The dangerous doll from The Conjuring franchise is coming to the West Coast this June, as Warner Bros. will present a special advance screening of Annabelle: Creation ahead of its theatrical release this August, with Sofia Coppola's The Beguiled also announced for the festival.
Press Release: Los Angeles (May 23, 2017)— Today the La Film Festival, produced by Film Independent, the nonprofit arts organization that also produces the Film Independent Spirit Awards, announced the Gala Screening of New Line Cinema’s Annabelle: Creation, directed by David F. Sandberg and starring Stephanie Sigman, Talitha Bateman, Lulu Wilson with Anthony Lapaglia and Miranda Otto. Also unveiled today, the panels for Diversity Speaks and the Global Media Makers.
Award-winning film company Focus Features will commemorate its 15th anniversary at the La Film Festival with five movies including revival programming and a newly added advance screening of Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled starring Colin Farrell,...
Press Release: Los Angeles (May 23, 2017)— Today the La Film Festival, produced by Film Independent, the nonprofit arts organization that also produces the Film Independent Spirit Awards, announced the Gala Screening of New Line Cinema’s Annabelle: Creation, directed by David F. Sandberg and starring Stephanie Sigman, Talitha Bateman, Lulu Wilson with Anthony Lapaglia and Miranda Otto. Also unveiled today, the panels for Diversity Speaks and the Global Media Makers.
Award-winning film company Focus Features will commemorate its 15th anniversary at the La Film Festival with five movies including revival programming and a newly added advance screening of Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled starring Colin Farrell,...
- 5/23/2017
- by Derek Anderson
- DailyDead
Exclusive: Off-beat, buddy road movie, which world premiered at Dubai in December, due to screen at Unifrance Rendez-vous in Paris.
Paris-based Loco Films has taken on world sales of Egyptian filmmaker Sherif El Bendary’s debut feature Ali, The Goat, And Ibrahim about a young man who sets off on a journey of self-discovery across Egypt in the company of his beloved pet goat Nada.
Ali Sobhy plays the titular Ali opposite Ahmed Magdy as tormented sound engineer and travelling companion Ibrahim, who joins the Egyptian odyssey.
“We fell in love with the film. It’s very humorous with a strong premise: a man who is deeply in love with his goat who sets off on a colourful journey across Egypt,” said Loco Films founding chief Laurent Danielou.
“They cast 2,000 goats for the role!” he added. “It’s a feel-good movie, which is original, exotic, funny and slightly crazy – in perfect sync with Loco.”
The deal covers...
Paris-based Loco Films has taken on world sales of Egyptian filmmaker Sherif El Bendary’s debut feature Ali, The Goat, And Ibrahim about a young man who sets off on a journey of self-discovery across Egypt in the company of his beloved pet goat Nada.
Ali Sobhy plays the titular Ali opposite Ahmed Magdy as tormented sound engineer and travelling companion Ibrahim, who joins the Egyptian odyssey.
“We fell in love with the film. It’s very humorous with a strong premise: a man who is deeply in love with his goat who sets off on a colourful journey across Egypt,” said Loco Films founding chief Laurent Danielou.
“They cast 2,000 goats for the role!” he added. “It’s a feel-good movie, which is original, exotic, funny and slightly crazy – in perfect sync with Loco.”
The deal covers...
- 1/12/2017
- ScreenDaily
A totally unexpected feature bow from well-known short filmmaker Sherif El Bendary, Ali, the Goat, and Ibrahim (Ali Mea’za we Ibrahim) defies categorization. As a back-alley comedy that transforms itself into a road movie, it’s a colorful firecracker about how a trio finds friendship and self-acceptance. The fact that one of the main characters is an animal who is telepathic and possibly magical sets it apart from run-of-the-mill Egyptian comedies. Still, this Egypt-uae-France-Qatar co-production has a prominent dark side and isn’t a children’s film at all. Its sophisticated characterization could open the door to select international art film audiences, but...
- 1/2/2017
- by Deborah Young
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Exclusive: Cairo-based Mad Solutions has picked up five titles in Diff’s Muhr Feature competition for distribution in the region.
Cairo-based pan-Arab distributor and promotional agency Mad Solutions touches down at Diff this year with a record 15 festival titles, including five contenders in the Muhr Feature competition.
“This is our busiest Diff ever in terms of how many of the festival titles we have on our slate,” said Mad founder and CEO Alaa Karkouti.
Competition titles recently acquired by Mad for distribution in the region include Tunisia’s Hedi and Foreign Body, as well as documentary Egyptian Jeanne d’Arc from Egypt’s Iman Kamel.
Mad is also working with Mohamed Hefzy’s Film Clinic-Indie Film Distribution to distribute Ali, The Goat, And Ibrahim, the debut feature of Egyptian film-maker Sherif El Bendary, and Withered Green, which are also screening in the Muhr Feature competition.
The company also has a strong presence in Diff’s shorts selection...
Cairo-based pan-Arab distributor and promotional agency Mad Solutions touches down at Diff this year with a record 15 festival titles, including five contenders in the Muhr Feature competition.
“This is our busiest Diff ever in terms of how many of the festival titles we have on our slate,” said Mad founder and CEO Alaa Karkouti.
Competition titles recently acquired by Mad for distribution in the region include Tunisia’s Hedi and Foreign Body, as well as documentary Egyptian Jeanne d’Arc from Egypt’s Iman Kamel.
Mad is also working with Mohamed Hefzy’s Film Clinic-Indie Film Distribution to distribute Ali, The Goat, And Ibrahim, the debut feature of Egyptian film-maker Sherif El Bendary, and Withered Green, which are also screening in the Muhr Feature competition.
The company also has a strong presence in Diff’s shorts selection...
- 12/8/2016
- ScreenDaily
Exclusive: Producer of Un Certain Regard opener Clash lines up new projects, including Lewis Carroll adaptation In The Land Of Wonder.
Egyptian producer Mohamed Hefzy [pictured] is developing a Cairo-set version of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland plunging the main character into the chaos of the city’s streets.
The project, In The Land Of Wonder, is the second film by Nadine Khan after her debut feature Chaos, Disorder, which won the jury prize at the Dubai International Film Festival in 2012.
The daughter of respected Egyptian filmmaker Mohamed Khan spent a decade working as a second unit and assistant director for the likes of Yousry Nasrallah and Nabil Ayouch before making her first film.
Hefzy is in Cannes this year with Mohamed Diab’s buzzed about Un Certain Regard opener Clash about a group of people locked in a police van for 24 hours after they arrested during violent demonstrations in Cairo at the end of Islamist President...
Egyptian producer Mohamed Hefzy [pictured] is developing a Cairo-set version of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland plunging the main character into the chaos of the city’s streets.
The project, In The Land Of Wonder, is the second film by Nadine Khan after her debut feature Chaos, Disorder, which won the jury prize at the Dubai International Film Festival in 2012.
The daughter of respected Egyptian filmmaker Mohamed Khan spent a decade working as a second unit and assistant director for the likes of Yousry Nasrallah and Nabil Ayouch before making her first film.
Hefzy is in Cannes this year with Mohamed Diab’s buzzed about Un Certain Regard opener Clash about a group of people locked in a police van for 24 hours after they arrested during violent demonstrations in Cairo at the end of Islamist President...
- 5/16/2016
- ScreenDaily
In the Qumra Master Class 2016 where James Schamus and Richard Peña, former long-time head of Lincoln Film Society in NYC, carried on an informal and open-ended discussion, James gave a personal view of himself before going into the professional ins and outs of his film production and distribution life.
I was surprised to hear that James, who seems like a quintessential New Yorker, is not a native New Yorker but is an Angeleno and attended Hollywood High in Los Angeles.
When I spoke with him afterward, he said that he actually was from North Hollywood but had attended Jd Melton at Hollywood High. On looking the school up for this article, I was even more pleasantly surprised to see that their branding is serendipitously, “Home of the Sheiks”.
James grew up in L.A. in the 70s and Hollywood High was equivalent to Jodie Foster’s school in “Taxi Driver” only it was in L.A. It was a working class and poor school where only half of the student body took the SATs (College qualifying exams), and he was definitely the nerd in the herd. He would spend his Friday nights watching a little known TV show on the local Channel 13 moderated by the L.A. Times critic Charles Champlin. The show was of silent films and there he saw “Birth of a Nation” and the German Expressionist movies among others. Later he wrote his PhD dissertation Carl Theodor Dreyer's ‘Gertrud’: The Moving Word, and it was published by the University of Washington Press. He moved to New York to write it after completing his Bachelors, Masters and PhD studies at Uc Berkeley.
He said he does not remember much about his high school days, but recently as he was unpacking some old boxes, he came across his high school yearbook.
You know how people signed with little paragraphs? One of these said ‘Thanks for persuading me to skip school with you and going on the 93 bus to see movies’ and it was signed ‘Frank’. I had no idea who Frank was but as I tried to remember, I recalled skipping school to go to L.A.’s only film festival which was new and called ‘Filmex’.
