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The modern movie hero owes a great debt to Toshiro Mifune, the longtime Akira Kurosawa star who provided a ferocious centerpiece to everything from “Seven Samurai” to “Yojimbo.” Steven Okazaki’s documentary “Mifune” chronicles the scope of the actor’s sprawling career as well as his lasting cultural impact. The filmmaker spoke to IndieWire about his interest in Mifune, gathering interviews with filmmakers such as Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese, and why more people should be appreciating Mifune’s legacy as “the first movie hero who wasn’t a white guy.

Read More: ‘Mifune: The Last Samurai’ Trailer: Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg Sing the Legendary Actor’s Praises

A version of this interview was original published at the Telluride Film Festival, where “Mifune” premiered this fall. The film opens November 25 at the IFC Center in New York with more cities to follow.

When did you first encounter Mifune’s performances?...

This year’s Tribeca Film Festival finished up in April, and some of the festival’s films are receiving theatrical releases around the end of the year. One of these films is “Burn Country,” formerly known as “The Fixer,” which follows former war journalist Osman (Dominic Rains) who lands in a small bohemian town in Northern California working as a crime reporter for the local newspaper. Living on the couch of his friend’s mother (Melissa Leo) and eager to get to work, he befriends local townsfolk, like hot tub craftsman Lindsay (James Franco) and local actress Sandra (Rachel Brosnahan). But when Lindsay goes missing, Osman goes after him and discovers corruption and violence that run deep. Watch an exclusive clip from the film below.

Read More: The 2016 Indiewire Tribeca Bible: Every Review, Interview and News Item Posted During the Festival

The film is co-written and directed by Ian Olds.

On stage, “Fences” is an incredible play — a landmark of American art (black or otherwise), August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning portrait of a family in crisis unflinchingly weighs the smallness of human lives against the immensity of those living them. And on screen in Denzel Washington’s adaptation, “Fences” is…an incredible play.

Starring and directed by the actor (who reprises the role he played in the show’s 2010 revival on Broadway, for which he won a Tony), the film is a faithful, ferociously performed adaptation that never finds — or even seeks — a way in which the cinema might compensate for the absent buzz of live theater. In fact, “Fences” is such a respectful tribute to the source material that Wilson retains sole screenplay credit despite the fact that he died 11 years ago. If Washington mines the playwright’s 1987 masterpiece for every scrap of its pathos, he finds precious little of its poetry.

Love is a battlefield – often literally so – in Robert Zemeckis’ uneven “Allied,” which attempts to harness enough glossy old Hollywood glamour to disguise a startlingly flat and just plain silly tale of spies in love.

The well-dressed affair starts strongly enough, with Canadian intelligence officer Max Vatan (Brad Pitt) silently parachuting undetected into the North African desert, where he makes obvious his prodigious ability to slip into any situation with ease. Max is soon whisked into Casablanca to meet his partner, the dazzling French Resistance fighter Marianne Beauséjour (Marion Cotillard), and the pair happily play off each other in what ends up being a dry run for the very dangerous double-crossing to come.

The duo have been matched up with the express mission to take out a high-ranking German officer at the local embassy where Marianne has been embedded for months, currying favor in order to snag a party invite...

James + Semaj is a column where James Franco talks to his reverse self, Semaj, about new films. Rather than a conventional review, it is place where James and Semaj can muse about ideas that the films provoke. James loves going to the movies and talking about them. But a one-sided take on a movie, in print, might be misconstrued as a review. As someone in the industry it could be detrimental to James’s career if he were to review his peers, because unlike the book industry—where writers review other writer’s books—the film industry is highly collaborative, and a bad review of a peer could create problems. So, assume that James (and Semaj) love all these films. What they’re interested in talking about is all the ways the films inspire them, and make them think. James is me, and Semaj is the other side of me.

