10 - 21 October 2023, 50th edition Film Fest Gent The final film by Japanese anime grandmaster Hayao Miyazaki (My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away) - The Boy and the Heron - is the closing film of the 50th edition of Film Fest Gent. Studio Ghibli’s long-anticipated new title is co-founder Miyazaki’s first in a decade (after announcing his retirement) and has been received in Japan as a mature, complex masterpiece. For the first time, Film Fest Gent’s awards cer...

Love All, Review: Goodbye bton, Hello bton No, it’s not about love as is depicted in Hindustani films. And it certainly does not propagate the noble axiom, Love All. The ‘love’ here is derived from the French, l’oeuf, which means an egg, but is pronounced very nearly like love. Since the score 0 (zero) in games like tennis and bton is the starting point for the players, these games begin with Love All. After a dozen films on cricket, footfall, hockey, sp...

  Aly Yeganeh IN new York holding his trophy for  Best Narrative Feature Film The 2023 Festival of Cinema came to a close on Sunday, August 13 with awards given out in 18 categories. Enthusiastic and emotional filmmakers and attendees celebrated at the Jamaica Performing Arts Center as it concluded the 7th edition of the Forest Hills-based film festival. Aly Yeganeh’s Sibel’s Silence won Best Narrative Feature Film, and Pierre Guillet’s Th...

Maya will have its US premiere in LA at La Femme International film festival (Oct 19-22, 2023). We are back on-the-ground with events, mixers, awards ceremony, screenings and more with additional virtual elements online for our worldwide audiences. We will have films, seminars, awards show, special films and much more Our festival is in OCTOBER annually in Los Angeles, we will be hosting our standing room only s and screenings as well as offering a potential online...

ONE OF THE FASTEST GROWING CRIMINAL INDUSTRIES IN THE WORLD IS THE BUYING AND SELLING OF PEOPLE. These are the facts… Child sex trafficking is reported in all 50 states and 30% of trafficking victims globally are children. (Source: 2020 Trafficking in Persons Report, UN) A big misconception is that Trafficking is a crime that just happens overseas and mainly in 3rd world countries, but the reality is, it’s a domestic problem happening right on our doorsteps that...

Help us make the world a better place through film. Artists For Change — Artists4Change.org Our films are raising awareness   150,000 American children are lured and forced into sex slavery every year.   Films is a significant medium in raising awareness and educating communities on what trafficking looks like and the techniques traffickers use to recruit vic...

  From August 28th to 31st, the Documentary Industry Days of OIFF will take place in Gdynia, Poland. The event is organized by the 14th Odesa International Film Festival and B2B Doc in cooperation with the Gdynia Film Center. The programme includes the presentation of Film Scouting projects. The list of participants includes: Alex Rodins’ Art Message (dir. Helen Yasinskaya) – Belarus Echoes of Avey (dir. Atanur Nabiyeva) – Azerbaijan ...

AURORA’S SUNRISE   From Director Inna Shakyan   Thanks to my dear friend Louisa Sharamatyan (https://www.instagram.com/louisasharamatyan/?hl=en ) I found out about Amenia’s official selection for the 95th Oscar: ‘Aurora’s Sunrise’. Such a mesmerizing movie that Cher, the iconic singer, showed up at one Los Angeles screening to congratulate fellow Armenian sister, director Inna Shakyan. This inspiring movie is based on the true life of Aurora Mardiga...

Generation Iron, the premier New York City-based global digital media company focused on health, fitness, bodybuilding and strength sports and its distribution/production partner The Vladar Company have acquired worldwide distribution rights for the award-winning, feature documentary Driven: The Tony Pearson Story. Winner of the Grand Prize, Best Documentary Feature at the 2023 Golden State Film Festival, the documentary is set to premiere on major streaming plat...

  The European Premiere of A24’s DREAM SCENARIO set to open the 19th Zurich Film Festival. Kristoffer Borgli’s dark comedy highlighting the everyday madness of celebrity culture, which stars Hollywood cult actor Nicolas Cage marks the first time in the history of the ZFF that a film from the New York-based entertainment company A24 will kick things off.  The film will be presented at the Zurich Co...

Israeli-American filmmaker Matthew Mishory’s latest feature FIORETTA has its International Premiere at the Zurich Film Festival on Thursday, October 5 at TBD CEST, followed by a Q&A and live string sextet performance of composer Arnold Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) by the ad hoc “Maverick Sextet.”   FIORETTA is the cinematic new documentary directed by Matthew Mishory, whose previous film (including WHO ARE THE MARCUSES?, NO PLACE ...

The helmer of ‘The Theory of Everything’ directs Gabriel Byrne and Sandrine Bonnaire in this movie about all the lives of writer Samuel Beckett   Dance First, the film from the British moviemaker James Marsh on the subject of Samuel Beckett, will close the 71st San Sebastian Festival. The film winding up the Official Selection out of competition stars Gabriel Byrne and Sandrine Bonnaire. Marsh (Truro, UK. 1963) won the Academy Award for Best Documentary for M...

‘Chinas’, by Arantxa Echevarría, will have its preview on 27 September at the Kursaal 2 The Gala of ‘La Ternura’, by Vicente Villanueva, will take place on the 28th at the Victoria Eugenia Theatre RTVE will come to the Festival with three films in the Official Selection plus another three titles, including ‘Cerrar los ojos / Close Your Eyes’, by the Donostia Award-winner, Víctor Erice RTVE will hold two film Galas at the 71st San Seb...