(Editor’s note: Filmex was the creation of ‘The two Garys’, Gary Essert and Gary Abrahams, both of whom died of Aids during the Aids epidemic. Gary Essert was a UCLA Film School student in the 60s where he started Filmex with marathon screenings in the Quonset hut which was the film school. The two Garys are both vividly remembered today by the American Cinematheque crews and others of us from L.A. because the Cinematheque was their creation.)
It was at Filmex that I saw a film made by a film student from USC. It was a sci-fi film and there was a Q&A afterward. The film was called ‘Thx-1138’ and it was by George Lucas. Then I remembered! Frank was Frank Darabont! And we were now sharing the same agent, so I gave him a call and yes, he went to Hollywood High too.
James combines his acclaimed filmmaking career with other roles within the industry: he is a revered film historian and academic. He is also a multi award-winning screenwriter, director and leading U.S. indie producer, best known for his long creative collaboration with Taiwanese director Ang Lee. He has worked with Lee on nine films, including “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” (2000), which won four Academy Awards, including Best Foreign Language Film and Best Cinematography, and remains the highest-grossing non-English-language film in the U.S. He was the screenwriter for Lee's “The Ice Storm”, for which he won the award for Best Screenplay at the Festival de Cannes in 1997 and co-wrote “Eat Drink Man Woman” (1994), the first of Lee’s films to achieve both critical and commercial success.
As producers, Schamus and Ted Hope (today head of production at Amazon) co-founded the U.S. low- to no-budget production company Good Machine in the early 1990s.
It was macho to brag about how we made films with no money. ‘I made my movie for $5,000.’ ‘Well, I made mine for $4,000.’
Ted also loves lists and he made a list of all the short films made in the past 10 years by filmmakers who had yet to make feature films. We got the VHS tapes and one of the films we saw was by Ang Lee when he was studying at Nyu. It was called “Fine Line” and was Chazz Palminteri’s first film.
“Fine Line” was about an Italian guy on the run from the mob. It takes place in New York’s Little Italy and Chinatown. Ang Lee had an agent and we called him. He said Ang Lee was working on three great films before hanging up on us…
To hear James tell this story, watch him speaking here with Richard Peña.
What was cut out of the above online story was that at the time of “Pushing Hands”
Ang had no idea we had just contacted his agent and he also thought we would steal all his money. He was 38 years old, an unemployed stay-at-home parent with a working wife and two kids living in a little apartment in New York. In his spare time he had become a great cook. He came in and pitched a comedy for one hour. It was awful. We were such no-money producers; our office was upstairs from a strip club and the music would blast into our offices starting at 2:00 every day. With this pounding beat, he pitched the worst pitch we ever heard. But there was a $5,000 fee for us. I then said that though his pitch was poor he had actually described the entire movie in his head to us scene by scene. He was not trying to sell the film.
So we made the film and then made his second film “Wedding Banquet” which shared a first prize in Berlin. The third film was “Eat Drink Man Woman” from an original idea with a Taiwanese writer, very TV in the open-endedness of all the characters feeling the push and pull of letting it happen. But in this was a Hollywood 40s style screwball comedy that could be imposed.
Again, when James and I spoke together, I challenged him on the claim that “Dim Lake” was Chazz’s first film because my own partner in life and business, Peter Belsito, claims to have produced Chazz’s first film, “Home Free All” at which time Chazz took Peter aside and said, 'I am not just a dumb guinea hoodlum, I am a real actor destined for better roles. I can act serious.' So James and I checked IMDb to see and sure enough, “Dim Lake” was his first film and “Home Free All” was his second, but it was Chazz’ first feature film. We then looked at the rest of his 68 film credits and in every single one, he is playing the Italian.
Doing this with James gave me a momentary feel of his love for research.
“For my first time writing with Ang I needed to research food in Taiwan for ‘Pushing Hands’, the position and placement of food, families and food….The script would be translated from English to Chinese, but Ang was not satisfied with it. I was having trouble tapping into the mentality of the Chinese family so I took all the characters’ names and changed them to Jewish names and rewrote the script totally as a Jewish family. Then I changed the names back to their Chinese names. Ang read the script and said ‘This is really Chinese!’ And so I got ‘the cross-cultural idea’ -- not really…I still don’t get that.
The first day in Taiwan we were shooting the film in a fast food restaurant and I as I watched the rushes, one of the character’s name was Rachel and I realized I had forgotten to change the name back. I asked if we needed to reshoot, but at that time it was a fad to change Chinese names to Anglo names and no one thought it was out of place, and so it stayed.
The most difficult part of the film was shooting the opening title sequence of the father cooking a meal. It went over schedule because it had to be perfect. We used the food so many times it was held together by glue by the end.
Preparing a shot list is very important for Ang and he constantly reduces the list and his vision jells as he does this. By his third film, the process was very internalized. Next he had to communicate it. The plan is always the result of the overall idea. That’s why his style always changes.
As he shoots, the relationship with the editor is very close. He has a long-time relationship with his editor Tim Squyres.
The “Wedding Banquet” was the first film edited on Avid. Before “Wedding Banquet”, four minutes was the full length of films edited on Avid which is now ancient technology.
Tim cuts several versions and talks them through with Ang. They have spent more time in the dark together than most married people. Ang is in the editing room from the beginning to the end. Tim talks very directly, like he might say Ang should have spent more time on a scene or should have shot a scene from a different angle. I used to watch Ang’s face tense up as he listened to Tim’s criticism and often they would fight, but they have spent 25+ years together.
On the transnational global reach of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”:
Critics said it was not an authentic chop-socky movie. But the Hong Kong chop-socky genre itself was a regional hybrid. The origins of chop-socky were from Shanghai and Singapore. It was not so “Cantonese” as critics claimed. Bruce Lee himself was U.S. based. So the transnational aspect was already there.
From 2002 to 2014 Schamus was CEO of Focus Features, the motion picture production, financing and worldwide distribution company whose films during his tenure included Wes Anderson's “Moonrise Kingdom” (2012), Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Roman Polanski's “The Pianist “ (2002), Henry Selick's “Coraline” (2009) and Sofia Coppola’s “Lost in Translation” (2003).
On actors:
Character is secondary to the action. You only have action and words in a script. Working with good actors, you need images.
Actors are at such high risk, they are very vulnerable. They need respect. Sometimes they act out.
On casting and directors:
During the casting process, the director must direct the actor, set the tone for the part. Most of the film’s directing can be done during the casting process.
On storyboarding:
“Ride with the Devil” was the first film Ang Lee storyboarded. He also storyboarded “Life of Pi”. Storyboarding could take the life out of a movie.
On production design:
It takes lots of research. It includes the worldview of the film and everything ties in to that. It first starts with costumes. Research is not done only by the department but by everyone.
On film distribution and Focus:
Where is distribution now for specialized films? Focus was everything, attached to the studio system as its specialized film division, Focus’ model was not Fox Searchlght’s which is locked into the domestic U.S. market. Seachlight bought global rights and produced by way of its international TV deals. Focus didn’t have that. It had to presell theatrical rights to independent distributors worldwide. Driven primarily by the international marketplace, it could not be driven by U.S. Its primary focus for production was London. It was all international but also driven by flagship releases in the U.S.
In 2014, Schamus turned his hand to directing with the short documentary “That Film About Money” (2014).
Paul Allen of Microsoft started Vulcan with a commitment to shorts. I did a doc with a crew of people I had never worked with before. And it was about people like Paul.
In 2016 James made his feature directorial debut with an adaptation of Philip Roth's “Indignation”. It had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2016 and screened at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival in the Panorama section.
Schamus is also Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia University’s School of the Arts, where he teaches film history and theory.
On Doha’s newest foray into Hollywood:
Doha-based beIN Media Group’s acquiring Miramax could be a great deal depending on the price paid.
Much of the 600-plus films in the Miramax library is probably locked into licensing deals already around the globe, but depending on when those deals are up for renewal and what other rights can be exploited, if the price point was right, it’s a great way to get into the game because they are sitting on top of so much intellectual property.
Just integrating into the deal structures and understanding the economics, from the end point where the money is coming from to the rights holder, is a good idea.
Miramax, under the leadership of Zanne Devine, has also co-acquired with Roadside Attractions, the 2016 Sundance premiering feature, “Southside with You”, the narrative feature of Barak Obama and Michelle’s first date. That will bring beIN into the Roadside Attraction/ Lionsgate sphere of distribution and international sales.
On Hollywood interest in territories like China, India and the Middle East:
The less successful pattern is to find a Hollywood producer who flies in on his private jet and give him hundreds of millions (ed: Stx?) to make movies. This is a very different version, this is owning intellectual property - it’s a good first step.
On moviegoing in the Gulf:
The next step is to build a cinema culture that makes movie-going a practice in the region far more than it is now - movie exhibition and movie-going as a power lever.
On TV in the Middle East:
My intuition says new media, television in particular, is going to be a space that is very dynamic once it breaks open, here in the Gulf or elsewhere.
