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The Red Sea International Film Festival (Rsiff) has lined up speakers including filmmakers Michael Mann and Spike Lee and actors Eva Longoria and Andrew Garfield for its In Conversation With and Souk Talents strands.

The line-up of speakers speakers this year also includes Egyptian writer and director Mohamed Samy (Detention Letter) and Turkish stars Engin Altan Düzyatan (Diriliş: Ertuğrul) and Nurgül Yeşilçay.

Also joining the lineup are Indian Cinema stars Ranbir Kapoor (Animal) and Kareena Kapoor Khan (Buckingham Murders).

They join previously announced speakers Egyptian actor Mona Zaki and Academy Award-winner Viola Davis. Spike Lee was last week announced as...

The Berlinale is to create a new screening venue and a festival hub as part of a bid to revitalise its Potsdamer Platz home.

Both venues will be close to the main Berlinale Palast and the CinemaxX screening cinema and in walking distance from the European Film Market at Gropius Bau.

The Berlinale said the new venues would help compensate for the loss of around 150,000 screening seats in Potzdamer Platz in recent years and would help create a more walkable festival.

The Stage Bluemax Theater at nearby Marlene-Dietrich-Platz will be adapted as a screening venue for the next edition with a capacity of approximately 500 seats.

“My real homeland is a country where I can work, where I can make movies,” says Russian filmmaker Boris Guts, following controversy around the selection of his latest feature Deaf Lovers at Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF).

Guts’ fifth feature Deaf Lovers was selected in PÖFF’s main Official Selection Competition, and in the ‘Standing With Ukraine’ thematic strand of titles about and from the war-afflicted country. Its selection received criticism on social media and in the Estonian press, with festival director Tiina Lokk issuing a statement on Thursday, November 13. Lokk stood by the film’s selection, keeping it...

The 28th Black Nights Film Festival, known as PÖFF, wrapped Nov. 22 with an awards ceremony in Tallinn where filmmakers took centre stage to ask for the end of war in the Middle East, solidarity with Georgia under Russian influence and the defence of culture.

Oscar-nominated British-Palestinian filmmaker Farah Nabulsi – whose debut feature “The Teacher” scooped the Dennis Davidson Spotlight Award to improve diversity, inclusion and representation in cinema – was the first to take a political stand.

“‘The Teacher’ is a film that we shot in militarily occupied and colonized Palestine, in the West Bank a little over two years ago. Never could I have imagined that the film would arrive at such a crucial juncture in the discourse on Palestine as Israel continues to conduct genocide, the crime of all crimes in Palestine, in Gaza, as we speak. I really believe cinema has the power to raise the global social...

Boris Guts’ “Deaf Lovers,” an Istanbul-set romantic drama, has been acquired by Antipode Sales International for global sales.

Already a noteworthy title in this year’s Tallinn Black Nights competition lineup, the film garnered extra attention last week when the State Film Agency of Ukraine called on the fest to pull the film from its lineup. Tallinn removed “Deaf Lovers” from its Standing with Ukraine program but refused to pull it from the program entirely.

“Deaf Lovers” tells a contemporary story about a woman from Ukraine and a man from Russia who meet in Istanbul and kick off a penniless vacation romance. Both are, as the title implies, also deaf and worried about the future that awaits them back home.

“I wanted to create a film that shows how war destroys our humanity and, most importantly, it kills love,” Guts tells Variety. “We stop hearing and understanding each other. The...

Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival has removed Russian director Boris Guts’ “Deaf Lovers” from its Standing with Ukraine program after “serious backlash,” according to festival director Tiina Lokk.

In a release, Lokk said the Estonia-Serbia co-production, which will still world premiere in Tallinn’s official competition, has received negative reactions from both Ukrainians and Russians, even though nobody objecting to its inclusion has seen the film yet. On Tuesday, the State Film Agency of Ukraine called on Tallinn to pull the film entirely, but Lokk’s letter indicates that ‘Blind Lovers’ will still screen in the Official Selection Competition.

A Tuesday social media post from the Ukrainian organization reads: “Given the aggression of Russia against Ukraine and the sufferings of the large number of Ukrainian people, it is of paramount importance to ensure that cultural platforms do not become tools for films blurring the boundaries of understanding the reality of Ukrainians.

Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF) has defended its selection of Russian film Deaf Lovers, which it describes as “an artistically powerful anti-war work”.

A statement issued by festival director Tiina Lokk on behalf of the PÖFF team acknowledged “some serious backlash, not only among Ukrainians but also among Russians – without anyone having seen it yet.”

The festival has removed Deaf Lovers from its ‘Standing with Ukraine’ programme, for films about and from Ukraine, and which is dedicated to ‘Ukrainians who are determined to defend their right to decide their own future’.

The film will remain in the Official Selection Competition,...

The Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (known as PÖFF) has unveiled the full lineup of its flagship Official Selection, whose 18 features from 23 countries will compete for the coveted €20,000 Grand Prix.

They include 11 world premieres. The jury is helmed by acclaimed German director Christoph Hochhäusler.

Tiina Lokk, the founder and director of the festival, said “the Official Selection Competition has it all! There’s a psycho-thriller that approaches horror, a psychological family drama, and sci-fi genre is represented. The selection is broad, and so is the range of countries. We’re not trying to highlight a certain theme or a particular region, we are free in our choices,” she noted.

Emphasizing the various topics covered, Lokk cites old age, the end of life and euthanasia “perhaps due to the influence of Covid,” domestic violence and war, “not tackled in the traditional form” but rather via psychological dramas.

“Last year there were...

Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (Poff) has selected a further 14 features, including 11 world premieres, to complete the lineup of its Official Selection Competition.

The new titles include the world premiere of Serhii Kastornykh’s Ukrainian feature The Mousetrap. Shot during a break between Kastornykh’s military service periods, the film follows a soldier trapped alone in a bunker on the frontline of the Russian war.

Scroll down for the full list of Poff Official Selection Competition titles

Also selected is the world premiere of Juris Kursietis’ third feature The Exalted, in which a world-renowned German organist uncovers her Latvian husband...

It has been a great year for character studies. Half of the films on my best of 2022 are primarily focused on just one or two performances, using longer-than-expected runtimes to dig into what truly makes them tick. From disgraced conductors to larger-than-life sex workers to pathological liars to Melbourne commuters, perhaps the only thing these character studies have in common is a willingness to go deep into the universal condition of what makes us human. It has made for a satisfying year. Complemented by genre pictures, ranging from sci-fi spectacle to eat-the-rich satire to the road movie, 2022 has delighted and surprised, with great films coming in from nine different countries and three different continents. Here are my picks for the 10 best films of the year.

Honourable mentions: Sick of Myself, Elvis, Black Night, Piggy, The Bear Season One, Episode Seven, Argentina vs Holland Quarter Final.

10. Minsk | Boris Guts

Before the...

Programme reconfigured to include non-Baltic directors heading Baltic co-productions.

The world premiere of Lithuanian feature The Poet will open the Baltic Competition at this year’s Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, which will screen 15 features from the region.

Directed by Giedrius Tamosevicius and Vytautas V. Landsbergis, The Poet is the one world premiere in the selection, alongside four international premieres.

Scroll down for the full list of Baltic Competition titles

It is a historical drama in which the titular writer becomes an intermediary between Soviet authorities and rebels, and must choose his allies and words carefully in order to survive.