Can the pathetic be poetic? That is the question we at the Playlist asked ourselves after viewing “Ne Me Quitte Pas (Don’t Leave Me).” Having won the Best Editing Jury Award at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2014, the Belgian documentary is finally getting a U.S. theatrical release at the Museum of the Moving Image from November 18th to the 27th. Presented in small increments, or chapters, the film begins with Marcel being left heartbroken by his wife who has found another man.

Continue reading ‘Ne Me Quitte Pas’ Is A Sleek And Captivating Documentary About Self-Destruction [Review] at The Playlist.

Need a good cry? Khloe Kardashian has you covered.

In a post for her website and app on Friday, the 32-year-old reality star released her breakup playlist, complete with the "saddest songs so you can let it all out."

"Sometimes all a girl needs is a good cry and some musical healing," she wrote.

But some of Kardashian's sappy tracks are quite surprising – with an eclectic mix that includes Rihanna and The Smiths, the Keeping up with the Kardashian star's lost-love playlist isn't what you'd expect.

For starters, Kardashian picked Nina Simone's classic "Ne Me Quitte Pas," a slow...

Louisa Mellor Aug 23, 2016

Jean-Claude Van Damme plays a fictionalised version of himself in this action movie spoof Amazon comedy pilot…

Like a supermodel launching a make-up line or an athlete turning coach, playing a parody version of yourself is one way for past-their-prime movie stars to keep the cheques coming. Jean-Claude Van Damme’s TV roles so far have exclusively been as him - on Friends in 1996, on Las Vegas in 2004, on Robot Chicken in 2009 and in double denim and a mullet wig for Coors Light since 2012. Now he’s playing himself in Amazon comedy pilot Jean-Claude Van Johnson, an action-movie spoof from The Expendables writer Dave Callaham.

More properly, he plays a fictionalised Jean-Claude Van Damme, not only a former action movie star but also a former undercover operative, part of a Hollywood network that uses movie-making as a front for covert black ops. (Should Amazon pick it up to series,...

Busan International Film Festival (Biff) has announced 22 projects to receive Asian Cinema Fund support this year, including Park Kyoung Tae’s Ne Me Quitte Pas and Venice Biennale College project Hotel Salvation.

“Although this year’s number of submissions went down, in comparison, we had a lot of good documentary projects from Korea. We also have our first project from Bhutan selected for post-production support,” said Acf director Hong Hyosook.

Park previously co-directed, with Kim Dong-ryeong, the documentary Tour Of Duty, also an earlier Acf recipient that went on to win the Jury’s Special Prize at the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival in 2013.

Continuing his exploration of filmmaking through collaboration with women working around Us military bases in Korea, Ne Me Quitte Pas delves into the past while looking into the disappearance of a prostitute who in 1972 wrote a bestseller about her life and loves around an army base.

Post-production Fund[p...

Lauryn Hill made a rare late-night TV appearance Thursday when she stopped by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to perform a show-stopping rendition of Nina Simone's "Feeling Good." Hill's version of the blues classic begins slowly and sultry before picking up its pace; by the three-minute mark, it's an all-out rave-up. For the impressive performance, Hill was backed by a string section, horns, three singers, a meaty rhythm section and blues guitarist Eric Gales, who wails on an upside-down righty Fender like Jimi Hendrix.

"Feeling Good" was among...

With year end lists already flooding the interwebs a full month before the actual year’s end, its hard to ignore the fact that awards season is now in full swing. Tons of documentary awards have already been handed out, whether its for Ida (not Pawel Pawlikowski’s gorgeous new film) or for Cinema Eye Honors, there are plenty of worthy films getting their due recognition. Plus, several international festivals have handed out major awards this month, including Idfa, which hosted their awards ceremony just minutes ago. The full roundup is just below:

Dok Leipzig – Germany – October 27th – November 2nd

At the close of the 57th edition of the German documentary festival the Golden Dove Award, the festival’s highest honor, was given to Claudine Bories and Patrice Chagnard’s Rules of the Game, while the Leipziger Ring Film Prize went to Laura Poitras’s Edward Snowden doc Citizenfour, the...

