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Buoyed by the critical success of Salvo, their break-out debut about a mafia hitman which won the 2013 Grand Prix in Cannes’ Critics Week, co-directors Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza are back with the more resonant and multi-layered Sicilian Ghost Story. As in the previous film, elements of the supernatural (which may also be read as pure imagination) appear like soothing balm on the warped relationships of a typical family, school and community. Given the film’s morbidly fascinating subject based on a true crime story, it stands a very good chance of snagging audiences outside festivals, while its concessions to teen...

First animation in Critics’ Week: Teheran Taboo Photo: Critics’ Week

After all the other programme revelations for this year’s Cannes Film Festival, the French film critics finally have revealed today (21 April) in Paris their selection for Critics’ Week (La Semaine de la Critique) which opens with a Mafia romance drama, Sicilian Ghost Story, from the directorial partnership of Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza.

Critics’ Week director Charles Tesson Photo: Aurélie Lamachère

The duo have a track record with Critics’ Week, having won the top prize for a hit-man thriller Salvo.

Artistic director Charles Tesson announced that the closing title is a Sundance hit, Brigsby Bear, a kidnap comedy directed by Kyle Mooney from Saturday Night Live with cast including Mark Hamill, Claire Danes, Greg Kinnear and Andy Samberg.

Seven features by first or second time directors will compete for the Nespresso Prize while ten shorts are in competition for the Leica Cine Discovery prize.

Mafia tale Sicilian Ghost Story to open sidebar, Sundance hit Brigsby Bear selected as closer.

Cannes Critics’ Week, devoted to first and second features as well as shorts, has unveiled the line-up of its 56th edition, running May 18-26.

Italian directors Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza will open the selection with their second feature Sicilian Ghost Story, a genre-mixing work following a teenage girl as she searches for the boy she loves after he is kidnapped by the Mafia.

It is inspired by the real-life tale of Giuseppe Di Matteo, the son of a former Mafia hitman-turned-informant, who was abducted in 1993.

Critics’ Week artistic director Charles Tesson described it as a “staggering crossover between cinema genres, combining politics, fantasy and terrible teen love.”

The directorial duo premiered their debut feature Salvo in competition in Critics’ Week in 2013, winning the €15,000 Nespresso Grand Prize.

The screenplay for Sicilian Ghost Story was developed at the Sundance Screenwriting Lab and went...

Directing duo Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza will open the Critics' Week program in Cannes with their genre-busting mythical mafia romance drama Sicilian Ghost Story, which will screen out of competition, organizers said Friday.

The pair won the top prize in 2013 for their hit-man thriller Salvo and will bring their Romeo and Juliette-meets-The Godfather drama back to the sidebar.

The out-of-competition closing film will be Dave McCary’s star-studded Sundance hit Brigsby Bear. The kidnap comedy from Saturday Night Live's Kyle Mooney stars Mark Hamill, Claire Danes, Greg Kinnear and Andy Samberg.

The Critics’ Week sidebar aims to promote young filmmakers with first...

After answering (hopefully) every mystery during the two-hour series finale, Pretty Little Liars will then spill even more secrets in a tell-all special.

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The hour-long sit-down, airing immediately after the show’s swan song, will feature stars Troian Bellisario, Ashley Benson, Lucy Hale, Shay Mitchell and Sasha Pieterse, as well as executive producer I. Marlene King.

Pll returns with its final ten episodes in April on Freeform.

Ready for more of today’s newsy nuggets? Well…

* CTV’s Saving Hope, which airs in the U.S. on Ion Television, will end after its upcoming fifth season,...

The Sundance Institute is including a touch of Cannes this week as the likes of Pippa Bianco (her short Share was the 2015 winner of Cannes Cinefondation), Alistair Banks Griffin (Two Gates of Sleep premiered in Directors’ Fortnight in 2010), and the Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza tandem (from Critics’ Week Grand Prize in 2013 for Salvo) are among the dozen selected projects for the 2016 January Screenwriters Lab. The immersive, five-day writers’ workshop takes place just prior to the festival at the Sundance Resort in Utah, January 15-20. Look for several of these projects to one day break into not only Sundance, but other major film fests. Here are the selected people & projects:

The projects and fellows selected for the 2016 January Screenwriters Lab are:

Bull (U.S.A.) / Annie Silverstein (Co-writer/Director) and Johnny McAllister (Co-writer)

In a near-abandoned subdivision west of Houston, a wayward teen runs headlong into her equally willful and unforgiving neighbor,...

Sicilian Ghost Story

Directors: Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza

Writers: Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza

Directors Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza won the Grand Prize at 2013 Critics Week for their debut, Salvo. The duo received funding for their sophomore feature, Sicilian Ghost Story in April, 2015, and have remained mostly tight-lipped about the actual narrative, confirming it’s based on a Sicilian fairy tale and will have minimalist supernatural aspects concerning two young people in love. Details surrounding production have been minimal, although casting was supposedly underway in October, 2015.

