News

The Berlin Film Festival’s 2025 Panorama section will launch with Welcome Home Baby, a psychological horror film from Austrian director Andreas Prochaska, leading a lineup of 34 films from 28 countries. The section head Michael Stütz unveiled the full program that addresses societal fractures, health systems, and democratic instability on Thursday.

Prochaska’s film reimagines the homeland horror genre as a response to 1950s German-language cinema. The selection continues its genre focus with the Norwegian body horror The Ugly Stepsister, Turkish political thriller Confidante, and Taiwanese gangster narrative Silent Sparks.

German productions hold a significant presence this year with six films. Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay presents the conspiracy thriller Hysteria, while five female directors bring new works. Debut features come from Nele Mueller-Stöfen with Delicious and Sarah Miro Fischer with The Good Sister. Ina Weisse reunites with Nina Hoss for Cicadas.

The documentary selections include Martina Priessner’s The Moelln Letters, examining the 1993 racist arson attacks in Mölln,...

Debutante director Ramata-Toulaye Sy will join one of world cinema’s most select clubs when she climbs the stairs of the Grand Theatre Lumière on May 20 for the premiere of “Banel & Adama,” which unspools in the main competition at the Cannes Film Festival. It marks just the second time in the French fest’s 76-year history that a Black woman will compete for the Palme d’Or, a glass ceiling that was shattered only four years ago by Sy’s French Senegalese compatriot, Mati Diop (“Atlantics”).

While acknowledging the honor, it is a club, Sy admits, about which she has some ambivalence. “I really hope that soon all this will be taken for granted — that we won’t be counting the Black directors, that we won’t be counting women,” the helmer tells Variety. “It means that there’s still something wrong, that there’s still something that hasn...

Banel & Adama

A recent Red Sea Souk Award winner this past December, Banel & Adama is an under-the-radar buzz title and directorial debut by French-Senegalese filmmaker Ramata-Toulaye Sy. The France, Mali and Senegalese funded project received some Cnc Coin back in August of ’21 and would have gone into production around the month of May. Her short film debut “Astel” was launched at the TIFF in ’21 and New Directors/New Films in ’22 and prior to moving behind the camera she was among the trio of writers on Guillaume Giovanetti and Çagla Zencirci’s Sibel (2019) and was among the writers Atiq Rahimi’s Our Lady of the Nile (2019).…...

An enticing menu featuring more than 100 films at the 41st edition of the Cinemed, Montpellier Mediterranean Film Festival, which will unfold from 18 to 26 October. The excellent Adults in the Room by Costa-Gavras will tomorrow open the 41st edition of the Cinemed, Montpellier Mediterranean Film Festival (now presided by Palermo mayor Leoluca Orlando), which will unfold from 18-26 October. The guest of honour this year is French filmmaker André Téchiné, and this iteration of the gathering will close with Dominik Moll’s Only the Animals. Ten fiction features will be competing for the 2019 Antigone d'Or Award, which will be given out by a jury presided by French director Julie Bertuccelli. Among them, four films presented at Venice stand out: A Son from Tunisian director Mehdi M Barsaoui (winner of the Best Actor Orizzonti...

It includes Berlin Golden Bear winner Synonyms and Cannes prize winners Les Miserables, Young Ahmed, Pain And Glory and Little Joe.

The 46 films recommended for nomination for the 2019 European Film Awards have been announced.

Scroll down for the full list of titles

The selection includes Berlin Golden Bear winner Synonyms and Cannes prize winners Les Miserables, Young Ahmed, Pain And Glory, Portrait Of A Lady On Fire and Little Joe.

The films were selected by a committee consisting of the Efa board and experts Giorgio Gosetti (festival programmer), Kathrin Kohlstedde (festival programmer), Paz Lazaro (festival programmer), Mary Nazari (exhibitor), Edvinas...

It includes Berlin Golden Bear winner Synonyms and Cannes prize winners Les Miserables, Young Ahmed, Pain And Glory and Little Joe.

The 46 films recommended for nomination for the 2019 European Film Awards have been announced.

Scroll down for the full list of titles

The selection includes Berlin Golden Bear winner Synonyms and Cannes prize winners Les Miserables, Young Ahmed, Pain And Glory, Portrait Of A Lady On Fire and Little Joe.

