David Thion, the French producer of Justine Triet’s best picture contender “Anatomy of a Fall,” is preparing a raft of projects helmed by daring female directors including Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet (“Anais in Love”) and Emily Atef (“More Than Ever”).
Speaking to Variety ahead of the Oscars, Thion said he and Marie-Ange Luciani, who also produced “Anatomy of a Fall,” have also signed Triet for her next movie, the topic of which hasn’t been decided yet.
“Justine has devoted herself fully to the awards campaign for ‘Anatomy of a Fall’ and she hasn’t had time to decide what her next film will be, but she has a few ideas,” Thion said. He added that Triet’s next film will likely be “mainly shot in French, but could have an Anglo-Saxon actress as the lead.”
Bourgeois-Tacquet, who made her feature debut with “Anais in Love,” which premiered at Cannes’ Critics Week,...
Speaking to Variety ahead of the Oscars, Thion said he and Marie-Ange Luciani, who also produced “Anatomy of a Fall,” have also signed Triet for her next movie, the topic of which hasn’t been decided yet.
“Justine has devoted herself fully to the awards campaign for ‘Anatomy of a Fall’ and she hasn’t had time to decide what her next film will be, but she has a few ideas,” Thion said. He added that Triet’s next film will likely be “mainly shot in French, but could have an Anglo-Saxon actress as the lead.”
Bourgeois-Tacquet, who made her feature debut with “Anais in Love,” which premiered at Cannes’ Critics Week,...
- 3/8/2024
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
No reasonably intelligent person imagines an artist’s statement about the horrors in Gaza would, in fact, end those horrors, but there are always limits to what one can take and hopes for what one could do. It might even be said that, as observers of the world and human behavior, filmmakers are especially inclined to recoil. When I interviewed Pedro Costa last month he spoke, unprompted, of a situation that’s only grown worse: “It’s very clear that we cannot stand images anymore. I can’t. I can’t. The images of the world for me [Exhales] I can’t. I turn my eyes, and I’m sure you do the same. It’s unbearable.” When I spoke with Anthony Dod Mantle a couple of weeks later it, again, emerged––vis-a-vis The Zone of Interest, whose own cinematographer alluded to it the next day. It’s difficult being a person in the world,...
- 12/29/2023
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
After making a splash on the Croisette in 2017 with his debut feature Until The Birds Return (Un Certain Regard selection), Karim Moussaoui is finally at work on his sophomore project — which began production today. The Cineuropa folks report that that thesps Sammy Lechea and Zar Amir Ebrahimi will topline The Vanishing with Hamid Amirouche, Idir Chender, Nadia Kaci and Nassima Benchicou added on as supporting players. Production will take place over the next two months – moving from Marseille to Tunisia. Les Films Pelléas’ David Thion and Philippe Martin are producing. The project will likely tempt Locarno and Venice programmers next year.…...
- 10/16/2023
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
David Thion, the French producer of Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winning “Anatomy of a Fall,” is reteaming with Guillaume Senez for “Une part manquante,” a Tokyo-set drama which Be For Films is representing in international markets.
“Une part manquante” will also reunite Senez with popular French actor Romain Duris, who starred in his 2018 film “Our Struggles” and earned a Cesar nomination for it. Brussels-based Be For Films had sold Senez’s feature debut “Keeper” and “Our Struggles” in most major territories and presented at a flurry of international festivals.
Duris will play Jay, who hasn’t seen his daughter for nine years since getting separated from his Japanese wife. As a foreigner residing in Japan, Jay was denied custody of his daughter. Hoping to find her somewhere in the city, he abandons his career as a renown chef and becomes a taxi driver. After all these years searching in vain,...
“Une part manquante” will also reunite Senez with popular French actor Romain Duris, who starred in his 2018 film “Our Struggles” and earned a Cesar nomination for it. Brussels-based Be For Films had sold Senez’s feature debut “Keeper” and “Our Struggles” in most major territories and presented at a flurry of international festivals.
Duris will play Jay, who hasn’t seen his daughter for nine years since getting separated from his Japanese wife. As a foreigner residing in Japan, Jay was denied custody of his daughter. Hoping to find her somewhere in the city, he abandons his career as a renown chef and becomes a taxi driver. After all these years searching in vain,...
- 5/30/2023
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Film Fund has unveiled its latest round of feature film grantees from the Arab world and Africa.
The announcement comes just days after the fund revealed it had boarded French director Maïwenn’s upcoming costume drama Jeanne du Barry starring Johnny Depp, in its first European investment as executive producer.
In its latest funding round for Arab and African filmmakers, it is getting behind 36 productions by Saudi, Arab and African filmmakers, 25 in or on the verge of production, 11 in post-production.
The 25 production grant winners include upcoming films by established directors such as Abderrahmane Sissako’s The Perfumed Hill, Haifaa Al-Mansour’s Miss Camel, Annemarie Jacir, Kaouther Ben Hania’s Mime, Cherien Dabis, and Karim Moussaoui’s The Vanishing.
The fund has also gotten behind buzzy, emerging talents such as Saudi Arabian filmmaker Sara Mesfer, who is gearing up for her first solo feature Habibi And I In Eden.
The announcement comes just days after the fund revealed it had boarded French director Maïwenn’s upcoming costume drama Jeanne du Barry starring Johnny Depp, in its first European investment as executive producer.
In its latest funding round for Arab and African filmmakers, it is getting behind 36 productions by Saudi, Arab and African filmmakers, 25 in or on the verge of production, 11 in post-production.
The 25 production grant winners include upcoming films by established directors such as Abderrahmane Sissako’s The Perfumed Hill, Haifaa Al-Mansour’s Miss Camel, Annemarie Jacir, Kaouther Ben Hania’s Mime, Cherien Dabis, and Karim Moussaoui’s The Vanishing.
The fund has also gotten behind buzzy, emerging talents such as Saudi Arabian filmmaker Sara Mesfer, who is gearing up for her first solo feature Habibi And I In Eden.
- 1/18/2023
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
Further projects come from Mehdi M. Barsaoui, Ameer Fakher Eldin, Haifaa Al-Mansour and Annemarie Jacir.
The Red Sea Film Festival Foundation has unveiled the 36 recipients of the Red Sea Fund’s 2022 production and post-production funding cycles.
All titles are from Arab and African filmmakers, who will receive grants to help them complete films that shine a light on narratives and new talents emerging from the region.
Two films selected have previously received support at the development stage by the Red Sea Fund. Captain Mbaye from Rwandan filmmaker Joel Karekezi follows a Un observer sent to Rwanda as genocide breaks out.
The Red Sea Film Festival Foundation has unveiled the 36 recipients of the Red Sea Fund’s 2022 production and post-production funding cycles.
All titles are from Arab and African filmmakers, who will receive grants to help them complete films that shine a light on narratives and new talents emerging from the region.
Two films selected have previously received support at the development stage by the Red Sea Fund. Captain Mbaye from Rwandan filmmaker Joel Karekezi follows a Un observer sent to Rwanda as genocide breaks out.
- 1/18/2023
- by Mona Tabbara
- ScreenDaily
The feature is being showcased as a work in progress at Qumra this week.
Algerian cinema has enjoyed a high profile at Cannes over the past decade, with titles making a splash including Karim Moussaoui’s Waiting For Swallows, Mounia Meddour’s Papicha and Amin Sidi-Boumédiène’s Abou Leila.
French-Algerian director Damien Ounouri is hoping to continue the trend this year with his debut feature The Last Queen, which breaks fresh ground for Algerian cinema as its first-ever full-scale costume drama. Set in the Mediterranean port city of Algiers in 1516, it revolves around the heroic female figure of Zaphira, who...
Algerian cinema has enjoyed a high profile at Cannes over the past decade, with titles making a splash including Karim Moussaoui’s Waiting For Swallows, Mounia Meddour’s Papicha and Amin Sidi-Boumédiène’s Abou Leila.
French-Algerian director Damien Ounouri is hoping to continue the trend this year with his debut feature The Last Queen, which breaks fresh ground for Algerian cinema as its first-ever full-scale costume drama. Set in the Mediterranean port city of Algiers in 1516, it revolves around the heroic female figure of Zaphira, who...
- 3/21/2022
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- ScreenDaily
16 regional and international features are competing for the festival’s $50,000 Golden Star award.
Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival kicked off its fourth edition against the Covid-19 odds over the weekend, feting French actor Gérard Depardieu and UK director Peter Webber with its special Golden Star Career Achievement Award at the opening ceremony.
Taking to the stage, Depardieu praised the festival for pulling off such a large-scale event and professed his admiration for late Egyptian film director Youssef Chahine.
A host of film and TV stars from Egypt as well as a smattering of international guests walked the red carpet at the glitzy opening event,...
Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival kicked off its fourth edition against the Covid-19 odds over the weekend, feting French actor Gérard Depardieu and UK director Peter Webber with its special Golden Star Career Achievement Award at the opening ceremony.
Taking to the stage, Depardieu praised the festival for pulling off such a large-scale event and professed his admiration for late Egyptian film director Youssef Chahine.
