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Killer Films producer Christine Vachon, Mubi’s chief content officer Jason Ropell, and Fatih Abay, diversity and inclusion officer at the European Film Academy are among the international speakers heading to the industry programme of this year’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff), taking place until July 8 in the Czech Republic.

The recently restored Imperial Spa will house the entire industry programme. It’s wood-panelled interiors will host the Industry Days’ Eastern Promises for four days of project pitches, talks, events, and workshops as well as the Film Industry Office and Lounge. There is an afternoon forum dedicated to...

Future Frames, a program for up-and-coming European filmmakers, is celebrating its 10th anniversary at Karlovy Vary Film Festival next week. So far, 104 filmmakers from 29 European countries have taken part. Its alumni have gone on to direct features that have appeared at major festivals worldwide.

The initiative, which is organized by European Film Promotion and Karlovy Vary, gives filmmakers the opportunity to present their short films at this prestigious A-list festival, and helps them build an international network.

Four years after his participation in the Future Frames program, Adam Martinec from the Czech Republic returns to Karlovy Vary with his first full-length film “Our Lovely Pig Slaughter,” which is screening in the Crystal Globe competition.

Other directors have been successful too with their first or second feature-length films, such as Halfdan Olav Ullman Tøndel from the first Future Frames group, whose debut film “Armand” was presented with the Camera d’Or at this year’s Cannes.

The event runs December 16-19 in the French Alps.

France’s Les Arcs Film Festival has unveiled the 18 European feature film projects that will be presented in the 15th edition of its Co-production Village, running December 16-19 in the French Alps.

The showcase aims to connect projects in various stages of development with co-producers, sales agents, distributors and other co-financing partners. This year’s roster boasts a 50-50 gender parity, with nine projects from female filmmakers and nine from male directors. 10 are first fiction features and five are second films, representing 15 different countries.

All the projects will compete for the...

The Les Arcs Film Festival has unveiled the 18 European film projects selected for its Les Arcs Coproduction, running from December 16 to 19 within the framework of the Alpine event’s 15th edition.

The selection, chosen from 269 submitted projects hailing from 15 different countries, has achieved gender parity in terms of the directors involved, even though only 36% applications of the projects submitted were directed by women.

Ten of projects are first fiction feature projects, five are second features and 3 by more established filmmakers, including Michael Caton-Jones and Ena Sendijarević, whose latest film Sweet Dreams is the Netherlands’s Best International Feature Film entry this year.

The Netherlands is Les Arcs Film Festival’s country focus this year and the Coproduction village will welcome three projects from the territory.

There will also be an industry talks program featuring a panel on production issues related to AI, organized by the European Producers Club,...

Berlin-based sales agent Pluto Film has boarded “Forever-Forever” (“Nazavzhdy-Nazavzhdy”), Ukrainian filmmaker Anna Buryachkova’s feature directing debut, ahead of its world premiere in Venice Film Festival’s Horizons Extra competition.

After transferring from a downtown high school, Tonia (Alina Cheban) befriends a group of badass youngsters, trying to find protection from the people from her past and a place she truly belongs. They spend time together, roaming around Kyiv’s post-socialist suburbs, having fun and getting in trouble. Soon, Tonia falls in love with Zhurik. When she also falls for Sania (Arthur Aliiev), she finds herself tangled up in an alluring secret love triangle. But Tonia’s painful past still haunts her, challenging this newfound friendship and romance. Will she be able to find her own path or lose herself in this new controversial relationship?

Buryachkova stated: “This film is a love song to the lost teenagers of the late...

As many people now know first hand, thanks to the Covid lockdowns, there are few things in life as distressing as being stuck at a distance when a loved one is in danger. As Michal Blasko’s film opens, traffic is moving at a crawl. The bus driver says it could be four hours before they reach their destination. Everybody is told to stay on the bus, but Irina (Vita Smachelyuk) refuses, getting her stuff and wandering down the road until she can blag a lift in a car going to the Czech Republic. Her son Igor (Gleb Kuchuk) is in surgery and she needs to be with him.

It’s a tense start to a film which will keep viewers on edge all the way through. Thankfully, when Irina arrives at the hospital, she finds Igor recovering. A friend explains that he was found by neighbours after being assaulted by three Roma.