The films were selected by a committee consisting of the Efa board and experts Giorgio Gosetti (festival programmer), Kathrin Kohlstedde (festival programmer), Paz Lazaro (festival programmer), Mary Nazari (exhibitor), Edvinas...

Our final portrait before we go “mute”, Franco-Turkish filmmaker team Çagla Zencirci and Guillaume Giovanetti made their way from Locarno Film Fest into Tiff’s Contemporary World Cinema section with Sibel – their third feature after the Cannes Acid section selected Noor (2012) and Ningen – which was selected for Tiff back in 2013. Tipped by the fest as a “modern-day Cinderella story of female empowerment” starring Damla Sönmez. Çagla and Guillaume were on hand for the Tiff premiere. Here is our photo of the pairing — but apart.…...

A strong showcase of German cinema was on offer at the Toronto Film Festival with a slew of films tackling such timely issues as sexual violence, the plight of refugees, the end of the Soviet Union and Germany’s recent turbulent history.

This year’s selections included works from such prominent names as Werner Herzog, Margarethe von Trotta, Christian Petzold, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck and Sven Taddicken.

In Herzog and André Singer’s doc “Meeting Gorbachev,” the prolific filmmakers offer a portrait of Mikhail Gorbachev, the last president of the Soviet Union, and his lasting impact on world politics.

In “Searching for Ingmar Bergman,” which also unspools in the Tiff Docs sidebar, von Trotta explores the Swedish director’s cinematic legacy.

Von Donnersmarck, who won the foreign-language film Oscar for 2006’s “The Lives of Others,” revisits East Germany in “Never Look Away,” which follows the life of an artist struggling...

Three years ago, Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s handsomely made yet exoticizing “Mustang” reinforced a Western idea of rural Turkish life and was received with general acclaim away from home, proving that a filmmaker’s local origins don’t exclude an internalized brand of orientalism. That’s even truer with “Sibel,” Çagla Zencirci and Guillaume Giovanetti’s third feature, the first one shot in Zencirci’s country of birth. Weaving together folklore, gender roles and a fitful kind of emancipation in the story of a mute young woman desperate to counter the ostracism of her fellow villagers, the writer-director couple have created an attractive package that doesn’t hold up to close inspection. Even so, thanks to the extensive use of an intriguing whistle language, and given the way it buttresses Western narrative notions of Asia Minor, the film has a good chance of garnering international art-house attention.

The movie’s...

Bruno Dumont's CoinCoin et les Z'inhumainsThe lineup for the 2018 festival has been revealed, including new films by Hong Sang-soo, Radu Muntean, Mariano Llinás and others, alongside retrospectives and tributes, and much more.

Piazza GRANDEBlacKkKlansmanBlazeCoincoin et les Z'inhumainsI Feel GoodLe vent tourneLes Beaux EspritsLibertyL'ordre des medecinsL'ospiteManila in the Claws of LightBirds of PassageRuben Brandt, Collector (Milorad Krstic, Hungary)Se7enSearchingThe Equalizer 2Un nemico che ti vuole bene (Denis Rabaglia, Italy/Switzerland)What Doesn't Kill Us

Concorso INTERNAZIONALEGlaubenbergA Family TourDianeLa FlorYaraMenocchioToo Late To Die YoungRay & LizHotel By the RiverA Land ImaginedMSibelGenèseWintermärchenAlice T.

Concorso Cineasti Del PRESENTEAll GoodThose Who WorkChaosClosing TimeImmersed FamilyFaust The Dive Suburban BirdsYoung and AliveLikemebackDead Horse NebulaWe Are ThankfulSophia AntipolisHierLong Way HomeTrot

Signs Of Lifea Room with a Coconut ViewCommunion Los AngelesHow Fernando Pessoa Saved PortugalDulcineaGulyabaniThe Fragile HouseMan in the WellJulio Iglesias's HouseThe Glorious Acceptance of Nicolas ChauvinSedução da CarneAnything And AllThe Grand BizarreErased,...