Following the Ida Awards nominations last month, the year’s top documentary contenders come into crisper focus with Thursday’s announcement of Cinema Eye’s 8th Annual Nonfiction Film Awards nominations. Laura Poitras’ "Citizenfour" leads the pack with six nominations, including Outstanding Nonfiction Feature. The inside look at Edward Snowden’s Nsa leak also earned praise in Directing, Editing, Production, Cinematography, and the Audience Choice category. Poitras is no stranger to Cinema Eye’s awards — she won the 2011 Directing Award for "The Oath." Familiar faces rounded out the Oustanding Feature category, including Steve James’ Roger Ebert portrait "Life Itself," Jesse Moss’ tale of a North Dakota oil boom town, "The Overnighters," Iain Forsythe & Jane Pollard’s "20,000 Days on Earth," a look musician Nick Cave, and Orlando von Einsiedel’s environment-minded "Virunga." Thirty-six feature films and six shorts will vie for this year’s Cinema Eye Honors for Nonfiction Filmmaking. Other...

Other leading nominees are Life Itself and 20,000 Days on Earth.

Laura Poitras’ Citizenfour, about Nsa whistleblower Edward Snowden, leads the pack at the Cinema Eye Awards nominations, with six nods.

Steve James’ Life Itself about Roger Ebert and Iain Forsythe and Jane Pollard’s 20,000 Days on Earth about Nick Cave followed close behind with five nominations each.

The nominees for the awards, which recognise exemplary craft and innovation in nonfiction film, were announced last night at an industry party at Cph: Dox in Copenhagen.

In addition to those three, the other nominations for the Nonfiction Feature Film were Jesse Moss’ The Overnighters and Orlando von Einsiedel’s Virunga.

Poitras and James are also nominated in the Direction category, and each has previously won that Cinema Eye prize, Poitras with The Oath in 2011 and James in 2012 with The Interrupters. Poitras becomes the most nominated filmmaker in Cinema Eye history with nine nominations.

Other films nominated...

Further reminding us that the Academy Awards are irrelevant in year-end discussions for the best in documentary film, according to the experts at the Cinema Eye Honors’ voting committee, Laura Poitras’ Citizenfour, Steve James’ Life Itself and Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard’s 20,000 Days on Earth would be among the best docu films of the year, leading the pack in almost all categories. Not to be overlooked, Jesse Moss’ The Overnighters and Robert Greene’s Actress received kudos in Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking and Outstanding Achievement in Direction while the major surprise of the noms belongs to Orlando von Einsiedel’s Virunga (presented at the Tribeca and Hot Docs Film Fests) grabbing a total of three. Left completely off the scorecard, Manakamana failed to produce a single nom. The Cinema Eye Honors winners will be announced on Wednesday, January 7 at New York’s Museum of the Moving Image.

After a torturous week of suspense, The Leftovers concludes its freshman season with a gloriously horrifying finale in which Matt digs Kevin out of a hole (and Patti into one), Jill makes not one but two ginormous life decisions (one for the better, one for the worse), Tom and Christine’s road trip takes a major detour, and the Guilty Remnant brings to fruition its cruel plan for Memorial Day. Care for some details? Read on.

Related The Leftovers Renewed for Season 2

Burial Plotting | The hour opens with the saddest cigarette ad ever – Kevin puffing away over Patti’s dead body,...

"The Leftovers" wrapped up its first season earlier this evening. A review of the finale coming up just as soon as we have different physiques... In the end, it was the goddamn dog that wrecked me. Love it or hate it — and 50-odd savage minutes of "The Prodigal Son" absolutely affirmed my love for it — "The Leftovers" isn't really like anything else on television, past or present. Structurally, it has a passing resemblance to a few other series (including Damon Lindelof's previous one). But in terms of tone and substance, as well as its focus on the emotional and spiritual health of its characters far ahead of any questions of plot, it's an original. Even with the book to adapt(*), there was no real template for Lindelof and Tom Perrotta to follow in crafting a finale for this season. (*) And, for what it's worth, the finale pretty much exhausts...

