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The pioneering French-Iranian producer and sales agent leaves behind a long-lasting legacy

Pioneering producer and celebrated Celluloid Dreams founder Hengameh Panahi died on November 5 following a long illness, sending shockwaves of sadness throughout the international film community and leaving a long-lasting legacy of both championing auteur cinema and shaking up the status quo in her wake.

The revered French-Iranian industry executive was known for finding and following emerging directors and accompanying their films to festival glory and international acclaim. Her career spanned four decades and more than 800 films.

She worked alongside iconic directors from across the globe including Jacques Audiard,...

Hengameh Panahi, the celebrated French-Iranian producer who founded Celluloid Dreams and forged long-standing bonds with auteurs around the world, has died. She was 67.

Panahi, who worked with the likes of Jafar Panahi, Jacques Audiard, Hirokazu Kore-eda and Jia Zhangke, died on Nov. 5 after battling a long illness, according to a statement sent by a film publicist who worked with Panahi for many years.

Panahi was born in Iran and lived in Belgium from the age of 12 before moving to France in 1993. That’s where she founded the sales company Celluloid Dreams and played a major role in co-producing, co-financing and selling international rights to a number of politically minded films, such as Panahi’s Berlinale Golden Bear-winning “Taxi Tehran”; Audiard’s “A Prophet” and his Palme d’Or winning “Dheepan”; Ramin Mohseni’s ”From Afar”; Marjane Satrapi’s “Persepolis” and “Chicken With Plums”; and Iranian master Abbas Kiarostami’s “Where...

Jafar Panahi has been released on bail from Tehran’s Evin Prison, 48 hours after he went on a hunger strike in protest of his unlawful imprisonment.

The filmmaker’s wife Tahereh Saeidi and her lawyers Saleh Nikbakht and Yusef Moulai announced the news in a phone call to independent international cinema reporter Mansour Jahani, and on social media.

“Although I am happy about Mr. Panahi’s release; But it must be said that his release should have taken place three months ago, following the acceptance of our objection to his previous court decision,” Nikbakht said via press statement. “I am surprised by these ‘sledgehammer encounters’ with Mr. Panahi and other artists, writers, intellectuals and journalists and generally protestors of the status quo. As they even neglect to implement the decision of the highest judicial authority.”

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Director Jafar Panahi on Hunger Strike Protest of ‘Illegal and Inhumane’ Imprisonment in...

Directed by Panah Panahi, the son of jailed Iranian film-maker Jafar Panahi, this tense family drama is drenched in a subtle but urgent political meaning

Great child acting is rare: so is great adult acting, and so is great directing of children and adults. But they all come together in this lovely, beautifully composed debut feature drenched in a subtle but urgent political meaning. It comes from 38-year-old film-maker Panah Panahi, son of the Iranian director and pro-democracy activist Jafar Panahi, who has this month been sentenced to six years’ imprisonment for criticising the Iranian government.

It takes the form of a road movie, though that Hollywood term doesn’t really cover Hit the Road, which is part of Iranian cinema’s entirely distinct genre of films shot semi-covertly in a car, and has evolved to avoid Iranian state snooping. It is a mode of film-making using the interior possibilities of the car,...

After being arrested in Tehran last week, award-winning filmmaker Jafar Panahi has been ordered to serve six years in jail.

Per BBC, Iranian media reports Panahi was detained after going to Evin prison to inquire about the arrests of directors Mohammad Rasoulof and Mostafa Al-Ahmad. Rasoulof and Al-Ahmad had posted statements on social media decrying the government-sanctioned violence in response to protests in Abadan following the collapse of a building that killed more than 40 people. They were officially detained on charges of “inciting unrest and disrupting the psychological security of society”, state news agency Irna reported.

“Taxi” director Panahi had asked about the conditions and hopeful release of Rasoulof, as Panahi’s wife Tahereh Saeedi told BBC Persian. Once Panahi arrived at the prison, he was informed by guards that he had an outstanding prison sentence to serve and was arrested.

“Jafar has some rights as a citizen. There’s due process,...

It is the Iranian director’s first film since road movie 3 Faces which won best screenplay in competition at Cannes in 2018.

Paris-based Celluloid Dreams will kick off sales on Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s new feature No Bears at the upcoming edition of Cannes.

The drama follows two parallel love stories in which the partners are thwarted by hidden, inevitable obstacles, the force of superstition, and the mechanics of power.

It Is currently in post-production and will be ready for a launch at a festival this year.

It marks Panahi’s first fiction film since the road movie 3 Faces,...

Also opening: Disney’s ‘Encanto’, ‘Bad Luck Banging’.

Ridley Scott’s House Of Gucci and Reggie Yates’ Pirates head the openers at the UK-Ireland box office, in another bumper week of 17 theatrical debuts.

House Of Gucci is Scott’s second film to arrive in cinemas in six weeks, after medieval epic The Last Duel in mid-October.

Like that title, House Of Gucci tells a true story and boasts a stellar cast, led by Lady Gaga as Patrizia Reggiani, an ambitious woman who marries fashion heir Maurizio Gucci, played by Adam Driver. She pushes him to take over the family business,...

In today’s Global Bulletin, the European Film Academy and Berlin Film Festival call for Nasrin Sotoudeh’s immediate release from prison, Banijay appoints Dominique Farrugia as managing director for Endemol Shine in France, Amazon Prime Video announces a slate of sports docs in Spain, and the World Congress of Science and Factual Producers preps for December’s digital edition.

Call To Action

The European Film Academy and Berlin International Film Festival have released a joint call for the immediate release of writer and human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, featured in Jafar Panahi’s Golden Bear-winning “Taxi Teheran.”

Sotoudeh was arrested in June 2018 and sentenced to more than 30 years in prison and 148 whiplashes on charges many claim are dubious at best. Since Aug. 11 she has been on hunger strike as a response to inaction in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic at Teheran’s infamous Evin prison. She is currently in critical condition and,...

More than 5,000 people watched Curzon’s first in a new series of live-streamed Q&As.

Curzon has revealed that Portrait Of A Lady On Fire is now it’s most successful title to date on its streaming platform as UK audiences flock online in the wake of cinema closures.

Celine Sciamma’s romantic drama had been performing strongly in theatres for Curzon, grossing £557,000 at the UK box office, before theatres closed their doors amid the coronavirus crisis.

It has now become the most purchased title on Curzon Home Cinema (Chc), which overall recorded a 27% increase on premium VOD week-on-week from...

‘The Truth’ was the most-viewed title on Curzon Home Cinema from March 20-22.

Hirokazu Kore-Eda’s English and French-language drama The Truth was the most-streamed title on Curzon Home Cinema (Chc) last weekend (March 20-22) according to a top 10 of the most-viewed titles revealed by by the UK platform.

The Truth was set for theatrical release on March 20 via Curzon’s distribution arm but pivoted to an early digital release in the wake of cinema closures. Its release beat the previous best three-day figure on the platform by 66%. No further details of the numbers involved were given.

Celine Sciamma’s...

Hyde Park International to launch sales at Efm next week.

Robert Beeson’s New Wave Films has acquired all UK and Ireland rights on revenge thriller Rose Plays Julie, which Hyde Park International will introduce to worldwide buyers at the Efm in Berlin.

Ann Skelly stars alongside Orla Brady and Aidan Gillen from fast-rising writer/director duo Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor.

Skelly plays twentysomething Rose, who uncovers more than she bargained for when she tracks down her biological parents.

Finding her mother reluctant to have anything to do with her is just the beginning for Rose as she uncovers devastating,...

Exclusive: Celluloid sets down at Efm with biggest slate in years, adding two new Italian productions.

Paris-based sales agent Celluloid Dreams, at the European Film Market (Efm) this week with one of its biggest slates in recent years, has boarded sales on two high-profile Italian titles, Silvio Soldini’s [pictured] Emma and Marco Tullio Giordana’s Nome Di Donna.

Soldini’s Emma stars Adriano Giannini as a womanising creative director at a trendy ad agency who falls under the spell of a beautiful, married and blind osteopath. It is now in post-production. Videa has acquired Italian rights.

