News

Berlin-based sales agent M-Appeal will handle international sales for “Living the Land,” the second feature by Chinese director Huo Meng, which will world premiere in Berlinale Competition next month. The film is an epic family tale that traces the lives of four generations over the course of a single year.

Set in 1991, as China undergoes sweeping socio-economic changes that drive many to leave their rural villages in pursuit of work in the cities, 10-year-old Chuang, the third child of his family, must remain in the village due to family plans. Against the backdrop of modernization, as the advent of technology reshapes their traditional way of life, cycles of births, marriages and funerals reveal the weight of tradition and the pressures of balancing familial responsibilities with a rapidly changing world.

Huo Meng’s 2018 debut feature “Crossing the Border — Zhaoguan” won the Pingyao International Film Festival Fei Mu Award for best director.

Berlin-based M-Appeal will handle world sales for erotic thriller “Night Stage,” which will world premiere in Berlinale’s Panorama sidebar.

“Night Stage,” the latest film by Brazil’s Filipe Matzembacher and Marcio Reolon, follows an ambitious actor and a successful politician who start a secret affair, and together discover their fetish for having sex in public places. The closer they get to their dream of fame, the more they feel the urge to put themselves at risk.

The film is an erotic thriller with nods to Brian De Palma and Paul Verhoeven, but with a Brazilian twist. The cast is led by Gabriel Faryas as Matias, and Cirillo Luna as Rafael.

Matzembacher and Reolon told Variety: “We’ve always been interested in universes filled with desire, danger and tension, so making an erotic thriller was the natural way to go. However, this is a genre with a strong heterosexual dominance,...

The Berlin International Film Festival has unveiled the first wave of titles for its 75th edition, including features in its Panorama, Berlinale Special and Generation strands.

An initial 12 titles have been revealed for Panorama, of which eight are world premieres. These include Paul, a documentary by Canadian filmmaker Denis Cote, who has played in competition at Berlin four times with titles including Vic + Flo Saw A Bear and That Kind Of Summer. His latest follows a man struggling with social anxiety who finds refuge in serving women who invite him to clean their homes.

Scroll down for full list of...

The Berlin Film Festival forges a new path next year with the first year under new artistic director Tricia Tuttle, who succeeds Carlo Chatrian and brings a background as a journalist and curator to the annual German showcase. This year’s festival runs February 13-23, and also in new positions this year are Jacqueline Lyanga and Michael Stütz, both serving as co-directors of programming.

With bigger announcements to come, the Berlinale unveiled its first wave of titles across the Panorama and Berlinale Special gala lineups on Tuesday. As previously announced, Tom Tykwer’s “The Light” is opening this coming 75th edition. Filmmakers getting a boost from today’s announcement include Denis Côté, Michel Gondry, and Ira Sachs, all bringing new films to the festival.

In the Berlinale Special lineup, German director Jan-Ole Gerster debuts the neo-noir thriller “Islands,” starring Sam Riley and Stacy Martin. Per the festival synopsis, in the film,...

The Berlin Film Festival has named the first dozen titles for its 2025 Panorama lineup, Berlin’s main sidebar, and there are a few familiar faces in the mix.

Berlinale regular Ira Sachs will return with Peter Hujar’s Day, starring Ben Wishaw and Rebecca Hall, a feature based on a 1974 conversation between photographer Hujar and his friend Linda Rosenkrantz, offering insight into the New York art scene. Canadian filmmaker and fellow Berlinale alum Denis Côté is back in Panorama with Paul, a documentary on a cleaner who uses his job cleaning homes and sharing his routines on social media to help combat depression and social anxiety.

Other Panorama titles announced Tuesday include Emilie Blichfeldt’s Danish horror feature Den stygge stesøsteren (The Ugly Stepsister), a dark twisted fairy tale, which will premiere in Sundance; Frelle Petersen’s Hjem kaere hjem, a social realist drama on the life of an elder...

Michel Gondry and Ira Sachs are among the headline filmmakers set to debut new feature works within the sidebar competitions at next year’s Berlin Film Festival.

The German festival announced the pair this afternoon as part of its first crop of confirmed titles.

Gondry will screen Maya, Give Me a Title in Berlin’s Generation sidebar. The festival’s website describes the film as Gondry’s “stop-motion love letter to his daughter Maya brings to life a poetic and amusing journey that invites you to dream and laugh.”

Also set for the Generation competition is Our Wildest Days (I Agries Meres Mas) by Greek filmmaker Vasilis Kekatos who is best known for his 2019 short film The Distance Between Us and the Sky, which won the Short Film Palme d’Or at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. He also created the popular Greek series Milky Way.