Fury (David Ayer)

[via the BFI]

The programme for the 58th BFI London Film Festival launched today, with Festival Director Clare Stewart presenting this year’s rich and diverse selection of films and events. The lineup includes highly anticipated fall titles including David Ayer’s Fury, Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher, the Sundance smash Whiplash, Jean-Luc Godard’s Goodbye to Language 3D, The Imitation Game starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Mike Leigh’s Mr. Turner, Jason Reitman’s Men, Women and Children and Jean-Marc Vallee’s Wild.

As Britain’s leading film event and one of the world’s oldest film festivals, it introduces the finest new British and international films to an expanding London and UK-wide audience, offering a compelling combination of red carpet glamour, engaged audiences and vibrant exchange. The Festival provides an essential profiling opportunity for films seeking global success at the start of the Awards season, promotes the careers of British and...

World premieres include Wwi drama Testament of Youth, Carol Morley’s The Falling and sci-fi sequel Monsters: Dark Continent.

The line-up for the 58th London Film Festival (Oct 8-19) has been revealed this morning and it is packed with awards contenders and the best of this year’s festivals.

Click here for full line-up

Titles already generating awards buzz that will receive gala screenings at Lff include Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher, starring Steve Carell, Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo, and Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash, which proved the breakout hit at Sundance.

Other galas will give European premieres to Jason Reitman’s Men, Women & Children, starring Adam Sandler and Ansel Elgort with a racy voiceover by Emma Thompson, and biopic Wild, starring Reese Witherspoon and directed by Jean-Marc Vallee.

Mike Leigh’s Mr Turner will also feature among the main gala screenings as will the world premiere of Testament of Youth, a First World...

Editor's Note: Indiewire co-presents a screening of "Don't Leave Me" ("Ne Me Quitte Pas") as part of the Northside festival at Union Docs in Brooklyn tonight. The screening is at 9 p.m. and will be introduced by Indiewire's chief film critic Eric Kohn. Tickets are available for purchase here. If Jim Jarmusch made a movie about two alcoholic friends hanging out in the woods, it might look something like the Dutch documentary "Don't Leave Me" ("Ne Me Quitte Pas"). Directors Sabine Lubbe Bakker and Niels van Koevorden's hilariously touching portrait of bitter men drowning their sorrows in booze is the ultimate buddy comedy with brains. Shot in the isolated forests of Wallonia, in French-speaking southern Belgium, it manages a fascinating naturalistic tone that's infectiously lighthearted without obscuring the downbeat quality of its subjects' lives. The filmmakers focus on the meandering exploits of middle-aged native Marcel and his slightly older Flemish chum Bob,...

Ne Me Quitte Pas is an odd documentary, a film where the synopsis sounds like an indie festival joke. A Dutch film about two Belgian men, bound together by a suicide pact and a love for drinking, as they shuffle along together through life and a shared midlife crisis. Marcel, the younger of the two, has lost all sense of purpose since his wife left him for another man. He sees his kids on the weekends, and he spends his week not doing a whole lot of anything. Bob, a grizzled so-called cowboy, spends his days soaking his liver in rum and his nights looking after Marcel as he behaves similarly. The film moves from one scene to the next with the feeling that very little is happening and yet time is rapidly slipping away from both Marcel and Bob. Soon, hope might be gone for them as well. Suicide,...

A more consolidated, off-the-beaten-path cousin to Rooftop Films, the Northside Film Festival will take place from June 16 – 19, in and around Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Priding itself on partnerships, Northside will co-present a number of New York premieres and Special Screenings in conjunction with the likes of Ifp, Dctv, BAMCinemaFest, Women Make Movies and Indiewire. Films to keep an eye out for include recent Tribeca winner Ne Me Quitte Pas, Homemakers, The Badabook, i hate myself :), Summer of Blood, and retrospective showings of Daises and Seventeen (in 16 mm). Entries in the festival’s Diy competition will compete for a prize package including filmmaker services at Dctv, a […]...