Tullio Giordana’s Nome Di Donne stars Cristiana Capotondi as a single mother who works at an old people’s home, where she discovers that the manager is sexually abusing the staff and she sets out to bring him to justice.

Celluloid Dreams president and head of acquisitions Hengameh Panahi acquired the films through her long-time contact, Lionello Cerri at Lumière...

Kino Lorber has acquired the North American rights to the elephant dramedy “Pop Aye,” which premiered in the Sundance Film Festival’s World Dramatic section on the opening night of the festival. The movie marks the debut feature for Singaporean writer-director Kirsten Tan and the first film from a Singaporean director to land an opening night slot at Sundance.

Set in Thailand, “Pop Aye” tells the story of a once-illustrious architect struggling with the impending demolition of his proudest work and the waning affection of his wife. After encountering his childhood pet elephant in the streets of Bangkok, he embarks on a quest across Thailand to return his old friend to the small village where they grew up.

“’Pop Aye’ is poetically profound, but the elephant in the room is really its warm heart,” Kino Lorber CEO Richard Lorber said in a statement. “We’re immensely pleased to be working...

The distributor has acquired North American rights to Singaporean writer-director Kirsten Tan’s debut feature.

Pop Aye takes place in Thailand and centres on an architect’s efforts to bring his long-lost elephant back to their rural hometown.

The film opened the World Cinema Dramatic Competition section when it premiered on Thursday and screens again on Wednesday and Friday.

Kino Lorber CEO Richard Lorber brokered the deal with Sébastien Chesneau, senior partner at the film’s sales agent Cercamon.

The distributor plans a summer theatrical release before VOD and home entertainment later in the year.

“My producers and I have long admired the library of Kino Lorber,” said Tan. “We are very excited for Pop Aye to be in the company of wonderful films such as Dogtooth, Days Of Being Wild, and Jafar Panahi’s Taxi. We look forward to sharing the film with Us audiences.”

”Pop Aye is currently charming Park City,” said Chesneau...

For whatever differences they may have had later in life, Jafar Panahi has displayed nothing immense grief over Abbas Kiarostami‘s recent passing. It’s initially strange to think that Instagram would be our primary source for these expressions, but ask yourself this: what format better fits a disenfranchised artist hoping to communicate with the world? It’s to our fortune that he’s expanded the response by producing his first (or first-seen) real follow-up to last year’s Taxi. Roughly titled Where Are You, Jafar Panahi?, it follows the filmmaker and Iranian director Majid Barzegar on a 20-minute drive to Kiarostami’s grave, during which time “the two friends speak appropriately of cinema, but also censorship and festivals, police power and ideology.”

From the significance of its concept — as both a continuation-of-sorts of Taxi‘s central conceit and an enactment of Kiarostami’s beloved car dialogues — to a tender...

Exclusive: Hengameh Panahi re-expands historic art-house sales company Celluloid Dreams

Experienced sales executive Frédérique Rouault has joined Paris-based Celluloid Dreams as head of sales.

Rouault - who was previously VP international sales at TF1 Studio (formerly TF1 International) - is debuting in her new role at the Afm.

She describes the move as a “strongly personal one” based on her love of independent auteur cinema with international appeal.

“After my time at TF1 International where I learned so much I wanted to get back to my first love and the sorts of films I love and want to defend. It’s with great pride that I join a company which corresponds so closely to what I was looking for,” said Rouault.

A former alumnus of elite higher education institution Sciences Po and then France’s prestigious La Fémis film school, Rouault cut her teeth in the film business at Paulo Branco’s Alfama Films before heading to TF1.

Celluloid...

The Iranian director talks to Screen about capturing contemporary Iranian youth and Tehran in Malaria.

Iranian director Parviz Shahbazi makes his Venice debut with contemporary drama Malaria about two young elopers who find temporary refuge with a bohemian band in Tehran.

Ingeniously piecing the tale together through images found on a lost cell phone, Shahbazi paints an at once joyful and sombre picture of contemporary Tehran and the compromised reality of Iranian youth.

Iranian film and TV star Saed Soheili co-stars as the hot-headed Murry who flees the provinces with his girlfriend Hanna, played by big screen newcomer Saghar Ghanaat, incurring the wrath of her violent father.

Azarakhsh Farahani, brother of Golshifteh Farahani, also features in the cast as Avi, the chaotic leader of an impoverished rock band called Malaria who picks-up the couple as they thumb a lift to Tehran.

It marks the beginning of a youthful adventure, taking the couple into the heart of the...

Editor’s note: With the death of renowned Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami over the weekend, IndieWire has been reaching out to some of his friends and collaborators to reflect on his significance. The following thoughts from fellow Iranian director Jafar Panahi — who is currently restricted to traveling within the country and banned from filmmaking by his government — were provided to IndieWire by way of journalist and translator Jamsheed Akrami. Panahi’s most recent film, “Taxi,” was released last year.

Mr. Kiarostami, My Teacher

My most vivid recollection of all the years I spent with Mr. Kiarostami is probably the first one. As an aspiring filmmaker, I desperately wanted to work with him. When I learned he was in preproduction for “Through the Olive Trees,” I just picked up the phone and left him a message saying that I was a film graduate employed by the Iranian Television and was interested...

Exclusive: Rome-based distributor Cinema pre-bought six new titles at Cannes.

Italian distribution veteran Valerio De Paolis may have completed the sale of his company Bim to Wild Bunch two years ago but he shows no intention of retiring on the proceeds from the deal.

The distributor has announced a slew of Cannes acquisitions for his burgeoning Rome-based distribution label Cinema.

Pre-buys at Cannes included David Robert Mitchell’s La-set thriller Under The Silver Lake; Michel Hazanavicius’s 1960s-set Jean-Luc Godard tribute Redoubtable from Wild Bunch and Aki Kaurismaki’s The Other Side Of Hope from The Match Factory.

“I love...

Exclusive: Rome-based distributor Cinema pre-bought six new titles at Cannes.

Italian distribution veteran Valerio De Paolis may have completed the sale of his company Bim to Wild Bunch two years ago but he shows no intention of retiring on the proceeds from the deal.

The distributor has announced a slew of Cannes acquisitions for his burgeoning Rome-based distribution label Cinema.

Pre-buys at Cannes included David Robert Mitchell’s La-set thriller Under The Silver Lake; Michel Hazanavicius’s 1960s-set Jean-Luc Godard tribute Redoubtable from Wild Bunch and Aki Kaurismaki’s The Other Side Of Hope from The Match Factory.

“I love...

Exclusive: Rome-based distributor pre-bought six new titles at Cannes.

Italian distribution veteran Valerio De Paolis may have completed the sale of his company Bim to Wild Bunch two years ago but he shows no intention of retiring on the proceeds from the deal.

The distributor has announced a slew of Cannes acquisitions for his burgeoning Rome-based distribution label Cinema.

Pre-buys at Cannes included David Robert Mitchell’s La-set thriller Under The Silver Lake; Michel Hazanavicius’s 1960s-set Jean-Luc Godard tribute Redoubtable from Wild Bunch and Aki Kaurismaki’s The Other Side Of Hope from The Match Factory.

“I love Godard...

Jonathan Gross, the president of the Canadian distributor, announced the rebrand on Tuesday 23 years after launching the company.

The full–service distributor owns a catalogue of hundreds of film and TV titles and has ongoing distribution agreements with Magnolia, Film Movement, Kino Lorber and Synapse, among others.

Upcoming films and TV releases include Sundance and Hot Docs Selection Tickled, Tiff selection Sunset Song, Participant’s new investigative series Truth & Power, and Canadian theatrical releases No Men Beyond This Point, and First Round Down, now in post-production.

“This is mostly cosmetic because the word ‘Video’ has become somewhat quaint in these meme-orable times” said Gross. “Vsc was actually concocted in a hurry because we started the company on short notice by buying the contents of Video Entertainment Corp. in Kitchener.

“It was a gamble. Back then our sole distribution platform was VHS and maybe a little Betamax. Today there are more formats than video stores. The name Unobstructed...