Legal docudrama Saint Omer was voted Best Picture at the 34th Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival, which announced this year’s juried award winners today.

Saint Omer wins for its ability “to expertly interrogate issues of society, culture, race, and gender,” the festival release stated. “Alice Diop, as screenwriter and director, delivers a film that explores different dynamics of Black women in contemporary France, drawing empathetic lead performances from Kayije Kagame and Guslagie Malanga. By harnessing the skills of her technical team, Diop turns Saint Omer into a shrewd, cogent, ambitious, and overwhelming film which teases a metafictional awareness while remaining clear-eyed and unsentimental.”

The Palm Springs festival took place from January 5-16 and screened 134 films from 64 countries, including 27 premieres. The lineup includes 35 of the International Feature Film Oscar submissions.

The jury award categories included the Fipresci Prize for films...

Slovakia’s Oscar© 2023 Entry for Best International Feature: ‘Victim’ directed by Michal Blaško

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‘Victim’ is a suspenseful drama about a woman seeking justice in a racist society, torn between family and the truth. Blaško continues his focus on the plight of an outsider stuck in a complicated situation, carrying on the thematic focus he has developed in his series and short films.

Irina is an immigrant single mother from Ukraine living in a small Czech town. When her son is assaulted and severely injured, the whole town stands up in solidarity with the mother and son and condemns their Roma neighbors, who are allegedly responsible. After Irina’s son wakes up in hospital, the truth about his incident begins to emerge. At the same time, a political campaign is gaining momentum in town, and different actors from media, politics and civil society strategically manipulate reality to their own ends. Truth and lies become difficult to tell apart. Torn between protecting her family and searching for the truth, Irina is ultimately forced to make a fateful decision.

Watch the trailer here: Trailer Link

Director Michal Blaško

This film’s moral dilemma reminded me of Fahrad’s A Hero and A Separation, in that a lie determines the fate of so many people.What inspired you to make this film?

I was inspired by how easy it is to manipulate society and its hatred. There were many cases around me that used this manipulation and legitimized racism, for example. I wanted to show how little you need to wake up this hatred and divide society.

Notable is the outstanding performance of lead actress Vita Smachelyuk as Irina Zyrchenko. How did you find the lead actors?

It was actually a long process, because we knew that the main actors needed to speak Ukrainian and Czech fluently. We found the main actress, Vita, in Hamburg, where she has been living with her husband for the last five years having moved there from Kyiv. The protagonist Igor lives in Prague, where he moved with his Ukrainian mother. None of them speaks fluent Czech, so Vita had to learn Czech for one and a half years. Gleb in the film speaks mostly Ukrainian, so for him it was easier. The rest were Czech Actors and non-actors.

I noticed the project Victim was selected for Cannes L’Atelier 2019. How did that help you with the film?

It helped a lot with funding. People started to believe in the film more and more and it was easier to fund the film. We were also able to meet many people from the industry interested in the film and find collaborators for the future. Overall, it was good experience.

Were there other workshops the film and you went through, and if so, where and how did the workshop help you and the director?

Yes, there were. For example, Connecting Cottbus, Budapest Debut Film Forum and When East Meets West in Trieste. Because of numerous meetings and presentations, you feel you talk about the film so much that you have really no problem to answer any question about it. I don’t think it helped me in a creative way or in a different way of thinking about the story, but you can talk about the topic with many interesting people and their views can be very refreshing and it can give you some points to think about.

Did you go through any government agencies, programs to develop and produce the film?

Actually the screenwriter went through one program initiative organized by the Czech Film Fund, but it was in the early stage of development. I don’t mean to say that it was pointless, but we were at a stage where we were confident about many things and they respected it and also understood that it was going the right direction.

How did the film get financed?

It is a Slovak-Czech-German co-production. Actually, the financing went without a problem, all the funds were very supportive.

It is quite daring for a debut feature…what drew you to this topic?

I knew that I couldn’t make a film that tells nothing about what is concerning me or people around me. I also found it to be very important that the storyline between the mother and son, which shows how tender the relationship is and how important it is, was the thrust of the story. These were the topics and themes that were important to me and they had to be the main focus of the film.

What happens to you in the process of writing and producing?

