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Georgian film April, directed by Dea Kulumbegashvili, has won both the Best Film and Best Performance prizes at the 17th Asia Pacific Screen Awards (Apsa), held in Australia.

The film tells the story of Nina, an obstetrician-gynecologist, who faces accusations after a newborn’s death. Ia Sukhitashvili won the Best Performance award for her portrayal of Nina.

The Best Director accolade went to Tato Kotetishvili for debut feature Holy Electricity, which is a Georgia-Netherlands co-production. The dark comedy follows two cousins selling neon crucifixes door to door in Tbilisi.

The Jury Grand Prize went to All We Imagine as Light, which is the second feature from India’s Payal Kapadia. The film follows two working-class nurses amid the nocturnal landscape of Mumbai.

Best Youth Film went to India’s Lakshmipriya Devi for Boong, alongside producers Alan McAlex, Vikesh Bhutani, Ritesh Sidhwani, Farhan Akhtar and Shujaat Saudagar.

Best Animated Film went...

Dea Kulumbegashvili’s April scored a double win at the 17th Asia Pacific Screen Awards (Apsa), taking home prizes for best film and best performance for Ia Sukhitashvili.

The Georgian feature centres on a skilled obstetrician at a maternity hospital, who comes under scrutiny after a tragic episode, threatening her secret side job providing unsanctioned abortions. The film premiered at Venice where it won the special jury prize and went on to play Toronto and San Sebastian, winning best film in Zabaltegi-Tabakalera competition at the latter. Metrograph Pictures picked up North American rights last month.

Scroll down for full list...

Georgian drama film “April” took double honors on Saturday at the annual Asia Pacific Screen Awards, winning the best film prize and the best performance prize for Ia Sukhitashvili.

Directed by Dea Kulumbegashvili, the film portrays the determination of an obstetrics and gynaecology provider in the face of accusations about the death of a newborn child. The film premiered at the Venice and Toronto festivals in September, earning a special jury prize in Venice and the best film prize in the Zabaltegi-Tabakalera competition.

Sukhitashvili was present at the Apsa ceremony in Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia, to accept both awards.

Fellow Georgian filmmaker, Tato Kotetishvili was awarded the Apsa for best director for his debut feature, dark comedy “Holy Electricity,” which sees cousins selling neon crucifixes door to door in Tbilisi.

Women’s stories and films from India were also major themes among the awards winners.

Payal Kapadia’s “All We Imagine as Light,...

Gold Coast, Australia: The Asia Pacific Screen Academy in strategic partnership with Aw Jewel welcomes its International Jury members, nominees and guests from across the globe to the Gold Coast for the 17th Asia Pacific Screen Awards. The prestigious international film event honours the cinematic excellence of 78 countries and areas of the Asia Pacific and films that best reflect their cultural origins and the diversity of the vast region.

Film industry guests from Australia, Cambodia, Georgia, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Nepal, New Zealand, Philippines, People’s Republic of China, Singapore, Thailand, Türkiye, and the USA are confirmed to participate in the 6th Asia Pacific Screen Forum, to be held from 27 to 30 November.

Australian actress, writer and comedian Nina Oyama (Deadloch, Utopia) is set to host the Gala Awards Ceremony, on the evening of Saturday 30 November in the elegant Diamond Ballroom of The Langham, Gold Coast, on the traditional...

Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light and Dea Kulumbegashvili’s April head the nominations for the 17th Asia Pacific Screen Awards (Apsa), each securing nods in five categories.

Both will compete for best film, best director, best screenplay, best cinematography and best performance at the awards, which will be presented on November 30 at a ceremony on Australia’s Gold Coast.

Scroll down for full list of nominations

All We Imagine As Light, billed as an ode to nocturnal Mumbai, premiered in Competition at Cannes, where it won the festival’s grand prix. April, the story of a Georgian ob-gyn who faces accusations,...

Operating for only the third time, the Jakarta World Cinema film festival is bringing a diverse slate of global and local pictures to Indonesia’s biggest city.

It kicked off in high style on Saturday with a screening of Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance.” The body horror-fantasy debuted at Cannes and has already proved a popular choice as either opening or closing film at multiple film festivals. In Jakarta, it got a reaction, extracting shrieks, gasps and applause from the opening night crowd.

Earlier, in a breezy ceremony, complete with dancers replicating some of “The Substance’s” fitness moves, audiences had been told that organizers had assembled a lineup of just over a hundred titles.

In a country, where cinema is popular, but a class of risk-taking indie distributors is an industry sector has yet to be fully developed, that is a significant number. Instead, Jwc has a close relationship with KlikFilm,...

Selman Nacar is a filmmaker, with a Film Directing Mfa from Columbia University in New York. He gave lectures on fictional filmmaking at the same university. He graduated from Istanbul Bilgi University Faculty of Law in 2015, and the Faculty of Film in 2016. He is an alumnus of Berlinale Talents 2019, and First Films First 2020. His latest work “Hesitation Wounds” was selected at Antalya Film Forum 2022 and at Venice Biennale Cinema 2023.