Cast: Na

Production Co./Producers: Massimo Cristaldi, Nicola Giuliano, Francesca Cima , Jean-Pierre Guérin, Cristaldi Pictures, Indigo Film, Jpg Films

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available. Tbd (domestic/international).

Release Date: Based on the lack of production news, it’s safe to assume Grassadonia and Piazza aren’t near completion on their latest project. Should they complete the feature in early 2016, we’d expect...

According to local filmmakers, the recent suppression of documentary Beyond The Fear is just one episode in a quickening erosion of artistic freedom in Israel.

As Nanni Moretti’s Mia Madre began to roll on the opening night of the Jerusalem Film Festival in the picturesque Sultan’s Pool amphitheatre in early July, another screening was kicking off just metres above the spectators’ heads.

On a terrace overlooking the event, some 50 film-makers and producers had gathered for a protest screening of Maria Kravchenko and the late Herz Frank’s Beyond The Fear.

They included The Kindergarten Teacher director Nadav Lapid; Keren Yedaya, who won Cannes’ Camera d’Or for her debut work Or; Ra’anan Alexandrowicz, whose credits include the award-winning The Law In These Parts; and Shlomi Elkabetz, co-director of the Golden Globe-nominated Gett: The Trial Of Viviane Amsalem which premiered in Cannes Directors’ Fortnight in May 2014 and went on to win best film at...

Sara Serraiocco's star shines in Lamberto Sanfelice's Chlorine and Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza's Salvo Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Attending the Open Roads: New Italian Cinema lunch at Barbetta were filmmakers Francesca Archibugi - An Italian Name (Il Nome Del figlio); Duccio Chiarini - Short Skin; Eleonora Danco - N-Capace / N-Able; Cristina Comencini - Latin Lover; Ivano de Matteo - The Dinner (I Nostri Ragazzi); Masbedo (Nicolò Massazza and Iacopo Bedogni) - The Lack and actors Claudio Santamaria in Ermanno Olmi's Greenery Will Bloom Again (Torneranno I Prati); Adriano Giannini in Claudio Noce's The Ice Forest (La Foresta Di Ghiaccio) and Lamberto Sanfelice's Chlorine (Cloro) star, Sara Serraiocco.

Jenny with Flavia (Chiara Romano): "I spent a lot of time with the girls who do synchronized swimming."

The Italian cinema delegation in town was joined by Antonio Monda, the newly appointed Artistic Director of...

Exclusive: Filmmaker also co-producing Dictynna Hood’s upcoming Trojan Women.

Palestinian director Annemarie Jacir has revealed details of her next feature Wajib, about an estranged father and son’s attempts to reconnect.

“It’s a dark comedy about the relationship between a father and son, who has returned home after a long absence,” said Jacir. “It will unfold against the course of one day in the city of Nazareth. It’s got dark humour.”

The filmmaker, whose credits include the award-winning When I Saw You and Salt of the Sea, is in Cannes talking to potential co-producing partners and sales companies.

Her long-term collaborator Ossama Bawardi is producing the film, under their joint Jordan-based Philistine Films banner.

Rising Palestinian actor Saleh Bakri, who starred in Salvo and is soon to be seen in Majid Al Ansari’s Zinzana, has signed to co-star.

It is the first time, Jacir, who hails from the West Bank town of Bethlehem...

Receiving a Us release in August 2014, Salvo arrives with an equally subdued DVD release this month. An experimentally inclined gangster piece, any brooding tension established by an immersive theatrical experience tends to be compromised in a smaller format. Traction due to the film’s generous critical reception doesn’t explain the underwhelming DVD presentation, but perhaps it will reach the audience that neglected it during a limited theatrical run.

Though its initial setup holds considerable promise, due mostly to subdued visual cues that take on greater meaning as the plot unfolds, Fabio Grassianda and Antonio Piazza’s directorial debut, ends up casting a rather empty spell. Its brooding ambience traipsing into a shallow narrative coma, there’s much to be desired as concerns this mafia tinged love story of unexplained events and feelings. Obscurity is certainly not a cause for automatic dismissal, but there’s a failure to maintain any...

The Childhood of a Leader

Director: Brady Corbet // Writers: Brady Corbet, Mona Fastvold

Working with the likes of Bonello, Östlund, Assayas, Hansen-Løve and Baumbach, when you count the 2014 festival release year alone, actor Brady Corbet (Mysterious Skin; Funny Games U.S.; Simon Killer) has built quite the impressive resume working with the auteur set. While The Childhood of a Leader is his feature length directing debut, this counts as back to back years working in the filmmaker capacity when you take into account his writing creds in Mona Fastvold’s overlooked ’14 title, The Sleepwalker, and the soon to be premiered Sundance short Rabbit, by filmmaker Laure De Clermont-Tonnerre. Initially announced as starring Juliette Binoche (Corbet’s co-star from Clouds of Sils Maria), she was later replaced by Berenice Bejo. It goes without saying that most of the attention will be placed on Robert Pattinson, continuing his tour of difficult, auteur driven and inspired cinematic projects,...