During this week at Qumra, James is also mentoring 10 filmmakers working on five Dfi-backed projects: Mohamed Al Ibrahim’s “Bull Shark”; Hamida Issa’s “To The Ends Of The Earth”; Sherif Elbendary’s “Ali, The Goat And Ibrahim”; Mohanad Hayal’s “Haifa Street” aka “Death Street”; and Karim Moussaoui’s “Till The Swallows Return”.
Elia Suleiman, the Artistic Advisor to Doha Film Institute, recalls how he and James “grew up together” in New York as long-time friends. James introduced him to the Chilean master filmmaker Raul Ruiz. While at Good Machine, Schamus helped him with his short film. He helped edit the script and was his guardian angel helping with his first contract. They even had a code for “urgent”. When Elia was in Jerusalem and James in London, they used the code whenever Elia was overwhelmed by the paperwork needed. James would answer within 15 minutes. Now James has come full circle on his own, from being one of the most important producers of the decade to directing his own film.
When asked by Qumra what was most important, he said “first time filmmakers are the most important”. And he has always been able to spot the most talented of emerging filmmakers.
I was surprised to hear that James, who seems like a quintessential New Yorker, is not a native New Yorker but is an Angeleno and attended Hollywood High in Los Angeles.
When I spoke with him afterward, he said that he actually was from North Hollywood but had attended Jd Melton at Hollywood High. On looking the school up for this article, I was even more pleasantly surprised to see that their branding is serendipitously, “Home of the Sheiks”.
James grew up in L.A. in the 70s and Hollywood High was equivalent to Jodie Foster’s school in “Taxi Driver” only it was in L.A. It was a working class and poor school where only half of the student body took the SATs (College qualifying exams), and he was definitely the nerd in the herd. He would spend his Friday nights watching a little known TV show on the local Channel 13 moderated by the L.A. Times critic Charles Champlin. The show was of silent films and there he saw “Birth of a Nation” and the German Expressionist movies among others. Later he wrote his PhD dissertation Carl Theodor Dreyer's ‘Gertrud’: The Moving Word, and it was published by the University of Washington Press. He moved to New York to write it after completing his Bachelors, Masters and PhD studies at Uc Berkeley.
He said he does not remember much about his high school days, but recently as he was unpacking some old boxes, he came across his high school yearbook.
You know how people signed with little paragraphs? One of these said ‘Thanks for persuading me to skip school with you and going on the 93 bus to see movies’ and it was signed ‘Frank’. I had no idea who Frank was but as I tried to remember, I recalled skipping school to go to L.A.’s only film festival which was new and called ‘Filmex’.
(Editor’s note: Filmex was the creation of ‘The two Garys’, Gary Essert and Gary Abrahams, both of whom died of Aids during the Aids epidemic. Gary Essert was a UCLA Film School student in the 60s where he started Filmex with marathon screenings in the Quonset hut which was the film school. The two Garys are both vividly remembered today by the American Cinematheque crews and others of us from L.A. because the Cinematheque was their creation.)
It was at Filmex that I saw a film made by a film student from USC. It was a sci-fi film and there was a Q&A afterward. The film was called ‘Thx-1138’ and it was by George Lucas. Then I remembered! Frank was Frank Darabont! And we were now sharing the same agent, so I gave him a call and yes, he went to Hollywood High too.
James combines his acclaimed filmmaking career with other roles within the industry: he is a revered film historian and academic. He is also a multi award-winning screenwriter, director and leading U.S. indie producer, best known for his long creative collaboration with Taiwanese director Ang Lee. He has worked with Lee on nine films, including “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” (2000), which won four Academy Awards, including Best Foreign Language Film and Best Cinematography, and remains the highest-grossing non-English-language film in the U.S. He was the screenwriter for Lee's “The Ice Storm”, for which he won the award for Best Screenplay at the Festival de Cannes in 1997 and co-wrote “Eat Drink Man Woman” (1994), the first of Lee’s films to achieve both critical and commercial success.
As producers, Schamus and Ted Hope (today head of production at Amazon) co-founded the U.S. low- to no-budget production company Good Machine in the early 1990s.
It was macho to brag about how we made films with no money. ‘I made my movie for $5,000.’ ‘Well, I made mine for $4,000.’
Ted also loves lists and he made a list of all the short films made in the past 10 years by filmmakers who had yet to make feature films. We got the VHS tapes and one of the films we saw was by Ang Lee when he was studying at Nyu. It was called “Fine Line” and was Chazz Palminteri’s first film.
“Fine Line” was about an Italian guy on the run from the mob. It takes place in New York’s Little Italy and Chinatown. Ang Lee had an agent and we called him. He said Ang Lee was working on three great films before hanging up on us…
To hear James tell this story, watch him speaking here with Richard Peña.
What was cut out of the above online story was that at the time of “Pushing Hands”
Ang had no idea we had just contacted his agent and he also thought we would steal all his money. He was 38 years old, an unemployed stay-at-home parent with a working wife and two kids living in a little apartment in New York. In his spare time he had become a great cook. He came in and pitched a comedy for one hour. It was awful. We were such no-money producers; our office was upstairs from a strip club and the music would blast into our offices starting at 2:00 every day. With this pounding beat, he pitched the worst pitch we ever heard. But there was a $5,000 fee for us. I then said that though his pitch was poor he had actually described the entire movie in his head to us scene by scene. He was not trying to sell the film.
So we made the film and then made his second film “Wedding Banquet” which shared a first prize in Berlin. The third film was “Eat Drink Man Woman” from an original idea with a Taiwanese writer, very TV in the open-endedness of all the characters feeling the push and pull of letting it happen. But in this was a Hollywood 40s style screwball comedy that could be imposed.
Again, when James and I spoke together, I challenged him on the claim that “Dim Lake” was Chazz’s first film because my own partner in life and business, Peter Belsito, claims to have produced Chazz’s first film, “Home Free All” at which time Chazz took Peter aside and said, 'I am not just a dumb guinea hoodlum, I am a real actor destined for better roles. I can act serious.' So James and I checked IMDb to see and sure enough, “Dim Lake” was his first film and “Home Free All” was his second, but it was Chazz’ first feature film. We then looked at the rest of his 68 film credits and in every single one, he is playing the Italian.
Doing this with James gave me a momentary feel of his love for research.
“For my first time writing with Ang I needed to research food in Taiwan for ‘Pushing Hands’, the position and placement of food, families and food….The script would be translated from English to Chinese, but Ang was not satisfied with it. I was having trouble tapping into the mentality of the Chinese family so I took all the characters’ names and changed them to Jewish names and rewrote the script totally as a Jewish family. Then I changed the names back to their Chinese names. Ang read the script and said ‘This is really Chinese!’ And so I got ‘the cross-cultural idea’ -- not really…I still don’t get that.
The first day in Taiwan we were shooting the film in a fast food restaurant and I as I watched the rushes, one of the character’s name was Rachel and I realized I had forgotten to change the name back. I asked if we needed to reshoot, but at that time it was a fad to change Chinese names to Anglo names and no one thought it was out of place, and so it stayed.
The most difficult part of the film was shooting the opening title sequence of the father cooking a meal. It went over schedule because it had to be perfect. We used the food so many times it was held together by glue by the end.
Preparing a shot list is very important for Ang and he constantly reduces the list and his vision jells as he does this. By his third film, the process was very internalized. Next he had to communicate it. The plan is always the result of the overall idea. That’s why his style always changes.
As he shoots, the relationship with the editor is very close. He has a long-time relationship with his editor Tim Squyres.
The “Wedding Banquet” was the first film edited on Avid. Before “Wedding Banquet”, four minutes was the full length of films edited on Avid which is now ancient technology.
Tim cuts several versions and talks them through with Ang. They have spent more time in the dark together than most married people. Ang is in the editing room from the beginning to the end. Tim talks very directly, like he might say Ang should have spent more time on a scene or should have shot a scene from a different angle. I used to watch Ang’s face tense up as he listened to Tim’s criticism and often they would fight, but they have spent 25+ years together.
On the transnational global reach of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”:
Critics said it was not an authentic chop-socky movie. But the Hong Kong chop-socky genre itself was a regional hybrid. The origins of chop-socky were from Shanghai and Singapore. It was not so “Cantonese” as critics claimed. Bruce Lee himself was U.S. based. So the transnational aspect was already there.
From 2002 to 2014 Schamus was CEO of Focus Features, the motion picture production, financing and worldwide distribution company whose films during his tenure included Wes Anderson's “Moonrise Kingdom” (2012), Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Roman Polanski's “The Pianist “ (2002), Henry Selick's “Coraline” (2009) and Sofia Coppola’s “Lost in Translation” (2003).
On actors:
Character is secondary to the action. You only have action and words in a script. Working with good actors, you need images.
Actors are at such high risk, they are very vulnerable. They need respect. Sometimes they act out.
On casting and directors:
During the casting process, the director must direct the actor, set the tone for the part. Most of the film’s directing can be done during the casting process.
On storyboarding:
“Ride with the Devil” was the first film Ang Lee storyboarded. He also storyboarded “Life of Pi”. Storyboarding could take the life out of a movie.