On the occasion of the film screening at Jakarta World Cinema, we speak with him about his law degree and how it affected a court drama, the balance between professional and social drama, women professionals in Turkey, the local movie industry and other topics.

You also have a degree in law. How does that affect your filmmaking, particularly in this movie?

I studied law as an undergrad, and that is why, from an early age, I had the chance to read...

Jakarta World Cinema (Jwc) returns for its third edition this year with even greater enthusiasm and a host of exciting programs. The international film festival, set to take place from September 21-28, 2024, is ready to delight film lovers by screening 120 films from 61 countries. This year, Jwc will be held in person at Cgv Grand Indonesia, Jakarta, as well as online through the streaming platform KlikFilm, offering broader access to audiences across Indonesia.

Opening and Closing Ceremonies

Jwc 2024 will kick off with the screening of The Substance, directed by Coralie Fargeat, a film that has garnered attention at various international festivals. Meanwhile, the festival will close with Bird by Andrea Arnold, a highly anticipated film that promises to deliver a powerful and meaningful conclusion to the event.

Additional Auditoriums and Expanded Film Selection

With double the number of films compared to last year, Jwc 2024 has partnered with Cgv to allocate four auditoriums for film screenings,...

Otros de los títulos seleccionados incluyen ‘Bird’, ‘Emilia Perez’, ‘Kinds of Kindness’ y ‘The Substance’.

La Academia de Cine Europeo ha anunciado la primera selección de títulos que optan a las nominaciones de los Premios del Cine Europeo. Se han seleccionado 29 producciones y en septiembre se ampliará la lista con una nueva tanda de títulos.

En esta primera lista se encuentran tres películas españolas: Un amor, de Isabel Coixet, con siete nominaciones a los premios Goya 2024, O Corno, de Jaione Camborda, ganadora de la Concha de Oro en el Festival de San Sebastián 2023, y Volveréis, de Jonás Trueba, premio a la Mejor Película europea en la Quincena de Realizadores de Cannes.

La ceremonia de los Premios del Cine Europeo tendrá lugar el 7 de diciembre en Lucerna (Suiza). Pueden optar a los Premios del Cine Europeo los largometrajes europeos que, entre otros criterios, hayan tenido su primera proyección oficial entre el...

The first wave of titles in contention for the 2024 European Film Awards include Yorgos Lanthimos’ Kinds Of Kindness and Sundance award-winner Kneecap.

Cannes premieres feature predominantly in the 29 titles unveiled today (August 14), including Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Perez; Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed Of The Sacred Fig; Miguel Gomes’ Grand Tour; Halfdan Ullmann Tønde’s Armand and Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance – all of which picked up prizes on the Croisette.

Other films from Cannes include Andrea Arnold’s Bird; Emanuel Pârvu’s Three Kilometers To The End Of The World; The Count Of Monte-Cristo; and Magnus von Horn’s The Girl With The Needle.

The European Film Academy has revealed the first tranche of film titles that members can consider for nominations for the European Film Awards, which take place on Dec. 7 in Lucerne, Switzerland.

The academy’s selection of 29 titles covers films that had their first official screening between June 1, 2023, and May 31, 2024. Further titles will be announced in September, which will include films that had their premieres in the summer and early autumn festivals, such as Locarno and Venice.

Among the selection are Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Pérez,” Cannes’ best actress and jury prize winner, Miguel Gomes’ “Grand Tour,” Cannes’ best director winner, Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Kinds Of Kindness,” best actor winner at Cannes, Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” jury special prize winner at Cannes, Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance,” best screenplay winner at Cannes, “Armand” by Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel, the Golden Camera winner at Cannes, Matthias Glasner’s “Dying,...

Cannes Competition titles The Substance, The Seed Of The Sacred Fig, and Emilia Perez are among the first set of titles recommended for nominations at this year’s European Film Awards.

Overall, 29 titles have been selected for the first stage of nominations by the European Film Academy Board. The selection includes films from 26 countries. In the coming weeks, the 5,000 members of the European Film Academy will start to vote on the selected films. The winners will be announced at the European Film Awards ceremony in Lucerne, Switzerland, on December 7.

To be eligible for a European Film Awards, films must be European feature films which, among other criteria, had their first official screening between June 1, 2023 and May 31, 2024 and have a European director. The rule book states that should a film director not be European, exceptions can be made if the filmmaker is “provided they have a European refugee or similar status...

As Selman Nacar’s film opens, the bus rolls into Uşak, carrying Musa (Oğulcan Arman Uslu), a man whose whole future hangs in that balance. At the end, the camera tracks back out in one slow, graceful movement which sees the city recede until its significance is restored to proper context. It is not the whole world, no matter how commonplace some of its woes might be, and Musa’s story is just one of billions playing out at the same time. Nevertheless, there’s a particularity about Uşak which, whilst we are there, casts a spell. It’s present in Ahmet barak Gurbuz’s meticulously designed soundscape, with its low industrial hums, its dripping, its constant weight. It’s there in Tudor Vladimir Panduru’s exquisite, drably saturated greens and blues. Briefly glimpsed through windows and on hurried journeys, the sky hangs heavy overhead, a storm waiting to break.