A host of film and TV stars from Egypt as well as a smattering of international guests walked the red carpet at the glitzy opening event,...
- 10/26/2020
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- ScreenDaily
Until The Birds Return (En attendant les hirondelles) 1091 Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net linked from Rotten Tomatoes by: Harvey Karten Director: Karim Moussaoui Screenwriter: Karim Moussaoui, Maud Ameline Cast: Mohamed Djourhi, Sonia Mekkiou, Mehdi Ramdani, Hania Amar, Hassan Kachach Screened at: Critics’ link, NYC, 4/20/20 Opens: April 28, 2020 An intriguing first feature by […]
The post Until The Birds Return Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.
The post Until The Birds Return Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.
- 4/24/2020
- by Harvey Karten
- ShockYa
"Everything is at a standstill." 1091 Media has debuted an official Us trailer for a contemporary drama titled Until the Birds Return, the feature directorial debut of Algerian filmmaker Karim Moussaoui. This premiered at the Cannes Film Festival back in 2017, and is just now finally getting a VOD release in the Us. "A property developer is witness to random street violence. A pair of secret lovers make their way across the desert. A doctor is accused of having a criminal past. In these three interconnected tales, exciting newcomer Karim Moussaoui—whom critics at Cannes compared to Abbas Kiarostami and Leos Carax—takes the pulse of modern-day Algiers, a country once riven by colonial occupation and sectarian warfare yet still abundant in beauty and promise." The film stars Mohamed Djouhri, Sonia Mekkiou, Hania Amar, Mehdi Ramdani, Chawki Amari, Saadia Gacem, Hassan Kachach, Nadia Kaci, Samir El Hakim, & Aure Atika. This looks very good!
- 4/15/2020
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
An enticing menu featuring more than 100 films at the 41st edition of the Cinemed, Montpellier Mediterranean Film Festival, which will unfold from 18 to 26 October. The excellent Adults in the Room by Costa-Gavras will tomorrow open the 41st edition of the Cinemed, Montpellier Mediterranean Film Festival (now presided by Palermo mayor Leoluca Orlando), which will unfold from 18-26 October. The guest of honour this year is French filmmaker André Téchiné, and this iteration of the gathering will close with Dominik Moll’s Only the Animals. Ten fiction features will be competing for the 2019 Antigone d'Or Award, which will be given out by a jury presided by French director Julie Bertuccelli. Among them, four films presented at Venice stand out: A Son from Tunisian director Mehdi M Barsaoui (winner of the Best Actor Orizzonti...
- 10/17/2019
- Cineuropa - The Best of European Cinema
MoMA and the Film Society of Lincoln Center are kicking off the 47th New Directors/New Films festival at the end of the month, and IndieWire is excited to premiere the exclusive trailer for this year’s edition. The annual festival spotlights the best films of the year made by first or second-time directors.
This year’s New Directors/New Films will open with Stephen Loveridge’s music documentary “Matangi/Maya/M.I.A.,” which premiered earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival. RaMell Ross’ “Hale County This Morning, This Evening” is the closing night selection. New films by Khalik Allah, Gustav Möller, Helena Wittmann, and more are included in this year’s lineup.
New Directors/New Films 2018 runs March 28 – April 8. Watch the trailer and check out the full lineup below. Visit the festival’s official website to purchase tickets.
Opening Night
“Matangi/Maya/M.I.A.,” Stephen Loveridge...
This year’s New Directors/New Films will open with Stephen Loveridge’s music documentary “Matangi/Maya/M.I.A.,” which premiered earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival. RaMell Ross’ “Hale County This Morning, This Evening” is the closing night selection. New films by Khalik Allah, Gustav Möller, Helena Wittmann, and more are included in this year’s lineup.
New Directors/New Films 2018 runs March 28 – April 8. Watch the trailer and check out the full lineup below. Visit the festival’s official website to purchase tickets.
Opening Night
“Matangi/Maya/M.I.A.,” Stephen Loveridge...
- 3/19/2018
- by Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
French Aids activism drama earns six top French awards after missing out on Oscar consideration.
Robin Campillo’s Aids activism drama Bpm (Beats Per Minute) triumphed at the 23rd Lumière Awards, France’s equivalent of the Golden Globes, on Monday evening (February 5), winning in all six categories in which it was nominated.
The feature, revolving around the work of the French branch of militant Aids advocacy group Act Up in the early 1990s, won best director, screenplay and film.
Co-star Nahuel Pérez Biscayart clinched best actor for his performance as young activist Sean Delmazo, who battles the illness to the death, while Arnaud Valois picked up best male revelation for his performance as Sean’s loyal partner. Arnaud Rebotini won for best music.
After thanking Campillo, the film’s producers Hugues Charbonneau and Marie-Ange Luciani, as well as the rest of cast and crew, Biscayart also paid tribute to Act Up for its pioneering work to raise awareness...
Robin Campillo’s Aids activism drama Bpm (Beats Per Minute) triumphed at the 23rd Lumière Awards, France’s equivalent of the Golden Globes, on Monday evening (February 5), winning in all six categories in which it was nominated.
The feature, revolving around the work of the French branch of militant Aids advocacy group Act Up in the early 1990s, won best director, screenplay and film.
Co-star Nahuel Pérez Biscayart clinched best actor for his performance as young activist Sean Delmazo, who battles the illness to the death, while Arnaud Valois picked up best male revelation for his performance as Sean’s loyal partner. Arnaud Rebotini won for best music.
After thanking Campillo, the film’s producers Hugues Charbonneau and Marie-Ange Luciani, as well as the rest of cast and crew, Biscayart also paid tribute to Act Up for its pioneering work to raise awareness...
- 2/6/2018
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- ScreenDaily
Fledgling Canadian distributor indulges in French passion.
Montreal-based upstart MK2 | Mile End has snapped up rights to a number of French auteur-driven titles led by Mathieu Amalric’s Un Certain Regard opener Barbara (pictured).
The distributor, recently launched by Paris-based MK2 and Metropole Films co-founding MD Charles Tremblay, struck a deal with Gaumont also yielded Guillaume Gallienne’s Maryline.
MK2 | Mile End acquired two from Pathé – Abdellatif Kechiche’s Mektoub Is Mektoub and Xavier Beauvois’ The Guardians, both of which are in post.
The distributor has signed three from Memento, taking Berlinale premiere The Midwife by Martin Provost, Xavier Giannoli’s in-production The Apparition, and Claire Darling by Julie Bertuccelli, which will star Catherine Deneuve and her daughter Chiara Mastroianni.
Rounding out the spree are Cédric Klapisch’s Back To Burgundy from StudioCanal, and Jean-Stephane Bron’s The Paris Opera from Les Films du Losange.
As part of its exclusive output deal with MK2 Films, MK2 l [link...
Montreal-based upstart MK2 | Mile End has snapped up rights to a number of French auteur-driven titles led by Mathieu Amalric’s Un Certain Regard opener Barbara (pictured).
The distributor, recently launched by Paris-based MK2 and Metropole Films co-founding MD Charles Tremblay, struck a deal with Gaumont also yielded Guillaume Gallienne’s Maryline.
MK2 | Mile End acquired two from Pathé – Abdellatif Kechiche’s Mektoub Is Mektoub and Xavier Beauvois’ The Guardians, both of which are in post.
The distributor has signed three from Memento, taking Berlinale premiere The Midwife by Martin Provost, Xavier Giannoli’s in-production The Apparition, and Claire Darling by Julie Bertuccelli, which will star Catherine Deneuve and her daughter Chiara Mastroianni.
Rounding out the spree are Cédric Klapisch’s Back To Burgundy from StudioCanal, and Jean-Stephane Bron’s The Paris Opera from Les Films du Losange.
As part of its exclusive output deal with MK2 Films, MK2 l [link...
- 5/23/2017
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
Fledgling Canadian distributor indulges in French passion.
Montreal-based upstart MK2 | Mile End has snapped up rights to a number of French auteur-driven titles led by Mathieu Amalric’s Un Certain Regard opener Barbara (pictured).
The distributor, recently launched by Paris-based MK2 and Metropole Films co-founding MD Charles Tremblay, struck a deal with Gaumont also yielded Guillaume Gallienne’s Maryline.
MK2 | Mile End acquired two from Pathé – Abdellatif Kechiche’s Mektoub Is Mektoub and Xavier Beauvois’ The Guardians, both of which are in post.
The distributor has signed three from Memento, taking Berlinale premiere The Midwife by Martin Provost, Xavier Giannoli’s in-production The Apparition, and Claire Darling by Julie Bertuccelli, which will star Catherine Deneuve and her daughter Chiara Mastroianni.
Rounding out the spree are Cédric Klapisch’s Back To Burgundy from StudioCanal, and Jean-Stephane Bron’s The Paris Opera from Les Films du Losange.
As part of its exclusive output deal with MK2 Films, MK2 l [link...
Montreal-based upstart MK2 | Mile End has snapped up rights to a number of French auteur-driven titles led by Mathieu Amalric’s Un Certain Regard opener Barbara (pictured).