On production design:
It takes lots of research. It includes the worldview of the film and everything ties in to that. It first starts with costumes. Research is not done only by the department but by everyone.
On film distribution and Focus:
Where is distribution now for specialized films? Focus was everything, attached to the studio system as its specialized film division, Focus’ model was not Fox Searchlght’s which is locked into the domestic U.S. market. Seachlight bought global rights and produced by way of its international TV deals. Focus didn’t have that. It had to presell theatrical rights to independent distributors worldwide. Driven primarily by the international marketplace, it could not be driven by U.S. Its primary focus for production was London. It was all international but also driven by flagship releases in the U.S.
In 2014, Schamus turned his hand to directing with the short documentary “That Film About Money” (2014).
Paul Allen of Microsoft started Vulcan with a commitment to shorts. I did a doc with a crew of people I had never worked with before. And it was about people like Paul.
In 2016 James made his feature directorial debut with an adaptation of Philip Roth's “Indignation”. It had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2016 and screened at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival in the Panorama section.
Schamus is also Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia University’s School of the Arts, where he teaches film history and theory.
On Doha’s newest foray into Hollywood:
Doha-based beIN Media Group’s acquiring Miramax could be a great deal depending on the price paid.
Much of the 600-plus films in the Miramax library is probably locked into licensing deals already around the globe, but depending on when those deals are up for renewal and what other rights can be exploited, if the price point was right, it’s a great way to get into the game because they are sitting on top of so much intellectual property.
Just integrating into the deal structures and understanding the economics, from the end point where the money is coming from to the rights holder, is a good idea.
Miramax, under the leadership of Zanne Devine, has also co-acquired with Roadside Attractions, the 2016 Sundance premiering feature, “Southside with You”, the narrative feature of Barak Obama and Michelle’s first date. That will bring beIN into the Roadside Attraction/ Lionsgate sphere of distribution and international sales.
On Hollywood interest in territories like China, India and the Middle East:
The less successful pattern is to find a Hollywood producer who flies in on his private jet and give him hundreds of millions (ed: Stx?) to make movies. This is a very different version, this is owning intellectual property - it’s a good first step.
On moviegoing in the Gulf:
The next step is to build a cinema culture that makes movie-going a practice in the region far more than it is now - movie exhibition and movie-going as a power lever.
On TV in the Middle East:
My intuition says new media, television in particular, is going to be a space that is very dynamic once it breaks open, here in the Gulf or elsewhere.
During this week at Qumra, James is also mentoring 10 filmmakers working on five Dfi-backed projects: Mohamed Al Ibrahim’s “Bull Shark”; Hamida Issa’s “To The Ends Of The Earth”; Sherif Elbendary’s “Ali, The Goat And Ibrahim”; Mohanad Hayal’s “Haifa Street” aka “Death Street”; and Karim Moussaoui’s “Till The Swallows Return”.
Elia Suleiman, the Artistic Advisor to Doha Film Institute, recalls how he and James “grew up together” in New York as long-time friends. James introduced him to the Chilean master filmmaker Raul Ruiz. While at Good Machine, Schamus helped him with his short film. He helped edit the script and was his guardian angel helping with his first contract. They even had a code for “urgent”. When Elia was in Jerusalem and James in London, they used the code whenever Elia was overwhelmed by the paperwork needed. James would answer within 15 minutes. Now James has come full circle on his own, from being one of the most important producers of the decade to directing his own film.
When asked by Qumra what was most important, he said “first time filmmakers are the most important”. And he has always been able to spot the most talented of emerging filmmakers.
- 4/3/2016
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Screen rounds up the films from across the globe that could launch at Cannes…
With less than a month to go until the Cannes Film Festival announces its line-up at its annual Paris press conference on April 14, Screen looks at what could make it into Official Selection and the parallel sections of Directors’ Fortnight and Critics’ Week.
UK and Ireland
The UK could have one of its strongest Cannes for years with hot favourites for a competition slot including Andrea Arnold’s Shia Labeouf-starring Us road movie American Honey and Ken Loach’s gritty Northern England-set drama I, Daniel Blake. It would be Loach’s 12th time in competition.
Ben Wheatley is also reportedly gunning for an Official Selection slot for his 1970s Boston-set, gangland thriller Free Fire, potentially Out of Competition or in Midnight Screenings. He was last in Cannes with Sightseers in Directors’ Fortnight.
Other UK hopefuls include Stephen Frears’ Florence Foster Jenkins and Indian...
With less than a month to go until the Cannes Film Festival announces its line-up at its annual Paris press conference on April 14, Screen looks at what could make it into Official Selection and the parallel sections of Directors’ Fortnight and Critics’ Week.
UK and Ireland
The UK could have one of its strongest Cannes for years with hot favourites for a competition slot including Andrea Arnold’s Shia Labeouf-starring Us road movie American Honey and Ken Loach’s gritty Northern England-set drama I, Daniel Blake. It would be Loach’s 12th time in competition.
Ben Wheatley is also reportedly gunning for an Official Selection slot for his 1970s Boston-set, gangland thriller Free Fire, potentially Out of Competition or in Midnight Screenings. He was last in Cannes with Sightseers in Directors’ Fortnight.
Other UK hopefuls include Stephen Frears’ Florence Foster Jenkins and Indian...
- 3/21/2016
- ScreenDaily
James Schamus delivers masterclass in Doha, touching on the need to build a movie-going culture in the Gulf and how Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon established the modern international blockbuster.
James Schamus said the Gulf region could learn from China’s theatrical growth, during his masterclass at the Doha Film Institute’s Qumra festival on Saturday.
The American producer, writer, distribution executive and director was asked about last week’s deal for Doha-based beIN Media Group to acquire Miramax and said it “could be a great deal” depending on the price paid.
He noted that much of the 600-plus films in the Miramax library would be locked into licensing deals already around the globe, but depending on when those deals are up for renewal and what other rights can be exploited, “if the price point was right, it’s a great way to get into the game because you are sitting on top of so much intellectual property...
James Schamus said the Gulf region could learn from China’s theatrical growth, during his masterclass at the Doha Film Institute’s Qumra festival on Saturday.
The American producer, writer, distribution executive and director was asked about last week’s deal for Doha-based beIN Media Group to acquire Miramax and said it “could be a great deal” depending on the price paid.
He noted that much of the 600-plus films in the Miramax library would be locked into licensing deals already around the globe, but depending on when those deals are up for renewal and what other rights can be exploited, “if the price point was right, it’s a great way to get into the game because you are sitting on top of so much intellectual property...
- 3/6/2016
- by wendy.mitchell@screendaily.com (Wendy Mitchell)
- ScreenDaily
James Schamus delivers masterclass in Doha, touching on the need to build a movie-going culture in the Gulf and how Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon established the modern international blockbuster.
James Schamus said the Gulf region could learn from China’s theatrical growth, during his masterclass at the Doha Film Institute’s Qumra festival on Saturday.
The American producer, writer, distribution executive and director was asked about last week’s deal for Doha-based beIN Media Group to acquire Miramax and said it “could be a great deal” depending on the price paid.
He noted that much of the 600-plus films in the Miramax library would be locked into licensing deals already around the globe, but depending on when those deals are up for renewal and what other rights can be exploited, “if the price point was right, it’s a great way to get into the game because you are sitting on top of so much intellectual property...
James Schamus said the Gulf region could learn from China’s theatrical growth, during his masterclass at the Doha Film Institute’s Qumra festival on Saturday.
The American producer, writer, distribution executive and director was asked about last week’s deal for Doha-based beIN Media Group to acquire Miramax and said it “could be a great deal” depending on the price paid.
He noted that much of the 600-plus films in the Miramax library would be locked into licensing deals already around the globe, but depending on when those deals are up for renewal and what other rights can be exploited, “if the price point was right, it’s a great way to get into the game because you are sitting on top of so much intellectual property...
- 3/6/2016
- by wendy.mitchell@screendaily.com (Wendy Mitchell)
- ScreenDaily
Directors and producers from 19 countries are attached to 13 narrative feature films, 10 feature documentaries and 10 short films participating in the 6 day program of industry sessions designed to progress their projects and prepare them for international markets. The emphasis is on supporting first-and-second-time filmmakers with projects in development and post-production.
The Doha Film Institute's second edition of Qumra will be taking place in Doha, Qatar from March 4-9. 15 projects are from Qatar-based filmmakers, 12 from the Middle East North Africa (Mena) region and 6 from the rest of the world. 11 of the 33 projects are features films in development, 12 are in post-production and 10 are short films in development.
Twenty of the feature projects are alumni of the Institute’s grants program and 3 are by independent filmmakers from Qatar. Of the 10 short projects, 7 are by Qatari filmmakers and 3 are by Qatar-based filmmakers identified through the Institute’s ongoing engagement with local industry.
Doha Film Institute CEO Fatma Al Remaihi said: “We are very excited by the diverse slate of projects selected for Qumra 2016, representing emerging talent from Qatar, the Arab region and around the world.”
“We have prepared an intensive program for our project delegates which is designed to inspire them creatively and support them in navigating the evolving landscape of the film industry. I look forward to welcoming each of our project delegates to Qumra for what promises to be a productive exchange of ideas, culture and creativity.”