Miracle Worker: Italian Duo’s Debut a Cold Rumination on Tenuous Connection

Though its initial setup holds considerable promise, due mostly to subdued visual cues that take on greater meaning as the plot unfolds, Fabio Grassianda and Antonio Piazza’s directorial debut, Salvo, ends up casting a rather empty spell. Its brooding ambience traipsing into a shallow narrative coma, there’s much to be desired as concerns this mafia tinged love story of unexplained events and feelings. Obscurity is certainly not a cause for automatic dismissal, but there’s a failure to maintain any sort of lasting significance to proceedings that are neither amusing nor arresting enough to warrant the pleasure of befuddlement. However, it’s important to note the film took home the top prize at the 2013 Cannes Critics’ Week.

After a deal ends badly, resulting in a double-cross, Mafia hit man Salvo (Saleh Bakri) seeks retribution. Approaching the residence of the perpetrator,...

At first glance, Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza's Salvo looks like just another entry into the Sensitive Hit-man genre: During a sticky Palermo summer heat wave, Mafia hit-man Salvo (Saleh Bakri) has a change of heart and decides not to kill Rita (Sara Serraiocco), the blind sister of his prey.

Salvo instead kidnaps and imprisons her in an abandoned warehouse, unaware that at the moment he spared Rita's life, her vision began to return. The opening scenes suggest the possibility that this may be a John Woo homage, complete with symbolic white birds and anonymous bad guys wearing black motorcycle helmets; indeed, a hit man with a heart of gold finding his life is changed by a blind girl is reminiscent of Woo's masterpiece The Killer.

But Salvo has mo...

Fund is dedicated to supporting audience development strategies; Meanwhile, Beta Cinema has acquired Toronto title Labyrinth of Lies.

The TorinoFilmLab (Tfl) is launching a distribution fund dedicated to supporting audience development strategies to accompany the releases of four EU or non-eu co-productions in at least three territories

Speaking exclusively to Screen at this week’s Locarno Film Festival, Tfl’s Olga Lamontanara explained: “This initiative really completes the circle and the successful projects will be able to make use of the experiences of the alumni from our audience design course which have been working on the implementation of audience engagement strategies.”

A total of four grants, worth a maximum of €43,000 each, will be awarded in 2014/15 to feature film projects which have been previously selected and developed at one of the Tfl programmes since 2008.

“Those applying must be a producer or sales agent from a country participating in the Media sub-programme,” outlined Lamontanara...

HeyUGuys recently had the opportunity to catch up with first time writer-directors Antonio Piazza and Fabio Grassadonia, to get under the skin of their silent and haunting debut feature Salvo.

Antonio and Fabio spoke with us about confronting the expectations of Sicilian narratives, the current challenges facing Italian filmmakers, contending with one blind and one silent protagonist, slowly constructing empathy, before taking a moment to look ahead to following up a Sicilian mafia character drama with a Sicilian ghost story.

Why a career in filmmaking? Was there that one inspirational moment?

Antonio Piazza: Fabio and I worked together for a number of years as writers and script consultants for other people, as well as a couple of Italian production companies. A few years ago we decided we wanted to write and direct own story, and so the first thing we did was to go back to Sicily where we come from.

Jury includes four international journalists who will award the Nespresso Grand Prize to one of seven feature films in competition.

British film-maker Andrea Arnold [pictured] will preside over the jury at this year’s Cannes Critics’ Week.

Arnold heads up the jury made up of four international journalists who will award the Nespresso Grand Prize to one of the seven feature films in competition. Last year, the Grand Prize was awarded to Fabio Grassadonia & Antonio Piazza’s Salvo.

“I was so excited when Milk screened in La Semaine de la Critique that I kept crashing into things. When I got home I counted 19 bruises,” commented Arnold.

“I am just as excited about being asked to be President of the Jury of the Nespresso Grand Prize for La Semaine de la Critique and I think it might be a good idea to put away the china.”

Arnold’s Red Road and Fish Tank both won the Jury Prize at Cannes...

British filmmaker Andrea Arnold will head this year's Nespresso Grand Prize jury for the 53rd edition of the Semaine de la Critique section during Cannes 2014. The jury, made up of four international journalists, will pick a winner from one of the seven feature films in competition. The winning entry will follow Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza's Salvo, winner of 2013's Nespresso Grand Prize. Story: Jane Campion to Lead Jury at Cannes Film Festival Arnold's short film Milk unspooled in Critics' Week in 1998 and she has been back to the Festival de Cannes several times over the last few

read more...