The distributor, recently launched by Paris-based MK2 and Metropole Films co-founding MD Charles Tremblay, struck a deal with Gaumont also yielded Guillaume Gallienne’s Maryline.
MK2 | Mile End acquired two from Pathé – Abdellatif Kechiche’s Mektoub Is Mektoub and Xavier Beauvois’ The Guardians, both of which are in post.
The distributor has signed three from Memento, taking Berlinale premiere The Midwife by Martin Provost, Xavier Giannoli’s in-production The Apparition, and Claire Darling by Julie Bertuccelli, which will star Catherine Deneuve and her daughter Chiara Mastroianni.
Rounding out the spree are Cédric Klapisch’s Back To Burgundy from StudioCanal, and Jean-Stephane Bron’s The Paris Opera from Les Films du Losange.
As part of its exclusive output deal with MK2 Films, MK2 l [link...
- 5/23/2017
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
Algeria’s troubles both past and present come home to roost in Until the Birds Return (En attendant les hirondelles), an intriguing first feature from writer-director Karim Moussaoui that explores the damaged emotional landscape of his homeland.
Separated into three stories that are less connected than they are complimentary, the film features various characters from different backgrounds searching for a form of attachment in a country left divided by years of sectarian conflict – most notably the civil war that engulfed Algeria throughout the 1990s. While some parts are stronger than others, through its twists and turns Bird gradually builds into...
Separated into three stories that are less connected than they are complimentary, the film features various characters from different backgrounds searching for a form of attachment in a country left divided by years of sectarian conflict – most notably the civil war that engulfed Algeria throughout the 1990s. While some parts are stronger than others, through its twists and turns Bird gradually builds into...
- 5/19/2017
- by Jordan Mintzer
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Two of this year’s group have films playing at the festival.
The UK’s Chris Martin, Switzerland’s Ivan Madeo [pictured, left] and Poland’s Maria Blicharska [pictured, right] are among the 20 up-and-coming European producers to be selected for the 2017 edition of European Film Promotion’s (Efp) networking platform Producers On The Move, which takes place at Cannes Film Festival.
As in previous years, the five-day event (May 19-23) will include pitching sessions, one-to-one meetings, case studies and other meetings with the international industry gathered in Cannes.
Two of the producers from this year’s line-up have films in the festival’s programme: Poland’s Maria Blicharska will be presenting Frost in the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar, while France’s Didar Domehri was a co-producer on Argentinian director Santiago Mitre’s La Cordillera which will have its world premiere in the Un Certain Regard section.
Producers on the Move (PoM) from previous editions of the initiative also regularly return to Cannes...
The UK’s Chris Martin, Switzerland’s Ivan Madeo [pictured, left] and Poland’s Maria Blicharska [pictured, right] are among the 20 up-and-coming European producers to be selected for the 2017 edition of European Film Promotion’s (Efp) networking platform Producers On The Move, which takes place at Cannes Film Festival.
As in previous years, the five-day event (May 19-23) will include pitching sessions, one-to-one meetings, case studies and other meetings with the international industry gathered in Cannes.
Two of the producers from this year’s line-up have films in the festival’s programme: Poland’s Maria Blicharska will be presenting Frost in the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar, while France’s Didar Domehri was a co-producer on Argentinian director Santiago Mitre’s La Cordillera which will have its world premiere in the Un Certain Regard section.
Producers on the Move (PoM) from previous editions of the initiative also regularly return to Cannes...
- 5/3/2017
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney)
- ScreenDaily
The Festival de Cannes has announced the lineup for the official selection, including the Competition and Un Certain Regard sections, as well as special screenings, for the 70th edition of the festival:
COMPETITIONHappy End (Michael Haneke)Wonderstruck (Todd Haynes)Le Redoutable (Michel Hazanavicius)The Beguiled (Sofia Coppola)Rodin (Jaques Doillon)120 Beats Per Minute (Robin Campillo)Okja (Bong Joon-Ho)In The Fade (Fatih Akin)The Day After (Hong Sang-soo)Radiance (Naomi Kawase)The Killing Of A Sacred Deer (Yorgos Lanthimos)A Gentle Creature (Sergei Loznitsa)Jupiter's Moon (Kornél Mandruczó)Good Time (Benny Safdie & Josh Safdie)Loveless (Andrey Zvyagintsev) L'Amant Double (François Ozon)You Were Never Really Here (Lynne Ramsay)The Meyerowitz Stories (Noah Baumbach)The Square (Ruben Östlund)Un Certain REGARDOpening Night: Barbara (Mathieu Amalric)The Desert Bride (Cecilia Atan & Valeria Pivato)Lucky (Sergio Castellitto)Closeness (Kantemir Balagov)Before We Vanish (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)Beauty and the Dogs (Kaouther Ben Hania)L...
COMPETITIONHappy End (Michael Haneke)Wonderstruck (Todd Haynes)Le Redoutable (Michel Hazanavicius)The Beguiled (Sofia Coppola)Rodin (Jaques Doillon)120 Beats Per Minute (Robin Campillo)Okja (Bong Joon-Ho)In The Fade (Fatih Akin)The Day After (Hong Sang-soo)Radiance (Naomi Kawase)The Killing Of A Sacred Deer (Yorgos Lanthimos)A Gentle Creature (Sergei Loznitsa)Jupiter's Moon (Kornél Mandruczó)Good Time (Benny Safdie & Josh Safdie)Loveless (Andrey Zvyagintsev) L'Amant Double (François Ozon)You Were Never Really Here (Lynne Ramsay)The Meyerowitz Stories (Noah Baumbach)The Square (Ruben Östlund)Un Certain REGARDOpening Night: Barbara (Mathieu Amalric)The Desert Bride (Cecilia Atan & Valeria Pivato)Lucky (Sergio Castellitto)Closeness (Kantemir Balagov)Before We Vanish (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)Beauty and the Dogs (Kaouther Ben Hania)L...
- 4/27/2017
- MUBI
Sophia Coppola, Yorgos Lanthimos, Noah Baumbach, ‘Twin Peaks,’ and more…2017 Official Poster © Bronx (Paris). Photo: Claudia Cardinale © Archivio Cameraphoto Epoche/Getty Images
The official lineup for the 70th Cannes Film Festival, which will run from May 18–28, was announced April 13. While a few more screenings will undoubtably be added as we creep nearer to the festival, the selections announced feature a lot worth getting excited over — including, for the first time, two television shows (Twin Peaks and Top of the Lake) and a virtual reality film (Carne y Arena). Also, considering that The Killing of a Sacred Deer and The Beguiled are both in the main competition, there is, assuming equal probability, an 11.1% chance that a film starring Nicole Kidman and Colin Farrell will take home the top prize. Considering
This year, the festival jury will be headed by acclaimed Spanish director Pedro Almodovar, with French actress Sandrine Kiberlain presiding over the Camera d’Or jury and Romanian...
The official lineup for the 70th Cannes Film Festival, which will run from May 18–28, was announced April 13. While a few more screenings will undoubtably be added as we creep nearer to the festival, the selections announced feature a lot worth getting excited over — including, for the first time, two television shows (Twin Peaks and Top of the Lake) and a virtual reality film (Carne y Arena). Also, considering that The Killing of a Sacred Deer and The Beguiled are both in the main competition, there is, assuming equal probability, an 11.1% chance that a film starring Nicole Kidman and Colin Farrell will take home the top prize. Considering
This year, the festival jury will be headed by acclaimed Spanish director Pedro Almodovar, with French actress Sandrine Kiberlain presiding over the Camera d’Or jury and Romanian...
- 4/15/2017
- by Ciara Wardlow
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
The 2017 Cannes official selection is a mix of brainy competition auteurs, red-carpet star power, and the rarest breed — a handful of players who could return to North America as Oscar contenders.
Nicole Kidman will be stuffing her trunks with evening gowns, as she will need to walk the Palais steps at least four times: twice with Colin Farrell, for Cannes favorite Sofia Coppola‘s Civil War potboiler “The Beguiled” (Focus Features) and Yorgos Lanthimos’ “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” (A24), both in Competition, and again for John Cameron Mitchell‘s midnighter “How to Talk with Girls at Parties” (A24) and a preview of Jane Campion‘s returning Sundance Channel series, “Top of the Lake: China Girl.” How the three films play in Cannes will determine if the Oscar perennial returns for another go-round.
Isabelle Huppert won the Cesar and was close — we think — to winning the Oscar for “Elle.
Nicole Kidman will be stuffing her trunks with evening gowns, as she will need to walk the Palais steps at least four times: twice with Colin Farrell, for Cannes favorite Sofia Coppola‘s Civil War potboiler “The Beguiled” (Focus Features) and Yorgos Lanthimos’ “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” (A24), both in Competition, and again for John Cameron Mitchell‘s midnighter “How to Talk with Girls at Parties” (A24) and a preview of Jane Campion‘s returning Sundance Channel series, “Top of the Lake: China Girl.” How the three films play in Cannes will determine if the Oscar perennial returns for another go-round.
Isabelle Huppert won the Cesar and was close — we think — to winning the Oscar for “Elle.