I am fully focused on improving the story and to be sure not to forget the topics and points that made me make this film. I know what I want to convey with the film and that is important to me but I don’t stay deaf or blind and when I learn some things that can improve it, I think about each one and if it works, I apply it.

What do you consider your strongest attribute as a director?

That’s a tricky question and really difficult to answer. Every film is different and I try to have some kind of artistic voice that suits the story and is related to me. On the other hand, I don’t stick with one formal approach and think about the story as the most important part of the process.

Where do you feel least assured?

Actually nowhere, each part of the process is important for the final result and influences everything, so I don’t think about it like this.

What do you like most about directing?

The ability to tell a story. To build characters, that people love or hate and to take them through a story that touches the audience and makes them think about themselves. I think that is beautiful and if it works, it is magic.

What happens to you now that you have finished the film and it is up for an Oscar nomination?

It is a new experience for me and I am very grateful to the Slovak Film Academy that they nominated our film. First of all it allows us to present this film and its topics to more and more people and also get more attention. Aside from that, I am working on a new feature film project called Cowgirl, so one film is fully done and the other one is in preparation.

How and when did the international sales agent come on board?

We presented films in several markets such as L’Atelier, so we had been in touch with several sales agents. In the late stage of post-production we decided that the best fit would be Pluto Film. It is a great collaboration and it is a joy to work with Daniela and Ben.

How did the film play in Slovakia?

Slovak society is strange in a way. 70% of the people never returned to cinemas after Covid. That is a big number and you can sense it in the empty cinemas. People are also divided about the Ukrainian conflict, which is because there is a great deal of Russian propaganda in Slovakia and, unfortunately, a lot of Russian fake news influences the society. With this in mind, the film was much more successful abroad than in domestic cinemas. And that is unfortunate, really.

Victim screened at the Venice, Toronto and Busan Film Festivals. Blaško’s previous award-winning short film Atlantis 2003 screened at Cannes in 2017 before going on to win the Czech Lion for best short film, and his mini-series Suspicion premiered in the Berlinale Series this year.

Directed by: Michal Blaško

Written by: Jakub Medvecky

Cast: Vita Smachelyuk, Gleb Kuchuk, Igor Chmela, Viktor Zavadil, Inna ZhulinaOriginal title: Obet

Language: Ukranian, Czech (English subtitles)

Running time: 91 mins

International Sales Agent: Pluto Film

“A taut moral thriller…compelling…smooth, tense, fluid” — Jessica Kiang, Variety

“A beautifully performed morality tale.” — Jared Mobarak,TheFilmStage.com

“Blaško succeeds in creating a universal tale about two-class societies, repressed xenophobia and racism, as well as broken hopes and dreams. “

Susanne Gotlieb — Cineuropa

“Tense social drama.”

“Emphasizes behavioral reactions to the moral and sociopolitical problems of modern-day Europe. The film never gets overtly political.”

Arun Kumar, HighonFilms.com

“Victim Is a beautifully performed morality tale.”

“A challenging role performed beautifully by Smachelyuk.”

Jared Mobarak, TheFilmStage.com

MoviesOscarsSlovakiaUkraineInternational Film...

Rita Moreno, Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Sally Field star in ’80 For Brady’ from Paramount Pictures.

The world premiere of 80 for Brady starring Jane Fonda, Sally Field, Rita Moreno, and Lily Tomlin will open the 34th Annual Palm Springs International Festival on Friday, January 6, 2023, and The Lost King from director Stephen Frears will close the festival on Sunday, January 15th. In between, Psiff will screen 132 films including the world premiere of the documentary Shot in the Arm.

“We are beyond excited to welcome back our beloved audience and filmmakers in Palm Springs. We’re especially thrilled to be joined by all four leads of 80 For Brady. The film is brimming with joy and heart, and it’s a perfect film to kick off our 34th edition,” said Artistic Director Lili Rodriguez. “Our programmers have dedicated almost a year to scouting the world for the films that make up this edition.

Palestinian director Firas Khoury’s debut feature Alam has triumphed at the 44th Cairo International Film Festival, winning its Golden Pyramid Award for Best Film, best actor for Mahmoud Bakri and the Audience Award.

