News

French sales house to market premiere ‘Bright Women’ at Rendez-Vous.

MPM Premium has boarded French drama Bright Women (Brillantes) and has unveiled more sales for Until Tomorrow, Umami and Ghosts ahead of Unifrance’s annual Rendez-Vous in Paris this week.

MPM will market premiere Bright Women for buyers at Rendez-Vous, where it will kick off global sales for the film ahead of its debut in French theatres on January 18 via Alba Films.

The first feature from Sylvie Gautier, Bright Women follows a housekeeper and mother who is asked to lead a movement of unionised workers and finds herself in a moral dilemma.

French sales house to market premiere ‘Bright Women’ at Rendez-Vous.

MPM Premium has boarded French drama Bright Women (Brillantes) and has unveiled more sales for Until Tomorrow, Umami and Ghosts ahead of Unifrance’s annual Rendez-Vous in Paris this week.

MPM will market premiere Bright Women for buyers at Rendez-Vous, where it will kick off global sales for the film ahead of its debut in French theatres on January 18 via Alba Films.

The first feature from Sylvie Gautier, Bright Women follows a housekeeper and mother who is asked to lead a movement of unionised workers and finds herself in a moral dilemma.

As the Thessaloniki Film Festival kicks off its 63rd edition, this year’s industry section features the pilot edition of a dedicated television strand and the launch of a Think Tank series calling on European film markets to chart a common course for industry confabs in the future.

Such initiatives are part of newly appointed industry head Angeliki Vergou’s mandate to steer the annual event through uncertain times for the global film industry even as the growing Greek business continues to surge, thanks in part to a 40 cash rebate that has lured international productions such as Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or winner “Triangle of Sadness” and Rian Johnson’s Netflix blockbuster “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.”

With its Agora Series section, Thessaloniki will hope to capitalize on a raft of new high-end TV productions looking to put Greek drama on the map.

“There has been such a...

New films from Wissam Charaf, whose sophomore feature “Dirty Difficult Dangerous” premiered at this year’s Venice Film Festival, and San Sebastian prize winner Imanol Rayo (“Two Brothers”) are among the 14 projects selected for this year’s Crossroads Co-Production Forum at the Thessaloniki Film Festival.

The event, which takes places onsite and online from Nov. 7 – 11, presents a slate of films in development from Southeast Europe, the Middle East, the Black Sea and the wider Mediterranean region to an audience of co-producers, distributors, festival programmers and sales agents.

The selection features works from 13 countries, including nine directors making their feature debuts, representing a range of styles, genres and dramatic themes, from a coming-of-age story about two strangers brought together in pursuit of a lost backpack (“Lost Years”) to the tale of a disconsolate lover determined to make his ailing partner happy at any cost (“Love Thy Neighbor”), and a pulled-from-the-headlines crime...

The Filmonomics course will be led by director of Birds’ Eye View Melanie Iredale and training manager Simone Glover,

Birds’ Eye View, a UK organisation that campaigns to support women and non-binary people in all aspects of film, has named the writers, directors and producers who will take part in the 2022-2023 Filmonomics programme, as part of the Reclaim the Frame x International project.

The UK version of the Filmonomics business training programme for filmmakers from marginalised genders has undergone six iterations under Birds’ Eye View’s leadership. The training is aimed at up-and-coming filmmakers and balances the creative and...

Rule 34International Competition(Jury: Michel Merkt, Laura Samani, Prano Bailey-Bond, Alain Guiraudie, William Horberg)Golden Leopard: Rule 34 (Julia Murat)Special Jury Prize: Gigi la legge (The Adventures of Gigi the Law) (Alessandro Comodin)Best Direction: Valentina Maurel (Tengo sueños eléctricos)Best Actress: Daniela Marín Navarro (Tengo sueños eléctricos)Best Actor: Reinaldo Amien Gutiérrez (Tengo sueños eléctricos)Filmmakers Of The Present( Jury: Annick Mahnert, Gitanjali Rao, Katriel Schory )Golden Leopard: Svetlonoc (Nightsiren) (Tereza Nvotová)Special Jury Prize: Yak Tam Katia? (How Is Katia?) (Christina Tynkevych)Prize for Best Emerging Director: Juraj Lerotić (Sigurno mjesto (Safe Place))Best Actress: Anastasia Karpenko (How Is Katia?)Best Actor: Goran Marković (Safe Place)Special Mention: Den siste våren (Franciska Eliassen)First Feature(Jury: Boo Junfeng, Shahram Mokri, Madeline Robert)Best First Feature: Sigurno mjesto (Safe Place) (Juraj Lerotić)Special Mention: Love Dog (Bianca Lucas) and De noche los gatos son pardos (Valentin Merz)Pardi Di Domani(Jury: Walter Fasano,...