Jonathan Gross, the president of the Canadian distributor, announced the rebrand on Tuesday 23 years after launching the company.

The full–service distributor owns a catalogue of hundreds of film and TV titles and has ongoing distribution agreements with Magnolia, Film Movement, Kino Lorber and Synapse, among others.

Upcoming films and TV releases include Sundance and Hot Docs Selection Tickled, Tiff selection Sunset Song, Participant’s new investigative series Truth & Power, and Canadian theatrical releases No Men Beyond This Point, and First Round Down, now in post-production.

“This is mostly cosmetic because the word ‘Video’ has become somewhat quaint in these meme-orable times” said Gross. “Vsc was actually concocted in a hurry because we started the company on short notice by buying the contents of Video Entertainment Corp. in Kitchener.

“It was a gamble. Back then our sole distribution platform was VHS and maybe a little Betamax. Today there are more formats than video stores. The name Unobstructed...

Lorenzo Vigas’ Venice Golden Lion winner From Afar and César Augusto Acevedo’s Cannes Critics Week France 4 Visionary Award winner Land And Shade will screen at the International Film Festival of Panama.

Both selections will play in the Ibero American Showcase under the auspices of Iff Panama 2016, which runs from April 7-13.

Italian actress Lucía Bosé will be guest of honour at the festival’s fifth edition when three of films will screen — Death Of A Cyclist, Story Of A Love Affair, and No Peace Under The Olive Tree. High Heels will screen in special presentation.

Ibero American Showcase entries include Anna Muylaert’s Brazilian foreign language Oscar submission My Second Mother, Álex de la Iglesia’s My Big Night (Spain), 3 Beauties (Venezuela) by Carlos Caridad-Montero, and Spy Time (Spain) by Javier Ruiz Caldera.

Rounding out the section are: The Apostate (Spain-France-Uruguay) by Federico Veiroj; Road To La Paz (Argentina) by Francisco Varone; Semana Santa (Mexico) by [link...

This 66th edition of the Berlinale did not focus so much on films as it did on issues, especially the issue of mass migration including Germany’s one million immigrants being welcomed by Angela Merkel. The sentiment of the Berlinale was expressed by Festival Director Dieter Kosslick in his introductory comment, “We are 90 million Germans. What are one million Syrians? We spent billions and billions to educate our kids, to teach them what happened in the Holocaust.” Nevertheless, the controversy throughout Germany and Europe continues to grow, as it does in the U.S. about what to do about the massive wave of migration, as if there were any other place the people, dispossessed and disposed of by their governments and the governments of the west to go.

Dealing with the plight of African and Syrian refugees, “Fire at Sea”/ “Fuocoammare” by Giovanni Rosi won the Golden Bear led by the jury president Meryl Streep. All North American rights have subsequently been acquired from its international sales agent, Doc & Film by Kino Lorber who plans an autumn release. “Gianfranco Rosi captured the hearts and minds of the Berlinale this year with what will become one of the essential films of our times,” said CEO Richard Lorber. The Italian distributor 01 Distribution profited from its Saturday night Golden Bear win as the Italian box office’s Sunday profits spiked +166%. Tuesday’s take was 40% up on Monday’s box office. By Wednesday the film had taken $169.5k (€154k) and the following weekend 01 almost doubled screens to 76. Imovision took Brazil, Caramel took Spain, Curzon took U.K. Rosi previously won the 2013 Venice Golden Lion for his documentary “Sacro Gra”.

“Fire at Sea” captures today’s Zeitgeist. Though it may not be a film of the highest merit when judged over time, it is the film with the highest contemporary-social-issue-political focus.

Its story is told from a superior point of view; what misery we see of the immigrants’ plight makes us sad and depressed – though not as much as the actual footage we see daily on the news. The only uplift we receive is to witness the acts of the good physician Pietro Bartolo. He not only cares for the island’s 4,000 inhabitants as they go about their daily business of fishing, keeping house, and going to school without much interaction with the invasion of refugees, but he also cares for the 400,000 immigrants from Africa and the Middle East, treating them or identifying them as already dead. As he said at his press conference, “This has become a dramatic problem, an epochal problem. I don’t think that a barbed-wire fence can stop these people. I don’t think there’s a person on earth who wants to leave his country if he isn’t forced to.”

A noble effort, the film in many ways misses the boat. Not to say that any other film was better (I did not see them all), but to make a point about the Berlinale itself as a festival, I note here the majority of other films in the Competition all had socially relevant foci and that is the point of the Berlinale. It is to its credit that it takes a stand and to its detriment that perhaps the films chosen do not attain cinematic stature internationally. The recent years’ Golden Bear winners were (in my opinion) certainly worthy with a couple of exceptions. “Caesar Must Die” a doc about Italian prisoners engaging in the production of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” and “Black Coal, Thin Ice” a Chinese hard-boiled detective saga were both quickly forgotten.

Memorable winners worth noting were in 2011 with Iran’s “ Jodaeiye Nader az Simin/ “A Separation”, Romania’s 2013 “ Poziţia Copilului”/ “Child‘s Pose” and again from Iran in 2015, Jafar Panahi’s “ Taxi”.

Looking at the other films in Competition this year, Mohamed Ben Attia’s “Hedi”(Isa: The Match Factory, sold to date to Austria’s Polyfilm, Germany’s Pandora, Norway’s Mer Film, Switzerland ’s Cineworx, Taiwan’s Maison Motion) deals with a quiet man’s personal struggle for freedom from the constraints of his Tunisian society; Ivo M. Ferreira’s “Letters from War” (Isa: The Match Factory) deals with the final years of the Angolan War of Independence against Portugal in 1961-74; Danis Tanovic deals with the more recent Bosnian War as a Frenchman sits in his hotel room while a World War I Commemoration takes place in Sarajevo in “Death in Sarajevo” (Isa: The Match Factory); protests against the Nazi regime are the subject of “Alone in Berlin” (Isa: Cornerstone, the new sales company of Alison Thompson and Mark Gooder, sold to Altitude for U.K., Pathe for France. X Film, the producer keeps German rights) by Vincent Perez; in Rafi Pitts’ “Soy Nero”( Isa: The Match Factory, sold to date to Neue Visionen for Germany, Sophie Dulac Distribution for France, Ama Films for Greece, Bomba Films for Poland, Filmarti for Turkey,MegaCom for Serbia and Montenegro, Moving Turtle for Lebanon, trigon-film for Switzerland) about a 19-year-old Mexican boy dreaming of immigrating north to the U.S. who takes the route of joining the U.S. Army to fight in the Middle East in order to get his “green card”. The Philippine Revolution against Spanish Colonization is treated in a 482 minute epic “ A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery” (Isa: Films Boutique) by Lav Diaz. In “United States of Love” (Isa: Films New Europe sold to Imovision for Brazil and Angel for Denmark), four women share the urge to change their lives in 1990, immediately after the fall of Communism. All of these films are dealing with issues of gaining freedom today. “Being 17”(Isa: Elle Driver sold Belgium to Lumière, Brazil to F ênix, France to Wild Bunch, Serbia to McF Megacom, Switzerland to Frenetic) by Andre Techine also deals with adolescents growing up gay in a working-class neighborhood in France, another current human rights issue.

These film choices remind us that the Berlinale itself was founded in 1950 during the Cold War as West Berlin’s way of confronting East Berlin’s imprisonment of its people by flaunting its own freedom, a truly Berlin way of life which still today animates its spirit of freedom. This casts a certain character upon the films chosen by the Berlinale selection committee to this day.

A political tone of the festival was also echoed by the pronouncement “We are all Africans really” spoken by Meryl Streep when she was questioned about why the Berlin Film Festival had appointed an all-white jury (not that she was responsible for choosing the jury).

Meryl Streep’s rather blithe comment, to quote Lindiwe Dovey in The Guardian , “plunged the actress into a debate about the lack of diversity in Hollywood. At best, Streep’s comment was an attempt to show solidarity. But what she unwittingly also underlined was the absence of Africans and African filmmaking in mainstream cinema. If we really are all Africans, and if we are going to take black filmmaking more seriously, why are we not watching African films?” Again, Streep is not responsible for the Berlinale’s selection either.