- 4/13/2017
- by Anne Thompson
- Thompson on Hollywood
The 2017 Cannes official selection is a mix of brainy competition auteurs, red-carpet star power, and the rarest breed — a handful of players who could return to North America as Oscar contenders.
Nicole Kidman will be stuffing her trunks with evening gowns, as she will need to walk the Palais steps at least four times: twice with Colin Farrell, for Cannes favorite Sofia Coppola‘s Civil War potboiler “The Beguiled” (Focus Features) and Yorgos Lanthimos’ “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” (A24), both in Competition, and again for John Cameron Mitchell‘s midnighter “How to Talk with Girls at Parties” (A24) and a preview of Jane Campion‘s returning Sundance Channel series, “Top of the Lake: China Girl.”
Isabelle Huppert won the Cesar and was close — we think — to winning the Oscar for “Elle.” She’s back in two movies, “Happy End” (Sony Pictures Classics) by Michael Haneke, rejoining “Amour” co-star Jean-Louis Trintignant,...
Nicole Kidman will be stuffing her trunks with evening gowns, as she will need to walk the Palais steps at least four times: twice with Colin Farrell, for Cannes favorite Sofia Coppola‘s Civil War potboiler “The Beguiled” (Focus Features) and Yorgos Lanthimos’ “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” (A24), both in Competition, and again for John Cameron Mitchell‘s midnighter “How to Talk with Girls at Parties” (A24) and a preview of Jane Campion‘s returning Sundance Channel series, “Top of the Lake: China Girl.”
Isabelle Huppert won the Cesar and was close — we think — to winning the Oscar for “Elle.” She’s back in two movies, “Happy End” (Sony Pictures Classics) by Michael Haneke, rejoining “Amour” co-star Jean-Louis Trintignant,...
- 4/13/2017
- by Anne Thompson
- Indiewire
Author: Scott Davis
As one award season closes another creeps up behind us and we start all over again as the 2017 Cannes Film Festival has announced its eagerly anticipated line-up for the festival which begins in May and as ever it is a diverse and exciting list of talents and films.
There are many incredible treats in store but here are some of our initial picks of what to look out for: Michel Hazanavicius, the director of Oscar Winner The Artist, returns with Redoubtable, his film about legendary filmmaker Jean Luc Godard; Michael Haneke’s latest, Happy End, makes an apperance, as does The Beguiled, the anticipated new film from Sofia Coppola which stars Nicole Kidman, Elle Fanning, Kirsten Dunst and Colin Farrell. Farrell and Kidman also feature in The Killing of A Sacred Deer, the new film from Yorgos Lanthimas (The Lobster) which also stars Alicia Silverstone.
Acclaimed filmmakers Lynne Ramsey,...
As one award season closes another creeps up behind us and we start all over again as the 2017 Cannes Film Festival has announced its eagerly anticipated line-up for the festival which begins in May and as ever it is a diverse and exciting list of talents and films.
There are many incredible treats in store but here are some of our initial picks of what to look out for: Michel Hazanavicius, the director of Oscar Winner The Artist, returns with Redoubtable, his film about legendary filmmaker Jean Luc Godard; Michael Haneke’s latest, Happy End, makes an apperance, as does The Beguiled, the anticipated new film from Sofia Coppola which stars Nicole Kidman, Elle Fanning, Kirsten Dunst and Colin Farrell. Farrell and Kidman also feature in The Killing of A Sacred Deer, the new film from Yorgos Lanthimas (The Lobster) which also stars Alicia Silverstone.
Acclaimed filmmakers Lynne Ramsey,...
- 4/13/2017
- by Scott Davis
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
The line-up for our most-anticipated cinema-related event of the year is here. With a jury headed up by Pedro Almodóvar, who came to the festival last year with Julieta, the slate for the 70th Cannes Film Festival has been unveiled live. Kicking off with Arnaud Desplechin‘s Marion Cotillard-led Ismael’s Ghosts, there’s new films from Lynne Ramsay, Yorgos Lanthimos, Todd Haynes, Michael Haneke, Sofia Coppola, Hong Sang-soo (x 2!), Bong Joon-ho, Noah Baumbach, the Safdies, the final work from Abbas Kiarostami, and much more. Check out the full line-up below.
Competition
Loveless – Andrey Zvyagintsev
Good Time – Benny Safdie and Josh Safdie
You Were Never Really Here – Lynne Ramsay
A Gentle Creature – Sergei Loznitsa
Jupiter’s Moon – Kornél Mundruczó
L’Amant Double – François Ozon
The Killing of a Sacred Deer – Yorgos Lanthimos
Radiance – Naomi Kawase
The Day After – Hong Sang-soo
Le Redoutable – Michel Hazanavicius
Wonderstruck – Todd Haynes
Rodin – Jacques Doillon...
Competition
Loveless – Andrey Zvyagintsev
Good Time – Benny Safdie and Josh Safdie
You Were Never Really Here – Lynne Ramsay
A Gentle Creature – Sergei Loznitsa
Jupiter’s Moon – Kornél Mundruczó
L’Amant Double – François Ozon
The Killing of a Sacred Deer – Yorgos Lanthimos
Radiance – Naomi Kawase
The Day After – Hong Sang-soo
Le Redoutable – Michel Hazanavicius
Wonderstruck – Todd Haynes
Rodin – Jacques Doillon...
- 4/13/2017
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
The Cannes Film Festival has announced its lineup for the 70th edition, following its tradition of unveiling every competition film (along with Un Certain Regard titles and other assorted offerings) in a morning press conference taking place at 5 a.m. Est.
“Since every day we have another move from Donald Trump, I hope North Korea and Syria won’t cast a shadow on the 70th edition,” said journalist Pierre Lescure before the announcement.
See More17 Shocks and Surprises from the 2017 Cannes Lineup, From ‘Twin Peaks’ to Netflix and Vr
This year’s festival features 49 films from 29 countries, including nine feature debuts and 12 women directors.
Check out the full lineup below (refresh for latest updates):
Opening Night Film
“Ismael’s Ghost” directed by Arnaud Desplechin
Competition
“The Day After” directed by Hong Sangsoo
“Loveless” directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev
“Good Time” directed by Benny Safdie and Josh Safdie
“You Were Never Really Here...
“Since every day we have another move from Donald Trump, I hope North Korea and Syria won’t cast a shadow on the 70th edition,” said journalist Pierre Lescure before the announcement.
See More17 Shocks and Surprises from the 2017 Cannes Lineup, From ‘Twin Peaks’ to Netflix and Vr
This year’s festival features 49 films from 29 countries, including nine feature debuts and 12 women directors.
Check out the full lineup below (refresh for latest updates):
Opening Night Film
“Ismael’s Ghost” directed by Arnaud Desplechin
Competition
“The Day After” directed by Hong Sangsoo
“Loveless” directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev
“Good Time” directed by Benny Safdie and Josh Safdie
“You Were Never Really Here...
- 4/13/2017
- by Graham Winfrey
- Indiewire
Screen investigates which films from around the world could launch on the Croisette, including on opening night.
With just over a month to go before the line-up for this year’s Cannes Film Festival is unveiled in Paris, Croisette predictions and wish lists are hitting the web thick and fast.
Screen’s network of correspondents and contributors around the world have been putting out feelers to get a sense of what might or might not make it to the Palais du Cinéma or one of the parallel sections.
Just like the Oscars, this year’s festival is likely to unfold amid a politically-charged atmosphere. Beyond Trump and the rise of populism across the globe, France will be digesting the result of its own presidential election on May 7. Against this background, the festival will be feting its 70th edition.
Below, Screen reveals which titles might - and might not - be in the running for a place at the...
With just over a month to go before the line-up for this year’s Cannes Film Festival is unveiled in Paris, Croisette predictions and wish lists are hitting the web thick and fast.
Screen’s network of correspondents and contributors around the world have been putting out feelers to get a sense of what might or might not make it to the Palais du Cinéma or one of the parallel sections.
Just like the Oscars, this year’s festival is likely to unfold amid a politically-charged atmosphere. Beyond Trump and the rise of populism across the globe, France will be digesting the result of its own presidential election on May 7. Against this background, the festival will be feting its 70th edition.
Below, Screen reveals which titles might - and might not - be in the running for a place at the...
- 3/13/2017
- ScreenDaily
Venice Production Bridge will incorporate Gap Financing Market and Final Cut events.
The Venice Film Festival (Aug 31 - Sept 10) has revealed the line-ups for its 2016 market events, newly renamed the Venice Production Bridge (Sept 1 - 5).
The Production Bridge will host features, TV, web-series and Vr projects.
Venice’s two-day Gap-Financing Market event (September 2-3, 2016) will host 40 selected European and International projects looking to close their international financing.
The market’s Final Cut strand will award prizes to selected in-the-works projects from Africa and from Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Syria, while the inaugural Book Adaptation Rights Area will see publishers pitch books ripe for film or TV adaptation.
The European Commission organises two workshops, one on access to finance (Sept 3) and the other on the future of cinemas (Sept 4). The second event, which will be opened by European Commissioner Oettinger, will focus on how cinemas can fully reap the benefits of digital technologies.
Gap Financing...