A more consolidated, off-the-beaten-path cousin to Rooftop Films, the Northside Film Festival will take place from June 16 – 19, in and around Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Priding itself on partnerships, Northside will co-present a number of New York premieres and Special Screenings in conjunction with the likes of Ifp, Dctv, BAMCinemaFest, Women Make Movies and Indiewire. Films to keep an eye out for include recent Tribeca winner Ne Me Quitte Pas, Homemakers, The Badabook, i hate myself :), Summer of Blood, and retrospective showings of Daises and Seventeen (in 16 mm). Entries in the festival’s Diy competition will compete for a prize package including filmmaker services at Dctv, a […]...

Thanks for following along with our Tribeca adventures and remember to follow Glenn, Diana, Jason, Abstew and myself on twitter for continual movie madness. Here are the 40 films we reviewed this year in alpha order...

a still from Der Samurai

5 to 7 (Diana)

About Alex (Glenn)

Alex in Venice (Glenn)

The Bachelor Weekend -Irish comedy (Nathaniel)

Bad Hair -Venezuelan childhood drama (Nathaniel)

Beneath the Harvest Sky (Glenn)

Boulevard -with Robin Williams (Nathaniel)

Bright Days Ahead (Abstew)

The Canal -horror (Jason)

Chef -starry indie from Jon Favreau (Abstew)

Dior and I (Glenn)

Electric Slide -hipster 80s crime drama (Nathaniel)

Every Secret Thing -mystery with Dakota Fanning (Nathaniel)

Extraterrestrial - horror (Jason)

Gabriel - with Rory Culkin (Abstew)

Glass Chin - with Corey Stoll (Diana)

Goodbye To All That (Diana)

In Your Eyes - Joss Whedon online film (Jason)

Indigenous -horror (Jason)

Just Before I Go -Courteney Cox directing (Glenn)

Life Partners...

Talya Lavie’s Israeli film Zero Motivation (pictured) claimed the Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature while Marshall Curry’s Point And Shoot was named best documentary feature as the New York festival came to a close at the weekend.

Meanwhile, Jon Favreau’s Chef and Alan Hicks’ Keep On Keepin’ On claimed the narrative and documentary Heineken audience awards.

Returning to the juried awards, Paul Schneider was named best actor in a narrative feature for Goodbye to All That and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi took corresponding best actress honours for Human Capital.

Damian García won the cinematography prize for Güeros, Guillaume Nicloux the screenplay award for The Kidnapping Of Michel Houellebecq and Keith Miller the editing prize for Five Star.

Sabine Lubbe Bakker and Niels van Koevorden earned documentary editing honours for Ne Me Quitte Pas.

Best New Narrative Director went to Josef Wladyka director for Manos Sucias and Hicks was named best new documentary director for Keep...

Talya Lavie’s Israeli film Zero Motivation (pictured) claimed the Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature while Marshall Curry’s Point And Shoot was named best documentary feature as the New York festival came to a close at the weekend.

Meanwhile, Jon Favreau’s Chef and Alan Hicks’ Keep On Keepin’ On claimed the narrative and documentary Heineken audience awards.

Returning to the juried awards, Paul Schneider was named best actor in a narrative feature for Goodbye to All That and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi took corresponding best actress honours for Human Capital.

Damian García won the cinematography prize for Güeros, Guillaume Nicloux the screenplay award for The Kidnapping Of Michel Houellebecq and Keith Miller the editing prize for Five Star.

Sabine Lubbe Bakker and Niels van Koevorden earned documentary editing honours for Ne Me Quitte Pas.

Best New Narrative Director went to Josef Wladyka director for Manos Sucias and Hicks was named best new documentary director for Keep...