White-knuckle action coupled with eerie, atmospheric pacing makes this film about the Sicilian mafia an intriguing watch

Salvo is a strange, involving, if flawed movie about the Sicilian mafia; a stylised drama with elements of the supernatural and the sentimental amid the tension. It announces Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza as film-makers who might be mentioned alongside Matteo Garrone, the director of Gomorrah. Palestinian actor Saleh Bakri plays Salvo, a mafia "soldier" who finds himself on the receiving end of a horrendous assassination attempt, grippingly and stylishly filmed, which is then followed by an extraordinary, almost real-time sequence as he arrives at the house of the man who schemed his death – then makes a discovery about the person the man lives with, Rita (Sara Serraiocco). It is an event that appears to send Salvo into a kind of breakdown, but one suffered gradually and generally. The temperature in Palermo has risen to a brain-frazzling 40 degrees,...

What this well-crafted Sicilian mafia drama lacks in dialogue it more than makes up for in atmosphere

Salvo is an almost wordless Sicilian-set drama about a mafia assassin who starts feeling protective about his latest victim's blind sister.

Shot in intensely atmospheric chiaroscuro by Daniele Ciprì, the film is less interested in storytelling and character than in exploring moody stylistics, with a sound design that's well worth periodically shutting your eyes to soak up.

Exquisitely crafted if somewhat academic – an "ambient thriller", if there's such a thing.

Rating: 3/5

ThrillerWorld cinemaJonathan Romney

theguardian.com © 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds...

Starred Up | Labor Day | Yves Saint Laurent | Gbf | The Robber | The Machine | Salvo | The Unknown Known | A Long Way Down

Starred Up (18)

(David Mackenzie, 2013, UK) Jack O'Connell, Ben Mendelsohn, Rupert Friend. 106 mins

We've seen enough prison movies to know the drill, but this is closer to A Prophet than The Great Escape – a bracing mix of brutal thriller, institutional critique and complex character drama. Conviction is key, both in the day-to-day details and the natural performances, particularly O'Connell – a young offender violent enough to be housed with the grown-ups, including his own father. It feels like things could kick off with every scene.

Labor Day (12A)

(Jason Reitman, 2013, Us) Kate Winslet, Josh Brolin, Gattlin Griffith. 111 mins

The Juno director tries nuanced domestic drama – and it doesn't really suit him. Erotic tremors are a given when Brolin's escaped convict shacks up with Winslet's lonely single mum, but you'll need to park your disbelief.

All at sea in Salvo

Getting its UK première at the Glasgow Film Festival, screening as part of the Italian Film Festival and now on general release, Salvo is the story of a hitman whose worldview begins to change dramatically when he meets a young blind woman. I spoke to co-writers and co-directors Antonio Piazza and Fabio Grassadonia when they were visiting London, and asked what it was that inspired this unusual fusion of genres.

“The first thing, for us, was to write a Sicilian film,” Antonio said. “For years and years we had worked together as writers for other people, on other people’s films, and at some point we felt we needed to tell our own story. We wanted it to be about Sicily, the place where we were born.

“For some time we’d had this image, this scene of a Mafia hitman being in front of a blind girl – this.

There’s nothing quite like an Italian Mafia movie. They are cinematic by their very nature, oozing style, sex and masculinity. They are made for the big screen, and Salvo, the latest offering from Italian duo Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza, is certainly no exception. It has all the hallmarks of an exciting, modern thriller, yet has a certain nostalgia that makes it feel somewhat timeless.

Our enigmatic protagonist is lone assassin Salvo, (Saleh Bakri), a silent, brooding character, able to snuff out a life without so much as a backward glance. That is, until he meets the beautiful Rita (Sara Serraiocco). Her blindness makes her vulnerable, a trait that Salvo is not accustomed to in his line of work, and he can’t quite get her out of his head. She is a witness to her brother’s death at Salvo’s cruel hands, and he feels a responsibility...

★★★☆☆A stoic tough guy being confronted by his own maltreated conscience is hardly a novelty in cinema. When the convention is adopted, there is always the hope that it with the intention to approach the subject from some fresh angle, or provide a new kind of insight into age-old roles. In Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza's debut feature as directors, the ingredients are all there for something with original flavour but, after an impeccable opening, Salvo (2013) lapses into familiar territory. It's technically excellent throughout, but the style and strong performances aren't enough to entirely compensate for a distinct lack of narrative purpose.

Salvo starts off with promise, a quiet opening explodes into an unexplained shoot-out in a country backroad. Contrasted with the silence present mere moments before, the sound of the gunfire is buffeting as a handful of bodies hit the floor and a chase through a construction site ensues. It’s 5 minutes of genuinely thrilling cinema, and would’ve made for a great short feature. But to say Salvo runs out of ideas from there would be a gross understatement. The following hour and a half feels like it’s constantly stalling for time to the point of near ridicule, which begs the question: Why on earth was this a feature length film?

To call Salvo overstretched would not even begin to describe the problems here. This is a movie where what should be a 30 second snippet takes 5 minutes to play out, with scenes dragging on well past the point of ludicrousness.

Panaji, Nov 22: Freedom of expression has been extremely difficult in Italy in the last 20 years, especially under Silvio Berlusconi, say makers of an Italian film which is being screened at the 44th edition of Iffi here.