Cannes 2019 discoveries Mounia Meddour and Maryam Touzani are among the Mena filmmakers with works in post-production.

Middle Eastern and North African cinema enjoyed a high profile on the 2021 festival scene thanks to a raft of works from the region including Moroccan director Nabil Ayouch’s Casablanca Beats, Egyptian Cannes Critics’ Week winner Feathers, Lebanese filmmaker Mounia Akl’s Costa Brava, Lebanon, and Tribeca selection Souad by Egyptian filmmaker Ayten Amin.

Will this trend continue into 2022? Screen rounds up key titles from the Middle East and North Africa that are likely to excite festival programmers this year.

Am-Bi-Gu-i-Ty (Tun)

Dir. Nada Mezni Hafaiedh...

Now in its 17th year, the Thessaloniki Film Festival’s Crossroads Co-Production Forum has become a de rigueur stop on the fall circuit for producers, distributors, festival programmers and sales agents from across Europe – and increasingly the rest of the world – as they look to spot promising projects in development from Southeast Europe, the Black Sea, and the wider Mediterranean region.

For Yianna Sarri, who heads Thessaloniki’s industry arm, Agora, the reason is obvious. “They know that they will find the best possible projects in Thessaloniki,” Sarri told Variety.

Recent Crossroads success stories include Christos Nikou’s debut “Apples,” which opened the Horizons strand of last year’s Venice Film Festival, and “Ghosts,” the first feature from Turkey’s Azra Deniz Okyay, which won the Grand Prize at Venice Critics’ Week. Other notable titles in recent years include Mounia Meddour’s Algerian civil-war drama “Papicha,” which premiered in Cannes...

Azra Deniz Okyay's Ghosts is exclusively showing on Mubi starting April 17, 2021 in many countries in the series Viewfinder.Just like Beat Generation's Jack Kerouac, I began writing Ghosts with the sound of the helicopter from Apocalypse Now in my mind. While things around me were changing almost in lightspeed, I wanted to archive the moment. Like a war photographer, I needed to take many pictures in order to understand what we were going through.Ghosts initially drives from my own personal experiences. I worked on my film for 5 years, jumping out of my bed every morning, in order to find some light. It’s about the new generation of people in Turkey from various and sometimes wildly different subcultures. Each character is struggling for personal freedom and expression, attempting to realize themselves and resolve their problems through art, and ultimately each using their drive and ambition to achieve that goal.

Mubi has acquired “Ghosts,” a Turkish drama by emerging helmer Azra Deniz Okyay that won the grand prize at Venice Critics’ Week. The Mubi deal covers the U.K., Ireland, Italy, Scandinavia and Turkey.

The film is represented in international markets by MPM Premium and is part of the company’s New Visions label.

“Ghosts” takes place during the course of a day, against the backdrop of a nationwide power surge and is a roaring tale of the contemporary generation. The movie follows four characters from different walks of life who cross paths through a web of drug trafficking in the ghettos of Istanbul.

“Ghosts” weaves the stories of a mother whose son is in prison, a young woman committed to dancing, a female activist-artist and a cunning middle man, all in a neighborhood under the process of gentrification for the “New Turkey.” The cast is headlined by Nalan Kuruçim,...

Italian film critic and academic Beatrice Fiorentino has been appointed new general delegate of the Venice Film Festival’s Critics’ Week, the Lido’s independently run section dedicated to promising first works from around the world.

Fiorentino — who was previously a member of the section’s selection committee — had been widely expected to replace her predecessor Giona Nazzaro, who stepped down recently ending a five-year stint at the section’s helm after being appointed artistic director of the Locarno Film Festival.

“The National Union of Italian Film Critics is very happy with the work done by Giona Nazzaro in the last few years,” said Franco Montini, president of the org that runs the section. In a statement, he went on to note that “the appointment of Beatrice Fiorentino, his closest collaborator, has the intent of giving continuity to the project.”