The coming-of-age tale, which world premiered in Toronto, explores the reality of Palestinian teenagers growing up within Israeli borders.

Bakri stars as a high-school student who gets involved in an operation to replace the Israeli flag flying from his school with a Palestinian one, as Israeli celebrates Independence Day and Palestinians commemorate Nakba, or the catastrophe.

The picture, which is sold internationally by MPM Premium, was acquired by Film Movement for North America earlier this year.

The Silver Pyramid special jury award for best director went to Belgium’s Emmanuelle Nicot for Dalva, a sensitive portrait of a young girl as she rebuilds her trust in life after being sexually abused.

Big screen debutant Zelda Samson...

19B wins three awards including Fipresci prize.

Firas Khoury’s Alam, a coming-of-age drama about Palestinians growing up in Israel, has won 2022 Cairo International Film Festival’s Golden Pyramid for best film in the international competition.

‘Alam’: Cairo Review

Alam also took the audience award while Mahmoud Bakri shared the best actor prize with Maher Elkheir for Ali Cheri’s The Dam. The best actress award went to Zelda Samson for Love according To Dalva by Emmanuelle Nicot, who earned the Silver Pyramid special jury award for best director.

The Bronze Pyramid Award for best first/second work went...

Spain’s Inopia Films has boarded Michal Blaško’s “Victim,” Slovakia’s Oscar submission heading to Cairo Film Festival after previous showings at Venice and Toronto. Berlin-based Pluto Film is handling sales.

The film has already secured theatrical distribution in its co-production territories, Czech and Slovak Republic (Bonton) and Germany (Rapid Eye Movies).

“We are currently concentrating on the Oscar campaign while securing U.S. theatrical distribution,” Pluto’s managing director Benjamin Cölle tells Variety. Other big territories are in negotiation.

Blaško’s feature debut shows a single mother from Ukraine, Irina (Vita Smachelyuk), who lives in a Czech town with her son (Gleb Kuchuk). When he gets injured, she decides to speak up. Soon, many condemn their Roma neighbors, allegedly responsible for the assault. But there is more to the story.

“Victim” (Courtesy of Adam Mach)

“Victim” won’t mark the end of the collaboration between the Bratislava-born helmer and screenwriter Jakub Medvecký,...

The 11th edition of Arras Days (part of the The Arras Film Festival) is one more source for Euro projects still at the script phase to find some early coin support. Naturally there are some names here from some heavyweights including two filmmakers who were at the Venice Film Festival (Orizzonti section) in Teona Strugar Mitevska (The Happiest Man in the World) and Michal Blasko (Victim). We also have the creative tandem in Romanian scribe Alexandru Baciu and actress Maria Popistasu with a project that would become Baciu’s directorial fiction debut. Here are the projects vying for development grants.…...

In anticipation of the upcoming 95th Academy Awards, I spoke with Michal Blaško, whose debut film Victim is Slovakia’s official submission in consideration for the Best International Feature Category. Teaming with several collaborators with whom he’s worked on short projects and in television, Blaško shares the considerable creative process which went into the evolution of his theatrical narrative debut. A prescient study on fluctuating xenophobic shifts in relation to Ukrainian immigrants in Slovakia, Blaško speaks to straddling a grey zone of unintentional period piece and contemporary subtexts. Here is our conversation:

…...

The awards aim to promote European films to Arab audiences.

Jerzy Skolimowski’s Eo and Mikko Myllylahti’s The Woodcutter Story are among the nominees for the 4th Arab Critics’ Awards for European Film.

The 23-strong list, which will be shortlisted to three and an eventual winner, includes 11 entries for best international feature at the Oscars.

Alongside Eo, which follows a donkey travelling from the Polish circus to an Italian slaughterhouse, other Oscar hopefuls on the list include Gudmundur Arnar Gudmundsson’s Beautiful Beings from Iceland and Juraj Lerotic’s Locarno winner Safe Place from Croatia.

A joint venture between...

Alamode to co-produce Ido Fluk’s jazz feature ’Köln 75’

Munich-based distributor Alamode Film is set to make its first foray into production as a co-producer of Köln 75 with Holy Spider’s German producer One Two Films.