The Sudanese drama Goodbye Julia is continuing its impressive awards run, earning the Grand Jury Award for Best Narrative Feature over the weekend at the Sonoma International Film Festival in California.

Mohamed Kordofani directed the story set in the context of the secessionist movement that led to the establishment of the independent nation of South Sudan in 2011.

“We commend the festival for its impressive selection of narrative features and unanimously select Goodbye Julia as the best film,” jurors wrote. “An outstanding first feature from Mohamed Kordofani, anchored by two stellar performances from Eiman Yousif and Siran Riak, Goodbye Julia provides a glimpse into a culture and region that’s underrepresented and underexplored in contemporary cinema.”

The jury, comprised of Rosa Bosch (Begin Again Films), Tyler Coates (The Hollywood Reporter), Rebecca Fisher (Magnolia Pictures), Jason Hellerstein (Sideshow), and Julie Huntsinger (Telluride Film Festival), awarded a Special Mention to Hesitation Wound, describing...

The 27th Sonoma International Film Festival (March 20-24), as always, leaned into wine and food with the sold-out opening night U.S. premiere of Thomas Napper’s “Widow Clicquot” (Vertical Entertainment), starring Haley Bennett as the woman who saves the legendary winemaker’s legacy. The wine country film festival drew its highest audience attendance to date with a robust film slate programmed by artistic director Carl Spence (working with Executive Director Ginny Krieger), in his second year, including upcoming specialty fare like Luc Besson’s “DogMan” (Briarcliff Entertainment) starring Caleb Landry Jones in an incendiary performance, and Sony Pictures Classics’ raucous comedy “Wicked Little Letters,” starring Olivia Colman, along with a smattering of yummy wine and food events.

The five-day festival curated by Spence along with senior programmers Amanda Salazar and Ken Jacobson, showcased more than 100 films. Twenty-five countries were represented in this year’s lineup of 43 narrative features, 16 documentary features,...

Netflix has over 40 European productions shooting in Europe, said Larry Tanz, the streamer’s vice president of Emea Content, at Series Mania today (March 19).

This comes at a time when more European countries, such as Germany, are introducing investment obligations to ensure streamers invest in more European content.

Meanwhile, many rival streaming platforms have slowed down commissioning amid a downturn in 2024 production. Paramount+ has said it is cutting back on local originals, while Sky has stopped commissioning originals in Germany.

Asked for his view on the investment obligations being introduced by EU countries, Tanz said: “We are investing. We need...

The New Directors/New Films lineup boasts a slew of 2024 festival breakout features.

The annual festival, presented by Film at Lincoln Center and The Museum of Modern Art, will take place from April 3 to April 14 at Film at Lincoln Center. Sundance premiere “A Different Man,” Berlinale best first feature winner “Cu Li Never Cries,” and Locarno Film Festival winner “A Good Place” are among this year’s standout titles.

The 53rd annual festival celebrates rising filmmakers who redefine the state of cinema. The 2024 lineup includes 25 features and 10 short films, including one world premiere. “A Different Man,” directed by Aaron Schimberg and co-starring Berlinale best actor winner Sebastian Stan, will open the festival April 3. Theda Hammel’s “Stress Positions,” which also premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, will close New Directors/New Films April 14. Both features were directed by New York City-based filmmakers.

“It just feels right for us to bookend...

Rose Glass’s romantic thriller Loves Lives Bleeding is set to open the 20th edition of Glasgow Film Festival (Gff) on February 28.

The UK filmmaker’s follow-up to Saint Maud stars Kristen Stewart as a gym owner who falls for a bodybuilder with criminal connections. The A24 feature will receive its UK premiere at Glasgow following its debut at Sundance earlier this month.

John Archer’s documentary Janey, about Scottish stand-up comedian Janey Godley as she embarks on her final tour following a terminal cancer diagnosis, will close the festival on March 10.

Gff has secured eight world premieres (see below...

Every few years, a notable new Turkish filmmaker emerges, and in this instance, we find Selman Nacar floating to the top of major film fests. Front-loaded with moral and legal quandaries, Hesitation Wound (Tereddüt Çizgisi) blurs the lines, seamlessly intertwining the contemplative moments both within and outside the courtroom. In a determinist, high-stakes kind of paradox, a criminal lawyer weaves between systems — even those who attempt to fight corruption will use their influence when it suits their needs/agenda. Some crusades are a bit more ambiguous.

His 2020 debut feature Between Two Dawns premiered at the San Sebastián Intl. Film Festival and this new film premiered in the Orizzonti section at the 80th Venice International Film Festival.…...

Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut Woman Of The Hour and family drama Mother Couch, starring Ewan McGregor and Ellen Burstyn, are headed to the third edition of Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea International Film Festival, running from November 30 to December 9 in the port city of Jeddah.

The titles will play in the Festival Favorites sidebar which was announced on Thursday alongside the event’s Red Sea: Treasures strand.

Kendrick directs and stars in Netflix-acquired drama Woman Of The Hour as a woman whose path crosses notorious serial killer Rodney Alcala, whilst in Niclas Larsson’s first film Mother Couch, McGregor plays a man whose mother squats the family furniture store.

Further films in the line-up – showcasing 21 buzzy festival titles from the last 12 months – include the David Oyelowo produced documentary Allihopa: The Dalkurd Story; Women’s World Cup doc Copa 71, executive produced by Serena and Venus Williams, Jennifer Esposito’s Fresh Kills,...

Each of the winners takes home festival’s Golden Eye trophy and a Chf 20,000 cash prize.

Turkish drama Hesitation Wound by Selman Nacar has won the Feature Film Competition prize at the 19th Zurich Film Festival.

Hesitiation Wound, which world premiered last month in Venice’s Horizons section, is the story of a female Turkish lawyer fighting both a murder case and her own personal issues.

The Swiss festival awarded the top prize in its Focus competition, which is for films from Switzerland, Germany and Austria, to the Afghanistan set documentary Hollywoodgate by Ibrahim Nash’at.

Hollywoodgate, which world premiered out...

“Hesitation Wound” and “Hollywoodgate” were named winners at the Zurich Film Festival, as the 19th edition of the Swiss festival came to a close.

Selman Nacar’s drama “Hesitation Wound” impressed the Feature Film Competition jury.

“Moral issues are a frequent underlying theme in many films, but the dilemma facing the main character in this film is really strongly felt here,” argued the jury, which comprised president Anton Corbijn, Finola Dwyer, Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre, Juho Kuosmanen and Bryce Nielsen.

Praising “wonderful” Tülin Özen, cast as a lawyer struggling at home and at work – “a woman forever on the verge of either breakthrough or breakdown,” wrote Variety – they added: “It’s a film that stayed with the majority of the jury throughout the festival and even though it was a fight with two other contenders, it became our favorite. Selman Nacar, thank you so much for this delicious film.”

Iris Kaltenbäck...

“A Hunt for Hedgehogs,” the new film by Hungarian director Mihály Schwechtje and “Rock Bottom,” the feature debut of Spaniard María Trénor mark two potential highlights of San Sebastian’s pix-in-post sidebar Wip Europa, that runs Sept 25-27.

In 2020, the San Sebastian Film Festival, the highest-profile film event in the Spanish-speaking world, launched two new pix-in-post showcases, Wip Latam and Wip Europa, replacing respectively Films in Progress and Glocal in Progress sidebars.

The five candidates productions that will vie for the Wip Europa Award are from Germany, Hungary, Spain and Turkey. Among them is “A Hunt for Hedgehogs,” the second feature from Schwechtje who debuted with “I Hope You’ll Die Next Time:-),” winner of best film in the youth strand at Tallinn Black Nights in 2018. He has also directed several episodes of the popular HBO Hungary series “In Treatment.”

“Rock Bottom,” an animated feature using a rotoscoped 2D style,...

All of Us Strangers

Telluride

A lonely gay London writer, orphaned young, revisits his past while starting a new romance with a neighbor in Andrew Haigh’s hauntingly beautiful study of grief, love and family. With a quartet of shattering performances from Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal, Claire Foy and Jamie Bell, this is a soul-stirring work, heartfelt and unforgettable. — David Rooney

American Symphony

Telluride

Matthew Heineman’s deeply moving doc follows musician Jon Batiste and his life partner, Suleika Jaouad, through a year of highs (his exploding career) and lows (her cancer recurrence). It’s a concert film, a love story and a snapshot of America’s dogged emergence from the pandemic. — Daniel Fienberg

The Boy and the Heron

Toronto

Hayao Miyazaki emerges from retirement with a profoundly personal swan song — a rumination on love, loss and the intersection between life and death in a world spinning out of control.

In the late 20th century, a system of categorizing personalities into “Type A” and “Type B” gained mainstream pop-psychological traction. The theory may have since fallen out of favor, but sometimes it’s hard not to be reminded of it, like when watching Selman Nacar’s sober, stressful second feature, “Hesitation Wound.” Defense attorney Canan is competitive, status-conscious, ambitious and impatient to the point of work addiction. In other words, she’s the Type A-est Type A to ever have had a very hard day.

Nacar, who studied law himself, has written a screenplay that piles incident on incident, and moral quandary on moral quandary, each bumping into the rear of the next like a knock-on collision in rush hour traffic. But he directs with a spontaneity that means the drama never seems contrived, especially as conveyed in the considered realism of Tudor Panduru’s cinematography. Panduru, who has been...

Swiss festival programmes 148 films for this year’s edition.