Related:...

The Belin Film Festival has unveiled its Panorama lineup, including new works by Denis Côté, Ira Sachs, Michel Gondry and Shatara Michelle Ford, among others.

Sachs’ movie, “Peter Hujar’s Day,” stars Ben Wishaw and Rebecca Hall. Set for an international premiere in Berlin, the film portrays a 1974 conversation between photographer Peter Hujar and his friend Linda Rosenkrantz, set against the backdrop of the New York art scene of the time.

Côté’s film, “Paul,” is a documentary about a man struggling with depression and social anxiety who found refuge in serving women who invite him to clean their homes.

Gondry’s “Maya, Give Me a Title” is described by the festival as a “stop-motion love letter to his daughter Maya brings to life a poetic and amusing journey that invites you to dream and laugh.” It features the voice of “The Count of Monte-Cristo” star Pierre Niney.

Ford’s “Dreams in Nightmares,...

Mubi is closing the year out on a high note with their December lineup, featuring some of 2021’s most acclaimed U.S. releases.

Highlights include Tsai Ming-liang’s Days (along with his previous feature Afternoon), Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Wife of a Spy, Andreas Fontana’s Azor, Anders Edströ & C.W. Winter’s eight-hour epic The Works and Days (of Tayoko Shiojiri in the Shiotani Basin), Frank Beauvais’ Just Don’t Think I’ll Scream, and Michael M. Bilandic’s soon-to-premiere Project Space 13.

Also among the lineup is Arnaud Desplechin’s Esther Kahn, a quartet of Godard classics, Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña’s short The Bones, produced by Ari Aster, and much more.

Check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.

December 1 | Pierrot le fou | Jean-Luc Godard | The Cinema of Marx and Coca-Cola: Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960s

December 2 | Le bel indifferent | Jacques Demy | Scenes from a Small Town:...

The Berlin International Film Festival’s European Film Market (EFM) has confirmed details for how its online incarnation will work March 1-5.

As Deadline revealed, Dennis Ruh took the reins at the EFM in September 2020 and faces an unconventional first edition.

“International sales agents have filled their lineups for the start of the year and have an attractive variety of films on offer. Many films are also currently in production and ready for pre-sales. We want the digital EFM in 2021 to be an impulse for a new beginning in the international film industry,” said Ruh today. “Since the EFM is an integral part of an international convention calendar, and therefore part of an economic system that includes events such as the Marché du Film in Cannes and the American Film Market in Los Angeles, a later date is not an option.”

The Efm will condense the industry sessions from its...

Efm market screenings will be available in 120-minute windows.

The Berlinale’s European Film Market (Efm) has given details of its upcoming edition that is running online from March 1-5, including how its market screenings platform will work.

The Efm will also include a presentation of the Berlinale’s film selection.

Films will be available to watch by delegates within a 120-minute time window from a designated start time. These will be determined by local time zone. For example, a film available from 10.00-12.00 in Berlin would be available from 10.00-12.00 in any other global location.

Additionally, the online Efm...

Other openers include ‘Animals’ and ‘Holiday’.

Franchise titles Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw and The Angry Birds Movie 2 are aiming for different audiences in their opening weekends at the UK box office, with The Lion King looking to hold its top spot for a third week.

Universal’s Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw is a spin-off from the Fast & Furious franchise, starring Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham as a special agent and mercenary who team up to stop a genetically-enhanced villain played by Idris Elba.

As the below chart shows, the franchise has steadily grown since...

Céline Sciamma's Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Portrait de la jeune fille en feu) has been awarded this year's Queer Palm prize at Cannes. It is the first time the prize has gone to a female director.

The jury was presided over by actress Virginie Ledoyen and composed of director Claire Duguet, comedian Kee-Yoon Kim, and directors Marcio Reolon and Filipe Matzembacher.

"The jury was struck by the director’s artistic mastering and deeply touched by the vision she brings upon artistic creation, [the] blazing heart of this film. We were also greatly moved by ...

Céline Sciamma's Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Portrait de la jeune fille en feu) has been awarded this year's Queer Palm prize at Cannes. It is the first time the prize has gone to a female director.

The jury was presided over by actress Virginie Ledoyen and composed of director Claire Duguet, comedian Kee-Yoon Kim, and directors Marcio Reolon and Filipe Matzembacher.

"The jury was struck by the director’s artistic mastering and deeply touched by the vision she brings upon artistic creation, [the] blazing heart of this film. We were also greatly moved by ...