Directors of a mafia-themed film "Salvo", Antonio Piazza and Fabio Grassadonia, who were speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the Iffi (International Film Festival of India), being held here, also said that funding for free cinema had nearly dried up.

"Freedom of expression has dried up in Italy for the last 20 years, especially under the Berlusconi government. There could be really many reasons for this," Piazza said.

"Salvo", about a mafia hitman, has already picked up two awards at the Cannes.

Steve McQueen’s 12 Years A Slave to open festival; director Peter Greenaway to receive Visionary Award.Scroll down for full line-up

Steve McQueen’s historic drama 12 Years a Slave is to open the Stockholm International Film Festival (Nov 6-17) and is nominated in the Stockholm Xxiv Competition.

Starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, the drama about free black man kidnapped from his family and sold into slavery in the 1850s debuted at Telluride and has received positive reactions throughout its festival tour of Toronto, New York and London among others.

It will be released in Sweden on Dec 20 by Ab Svensk Filmindustri.

Screenwriter John Ridley, who will be present during the festival, is nominated for the Aluminum Horse in the category Best Script.

McQueen’s Hunger won Best Directorial Debut at Stockholm in 2008.

Line-up

The 24th Siff includes more than 180 films from more than 50 countries.

As previously announced, the spotlight of this year’s festival is freedom but Chinese artist...

The full line up has been unveiled for the 7th edition of the Abu Dhabi Film Festival.

Daniel Schechter’s Life Of Crime will open the 7th edition of the Abu Dhabi Film Festival, which runs Oct 24- Nov 2.

13 Arab feature films (seven of which are world premieres) will compete across different sections of the festival, including Rani Massalha’s Giraffada and Nejib Belkhadi’s Bastardo in the New Horizons Competition, Ahmed Abdallah’s Rags And Tatters and Hicham Ayouch’s Fevers in the Narrative Feature Competition, and Sherief Elkatsha’s Cairo Drive and Mohammad Soueid’s The Boy From Aleppo in the Documentary Feature Competition.

Tobe Hooper’s UAE horror Djin will screen in the festival’s Showcase section.

Films competing in the Narrative Feature Competition include Jun Robles Lana’s Barber’s Tales, Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners, Danis Tanovic’s An Episode In The Life Of An Iron Picker, Jasmila Zbanic’s [link...

The full line up has been unveiled for the 7th edition of the Abu Dhabi Film Festival.

Daniel Schechter’s Life Of Crime will open the 7th edition of the Abu Dhabi Film Festival, which runs Oct 24- Nov 2.

13 Arab feature films (seven of which are world premieres) will compete across different sections of the festival, including Rani Massalha’s Giraffada and Nejib Belkhadi’s Bastardo in the New Horizons Competition, Ahmed Abdallah’s Rags And Tatters and Hicham Ayouch’s Fevers in the Narrative Feature Competition, and Sherief Elkatsha’s Cairo Drive and Mohammad Soueid’s The Boy From Aleppo in the Documentary Feature Competition.

Tobe Hooper’s UAE horror Djin will screen in the festival’s Showcase section.

Films competing in the Narrative Feature Competition include Jun Robles Lana’s Barber’s Tales, Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners, Danis Tanovic’s An Episode In The Life Of An Iron Picker, Jasmila Zbanic’s [link...

This fall, one of Montreal’s most intriguing film festivals the Festival du Nouveau Cinema (Fnc) offers sixteen films as part of their international showcase. This showcase provides a platform for fresh, personal and visionary films from around the world. Films in this competition come from Quebec, Morocco, France, Poland, Mexico, Singapore, Austria, Venezuela, Georgia and more. Themes range from vengeance, drama, youth, daily violence, questions of identity, to migrant life, mystery, and love.

Some of these titles have already won awards (despite their short time on the festival circuits), including Escalante’s Heli, Chen’s Illo,Ilo, Guiraudie’s L’Inconnu du Lac, Avranas’ Miss Violence (picture on right), and Dolan’s Tom à la ferme (featured image). However, this doesn’t mean the prize is in the bag for these front runners.

The program is from Oct. 9th to Oct. 20th, 2013:

Arwad, Samer Najari et Dominique Chila (Québec)

Au nom du fils,...

This morning at London's Odeon Leicester Square, the British Film Institute announced the full programme for the 57th BFI London Film Festival, a twelve-day extravaganza showcasing the very best in upcoming mainstream, world and experimental cinema. With British director Paul Greengrass' hijack thriller Captain Phillips and Disney's Saving Mr. Banks (both starring Tom Hanks) already announced as the opening and closing films, the stage was set for a whole raft of high profile Gala screenings and premieres, including the cream of 2013's international festival crop. Amongst these will be Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity, Steve McQueen's Twelve Years a Slave and the Coens' Inside Llewyn Davis.

This year's Lff will screen a total of 234 narrative and documentary features, including 22 World Premieres, 16 International Premieres, 29 European Premieres and 20 Archive films. A stellar line-up of directors, cast and crew are also expected to take part in career interviews, master classes and other special events.