The Zurich Film Festival (Zff) has unveiled a line-up of 148 films for its 2023 edition which takes place from September 28 to October 8.

The festival’s Focus Competition – which showcases feature films and documentaries from Germany, Austria and Switzerland - has six world premieres. They include Swiss films The Driven One by Piet Baumgartner, a long-term study of students at the elite university Hsg St. Gallen, and road movie Return To Alexandria by Zurich-based Tamer Ruggli, which stars Nadine Labaki and Fanny Ardant.

Scroll down for Focus and Feature Film Competition line-up

Other...

You don’t need to know much about the criminal justice system to understand its broken, biased, and grim nightmare— unfair, unjust, unforgiving, a bureaucratic Kafka-esque hellscape you never want to be trapped within. Turkish filmmaker Selman Nacar (“Between Two Dawns”) understands this all too well—he was a law student for several years before switching to filmmaking and saw all the flaws in the legal justice system firsthand. His suspenseful new moral, legal drama, and character study, “Hesitation Wounds,” is proficiently crafted with a fittingly claustrophobic and inhospitable quality.

Continue reading ‘Hesitation Wounds’ Review: Tülin Özen‘s Striking Performance Drives Selman Nacar’s Gripping 24-Hour Moral/Legal Drama [Venice] at The Playlist.

Canan, the hardworking legal-eagle protagonist of Hesitation Wound, moves through drab institutional corridors with such determination that she creates a kind of force field around her. Or maybe it’s armor. In the courthouse where she spends a good part of her waking hours, she’s trying to save an accused man from the possibility of life imprisonment. In the hospital where she spends her nights, she’s looking for reasons to keep her mother on life support, despite the certainty of the doctor — and, more to the point, of Canan’s sister — that it’s time to let go.

Unfolding at the intersection of regulatory procedure, moral urgency and heartache, Selman Nacar’s finely tuned second feature, after the workplace drama Between Two Dawns, packs a sustained wallop of tension and unraveling into its impressively concise running time. Tülin Özen, in the lead role, delivers a pitch-perfect, tightly contained...

The quest for justice, told through one of its professional advocates, is one of cinema’s most common narrative devices. It’s why so many of us grow up feeling that lawyers must comprise approximately half of the workforce, and the job largely consists of delivering three-and-a-half-minute monologues. While it’s one of cinema’s most useful professions in terms of structuring plot and themes, the reality of the corrupt and self-serving legal system is starkly out of sync with James Stewart’s Paul Biegler and Reese Witherspoons’ Elle Woods.

Still, despite the high standards of their lawyer colleagues on screen and the woeful ones of those experienced by many in real life, Canan, the protagonist of “Hesitation Wound” is a compelling, knotty heroine who doesn’t over-concern herself with what end of the spectrum she lies. She is a performance wrapped in a performance. Taking on the role of...

Magnolia Pictures International has acquired worldwide sales rights – including U.S. sales rights – to suspense-drama “Hesitation Wound” from Turkish writer-director Selman Nacar. The film will world premiere in the Venice Film Festival’s Horizons section.

The film follows Canan (Tülin Özen), a criminal lawyer who divides her time between the courthouse and her mother’s hospital bed at night, who has to make a moral choice that will affect the lives of her mother, the judge, and her murder suspect client – whose defense is turning in his favor.

The cast also includes Ogulcan Arman Uslu, Gülçin Kültür Şahin, Vedat Erincin and Erdem Senocak. The film is produced by Burak Cevik (Fol Sinema), Diloy Gülün (Karma Films), Selman Nacar (Kuyu Film), and co-produced by Trt (Turkey), Bkm Mutfak (Turkey), Sev Yapim (Turkey), Nephilim Producciones (Spain), Point Film (Romania) and Arizona Films (France).

Lorna Lee Torres, head of international sales at Magnolia and Austin Kennedy,...

It’s a welcome sight for any longtime visitors returning to Sarajevo, the white-jacketed waiters circling the terrace of the majestic, Austro-Hungarian-built Hotel Europe as film and TV industry professionals parse scripts and close deals amid the espresso-fueled chatter. Around them a haze of cigarette smoke hovers like the mist that settles each morning over the green hills that ring this scenic Bosnian city.

Each summer hundreds of industry guests from around the globe descend on the historic, 140-year-old Hotel Europe, which survived two World Wars and the shelling that razed Sarajevo in the 1990s and serves as the de facto hub of industry events during the Sarajevo Film Festival. Twenty years after its launch in a city still emerging from the rubble of a brutal, four-year siege, CineLink Industry Days has grown into the leading film and TV industry event in the Balkan region — a success story as improbable...

Five productions from Germany, Hungary, Spain and Turkey will make up the Wip Europa selection, the San Sebastián Festival initiative running from 25-27 September for films at the post-production stage with a majority of European production.

German director Michael Fetter Nathansky will show his second film, Mannequins (working title), a romantic drama set against a social backdrop about the magic of falling in love and the painful process of falling out in one of Europe’s biggest mining areas. The film participated in its project stage in the Cutting Edge Talent Camp of Mannheim-Heidelberg Festival.