New to this year’s edition is the Qumra Shorts Programme, a dedicated strand designed to address the unique requirements of short films in development, during which 10 Qatar-based filmmakers will present their projects to a group of international industry professionals, including script consultants, producers, lab representatives, programmers and buyers, all of whom are experts in the short form.
The ten short filmmakers have been supported by the Doha Film Institute in various ways throughout their careers and many are alumni of its educational initiatives, workshops and funding programs. "Kashta" by Aj Al Thani has been supported by the Institute’s grants program and "Amer: The Arabian Legend" by Jassim Al-Rumaihi is supported by the Qatari Film Fund, the newly established funding and development program for Qatari filmmakers which was announced last year.
Directors and producers attached to each of the 33 projects will attend the sessions in Doha where they will be linked with more than 100 seasoned industry experts from all facets of the film industry including representatives from leading international film festivals, funding bodies, sales, production and distribution companies along with development specialists and script consultants.
The program is specifically tailored to each project’s needs and is divided according to their stage of development. Projects in development will participate in group and individual sessions for script consulting, legal, sales, marketing and co-production advice along with one-on-one match-made meetings and tutorials.
Projects in post-production are divided into two strands: the Work-in-Progress sessions will present a series of closed rough-cut screenings of 20-minute excerpts from the four narrative and four documentary Qumra projects in post-production followed by immediate, individual feedback from a panel of selected industry experts; and the Picture Lock Screenings will present exclusive 20 minute excerpts of four feature-length Qumra projects in the final stages of post-production for leading festival programmers, broadcasters, market representatives, sales agents and distributors.
The Qumra Projects delegates will also attend daily master classes and screenings presented by five Qumra Masters who represent some of the leading figures in world cinema today.
The 2016 Qumra Masters are Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Turkey), Naomi Kawase (Japan), Joshua Oppenheimer (Us), James Schamus (Us), Aleksandr Sokurov (Russia). Each Master will be matched to a selection of Qumra projects to participate in dedicated mentoring sessions with the emerging filmmakers.
The 2016 Qumra Projects are:
Feature Films:
Feature Narrative, Development
"Bull Shark" by Mohammed Al Ibrahim (Qatar, Bahrain, USA)
An up-and-coming investment banker makes his mark in the Arab region’s most prominent Islamic investment bank, only to find he has been caught in the middle of the costliest embezzlement scheme in Arab history.
"Death Street" by Mohanad Hayal (Iraq, Qatar)
Tariq, the sniper of Haifa Street in Baghdad, kills Ahmed on the day he intends to propose marriage. While Tariq prevents anyone from approaching the corpse in the street, an intimate and telling drama unfolds.
"Evil Eye" by Sophia Al-Maria (Qatar, Morocco)
After inheriting the keys to an apartment in The City, country girl Dihya finds out that The Village she comes from has a reputation for witchcraft in this North African take on the teen witch film.
"The Pearl" by Noor Al-Nasr (Qatar)
A tech-obsessed Qatari teen, disconnected from his family, travels back in time to an era before his beloved technology existed, when the city’s main source of income was pearl diving. Alone on this journey, he must learn how to survive and communicate face-to-face in order to reconnect with his family.
"The Search for the Star Pearl" by Hafiz Ali Ali (Qatar)
Ali, a 17-year-old pearl diver from Doha, discovers a map to the Star Pearl of Abu Derya, the most valuable gem on Earth, and sets sail with three teenaged friends in search of it. Along the way, they face mythological beasts that challenge their skills and friendship.
"Stolen Skies" by Laila Hotait Salas (Lebanon, Qatar)
When a bomb is detonated in Cairo, one family feels it ricochet through the erased memories of three generations.
"Till the Swallows Return" by Karim Moussaoui (Algeria, France, Qatar)
This is the story of three characters who are a product of the conflicted Algeria of the 2000s. Their ideals shattered and their moral strength drained, each now faces a difficult life choice.
Feature Documentary, Development
"Agnus Dei" by Karim Sayad (Algeria, Switzerland, Qatar)
On the vacant lot where the confrontation takes place, the tension is at its peak. Foufa and his sheep King are getting ready for the fight...
"Behind the Doors" by Yakout Elhababi (Morocco, Qatar)
High in the Rif mountains of Morocco, the people survive by growing kif. Beneath the shadow of the ambiguous legality of the crop, ‘Behind the Doors’ tells the story of a family through its children and their mirroring games.
"The Great Family" by Eliane Raheb (Lebanon, France, Qatar)
In 1976, at the age of four, Marlene was put up for adoption in Lebanon and raised in France. In delving into her past, she discovers she is a survivor of the massacre at the Tal Al Zaatar Palestinian refugee camp, and a family of survivors grows around her.
"To the Ends of the Earth" by Hamida Issa (Qatar)
A Qatari woman travels on an environmental expedition to Antarctica in search of hope, before returning to the Gulf and finding unity and inspiration for positive change.
Feature Narrative, Works-in-Progress
"Ali, The Goat and Ibrahim" by Sherif Elbendary (Egypt, France, Germany, USA, Qatar)
Ali and Ibrahim are two lonely and weird characters who are rejected by their society. Ali loves a goat called Nada, and Ibrahim is a sound engineer who is disturbed by strange voices that he alone can hear. When their paths cross, this odd pair embarks on a journey that will change their lives.
"Dede" by Mariam Khatchvani (Georgia, Qatar)
As Georgia fights for its independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a young woman struggles to make a life in the remote, isolated villages high in the Caucasus Mountains, where ancient patriarchal laws threaten to separate her from her daughter.
"Poisonous Roses" by Fawzi Saleh (Egypt, Qatar)
The world has left nothing to Taheya apart from her brother Saqr. When he disappears, Taheya pursues him in desperation.
"White Sun" by Deepak Rauniyar (Nepal, The Netherlands, Qatar)
A drama about life in a Nepali mountain village in the wake of the decade-long armed conflict.
Feature Documentary, Works-in-Progress
"Ghost Hunting" by Raed Andoni (Palestine, France, Switzerland, Qatar)
Director Raed Andoni assembles an eclectic group of Palestinians to rebuild the Israeli investigation centre in which they were imprisoned – a place they never actually saw because they were always blindfolded.
"My Uncle the “Terrorist” by Elias Moubarak (Lebanon, Germany, Qatar)
A film director seeks to uncover a 40-year-old family taboo: the controversial life of his Uncle Fouad, a poet and an engineer of the Munich massacre.
"The Silk Railroad" by Martin Dicicco (USA, Georgia, Qatar)
Wealth, opportunity, and discord collide along the route of a new railroad bridging Europe and Asia.
"Tondo" by Jewel Maranan (The Philippines, Germany, Qatar)
‘Tondo’ is a film about four people in different stages of life - birth, youth, adulthood and death - who are caught in the path of expansion of Manila’s busiest international port.
Feature Narrative, Picture Lock
"Bastard" by Uda Benyamina (Morocco, France, Qatar)
Fifteen-year-old Dounia lives with her mother in a rough
Parisian suburb, where she has been saddled with the nickname “bastard”.
"The Mimosas" by Oliver Laxe (Spain, Morocco, France, Qatar)
In the Atlas Mountains in the past, a caravan searches for the path to take a Sufi master home to die. Among the party is Ahmed, a rascal who eventually becomes inspired to lead the caravan to its destination. Along the way, Ahmed is assisted by Shakib, a man sent from contemporary Morocco to guide him on his journey.
"Beirut Rooster" by Ziad Kalthoum (Syria, Lebanon, Germany, Qatar)
While Syrian workers rebuild Lebanon, a country ruined by a lengthy civil war, their hometowns in Syria are destroyed during the brutal conflict there. Who will rebuild their houses?
"Those From the Shore" by Tamara Stepanyan (Armenia, Lebanon, France, Qatar)
Marseille, 2014. Dozens of Armenian asylum seekers are trying to survive while waiting for their applications to be considered. They live in an indeterminate space, wandering in limbo.
Short Films:
Development, Short Narrative
"I Want to Feel What I Feel When I Am Asleep" by Abdullah Al-Mulla (Qatar)
A man wearing a gas mask is on a journey to fulfil a selfless purpose. Among the people of a drugged and mesmerised society, he cleans up a ruined city in order to cover up the destruction that has taken place.
"Kashta" by Aj Al Thani (Qatar)
A father takes his two sons out on a trip to the desert to go hunting, but the results are not quite what he was expecting.
"Qafas" by Mayar Hamdan (Qatar)
A young man tries everything to escape the cage he is chained in. Only when he realises that the true obstacle to his release is not the chains, but rather his outlook on his situation, does he finally become free.
"A Ranged Marriage" by Nora Al Subai (Qatar)
After being stuck in an arranged married for a year, a desperate wife discovers the perfect gift for their anniversary: a romantic dinner that will kill her husband.
"The World is Blue" by Amna Al Binali (Qatar)
During her sister’s engagement party, Hend comes to terms with the contradiction between how she wants her life to unfold and the inevitability of how it has been drawn for her.