The 57th BFI London Film Festival line-up has officially been revealed, and it is led by a slew of incredibly promising films, many of which have already been buzzing on the festival circuit, and a number of which will be making their debuts here in London.

As previously announced, Paul Greengrass’ Captain Phillips will open the festival next month, and John Lee Hancock’s Saving Mr. Banks will close it, book-ending the festival with Tom Hanks leading two highly prominent, Oscar-primed movies.

Stephen Frears’ Philomena was also previously announced as the Lff American Express Gala, with The Epic of Everest announced as the Lff Archive Gala.

And leading the line-up alongside them this year will be some of the most Oscar-buzzed movies of 2013, including Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave, Jason Reitman’s Labor Day, Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity (in 3D), Joel and Ethan Coen’s Inside Llewyn Davis, Terry Gilliam’s The Zero Theorem,...

Chicago – The 2013 Chicago International Film Festival is almost here and the programmers have unveiled their first slate of titles, including hits from other festivals like “Blue is the Warmest Color,” “Heli,” “The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete.” The 49th annual fest runs from October 10-24, 2013. Official, Ciff-provided descriptions below of what we know will play there so far:

Big Bad Wolves (Directors: Aharon Keshales, Navot Papushado • Israel): When the lead suspect in a brutal child murder is released due to a police blunder, a vigilante police detective and a grieving father take the law into their own hands in this fantastically intense, darkly funny revenge thriller from one of the pioneers of Israeli horror cinema.

Blue is the Warmest Color (Director: Abdellatif Kechiche • France): Teenager Adèle’s life is turned upside down the night she meets blue-haired Emma in this scandalous winner of the top prize at Cannes.

Film Movement has picked up the North American distribution rights to "Salvo," an Italian noir which won the Grand Prix at Cannes Critics' Week and the France 4 Visionary Award earlier this year. The drama from first time feature filmmakers Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza follows Sicilian Mafia hitman, who spares the young, blind sister of one of his victims. Also read: Hitman Drama 'Salvo' Wins Critics' Week Prize at Cannes Film Movement is planning a limited national theatrical run after opening in New York in the second quarter of 2014. The company previously...

The distributor has picked up North American rights to Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza’s Salvo, winner of the Critics Week Grand Prix and the France 4 Visionary Award in Cannes.

Salvo tells of a solitary henchman for the Sicilian mafia who spares the life of the young blind sister of one of his victims.

Film Movement plans a second quarter 2014 theatrical release in New York followed by limited national roll-out.

President Adley Gartenstein brokered the deal with Films Distribution partner Nicolas Brigaud-Robert.

The Italian film Salvo won two of the Critics' Week Prizes at Cannes 2013 (Grand Prix and France 4 Revelation Prize) and now its directors, Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza, are presenting it at the Guanajuato International Film Festival in Mexico. After the first screening of the film, there was a Q&A with Grassadonia and Piazza. It was almost midnight and the theater was, sadly, pretty empty. Many people left the showing, maybe because they expected a Mafia picture with action and blood. Instead, we all got a quiet gem, about a Sicilian hit man named Salvo, who could have been easily another "man with no name," and his relationship with a blind girl, sister of another mafioso. Not many questions were asked, so here's the...

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

After a few weeks of negotiations Palace Films has finalised the contracts for 10 films from the Cannes Film Festival and market for release in 2014.

That wasn.t a record haul from Cannes for the distributor but general manager Nicolas Whatson rates it as .definitely one of the busiest markets in recent years..

As for the time it takes to finalise deals, Whatson observes, .Sometimes contracts not only take weeks, they can take months. On occasion Cannes deals are made on a handshake or on a napkin at 3am. Then the fun begins..

The upcoming slate is an eclectic mix of films from the UK, Italy, France and Latin America. Still Life stars Eddie Marsan and Downton Abbey.s Joanne Froggart in the poignant tale of a lonely council worker whose job is to find the next of kin of those who have passed away alone; from The Full Monty producer/director Uberto Pasolini.

The curtain came down on the 66th Cannes Film Festival 2013 yesterday. The festival and its two sidebars- International Critics’ Week and Directors’ Fortnight-announced their awards. Here is a compilation of all the awards presented at the festival:

Awards for the main competition

Palme d’Or

Blue is the Warmest Colour (La Vie D’Adele Chapitre 1 & 2) by Abdellatif Kechiche

Grand Prix

Joel Coen and Ethan Coen for Inside Llewyn Davis

Best Director

Amat Escalante for Heli

Jury prize

Hirokazu Kore-eda for Like Father, Like Son

Best Screenplay

Jia Zhang-ke for A Touch of Sin

Best Actress

Berenice Bejo in The Past (Le Passe) by Asghar Farhadi

Best Actor

Bruce Dern in Nebraska by Alexander Payne

Camera d’Or (Best First Feature)

Ilo Ilo by Anthony Chen (presented in Directors’ Fortnight)

Palme d’Or Court Metrage (Short Film)

Safe by Moon Byoung-gon

Special Mention

Whale Valley (Hvalfjordur) by Gudmundur Arnar Gudmundsson...