Berlin-based M-Appeal has closed a flurry of deals across its slate, including Ash Mayfair’s “The Third Wife” and Michal Aviad’s “Working Woman,” which were launched at Toronto.

“The Third Wife” sold to Potential Films for Australia/New Zealand and Crest International for Japan. Potential Films is planning a theatrical release next summer, while Crest International plans a rollout next fall.

The movie, which had its world premiere in Toronto’s Discovery section, is set in 19th-century rural Vietnam and follows 14-year-old May, who becomes the third wife of wealthy landowner Hung. May soon learns that she can only gain status by asserting herself as a woman who can give birth to a male child.

M-Appeal previously sold “The Third Wife” to North America, the U.K., Ireland, Taiwan, Singapore, Mexico, South Korea, Hong Kong and Spain.

“I was truly impressed by the beauty of the picture, by its authenticity and,...

NewFest kicks off on Wednesday, celebrating the 30th year of New York City’s premier queer film festival. Each year, NewFest presents some of the buzziest titles from all over the world, but it also plays home to brand-new fiction films and documentaries that you can’t see anywhere else.

International titles with strong acclaim are some of the best films in this year’s slate, many making their NYC debuts: the Kenyan lesbian love story Rafiki, which premiered at Cannes, is the festival’s International Centerpiece; Mario from the Locarno Film Festival; and Hard Paint from the Berlin Film Festival. Yen Tan’s critically acclaimed AIDS drama 1985 starring Cory Michael Smith will open the festival, followed by Joel Edgerton’s Boy Erased as the U.S. Centerpiece. NewFest closes out with Making Montgomery Clift, directed by the actor’s nephew Robert Anderson Clift and Hillary Demmon.

We selected 10 titles...

Chicago – The Chicago International Film Festival is competitive, and the 54th edition presented its awards on October 19th, 2018, at the AMC River East Theatre in Chicago. The winner of the Gold Hugo as Best Film was “Happy as Lazzaro” (Italy/Switzerland/Germany/France), directed by Alice Rohrwacher.

The 54th Chicago International Film Festival Awards Night was October 19th, 2018

Photo credit: Chicago International Film Festival

The awards event was hosted by entertainment reporter Bill Zwecker. Presenters included Artistic Director Mimi Plauché, programmers Anthony Kaufman and Sam Flancher, plus various jury members. Festival CEO Michael Kutza presented his “Founder’s Award.” The Festival’s highest honor is the Gold Hugo, named for the mythical God of Discovery.

International Feature Film Competition

’Happy as Lazzaro,’ Directed by Alice Rohrwacher

Photo credit: Chicago International Film Festival

The Gold Hugo for Best Film: “Happy as Lazzaro,” (Italy/Switzerland/Germany/France) Directed by Alice Rohrwacher

The...

Honorees to include Asghar Farhadi, Mary Harron and Gunnell Lindblom.

The Stockholm International Film Festival has revealed its 2018 programme, with the festival kicking off Nov 7 with the anticipated world premiere of Anna Odell’s X&Y, in competition.

Odell, the Swedish artist and filmmaker who last directed 2013’s award-winning The Reunion, returns starring as a fictionalized version of herself, collaborating with the celebrated actor Mikael Persbrandt to deconstruct themselves. The cast also features Trine Dyrholm, Sofie Gråbøl, Vera Vitali, Shanti Roney, Jens Albinus and Thure Lindhardt. New Europe handles sales.

Stockholm will close Nov 18 with The Favourite by Yorgos Lanthimos, from the Open Zone section.

NewFest, the New York-set Lgbtq film festival that is celebrating its 30th year, has unveiled its full linuep of movies ahead of its run October 24-30. As previously announced, the fest opens with Yen Tan’s AIDS drama 1985 starring Gotham‘s Corey Michael Smith, The Gifted‘s Jamie Chung, Aidan Langford, Virginia Madsen and Michael Chiklis.

This year’s slate includes the New York Centerpiece screening of the Matt Smith-starring Mapplethorpe; the Telluride-bowing Boy Erased starring Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe and Lucas Hedges as the U.S. Centerpiece; and the International Centerpiece Rafiki, Wanuri Kahiu’s pic that has been banned in its native Keyna for centering on a relationship between two women.

Also on tap is the Documentary Centerpiece film Dykes, Camera, Action. The fest will close with Robert Clift and Hillary Demmon’s Making Montgomery Clift.

This year’s lineup features programming from 32 countries, with 46 feature films,...