Development, Short Documentary
"Amer: The Arabian Legend" by Jassim Al-Rumaihi (Qatar)
Sent as a gift to the late Emir of Qatar in the 1980s, Amer seemed like an average purebred Arabian. After he was taken to the tracks of Umm Qarn to train other horses, however, he showed his class, changing the face of Arabian horseracing forever.
"Buqsha" by Fahad Al Obaidly (Qatar)
‘Buqsha’ strives to encourage people to go beyond their preconceptions and venture into the past to look to the future Throughout our journey, we demonstrate the importance of learning from traditional culture while preserving our own, and that the balance between artistic heritage and the contemporary arts nurtures creativity.
"The Innocent Prisoner" by Amina Ahmed Al-Boluchi (Qatar)
The story of a man trying to wash away his history of being a prisoner, determining his destiny by becoming a better person, and finding himself a place in his own society.
"Love in the Middle East" by Mostafa Sheshtawy (Qatar)
Romantic love is very common, yet it can mean something completely different from one person to the next. Through a young man’s journey, this film looks at what it means to fall in love in the Middle East.
Picture Lock, Short Narrative
"More Than Two Days" by Ahmed Abdelnaser (Qatar)
Over the course of two days, two brothers go through critical moments that may change their lives. ‘More Than Two Days’ examines their relationship and how each of them is trying to face up to the new situation in their lives.
The Doha Film Institute's second edition of Qumra will be taking place in Doha, Qatar from March 4-9. 15 projects are from Qatar-based filmmakers, 12 from the Middle East North Africa (Mena) region and 6 from the rest of the world. 11 of the 33 projects are features films in development, 12 are in post-production and 10 are short films in development.
Twenty of the feature projects are alumni of the Institute’s grants program and 3 are by independent filmmakers from Qatar. Of the 10 short projects, 7 are by Qatari filmmakers and 3 are by Qatar-based filmmakers identified through the Institute’s ongoing engagement with local industry.
Doha Film Institute CEO Fatma Al Remaihi said: “We are very excited by the diverse slate of projects selected for Qumra 2016, representing emerging talent from Qatar, the Arab region and around the world.”
“We have prepared an intensive program for our project delegates which is designed to inspire them creatively and support them in navigating the evolving landscape of the film industry. I look forward to welcoming each of our project delegates to Qumra for what promises to be a productive exchange of ideas, culture and creativity.”
New to this year’s edition is the Qumra Shorts Programme, a dedicated strand designed to address the unique requirements of short films in development, during which 10 Qatar-based filmmakers will present their projects to a group of international industry professionals, including script consultants, producers, lab representatives, programmers and buyers, all of whom are experts in the short form.
The ten short filmmakers have been supported by the Doha Film Institute in various ways throughout their careers and many are alumni of its educational initiatives, workshops and funding programs. "Kashta" by Aj Al Thani has been supported by the Institute’s grants program and "Amer: The Arabian Legend" by Jassim Al-Rumaihi is supported by the Qatari Film Fund, the newly established funding and development program for Qatari filmmakers which was announced last year.
Directors and producers attached to each of the 33 projects will attend the sessions in Doha where they will be linked with more than 100 seasoned industry experts from all facets of the film industry including representatives from leading international film festivals, funding bodies, sales, production and distribution companies along with development specialists and script consultants.
The program is specifically tailored to each project’s needs and is divided according to their stage of development. Projects in development will participate in group and individual sessions for script consulting, legal, sales, marketing and co-production advice along with one-on-one match-made meetings and tutorials.
Projects in post-production are divided into two strands: the Work-in-Progress sessions will present a series of closed rough-cut screenings of 20-minute excerpts from the four narrative and four documentary Qumra projects in post-production followed by immediate, individual feedback from a panel of selected industry experts; and the Picture Lock Screenings will present exclusive 20 minute excerpts of four feature-length Qumra projects in the final stages of post-production for leading festival programmers, broadcasters, market representatives, sales agents and distributors.
The Qumra Projects delegates will also attend daily master classes and screenings presented by five Qumra Masters who represent some of the leading figures in world cinema today.
The 2016 Qumra Masters are Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Turkey), Naomi Kawase (Japan), Joshua Oppenheimer (Us), James Schamus (Us), Aleksandr Sokurov (Russia). Each Master will be matched to a selection of Qumra projects to participate in dedicated mentoring sessions with the emerging filmmakers.
The 2016 Qumra Projects are:
Feature Films:
Feature Narrative, Development
"Bull Shark" by Mohammed Al Ibrahim (Qatar, Bahrain, USA)
An up-and-coming investment banker makes his mark in the Arab region’s most prominent Islamic investment bank, only to find he has been caught in the middle of the costliest embezzlement scheme in Arab history.
"Death Street" by Mohanad Hayal (Iraq, Qatar)
Tariq, the sniper of Haifa Street in Baghdad, kills Ahmed on the day he intends to propose marriage. While Tariq prevents anyone from approaching the corpse in the street, an intimate and telling drama unfolds.
"Evil Eye" by Sophia Al-Maria (Qatar, Morocco)
After inheriting the keys to an apartment in The City, country girl Dihya finds out that The Village she comes from has a reputation for witchcraft in this North African take on the teen witch film.
"The Pearl" by Noor Al-Nasr (Qatar)
A tech-obsessed Qatari teen, disconnected from his family, travels back in time to an era before his beloved technology existed, when the city’s main source of income was pearl diving. Alone on this journey, he must learn how to survive and communicate face-to-face in order to reconnect with his family.
"The Search for the Star Pearl" by Hafiz Ali Ali (Qatar)
Ali, a 17-year-old pearl diver from Doha, discovers a map to the Star Pearl of Abu Derya, the most valuable gem on Earth, and sets sail with three teenaged friends in search of it. Along the way, they face mythological beasts that challenge their skills and friendship.
"Stolen Skies" by Laila Hotait Salas (Lebanon, Qatar)
When a bomb is detonated in Cairo, one family feels it ricochet through the erased memories of three generations.
"Till the Swallows Return" by Karim Moussaoui (Algeria, France, Qatar)
This is the story of three characters who are a product of the conflicted Algeria of the 2000s. Their ideals shattered and their moral strength drained, each now faces a difficult life choice.
Feature Documentary, Development
"Agnus Dei" by Karim Sayad (Algeria, Switzerland, Qatar)
On the vacant lot where the confrontation takes place, the tension is at its peak. Foufa and his sheep King are getting ready for the fight...
"Behind the Doors" by Yakout Elhababi (Morocco, Qatar)
High in the Rif mountains of Morocco, the people survive by growing kif. Beneath the shadow of the ambiguous legality of the crop, ‘Behind the Doors’ tells the story of a family through its children and their mirroring games.
"The Great Family" by Eliane Raheb (Lebanon, France, Qatar)
In 1976, at the age of four, Marlene was put up for adoption in Lebanon and raised in France. In delving into her past, she discovers she is a survivor of the massacre at the Tal Al Zaatar Palestinian refugee camp, and a family of survivors grows around her.
"To the Ends of the Earth" by Hamida Issa (Qatar)
A Qatari woman travels on an environmental expedition to Antarctica in search of hope, before returning to the Gulf and finding unity and inspiration for positive change.
Feature Narrative, Works-in-Progress
"Ali, The Goat and Ibrahim" by Sherif Elbendary (Egypt, France, Germany, USA, Qatar)
Ali and Ibrahim are two lonely and weird characters who are rejected by their society. Ali loves a goat called Nada, and Ibrahim is a sound engineer who is disturbed by strange voices that he alone can hear. When their paths cross, this odd pair embarks on a journey that will change their lives.
"Dede" by Mariam Khatchvani (Georgia, Qatar)
As Georgia fights for its independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a young woman struggles to make a life in the remote, isolated villages high in the Caucasus Mountains, where ancient patriarchal laws threaten to separate her from her daughter.
"Poisonous Roses" by Fawzi Saleh (Egypt, Qatar)
The world has left nothing to Taheya apart from her brother Saqr. When he disappears, Taheya pursues him in desperation.
"White Sun" by Deepak Rauniyar (Nepal, The Netherlands, Qatar)
A drama about life in a Nepali mountain village in the wake of the decade-long armed conflict.
Feature Documentary, Works-in-Progress
"Ghost Hunting" by Raed Andoni (Palestine, France, Switzerland, Qatar)
Director Raed Andoni assembles an eclectic group of Palestinians to rebuild the Israeli investigation centre in which they were imprisoned – a place they never actually saw because they were always blindfolded.
"My Uncle the “Terrorist” by Elias Moubarak (Lebanon, Germany, Qatar)
A film director seeks to uncover a 40-year-old family taboo: the controversial life of his Uncle Fouad, a poet and an engineer of the Munich massacre.
"The Silk Railroad" by Martin Dicicco (USA, Georgia, Qatar)
Wealth, opportunity, and discord collide along the route of a new railroad bridging Europe and Asia.