In Competition

Feature Films

Palme d'Or – Blue is the Warmest Color, directed by Abdellatif Kechiche

Grand Prix – Inside Llewyn Davis, directed by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen

Jury Prize – Like Father, Like Son, directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda

Best Director – Amat Escalante, Heli

Best Screenplay – Jia Zhangke, A Touch of Sin

Best Actress – Bérénice Bejo, The Past

Best Actor – Bruce Dern, Nebraska

Check out our Notebook coverage of The Past, Like Father Like Son, A Touch of Sin (x2), and Inside Llewyn Davis.

Short Films

Palme d'Or (Short Film) – Safe, directed by Moon Byoung-gon

Special Distinction – Whale Valley, directed by Gudmundur Arnar Gudmundsson; 37°4 S, directed by Adriano Valerio

Un Certain Regard

Prize of Un Certain Regard – The Missing Picture, directed by Rithy Panh

Jury Prize – Omar, directed by Hany Abu-Assad

Directing Prize – Alain Guiraudie, Stranger By the Lake

A Certain Talent Prize - The cast of La jaula de oro

Avenir Prize - Fruitvale Station,...

A number of awards are being announced out of Cannes. "Salvo," a Mafia romance co-directed by Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza, has nabbed the Critics Week Grand Prize, while Ritesh Batra's "The Lunch Box" has nabbed the Viewers Choice award, the Rail d'Or (acquisition news here); UK director Clio Barnard's "The Selfish Giant," an update of the Oscar Wilde short story focusing on the friendship between two boys, has taken the Europa Cinemas Label prize as Best European Film in the Directors Fortnight section; and the Cinefondation and Short Films Jury, headed by Jane Campion, has awarded the 2013 Cinefondation prizes. Full list below.The Cinefondation Selection consisted of 18 student films, chosen out of nearly 1 550 entries coming from 277 film schools around the world. The awarded films will receive €15,000 for the first prize, €11,250 for the second and €7,500 for the third. The first prize winner is also guaranteed that her first feature film will be.

Italian film Salvo directed by Fabio Grassadonia & Antonio Piazza won both the major awards at 52nd Cannes Critics’ Week: the Grand Jury prize as well as the France 4 Visionary award.

The Dismantlement (Le Démantèlement) by Sébastien Pilote (Canada) won the Sacd award for Best Screenplay.

German film Come and Play by Daria Belova won the Discovery Award in the short film competition.

Swedish film Pleasure by Ninja Thyberg won the Canal+ Award.

Indian feature Dabba (Lunchbox) by Ritesh Batra was in competition in the feature film category. Dabba won Grand Rail d’Or, which is an independent award given by railway worker film enthusiasts.

Batra’s Dabba and Amit Kumar’s Monsoon Shootout are also competing for Camera d’Or given to the best debut film at the Cannes Film Festival.

The first Cannes awards were handed out Thursday night by the Critics’ Week sidebar. Salvo won the top prize at the 52nd Critics’ Week which means the €10,000 Nespresso Grand Prize went to Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza. The France 4 Visionary Award, worth €4,000, also went to them. Set in modern Sicily, Salvo is about a romantic relationship between a hitman and the sister of someone he’s murdered. The movie has received solid reviews and unexpectedly grabbed two awards. “Many people in Italy have tried to keep their eyes closed, but this loud voice coming from the Critics’ Week is forcing them to open...

"Salvo" has won the top prize in Cannes' International Critics' Week sidebar, a selection of seven films from first- and second-time directors. The story of a hitman for the Sicilian Mafia whose life changes after he spares the life of the blind sister of one of his victims, "Salvo" was directed by Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza, and is an Italian and French co-production. In addition to the main award, the Nespresso Grand Prize, it also won the France 4 Visionary Award, a second honor given to one of the Critics'...

Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza's "Salvo" won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival's 52nd Critics’ Week. The film -- about a romantic relationship between a hitman and the sister of someone he's murdered -- took both the Grand Prix and the France 4 Revelation Prize. Other major winners included Daria Belova's "Come and Play," which won best short film, Sebastien Pilote's "Le Demantlement," which won best screenplay. The program's jury was led by Portugese director Miguel Gomes, and also included Dennis Lim, program director at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, Neil Young, co-director of the International Film Festival Bradford, and journalists Alin Tasciyan and Alex Vicente.

Cannes -- As the festival winds down and the Croisette starts to clear out as executives fly home, the first of the weekend's awards were handed out Thursday night by the Critics’ Week sidebar in an intimate ceremony at the Miramar Hotel. The €10,000 Nespresso Grand Prize went to Salvo by Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza. The France 4 Visionary Award, worth €4,000, also went to Salvo. The moody Mafia thriller and love story set in modern Sicily has received solid reviews for its visually arresting style and minimalist dialogue. "Many people in Italy have tried to keep

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As the Cannes Film Festival begins to wind down tomorrow towards its final weekend and the main awards ceremony on Sunday some of the prizes already have been announced.