The Outfest Los Angeles Lgbtq Film Festival has unveiled winners for its 2018 edition that wrapped Sunday, with Jeremiah Zagar’s We the Animals taking the U.S. Narrative Feature Grand Jury Prize and Jamie Patterson’s Tucked scoring the Best Narrative Audience Award among the honors.

Drew Droege, who starred in the Michael Urie-directed Bright Colors and Bold Patterns, won the U.S. Narrative Feature Grand Jury Prize for Best Performance. The top documentary winners included T Cooper’s Man Made in the audience category and Jamal Sims’ When the Beat Drops landing the grand jury prize.

The Orchard acquired North American rights to We The Animals, based on Justin Torres’ debut novel, after it took the Next Innovator Award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. It will hit theaters sometime this year. Tucked, meanwhile, inked an output deal with Gravitas Ventures last week ahead of its world premiere.

Jamie Patterson’s Tucked, a drama about a drag queen facing a terminal illness, received the Best Narative Audience Award at the 2018 Outfest Los Angeles Lgbtq Film Festival, which concluded Sunday with a screening of Desire Akhavan’s The Miseducation of Cameron Post, starring Chloe Grace Moretz.

The U.K.’s Tucked also shared the International Feature Grand Jury Prize with Brazil’s Hard Paint, which was directed by Felipe Matzembacher and Marcio Reolon.

The Best Documentary Feature Audience Award went to T Cooper’s Man Made, which follows four men as they train for Trans FitCon, a bodybuilding competition exclusively for ...

Jamie Patterson’s Tucked, a drama about a drag queen facing a terminal illness, received the Best Narative Audience Award at the 2018 Outfest Los Angeles Lgbtq Film Festival, which concluded Sunday with a screening of Desire Akhavan’s The Miseducation of Cameron Post, starring Chloe Grace Moretz.

The U.K.’s Tucked also shared the International Feature Grand Jury Prize with Brazil’s Hard Paint, which was directed by Felipe Matzembacher and Marcio Reolon.

The Best Documentary Feature Audience Award went to T Cooper’s Man Made, which follows four men as they train for Trans FitCon, a bodybuilding competition exclusively for ...

Brazil’s Directors’ Fortnight entry “Los Silencios” typifies a growing breed of Brazilian films, shot in multiple locations and in co-production with one or more countries. Beatriz Seigner’s cross-border drama about a Colombian family fleeing the armed conflict in their native country was co-produced by Seigner’s Miriade Filmes and Leonardo Mecchi’s Enquadramento Prods. (“The Trial”), along with France’s Cine-Sud Promotion and Colombian shingle Dia-fragma.

“We shot mainly in Colombia so the key crew members were Colombian — and mostly women,” says Cine-Sud’s Thierry Lenouvel, who is co-producing Anita Rocha’s next film, “Medusa,” with Vania Catani’s Bananeira Filmes and is boarding two other Brazilian films in development: Dezenove’s Vietnam-set “The Paths of My Father” by Mauricio Osaki and BossaNovaFilms’ “To Our Children,” by actress-helmer Maria de Medeiros.

Co-producing Argentine helmer Lucrecia Martel’s acclaimed period drama “Zama” “was a lot of work but the rewards were high,...

Marcio Reolon’s Lgbt title heading to UK, Us and France.

Berlin-based sales outfit M-Appeal has revealed several deals on its award-winning new Brazilian feature, Hard Paint, which premiered at the Berlinale earlier this year.

The film, which won the Teddy Award for Best Queer Feature Film and the Cicae Award in Berlin and also picked up the Premio Maguey award in Guadalajara for Best Film, has been showing at festivals worldwide.

Deals now confirmed include the UK and Ireland (Matchbox Films), Us and Canada (Wolfe Releasing), Poland (Tongariro Releasing), France (Optimale), Portugal (Nitrato Filmes), Benelux (Arti Film) and Germany,...

Themes of abandonment, loneliness and yearning wash through Hard Paint, a hypnotically intimate character study examining a damaged young gay man's double life as an online sex performer. Brazilian writer-director duo Filipe Matzembacher and Marcio Reolon follow their atmospheric but dramatically underpowered 2015 first feature, Seashore, with this equally unhurried but far more emotionally urgent mood piece, acted with naturalness and sensitivity by compelling screen newcomers. The mix of sexual explicitness and incisive social context with melancholy sensuality should put this distinctive work on the radar of queer film specialists beyond the festival circuit.

Set in the co-directors'...