Revisionist Western Feature by Filmmaker Viduran Roopan to Begin Festival Run in Early 2024 En Trance Films has released the official poster for the feature, The Company of Thieves, the announcement was made today by company founder Viduran Roopan.   Filmmaker Roopan's first feature film, the 'revisionist Western'* will premiere on the festival circuit early next year. The film stars Tony Noto (1923, Pam & Tommy, Flight 704), and Hunter C. Smith (Luc...

Lil Nas X and TIFF 2023 announce World Premiere of Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero with Sony Music Entertainment Photo Credit: Courtesy of Sony Music Entertainment    Lil Nas X and TIFF are excited to announce the World Premiere of the groundbreaking, GRAMMY–winning rapper, singer, and songwriter’s documentary, Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero, which was shot during the course of his first ever global tour. A new addition to the Gala programme, the film was produced by Radic...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HASBRO! 100 YEARS AND ROCKING THE MARKETPLACE. This year the legendary bands maker, HASBRO, has turned 100! 100 years to rock the marketplace and create iconic game such as Monopoly, Scrabble, Risk or Battleship! Hasbro has also expanded his “movie star” status by creating some insane lines of toys such as with ‘Transformers’, ‘G.I Joe’, ‘Dungesons & Dragons’ and lately adding premier collaborations brands with Star Wars, I...

IT’S A FUNKO WILD WILD WORLD!!!     This summer it seems like FUNKO is everywhere on the planet, and especially in the USA with a mega appearance at the worldwide legendary Comic Convention of San Diego. We went to the convention with our three boys who are mega fan of FUNKO. What a surprise when we discovered the ‘FUNKOVILLE’ built by the hard-working team of FUNKO. This year, they doubled the footprint of their booths and it felt like a complete immersive expe...

LEGOLAND CALIFORNIA: AN AWESOME ENDLESS SUMMER!   This summer, again, my boys and I decided to head down to Carlsbad, California for an extravaganza full of fun adventures at Legoland California ( www.Legoland.com/california ). I had prebooked a theme room at the iconic Legoland hotel (https://www.legoland.com/california/places-to-stay/legoland-hotel/ ) and I highly recommend to make a reservation at least 1 month before heading to the park as, both the Legoland Hotel and the Castle Hot...

One Friday Night, Review: Cheat on wife, pay with life Get captivated by the Pawna Lake hilly region, close to Mumbai. Watch Raveena Tandon and Milind Soman in a first time pairing. Sit back as Vidhi Chitalia enters the scene, playing the ‘other woman’, the third angle of the triangle. And go along with the flow, as One Friday Night works towards the only real twist in the tale, the climax. That is if you care for this narrative and cast. If not, don’t spend One Friday Night...

The 7th edition of Film Noir au Canal will close this Sunday, August 20 with a screening of Jackie Brown (1997) by Quentin Tarantino, an adaptation of the novel Rum Punch by Elmore Leonard (1992), featuring one of the greatest roles in the career of Pam Grier.   Starting at 7 p.m., the event will begin with a musical performance by the band Grindhouse Collective, followed by a presentation of the film by Helen Faradji, a film critic at Radio-Canada and author of the book R&eac...

  To say we’re thrilled would be an understatement… Closing the 2023 BFI London Film Festival in partnership with American Express will be The Kitchen, directed by British filmmakers Kibwe Tavares and Daniel Kaluuya, the latter of whom also screenwrites with Joe Murtagh. Exploring themes of community, inequality, family, resilience, defiance, and care in a dystopian London, The Kitchen stars Kane Robinson, Jedaiah Bannerman, Hope Ikpoku Jr, Teija Kabs, Demmy Ladipo, ...

Love and poverty, betrayal and wealth - centuries of traditions put to the test! A compelling story intricately woven into a comprehensive exploration of women’s status against the backdrop of the Roma culture. From the director of an award-winning film in Cannes 2023. “I worked in my tenure at Sony with Emir Kusturica in Cannes for his brilliant film: “Time of The Gypsies”, when I read the script for “Lala, my redhead” I immediately saw the connection...

    After the successful return of the European Film Market (EFM) in February 2023 with record numbers of 11,500 plus trade visitors, more than 600 exhibiting companies and over 1,500 market screenings, the EFM is now announcing its guest country for the edition. “Country in Focus” 2024 will be Italy.   The EFM's “Country in Focus” programme was launched in 2017, but due to the pandemic, the EFM 2021 ...

Athlete von / by Semih Gülen und / and Mustafa Emin Büyükcoşkun © Vigo Film & Amok Film   At the 38th jury session of the Berlinale World Cinema Fund (WCF), the juries made 13 recommendations of funding to projects or films from Bhutan, Brazil, Indonesia, Israel, Madagascar, Nepal, Palestine, Somalia, Sudan, Turkey, Uruguay and Venezuela. This current funding comprising ten production and three distribution grants totals 345,000 eur...

    Talking Heads reunites at the Toronto International Film Festival for a Q&A event led by filmmaker Spike Lee   The Toronto International Film FestivalⓇ announced today it will celebrate the 40th anniversary of Jonathan Demme’s Stop Making Sense with a special event screening on Monday, September 11, at Cineplex’s Scotiabank IMAX Theatre in Toronto. The special IMAX Live 40th anniversary event will include a screening of the film followed by a...