The Venice Film Festival (Aug 31 - Sept 10) has revealed the line-ups for its 2016 market events, newly renamed the Venice Production Bridge (Sept 1 - 5).
The Production Bridge will host features, TV, web-series and Vr projects.
Venice’s two-day Gap-Financing Market event (September 2-3, 2016) will host 40 selected European and International projects looking to close their international financing.
The market’s Final Cut strand will award prizes to selected in-the-works projects from Africa and from Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Syria, while the inaugural Book Adaptation Rights Area will see publishers pitch books ripe for film or TV adaptation.
The European Commission organises two workshops, one on access to finance (Sept 3) and the other on the future of cinemas (Sept 4). The second event, which will be opened by European Commissioner Oettinger, will focus on how cinemas can fully reap the benefits of digital technologies.
Gap Financing...
- 7/29/2016
- by andreas.wiseman@screendaily.com (Andreas Wiseman)
- ScreenDaily
Exclusive: Eriq Ebouaney and Sandrine Bonnaire to co-star in asylum seeker love story.
MK2 Films has taken on world sales of Chadian director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s [pictured] upcoming drama A Season In France.
Eriq Ebouaney and Sandrine Bonnaire have signed to co-star in the film revolving around the relationship between an asylum seeker and a French woman.
Ebouaney – who was recently seen in Bastille Day – plays Abbas, a widower and teacher from the war-torn Central African Republic seeking asylum in France. Awaiting a decision on his application, he works in a food market on the outskirts of Paris to support his two young children.
Bonnaire will play Carole, a French woman who falls in love with Abbas and offers him a home.
Florence Stern of Paris-based Pili Films is producing the film, which is due to shoot in Paris and Northern France this October.
The production marks Haroun’s first feature shot in France after dramas set in...
MK2 Films has taken on world sales of Chadian director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s [pictured] upcoming drama A Season In France.
Eriq Ebouaney and Sandrine Bonnaire have signed to co-star in the film revolving around the relationship between an asylum seeker and a French woman.
Ebouaney – who was recently seen in Bastille Day – plays Abbas, a widower and teacher from the war-torn Central African Republic seeking asylum in France. Awaiting a decision on his application, he works in a food market on the outskirts of Paris to support his two young children.
Bonnaire will play Carole, a French woman who falls in love with Abbas and offers him a home.
Florence Stern of Paris-based Pili Films is producing the film, which is due to shoot in Paris and Northern France this October.
The production marks Haroun’s first feature shot in France after dramas set in...
- 7/4/2016
- ScreenDaily
Exclusive: Company also adds new films by Guédiguian, Moussaoui and Risuleo on eve of Cannes.
Paris-based MK2 Films will launch sales in Cannes on an upcoming bio-doc about 1960s icon Marianne Faithfull [pictured] by French actress and director Sandrine Bonnaire.
Simply entitled Faithfull, it will follow the singer’s life journey, from being discovered at the age of 17 in 1960s ‘Swinging London’; to her rock ‘n’ roll life with Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger; her battle with drugs and alcohol addiction and rebirth as a performer in later life.
Developed in close co-operation with Faithfull, it is set to feature interviews with Jagger, Salman Rushdie, Anselm Kiefer, Nick Cave and Damon Albarn.
It is Bonnaire’s second documentary after My Name Is Sabine, about her severely autistic sister, which premiered in Cannes Directors’ Fortnight in 2007. Paris-based Cinétéve is producing, with the backing of Arte, for a 2017 delivery.
New Talents: Moussaoui and Risuleo
The documentary is among four new...
Paris-based MK2 Films will launch sales in Cannes on an upcoming bio-doc about 1960s icon Marianne Faithfull [pictured] by French actress and director Sandrine Bonnaire.
Simply entitled Faithfull, it will follow the singer’s life journey, from being discovered at the age of 17 in 1960s ‘Swinging London’; to her rock ‘n’ roll life with Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger; her battle with drugs and alcohol addiction and rebirth as a performer in later life.
Developed in close co-operation with Faithfull, it is set to feature interviews with Jagger, Salman Rushdie, Anselm Kiefer, Nick Cave and Damon Albarn.
It is Bonnaire’s second documentary after My Name Is Sabine, about her severely autistic sister, which premiered in Cannes Directors’ Fortnight in 2007. Paris-based Cinétéve is producing, with the backing of Arte, for a 2017 delivery.
New Talents: Moussaoui and Risuleo
The documentary is among four new...
- 5/9/2016
- 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
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
The Doha Film Institute has announced the recipients of the Fall 2015 session of its grants program following the Dubai International Film Festival, where 15 of the Institute’s previous grantees, 4 of which are world premieres, were showcased. Thirty projects from 19 countries – comprising 16 feature-length narrative films, 10 feature documentaries and 4 short films – will receive funding for development, production or post-production.
The Fall session marks the 11th session of the grants program, which is dedicated to supporting new cinematic talent, with a focus on first- and second-time filmmakers.
Twenty-four of the projects are from the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region, while 6 are from the rest of the world. For the first time, filmmakers from Chile, Peru and Spain will receive funding from the program.
Stories of displacement, physical or spiritual journeys, tales of family life, the power of nature and the importance of protecting the environment are highlighted in the selections this Fall.
Four projects from Qatar-based filmmakers were awarded grants – Hafiz Ali Abdullah’s "The Search for the Star Pearl," about a young pearl diver from Doha who discovers a map to the most valuable gem on Earth, and sets sail with three teenage friends in search of it; Hamida Al Kawari’s "To the Ends of the Earth" – the first Qatari feature documentary to receive a grant from the Institute – which follows a Qatari woman on an environmental expedition to Antarctica in search of hope; A.J. Al Thani’s "Kashta," a family drama about a father who takes his sons out into the desert to teach them about hunting and survival; and Hend Fakhroo’s "The Waiting Room," about an Arab and a Western family who find themselves sharing a hospital room.
Among the 30 projects selected for funding, 5 are from Morocco – Fyzal Boulifa’s "Pagan Magic," the story of a poor youngster working as a maid for a middle-class family; second-time grantee Uda Benyamina’s "Bastard," about a 15-year-old girl who lives with her mother in a rough Parisian suburb; Yakout Elhababi’s "Behind the Doors," which looks at family life and childhood set high in the Rif mountains of Morocco; Hind Bensari’s "Weight Throwers," a documentary look at the struggles of two young athletes as they train for the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro; and "Behind The Wall," by Karima Zoubir, a short film set in a Casablanca slum.
Also featuring strongly are three animation projects – established filmmaker Haifaa Al Mansour’s "Miss Camel," the story of a teenage Saudi camel who challenges the deep-rooted restrictions of her culture by travelling across the kingdom to compete in the Miss Camel beauty pageant in Doha; Mortada Gzar’s "Language," about a blind man on the streets of Baghdad who wakes up as a giant and reads the devastation of the city by touch; and Hafiz Ali Abdullah’s "The Search for the Star Pearl."
As in several previous sessions of the grants program, powerful projects from Argentina have also secured funding. Milagros Mumenthaler’s Swiss/Argentinian film "The Idea of a Lake" is about a photographer who undergoes a personal exploration of her past and the absence of her father while creating a book of her work, while Maximiliano Schonfeld’s "The Black Frost" is a drama set on a plantation where a pernicious black frost threatens to devastate the countryside until a mysterious woman arrives.
Continuing the environmental theme, Heidi Brandenburg and Mathew Orzel’s "When Two Worlds Collide" is the story of an indigenous Peruvian man and his people, and of the fate of one of our planet’s most valuable natural resources – the Amazon rainforest. The film, which has its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January, is the first-ever Peruvian recipient of a grant from the Institute.
Fatma Al Remaihi, CEO of the Doha Film Institute, said: “Our Fall grantees cover a broad range of subjects and represent some powerful new voices in cinema, especially from Qatar and North Africa with several projects supported from Morocco and Algeria.”
“Animated films are very popular in our region so it is very encouraging to see an acclaimed filmmaker like Haifaa Al Mansour turn her skills to this important genre; we support two other animated projects in this grants cycle as well.”
“Our grantees represent the core of the Doha Film Institute’s mandate to support emerging filmmakers and contribute to the development of the regional film industry. We have supported more than 255 films since the inception of the grants program and we continue to seek out projects with a strong directorial vision that are challenging, creative and thought-provoking. Our new round of grantees is no exception and I am delighted to welcome this outstanding crop of projects to our growing community of grantee alumni.”
Submissions for the next funding round open January 6 and close January 19, 2016. Funding is available to projects by filmmakers from around the world, with an emphasis on support for filmmakers from the Mena region. Certain categories of funding reserved for Mena and Qatari filmmakers.
The fund is primarily for first and second-time filmmakers. Post-production funding is available to established filmmakers from the Mena region.
For more information about eligibility and submissions, please visit
http://www.dohafilminstitute.com/financing/grants/guidelines
A full directory of past grant recipients is available to view at
http://www.dohafilminstitute.com/financing/projects/grants
The Doha Film Institute Grants Program funding recipients for the Fall 2015 session are:
Feature Narrative / Development
"Death Street" by Mohanad Hayal (Iraq)
Tariq, the sniper of Haifa Street in Baghdad, kills Ahmed on his wedding day. While Tariq prevents anyone from approaching the corpse in the street, an intimate and telling drama unfolds.