Sima’s Song is also the second film from the Afghan moviemaker Roya Sadat, known for her activism in favour of women’s rights. This Spanish coproduction with The Netherlands and France set in Afghanistan prior to the breakout of civil war narrates the confrontation between two close friends on different sides of the political fence.

Five productions from Germany, Hungary, Spain and Turkey will make up the Wip Europa selection, the San Sebastián Festival initiative running from 25-27 September for films at the post-production stage with a majority of European production.

German director Michael Fetter Nathansky will show his second film, Mannequins (working title), a romantic drama set against a social backdrop about the magic of falling in love and the painful process of falling out in one of Europe’s biggest mining areas. The film participated in its project stage in the Cutting Edge Talent Camp of Mannheim-Heidelberg Festival.

Sima’s Song is also the second film from the Afghan moviemaker Roya Sadat, known for her activism in favour of women’s rights. This Spanish coproduction with The Netherlands and France set in Afghanistan prior to the breakout of civil war narrates the confrontation between two close friends on different sides of the political fence.

La BêteCOMPETITIONComandante (Edoardo De Angelis)The Promised Land (Nikolaj Arcel)Dogman (Luc Besson) La Bête (Bertrand Bonello) Hors-Saison (Stéphane Brizé) Enea (Pietro Castellitto) Maestro (Bradley Cooper)Priscilla (Sofia Coppola)Finalmente L’Alba (Saverio Costanzo)Lubo (Giorgio Diritti) Origin (Ava DuVernay) The Killer (David Fincher)Memory (Michel Franco)Io capitano (Matteo Garrone)Evil Does Not Exist (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi)The Green Border (Agnieszka Holland)The Theory of Everything (Timm Kröger)Poor Things (Yorgos Lanthimos)El conde (Pablo Larrain)Ferrari (Michael Mann)Adagio (Stefano Sollima)Woman OfHolly (Fien Troch)Out Of COMPETITIONFictionSociety of the Snow (J.A. Bayona)Coup de Chance (Woody Allen)The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (Wes Anderson)The Penitent (Luca Barbareschi)L’Ordine Del Tempo (Liliana Cavani)Vivants (Alix Delaporte)Welcome to Paradise (Leonardo di Constanzo)Daaaaaali! (Quentin Dupieux)The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (William Friedkin)Making of (Cedric Kahn)Aggro Dr1ft (Harmony Korine)Hitman (Richard Linklater)The Palace (Roman Polanski...

Two movies whose directors are likely to draw protests, Woody Allen’s French-language “Coup de Chance” and Roman Polanski’s “The Palace,” will make their world premieres at the 2023 Venice International Film Festival, Venice artistic director Alberto Barbera and La Biennale di Venezia president Roberto Cicutto announced at a Tuesday morning press conference.

Both films will screen out of competition, though they’ll likely draw an inordinate amount of attention at a festival that has assembled a robust lineup of major filmmakers even as it struggles with the effects of the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes.

Films booked for the Venice main competition include Bradley Cooper’s Leonard Bernstein biopic “Maestro”; Yorgos Lanthimos’ sci-fi drama “Poor Things”; Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla Presley film “Priscilla”; Michael Mann’s auto-racing film “Ferrari”; Ava DuVernay’s “Origin,” with Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Niecy Nash-Betts and Vera Farmiga; and David Fincher’s “The Killer,” with Michael Fassbender.

On the heels of yesterday’s TIFF announcement, the first major fall festival of the season––Venice International Film Festival––is unveiling its lineup. Taking place August 30-September 9, the competition jury this year is chaired by Damien Chazelle.

Highlights include new films from David Fincher, Michael Mann, Wes Anderson, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Sofia Coppola, Bradley Cooper, Bertrand Bonello, Frederick Wiseman, Roman Polanski, William Friedkin, Ava DuVernay, Harmony Korine, Richard Linklater, Woody Allen, and more.

Competition

Adagio; dir. Stefano Sollima

The Beast; dir. Bertrand Bonello

Io Capitano; dir. Matteo Garrone

Comandante; dir. Edoardo de Angelis

El Conde; dir. Pablo Larraín

Die Theorie von Allem; dir. Timm Kröger

Dogman; dir. Luc Besson

Enea; dir. Pietro Castellitto

Evil Does Not Exist; dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi

Ferrari; dir. Michael Mann

Finalmente L’Alba; dir. Saverio Costanzo

Green Border; dir. Agnieszka Holland

Holly; dir. Fien Troch

Hors-Saison; dir. Stéphane Brizé

The Killer; dir. David Fincher

Lubo; dir. Giorgio Diritti

The Promised Land; dir.

Includes films from David Fincher, Sofia Coppola, Ava DuVernay, Yorgos Lanthimos, Bradley Cooper and Ryusuke Hamaguchi.