Zero Motivation, a dark comedy about the lives of Israeli female soldiers, was named the top film at the 13th Tribeca Film Festival. Writer/director Tayla Lavie accepted the Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature, as well as the Nora Ephron Prize, which goes to the female filmmaker who best embodies Ephron’s spirit and vision. “In her unique and ambitious first feature, deftly handled such difficult themes as the military, sexism, love, ambition, and friendship,” the jury noted. “This filmmaker also pulled off the awesome feat of managing multiple characters and storylines. In what was definitely the most hilarious...

I’m openly hopping on the Brandon Harris bandwagon and declaring Tribeca’s programming vastly underrated. Leaps and bounds ahead of SXSW, much of the curation this year proved artful and risky, with standouts including Fishtail, Güeros, Young Bodies Heal Quickly, Gabriel, Broken Hill Blues, Ne Me Quitte Pas, Glass Chin, 1971, Summer of Blood and so forth. Even its selections that didn’t completely click were admirable in their aims. It’s frustrating then that the winners feel so incredibly safe. Particularly, the gifting of the Best Documentary prize to a two-time Academy Award nominee, when I can think of no fewer than five first timers in competition who were more deserving of both […]...

I’m openly hopping on the Brandon Harris bandwagon and declaring Tribeca’s programming vastly underrated. Leaps and bounds ahead of SXSW, much of the curation this year proved artful and risky, with standouts including Fishtail, Güeros, Young Bodies Heal Quickly, Gabriel, Broken Hill Blues, Ne Me Quitte Pas, Glass Chin, 1971, Summer of Blood and so forth. Even its selections that didn’t completely click were admirable in their aims. It’s frustrating then that the winners feel so incredibly safe. Particularly, the gifting of the Best Documentary prize to a two-time Academy Award nominee, when I can think of no fewer than five first timers in competition who were more deserving of both […]...

2014 Tribeca Film Festival winners were announced Friday, as chosen by the various juries, with the Israeli film Zero Motivation earning top honors including the Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature.

Zero Motivation writer/director Talya Lavie also won the Nora Ephron Prize for her film, a dark comedy about female Israeli soldiers.

“We believe a new, powerful, voice has emerged,” the jury said about Lavie.

Best Actor in a Narrative Feature went to Paul Schneider, who stars in Goodbye to All That, the directorial debut from Junebug scribe Angus MacLachlan.

“This performance reminded us that even in the most ordinary settings, our lives can summon extraordinary humor, pain, awkwardness, and if we earn it… dignity,” the jury remarked.

Complete List of Winners:

Best Narrative Feature: Zero Motivation – Talya Lavie

Best Actor in a Narrative Feature Film: Paul Schneider – Goodbye To All That

Best Actress in a Narrative Feature Film: Valeria Bruni...

Sabine Lubbe Bakker and Niels van Koeverden’s Ne Me Quitte Pas (Don’t Forget Me) takes its name from a Jacques Brel song whose fervid tone fits its disheveled subjects well. Marcel and Bob are best friends: deep in rural Belgium, they wile away their hours in a drunken haze, footage that straddles a productively uncomfortable tragic-comic line. Marcel’s wife leaves him at the beginning, which gives him more time to spend with older, more grizzled, seemingly more resigned Bob: their epic drinking bouts regularly punctuate the film, getting into more and more dangerous territory as spiral downward and, unnervingly, take […]...

Sabine Lubbe Bakker and Niels van Koeverden’s Ne Me Quitte Pas (Don’t Forget Me) takes its name from a Jacques Brel song whose fervid tone fits its disheveled subjects well. Marcel and Bob are best friends: deep in rural Belgium, they wile away their hours in a drunken haze, footage that straddles a productively uncomfortable tragic-comic line. Marcel’s wife leaves him at the beginning, which gives him more time to spend with older, more grizzled, seemingly more resigned Bob: their epic drinking bouts regularly punctuate the film, getting into more and more dangerous territory as spiral downward and, unnervingly, take […]...