An engrossing Italian film noir by debut film-makers Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza tonight (23 May), Salvo has won the 10,000 euros Nespresso Grand Prize.

The film, part of Critics’ Week, also won the France 4 Visionary Award, worth 4000 euros.

The Discovery prize for short film, which gives 8000 euros towards the winner's first feature, was awarded to Come And Play by Daria Belova.

The Canal+ short film award was bestowed on Pleasure by Ninja Thyberg.

Society of Authors, Directors and Composers Award for best screenplay and a 4000 euros prize was given to Le Demantlement by Sebastien Pilote.

Critics’ Week has a reputation for focusing on new talent and boasts an internationally diverse line-up but the organisers are hampered by a...

Salvo – Fabio ​​Grassadonia & Antonio Piazza

Section: Critics’ Week

Buzz: ​A first feature film from Sicilian directors, Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza, selected for Critics’ Week, it is a crime noir with a touch of the surreal. Shot by director & cinematographer Daniele Cipri, the images are haunting and promising. The producer Fabrizio Mosca defined the film as​ “an extreme, stylized, researched and rigorous film, in the style of Le Samourai by J.P. Melville.”​ A statement that produces anticipatory excitement. One hopes it is precisely as promised.

The Gist: Salvo is a mafia killer in Palermo. Rita is twenty and blind from birth. Salvo sneaks into Rita’s house, to kill her brother. There is a fight, a ferocious, hand to hand struggle. Rita’s blind eyes, trembling with rage and distress, staring at him yet unseeing, seem to disturb Salvo and he closes them with his hands covered in blood.

First film in 20 years from Alejandro Jodorowsky, as Clio Barnard and Paul Wright fly flag for Britain

The line-up of this year's Cannes film festival is now complete after the announcement of the Directors' Fortnight and Critics' Week selections.

The Director's Fortnight has added 20 titles to its already-announced opener, The Congress, from Ari "Waltz With Bashir" Folman, a part-animated adaptation of Stanislaw "Solaris" Lem's sci-fi novel The Futurological Congress.

Highlights include La Danza de la Realidad, the first film for more than two decades from cult Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky (best known for El Topo), and a complementary documentary, Jodorowsky's Dune, about the director's disastrous attempt to film Frank Herbert's giant novel. Two more Chilean directors, Sebastian Silva, with his Sundance hit Magic Magic, starring Michael Cera, and Marcela Said with The Summer of the Flying Fish, have had films selected alongside.

Directors Fortnight artistic director Edouard Waintrop has...

Although there may be a few more surprise announcements, Cannes 2013 is pretty much in place with the lineups for the Fortnight and Critics' Week announced:

Directors' Fortnight



Opening Night: The Congress (Ari Folman)

Les Apaches (Thierry de Peretti)

A Strange Course of Events (Raphaël Nadjari)

Blue Ruin (Jeremy Saulneir)

La danza de la realidad (Alejandro Jodorowsky)

L'escale (Kaveh Bakhtiari)

La fille du 14 juillet (Antonin Peretjatko)

Henri (Yolande Moreau)

Ilo Ilo (Anthony Chen)

Jodorowsky's Dune (Frank Pavish)

Last Days on Mars (Ruairi Robinson)

Les garcons et Guillaume, a table! (Guillaume Gallienne)

Magic Magic (Sebastian Silva)

On the Job (Erik Matti)

The Selfish Giant (Clio Barnard)

Tip Top (Serge Bozon)

Ugly (Anurag Kashyap)

Un voyageur (Marcel Ophuls)

El verano de los peces voladores (Marcela Said)

We Are What We Are (Jim Mickle)

Critics' Week

Opening Night: Suzanne (Katell Quillevere)

Séances spéciales:

Les rencontres d'apres minuit (Yann Gonzalez)

Ain't Them Bodies Saints...

As hard it is to predict, the sidebar section all the way at the other end of the Croisette contains a trio of titles that were tipped to show up at the fest by Cannes insiders (we had Fabio Grassadonia, Antonio Piazza’s Salvo (here), David Lowery’s Ain’t Them Bodies Saints (here), Katell Quillévéré Suzanne – (here) in our predictions list) and out of the 1200 films submitted, six first films and four sophomore films were selected by Artistic Director Charles Tesson and his committee. The closing night film will be announced a little bit later. Here’s the complete selection below:

Opening film

Suzanne, Katell Quillévéré (France)

Special Screenings

Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, David Lowery (USA)

You and the Night, Yann Gonzalez (France)

Feature films competition

Salvo Fabio Grassadonia, Antonio Piazza (Italy/France)

The Lunchbox, Ritesh Batra (India/France/Germany)

For Those in Peril, Paul Wright (UK)

The Dismantlement,...