"Miss Camel" by Haifaa Al Mansour (Saudia Arabia)
A teenage Saudi camel challenges the deep-rooted restrictions of her culture by traveling across the kingdom to compete in the Miss Camel beauty pageant in Doha.
"Pagan Magic" by Fyzal Boulifa (Morocco, France)
A young, poor and uneducated girl works as a maid for a middle-class family in contemporary Morocco. Her use of pagan rites to confront her entrapment and make sense of her world ultimately corrupt her.
"The Search for the Star Pearl" by Hafiz Ali Abdullah (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 the pearl. Along the way, they face mythological beasts that challenge their skills and friendship.
Feature Narrative / Production
"Cactus Flower" by Hala Elkoussy (Egypt)
A flood leaves three Cairenes homeless. As they journey across the city in search of shelter, they depend upon one another to survive and keep their dreams alive.
"Poisonous Roses" by Fawzi Saleh (Egypt)
The world has left nothing to Taheya apart from her brother Saqr. When he disappears, Taheya pursues him in desperation.
"The Return" by Meyar Al-Roumi (Syria, France)
A love story blossoms between Taysir and Lina, exiles from Syria, while they drive across their homeland to bury Taysir’s brother, a victim of the armed conflict.
"Till the Swallows Return" by Karim Moussaoui (Algeria, France)
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 Narrative / Post-production
"Bastard" by Uda Benyamina (Morocco, France)
Fifteen-year-old Dounia lives with her mother in a rough Parisian suburb, where she has been saddled with the nickname “bastard”.
"The Black Frost" by Maximiliano Schonfeld (Argentina)
Soon after a mysterious woman arrives on a plantation, a pernicious black frost ceases to devastate the countryside. Hope emerges. Might she might be a saviour?
"Blue Bicycle" by Ümit Köreken (Turkey)
Young Ali saves up all the money he can working at a tyre repair shop to buy a coveted blue bicycle. Meanwhile, at school, his love for his schoolmate Elif leads him to defend her dismissal as school president. A story of childish love, dreams and resistance.
"The Dark Wind" by Hussein Hassan (Iraq)
Radical Islamists attack a village in Iraq where two young Yazidis are preparing for their marriage. At that moment, their lives become a nightmare.
"The Idea of a Lake" (note: previously titled Air Pocket) by Milagros Mumenthaler (Switzerland, Argentina)
Inés, a photographer, is creating a book of her work. Gradually, the process becomes a personal exploration of her past and the absence of her father, who was disappeared during the military dictatorship in Argentina.
"The Mimosas" by Oliver Laxe (Spain, Morocco, France)
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, he is assisted by Shakib, a man sent from contemporary Morocco to guide Ahmed on his journey.
"Rey" (King) by Niles Atallah (Chile)
In 1860, a French lawyer dreamed of becoming the King of Patagonia – and he did just that. Or so it seemed.
"Suspension" by Ala Eddine Slim (Tunisia)
N is a candidate for an illegal crossing of the Mediterranean from Tunisia. A supernatural voyage, during which N will confront Nature and himself, begins.
Feature Documentary / Development
"Agnus Dei" by Karim Sayad (Algeria, Switzerland)
In Algeria, Ali and his sheep, bought for slaughter on Eid Al-Adha, are getting ready for the fight. Once the bets are in, the referee invites the owners into the ring…
"Behind the Doors" by Yakout Elhababi (Morocco)
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)
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.
Feature Documentary / Production
"The Colonel’s Stray Dogs" by Khalid Shamis (Libya, South Africa)
While director Khalid Shamis watched television in his suburban London home, his father was plotting the overthrow of Muammar Gadaffi in his study. When the regime fell, Shamis sought answers about Libya under Gadaffi and his father’s role in its failed liberation.
"Ibrahim" by Lina Alabed (Jordan)
‘Ibrahim’ uncovers the long journey of the director’s father as a young man, when he was a secret member of Abu Nidal, a militant Palestinian revolutionary organisation.
"Searching for Janitou" by Mohamed El Amine hattou (Algeria)
A journey to unravel love in past and contemporary Algeria by exploring the unique phenomenon of a Bollywood film that swept the country in the 1980s.
"To the Ends of the Earth" by Hamida Al Kawari ( 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.
"Weight Throwers" by Hind Bensari (Morocco)
‘Weight Thowers’ follows the struggles of Azzedine and Youssef, disabled members of Morocco’s unemployed and disillusioned young generation, as they struggle to train for the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
Feature Documentary / Post-production
"Tadmor" by Lokman Slim, Monika Borgmann (Lebanon)
A group of Lebanese men re-enact the ordeals they experienced as detainees in Syria’s notorious Tadmor prison. An ode to the human will to survive.
"When Two Worlds Collide" by Heidi Brandenburg, Mathew Orzel (Peru)
A story of a man and a people, and of the fate of one of our planet’s most valuable natural resources – the Amazon rainforest.
Short Narrative / Production
"Behind the Wall" by Karima Zoubir (Morocco)
Nadia, a little girl, lives in a Casablanca slum that is surrounded by a wall. One day, the municipality begins to paint the wall – but why this sudden interest?
"Kashta" by A.J. Al Thani (Qatar)
A father takes his two sons out to the desert to learn about hunting and survival, but the results are not quite what he was expecting.
"Language" by Mortada Gzar (Iraq)
An old blind man walks throught the streets of Baghdad, then falls asleep while reading a book in Braille. When he wakes up, he finds he has become a giant and reads the devastation of the city by touch.
"The Waiting Room" by Hind Fakhroo (Qatar)
An Arab family and a Western family find themselves sharing a hospital room; the only thing that separates them is a curtain.
The Fall session marks the 11th session of the grants program, which is dedicated to supporting new cinematic talent, with a focus on first- and second-time filmmakers.
Twenty-four of the projects are from the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region, while 6 are from the rest of the world. For the first time, filmmakers from Chile, Peru and Spain will receive funding from the program.
Stories of displacement, physical or spiritual journeys, tales of family life, the power of nature and the importance of protecting the environment are highlighted in the selections this Fall.
Four projects from Qatar-based filmmakers were awarded grants – Hafiz Ali Abdullah’s "The Search for the Star Pearl," about a young pearl diver from Doha who discovers a map to the most valuable gem on Earth, and sets sail with three teenage friends in search of it; Hamida Al Kawari’s "To the Ends of the Earth" – the first Qatari feature documentary to receive a grant from the Institute – which follows a Qatari woman on an environmental expedition to Antarctica in search of hope; A.J. Al Thani’s "Kashta," a family drama about a father who takes his sons out into the desert to teach them about hunting and survival; and Hend Fakhroo’s "The Waiting Room," about an Arab and a Western family who find themselves sharing a hospital room.
Among the 30 projects selected for funding, 5 are from Morocco – Fyzal Boulifa’s "Pagan Magic," the story of a poor youngster working as a maid for a middle-class family; second-time grantee Uda Benyamina’s "Bastard," about a 15-year-old girl who lives with her mother in a rough Parisian suburb; Yakout Elhababi’s "Behind the Doors," which looks at family life and childhood set high in the Rif mountains of Morocco; Hind Bensari’s "Weight Throwers," a documentary look at the struggles of two young athletes as they train for the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro; and "Behind The Wall," by Karima Zoubir, a short film set in a Casablanca slum.
Also featuring strongly are three animation projects – established filmmaker Haifaa Al Mansour’s "Miss Camel," the story of a teenage Saudi camel who challenges the deep-rooted restrictions of her culture by travelling across the kingdom to compete in the Miss Camel beauty pageant in Doha; Mortada Gzar’s "Language," about a blind man on the streets of Baghdad who wakes up as a giant and reads the devastation of the city by touch; and Hafiz Ali Abdullah’s "The Search for the Star Pearl."
As in several previous sessions of the grants program, powerful projects from Argentina have also secured funding. Milagros Mumenthaler’s Swiss/Argentinian film "The Idea of a Lake" is about a photographer who undergoes a personal exploration of her past and the absence of her father while creating a book of her work, while Maximiliano Schonfeld’s "The Black Frost" is a drama set on a plantation where a pernicious black frost threatens to devastate the countryside until a mysterious woman arrives.
Continuing the environmental theme, Heidi Brandenburg and Mathew Orzel’s "When Two Worlds Collide" is the story of an indigenous Peruvian man and his people, and of the fate of one of our planet’s most valuable natural resources – the Amazon rainforest. The film, which has its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January, is the first-ever Peruvian recipient of a grant from the Institute.
Fatma Al Remaihi, CEO of the Doha Film Institute, said: “Our Fall grantees cover a broad range of subjects and represent some powerful new voices in cinema, especially from Qatar and North Africa with several projects supported from Morocco and Algeria.”
“Animated films are very popular in our region so it is very encouraging to see an acclaimed filmmaker like Haifaa Al Mansour turn her skills to this important genre; we support two other animated projects in this grants cycle as well.”