The feature by New-York-based Israeli filmmaker Ido Fluk centres on Vera Brandes who staged jazz musician Keith Jarrett’s legendary Köln Concert in 1975 at the tender age of 17.

She has subsequently run her own record label and become an award-winning music producer as well as one of the world’s leading authorities on music medicine research.

Speaking exclusively to Screen Daily at Holy Spider...

Controversial director Ulrich Seidl attended a screening of ‘Sparta’.

Films by Emmanuelle Nicot, Lucas Dhont and Michal Blasko were among the winners at the 30th edition of Filmfest Hamburg which came to a close on Saturday evening with the German premiere screening of Moroccan-born director Maryam Touzan’s The Blue Caftan.

In the awards ceremony before the closing film, the €5,000 Ndr young talent award, sponsored by local public broadcaster Ndr, went to French director Nicot’s debut feature Love According To Dalva which had premiered in Cannes’ Critics’ Week earlier this year.

The film, about a 12-year-old child who has...

Alamode to co-produce Ido Fluk’s jazz feature ’Köln 75’

Munich-based distributor Alamode Film is set to make its first foray into production as a co-producer of Köln 75 with Holy Spider’s German producer One Two Films.

The feature, by New-York-based Israeli filmmaker Ido Fluk, centres on Vera Brandes who staged jazz musician Keith Jarrett’s legendary Köln Concert in 1975 at the tender age of 17.

Since then, she has subsequently run her own record label and become an award-winning music producer as well as one of the world’s leading authorities on music medicine research.

Speaking exclusively to Screen Daily at...

German festival held awards ceremony on Friday (October 7)

Slovak director Michal Blasko’s debut feature Victim has won the Hamburg Producers Prize for International Cinema Co-Productions at Filmfest Hamburg.

The €25,000 prize sponsored by Hamburg’s Senate for Culture and Media was presented to the film’s German co-producers, Michael Reuter and Yogev Saar of Berlin-based Electric Sheep.

Victim debuted in Horizons at Venice Film Festival earlier this month, going on to play in Contemporary World Cinema at Toronto.

The film follows a Ukrainian immigrant living with her son in a small Czech border town. She is devastated when he is...

German festival held awards ceremony on Friday (October 7)

Slovak director Michal Blasko’s debut feature Victim has won the Hamburg Producers Prize for International Cinema Co-Productions at Filmfest Hamburg.

The €25,000 prize sponsored by Hamburg’s Senate for Culture and Media was presented to the film’s German co-producers, Michael Reuter and Yogev Saar of Berlin-based Electric Sheep.

Victim debuted in Horizons at Venice Film Festival earlier this month, going on to play in Contemporary World Cinema at Toronto.

The film follows a Ukrainian immigrant living with her son in a small Czech border town. She is devastated when he is...

While we’re in the middle of the fall festival season, with Telluride, Venice, and TIFF in the rearview, and NYFF, BFI London, and AFI Fest on the horizon, it’s time to round up some of our early favorites. We’ve polled our contributors from Venice and TIFF to share their top picks, which one can see below along with our ongoing coverage here.

David Katz (@davidfabiankatz)

1. Saint Omer (Alice Diop)

2. Trenque Lauquen (Laura Citarella)

3. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (Laura Poitras)

4. Master Gardener (Paul Schrader)

5. The Whale (Darren Aronofsky)

6. Love Life (Kôji Fukada)

7. Blonde (Andrew Dominik)

8. A Couple (Frederick Wiseman)

9. In Viaggio (Gianfranco Rosi)

10. The Eternal Daughter (Joanna Hogg)

Luke Hicks (@lou_kicks)

1. Bones and All (Luca Guadagnino)

2. Other People’s Children (Rebecca Zlotowski)

3. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (Laura Poitras)

4. The Eternal Daughter (Joanna Hogg)

5. Athena (Romain Gavras)

6. White Noise (Noah Baumbach)

7. The Banshees of Inisherin...

13 projects in development and six works in progress to be presented at festival’s co-production market.

New films from the Czech Republic’s Beata Parkanová and Slovenian director Martin Turk are among the projects in development and works in progress being presented at the 24th edition of the East-West co-production market Connecting Cottbus (coco), which takes place from November 9-11 during Germany’s FilmFestival Cottbus.