Venice Film Festival announced the programme for its 80th edition, including a 23-strong Competition with new films from David Fincher, Sofia Coppola, Ava DuVernay, Yorgos Lanthimos, Bradley Cooper and Ryusuke Hamaguchi.

Scroll down for full line-up

The selection was announced by festival president Roberto Cicutto and artistic director Alberto Barbera. The SAG-AFTRA strike in the US has had a “quite modest” impact on the selection according to Barbera, who was forced to pull Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers as the opening film over the weekend due to the strike.

‘Six Months In The Pink And Blue Building’ takes 11th Co-Production Forum best project award.

The main industry prizes of Sebastian have been announced, with awards going to Bruno Santamaría’s Six Months In The Pink And Blue Building, Selman Nacar’s Hesitation Wound, and Martín Benchimol’s The Castle.

The 11th Co-Production Forum best project winner, Six Months In The Pink And Blue Building, marks the third directing credit from cinematographer-editor Santamaria and is told from the perspective of 10-year-old Bru, who is attracted to his friend Vlady and learns that his father has been diagnosed with HIV, sending shock waves through his family.

Six Months In The Pink And Blue Building takes 11th Co-production Forum best project award.

The main industry prizes of Sebastian have been announced, with awards going to Bruno Santamaría’s Six Months In The Pink And Blue Building, Selman Nacar’s Hesitation Wound, and Martín Benchimol’s The Castle.

The 11th Co-production Forum best project winner, Six Months In The Pink And Blue Building, marks the third directing credit from cinematographer-editor Santamaria and is told from the perspective of 10-year-old Bru, who is attracted to his friend Vlady and learns that his father has been diagnosed with HIV, sending shock waves through his family.

Mexico’s Bruno Santamaría, Argentina’s Martín Benchimol and Turkey’s Selman Nacar proved three of the big winners among San Sebastian Industry Awards, announced Wednesday.

João Paulo Miranda, already a young star on Brazil’s film scene after “Memory House,” meanwhile won the Ikusmira Berriak Award.

A Chicago Golden Hugo winner for doc feature “Things We Dare Not Do,” Santamaría swept two awards at the fest’s Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum, a Mecca for Latin America auteurs and their producers seeking vital co-production partners as state funding prospects have plunged across the region.

Also written by Santamaría, its heavily autobiographical story, set in the ’90s, follows 10-year-old boy Bru, whose father is diagnosed with HIV, sparking his parents break up.“I want to film the glances and conversations that my parents had in silence and which I couldn’t observe as a child and find some sense [in what happened],” Santamaría told Variety.

San Sebastian’s pix-in-post showcases, which have launched notable movies – Sebastian Lelio’s “Gloria” – and notable directors – Jayro Bustamante, introducing his debut “Ixcanul” – unspools in 2022, with the screenings of six Wip Latam titles taking place over Sept. 19 – 21. Wip Europe, with four titles, runs on Sept. 19 and 20.

In the mix is an awaited title from Chile, “Penal Cordillera,” directed by Felipe Carmona, produced by Dominga Sotomayor and Omar Zuñiga and sold by Luxbox, and “A Strange Path,” from Brazil’s Guto Parente, whose “The Cannibal Club,” acquired by Uncork’d Entertainment, made a stir by portraying a Brazil in which the rich literally eat the poor.

Also competing in Wip Latam is “A House in the Country,” from Davi Pretto whose “Rifle” – his second film, after the impressive “Castanha” – premiered at 67th Berlinale Forum and won the Grand Prize at Jeonju Intl. Film Festival.

The highest profile title in Wip Europe is “Hesitation Wound,...

Projects from Greece and Ukraine lead co-production awards.

Ukrainian drama Cherry Blossoms from director Marysia Nikitiuk has picked up one of the top prizes at Sarajevo Film Festival’s industry platform CineLink, which handed out its awards last night (August 18).

See below for full list of winners

The project was among 12 presented at the CineLink Co-Production Market and won the Eurimages Special Co-Production Development Award of €20,000.

Cherry Blossoms centres on a man and girl who escape territories in Ukraine occupied by Russia and meet a Bosnian woman who survived the Balkan wars as a child. Nikitiuk’s first feature, When The Trees Fall,...

A workplace incident pitches a young man into a battle of conscience with his family and the law in Selman Nacar’s debut

Turkish director Selman Nacar made a strong impression with his debut feature, a tough workplace-negligence drama at last year’s San Sebastian film festival. Its indirect narrative style and sense of insidious bureaucratic evasion put me in mind of the Romanian new wave: particularly the performance of Erdem Senocak as Yasin, the bland company lawyer whose task is to pressurise the families of injured employees into signing away their legal rights.

Mucahit Kocak plays Kadir, a pleasant young man who, with his more business-minded elder brother Halil (Bedir Bedir), has taken over the management of the family’s textile factory, on the retirement of their father Ibrahim (Ünal Silver). The work is hard, and the factory is having difficulty delivering on orders, but Kadir is happy enough,...

