News

Cohen Film Collection is continuing its restorations of classic Merchant Ivory productions, among them 1963’s “The Householder,” the first film collaboration between Ismail Merchant and James Ivory.

The classics label of Cohen Media Group, Cohen Film Collection is lining up the restorations of four titles that also include the 1977 episodic romantic drama “Roseland,” with Teresa Wright and Christopher Walken, and two films directed by Merchant, “In Custody” (1994), featuring Shashi Kapoor, and “The Proprietor” (1996), starring Jeanne Moreau.

Tim Lanza, Cohen Film Collection vice president and archivist, says he chose “In Custody” – Merchant’s feature directorial debut — and “The Proprietor” in particular “because James Ivory was keen to have a rerelease of some of the films that were directed by Ismael Merchant himself.”

“The Householder” and “In Custody” are also among Merchant Ivory’s India-set films, which Lanza is likewise excited to reintroduce to audiences.

Cohen Film Collection acquired a number of...

Munich-based Koch Films has struck a deal with Studiocanal Germany to take over the distributor’s entire sales and logistics activities for all physical home entertainment activities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Studiocanal’s extensive portfolio comprises new releases, series and classic catalog titles such as Francis Ford Coppola’s newly restored 1983 teen drama “The Outsiders” and David Lynch’s “Mulholland Drive” as well as works by the likes of Jean-Luc Godard, Wim Wenders, Jim Jarmusch and Margarethe von Trotta.

The agreement pools Studiocanal and Koch Films’ strengths and bolsters their market position in the home entertainment sector over the long term, the companies said.

Studiocanal’s Arthaus label includes such recently restored films as Federico Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita”; Ousmane Sembène’s 1968 Senegalese classic “Mandabi”; and Richard Kelly’s “Donnie Darko” as well as German titles like Reinhard Hauff’s 1975 drama “The Brutalization of Franz Blum,” featuring Jürgen Prochnow...

A stalled New York City subway carriage serves as a toe-tapping musical Petri dish for six socioeconomically diverse souls in the unique stage-to-screen musical adaptation “Stuck.” Sharing a stylistic template with its 2016 left-coast cousin “La La Land” (which it predated Off-Broadway by a good four years), the film’s 2017 copyright suggests a missed opportunity for momentum that could be made up by the positive word-of-mouth (generated by the film’s fest-circuit delay) for a modest achievement that benefits from a lot of heart and not being like anything else out there.

“I bring a measure of grace to the world,” says Shakespeare-spouting homeless philosopher Lloyd, a dishevelled yet dignified Greek chorus who sets the stage in song: “It’s a common notion that the universe will shove together people who uniquely offer what the other needs.”

With that, the train on which he seems to live grinds to a halt.

Bruno Ganz, who died last week at the age of 77, had 121 acting credits to his name, from his debut as a hotel page in the 1960 comedy The Man in the Black Derby to his final role as a judge in Terrence Malick’s yet to be released Radegund. His underworld guide in Lars von Trier’s The House that Jack Built would have been at the very least a fitting send-off, but since that film premiered in Cannes last year he has also played Sigmund Freud in The Tobacconist and starred in a Macedonian war crimes drama, I Witness. Born in Zurich, to Swiss and Italian parents, Ganz was a truly international star, working with Wim Wenders, Werner Herzog, and Volker Schlöndorff in Germany, but also Eric Rohmer, Jerzy Skolimowski, Alain Tanner, Gillian Armstrong, Jonathan Demme, Theo Angelopoulos, Francis Ford Coppola, Ridley Scott, Atom Egoyan, Barbet Schroeder, Bille August, Sally Potter,...

Aside from their Berlinale Panel on the Perspectives of Young Filmmakers, Dffb had one of the most fun parties of the festival as the school’s director Ben Gibson and the staff mingled with film students and young filmmakers from around the world.

Berlinale Panel on the perspectives of young filmmakers covered such issues as:

What are the possibilities for up-and-coming producers to establish themselves independently on the market beyond the first and second films? What are the biggest obstacles? What do the young people’s promotion strategies of the different actors do? Which changes are necessary? And last but not least: How important is the offspring for the future of the German film industry and for German film?

The panel engaged in dialogue about the current status quo and exchanged perspectives, and also developed ideas that could give young talent the opportunities to shape the industry in the future creatively.

World’s second longest-serving film festival director died last week while attending Graz film festival.