Parkanová’s feature project Black Blood, produced by Ondrej Zach of Prague-based Ozet Film, sees her returning to Cottbus after presenting her previous feature The Word as a work in progress at last year’s Connecting Cottbus.

There’s a reason director Michal Blasko and screenwriter Jakub Medvecký wrote Irina (Vita Smachelyuk) and her son Igor (Gleb Kuchuk) as Ukrainian nationals. Victim doesn’t quite work if they are native Czechs; its impact demands that they also be outsiders attempting to build a home just like the Roma they and their host country are quick to villainize. Not when they should know better. They should be able to understand what it’s like to come to a foreign place and start over again. We see it too as Irina converses with incoming Ukrainians hoping to find as much success as she has. What, therefore, is the difference? Why does an entire city band together for her and vociferously denounce the Roma? She is white.

Painting her as the heroic mother of a promising gymnast currently laying in a hospital bed with zero hope of continuing the sport...

The film will head to Busan International Film Festival next month.

Slovakia has selected Michal Blasko’s drama Victim as its entry for the international feature award at the 2023 Oscars.

The film debuted in Horizons at Venice Film Festival earlier this month, going on to play in Contemporary World Cinema at Toronto.

It will have its Asian bow in competition at Busan International Film Festival next month. German-based Pluto Film is handling world sales on the title.

Victim follows a Ukrainian immigrant living with her son in a small Czech border town. She is devastated when he is assaulted by...

Keep track of all the submissions for best international feature at the 2023 Academy Awards.

Entries for the 2023 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

Scroll down for profiles of each Oscar entry

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between January 1, 2022 and November 30, 2022. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 3, 2022.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is...

It isn’t that people’s first instincts are bad in “Victim,” Slovak director Michal Blaško’s compelling, apprehensive feature debut. A distraught Ukrainian mother travelling back to her adopted home in the Czech Republic to be by her injured son’s hospital bedside, for example, will find someone willing to drive her when her bus is delayed. It’s just that once they find those instincts lining up with their pre-existing prejudices — say, when the boy alleges, or heavily implies, that the ones who beat him up were of Roma background — then those same people will erase all nuance, ignore all complexity, and do almost anything to drink further into the intoxication of righteous moral outrage. Even if it means shoring up a teenager’s lie.

The mother is Irina, a hardworking housekeeper who aspires to open a hairdressing salon with her friend Sveta (Inna Zhulina), and who is...

Click here to read the full article.

The Toronto Film Festival will rally in solidarity with Ukrainian film producers amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war by holding two industry panels at the Canadian festival’s 47th edition.

The first Sept. 12 panel will feature six Ukrainian filmmakers behind recent festival circuit hits, including Butterfly Vision producer Darya Bassel, whose film was the only Ukrainian feature in Cannes’ official selection this year; Luxembourg, Luxembourg producer Volodymyr Yatsenko, whose film will screen in Toronto after bowing in Venice; and Ihor Savychenko, who produced the 2019 film The Painted Bird, Vaclav Marhoul’s grim Holocaust drama adapted from Jerzy Kosinski’s novel.

Also in Toronto on the panel to discuss current and future film projects is Valeria Sochyvets, producer of the 2020 film Blindfold, and Egor Olesov, who produced the 2019 Ukrainian film Mr. Jones.

The second Sept. 13 panel will discuss possible co-production opportunities for Ukrainian productions and...

The 2022 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has announced the international arm of its festival. Taking place September 8 through 18, TIFF previously unveiled Sally El Hosaini’s opening night film “The Swimmers” as well as Special Presentations including the world premieres of Steven Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical “The Fabelmans,” Rian Johnson’s “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” and Nicholas Stoller’s “Bros.”

“The Woman King,” “Catherine Called Birdy,” “The Menu,” “Moonage Daydream,” and “My Policeman” additionally debut at the festival.

Now, the Contemporary World Cinema slate has been announced for 2022 TIFF. The lineup includes features from more than 50 countries spanning the globe. The respective world premieres for “Bones of Crows” and “The Swearing Jar” are among programming highlights, as well as the North American premieres for Koji Fukada’s “Love Life” and Jerzy Skolimowski’s “Eo.”