The lineup for this year’s Locarno International Film Festival, which celebrates its 71st edition, has arrived. Among the most-anticipated titles in the lineup there’s a new feature from Hong Sang-soo titled Hotel by the River and the latest film from Tuesday, After Christmas director Radu Muntean, Alice T. Also in the slate is Man in the Well, a short film from Hu Bo, made before his first and final feature An Elephant Sitting Still. Ahead of our coverage, check out the full lineup below (via Mubi), also featuring previously premiered films from Spike Lee, Kent Jones, Ethan Hawke, Ciro Guerra & Cristtina Gallego, Aneesh Chaganty, and more.

Piazza Grande

BlackKkansman

Blaze

Coincoin et les Z’inhumains

I Feel Good

Le vent tourne

Les Beaux Esprits

Liberty

L’ordre des medecins

L’ospite

Manila in the Claws of Light

Birds of Passage

Ruben Brandt, Collector

Se7en

Searching

The Equalizer 2...

New films from Hong Sangsoo, Abbas Fahdel, Radu Muntean in competition.

The line-up for Carlo Chatrian’s last outing as the artistic director of the Locarno Festival (Aug 1-11) in Switzerland includes the world premieres of Swiss filmmaker Bettina Oberli’s Le Vent Tourne and German director Sandra Nettelbeck’s tragicomedy Was Uns Nicht Umbringt.

Both will screen as part of the non-competitive Piazza Grande open-air programme.

Scroll down for full line-up

Further Piazza Grande films include Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman, actor-director Ethan Hawke’s Blaze, Aneesh Chaganty’s debut feature Searching, and the late Filipino filmmaker Lino Brocka’s...

Council of Europe’s cinema fund to award €7,104,430.

Eurimages, the council of Europe’s fund for co-production, distribution and exhibition of European cinema, has announced it will support 27 films (including a documentary and an animation) for a combined €7,104,430.

The projects selected by the Eurimages board at its 147th meeting held June 19-23 are:

The Beast in the Jungle (Netherlands, Luxembourg) - Clara Van Gool (Netherland)A Woman At War (France, Iceland) - Benedikt ErlingssonAsghar Farhadi’s Spanish Project(France, Spain, Italy) - Asghar Farhadi (Iran - France)The Man Who Surprised Everyone (Russia, Estonia, France) - Natalya Merkulova, Alexey ChupovThe Guest (Italy, Switzerland) - Duccio ChiariniIs This What You Were Born For? (Romania, Czech Republic, France, Bulgaria) - Radu JudeJade (Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland) - Sacha PolakMotherland (Lithuania, Latvia) - Tomas VengrisThe Magic Quill (Czech Republic, Slovakia) - Marek NajbrtAlice T. (Romania, Sweden) - Radu MunteanHistory of Love (Slovenia, Italy, Norway) - Sonja ProsencDogman (Italy, France) - Matteo...

Taking place from April 8-13, the 31st edition of the Dortmund | Cologne International Women’s Film Festival will have it’s main program in the city of Cologne. A small selection will be seen in Dortmund as well. A total of 106 films from 37 countries will be screened and about 60 international filmmakers are going to be guests in Cologne. The festival will also be putting on a number of events that go beyond what a normal visit to the cinema has to offer. Events intended to spark a critical response to the medium of film via a number of formats – panel discussions, talks and workshops for cinema aficinados and film-makers alike.

Five Germany Premieres Compete for €10,000 Prize

A total of eight exceptional debut feature films will be screened in Cologne, having been short-listed from the 120 international film debuts of the last two years. Of that eight, the festival will present five of them as firsts for Germany – including, as the opening film, the award-winning tragicomedy The Amazing Catfish from Mexico. The other nominees are: Talea (Austria), The Magnetic Tree (Chile), Sense of Humor (France), Matei Child Miner (Romania), Marussia (Russia/France), Under the Starry Sky (Senegal/France) – and The Plague (Spain). Mostly seen against the backdrop of the global economic crisis, shot with stunning visuals and told with surprising concision, these are stories of childhood, family, identity and belonging.

The Jury for this edition will be formed by Kim Yutani, programmer at the Sundance Film Festival, Turkish director Pelin Esmer ( 10 to 11, Watchtower) and German actress Julia Hummer (Gespenster, Top Girl)

Focus: Turkey

At the Cologne location of the Dortmund|Cologne International Women's Film Festival, the spotlight is always on the cinematic oeuvre of a particular region or country. This year, the encounter is with Turkey and its women filmmakers.