During his tenure, Nazzaro and his team added luster to...

Paris-based MPM Premium has picked up “The Pink Cloud,” a banner title that’s part of a slate of first features from a new generation of young female Brazilian directors. The films are set to become one of the talking points of next week’s Ventana Sur.

A sci-fi thriller from writer-director IuIi Gerbase shot in 2019 but still anticipating the Covid-19 lockdown, “The Pink Cloud” will be shopped at the Ventana Sur market by Quentin Worthington, head of sales at MPM Premium. The executive will promote “The Pink Cloud” out of a virtual booth at Ventana Sur, and show the film to select buyers.

The film will hit the festival circuit in 2021.

Produced by Patricia Barbieri, who also backed Gerbase’s latest short, coming-of-age adventure thriller “The Stone,” Gerbase’s first feature begins with a mysterious pink cloud appearing across the globe. It proves deadly, killing anybody who remains outside in 10 seconds,...

In the last years, Turkey, especially its political elite, has been making quite a few headlines with its disregard for freedom of speech and its role within the refugee crisis of 2015. For many people, these developments have been the cause of great concern as to the question of how the country will be defined in the near future. For those working in the field of culture, like filmmaker Azra Deniz Okyay, this question has been at the center of their work and is tackled in recent movies, such as her feature film debut “Ghosts” or “Hayaletler”, which is its original title. Through the perspectives of four characters, the striking story takes a closer look at the daily life in Istanbul, thus shedding light on various political and social aspects of modern-day Turkey.

“Ghosts” is streaming at Thessaloniki International Film Festival

The 26th of November 2020 is a day defined by riots and demonstrations,...

Italian film critic Giona A. Nazzaro, former head of the Venice Film Festival’s Critics’ Week, has been appointed new artistic director of the Locarno Film Festival.

His appointment comes just over a month after Lili Hinstin stepped down from the role in a shock departure.

A longtime Locarno fest collaborator, Nazzaro has plenty of programming experience, having served since 2005 at the helm of the independently run Venice section and on selection committees for the Rome, Turin and Visions du Reel festivals, as well as the Festival dei Popoli in Florence. He is an author of a book and essays on Hong Kong cinema, postmodern action films, and monographs on Abel Ferrara, Spike Lee and Gus Van Sant.

As head of the Venice Critic’s Week, Nazzaro raised the profile of the section dedicated to first works by making it bolder and edgier, with titles such as Indian animation “Bombay Rose” directed by Gitanjali Rao,...

The coronavirus pandemic might have shut down film and television production across the globe, with many industries still struggling to relaunch with the latest health and safety protocols, but Yianna Sarri, who heads the Thessaloniki Film Festival’s industry arm, Agora, knew there would be an upside for the annual Crossroads Co-Production Forum.

“During the lockdown everywhere, people had the opportunity to stay at home and write scripts,” she said. “It was in our mind that we were going to have many submissions.”

Now in its 16th year, Agora has emerged as a leading forum for filmmakers from Southeast Europe, the Middle East, and the wider Mediterranean region, reflecting the ancient heritage of Thessaloniki as a cultural crossroads—a meeting point of East and West.

To that end, the Crossroads Co-Production Forum has gradually evolved into a de facto launching pad for films from Greece and neighboring countries. “Every year,...

Just moments into the opening sequence of Azra Deniz Okyay’s kinetic drama “Ghosts,” a voice crackles over a radio news bulletin, declaring: “Istanbul has turned into a war zone.” It’s a fittingly turbulent introduction to the writer-director’s feature debut, which charted a rough course to completion en route to winning the Grand Prize at Venice’s Critics’ Week this year.

Okyay began writing the script five years ago, struggling to raise financing until a breakthrough last year, when she met producer Dilek Aydın and scraped together the funds to start production. “We got like $70,000. It was nothing,” Okyay told Variety, with a laugh. “We decided to make it in a guerrilla way, a real punk way.”

“Ghosts” is set across a single day during a nationwide power surge, and follows four characters from different walks of life caught up in a web of drug trafficking in the ghettos of Istanbul.

With days to spare before the opening night of this year’s Thessaloniki Intl. Film Festival, organizers were suddenly forced to contend with a dramatic spike in coronavirus cases in Greece’s second city, prompting them to scrap plans for a hybrid edition and move entirely online.