Only five African films are being shown at this year's festival and they are not all sub-Saharan African, that is to say “black”, but are also North African -- that is to say of the Mena region or Arab. These are two very different aspects of the giant continent called Africa. We are seeing many films from the Mena, that is Arab and North African regions this year.

In an attempt to find answers to this question of why we are not seeing more “black” films, we attended the Berlinale World Cinema Fund’s “Africa Day”. This one-off, and therefore insufficient, day was dedicated to discussing the memory, present and future of African films. Insufficient for finding answers and for creating any call for action, the day was, nonetheless, important and for that we all should thank the German Federal Cultural Foundation for providing the funds which guarantee the existence of the World Cinema Fund until at least 2018 and to the German Foreign Office, which substantially raised its level of support allowing the Wcf additional discretion in its actions.

The presentation by Nigerian film critic Didi Anni Cheeka was a fascinating exposé of what has happened to the “archives” of Nigerian cinema. The 60s to the 80s’ post-colonial cinema is not discussed today at all and Cheeka has searched for those filmmakers, called “The Seven Ups” who worked along with such filmmakers as Chris Marker and Alain Resnais. The Ministry of Information in Nigeria gave him permission to organize the films of the 60s which were lost during the Civil War in a collective amnesia. In the process, he discovered a room closed, locked and forgotten in the 1960s at the end of the independent movements throughout Africa, a room containing movie machines and more than 2,000 cans of films laying around like dusty dead bodies. This and other sad cases have revealed that in fact, there are no archives of African cinema at all.

But even the later Nollywood producers do not have copies of their films. Memories of what Africa looked like are lost along with the artistic efforts of its cineastes. Silence has been instilled by the governments of today as well.

Cinema as culture does not really exist in Africa. To create awareness takes education, leisure, city life and a cultural and cinema community nourishing one another. More than production funds, awareness needs the support of people with ideas.

Cheeka also stated, "We have the strange situation that new cineplexes are coming up every day, but they only show Hollywood movies. It's a common problem all over Africa: High quality movies from the continent hardly find an audience or even a place to be shown. Without a market in sight, few high-quality movies are shot. Only so-called ‘Nollywood movies’, mostly produced in Nigeria in just a few days or weeks, are thriving. Nigeria's movie industry earns around Us $250 million from Nollywood movies. This is the first time an economy has been established around the notion of film. In 1999 the first Nollywood delegaton came to Sithengi, the South African Film Market and they took over. Last year in Nigeria, many layers of Nollywood were apparent; the usual low budget exploitation or dramatic movie was giving space to other kinds of film. This opens the possibility of further discussion of film economy in all Africa, from Algeria to South Africa.

Pedro Pimento, Director of the Durban International Film Festival, gave the keynote address analyzing the lack of African film and the lack of distribution for what few African films there are. This was the high point of the day as he was heard loud and clear, at least by me, as he was articulate and to the point.

Pedro Pimenta is a filmmaker and producer from Mozambique. He produced the 1997 film "Fools", the first feature film shot by a black South African, Ramadan Suleman, and the same year "Africa Dreaming" a chronicle of Africa in six acts, with the common theme the love. Pimenta is also "foreign corresponding member" of the "Association of Real Cinema" the international meeting of documentary films held at the Pompidou Center in Paris created in 1978 which invites the public and professionals to discover film auteurs. The producer-director is also the founder and director of the documentary film festival "Dockanema" in Maputo, Mozambique. The first edition was held in September 2006 with support from the Mozambican Ebano Multimedia, in association with Amocine (Mozambican Association of Filmmakers).

According to Pimenta, "the documentary is an observation and testimony which brings the spectator something which otherwise would be merely read as news and quickly forgotten. Directed by great filmmakers, it can be a work of art; made by an amateur holding a small hand-held camera, it is a daily familiar record of an historic moment. The documentary brings us closer to the great achievements of the better side of humanity even as it brings us the violent scourge of today's world. It thus gives us the opportunity to replace prejudice by solidly based judgments and to take conscious positions."

Pedro Pimenta started his movie career with the National film Institute of Mozambique in 1977. Since then, he has produced and co-produced numerous short fiction, documentaries and feature movies in his country as well as in other African nations.

Between 1997 and 2003 Pedro was the chief Technical Adviser of the Unesco Zimbabwe Film and Video Training Project for Southern Africa in Harare. As part of his function, he conceived and managed various training programs. He is one of the founders of Avea (Audio Visual Entrepreneurs of Africa) which runs an annual training program for professional producers in Southern Africa. Until December 2005, Pedro was a member of the Prince Claus Fund Awards Committee of the Netherlands.

He presented practical and pragmatic steps for a concrete approach to invigorate African Cinema.

First of all, there is no case for Africa as a country. It is too diverse and too vast. Knowing the context(s) of film, there is a solution. However, there is a total lack of reliable data vis á vis Africa, just as there has been a lack of data for the case of women in film until the past couple of years. A structure as a way to access information must be built. Experience has been accumulated for what works and what does not work in changing contexts; there are constant paradigm shifts; there is “generational regeneration” in content every few years; but all facts are anecdotal and not data oriented.

And there is the traditional value chain of cinema going like this:

The money follows from production costs to recoupment through distribution and it should be put back into film education along with production. The weakest point in the chain is exhibition.

Currently there is good energy, but there is no system. There are two recognized international film festivals and Mogadishu might be a third festival but it will take four to five years. There were attempts to create Pan African film distribution utopias, but they failed. Neither the British nor the French ever involved themselves in distribution systems and the models died.

From the mid 80s to 2000 the Imf World Bank’s involvement in Africa was built on a model of all nations feeding off of Mother Africa like a litter of trucks feeding off the oil tank that was Africa.

Today, the need to control distribution is apparent and it can generate money, but governments have made it clear that culture today is a “negative priority”. International corporations serve as African nations’ only means of survival.

While commercial distribution models have failed, the number of film festivals has increased. Out of the 54 countries in Africa, only two have no film festival. From 1980 to 2000 there were only two countries with festivals. Plus there is the current digital revolution which points to new directions one can go.

If any form of distribution reaches a critical mass like that of Nollywood, the governments can think critically about its policies. Keep an eye on the cinemas opening in Ethiopia which are based on local demands for local films. Ethiopia is currently producing 200 films per year. Uganda has informal screening spaces located all over the capital city. Pathé looks like it might have a shot in Francophone Africa. These examples all go to show there is a small cultural economy through cinema.

Morocco and Mauritius have local incentives to encourage local production.

But overall, exhibition is the weakest link in the value chain shown above.

In 2016 we see Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Iroko TV/ Buni. We see TV, African Films and TV, Vidi, On Tap TV etc.

However, I am of the belief that VOD is not the answer for Africa and African cinema. A minority of so-called middle class Africans, who do not identify or show interest for African films will have access. The majority of Africans (the market) are left on the sideline (once again) and are not really considered in any strategy.

But with 1.4 billion people, 60% of whom live in urban settings and with a majority of young people, young consumers – one out of three being “middle class”, there is a demand for entertainment. But we need to find the reality and economy of Our Cinema.

There is a demand for a mirror of oneself. The origin of an audience is Our Grandmother. What does she say about our ideas? She was the storyteller who passed our values on to this new generation. How can our creative cinema advance if we do not head this real mirror.

Here are the transversal issues:

1. Training vs. Education. There are many training initiatives in Africa, but what of film education? To train an audience, to train storytellers rather than to train support for outside production companies shooting in Africa is imperative.

2. Relevance of data. Data is limited to say the least.

3. Role of the producer in Africa’s content and support strategies.

4. Role of film festivals. By default they are the exhibitor of African content throughout Europe and they are part of a larger year-round circuit supporting African films for African audiences.

5. European support models only create two to three projects a year. This includes Hubert Bals Fund of Netherlands, Cinema du Monde of France, World Cinema Fund of Germany and Acp of the European Market.

We need new ways and a new system of support from Europe that is matched by support from Africa. Any system based on support however is not adequate.