The Country Focus zooms in on the ongoing demonstrations and protest movements organized by Turkish citizens since the end of May 2013 against the authoritarian policies of the governing party in Turkey. The program thus sets out to analyze the concepts and definitions of home and identity and to examine to what extent current protests had already been anticipated there in the films of recent years.

Divided into ten programs the festival will present feature films, documentaries and short films from 2004 to 2013 as well as the historic feature film Dönüs (The Return 1972) by and with the great Turkish actress Türkan Soray.

Filmmakers and experts like Deniz Akçay, Pelin Esmer, Serpil Turhan, Rüya Arzu Köksal Kudu, Aysun Bademsoy, Lale Akgün, Mely Kiyak, Can Erdogan, Emel Celebi, Sedef Özge and Güliz Saglam will also be guests. Two panel discussions, a master class with Yeşim Ustaoğlu and the photo exhibition "Tarlabasi - On the Edge of Transformation"round off the programme as a whole.

Let Your Light Shine - The Panorama section

Beyonce, Vulva 3.0 and other top-rate film discoveries. Panorama showcases 45 new, challenging and entertaining films from 28 countries.

Fiction, documentary, essay, avant-garde, experimental films and all the shorter formats: there are no formal restrictions on the Panorama Section and all lengths of movie are welcome. This year, 13 long films and 32 short to medium-length films are on view, including a good few premieres for Germany.

In the course of the selection process, it is the attitude of the women film-makers, the way they represent people in their films and the effect so generated that play an important role. Yet even though the Panorama section attempts to do full justice to the variety of artistic forms of expression, documentary and experimental films are given some priority. Among these are films like Perfect Garden by Mara Mattuschka, Touch by Shelly Silver, Noor by Cagla Zencirci, My Love Awaits Me By The Sea by Mais Darwazah and Rock the Casbah by Laïla Marrakchi and a film program & live performance by Jodie Mack, just to mention a few...

French sales outfit Wide Management has added a slew of titles in recent months.

Tiff contemporary world cinema premiere Ningen, about a Japanese CEO under pressure to save his company, is the second feature from Noor directors Cagla Zencirci and Guillaume Giovanetti.

Portuguese drama Bobo, by Ines Oliveira, plays in the Tiff discovery programme. The feature follows two women who unite over their mutual desire to protect a child.

Vinko Bresan’s Karlovy Vary competition comedy The Priest’s Children has sold to a number of European territories while Jean-Louis Daniel’s Paris-set Shanghai Belle, also in-demand, tells the story of young models discovering a life of drugs, sex and prostitution.

Also on the slate are Snails in the Rain by Yariv Mozer, Letters of a Portuguese Nun, Rene Feret’s The Film to Come, and Us comedy Only in New York, in which a stand-up has a novel take on the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Wide has also...

The 38th Toronto International Film Festival has released an incredible guest list of celebrated talent from around the globe. Filmmakers expected to present their world premieres in Toronto include: Catherine Breillat, Nicole Garcia, Pawel Pawlikowski, Bertrand Tavernier, Steve McQueen, Godfrey Reggio, Denis Villeneuve, Bill Condon, Jean-Marc Vallée, John Wells, Ralph Fiennes, Richard Ayoade, Atom Egoyan, Matthew Weiner, John Carney, Jason Reitman, Jason Bateman, Yorgos Servetas, Liza Johnson, Megan Griffiths, Fernando Eimbcke, Alexey Uchitel, Johnny Ma, Biyi Bandele, Rashid Masharawi, Paul Haggis, Ron Howard, Eli Roth, Álex de la Iglesia, Bruce McDonald, Jennifer Baichwal, John Ridley, and Justin Chadwick.

The Festival also welcomes thousands of producers and other industry professionals bringing films to us.

The following filmmakers and artists are expected to attend the Toronto International Film Festival:

Ahmad Abdalla, Hany Abu-Assad, Yuval Adler, Akosua Adoma Owusu, Alexandre Aja, Bruce Alcock, Gianni Amelio, Thanos Anastopoulos, Madeline Anderson, Nimród Antal, Louise Archambault,...