Filipe Matzembacher and Marcio Reolon’s Lgbtq drama Hard Paint (Tinta Bruta) from Brazil will have its world premiere in the Panorama programme in Berlin Sunday night, February 18th. Screen Anarchy is pleased to debut the new teaser for the film which you will find below along with a selection of images in a gallery. While facing criminal charges, Pedro must grapple with his sister’s sudden decision to move away and leave him behind. Alone in the darkness of his bedroom, he dances covered in neon paint, while thousands of strangers watch him via webcam. To help give everyone a sense of what the directors are trying to do with their second film here is a excerpt from a press kit that came to us as...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Berlinale 2018: The Netherlands Has Six Titles Screening with Hubert Bals Funding or CineMart Backing‘The Seen and Unseen’

Six titles is a record number for a small country like The netherlands

Adina Pintilie’s Touch Me Not is in the running for the prestigious Golden and Silver Bears, as it will have its world premiere in the Berlinale Competition. The co-production between Romania, Germany, Czech Republic and Bulgaria was part of CineMart in 2011, where it won the Arte France Cinéma Award with a value of €10,000.

The Seen and Unseen is the second feature film by Kamila Andini. She received a contribution towards the development of this project from the Hubert Bals Fund in 2011. This Indonesian production was finished in 2017 and premiered in Platform Competition at Toronto International Film Festival, after which it had its Asian premiere in Busan. The European premiere of the film will take place in Berlin,...

The Berlin Film Festival’s Panorama sidebar is now complete, bursting with 47 titles from 40 countries, and mixing documentary and features. Among the new additions today is Idris Elba’s directorial debut Yardie which just premiered at Sundance. Other selections announced include the Pedro Almodovar-produced Franco regime doc The Silence Of Others and Lemonade, produced by Romania’s Cristian Mungiu.

Also on deck are new works from Korea’s Kim Ki-duk, Human, Space, Time And Human; and Ursula Meier’s Shock Waves – Diary Of My Mind.

Wolfgang Fischer’s Styx will open Panorama Special on February 16. The nearly dialogue-free film film tells the story of a female doctor on a sailing holiday gone unexpectedly sour somewhere between Europe and Africa. The main program will open on the evening before with the previously announced River’s Edge from Isao Yukisada.

Below is the full...

The sensorial cinema of Gabriel Mascaro, who turned the life of a group of cowhands into a poetic experience in Neon Bull (Boi Neon), was the big winner at the 17th edition of Rio de Janeiro’s International Film Festival.

The allegory of the recent economic transformations in Brazil received four Redentor awards on Tuesday night: best film, best screenplay, best cinematography and best supporting actress for Alyne Santana.

Previously the film screened in Venice, where it won the Orizzonti special jury prize, and Toronto.

The best director prize was shared between Ives Rosenfeld’s Hopefuls (Aspirantes), a journey of a young amateur football player, and Anita Rocha da Silveira’s Kill Me Please (Mate-Me Por Favor), a teen horror film set at a school in Barra de Tijuca. Both works are first features.

The jury headed by the director and cinematographer Walter Carvalho also celebrated Hopefuls with a best actor prize for Ariclenes Barroso and a...

Sean Baker’s transgender drama was named best fiction film as Rio De Janeiro Film Festival top brass celebrated the best Lgbtq films of this year’s festival.

The inaugural Suzy Capó award named after the festival programmer and original creator of the Felix prize who died earlier this year went to 72-year-old transgender TV star and personality Rogéria.

The Felix award for best documentary went to El Hombre Nuevo (The New Man, Uruguay-Chile-Nicaragua) by Aldo Garay and the special jury prize was presented to Filipe Matzembacher and Marcio Reolon’s Seashore (Beira-Mar, Brazil).

Top brass at the Rio de Janeiro Film Festival announced that 41 feature and 19 shorts from Brazilian filmmakers will screen in the 17th edition, set to run from October 1-14.

The Première Brasil competition section will screen 13 features, of which ten will receive world premieres. An additional two features and two documentaries will screen out of competition.

Other Brazilian productions such as a restoration of Walter Lima Jr’s 1965 classic Menino de Engenho (Plantation Boy) will screen in special Première Brasil sidebars such as New Trends, Panorama, Expectation and Fronteiras.

Première Brasil is the only competitive section of the festival and Redentors will be presented on closing night. The audience will vote on three awards for best Brazilian feature film, best documentary and best short film.

As part of this years commemoration of the 450 years of the founding of Rio, the festival will screen six films that have the city as its setting or reflect the theme of Rio...