“Our grantees represent the core of the Doha Film Institute’s mandate to support emerging filmmakers and contribute to the development of the regional film industry. We have supported more than 255 films since the inception of the grants program and we continue to seek out projects with a strong directorial vision that are challenging, creative and thought-provoking. Our new round of grantees is no exception and I am delighted to welcome this outstanding crop of projects to our growing community of grantee alumni.”
Submissions for the next funding round open January 6 and close January 19, 2016. Funding is available to projects by filmmakers from around the world, with an emphasis on support for filmmakers from the Mena region. Certain categories of funding reserved for Mena and Qatari filmmakers.
The fund is primarily for first and second-time filmmakers. Post-production funding is available to established filmmakers from the Mena region.
For more information about eligibility and submissions, please visit
http://www.dohafilminstitute.com/financing/grants/guidelines
A full directory of past grant recipients is available to view at
http://www.dohafilminstitute.com/financing/projects/grants
The Doha Film Institute Grants Program funding recipients for the Fall 2015 session are:
Feature Narrative / Development
"Death Street" by Mohanad Hayal (Iraq)
Tariq, the sniper of Haifa Street in Baghdad, kills Ahmed on his wedding day. While Tariq prevents anyone from approaching the corpse in the street, an intimate and telling drama unfolds.
"Miss Camel" by Haifaa Al Mansour (Saudia Arabia)
A teenage Saudi camel challenges the deep-rooted restrictions of her culture by traveling across the kingdom to compete in the Miss Camel beauty pageant in Doha.
"Pagan Magic" by Fyzal Boulifa (Morocco, France)
A young, poor and uneducated girl works as a maid for a middle-class family in contemporary Morocco. Her use of pagan rites to confront her entrapment and make sense of her world ultimately corrupt her.
"The Search for the Star Pearl" by Hafiz Ali Abdullah (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 the pearl. Along the way, they face mythological beasts that challenge their skills and friendship.
Feature Narrative / Production
"Cactus Flower" by Hala Elkoussy (Egypt)
A flood leaves three Cairenes homeless. As they journey across the city in search of shelter, they depend upon one another to survive and keep their dreams alive.
"Poisonous Roses" by Fawzi Saleh (Egypt)
The world has left nothing to Taheya apart from her brother Saqr. When he disappears, Taheya pursues him in desperation.
"The Return" by Meyar Al-Roumi (Syria, France)
A love story blossoms between Taysir and Lina, exiles from Syria, while they drive across their homeland to bury Taysir’s brother, a victim of the armed conflict.
"Till the Swallows Return" by Karim Moussaoui (Algeria, France)
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 Narrative / Post-production
"Bastard" by Uda Benyamina (Morocco, France)
Fifteen-year-old Dounia lives with her mother in a rough Parisian suburb, where she has been saddled with the nickname “bastard”.
"The Black Frost" by Maximiliano Schonfeld (Argentina)
Soon after a mysterious woman arrives on a plantation, a pernicious black frost ceases to devastate the countryside. Hope emerges. Might she might be a saviour?
"Blue Bicycle" by Ümit Köreken (Turkey)
Young Ali saves up all the money he can working at a tyre repair shop to buy a coveted blue bicycle. Meanwhile, at school, his love for his schoolmate Elif leads him to defend her dismissal as school president. A story of childish love, dreams and resistance.
"The Dark Wind" by Hussein Hassan (Iraq)
Radical Islamists attack a village in Iraq where two young Yazidis are preparing for their marriage. At that moment, their lives become a nightmare.
"The Idea of a Lake" (note: previously titled Air Pocket) by Milagros Mumenthaler (Switzerland, Argentina)
Inés, a photographer, is creating a book of her work. Gradually, the process becomes a personal exploration of her past and the absence of her father, who was disappeared during the military dictatorship in Argentina.
"The Mimosas" by Oliver Laxe (Spain, Morocco, France)
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, he is assisted by Shakib, a man sent from contemporary Morocco to guide Ahmed on his journey.
"Rey" (King) by Niles Atallah (Chile)
In 1860, a French lawyer dreamed of becoming the King of Patagonia – and he did just that. Or so it seemed.
"Suspension" by Ala Eddine Slim (Tunisia)
N is a candidate for an illegal crossing of the Mediterranean from Tunisia. A supernatural voyage, during which N will confront Nature and himself, begins.
Feature Documentary / Development
"Agnus Dei" by Karim Sayad (Algeria, Switzerland)
In Algeria, Ali and his sheep, bought for slaughter on Eid Al-Adha, are getting ready for the fight. Once the bets are in, the referee invites the owners into the ring…
"Behind the Doors" by Yakout Elhababi (Morocco)
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)
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.
Feature Documentary / Production
"The Colonel’s Stray Dogs" by Khalid Shamis (Libya, South Africa)
While director Khalid Shamis watched television in his suburban London home, his father was plotting the overthrow of Muammar Gadaffi in his study. When the regime fell, Shamis sought answers about Libya under Gadaffi and his father’s role in its failed liberation.
"Ibrahim" by Lina Alabed (Jordan)
‘Ibrahim’ uncovers the long journey of the director’s father as a young man, when he was a secret member of Abu Nidal, a militant Palestinian revolutionary organisation.
"Searching for Janitou" by Mohamed El Amine hattou (Algeria)
A journey to unravel love in past and contemporary Algeria by exploring the unique phenomenon of a Bollywood film that swept the country in the 1980s.
"To the Ends of the Earth" by Hamida Al Kawari ( 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.
"Weight Throwers" by Hind Bensari (Morocco)
‘Weight Thowers’ follows the struggles of Azzedine and Youssef, disabled members of Morocco’s unemployed and disillusioned young generation, as they struggle to train for the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
Feature Documentary / Post-production
"Tadmor" by Lokman Slim, Monika Borgmann (Lebanon)
A group of Lebanese men re-enact the ordeals they experienced as detainees in Syria’s notorious Tadmor prison. An ode to the human will to survive.
"When Two Worlds Collide" by Heidi Brandenburg, Mathew Orzel (Peru)
A story of a man and a people, and of the fate of one of our planet’s most valuable natural resources – the Amazon rainforest.
Short Narrative / Production
"Behind the Wall" by Karima Zoubir (Morocco)
Nadia, a little girl, lives in a Casablanca slum that is surrounded by a wall. One day, the municipality begins to paint the wall – but why this sudden interest?
"Kashta" by A.J. Al Thani (Qatar)
A father takes his two sons out to the desert to learn about hunting and survival, but the results are not quite what he was expecting.
"Language" by Mortada Gzar (Iraq)
An old blind man walks throught the streets of Baghdad, then falls asleep while reading a book in Braille. When he wakes up, he finds he has become a giant and reads the devastation of the city by touch.
"The Waiting Room" by Hind Fakhroo (Qatar)
An Arab family and a Western family find themselves sharing a hospital room; the only thing that separates them is a curtain.
- 1/5/2016
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Wadjda director among 30 awarded grants in the Doha Film Institute’s latest round of funding.Scroll down for the full list of projects
Haifaa Al Mansour, the director of 2012 Bafta-nominated Wadjda, has received a grant for her first animated feature project Miss Camel (in development) as part of the Doha Film Institute’s Fall 2015 round of funding.
The film will follow a teenage camel in Saudi Arabia which travels across the country to compete in a beauty pageant.
In total, 30 projects have received grants, including 16 feature films, three of which are animations, and 10 documentaries.
Of the projects selected, 24 are from the Mena region, while for the first time filmmakers from Chile, Peru and Spain will all receive funding.
Fatma Al Remaihi, CEO of the Doha Film Institute, said: “Animated films are very popular in our region so it is very encouraging to see an acclaimed filmmaker like Haifaa Al Mansour turn her skills to this important genre; we...
Haifaa Al Mansour, the director of 2012 Bafta-nominated Wadjda, has received a grant for her first animated feature project Miss Camel (in development) as part of the Doha Film Institute’s Fall 2015 round of funding.
The film will follow a teenage camel in Saudi Arabia which travels across the country to compete in a beauty pageant.
In total, 30 projects have received grants, including 16 feature films, three of which are animations, and 10 documentaries.
Of the projects selected, 24 are from the Mena region, while for the first time filmmakers from Chile, Peru and Spain will all receive funding.
Fatma Al Remaihi, CEO of the Doha Film Institute, said: “Animated films are very popular in our region so it is very encouraging to see an acclaimed filmmaker like Haifaa Al Mansour turn her skills to this important genre; we...
- 12/21/2015
- ScreenDaily
Algerian filmmakers were the big winners when the awards were handed out today (Tues) at Locarno’s Open Doors co-production lab, this year dedicated to the Maghreb region.
The Open Doors Production Grant, worth $30,465 (Chf 30,000), was awarded to Narimane Mari’s Le Fort Des Fous, which is being produced by her Allers Retours Films with French co-producer Corinne Castel’s Centrale Electrique.
The Cnc’s $10,900 (€10,000) prize went to Karim Moussaoui’s debut feature En Attendant Les Hirondelles, which will be co-produced by France’s Philippe Martin and David Thion’s Les Films Pelléas.