“Screen space” is not necessarily a theater. It can be universities, museums; it might be similar to the recent attempts in Cuba of “salon cinemas” which were separate rooms in restaurants and hair salons.

Another model might be Argentina’s building of 45 digital cinemas throughout Latin America for Latin American content or the recent creation of Retina Latina, a free online service of Latin American films for Latin America.

The Market exists. There is a lot of money in Africa. The problem is that the money's offices are in London.

Pimento’s response when I sent him Meryl Streep’s comment as it was reported in The Guardian follows.

“Interesting but what bothers me really is the fact that we never really critically talk about quality (or not) of African films and also the belief that things will happen out of some divine intervention and not by triggering purposeful market dynamics .

I find also that using Ms. Streep’s comment as a way to reach some visibility does not necessarily reflect any intellectual honesty… it’s just a quick expedient for a sector of dogmatic- bordering-on-racism African filmmakers who claim the rest of the world needs to provide solutions to their problems/ frustrations/ obstacles .....

There are many less visible examples of positive African people and initiatives driven by the notion that our destiny is in our hands really and not in the hands of any international cooperation/ aid/ humanitarian system."...

In this special episode of Off The Shelf, Ryan and Brian take a look at the new DVD and Blu-ray releases for Tuesday, March 1st 2016.

Subscribe in iTunes or RSS.

News Upcoming Warner Archive titles Absent Minded Professor on Disney Movie Club ThunderBean: Cubby Bear Pre-order Shout Factory: Rollercoaster, Two-minute Warning Scream Factory: Raising Caine, The Crush, Jeepers Creepers 1 & 2 Kino: Making Contact, Ape (3D Bluray) Plain Archive: Foxcatcher (Sold out) Episode Links & Notes Audition (Arrow UK Release) The Boy Cop Creed The Danish Girl Death Note: Complete Series Decline of Western Civilization Decline of Western Civilization Part II Gog 3D Jafar Panahi’s Taxi Kung Fu Trailers Of Fury L’Inhumaine Lego DC Comics Super Heroes: Justice League – Cosmic Clash Legend Lego Star Wars: Droid Tales Paprika Pieces The Rosary Murders The Sinful Dwarf Something Different / A Bagful of Fleas Strange Brew Transformations Youth Credits Ryan Gallagher (Twitter...

Every week we dive into the cream of the crop when it comes to home releases, including Blu-ray and DVDs, as well as recommended deals of the week. Check out our rundown below and return every Tuesday for the best (or most interesting) films one can take home. Note that if you’re looking to support the site, every purchase you make through the links below helps us and is greatly appreciated.

Creed (Ryan Coogler)

Perhaps after one well-remembered surprise hit and five sequels of quality varying from passable to laughable disaster, no one expected much from Ryan Coogler’s new spin on the Rocky franchise. But Coogler freed himself of the burden of trying to follow its footsteps while doing exactly that. Creed is Hollywood filmmaking at its absolute zenith: a film that sets up archetypes and, without subverting them, turns them into breathing characters who don’t have character goals,...

Daniel Craig works his way through the Bond playlist in Spectre. And Taxi Tehran takes a back seat

So, the sky did not fall after all: three years after the rules of the James Bond franchise were mildly rewritten with some personal business, another instalment comes rumbling along, and it’s much like the ones that went before it. Strenuously so, in fact, as the very title of Spectre (Fox, 12) explicitly harks back to the chief antagonist force of Bond’s most swinging era, now minus the cold war trappings. Indeed, the whole film plays as a kind of eager 007 megamix, mashing together a heap of narrative and iconographic elements from the series’ history: here an ejector-seat expulsion, there a fluffy white cat (with whatever that implies about its attendant owner). Sam Mendes made a significant effort in Skyfall to redesign the Bond film as prestige cinema; in his second...

Exclusive: Andrew Haigh’s 45 Years follow-up will shoot in the Us this summer.

Paris-based The Bureau Sales and Celluloid Dreams have partnered to secure international distribution rights to Andrew Haigh’s next film Lean on Pete, an adaptation of Willy Vlautin’s acclaimed novel of the same title.

The film unites Haigh with his habitual producer Tristan Goligher. The BFI and Film4, are backing the project, with the latter having supported development too.

The Bureau Sales and Celluloid Dreams are launching sales on the film at the Efm.

Vlautin’s novel revolves around Charley – a 15-year-boy from a chaotic background who sets off on a perilous journey in search of his long lost aunt and a possible home.

His quest takes him from the horseracing track at Portland Meadows, through the sage-bush of the Oregon desert to the streets of Denver. His sole companion is the stolen racehorse Lean on Pete.

Shooting is scheduled...

Exclusive: Arthouse kingpin will sell Mani Haghighi’s A Dragon Arrives!.

The Match Factory has picked up international sales rights to Berlin competition entry A Dragon Arrives! (Ejhdeha Vared Mishavad!), the new feature from Iranian writer-director Mani Haghighi.

Based on a true story, the Farsi-language adventure-mystery follows three adventurous young men who are put in danger by their unauthorized investigation into the legend of a seismological phenomenon in an ancient graveyard on a mysterious island.

Haghighi produces under the banner of his Teheran-based production company Dark Precursor Productions in association with Crossfade Films.

The director’s previous feature was black-comedy Modest Reception, which won the Netpac Prize for best Asian film at the 2012 Berlinale.

The film is the fourth in Competition for German indie powerhouse The Match Factory, whose typically robust Berlinale slate also includes Rafi Pitt’s Soy Nero, Letters From War by Ivo M. Ferreira and Death In Sarajevo by Danis Tanović.

Panorama titles...

Exclusive: Indie sales kingpin will sell Mani Haghighi’s Competition title.

The Match Factory has picked up international sales rights to Berlin competition entry A Dragon Arrives! (Ejhdeha Vared Mishavad!), the new feature from Iranian writer-director Mani Haghighi.

Based on a true story, the Farsi-language adventure-mystery follows three adventurous young men who are put in danger by their unauthorized investigation into the legend of a seismological phenomenon in an ancient graveyard on a mysterious island.

Haghighi produces under the banner of his Teheran-based production company Dark Precursor Productions in association with Crossfade Films.

The director’s previous feature was black-comedy Modest Reception, which won the Netpac Prize for best Asian film at the 2012 Berlinale.

The film is the fourth in Competition for German indie powerhouse The Match Factory, whose typically robust Berlinale slate also includes Rafi Pitt’s Soy Nero, Letters From War by Ivo M. Ferreira and Death In Sarajevo by Danis Tanović.

Panorama titles...

Arnaud Desplechin's "My Golden Years" and Xavier Giannoli's "Marguerite" (which will close this year's Santa Barbara International Film Festival) beat out Jacques Audiard's Palme d'Or winner, "Dheepan" (nine nominations) and Deniz Gamze Ergüven's Oscar-nominated "Mustang" (nine). Also competing for Best Film at the 41st César's are Maïwenn's "Mon Roi" (eight), starring Best Actress nominee Emmanuelle Bercot — whose own film, "Standing Tall," also received 8 nominations, including Bercot for Best Director. Among the nominees for Best Foreign Film are last year's Oscar winner for Best Picture, "Birdman," Jafar Panahi's "Taxi," and Ergüven's stiffest competitor in the race for the Best Foreign-Language Film Oscar, "Son of Saul." Read the full list of nominees below. Read More: "How French Oscar Entry 'Mustang' Finds the 'Orgasmic' Joy of...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit the interwebs. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.

The Diary of a Teenage Girl (Marie Heller)

Writer-director Marie Heller paints an accurate, honest, and vibrant portrait of her young protagonist, Minnie (Bel Powley), in The Diary of a Teenage Girl. With the use of some beautiful hand-drawn animation, an enlightening and funny narration, and Powley’s versatile performance, this is about as intimate as a subjective picture gets. We experience the world as this young girl does.