Festival top brass have also announced the programme for the fifth Tribeca Online Festival and Tribeca Film’s VOD slate during Tff, set to run from April 16-27.

The new Tribeca N.O.W. offers a glimpse into the work of 12 creators of new online work (N.O.W.) selected from 100 candidates.

Projects will include music videos, short documentaries and webseries. Each nominee and their work will be featured on the Tribeca website and granted access to 2014 Tff events.

The #6Secfilms competition returns as part of Tribeca Online Festival (Tof) and profiles six-second films made in association with Vine.

Eight films will be streamed after their festival screening under the auspices of Tof. The roster includes Ice Poison (Bing Du, pictured), Ne Me Quitte Pas, True Son and Vara: A Blessing.

“The growth of digital, social and mobile platforms has made it possible for us to deliver new artistic talent to audiences on more than just one...

The Tribeca Film Festival has expanded its online programming, adding Tribeca N.O.W., a newly designed program that recognizes creators of new online work (N.O.W.) as part of the fifth annual Tribeca Online Festival (Tof). In addition, Tribeca has announced eight festival titles which will be available to stream for free. The titles include features "Ice Poison" (Bing Du), "Ne Me Quitte Pas," "True Son" and "Vara: A Blessing," which will be streamed following their Festival theatrical premieres. Additional titles include the short films "Love in the Time of March Madness," "Parachute," "Peepers" and "Scratch." The short films will be accessible on tribecafilm.com/online. In addition, through the same site, audiences can vote on the best online feature and short, with the winners receiving a total of $15,000 in prize money. Winners will be announced at the Tribeca Film Festival Awards on April 24. Tribeca Film will also...

The two Belgian directors Sabine Lubbe Bakker and Niels van Koevorden only met recently in Amsterdam, but were keen to make "Ne Me Quitte Pas," a documentary film that focuses on two Belgian men, both alcoholics, both broken. The directors spoke to Indiewire and spoke about how their collaboration came about. It started when Lubbe Bakker approached van Koevorden and "wanted to make a porn movie about hormonal cows," with van Koevorden enthusiastically replying, "that's funny, my father deals in bull sperm." And so their project came to be. Tell us about yourself? We were both raised in Belgium. And even went to neighboring high schools although we only met 3 years ago in Amsterdam.  Before we met, Sabine had made one feature length documentary (co-directed by Ester Gould) titled "Shout," which had won best doc at the London International Documentary festival and Niels just graduated from the Film Academy, his...

By the looks of it, the Tribeca Film Festival might finally be growing out of their awkward teenage phase and moving into a new era where the nab more than just Sundance and SXSW festival rejects. Artistic Director Frederic Boyer has managed to nab some noteworthy American indie projects such as Lou Howe’s Gabriel (see pic above), Keith Miller’s Five Star, Adam Rapp’s Loitering with Intent, and Tristan Patterson’s Electric Slide.

On the docu front, we’ve got the latest from the likes of notable documentarians Marshall Curry and Jessica Yu. Think Ewan McGregor’s Long Way Round meets child solider movie for Curry’s awesomely titled Point and Shoot — where the Libyan rebel army take hold of Curry’s subject. Yu moves from water shortage in Last Call at the Oasis (read our review) to the biggest pandemic of all; Misconception looks at the consequences...

The 13th Tribeca Film Festival has announced half its slate for next month’s New York celebration, which runs April 16-27. Culled from more than 6,000 submissions, Tribeca 2014 includes 55 world premieres, 37 first-time filmmakers, and 22 female directors. “Variously inspired by individual interests and experience and driven by an intense sensibility of style, the array of new filmmaking voices in this year’s competition is especially impressive and I think memorable,” said Frederic Boyer, Tribeca’s artistic director. “The range of American subcultures and international genres represented here are both eclectic and wide reaching.”