The sudden reversal, said festival director Orestis Andreadakis, was “really, really difficult,” but not entirely unforeseen, as the country grapples with a second wave of Covid-19 that has far outpaced the first wave in the spring. Contingency plans were already in place, as Andreadakis and his colleagues spent months preparing for a variety of scenarios. “It was extremely difficult, because it was as if [we were] preparing three festivals” at the same time, he said.

On Nov. 3, the Greek government introduced a raft of new measures determined to halt the pandemic’s spread, including a curfew in both Thessaloniki and the country’s capital, Athens,...

Cinema no matter what, festival no matter what. The 61st Thessaloniki International Film Festival is back in online business, from 5 to 15 November 2020, with indie cinema from all over the world, the best movies of the recent Greek film production, breathtaking tributes, and subversive films that will carry us to the four corners of the horizon, amidst these unforeseeable and unprecedented days we’re living in.

Welcome at www.filmfestival.gr, where 177 movies are in store for you to watch. We have picked all the Asian Titles in the programme for you:

International Competition

Main programme

Ghosts – Azra Deniz Okyay, Turkey-France-Qatar, 2020 (Pictured)

Prophecies From Another World: Ski-fi And Cli-fi (1950-1990)

King Kong Vs. Godzilla – Ishiro HŌNDA, Japan, 1962

Yongari, Monster From The Deep – Kim Kee-duk, South Korea, 1967

Meet The Neighbors

Main programme

200 Meters – Ameen Nayfeh, Palestine-Jordan-Qatar-Italy-Sweden, 2020

The Death Of Cinema And My Father Too – Dani Rosenberg, Israel, 2020

Out of Competition

Asia – Ruthy Pribar,...

The decision was reached earlier today after festival heads met with municipal and health authorities as well as the culture ministry.

The 2020 edition of the Thessaloniki international Film Festival (November 5-15) is moving fully online after previously being set to run as a hybrid event.

Screen has learned that the decision was reached earlier today (Oct 28) after festival heads met with municipal and health authorities as well as the culture ministry.

The festival was set to screen international competition titles and a number of other events at seven venues in the city. However, the recent rise in Covid cases in...

Panoptic prison: Okyay’s wonderfully dark debut puts Turkey under surveillance

Turkish filmmaker Azra Deniz Okyay‘s directorial debut uses micro-stories to discuss substantial socio-political issues. Titled Ghosts, themes of injustice, inequality, the gentrification taking the poorest districts of Istanbul by storm, authoritarianism and patriarchal society – all clearly mark Turkish society as depicted in this well thought-out drama.

Loosely intertwined characters’ storyline threads converge, on a day which culminates in the burst of political tension. For Okyay, the female perspective is important – the two leading characters are Iffet (Nalan Kuruçim), who tries to get money to free her son from jail, and her young friend, hip-hop dancer Didem (Dilayda Günes).…...

Jasmila Žbanić’s “Quo Vadis, Aida?” and Azra Deniz Okyay’s “Ghosts” won best film in the international and national competitions, respectively, at Turkey’s Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival, the 57th edition of which concluded on Saturday.

Unable to attend the festival due to the pandemic, Žbanić sent a video message in which she said: “This film came about through the collaboration of nine different countries. I emphasize this because I think now, more than ever, we need to show that we’re trying to understand each other better by telling our different stories together. This award will help the film to be watched by more people, as well as bringing us together through our love of cinema and for each other.”

Iranian director Massoud Bakhshi won best director for “Yalda, a Night for Forgiveness.” Natasa Stork won best actress for “Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time.

Politics and film festivals tend to intersect as the Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival emphatically attests.

In the lead up to Turkish municipal elections held in March of 2019 the current Mayor of Antalya, Muhittin Böcek, promised voters that, if he won, he would change back the format of the storied film festival held in the resort city on the country’s Southern coast.

At that time within Turkey’s film community the fate of the Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival, which started in 1964, had become “not (just) the talk of the town; but the talk of the country,” says Turkish film industry veteran Ahmet Boyacıoğlu, who now heads the event in tandem with its artistic director Basak Emre. They were appointed by Böcek.

That’s because the previous two years had seen the local film industry increasingly boycott the Antalya fest, which had been radically reshaped under the previous politically-appointed management,...