The Sea Will Tell: Titillation and Vague Angst Tease Substance in Tepid Gay Tinged Drama

Though there’s still a great need to tell vibrant, meaningful queer cinematic narratives, these angst-ridden, mildly dramatic coming out narratives between affluent, handsome teenagers following a handful of scenes dripping with undeniable sexual tension leading to the inevitable physical conjugality tends to feel as egregiously cliché as any other facet of the innumerable coming-of-age narratives proliferating the cinema scene, at large. Brazilian duo Filipe Matzembacher and Marcio Reolon have concocted just that with Seashore, their directorial debut which displays this generalized trajectory amidst a vacation road trip scenario. An additional subplot involving troubling familial foibles sucks up the remainder of the film’s energy, but is handled with such vague flippancy it’s as difficult to care as it is to determine what point these additional moments of confrontation serve.

Schoolmates Marcus (Mateus Almada...

Every day, more and more films are added to the various streaming services out there, ranging from Netflix to YouTube, and are hitting the airwaves via movie-centric networks like TCM. Therefore, sifting through all of these pictures can be a tedious and often times confounding or difficult ordeal. But, that’s why we’re here. Every week, Joshua brings you five films to put at the top of your queue, add to your playlist, or grab off of VOD to make your weekend a little more eventful. Here is this week’s top five, in this week’s Armchair Vacation.

5. Seashore (VOD)

Few things get this writer’s blood pumping faster than seeing that a film made waves at one of the major film festivals, particularly any given year’s Berlinale. One of the lesser talked about mainstays of the festival circuit, many great films have hit Berlin and become...

Exclusive: Us-based FiGa Films has lined up a Cannes slate that includes Paz Fabrega’s Tribeca 2015 selection Viaje and Berlin entry The Fire from Juan Schnitman.

Kattia Gonzalez and Fernando Bolanos star in Viaje, which marks the Costa Rican Fabrega’s second film and centres on a casual encounter.

The Fire (El Incendio) stars Pilar Gambo and Juan Barberini and tells of a couple whose love is tested during a tense attempt to buy a home.

FiGa, which as of June 1 will relocate from Los Angeles and Florida, will also tout Berlin selection and rites-of-passage drama Seashore (Beira Mar) from Filipe Matzembacher and Marcio Reolon and stars Mateus Almada and Mauricio Jose Barcellos.

Gregoria Graziosi’s Brazilian drama Obra (pictured) premiered in Toronto last year and stars Irandhir Santos, Lola Peploe and Julio Andrade.

Thriller I Swear I’ll Leave This Town (Prometo Um Dia Deixar Essa Cidade) from Daniel Aragao launched at the Rio de Janeiro...

Other titles in new talent competition include Sundance hit The Diary of a Teenage Girl and Taiwan’s The Furthest End Awaits.Scroll down for full list

The Taipei Film Festival (June 26-July 18) has announced the 12 films set to compete in the International New Talent Competition.

Selected from more than 200 submissions, the list includes The Furthest End Awaits by Taiwanese filmmaker Chiang Hsiu-chiung and a further 11 films by directors from Vietnam, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Palestine, Brazil, Britain, the UK, Us and Thailand.

The nominees compete for the first prize of $20,000 (Nt$ 600,000), and the directors will be in Taipei to attend Q&As to share their experience with the audience.

Chiang Hsiu-chiung won the Grand Prize with her documentary, Let the Wind Carry Me, at the 2010 Taipei Film Award. This year, her debut feature, The Furthest End Awaits, tells the story of the friendship between two women, Misaki, who comes back to her hometown after her father...

Cinema do Brasil’s seventh International Distribution Support Prize has opened for applications at the Efm.

Eligible companies must have signed distribution agreements with Brazilian producers associated with the promotional body and submit international distribution plans.

Applicants must invest at least $25,000 – the amount of the award – in their distribution plans.

Cinema do Brasil is promoting six films in Berlin, five of which screen in official selection.

Festival entries include Drama Filmes’ Panorama opener Blue Blood by Lírio Ferreira and two other selections from that section: Bossa Nova Films’ Absence by Chico Teixeira and Gullane’s The Second Mother (pictured) from Anna Muylaert.

The roster includes Simio Filmes’ Forum selection Brazilian Dream by Marcelo Pedroso and Avante Filmes / FiGa’s Seashore by Filipe Matzembacher and Marcio Reolon.

The Pilgrim: Paulo Coelho’s Best History screens in the market.

“We are very happy to see the Brazilian cinema in one more relevant participation in a festival as important as the...