On April 17, Gabriel will open the World Narrative competition,...

Tribeca Film Festival top brass have announced (4) the World Narrative and Documentary Competition film selections and Viewpoints titles, comprising 47 of the 89 features that will screen at the festival over April 16-27.

The World Narrative Feature Competition will open with the world premiere of Lou Howe’s Gabriel starring Rory Culkin, while the corresponding documentary category kicks off with the world premiere of Frédéric Tcheng’s Dior And I (pictured).

Viewpoints opens with the world premiere of Onur Tukel’s Summer Of Blood and the section includes the North American premiere of Diao Yinan’s Berlin Golden Bear winner Black Coal, Thin Ice as well as the Us premiere of David Mackenzie’s Starred Up.

All three sections will commence on April 17. As previously announced, the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival will open with documentary Time Is Illmatic a day earlier.

Overall the festival will screen features from 32 countries including 55 world premieres, six international premieres, 12 North American...

Other winners include Sacro Gra, The Special Need and Pipeline.

The tenth International Documentary Film Festival ZagrebDox (Feb 23 – Mar 2) wrapped with Chilean-German co-production The Last Station by Cristian Soto and Catalina Vergara winning main award the Big Stamp in the International Competition.

The observational documentary set in a Santiago nursing home was developed through the Idfa Bertha Fund and previously competed at Edinburgh, Hot Docs, Cph:dox and Leipzig.

Special mentions in the category went to Talal Derki’s Return To Homs (Germany-Syria) and Dutch-Belgian co-production Ne Me Quitte Pas by Niels van Koevorden and Sabine Lubbe Bakker.

Venice winner Sacro Gra by Gianfranco Rosi won the Big Stamp in the Regional Competition, while Life Almost Wonderful by Bulgaria’s Svetislav Draganov and Stream Of Love by Hungary’s Agnes Sos received special mentions.

The Small Stamp for the best film by a director under 35 went to Carlo Zoratti for The Special Need, about a handsome...

The nominations in the various competition sections have been announced at the documentary festival.

Idfa (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam) has announced the nominees for its 26th edition. Winners will be named on Friday evening in Amsterdam.

The jury of the Idfa Competition for First Appearance will also present an extra Award in memory of Peter Wintonick, who died earlier this month.

The BankGiro Loterij Idfa Audience Award, worth €5,000, and the Idfa Music Audience Award, worth €2,500, will then also be presented.

In addition, the Mediafonds Kids & Docs Award 2013, which consists of € 15,000 with which to develop a new youth documentary, will be presented by a youth jury.

Idfa Competition for Feature-Length Documentary (€12,500)

Ai Weiwei The Fake Case by Andreas Johnson (Denmark);Ne Me Quitte Pas by Sabine Lubbe Bakker and Niels van Koevorden (the Netherlands / Belgium);Song from the Forest by Michael Obert (Germany).

Idfa Competition for Mid-Length Documentary (€10,000)

Kismet by Nina Maria Paschalidou (Greece / Cyprus);Pussy Versus...

If Jim Jarmusch made a movie about two alcoholic friends hanging out in the woods, it might look something like the Dutch documentary "Don't Leave Me" ("Ne Me Quitte Pas"). Directors Sabine Lubbe Bakker and Niels van Koevorden's hilariously touching portrait of bitter men drowning their sorrows in booze is the ultimate buddy comedy with brains. Shot in the isolated forests of Wallonia, in French-speaking southern Belgium, it manages a fascinating naturalistic tone that's infectiously lighthearted without obscuring the downbeat quality of its subjects' lives. The filmmakers focus on the meandering exploits of middle-aged native Marcel and his slightly older Flemish chum Bob, whose destructive antics have cut them off from any source of companionship aside from each other. As they stumble through a seemingly abandoned world defined by their vices and self-deprecating wit, "Don't Leave Me" marks the finest example of deadpan humor to come along in years.