MPM Premium has closed a raft of deals on “Ghosts,” a Turkish drama by emerging helmer Azra Deniz Okyay (“Hayaletler”) which won the Grand Prize at Venice’s Critics Week.

The movie was just picked up for Spain by ConUnPack in a deal that was closed during the San Sebastian Film Festival. “Ghosts” was also acquired for Germany/Austria (Antiheld) and Greece (Strada).

The first Turkish film since 2018 to feature in the Venice program, “Ghosts” is set over a day, against the backdrop of a nationwide power surge and is a roaring tale of the contemporary generation. The movie follows four characters from very different walks of life who cross paths through a web of drug trafficking in the ghettos of Istanbul.

“Ghosts” weaves the stories of a mother whose son is in prison, a young woman committed to dancing, a female activist-artist and a cunning middle man, all in...

Venice 2020: The features, both produced or co-produced in Europe, took home the Grand Prize and the Verona Film Club Award, respectively. At an unusual but highly successful Venice Film Festival this year, it’s finally prize-giving time. The International Film Critics’ Week, run by the National Union of Italian Film Critics, has announced the awards of its 35th edition. The international jury, composed of Wendy Mitchell, Eugenio Renzi and Jay Weissberg, gave the Grand Prize of €5,000 (made possible by Taranto Town Hall) to Ghosts, the debut by Turkish filmmaker Azra Deniz Okyay. The jury said it was “a vivid portrayal of the tensions currently tearing apart Turkish society; the film boldly explores the intersection of public and private anxiety”. The Verona Film Club Award, decided upon by a jury made up of members of the Verona Film Club aged under 35, went to Bad Roads by Natalya Vorozhbit from...

Before this year’s Venice Film Festival comes to a close with Saturday’s announcement of the official selection awards, the fest’s autonomous sections got the ball rolling Friday with their own prizes.

Coming out on top in the Venice Days program was Russian director Philipp Yuryev’s debut feature “The Whaler Boy,” an offbeat story of a teenage whale hunter on the Bering Strait, who sets out to meet the webcam model with whom he’s become obsessed.

The film received the Director’s Award — which carries a cash prize of €20,000 for Yuryev and Paris-based sales agent Loco Films — from a jury headed by Nadav Lapid, the Israeli auteur who won last year’s Berlinale Golden Bear for “Synonyms.” Unusually, the jury’s extended deliberations were live-streamed to the public. In a statement, Lapid praised Yuryev’s film for “[depicting] a world that has not yet been explored with...

Dilayda Günes as Didem in Ghosts. Azra Deniz Oyay: 'For Didem’s characters, we had checked so many people from Instragram for so long. When I saw Dilayda Güneş, I knew that it was her' Photo: Courtesy of Venice Critics Week Director Azra Deniz Okyay: 'As a director you should observe people in detail before writing about them' Photo: Courtesy of Venice Critics Week

Azra Deniz Okyay makes her feature film debut in Venice Critics Week this year with Ghosts, a film that builds a multi-layered picture of modern-day Istanbul through its portrait of four people's lives that intersect - dancer Didem (Dilayda Günes), an older woman, Iffet (Nalan Kuruçim) trying to get cash together for her incarcerated son, protester Ela (Beril Kayar) and middle man Rasit (Emrah Ozdemir). The film has a punk energy that feels optimistic even as the clash between the bright promise of a gentrified...

Azra Deniz Okyay gets down to street level in Istanbul for her debut feature Ghosts. Set in the very near future, at the time of writing - October 26, 2020, to be exact - she follows the course of a single day on the brink of a national power outage from different perspectives, considering not just the people but the shifting situation for the fabric of the city itself.

This is not simply a case of seeing the same events from a different angle, although there are a number of cross-overs - the timeline is also slippery, so that sometimes we move forward and back until the full picture emerges. The film is as much about disconnection as connection as radio adverts for "The New Residences - built to give a wonderful new life in modern Turkey" are in sharp contrast to the actual experiences on the ground, with the news report.