FiGa Films sells Forum world premiere to Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Pro-Fun Media has acquired Beira-Mar from FiGa Films for Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Filipe Matzembacher & Marcio Reolon’s coming-of-age drama world premiered on Friday [Feb 6] in Forum and follows two young men who travel to a nearby coastal city to visit one of their distant relatives.

Sandro Fiorin, co-head of FiGa Films, commented: “So far, we have had a good Efm this year and we are in promising talks with a number of buyers for other territories.”

Beira-Mar screens again tonight [Feb 7].

Brazilian directors Filipe Matzembacher and Marcio Reolon are set to add to the Forum Section's focus on new Latin American cinema with "Beira-Mar". The film's official synopsis reads: "During winter, two young men travel to a nearby coastal city. Martin has to visit distant relatives in order to get a document for his father. Tomaz agrees to join him on this journey, seeing it as an opportunity to rekindle their friendship. The two spend their days immersed in their own universe, experiencing rejection from Martin’s family and the weird distance that has grown between them both. Going from casual distractions to deep reflections on their lives and friendship, the boys shelter themselves in a glass house by the shore of a cold and raging sea." Far from the picture-postcard beaches of Rio, Matzembacher and Reolon expose the desolate and cold landscapes of Southern Brazil rarely explored in previous films,...

Experimental strand to open with Guy Maddin’s The Forbidden Room

The Berlinale (Feb 5-15) has unveiled the line-up for its 45th Forum strand, comprising 43 films in its main programme, of which 31 are world premieres and 10 international premieres.

The programme includes avant garde, experimental works, essays, long-term observations and political reportage.

Canadian director Guy Maddin’s The Forbidden Room will open this year’s programme. The film’s numerous plotlines are inspired by real, imaginary and photographic memories of films from the silent era, using a half-damaged nitrate print aesthetic in homage.

Films of the 45th Forum

Abaabi ba boda boda (The Boda Boda Thieves) by Yes! That’s Us,

Uganda / South Africa / Kenya / Germany - Wp

Al-wadi (The Valley) by Ghassan Salhab, Lebanon / France / Germany

Balikbayan #1 (Memories of Overdevelopment Redux) by Kidlat Tahimik, The Philippines - Wp

Beira-Mar (Seashore) by Filipe Matzembacher, Marcio Reolon, Brazil - Wp

Ben Zaken by Efrat Corem, Israel - IP[p...

The Hubert Bals Fund (Hbf) of International Film Festival Rotterdam (Iffr) has selected fourteen film projects from nine countries across Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East to receive post-production, script and project development grants totaling €180,000. In its Fall 2014 selection round, the Hbf provides financial support to outstanding projects from nine established filmmakers, which this year includes award winning Ukrainian filmmaker Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy’s, and five first-time feature filmmakers. In addition, €100,000 has been awarded to Oak Motion Pictures and Viking Film through Hubert Bals Fund Plus, whereby the Netherlands Film Fund provides the funding to Dutch producers who are co-producing a Hbf supported film.

Script and project development

A script and project development grant can be used for the further development of the script or presentation of the project to financiers or other potential partners at (international) co-production meetings or film festivals. Based on his 2012 short "Nuclear Waste," Miroslav Slaboshpitsky’s new feature film project "The Luxembourg" was selected for a grant in this category and tells a gripping tale of love and revenge set against the backdrop of Chernobyl’s nuclear wasteland. Slaboshpytskiy’s previous film, "The Tribe," winner of the Grand Prix, Semaine de la Critique 2014, was also supported by the Hbf and will screen in the Limelight section of Iffr 2015.

Hbf has selected several projects by new and promising filmmakers in the script and project development category, including two debut feature films by filmmakers who previously screened their short films at Iffr. Julia De Simone (Brazil), presented The Harbor in the Iffr 2014 Spectrum Shorts section and Hbf is now providing financing for her debut feature, "Corte Real," a layered hybrid story of the history of slavery in Brazil. Argentinean director Mónica Lairana presented her short films at Iffr in 2010 (Rosa) and 2013 (Maria) and her Hbf-supported debut feature "La Cama" is an intimate and touching portrait of an aging married couple.

