Durban–“Les Misérables,” French director Ladj Ly’s riveting portrayal of racial division and unrest in the banlieues of Paris, won best picture at the 40th Durban Intl. Film Festival Tuesday night.
The jury described the film, which shared the jury prize in Cannes this year, as “a searing portrait of modern France which takes on issues of police brutality, racial tension, and of generations who keep repeating the same mistakes,” heralding its “raw power and complex ideas” while calling it “a piece of bravura filmmaking.” “Les Misérables” also won the award for best screenplay.
Ly’s incendiary film set the tone for a closing ceremony that, as it commemorated Diff’s 40th edition, offered a reminder that a festival born in a spirit of protest against the injustices of apartheid still had a vital role to play in the shaping of the South African and African conscience.
“Diff has...
The jury described the film, which shared the jury prize in Cannes this year, as “a searing portrait of modern France which takes on issues of police brutality, racial tension, and of generations who keep repeating the same mistakes,” heralding its “raw power and complex ideas” while calling it “a piece of bravura filmmaking.” “Les Misérables” also won the award for best screenplay.
Ly’s incendiary film set the tone for a closing ceremony that, as it commemorated Diff’s 40th edition, offered a reminder that a festival born in a spirit of protest against the injustices of apartheid still had a vital role to play in the shaping of the South African and African conscience.
“Diff has...
- 7/24/2019
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
“…the curious feeling swam through him that everything was beautiful there, that it would always stay beautiful there…” At one point in Francesco Rizzi’s coolly assured, impressive debut “Cronofobia,” which picked up a first feature competition jury prize in the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, a raspy but sonorous voice reads out Charles Bukowski’s poem “Nirvana” in full.
The images are of an overlit, garishly clean 24-hour restaurant off an anonymous motorway in the south of Switzerland, a world away in geography and period from Bukowski’s scuzzy milieu of drifters and fry cooks and Greyhound buses. And yet the mood is magnificently similar: this is a story, told in enigmatic miniature, of a moment of against-the-odds connection that brings fleeting comfort to characters who are, like Bukowski’s lonely bus rider, “completely cut loose from purpose.”
The poem is the boldest of several bold choices that Rizzi makes with his elegant two-hander.
The images are of an overlit, garishly clean 24-hour restaurant off an anonymous motorway in the south of Switzerland, a world away in geography and period from Bukowski’s scuzzy milieu of drifters and fry cooks and Greyhound buses. And yet the mood is magnificently similar: this is a story, told in enigmatic miniature, of a moment of against-the-odds connection that brings fleeting comfort to characters who are, like Bukowski’s lonely bus rider, “completely cut loose from purpose.”
The poem is the boldest of several bold choices that Rizzi makes with his elegant two-hander.
- 12/31/2018
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
22nd edition of festival had its closing ceremony on Saturday (Dec 2).
Rubén Mendoza’s Colombia-France drama Wandering Girl scooped the top prize as the curtain came down last night on the 22nd Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival in Estonia.
The film, which had its world premiere in Tallinn, follows 12-year-old Angela and her three step-sisters who are approaching their thirties. The four meet for the first time when summoned for the death of their charismatic father. Daniel García produced.
The jury, which was headed by Italian director Andrea Pallaoro, cited the film for “powerfully exploring themes of grief and abandonment through a very moving,...
Rubén Mendoza’s Colombia-France drama Wandering Girl scooped the top prize as the curtain came down last night on the 22nd Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival in Estonia.
The film, which had its world premiere in Tallinn, follows 12-year-old Angela and her three step-sisters who are approaching their thirties. The four meet for the first time when summoned for the death of their charismatic father. Daniel García produced.
The jury, which was headed by Italian director Andrea Pallaoro, cited the film for “powerfully exploring themes of grief and abandonment through a very moving,...
- 12/3/2018
- by Tom Grater
- ScreenDaily
Eleven films to play in competition.
Estonia’s Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (November 16 – December 2) has added twelve titles to its First Feature Competition.
Among the new entries are Spanish director Victor Cabaco’s A March To Remember, a 1976-set thriller following a radio journalist during a workers’ strike in a provincial capital.
From India is Hello Arsi, chronicling the day in the life of two strangers who have met on a highway and go on to share a car ride and conversation. Director Sambit Mohanty passed away last year soon after shooting completed.
Eleven of the new titles are in competition,...
Estonia’s Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (November 16 – December 2) has added twelve titles to its First Feature Competition.
Among the new entries are Spanish director Victor Cabaco’s A March To Remember, a 1976-set thriller following a radio journalist during a workers’ strike in a provincial capital.
From India is Hello Arsi, chronicling the day in the life of two strangers who have met on a highway and go on to share a car ride and conversation. Director Sambit Mohanty passed away last year soon after shooting completed.
Eleven of the new titles are in competition,...
- 10/26/2018
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
“Investing in talented European professionals is essential for the competitiveness of the European audiovisual industry” Sari Vartiainen, the Head of Creative Europe – Media Unit said. And this is one of the many purposes of the New Horizons Studio, a workshop for young filmmakers held in the framework of the T-Mobile New Horizons International Film Festival in Wrocław, Poland.
Proving this point, partner festivals, Transilvania International Film Festival, the Locarno Film Festival and Indie Lisboa sent eight of their talents to join the 2014 edition of New Horizons Studio. Among this year’s participants were the laureates of the Young Cinema Competition of the 2013 Gdynia Film Festival, Paweł Maślona with the short film “Magma” and Julia Kolberger with her short “Mazurek” as well. Hasan Serin and Müge Özen participated in the workshop as part of this year’s focus on Turkish cinema. Other participants included Nicolae Constantin Tanase, Stefano Mosimann and Jorge Jácome.