"Tondo" by Jewel Maranan (The Philippines, Germany, Qatar)
‘Tondo’ is a film about four people in different stages of life - birth, youth, adulthood and death - who are caught in the path of expansion of Manila’s busiest international port.
Feature Narrative, Picture Lock
"Bastard" by Uda Benyamina (Morocco, France, Qatar)
Fifteen-year-old Dounia lives with her mother in a rough
Parisian suburb, where she has been saddled with the nickname “bastard”.
"The Mimosas" by Oliver Laxe (Spain, Morocco, France, Qatar)
In the Atlas Mountains in the past, a caravan searches for the path to take a Sufi master home to die. Among the party is Ahmed, a rascal who eventually becomes inspired to lead the caravan to its destination. Along the way, Ahmed is assisted by Shakib, a man sent from contemporary Morocco to guide him on his journey.
"Beirut Rooster" by Ziad Kalthoum (Syria, Lebanon, Germany, Qatar)
While Syrian workers rebuild Lebanon, a country ruined by a lengthy civil war, their hometowns in Syria are destroyed during the brutal conflict there. Who will rebuild their houses?
"Those From the Shore" by Tamara Stepanyan (Armenia, Lebanon, France, Qatar)
Marseille, 2014. Dozens of Armenian asylum seekers are trying to survive while waiting for their applications to be considered. They live in an indeterminate space, wandering in limbo.
Short Films:
Development, Short Narrative
"I Want to Feel What I Feel When I Am Asleep" by Abdullah Al-Mulla (Qatar)
A man wearing a gas mask is on a journey to fulfil a selfless purpose. Among the people of a drugged and mesmerised society, he cleans up a ruined city in order to cover up the destruction that has taken place.
"Kashta" by Aj Al Thani (Qatar)
A father takes his two sons out on a trip to the desert to go hunting, but the results are not quite what he was expecting.
"Qafas" by Mayar Hamdan (Qatar)
A young man tries everything to escape the cage he is chained in. Only when he realises that the true obstacle to his release is not the chains, but rather his outlook on his situation, does he finally become free.
"A Ranged Marriage" by Nora Al Subai (Qatar)
After being stuck in an arranged married for a year, a desperate wife discovers the perfect gift for their anniversary: a romantic dinner that will kill her husband.
"The World is Blue" by Amna Al Binali (Qatar)
During her sister’s engagement party, Hend comes to terms with the contradiction between how she wants her life to unfold and the inevitability of how it has been drawn for her.
Development, Short Documentary
"Amer: The Arabian Legend" by Jassim Al-Rumaihi (Qatar)
Sent as a gift to the late Emir of Qatar in the 1980s, Amer seemed like an average purebred Arabian. After he was taken to the tracks of Umm Qarn to train other horses, however, he showed his class, changing the face of Arabian horseracing forever.
"Buqsha" by Fahad Al Obaidly (Qatar)
‘Buqsha’ strives to encourage people to go beyond their preconceptions and venture into the past to look to the future Throughout our journey, we demonstrate the importance of learning from traditional culture while preserving our own, and that the balance between artistic heritage and the contemporary arts nurtures creativity.
"The Innocent Prisoner" by Amina Ahmed Al-Boluchi (Qatar)
The story of a man trying to wash away his history of being a prisoner, determining his destiny by becoming a better person, and finding himself a place in his own society.
"Love in the Middle East" by Mostafa Sheshtawy (Qatar)
Romantic love is very common, yet it can mean something completely different from one person to the next. Through a young man’s journey, this film looks at what it means to fall in love in the Middle East.
Picture Lock, Short Narrative
"More Than Two Days" by Ahmed Abdelnaser (Qatar)
Over the course of two days, two brothers go through critical moments that may change their lives. ‘More Than Two Days’ examines their relationship and how each of them is trying to face up to the new situation in their lives.
- 2/24/2016
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
The directors and producers of the selected projects will participate in a six-day programme with industry figures including Joshua Oppenheimer and Aleksandr Sokurov.Scroll down for the full list of projects
The Doha Film Institute has revealed the projects that will participate in the second edition of Qumra (March 4-9).
There are a total of 33 projects from 19 countries involved, including 13 narrative features, 10 feature documentaries and 10 short films.
Of those, 15 are Qatar-based projects, and a further 12 are from the wider Arab region, with 6 international projects involved.
The directors and producers of the selected titles will participate in a six-day programme of industry sessions with leading industry figures, designed to progress their projects and prepare them for international markets.
This year’s Qumra masters are Joshua Oppenheimer, James Schamus, Naomi Kawase, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, and Aleksandr Sokurov.
The 2016 Qumra Projects are:Feature Narrative, Development:
Bull Shark by Mohammed Al Ibrahim (Qatar, Bahrain, USA)
An up-and-coming investment banker makes his mark...
The Doha Film Institute has revealed the projects that will participate in the second edition of Qumra (March 4-9).
There are a total of 33 projects from 19 countries involved, including 13 narrative features, 10 feature documentaries and 10 short films.
Of those, 15 are Qatar-based projects, and a further 12 are from the wider Arab region, with 6 international projects involved.
The directors and producers of the selected titles will participate in a six-day programme of industry sessions with leading industry figures, designed to progress their projects and prepare them for international markets.
This year’s Qumra masters are Joshua Oppenheimer, James Schamus, Naomi Kawase, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, and Aleksandr Sokurov.
The 2016 Qumra Projects are:Feature Narrative, Development:
Bull Shark by Mohammed Al Ibrahim (Qatar, Bahrain, USA)
An up-and-coming investment banker makes his mark...
- 2/24/2016
- ScreenDaily
Dubai-based investment fund Fortress Film Clinic has boarded Zombie Gozombie, Egypt’s first zombie comedy, which is set to be directed by award-winning filmmaker Ahmad Abdalla.
Set against the backdrop of a provincial Egyptian town, the picture will revolve around a zombie breakout during a soccer match between the local squad and a top Egyptian team.
Up and coming Egyptian actor Ahmed El Feshawy is set to star as a local man who fights to keep the zombies in the stadium.
“There’s a political subtext but ultimately it’s a comedy,” said Fortress Film Clinic co-founder Mohamed Hefzy. “It will be Egypt’s first zombie comedy and marks quite a departure for Ahmad who has never done a genre movie before.”
Hefzy and Abdalla previously collaborated on Rags And Tatters and Microphone, set against Alexandria’s hip-hop scene just prior to the Arab Spring.
Film and TV investment fund Fortress Film Clinic – a joint venture between...
Set against the backdrop of a provincial Egyptian town, the picture will revolve around a zombie breakout during a soccer match between the local squad and a top Egyptian team.
Up and coming Egyptian actor Ahmed El Feshawy is set to star as a local man who fights to keep the zombies in the stadium.
“There’s a political subtext but ultimately it’s a comedy,” said Fortress Film Clinic co-founder Mohamed Hefzy. “It will be Egypt’s first zombie comedy and marks quite a departure for Ahmad who has never done a genre movie before.”
Hefzy and Abdalla previously collaborated on Rags And Tatters and Microphone, set against Alexandria’s hip-hop scene just prior to the Arab Spring.
Film and TV investment fund Fortress Film Clinic – a joint venture between...
- 12/10/2015
- ScreenDaily
Estonian project Erik Stoneheart wins Screen Best Pitch Award.
Lithuania was the big winner at this year’s Baltic Event when the awards were handed out during a ceremony in Tallinn’s historical town centre on Tuesday evening.
The Eurimages Co-Production Development Award - with a non-reimbursable subsidy of €20,000 to be used exclusively to cover project development costs - was presented for the first time this year in Tallinn.
A jury consisting of Petri Kemppinen, CEO of the Nordic Film & TV Fund, Polish producer Ewa Puszczynska, and Dorien van de Pas, head of New Screen Nl and a consultant for talent development at the Netherlands Film Fund, chose the feature debut project Motherland by American Film Institute graduate Tomas Vengris, the son of Lithuanian immigrants living in the Us
The €950,000 coming of age story will be produced by Uljana Kim’s Vilnius-based Studio Uljana Kim and already has Locomotive Productions from neighbouring Latvia attached as a co-producer...
Lithuania was the big winner at this year’s Baltic Event when the awards were handed out during a ceremony in Tallinn’s historical town centre on Tuesday evening.
The Eurimages Co-Production Development Award - with a non-reimbursable subsidy of €20,000 to be used exclusively to cover project development costs - was presented for the first time this year in Tallinn.
A jury consisting of Petri Kemppinen, CEO of the Nordic Film & TV Fund, Polish producer Ewa Puszczynska, and Dorien van de Pas, head of New Screen Nl and a consultant for talent development at the Netherlands Film Fund, chose the feature debut project Motherland by American Film Institute graduate Tomas Vengris, the son of Lithuanian immigrants living in the Us
The €950,000 coming of age story will be produced by Uljana Kim’s Vilnius-based Studio Uljana Kim and already has Locomotive Productions from neighbouring Latvia attached as a co-producer...
- 11/18/2015
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney)
- ScreenDaily
Eight projects in production or post-production will compete at this year’s festival.