Festival to close with Pjer Zalica’s ‘May Labor Day’.

New film projects from Bulgarian filmmaker Stephan Komandarev and Renen Schorr, the former head of Jerusalem’s Sam Spiegel School for Film and Television, are among the 12 features selected for Sarajevo’s CineLink Work In Progress section.

The festival has also programmed the world premiere of Bosnian-Herzegovinian director Pjer Zalica’s May Labor Day as its closing film, on August 19.

Scroll down for the full list of projects

The Work In Progress strand consists of 10 fiction and two documentary projects, which will be presented to industry professionals including funders, sales agents,...

Mubi has announced its lineup of streaming offerings for next month and amongst the highlights is a tribute to Tilda Swinton, featuring I Am Love and a trio of early films: Cycling Frame, The Box, and Egomania: Island Without Hope. There’s also a handful of notable festival favorites and new releases from the past year or so, including Maureen Fazendeiro and Miguel Gomes’ The Tsugua Diaries, Charlotte Gainsbourg’s Jane by Charlotte, Ted Fendt’s Outside Noise, Émilie Aussel’s Our Eternal Summer, and Kofi Ofosu-Yeboah’s Public Toilet Africa.

Also including films by Takashi Miike, Fatih Akin, Zhang Yimou, Albert Maysles, Andrew Dominik, Rick Alverson, and more check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.

August 1 – Ichi the Killer, directed by Takashi Miike | Takashi Miike: A Double Bill

August 2 – Nest, directed by Hlynur Palmason | Brief Encounters

August 3 – Our Eternal Summer, directed by Émilie Aussel | Festival Focus:...

The Santa Barbara Film Festival on Thursday revealed the lineup for its 37th edition, which is set to run March 2-12 in-person in its customary spot in the heat of Oscar season.

The festival will kick off with The Phantom of the Open, the Sony Pictures Classics comedy directed by Craig Roberts and starring Mark Rylance in the true story of Maurice Fitcroft, who entered the 1976 British Open despite never having played a round of golf before. Sally Hawkins and Rhys Ifans also star in the BBC Films pic.

The documentary Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over is the closing-night film, with Warwick set to be in attendance.

Overall, the festival in the beach city just north of Los Angeles will present 48 world premieres and 95 U.S. premieres from 54 countries, with a lineup that features films from directors Neil Labute, Ramin Bahrani, François Ozon, Eva Husson and more.

Also...

Leila Hatami, Iranian actress, silver bear in Berlin for A Separation by Ashgar Faradhi, an Iranian film with one million admissions in France, will be the president of the international Jury. The other members are: Suha Arraf, director (Palestine), Zig Dulay, director (Philippines), Yerlan Nurmukhambetov, director (Kazakhstan), Tran Bich Quan, distributor-producer (France).

Koji Fukada, the rising star of Japanese directors, will present all of his films in world premiere.

Both will receive a Cyclo d’or d’honneur for their entire career or their work during the opening ceremony on February 1, 2022.

Moshen Makhmalbaf, multi-award-winning Iranian director, and Atiq Rahimi, Afghan director, Goncourt Prize 2008, signatories of the appeal of July 29, 2021 “let’s save Afghan artists! », will present several films during the Afghan Day.

A tribute will be paid to filmmaker Marc Haaz, technical director of Fica, who died tragically, at the age of 33, on July 30, 2021.

The complete films of Xei Fei,...

Germany’s Red Balloon Film and Palestine’s Fresco Films have boarded director Ameer Fakher Eldin’s second film “Nothing of Nothing Remains.” The film is part of a trilogy building on his first film, “The Stranger” (pictured), which premiered in Venice and represents Palestine at the Oscars in the International Feature Film category.

“Nothing of Nothing Remains” has received development and script funding from German regional funder Moin Film Fund in Hamburg. Fresco and Red Balloon are now moving into the financing phase for the film.

“It’s part of a trilogy,” Eldin tells Variety, speaking from Berlin. “The first film, ‘The Stranger,’ is about a stranger amongst his own people. The second one is about a stranger amongst strangers. I do not want to give too much away but it’s a story set in Germany. The third one will be set in France. All three films are about the theme of home.

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,...

Catalan director Clara Roquet’s teenage female friendship drama “Libertad” and Ferit Karahan’s social drama “Brother’s Keeper,” about Kurdish kids living in fear at a Turkish boarding school, won the best film awards respectively in the international and national competitions at Turkey’s 58th Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival which wrapped Saturday.

“Libertad,” a first feature that centers on a bond that forms during a summer in Spain’s Costa Brava between two young women from opposite sides of the tracks, was a recent Cannes Critics’ Week standout that has been making the festival rounds. Pic will soon segue from Antalya to the Rome Film Festival.

“Brother’s Keeper” is based on helmer Karahan’s own experience and follows two friends, Yusef and Memo, at a secluded boarding school for Kurdish boys in the mountains of Eastern Anatolia. When Memo falls mysteriously ill, Yusuf to try to help...