In the last years, Turkey, especially its political elite, has been making quite a few headlines with its disregard for freedom of speech and its role within the refugee crisis of 2015. For many people, these developments have been the cause of great concern as to the question of how the country will be defined in the near future. For those working in the field of culture, like filmmaker Azra Deniz Okyay, this question has been at the center of their work and is tackled in recent movies, such as her feature film debut “Ghosts” or “Hayaletler”, which is its original title. Through the perspectives of four characters, the story takes a closer look at the daily life in Istanbul, thus shedding light on various political and social aspects of modern-day Turkey. It is a striking story which takes part in the competition in this year’s Venice International Film Critics’ Week.

Film captures zeitgeist of Turkey as it undergoes social and political change.

Fledgling Berlin-based distribution label Antiheld Filmverleih has taken Austrian and German rights for Turkish director Azra Deniz Okyay’s debut feature Ghosts, the project’s first distribution deal ahead of its premiere in Venice International Critics’ Week on Sunday (September 6).

The label, which was created within the umbrella of Germany’s Partisan Filmverleih Network in 2019, releases seven to eight titles a year with a focus on films out of Turkey, Greece and the Middle East. It is planning to launch Ghosts in German and Austrian cinemas in March 2021.

Paris-based Mpm Premium,...

Nineteen French feature films, including minority coproductions, will screen at the 77th edition of the Venice Film Festival, which runs Sept. 2-12. There are also four short films produced by France, and six French VR productions.

Nicole Garcia will represent France in the Official Competition with “Lovers,” her ninth feature film. She will be joined in the section by Amos Gitaï, whose film “Laila in Haifa” is a majority-French coproduction.

In addition to those movies, six films majority produced or coproduced by France will be showcased at the festival. They include Quentin Dupieux’s “Mandibules,” presented out of competition, and “Princesse Europe” by Camille Lotteau, to be shown in a special screening. The competitive Orizzonti section features four majority-French films.

“Honey Cigar” plays in Giornate degli Autori, a sidebar event.

Majority-French Feature Films in Venice

“Lovers”

Section: In Competition

Director: Nicole Garcia

Cast: Stacy Martin, Pierre Niney, Benoît Magimel

Sales:...

Wife of a SpyThe programme for the 2020 edition of the Venice Film Festival has been unveiled, and includes new films from Gia Coppola, Lav Diaz, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Alice Rohrwacher, Gianfranco Rosi, Frederick Wiseman, Chloé Zhao, and more.COMPETITIONIn Between Dying (Hilal Baydarov)Le sorelle Macluso (Emma Dante)The World to Come (Mona Fastvold)Nuevo Orden (Michel Franco)Lovers (Nicole Garcia)Laila in Haifa (Amos Gitai)Dear Comrades (Andrei Konchalovsky)Wife of a Spy (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)Sun Children (Majid Majidi)Pieces of a Woman (Kornél Mundruczó)Miss Marx (Susanna Nicchiarelli)Padrenostro (Claudio Noce)Notturno (Gianfranco Rosi)Never Gonna Snow AgainThe Disciple (Chaitanya Tamhane)And Tomorrow The Entire World (Julia Von Heinz)Quo Vadis, Aida? (Jasmila Zbanic)Nomadland (Chloé Zhao)Out Of COMPETITIONFeaturesThe Ties (Daniele Luchetti)Lasciami Andare (Stefano Mordini)Mandibules (Quentin Dupieux)Love After Love (Ann Hui)Assandria (Salvatore Mereu)The Duke (Roger Michell)Night in Paradise (Park Hoon-jung)Mosquito...

Paris-based sales company Mpm Premium has boarded emerging Turkish helmer Azra Deniz Okyay’s “Ghosts” (“Hayaletler”), which will compete this year at Venice’s Critics’ Week.

“Ghosts,” a promising feature debut by Okyay, is being represented in international markets by Mpm Premium’s New Visions label, which is dedicated to promising directors, from Karim Aïnouz to Wanuri Kahiu (“Rafiki”). “Ghosts” is the first Turkish film since 2018 to feature in the Venice program.

A roaring tale of the contemporary generation, “Ghosts” is set over a day, against the backdrop of a nationwide power surge and follows four characters from very different walks of life who cross paths through a web of drug trafficking in the ghettos of Istanbul.

The film weaves the stories of a mother whose son is in prison, a young woman committed to dancing, a female activist-artist and a cunning middle man, all in a neighbourhood under the...

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,...

There are not as many new films being made and some completed films are holding out until 2021 to make their festival premiere, but there’s no shortage of new restorations coming to film festivals soon. Cannes recently revealed their Classics lineup of titles screening this fall and hopefully coming to discs in the near future, and now it is Venice’s turn.