The 19th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (Nov 13-29) has unveiled the eight projects that will be featured in its Works in Progress programme this year.
The titles selected represent a variety of countries deliberately chosen for being outside of the mainstream, including a project from Krygystan and co-productions from Latvia-Japan-Estonia and Egypt-France.
The Latvia-Japan-Estonia co-production Magic Kimono comes from director Maris Martinsons, whose 2008 film Loss was submitted by Lithuania to the Academy Award’s foreign language pool.
Freedom, the Germany-Slovakia co-pro, is produced by Sol Bondy, who was named by Screen as a future leader at Cannes 2013, and Jamila Wenske; the pair were both co-producers on Pan Nalin’s comedy drama Angry Indian Goddesses.
The film is directed by Jan Speckenbach, whose Reported Missing was nominated for a European Film Award in 2012.
Mohamed Hefzy, also a Screen future leader in 2013, produces Sherif Elbendary’s Ali...
The 19th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (Nov 13-29) has unveiled the eight projects that will be featured in its Works in Progress programme this year.
The titles selected represent a variety of countries deliberately chosen for being outside of the mainstream, including a project from Krygystan and co-productions from Latvia-Japan-Estonia and Egypt-France.
The Latvia-Japan-Estonia co-production Magic Kimono comes from director Maris Martinsons, whose 2008 film Loss was submitted by Lithuania to the Academy Award’s foreign language pool.
Freedom, the Germany-Slovakia co-pro, is produced by Sol Bondy, who was named by Screen as a future leader at Cannes 2013, and Jamila Wenske; the pair were both co-producers on Pan Nalin’s comedy drama Angry Indian Goddesses.
The film is directed by Jan Speckenbach, whose Reported Missing was nominated for a European Film Award in 2012.
Mohamed Hefzy, also a Screen future leader in 2013, produces Sherif Elbendary’s Ali...
- 11/3/2015
- ScreenDaily
Paris-based industry veteran, who also works with actor Amr Waked, deepens ties with Egypt.
Paris-based producer Daniel Ziskind has signed to act as the European representative of Egyptian Mohamed Hefzy’s Cairo-based production house Film Clinic.
Under the accord, Ziskind will support Film Clinic’s co-production and sales activities in Europe.
“I’m very happy to join the Film Clinic family,” Ziskind said. “The company has a great line-up and strategy.”
First feature
The first project under the collaboration will be Mohamed Diab’s drama Clash, his second film after the much-praised Cairo 678 tackling sexual harassment through the experiences of women on a bus.
Set against the backdrop of violent demonstrations that erupted at the end of former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s Islamist reign in summer of 2013, Clash revolves around two groups of opposing protestors who find themselves trapped in the same police van as fighting rages around them.
“It’s a timely...
Paris-based producer Daniel Ziskind has signed to act as the European representative of Egyptian Mohamed Hefzy’s Cairo-based production house Film Clinic.
Under the accord, Ziskind will support Film Clinic’s co-production and sales activities in Europe.
“I’m very happy to join the Film Clinic family,” Ziskind said. “The company has a great line-up and strategy.”
First feature
The first project under the collaboration will be Mohamed Diab’s drama Clash, his second film after the much-praised Cairo 678 tackling sexual harassment through the experiences of women on a bus.
Set against the backdrop of violent demonstrations that erupted at the end of former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s Islamist reign in summer of 2013, Clash revolves around two groups of opposing protestors who find themselves trapped in the same police van as fighting rages around them.
“It’s a timely...
- 4/9/2015
- ScreenDaily
Winners of the Film Prize of the Robert Bosch Stiftung were announced on Sunday [Feb 8].
The Film Prize of the Robert Bosch Stiftung handed out awards of up to €70,000 to three German-Arab projects at a gala held at the Berlinale Talents on Sunday night.
The three winning projects – selected from a shortlist of 15 – are Mohamed Siam’s documentary Amal; Amjad Al Rasheed and Darin Salam’s short fiction film The Parrot; and Ghassan Halwani’s animation Clean Up The Living Room, We’ve Got Visitors Coming.
Produced by Sara Bökemeyer, Amal (Germany-Egypt) revolves the impact of the Egyptian revolution on a young girl. The Parrot (Germany-Jordan), produced by Roman Roitman, is about a Moroccon Jewish family trying to settle into their new lives in Palestine in 1948.
Clean Up The Living Room (Germany-Lebanon), produced by Inka Dewitz, mixes animation and live action in a story about people who disappeared during the Lebanese Civil War.
Launched in 2012, the...
The Film Prize of the Robert Bosch Stiftung handed out awards of up to €70,000 to three German-Arab projects at a gala held at the Berlinale Talents on Sunday night.
The three winning projects – selected from a shortlist of 15 – are Mohamed Siam’s documentary Amal; Amjad Al Rasheed and Darin Salam’s short fiction film The Parrot; and Ghassan Halwani’s animation Clean Up The Living Room, We’ve Got Visitors Coming.
Produced by Sara Bökemeyer, Amal (Germany-Egypt) revolves the impact of the Egyptian revolution on a young girl. The Parrot (Germany-Jordan), produced by Roman Roitman, is about a Moroccon Jewish family trying to settle into their new lives in Palestine in 1948.
Clean Up The Living Room (Germany-Lebanon), produced by Inka Dewitz, mixes animation and live action in a story about people who disappeared during the Lebanese Civil War.
Launched in 2012, the...
- 2/10/2015
- by lizshackleton@gmail.com (Liz Shackleton)
- ScreenDaily
Exclusive: Film Clinic’s Hefzy also co-producing Mohamed Khan’s new film Before the Summer Crowds.
Egyptian producer Mohamed Hefzy and director Ahmad Abdalla are reuniting for an adaptation of Lebanese writer Rabee Jaber’s 1995 novel Black Tea.
“Set mostly in Beirut, the story follows a young man during one night as he journeys through various incidents of his past as he prepares to reconnect with friends he had left behind,” said Hefzy.
He and Abdalla will launch the project at the Crossroads Co-production forum, taking place Nov 4-8 during the Thessaloniki International Film Festival.
“It’s the first time we’ll present it,” said Hefzy, who is at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival (Adff) this year as one of the creative producers on Emirati Ali Mostafa’s second feature From A to B.
Hefzy is initially seeking Lebanese and possibly French partners for the film.
Lebanese writer Jaber won the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2012, also...
Egyptian producer Mohamed Hefzy and director Ahmad Abdalla are reuniting for an adaptation of Lebanese writer Rabee Jaber’s 1995 novel Black Tea.
“Set mostly in Beirut, the story follows a young man during one night as he journeys through various incidents of his past as he prepares to reconnect with friends he had left behind,” said Hefzy.
He and Abdalla will launch the project at the Crossroads Co-production forum, taking place Nov 4-8 during the Thessaloniki International Film Festival.
“It’s the first time we’ll present it,” said Hefzy, who is at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival (Adff) this year as one of the creative producers on Emirati Ali Mostafa’s second feature From A to B.
Hefzy is initially seeking Lebanese and possibly French partners for the film.
Lebanese writer Jaber won the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2012, also...
- 10/26/2014
- ScreenDaily
The 17th edition of the International Film Festival of Kerala (Iffk) has announced its lineup. The festival will run from 7th to 14th December, 2012 in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.
Some of the highlights of the lineup are festival favourites of the year Amour, Chitrangada, Samhita, The Sapphires, Drapchi, Miss Lovely, Me and You, Celluloid Man, and Baandhon.
Fourteen films will screen in the Competition section while seven contemporary films will be screened in “Indian Cinema Now” section.
Complete list of films:
Competition Films
Fourteen feature films from Asia, Africa and Latin America will compete for the coveted “Suvarna Chakoram” (Golden Crow Pheasant) and other awards.
Always Brando by Ridha Behi (Tunisia)
Inheritors of the Earth by T V Chandran (India)
A Terminal Trust by by Masayuki Suo (Japan)
Shutter by Joy Mathew (India)
Today by Alain Gomis (Senegal-France)
The Repentant by Merzak Allouache (Algeria)
Sta. Niña by Manny Palo (Philippines)
Present Tense...
Some of the highlights of the lineup are festival favourites of the year Amour, Chitrangada, Samhita, The Sapphires, Drapchi, Miss Lovely, Me and You, Celluloid Man, and Baandhon.
Fourteen films will screen in the Competition section while seven contemporary films will be screened in “Indian Cinema Now” section.
Complete list of films:
Competition Films
Fourteen feature films from Asia, Africa and Latin America will compete for the coveted “Suvarna Chakoram” (Golden Crow Pheasant) and other awards.
Always Brando by Ridha Behi (Tunisia)
Inheritors of the Earth by T V Chandran (India)
A Terminal Trust by by Masayuki Suo (Japan)
Shutter by Joy Mathew (India)
Today by Alain Gomis (Senegal-France)
The Repentant by Merzak Allouache (Algeria)
Sta. Niña by Manny Palo (Philippines)
Present Tense...
- 11/2/2012
- by NewsDesk
- DearCinema.com
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