This year was the workshop’s fifth edition. This training program, supported by the EU’s Creative Europe program and the London Film Academy, included workshops on pitching, production, distribution, promotion and consultation. It is the festival’s most important training program, designed “in such a way that each panel [is] more of a discussion than a lecture” so described by Joanna Łapińska, the head of new horizons studio and the artistic director, T-Mobile New Horizons International Film Festival. Indeed, according to Małgorzata Kiełkiewicz, the director of the creative Europe desk Poland, the New Horizons Studio has become “one of the most creative and practical training environments for young filmmakers across Europe and it has also helped to stimulate cross-border cooperation between audiovisual professionals.”
The workshop was led by experts such as David Pope, Guillaume de Seille, Gavin Humphries, the Dp/director Wojciech Staroń, the producer Małgorzata Staroń, the creative director of the Cork Film Festival James Mullighan, Marc Guidoni and Joanna Szybist, the official delegate for Cannes’ Critics’ Week Raymond Phatanavirangoon, Emre Yeksen and Gülin Üstün.
Moreover, what was interesting is that four of the Polish filmmakers attending the New Horizons Studio this year were also involved in films being presented as part of the Polish Days which presented its program of finished films, works in progress and pitchings. Indeed, Julia Kolberger pitched “Toxaemia”, her adaptation of Małgorzata Rejmer’s eponymous novel; the producer Anna Chojnacka is working at Re Studio Maciej Pieprzyca’s new feature “I’m The Killer”; the producer Zuzanna Król had a closed screening for international guests of “Performer” by Lukasz Ronduda and Maciej Sobieszczanski and the executive producer Agata Walkosz saw Tomas Weinreb and Petr Kazda’s “I, Olga Hepnarova” presented in the Works in Progress selection.
The twenty-four filmmakers hailing from different parts of the Old Continent participating as directors were Kalina Alabrudzińska, Gautier Dulion, Fabien Gorgeart, Jorge Jácome, Julia Kolberger, Paweł Maślona, Jakub Pączek, Stefano Mosimann, Francesco Rizzi, Hasan Serin, Jagoda Szelc, Tomasz Śliwiński, Justyna Tafel, Nicolae Contantin Tanase and Artur Wyrzykowski while those who participated in the capacity of producers were Anna Chojnacka, Paweł Kosuń, Maria Krauss, Zuzanna Król, Müge Özen, Helena Szoda-Woźniak, Klaudia Śmieja, Agata Walkosz and Joanna Zielińska.
Proving this point, partner festivals, Transilvania International Film Festival, the Locarno Film Festival and Indie Lisboa sent eight of their talents to join the 2014 edition of New Horizons Studio. Among this year’s participants were the laureates of the Young Cinema Competition of the 2013 Gdynia Film Festival, Paweł Maślona with the short film “Magma” and Julia Kolberger with her short “Mazurek” as well. Hasan Serin and Müge Özen participated in the workshop as part of this year’s focus on Turkish cinema. Other participants included Nicolae Constantin Tanase, Stefano Mosimann and Jorge Jácome.
This year was the workshop’s fifth edition. This training program, supported by the EU’s Creative Europe program and the London Film Academy, included workshops on pitching, production, distribution, promotion and consultation. It is the festival’s most important training program, designed “in such a way that each panel [is] more of a discussion than a lecture” so described by Joanna Łapińska, the head of new horizons studio and the artistic director, T-Mobile New Horizons International Film Festival. Indeed, according to Małgorzata Kiełkiewicz, the director of the creative Europe desk Poland, the New Horizons Studio has become “one of the most creative and practical training environments for young filmmakers across Europe and it has also helped to stimulate cross-border cooperation between audiovisual professionals.”
The workshop was led by experts such as David Pope, Guillaume de Seille, Gavin Humphries, the Dp/director Wojciech Staroń, the producer Małgorzata Staroń, the creative director of the Cork Film Festival James Mullighan, Marc Guidoni and Joanna Szybist, the official delegate for Cannes’ Critics’ Week Raymond Phatanavirangoon, Emre Yeksen and Gülin Üstün.
Moreover, what was interesting is that four of the Polish filmmakers attending the New Horizons Studio this year were also involved in films being presented as part of the Polish Days which presented its program of finished films, works in progress and pitchings. Indeed, Julia Kolberger pitched “Toxaemia”, her adaptation of Małgorzata Rejmer’s eponymous novel; the producer Anna Chojnacka is working at Re Studio Maciej Pieprzyca’s new feature “I’m The Killer”; the producer Zuzanna Król had a closed screening for international guests of “Performer” by Lukasz Ronduda and Maciej Sobieszczanski and the executive producer Agata Walkosz saw Tomas Weinreb and Petr Kazda’s “I, Olga Hepnarova” presented in the Works in Progress selection.
The twenty-four filmmakers hailing from different parts of the Old Continent participating as directors were Kalina Alabrudzińska, Gautier Dulion, Fabien Gorgeart, Jorge Jácome, Julia Kolberger, Paweł Maślona, Jakub Pączek, Stefano Mosimann, Francesco Rizzi, Hasan Serin, Jagoda Szelc, Tomasz Śliwiński, Justyna Tafel, Nicolae Contantin Tanase and Artur Wyrzykowski while those who participated in the capacity of producers were Anna Chojnacka, Paweł Kosuń, Maria Krauss, Zuzanna Król, Müge Özen, Helena Szoda-Woźniak, Klaudia Śmieja, Agata Walkosz and Joanna Zielińska.
- 8/10/2014
- by Tara Karajica
- Sydney's Buzz
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