It’s that time of year. Sleigh bells have been rung, gifts have been given and we have officially closed the door on what was 2015. A year that saw us once again take a journey into a galaxy far, far away, revisit the post apocalyptic landscape of Mad Max and the ever expanding reach of world and documentary cinema, 2015 has been one of the greatest of film years, arguably the very best since 2007 (probably cinema’s greatest year?) and as one has likely already one hundred top [insert arbitrary number] films list, why not make it one hundred and one? Be it a group of young women attempting to break free of the backwards patriarchy that has them oppressed or a bravura, epic-length satire from one of world cinema’s foremost artists, these are the ten best films that 2015 had to offer.

Honorable mention: Have you heard about this new thing called television?...

With all the year's films now out in U.S. theaters, Metacritic.com has revealed what films, games and TV shows were the best of the year based on the aggregate scores of the top critics. I've divided the lists into three sections - films, TV shows and major video games. Check out the scores below:

Best Films

This list does Not include old film re-releases. Films also have to have over a dozen reviews to be considered, which is why high scoring works like "Virunga," "Big Men," "Night Will Fall" and "Stand Clear of the Closing Doors" are not included.

"Carol" - 96/100

"Anomalisa," "45 Years" - 95/100

"Inside Out" - 94/100

"Spotlight," "Sherpa" - 93/100

"Timbuktu," "The Look of Silence" - 92/100

"Jafar Panahi's Taxi" - 91/100

"Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem," "Hard to Be a God" - 90/100

"Mad Max: Fury Road," "Phoenix," "Son of Saul" - 89/100

"Democrats" - 88/100

"Brooklyn," " Diary of a Teenage Girl,...

Find out what made our top 10 films of 2015 - and which films racked up the most mentions from Team Screen.Scroll down for Screen’s overall top 10

Screen’s esteemed critics have had their turn. Now, Screen staff, contributors and correspondents reveal their favourite films of 2015.

Matt Mueller (Editor)

Force Majeure (dir. Ruben Ostlund)Mad Max: Fury Road (dir. George Miller)The Look Of Silence (dir. Joshua Oppenheimer)The Revenant (dir. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu)Ex Machina (dir. Alex Garland)Amy (dir. Asif Kapadia)Sunset Song (dir. Terence Davies)Tangerine (dir. Sean Baker)The Martian (dir. Ridley Scott)Anomalisa (dirs. Duke Johnson, Charlie Kaufman)Michael Rosser (Managing editor)

Son Of Saul (dir. Laszlo Nemes)Star Wars: The Force Awakens (dir. Jj Abrams)Ex Machina (dir. Alex Garland)Room (dir. Lenny Abrahamson)The Martian (dir. Ridley Scott)Inside Out (dirs. Pete Docter, Ronnie Del Carmen)Amy (dir. Asif Kapadia)45 Years (dir. Andrew Haigh)Slow West (dir. John Maclean)[link=tt...

Disney juggernaut set to play in a host of UK independent cinemas but some venues are resisting.

As UK independent cinemas increasingly bite on blockbusters and studio-level films, the majority of London’s independent cinemas will be screening Star Wars: The Force Awakens from Thursday, December 17.

A fleet of London independents, including most of the capital’s Picturehouse and Curzon venues, are due to show the film, helping to boost the site count beyond an expected 600+ venues.

For some, however, it wasn’t an easy decision.

Kate McCarthy, head of business operations at single screen indie stalwart The Phoenix, told Screen:

“The decision was taken to show Star Wars after quite a bit of discussion with our trustees, because obviously it’s not the regular choice for us.”

“We felt we wouldn’t do Star Wars and Spectre because it makes the ‘independent cinema’ tag slightly less true…but we hope it will enable us to show...

Disney juggernaut set to play in a host of UK independent cinemas but some venues remain defiant.

As UK independent cinemas increasingly bite on blockbusters and studio-level films, the majority of London’s independent cinemas will be screening Star Wars: The Force Awakens from Thursday, December 17.

A fleet of London independents, including most of the capital’s Picturehouse and Curzon venues, are due to show the film, helping to boost the site count beyond an expected 600+ venues.

For some, however, it wasn’t an easy choice.

Kate McCarthy, head of business operations at single screen indie stalwart The Phoenix, told Screen:

“The decision was taken to show Star Wars after quite a bit of discussion with our trustees, because obviously it’s not the regular choice for us.”

“We felt we wouldn’t do Star Wars and Spectre because it makes the ‘independent cinema’ tag slightly less true…but we hope it will enable us to show...

Rushes collects news, articles, images, videos and more for a weekly roundup of essential items from the world of film.Setsuko Hara, 1920 - 2015The great Japanese actress of Yasujiro Ozu's Late Spring and Mikio Naruse's Repast passed away in September but the news has only recently been released. An indelible screen presence whose absence from movies has been felt every year since 1966.My MotherTop 10s: Cahiers du Cinéma + Sight & SoundFor us it's still too early to make judgement—we've hardly caught up with all of 2015's great cinema!—but the esteemed magazines of Cahiers du Cinéma and Sight & Sound have made their selections for the best of the year:Cahiers du Cinéma1. My Mother (Nanni Moretti)2. Cemetery of Splendour (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)3. In the Shadow of Women (Philippe Garrel)4. The Smell of Us (Larry Clark)5. Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller)6. Jauja (Lisandor Alonso)7. Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson)8. Arabian Nights...

With the calendar about to turn to December, one thing you can count on is a ton of Ten Ten/Best of the Year lists beginning to come down the pike. From critics groups to guilds to various organizations and publications, now is the time to start feting the top titles of 2015. This year, the season of giving, as it were, has begun with Sight & Sound publishing their esoteric list of the top 20 releases of 2015. This European film magazine is highly respected and always makes interesting choices, with this year being no exception. You’ll see that list below, though I also want to talk about what might do the best during this section of 2015 as well. We’ve got 32 days left in the year, so it’s very much crunch time, in all senses of the term. Which films from this year stand to do best with Top Ten...

With December right around the corner, it’s time for movie critics from around the world to start compiling their best-of-2015 lists, and the highly respected Sight & Sound magazine is kick-starting the process by unveiling its own list of the 20 Best Films of 2015.

Topping the incredibly diverse list of faves this year is Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s The Assassin, a Taiwainese martial arts film that won its helmer Best Director at Cannes when it debuted there earlier in 2015. It’s expected to be the frontrunner for Best Foreign Language Film at this year’s Oscars, and given that the voting body for Sight & Sound’s list includes 168 critics from all around the globe, perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that an acclaimed arthouse pic from a renowned auteur placed so highly.

Todd Haynes’ lovely period piece Carol took second place, and there were plenty of other smaller titles included (such as Anomalisa,...

While our year-end coverage will arrive at… well, the end of the year, other outlets are getting the jump early. One of the first is the estimable Sight & Sound, who have culled together 20 of the year’s best films from 168 of their contributors and colleagues. Topping the list is Hou Hsiao-hsien‘s magnificent The Assassin.

Some may be surprised at the inclusion of Inherent Vice, but that hit U.K. theaters this year, while Arabian Nights, 45 Years, Son of Saul, Cemetery of Splendour, Amy, and Chantal Akerman‘s final film, No Home Movie, all cracked the top 10. Also rounding out the top 20 are two animated films: Charlie Kaufman‘s Anomalisa and Pixar’s Inside Out.

While some have yet to be released in the states, if you’ve missed a few during their theatrical run, we’re keeping tabs on where you can stream them here. In the meantime,...

'Tis the season to be making lists. While children are putting the finishing touches on their requests to Santa Claus, cinephiles are collating their rankings of the year's best films. And the prestigious Sight & Sound are getting the yearly tradition rolling with their unveiling of the 20 Best Films of 2015. Voted on by 168 movie critics from around the world, it's not a surprise to see things lean very auteur heavy. Hou Hsiao-Hsien's acclaimed "The Assassin" takes the top spot, Todd Haynes' "Carol" is right behind, while Christian Petzold's "Phoenix," Jafar Panahi's "Taxi Tehran," Apichatpong Weerasethekul's "Cemetery Of Splendour" and more rank. But that's not to say critics don't like their blockbuster or genre fare. George Miller's "Mad Max: Fury Road" takes third place, while Pixar's "Inside Out" makes the cut, as does David Robert Mitchell's "It Follows." Check out the full list below...

