and network to tap into the many more opportunities the market has to offer,” said Eric Le Bot.

Matits, whose career credits include working in sales at THINKFilm International, is gearing up her new venture to work with projects at any stage of production and a range of clients.

“The diversification of both content and distribution channels will open opportunities for new acquisitions strategies,” said Matits...

The complete lineups for the Directors' Fortnight and Critics' Week sidebars at Cannes have been announced.Directors' FORTNIGHTOpening Film: In the Shadow of Women (Philippe Garrel)A Perfect Day (Fernando León de Aranoa)Beyond My Grandfather Allende (Marcia Tumbutti)Arabian Nights (Miguel Gomes)Les Cowboys (Thomas Bidegain)Embrace the Serpent (Ciro Guerra)Fatima (Philippe Faucon)Green Room (Jeremy Saulnier)Much Loved (Nabil Ayouch)Mustang (Deniz Gamze Ergüven)Peace to Us in Our Dreams (Sharunas Bartas)Songs My Brothers Taught Me (Chloé Zhao)The Here After (Magnus von Horn)The Brand New Testament (Jaco Van Dormael)My Golden Days (Arnaud Despleschin)Special Screening: Yakuza Apocalypse: The Great War of the Underworld (Takashi Miike)Closing Film: Dope (Rick Famuyiwa)Shorts:Blue Thunder (Jean-Marc E. Roy & Philippe David Gagné)Calme ta joie (Emmanuel Laskar)The Broken Past (Martín Morgenfeld & Sebastián Schjaer)Kung Fury (David Sandberg[/link])Pitchoune (Reda Kateb)Trials, Exorcisms (Susana Nobre)Pueblo...

Lead by Charles Tesson, the Cannes Critics’ Week programming team (the competition section that specializes in feature film work from 1st, and 2nd time filmmakers) have revealed the make-up of the 54th edition and it’ll be Elie Wajeman‘s sophomore film Les Anarchistes (our #63 pick in our most anticipated foreign films for 2015) that will open the section. Wajeman who makes his second trip to Cannes (he premiered Aliyah at the Directors’ Fortnight in 2012) collected Adèle Exarchopoulos (Blue is the Warmest Color) and Tahar Rahim (A Prophet) for a set in 1899 Paris, France tale about how a poor and orphaned person’s choice to infiltrate a group of anarchists.

Joining his father on the Croisette and in the directing side of things, Louis Garrel gets a special screening status for Les Deux Amis – which stars the actor alongside Vincent Macaigne and About Elly starlet Golshifteh Farahani.

Of the seven selected...

Elie Wajeman’s The Anarchists, starring Palme d’Or winner Adele Exarchopoulos and Cesar winner Tahar Rahim, to open Critics’ Week

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Cannes Critics’ Week, devoted to first and second features, has unveiled the line-up for its 54th edition (May 14-22).

In total, 1,750 shorts and 1,000 features were submitted for consideration.

Artistic director Charles Tesson said this year’s poster - showing actress Lou de Laâge, seemingly embracing the air on a beach - captured the spirit of the parallel section.

“On the poster the actress Lou de Laâge embraces the open horizon in front of her,” he said. “This wonderful energy and amazing life force it carries embody the desire leading us to discover the new breath of fresh air in cinema worldwide.”

The section will open with French Elie Wajeman’s second film The Anarchists (Les Anarchistes) set in Paris in 1899, starring the reportedly sizzling on-screen couple of Tahar Rahim and Adèle Exarchopoulos...