News

Oleg Sentsov, the Ukranian film director behind Gámer, was today sentenced to 20 years in prison after a military court in Rostov-on-Don convicted him of plotting to commit terrorist acts in Crimea. He has already served over a year in Lefortovo prison after being detained following a protest against the Russian presence in the region.

Sentsov's arrest prompted an international campaign spearheaded by filmmakers like Mike Leigh, Pedro Almodóvar, Agnieszka Holland and Stephen Daldry, who were convinced that it was politically motivated. The Ukrainian government has argued that he is being punished for his pro-Ukraine views. Setsove himself has refused to recognise the authority of the court and has alleged that he was beaten and threatened with rape in an attempt to make him confess to a plot to bomb war memorials and set fire to government buildings.

The official convictions were for terrorism, organising a terrorist group and arms trafficking.

Russian director Alexander Velidinsky’s The Geographer Drank His Globe Away was the big winner at the 4th Odessa International Film Festival (Oiff).

The tragi-comedy picked up the Grand Prix Golden Duke, voted for by the festival audience, and the International Jury’s Golden Duke for Best Film

The $4m production, which had screened to an enthusiastic capacity audience of over 1,200 in Odessa’s Festival Palace on Thursday evening, is being handled internationally by fledgling Russian sales outfit Antipode Film Sales & Distribution and will be released theatrically in Russia on 400 prints on November 7.

Last month, Velidinsky’s film won the Grand Prix and three other awards at the Kinotavr Open Russian Film Festival in Sochi.

The prize for Best Acting went to the female leads Lika Babluani and Mariam Bokeria of Nana Ekvtimishvili and Simon Gross’s In Bloom, which won the main prize at Voices in Vologda two weeks ago. The Odessa...

I'm only just now catching up with this year's edition of De Filmkrant's best-known project, Slow Criticism 2012, for which editor Dana Linssen has invented a new game: "It is called The Other Side(s) of the World and includes a lot of cinephile Wanderlust and cybernetic travel schedules. With the kind assistance of the International Film Festival Rotterdam (that made the films available trough a preview stream) we have assembled a dossier with reviews of most of the premieres in the Bright Future section. Playing along were film critics from all over the world who embarked on a virtual journey to see a film that came from a country or film culture that was as far from their current location as possible. Or was it?"

Adrian Martin and Cristina Álvarez López launch this collection of journeys with an essay on the "intimate connection between cinephilia and travel," in which they...