“We are so proud of the TIFF Docs and Contemporary World Cinema programs,” Anita Lee, chief programming officer,...

White NoiseCOMPETITIONWhite Noise (Noah Baumbach)Il Signore Delle Formiche (Gianni Amelio)The Whale (Darren Aronofsky)L’Immensita (Emanuele Crialese)Saint Omer (Alice Diop)Blonde (Andrew Dominik)Tár (Todd Field)Love Life (Koji Fukada)Bardo, False Chronicle Of A Handful Of Truths (Alejandro G. Inarritu)Athena (Romain Gavras)Bones & All (Luca Guadagnino)The Eternal Daughter (Joanna Hogg)Beyond The Wall (Vahid Jalilvand)The Banshees Of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh)Argentina, 1985 (Santiago Mitre)Chiara (Susanna Nicchiarelli)Monica (Andrea Pallaoro)No Bears (Jafar Panahi)All The Beauty And The Bloodshed (Laura Poitras)A Couple (Frederick Wiseman)The Son (Florian Zeller)Our Ties (Roschdy Zem)Other People’s Children (Rebecca Zlotowski)Out Of COMPETITIONFictionThe Hanging Sun (Francesco Carrozzini)When The Waves Are Gone (Lav Diaz)Living (Oliver Hermanus)Dead For A Dollar (Walter Hill)Call Of God (Kim Ki-duk)Dreamin’ Wild (Bill Pohlad)Master Gardener (Paul Schrader)Siccità (Paolo Virzi)Pearl (Ti West)Don’t Worry Darling...

With opening night locked in––Noah Baumbach’s highly-anticipated Don DeLillo adaptation White Noise––Venice Film Festival has unveiled the rest of their lineup. Amongst the slate is Todd Field’s TÁR, Andrew Dominik’s Blonde, Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin, Paul Schrader’s Master Gardener, Jafar Panahi’s No Bears, Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale, Luca Guadagnino’s Bones and All, Joanna Hogg’s The Eternal Daughter, Frederick Wiseman’s A Couple, Laura Poitras’ All The Beauty And The Bloodshed, Walter Hill’s Dead for a Dollar, and more.

Check out the lineup below, with a hat tip to Deadline.

Venezia 79 Competiton

Il Signore Delle Formiche, dir: Gianni Amelio

The Whale, dir: Darren Aronofsky

L’Imensita, dir: Emanuel Crialese

Saint Omer, dir: Alice Diop

Blonde, dir: Andrew Dominik

TÁR, dir: Todd Field

Love Life, dir: Koji Fukada

Bardo, False Chronicle Of A Handful Of Truths, dir: Alejandro G. Inarritu

Athena,...

Berlin-based sales agent Pluto Film has acquired Michal Blaško’s suspense drama “Victim,” about a woman seeking justice in a racist society, ahead of its world premiere in Venice’s competitive Horizons strand.

The Slovak-Czech-German coproduction tells the story of Irina (Vita Smachelyuk), a single mother from Ukraine living in a town in the Czech Republic. When her son Igor (Gleb Kuchuk) is attacked, the whole town stands in solidarity with her family and condemns their Roma neighbors, who allegedly committed the crime. After her son wakes up in hospital, truth and lies become difficult to tell apart, which in turn leads to a personal crisis.

Blaško states: “’Victim’ tells a story about trust between Irina and Igor, a mother and son living in a foreign country, where they are left to their own devices. My aim was to paint an emotional portrait of Irina and use it to expose...

Update: The Venice Film Festival has revealed a robust lineup for the 79th edition which runs from August 31-September 10 on the Lido. Scroll down for the full list of Competition titles which include new works from such directors as Darren Aronofsky, Alejandro G Iñárritu, Todd Field, Andrew Dominik, Luca Guadagnino, Alice Diop, Joanna Hogg, Martin McDonagh, Jafar Panahi and Florian Zeller.

In big-ticket Out of Competition berths are Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling from Warner Bros and starring Florence Pugh and Harry Styles as well as a new documentary from Oliver Stone and TV series The Kingdom Exodus and Copenhagen Cowboy, respectively from Danish auteurs Lars von Trier and Nicolas Winding Refn.