The British Film Institute's Sight & Sound magazine have announced their annual top movies of the year list, a poll conducted amongst 168 film critics from around the world.

Hou Hsiao-Hsien's "The Assassin" and Todd Haynes' "Carol" took the top spots with 38 and 35 votes respectively. 'Assassin' is coming off its big win at the Golden Horse Awards last weekend - often regarded as the highest prize for Chinese-language films.

Not far behind were "Mad Max Fury Road," the "Arabian Nights" trilogy, "Cemetery of Splendour," "No Home Movie," "45 Years," "Son of Saul," "Amy" and "Inherent Vice" (which premiered this year in many international markets).

Rounding out the Top 20 were "Anomalisa," "It Follows," "Phoenix," "Girlhood," "Inside Out," "Tangerine," "Taxi Tehran," "Hard to Be A God," "Horse Money" and "The Look of Silence" also made the list.

The full list is up at BFI.org.

The third annual Ajyal Youth Film Festival presented by the Doha Film Institute (November 29 to December 5) showcases feature films from 20 countries and a series of short film programs in Katara, Qatar.

Fatma Al Remaihi, Festival Director and CEO of the Doha Film Institute, says: “By providing young people with access to international cinema, filmmakers from around the world, and the space to discuss their ideas and develop critical thinking, Ajyal empowers the youngest members of our community and develops their understanding of the world around them.”

Academy Award nominated director, Hany Abu-Assad and Arab Idol champion Mohammed Assaf, whose life story "The Idol" is based on, will attend the Opening Night and will participate in a special ‘In Conversation’ session about bringing Assaf’s life story to the big screen and highlight the power of combining music and cinema and the challenges facing Arab artists today.

Read more about "The Idol" and an interview with Hany Abu-Assad at its debut at Tiff 2015.

Aside from the daily public screenings of local and international films other events are the popular "Made in Qatar"; Sony Cinema Under the Stars; Family Weekend; the Doha Giffoni Youth Media Summit ; special events and exhibitions; the Sandbox interactive digital playground; school screenings; and the Ajyal Competition, where hundreds of young jurors between the ages of 8 and 21 will watch and discuss shorts and features and decide on the winning films. competition line-up.

The popular "Made in Qatar" section features 17 films -- nine narrative shorts and eight documentaries by local talent.

More than 500 young people from the ages of 8 to 21 make up the Ajyal Competition Jury which will watch and analyze a dynamic program of films in three competitive sections followed by discussions and events including panels, workshops and Q&A sessions with filmmakers.

Each of the three Ajyal Juries are made of 24 international jurors from 12 countries including Australia, Bahrain, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iraq, Italy, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Serbia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. The jury awards a Best Film prize to their favorite short and feature-length film, for a total of six awards. The directors of the winning films are awarded funding toward their next film, so jurors are empowered to support and promote future content that is relevant and important to them in a proactive way.

Mohaq means ‘New Moon’ in Arabic, and these are Ajyal’s youngest jurors, aged 8 to 12. These jurors will watch one program of short films and four feature-length films, marking the first year that competitive feature films are included in this category. They are: "Celestial Camel" (Russia) by Yury Feting about a young sheepherder living in the desolate Kalmyk Steppe, who sets off on an epic journey after his father is forced to sell the family’s beloved camel calf; "The Greatest House in the World" (Guatemala, Mexico) by Ana V. Bojórquez and Lucía Carreras - a film about the never-ending circle of life told through the story of a young girl in the isolated highlands of Guatemala; "Paper Planes"(Australia) by Robert Connolly - a tale of friendship, creativity and the bonds of family which centers around an 11-year-old boy with an exceptional talent for creating paper airplanes; and "Phantom Boy" by Jean-Loup Felicioli, Alain Gagnol (France, Belgium) an animated film about an 11-year-old boy whose illness allows him to have out-of-body experiences and mysterious powers.

Ajyal’s jurors aged 13 to 17 are the Hilal jury – the term means ‘Crescent Moon’ in Arabic. Five feature films and a program of shorts make up this jury’s film selection. The feature films competing in this section are: "Lamb" (France, Ethiopia, Germany, Norway, Qatar) by Yared Zeleke, a portrait of a young Ethiopian boy trying to find his way in the world; "Landfill Harmonic" (U.S.) directed by Brad Allgood and Graham Townsley and recent audience award winning documentary at Napa Valley Film Festival, that tracks the astounding rise of a Paraguayan youth orchestra whose members live next to one of South America's largest landfills and make their instruments from recycled materials; "Mina Walking" (Canada, Afghanistan), a multiple award winning documentary by Yosef Baraki, a powerful tale of a 12-year-old girl in war-torn Afghanistan struggling to make ends meet for her family; "Scarecrow " (The Philippines) by Zig Madamba Dulay which explores the complicated relationship of social injustice and familial expectations through the story of a young mother in a rural town; and " Wolf Totem" (China, France) by Jean-Jacques Annaud. Set against the backdrop of the Chinese Cultural Revolution 1967, it is the story of a two young Chinese students who are sent on a research assignment with the nomadic herdsmen of Inner Mongolia and become fascinated by the wolves that roam the plains.

The most mature of Ajyal’s juries, Bader (Arabic for ‘Full Moon’) jurors are aged 18 to 21 and will select their favorite films from five features and two programs of short films. The feature films vying for top honors in this section are: "An" (Japan, France, Germany) by Naomi Kawase is a drama about a lonely baker whose life is reinvigorated when he hires an elderly woman with a special culinary skill; "The Second Mother " (Brazil's submission for Oscar nomination) by Anna Muylaert which is an exploration of the bond between mothers and their children told through the story of a housekeeper in Sao Paulo (Read review and interview with director Anna Muylaert here); "Taxi" (Iran), winner of Fipresci and Golden Bear Awards in Berlin 2015, by Jafar Panahi in which the celebrated Iranian director places himself in the driver’s seat of a cab, taking fares to their destinations in a wonderful portrait of contemporary Iran; "Very Big Shot" (Lebanon, Qatar), a bold and insightful dark comedy by Mir-Jean Bou Chaaya that skewers political corruption and the media circus that goes with it; and "Walls" (Spain) - a documentary by Pablo Iraburu and Migueltxo Molina that follows several subjects on both sides of three contemporary international borders, demonstrating that the people on each side of the barriers are not as different as they may believe.

In addition to the three competitive sections, the Festival’s youngest audiences under the age of 8 years will also vote for their favorite film with the help of their parents who will determine the Parents’ Choice Award in the Bariq program. Bariq films are selected to satisfy the excitement and curiosity of young children and are suitable for the whole family. This year’s program features a collection of eight short films and will also include a special outdoor cine-concert on the Katara esplanade by the Festival Tout-Petits Cinéma from Paris, with four films accompanied by live music by pianist Anthony Boulc’h and saxophonist Fanch Minous.

A senior jury of three eminent figures from the local and regional industry will determine the winners of the competitive section comprising feature films from 20 countries and a series of short film program with two awards being presented for Best Short Narrative Film and Best Short Documentary Film. The 2015 jury members are film producer Bassam Al Ibrahim (Qatar), who is the CEO of Innovation Films and co-founder of ILoveQatar.net; film actress, director and producer, Ahd (Saudi Arabia), internationally renowned for her performance in Haifaa al-Mansour’s " Wadjda;" and respected veteran journalist and media personality, Marcel Ghanem (Lebanon).

Fatma Al Remaihi said: “It has been another productive and inspiring year for filmmaking in Qatar and this year’s Made in Qatar selection indicates the rapid growth and diversity that we are witnessing in the Qatari film industry."