A third prize for Algeria - the newly created Prix Mad Solutions including the financing of PR, mareting and press and publicity services - was presented to Yanis Koussim for his second feature Ruqya.
“Due to the number of strong projects in the Open Doors section, we decided to extend our Mad distribution award to two projects,” said Alaa Karkouti...
The Open Doors Production Grant, worth $30,465 (Chf 30,000), was awarded to Narimane Mari’s Le Fort Des Fous, which is being produced by her Allers Retours Films with French co-producer Corinne Castel’s Centrale Electrique.
The Cnc’s $10,900 (€10,000) prize went to Karim Moussaoui’s debut feature En Attendant Les Hirondelles, which will be co-produced by France’s Philippe Martin and David Thion’s Les Films Pelléas.
A third prize for Algeria - the newly created Prix Mad Solutions including the financing of PR, mareting and press and publicity services - was presented to Yanis Koussim for his second feature Ruqya.
“Due to the number of strong projects in the Open Doors section, we decided to extend our Mad distribution award to two projects,” said Alaa Karkouti...
- 8/11/2015
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney)
- ScreenDaily
Mad Solutions among backers of Maghreb films in Co-pro Lab lineup.
Arab-focused promotion agency Mad Solutions will this year provide distribution and promotional support to one film of its choice in Locarno’s Open Doors section.
The strand will highlight directors from Algeria, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia with the section’s Co-production Lab pairing selected directors with other filmmakers and networking opportunities to bolster their films.
An award of $52,500 (50,000 Chf) is financed by the Open Doors initiative in collaboration with the town of Bellinzona and the Swiss production fund Visions Sud Est, also supported by the Dsc, while Icam (Investing in Culture & Art in the South Mediterranean), a new initiative funded by the European Union (Programme Med Culture), will offer, for the first time, a contribution of $21,900 (€20,000) for development or post-production.
The Cnc (Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée) will offer a prize worth $10,900 (€10,000) and Arte will finance a prize of $6,600 (€6,000).
The 12 films chosen...
Arab-focused promotion agency Mad Solutions will this year provide distribution and promotional support to one film of its choice in Locarno’s Open Doors section.
The strand will highlight directors from Algeria, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia with the section’s Co-production Lab pairing selected directors with other filmmakers and networking opportunities to bolster their films.
An award of $52,500 (50,000 Chf) is financed by the Open Doors initiative in collaboration with the town of Bellinzona and the Swiss production fund Visions Sud Est, also supported by the Dsc, while Icam (Investing in Culture & Art in the South Mediterranean), a new initiative funded by the European Union (Programme Med Culture), will offer, for the first time, a contribution of $21,900 (€20,000) for development or post-production.
The Cnc (Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée) will offer a prize worth $10,900 (€10,000) and Arte will finance a prize of $6,600 (€6,000).
The 12 films chosen...
- 7/15/2015
- by mantus@masonlive.gmu.edu (Madison Antus)
- ScreenDaily
Filmmakers from Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria and Libya have been selected for Open Doors, the annual showcase of cinema from countries with vulnerable independent film communities. The lab runs for the 13th year as part of the Locarno Film Festival. The program runs from August 8-11, during which workshops relating to current issues in independent film production and distribution will be organized for participants. The section also offers the Festival’s audience an opportunity to see a selection of films representative of the cinemas of the countries involved. After the four days of Open Doors, a series of cash prizes will be disbursed. Read More: Why the Locarno Film Festival Is Unlike Any Other Moviegoing Experience The 12 projects selected are: "Aller simple," directed by Nadia Raïs (Tunisia) "Dieu reconnaîtra les siens," directed by Hassan Legzouli (Morocco) "En attendant les hirondelles," directed by Karim Moussaoui...
- 5/6/2015
- by David Canfield
- Indiewire
Locarno Film Festival’s co-production lab, Open Doors, is dedicated this year to four countries from the Maghreb: Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia.
A total of 12 projects will be brought to Locarno by their directors and producers to present them to potential partners.
For the 13th edition,which runs August 8-11, the 12 selected projects are:
Aller simple by Nadia Raïs (Tunisia)Dieu reconnaîtra les siens by Hassan Legzouli (Morocco)En attendant les hirondelles by Karim Moussaoui (Algeria)Inhebek Hedi by Mohamed Ben Attia (Tunisia)L’Amour des hommes by Mehdi Ben Attia (Tunisia/France)Le Fort des fous by Narimane Mari (Algeria)Le Sacrifié by Amin Sidi-Boumédiène (Algeria)Pagan Magic by Fyzal Boulifa (Morocco/France)Retina by Nejib Belkadhi (Tunisia)Ruqya by Yanis Koussim (Algeria/France)Saint inconnu by Alaa Eddine Aljem (Morocco)The Colonel’s Stray Dogs by Khalid Shamis (Libya/South Africa)
Awards at the end of the four days include a prize worth $55,000 (50,000 Chf...
A total of 12 projects will be brought to Locarno by their directors and producers to present them to potential partners.
For the 13th edition,which runs August 8-11, the 12 selected projects are:
Aller simple by Nadia Raïs (Tunisia)Dieu reconnaîtra les siens by Hassan Legzouli (Morocco)En attendant les hirondelles by Karim Moussaoui (Algeria)Inhebek Hedi by Mohamed Ben Attia (Tunisia)L’Amour des hommes by Mehdi Ben Attia (Tunisia/France)Le Fort des fous by Narimane Mari (Algeria)Le Sacrifié by Amin Sidi-Boumédiène (Algeria)Pagan Magic by Fyzal Boulifa (Morocco/France)Retina by Nejib Belkadhi (Tunisia)Ruqya by Yanis Koussim (Algeria/France)Saint inconnu by Alaa Eddine Aljem (Morocco)The Colonel’s Stray Dogs by Khalid Shamis (Libya/South Africa)
Awards at the end of the four days include a prize worth $55,000 (50,000 Chf...
- 5/6/2015
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
Prizes to Bulgaria, China and Canada as Clermont Ferrand International Short Film Festival draws to a close.Scroll down for full list of winners
This year’s Clermont Ferrand International Short Film Festival has wrapped with an outlook that juxtaposes the gloomy with the optimistic.
During the closing night ceremony of the world’s biggest shorts festival, Jean-Claude Saurel - the president of organiser Sauve qui peut le Court Métrage - took the opportunity to lament the continuing cuts in budgets for French culture and cultural organisations and urged people to help protest against the current policies of the French administration.
However, with audiences for the festival at approximately 160,000 (up more than 5,000 from the previous year), there was still a sense of cautious celebration for the state of short film in France and beyond.
The festival’s International Grand Prix went to Bulgarian/German co-production Pride, Pavel Vesnakov’s powerfully acted story about a retired grandfather who finds...
This year’s Clermont Ferrand International Short Film Festival has wrapped with an outlook that juxtaposes the gloomy with the optimistic.
During the closing night ceremony of the world’s biggest shorts festival, Jean-Claude Saurel - the president of organiser Sauve qui peut le Court Métrage - took the opportunity to lament the continuing cuts in budgets for French culture and cultural organisations and urged people to help protest against the current policies of the French administration.
However, with audiences for the festival at approximately 160,000 (up more than 5,000 from the previous year), there was still a sense of cautious celebration for the state of short film in France and beyond.
The festival’s International Grand Prix went to Bulgarian/German co-production Pride, Pavel Vesnakov’s powerfully acted story about a retired grandfather who finds...
- 2/12/2014
- ScreenDaily
Young female filmmakers took home the lions share of awards in Emirates and International Shorts competitions of the Abu Dhabi Film Festival.Scroll down for full list of winners
The next generation of Emirati filmmakers will made up in large part by women, guaging by the winners of the Emirates Film Competition (Efc) at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival.
The ceremony to announce the ‘Black Pearl Awards’, held at the Emirates Palace, saw all six student prizes won by women including Noura Al Zarouni for her narrative short I Don’t Understand and Reem Al Meqbali for her short documentary Oops!.
Hosting the event, presenter Said Al mamari said: “Congratulations to the female winners. And they say it’s a macho society!”
Now in its 12th year, this year’s selection comprised 49 short films from across the Gulf region, including 36 from the UAE.
The Efc jury was led by Ahmed Rachedi (Algeria) and comprised Oday Rasheed (Iraq...
The next generation of Emirati filmmakers will made up in large part by women, guaging by the winners of the Emirates Film Competition (Efc) at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival.
The ceremony to announce the ‘Black Pearl Awards’, held at the Emirates Palace, saw all six student prizes won by women including Noura Al Zarouni for her narrative short I Don’t Understand and Reem Al Meqbali for her short documentary Oops!.
Hosting the event, presenter Said Al mamari said: “Congratulations to the female winners. And they say it’s a macho society!”
Now in its 12th year, this year’s selection comprised 49 short films from across the Gulf region, including 36 from the UAE.
The Efc jury was led by Ahmed Rachedi (Algeria) and comprised Oday Rasheed (Iraq...
- 10/30/2013
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
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