Previous: The Venice Film Festival will unveil its lineup for the 79th edition this morning at 11 a.m. local time (2 a.m. Pt/5 a.m. Et). The press conference is being held at the Library of the...

Includes films by Alejandro G. Inarritu, Joanna Hogg, Olivia Wilde, Darren Aronofsky, Andrew Dominik, Luca Guadagnino and Florian Zeller.

The line-up of the 79th Venice Film Festival (August 31-September 10) has been announced by festival president Roberto Cicutto and artistic director Alberto Barbera.

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The heavyweight competition line-up includes films by Alejandro G. Inarritu, Joanna Hogg, Susanna Nicchiarelli, Darren Aronofsky, Andrew Dominik, Luca Guadagnino, Martin McDonagh and Florian Zeller. As with last year, five female directors were selected in the main competition. Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling is playing out of competition.

As previously announced, Noah Baumbach...

The line-up will be unveiled this morning at around 11:00 Cest (10:00 BST).

The line-up for the 79th Venice International Film Festival (August 31-September 10) will be unveiled this morning at around 11:00 Cest (10:00 BST) by festival president Roberto Cicutto and artistic director Alberto Barbera.

Scroll down for line-up

The press conference will be live-streamed below, and this page will be updated with the films as they are announced.

As previously announced, Noah Baumbach’s White Noise will open the festival in competition.

Julianne Moore will preside over the competition jury that also includes Audrey Diwan, Leonardo Di Costanzo, Mariano Cohn,...

Czech showrunner and screenwriter Štěpán Hulík (“Burning Bush”) and Slovak director Michal Blaško have landed their new drama miniseries “Suspicion” in this year’s Berlin Series sidebar, making history as the first series from the region to do so.

The series follows callous and bitter nurse Hana Kučerová (Klára Melíšková) as she is accused of euthanasia following rumors of her violations and poor treatment of patients. When she is jailed, her frayed relationship with her daughter Tereza (Denisa Barešová) is put to the test as she is left with very few options to prove her innocence.

Hulík’s screenplay is foundationally built on the character of Hana, whose icy disposition challenges the assumed innocence of a protagonist. Melíšková’s portrayal brings a chill to every scene, whether one questions her guilt or not. “Suspicion” is a snapshot of social conspiracy, and points as much at presupposition as it does at justice.

The Eastern Promises industry strand has unveiled nine winners across its three works in progress programmes.

Karlovy Vary’s Eastern Promises industry strand has unveiled nine winners across its three works in progress programmes: Works In Progress; Works in Development – Feature Launch; and First Cut+. The event took place online this year from July 28-August 12.

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Among the winners were Victim, from Slovakia, Czech Republic and Germany, directed by Michal Blaško and produced by Jakub Viktorín and Pavla Janoušková Kubečková, which will follow a Ukrainian woman in a small Czech town fighting for justice...

Innovative, diverse and personal stories won the awards of Karlovy Vary International Film Festival’s Eastern Promises industry program on Monday, taking honors in three sections focused on emerging filmmakers in both narrative and docu genres.

Karlovy Vary industry head Hugo Rosak said the decision by Eastern Promises to allow fiction and non-fiction films to compete alongside each other – a new approach that parallels the fest’s newly reformatted main competition category – is based on the premise that “both categories, despite their differences, possess the same artistic value.”

Jurors from a host of film biz and development organizations gave the Works in Progress Post-Production Development Award, which funds services at Prague’s Upp post house and Soundsquare studio to Iranian-French film “An Owl, a Garden and the Writer,” directed by Sara Dolatabadi, and produced by Dolatabadi, Amir Naderi and Farhad Mohammadi.

The film focuses on the “poetic revelation of one...

Titles from the Benelux, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic pick up prizes.

Projects from the Benelux, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic were among the award-winners at the ninth edition of Trieste’s When East Meets West (Wemw) co-production forum (January 20-22).

The International Jury, which included Cinéfondation’s Georges Goldenstern, Slovak director Peter Kerekes and Ace’s Jacobine van der Vloed presented the Film Center Development Award with a cash prize of €5,000 to Francesco Montagner’s documentary Brotherhood, to be produced by Prague-based Nutprodukce with Italy’s Nefertiti Film.

The Flow Postproduction Award with €15,000 in postproduction facilities went...