Fall 2014 projects selected for script and project development support:

"A Young Executioner," Li Luo, China "Corte Real," Julia De Simone, Brazil "Diamond Island," Davy Chou, Cambodia "La Cama," Mónica Lairana, Argentina "Neonboy," Marcio Reolon & Filipe Matzembacher, Brazil "Shanghai Youth," Wang Bing, China "The Center of the Earth," Gabriel Mascaro, Brazil "The Luxembourg," Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy, Ukraine "The Uunfound (UFO)," Sattha Saengthon, Thailand "To All Naked Men" Bassam Chekhes, Syria

Post-production

A post-production grant can be used for different activities in the post-production process varying from editing to sound mixing. Promising Peruvian director and 2010 alumni of Iffr’s Trainee Project for Young Film Critics, Juan Daniel Fernández Molero, has been awarded a post-production grant for his second feature "Videophilia (and Other Viral Syndromes)," a modern and visually psychedelic take on youth culture in Lima. In total four film projects have been selected to receive post-production grants and all are expected to join the recently completed Hbf-supported films that have been selected for Iffr 2015.

Fall 2014 projects selected for post-production support:

"La Mujer de los Perros," Laura Citarella & Verónica Llinás, Argentina "La Obra del Siglo," Carlos Quintela, Cuba "Vanishing Point," Jakrawal Nilthamrong, Thailand "Videophilia (and Other Viral Syndromes)," Juan Daniel Fernández Molero, Peru

Hubert Bals Fund Plus

Now in its ninth year, the successful Hubert Bals Fund Plus programme of The Netherlands Film Fund and Iffr gets Dutch producers involved in Hbf-supported, international co-productions. This Fall Hbf Plus support is granted to Oak Motion Pictures for the realisation of "The Wound," John Trengove’s first feature film on the ritual circumcision of a teenage gay Xhosa boy in South Africa. The second grant goes to Viking Film for "Oscuro Animal" by Colombian filmmaker Felipe Guerrero, on the journey of three women forced to flee their homes following the violent conflict in their region. Hbf Plus has now supported five projects this year, including the three projects announced last May.

Fall 2014 projects selected for Hbf Plus support:

"The Wound," John Trengove, South Africa. Produced by Oak Motion Pictures (The Netherlands), Urucu Media (South Africa), Sampek (France), and Salzgeber (Germany). "Oscuro Animal," Felipe Guerrero, Colombia. Produced by Viking Film (The Netherlands) mutokino (Colombia), Gema Films (Argentina), and ma.ja.de. filmproduktion (Germany)

About the Hubert Bals Fund : Hbf is an initiative of International Film Festival Rotterdam. The Fund has been designed to offer financial support to remarkable and unique feature films by talented filmmakers from Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and parts of Eastern Europe. Since its creation 25 years ago, over 1,000 projects from over 100 countries have received support from the Hbf. As of 2015, the Hbf provides support in the following funding categories:

Hbf Script and Project Development (max. €10,000) – next deadline 1 March 2015 Hbf Post-production (max. € 20,000) – next deadline 1 August 2015 Hbf Plus - A minority co-production programme for Dutch producers- in collaboration with the Netherlands Film Fund (€ 50,000) – next deadline 1 April 2015 Hbf+Europe – Minority co-production support (€ 55,000) – next deadline 1 April 2015 Hbf+Europe - Distribution support for international co-productions (€ 20,000) – next deadline 1 September 2015

The Hbf is funded by the Creative Europe – Media programme of the European Union, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hivos, the Dioraphte Foundation, the Tiger Friends Foundation and the Lions Club Rotterdam: L’Esprit du Temps.

Information about the Fund and the application procedures can be found via www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com/hubertbalsfund .

International Film Festival Rotterdam (Iffr) offers a high quality line-up of carefully selected fiction and documentary feature films, short films and media art. The festival's Tiger Awards Competitions, Bright Future, Spectrum and Limelight sections contain new work by auteurs from all over the world including many World Premieres. In the Signals section, Iffr presents retrospectives and themed programmes. Iffr actively supports new and adventurous filmmaking talent through numerous industry initiatives including co-production market CineMart, its Hubert Bals Fund and Rotterdam Lab.

Some 14 films selected to receive post-production, script and project development grants.

For its autumn selection round, the Hubert Bals Fund has selected 14 film projects to receive post-production, script and project development grants totaling €180,000 ($225,000).

The projects come from nine countries across Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. The selection includes nine established filmmakers, including award-winning Ukrainian filmmaker Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy (The Tribe), and five first-time feature filmmakers.

In addition, €100,000 ($125,000) has been awarded to Oak Motion Pictures and Viking Film through Hubert Bals Fund Plus, whereby the Netherlands Film Fund provides the funding to Dutch producers who are co-producing a Hbf supported film.

Script and project development

Based on his 2012 short Nuclear Waste, Slaboshpytskiy’s new feature film project The Luxembourg was selected for a grant in the script and project development category, which can be used for the further development of the script or presentation of the project to financiers or other potential partners at (international...