The films in the 2015 Ajyal Youth Film Festival Made in Qatar section are:

Made in Qatar Program 1, Wednesday 2nd December

"To My Mother" by Amina Al Bloshi

"Light Sounds" by Karem Kamel

"Her Majlis" by Najla Al Khulaifi, Dana Al Mesnad and Nayla Al Thani

"The Palm Tree" by Jassim Al-Rumaihi

"Yellow Nights" by Abdulla al Mulla

"If They Only Knew" by Sana Al-Ansari

"Heart of the House" by Gabrielle Sol

"The Notebook" by Amna Albinali

Made in Qatar Program 2, Friday 4th December

"Charlie" by Ali Ali

"Immortalizing Memories" by Mostafa Sheshtawy

"Asfoora" by Mayar Hamdan

"Good as New" by Jaser Alagha

"I Choose Islam" by Noor Al-Tamimi, Silma Suba and Zac J. Hollo

"Mariam" by Zainab Ayon

"Time" by Yassine Ouahrani

"Man of the House" by Khalifa AlMarri

"Veganize It!" by Khalid Salim

Closing night will be the world premiere of animated feature film "Bilal" (UAE/2015), a new animated feature film made with funding from the Doha Film Institute and produced by Dubai-based Barajoun Studios. Involving creative talents from 22 countries, "Bilal " by Directors Ayman Jamal and Khurram Alavi is an inspiring adventure story of faith, hope and self-discovery. Inspired by the real-life story of Bilal Bin Rabah, the film's cutting edge animation technology, impeccable research and high production values will resonate with audiences across generations. The cast and crew of the film will be in attendance for the premiere including the directors of the film and cast members Andre Robinson ("Despicable Me 2") and Adewale Akinnuoye Agbaje ("Lost", "The Bourne Identity", "Game of Thrones") who voice the young and adult Bilal respectively.

The Ajyal Family Weekend will feature the regional premiere of Marking the Un International Day of Persons with Disabilities, Ajyal 2015 will present in a regional first, an inclusive cinema experience specially ‘transadapted’ to suit audiences with different abilities, a special screening of Al Rayyan Productions animated short "Hero and the Message" (Qatar/2012). Guests will be able to view the film through sound alone, with special subtitles for people who have difficulty understanding speech. This inclusive version of the film has been developed with the support of the Ministry of Youth and Sports, and is the result of a collaboration between the Doha Film Institute and the Translation and Interpreting Institute at Hamad Bin Khalifa University who are spearheading the development of transadapted content in the Gulf region.

Fatma Al Remaihi, “Since our first edition, animated films have formed a core part of the Ajyal program and I am delighted that this year, we will premiere three incredibly diverse examples of the artform... from three corners of the globe.”

"Bilal" (UAE/2015) In a dreamlike vision, mysterious dark riders mounted on demonic black horses bear down upon a village. Nearby, little Bilal dreams of being a great warrior as he gallops along on his hobbyhorse. The riders come closer – are they real? Or are they just a figment of the youngster’s extraordinary imagination? Suddenly, Bilal’s dream becomes a nightmare. The men on horseback kill his mother and take him captive along with Ghufaira, his sister, and they are soon sold as slaves to Umayya, the wealthiest merchant in all of Arabia. Bilal never forgets this terrible day, which haunts his sleep for years to come. But the echoes of his mother’s gentle voice stay with him, a constant reminder that to break free of the chains that enslave him, he must forge his own destiny.

"The Good Dinosaur" (USA/2015), the latest feature from the award-winning Pixar Animation Studios and the team behind beloved Pixar classics "Finding Nemo" and "Inside Out" and will feature a special ‘kids red carpet’ for all families and young people from the community to participate and to be transported to a world where dinosaurs walk the Earth. Directed by Peter Sohn, the film screens on December 4th and presents an alternate history where the asteroids that wiped out these ancient reptiles never hit our planet.

"Hero and the Message" (Qatar/2012) tells the fantastic tale of a Qatari brother and sister who travel back in time to witness the founding events of the State of Qatar. Produced by Al Rayyan Productions, the top-notch animated short directed by Pawel Borowski was created to celebrate Qatar’s National Day in 2012, and screens on December 3rd.

"When Marnie Was There" (Japan/2014), screening on December 4 is one of the final anime sensations from Ghibli Studios and is based on the novel When Marnie Was There by Joan G. Robinson. Directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi, the film is about a young girl Anna who explores a long- abandoned villa and meets a mysterious blonde girl only she can see.

Read More: 'Cartel Land' and 'The Look of Silence' Lead 2015 Cinema Eye Nonfiction Film Award Nominees Cinema Eye has announced the five nominees for this years Heterodox Award. The Heterodox Award is an annual award presented to a narrative fiction film for incorporating elements of nonfiction film style and content. Past award recipients include "Beginners," "Post Tenebras Lux" and "Boyhood." This years nominees include: "Arabian Nights: Volume One (The Restless One)," directed by Miguel Gomes "God Bless the Child," directed by Rodrigo Ojeda-Beck "Tangerine," directed by Sean Baker "Taxi," directed by Jafar Panahi "The Tribe," directed by Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy The winner of the 2016 Heterodox Award will be announced on January 12 during Cinema Eye Week. Read More: Cinema Eye Honors Amy Winehouse, Angulo Brothers As 'Unforgettable' Documentary Subjects...

Cinema Eye, which presents the Cinema Eye Honors for Nonfiction Filmmaking as part of the annual Cinema Eye Week, today announced the five nominees for its annual Heterodox Award. The Heterodox Award honors a narrative fiction film that imaginatively incorporates nonfiction strategies, content and/or modes of production. The five films nominated this year for the Cinema Eye Heterodox Award are: Arabian Nights: Volume 1 —The Restless One directed by Miguel Gomes God Bless the Child directed by Robert Machoian and Rodrigo Ojeda-Beck Tangerine directed by Sean Baker Taxi directed by Jafar Panahi The Tribe directed by Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy With the announcement of […]...

Cinema Eye, which presents the Cinema Eye Honors for Nonfiction Filmmaking as part of the annual Cinema Eye Week, today announced the five nominees for its annual Heterodox Award. The Heterodox Award honors a narrative fiction film that imaginatively incorporates nonfiction strategies, content and/or modes of production. The five films nominated this year for the Cinema Eye Heterodox Award are: Arabian Nights: Volume 1 —The Restless One directed by Miguel Gomes God Bless the Child directed by Robert Machoian and Rodrigo Ojeda-Beck Tangerine directed by Sean Baker Taxi directed by Jafar Panahi The Tribe directed by Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy With the announcement of […]...

Plus: Josh Reinhold joins Matt Alvarez’s new production company; Jane Seymour boards Esx Entertainment’s Praying For Rain… and more.

Cinema Eye has announced the five nominees for its annual Heterodox Award honouring a narrative fiction film that “imaginatively incorporates nonfiction strategies, content and/or modes of production.”

The nominees are Arabian Nights: Volume One (The Restless One) by Miguel Gomes; God Bless The Child by Robert Machoian and Rodrigo Ojeda-Beck; Tangerine by Sean Baker; Taxi (pictured) by Jafar Panahi; and The Tribe by Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy. The prize will be presented on January 12, 2016 in New York.

Josh Reinhold has joined Straight Outta Compton producer Matt Alvarez’s untitled production company as vice-president. In his new role, Reinhold will oversee development and production on behalf of the company, taking features from concept to delivery.

Jane Seymour, Annabelle Stephenson, Nicholas Gonzalez and Paul Rodriguez have been cast in the drama Praying For Rain for Forrest Lucas and [link...

Titles in competition include animation Phantom Boy [pictured], Ethiopian drama Lamb, Brazilian Oscar submission The Second Mother and Jafar Panahi’s Berlinale winner Taxi Tehran.

The Doha Film Institute has announced the competition line-up for the third edition of the Ajyal Youth Film Festival (Nov 29 - Dec 5), comprising feature films from 20 countries as well as a series of short film programmes.

The jury will be made up of more than 500 young people, aged 8-21, who will watch a programme of films under three competitive sections - Mohaq, Hilal, and Bader - followed by discussions and events including panels, workshops and Q&A sessions with filmmakers.

Each of the three Ajyal Juries will award a Best Film prize to their favourite short and feature-length films, for a total of six awards. The directors of the winning films are awarded funding toward their next film.

The jury includes 24 international jurors who will travel to Doha for the event from 12 countries...