They’ve revealed the new restorations that will first screen at Cinema Ritrovato Festival in Bologna, Italy on August 25-31, followed by screenings at Venice Film Festival soon after. New restorations include work by Martin Scorsese, Souleymane Cissé, Michelangelo Antonioni, Shôhei Imamura, Fritz Lang, Sidney Lumet, Jean-Pierre Melville, Nikita Mikhalkov, and more. Some of these films already have forthcoming disc releases announced, including Claudine, coming to Criterion this fall.

Check out the lineup below (via Deadline) as well as the Venice Critics’ Week slate, which includes the Terrence Malick...

High-profile doc “The Rossellinis,” described as a tongue-in-cheek autobiographical look at the descendants of iconic Italian director Roberto Rossellini’s extended family, is among the standout world premieres in the lineup of the upcoming Venice Film Festival’s Critics’ Week.

Directed by Roberto Rossellini’s grandson, Alessandro Rossellini, the doc is unspooling out of competition and will close the separately-run Venice section that will feature seven first works in competition. It’s not yet know whether Isabella Rossellini will be on the Lido to promote the film.

The competition titles — all first works as well as world premieres — include “Topside,” the feature film debut of U.S. directorial duo Celine Held and Logan George, which is described in promotional materials as a drama set deep in the underbelly of New York City, where a five year-old girl and her mother live among a community that has claimed the abandoned subway tunnels as their home.

This year’s opening film is The Book Of Vision, the debut fiction feature from frequent Terrence Malick collaborator Carlo Hintermann.

Carlo Hintermann’s The Book Of Vision will open this year’s Critics’ Week strand of the Venice Film Festival in September, playing out of competition. Critics’ Week will run from August 2-12.

The debut fiction feature from the frequent Terrence Malick collaborator stars Dutch actress Lotte Verbeek as a young doctor who becomes obsessed with the work of an 18th-century physician on dreams and visions. Charles Dance plays her tutor.

Alessandro Rossellini’s The Rossellinis, a documentary produced...

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...

New titles from Petra Costa, Guido Hendrikx and Mila Turajlic.

Cph:forum, the co-production and financing strand of Denmark’s Cph: Dox, has unveiled the 33 projects it will showcase in Copenhagen from March 26-28.

The projects include Brazilian director Petra Costa’s new work Fatherland, about a daughter’s investigation into her father’s memories as he attempts to change the system in a country shaped by slavery. Costa’s most recent film, The Edge Of Democracy, made its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival last month.

Also selected is Guido Hendrikx’s A Wonderful Horrible Story, which blends archive footage,...

New titles from Petra Costa, Guido Hendrikx and Mila Turajlic.

Cph:forum, the co-production and financing strand of Denmark’s Cph: Dox, has unveiled the 32 projects it will showcase in Copenhagen from March 26-28.

The projects include Brazilian director Petra Costa’s new work Fatherland, about a daughter’s investigation into her father’s memories as he attempts to change the system in a country shaped by slavery. Costa’s most recent film, The Edge Of Democracy, made its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival last month.

Also selected is Guido Hendrikx’s A Wonderful Horrible Story, which blends archive footage,...

Hungarian action-comedy Kills On Wheels and Icelandic-Danish coming of age story Heartstone take top prizes at Greek festival.Scroll down for full list of winners

Hungarian director Attila Till’s Kills On Wheels (Tiszta Szivvel) has been named best film at the 57th Thessaloniki International Film Festival (Nov 3-13) winning the “Theo Angelopoulos” Golden Alexander award.

The film beat out 16 first and second films screened in this year’s competition section.

Kills On Wheels’ three leading young actors, Zoltan Fenyvesi, SzaboIcs Thuroczy and Adam Fekete were jointly awarded the Best actor trophy.

The film, arriving from the Chicago film festival where it won the Roger Ebert award, deals with three wheelchair-using young adults who decide to offer their services to the mafia in an effort to overcome their daily routines. World sales are handled by the Hungarian Film Fund.

Icelandic-Danish co-production Heartstone (Hjartasteinn) by Icelandic director Gudmundur Arnar Gudmundsson, was awarded the Special Jury Prize, Silver Alexander...