Filmmakers in Germany and beyond are mourning the passing of Heinz Badewitz, the founder of the Hof Film Days, who died unexpectedly last week at the age of 74 whilst attending last week’s Diagonale - Festival of Austrian Film in Graz.

Badewitz was the world’s second longest-serving film festival director after Chicago’s Michael Kutza (who launched his festival in 1964) and was planning Hof’s 50th anniversary in October.

Hailing from Hof in Northern Franconia, Badewitz had moved to Munich in the early 1960s to train as a cameraman and soon became part of the Munich film scene, later working as location manager on such films as Wim Wenders’ Kings Of The Road and The American Friend, and assistant director for Bob Fosse’s Cabaret and Norman Jewison’s Rollerball.

In addition, he was involved in the selection of German films for...

The Berlin International Film Festival is celebrating its opening today, on February 7, 2013 at 7.30 pm. After a few words of greeting from Minister of State for Cultural and Media Affairs Bernd Neumann and Governing Mayor of Berlin Klaus Wowereit, the Festival will be officially opened by Jury President Wong Kar Wai (Hong Kong, China) and Berlinale Director Dieter Kosslick. The International Jury – whose other members are Susanne Bier (Denmark), Andreas Dresen (Germany), Ellen Kuras (USA), Shirin Neshat (Iran), Tim Robbins (USA) and Athina Rachel Tsangari (Greece) – will also be introduced during the gala. Anke Engelke will again host the evening. This year’s music will be provided by Ulrich Tukur & Die Rhythmus Boys. 3sat will be broadcasting the opening live. Ziyi Zhang in Yi dai zong shi (The Grandmaster) by Wong Kar Wai Following the gala, Wong Kar Wai’s epic martial-arts drama The Grandmaster will have its international premiere. The director and his leading actors,...

A new issue of Senses of Cinema will always be the top story, any day it appears. As this one's not only the 60th but also a "bumper issue," as Catherine Grant puts it, it's "a timely reminder of just what a valuable publication this online journal is." Without question, it's worthy of your support if you're able to provide it. Among the highlights of this issue are remembrances of Claudine Paquot by Serge Toubiana and Bérénice Reynaud, who finds it "hard to convey the loss experienced by French-speaking readers and cinephiles to the Anglo-Saxon world, how her presence in the editorial staff at Cahiers du cinéma had had a definitive impact on the way cinema is written about."

Samuel Bréan considers the reception of the "Navajo English" subtitles for Godard's Film socialisme. Three disparate moments in the history of German cinema: Alexandria Placido on women and fashion in Weimar cinema,...

Peter Przygodda, the renowned editor who worked with Wim Wenders, Hans-Jürgen Syberberg, Volker Schlöndorff, Hans W Geissendörfer, Reinhard Hauff, Klaus Lemke, Peter Handke and Romuald Karmakar, has died at the age of 70. He was, as Ekkehard Knörer writes in die taz, the most important editor — a term he preferred over another commonly used in Germany, "Cutter" — of the New German Cinema of the 70s and early 80s.

Though he'd originally intended to become an architect, Przygodda founded a small theater with Rolf Zacher and shot his first short film in 1969, Der Besuch auf dem Lande (The Visit to the Country), with Zacher taking on the lead role. Later that same year, he began working with Wenders on Summer in the City, striking up a friendship and professional partnership that would see them all the way through Palermo Shooting in 2008. Przygodda won the German Film Prize (Gold) for his work on...

MUNICH -- Hartmut Bitomsky, currently a member of the faculty at the CalArts School of Film and Video, will become the new director of the German Film and Television Academy in Berlin. He succeeds Reinhard Hauff, who resigned from the post last spring. Bitomsky has made primarily documentary films, including B-52 (2000), and also is the co-publisher of German film criticism magazine Filmkritik.

BERLIN -- Fatih Akin's Head-On was the surprise winner of the Golden Bear for best film at the 54th Berlin International Film Festival. His award leads the charge of a new generation of filmmakers at this year's festival, while Charlize Theron added weight to her Oscar bid by picking up a shared Silver Bear for best actress for her performance in Monster. "Wow, I didn't expect this at all," Akin said, accepting his gold statuette at a gala ceremony Saturday night. "I expected the worst, but this is pretty good." Striking a romantic note in tune with his film, Akin dedicated the prize to his girlfriend. "This is Valentine's Day, and this is for you," he said. Akin is the first German director to win the top prize in Berlin since Reinhard Hauff's Stammheim took that honor in 1986. Head-On also picked up the international critics' FIPRESCI prize.