Great film festivals connect us to worlds, immersing us in cultures, perspectives, thoughts and ways of life. The Silicon Valley connects the world through technology, opening information and communication between friends and strangers. March 4 - 16, 2014, Cinequest Film Festival will connect Silicon Valley audiences and innovators with youth, media and global artists through a spectacular array of 300+ events, premieres and forums designed to foster innovation, creativity and ultimately empowerment.

What's New

• Maverick Innovator Awards: Cinequest Film Festival 2014 continues the powerful integration of creativity and innovation, honoring major innovators who have advanced our abilities to communicate and connect through media. Martin "Marty" Cooper, "Father of the cell phone," and actor, filmmaker and technologist Matthew Modine receive the inaugural awards.
• Media Legacy Award: It's time to turn the spotlight on those who have had a powerful impact on the lives of artists. The award recognizes the pivotal role journalists play in connecting audiences to films, providing life blood to filmmakers and their work. Inaugural recipients include Eric Kohn of Indiewire (March 4, 7 p.m.), Harry Knowles, founder of Ain't It Cool News (March 6, 7:15 p.m.) and Kenneth Turan of The Los Angeles Times (March 8, 3 p.m.).
• Picture The Possibilities: Global youth present movies and their vision for a better tomorrow to leaders and audiences. See the impact here and review the PTP press release for more details.

Highlights

• Maverick Award Events: Recipients include famed author and screenwriter Neil Gaiman, Christopher Meloni, Matthew Modine, and the "Father of the cell phone" Marty Cooper. Honoring those who create from a place of bold and personal vision, Cinequest will bring their work and thoughts to the stage. Past guest recipients include Harrison Ford, J.J. Abrams, Kevin Spacey, William H. Macy, Gus Van Sant, Spike Lee, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Sir Ian McKellen, Edward James Olmos, Alec Baldwin and Sir Ben Kingsley.
• Opening Night Screening and Celebration March 4, 7p.m., California Theatre: Cinequest opens in grand fashion with the uproarious comedy, The Grand Seduction, from director Don McKellar (Last Night) and screenwriter Michael Dowse (Goon), starring a brilliant cast that includes Brendan Gleeson ("Mad-Eye" Moody from the Harry Potter films), Taylor Kitsch (Friday Night Lights), and Liane Balaban (Supernatural). Award presentations to Martin Cooper (Maverick Innovator) and Eric Kohn (Media Legacy) precede the screening. Celebrating the theme of "Connect," the party continues into the morning at The Glass House.
• Closing Night Screening and Celebration March 16, 6 p.m., California Theatre: Cinequest 2014 culminates with dynamic energy, excitement and celebration. Join writer/director Joel Surnow (24, The Kennedys) and star Christopher Meloni (Law & Order: SVU, True Blood) for a spectacular World Premiere screening of Small Time, also starring Dean Norris (Breaking Bad, Under the Dome), Devon Bostick (Diary of a Wimpy Kid), Bridget Moynahan (Blue Bloods), Kevin Nealon (Weeds, SNL), Garcelle Beauvais (Flight), Xander Berkeley (Taken) and Amaury Nolasco (Transformers ). A fun and celebratory party concludes the night at adjacent venues The Farmers Union and La Piñata.
• Premieres, Countries and Star Performances: 84 World, North American and U.S. Premieres from 43 countries include performances by:
  • Alfred Molina (Spider-Man 2), Paul Adelstein (Scandal), Connie Nielsen (Nymphomaniac), Kathy Baker (Saving Mr. Banks) and Minnie Driver (Ella Enchanted) in Return to Zero
  • Patrick Stewart (Star Trek: The Next Generation) in Hunting Elephants
  • Jude Law (The Holiday, Cold Mountain), Richard E. Grant (Dracula) and Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones) in Dom Hemingway
  • Elijah Wood (The Lord of the Rings Trilogy), John Cusack (Being John Malkovich) and Kerry Bishé (Argo) in Grand Piano
  • Sean Penn (Milk) in The Human Experiment
  • Bryan Greenberg (Friends with Benefits), Linda Lavin (Alice), Harris Yulin (Training Day), Emmanuelle Chriqui (Entourage) and Kathleen Rose Perkins (Episodes, Enough Said) in A Short History of Decay
  • David Arquette (Scream) and Gillian Anderson (The X-Files) in Sold
  • Gabriel Byrne (The Usual Suspects) and Emmanuelle Devos (Coco Before Chanel) in Just a Sigh
  • Clive Owen (Children of Men) and Juliette Binoche (The English Patient) in Words and Pictures
  • Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange) and Frank Miller (Sin City, 300) in Masterpiece: Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns
  • Jena Malone (The Hunger Games) and Ben Whishaw (Skyfall) in Teenage
  • Ben Kingsley (Ghandi), Kodi Smit-McPhee (Romeo and Juliet), James Le Gros (Justified) and Katie Chang (The Bling Ring) in A Birder's Guide to Everything
  • Helen Shaver (The Color of Money) and Gabrielle Miller (Sisters & Brothers) in Down River
  • Guy Pearce (Memento), Felicity Jones (Like Crazy) and Amy Ryan (Gone Baby Gone) in Breathe In
  • Hugo Weaving (The Matrix), Aaron Pedersen (City Homicide) and Ryan Kwanten (True Blood) in Mystery Road
  • Ken Wantanabe (Last Samurai, Letters from Iwo Jima) in Unforgiven
  • Mark Famiglietti (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines) and Beck Bennett (SNL) in Acting Like Adults
  • Gary Busey (Lethal Weapon), C. Thomas Howell (Spiderman) and Andrew Lawrence (Bones) in Confessions of a Womanizer
  • Ryan Hansen (Veronica Mars) in Friended to Death
  • Eric Roberts (The Dark Night, The Expendables) in Eternity: The Movie
  • Ashlynn Yennie (The Human Centipede) in The Divorce Party
  • Zelda Williams, daughter of Robin Williams, and Zachary Booth (Damages) in Never
  • Adelaide Kane (CW's hit show Reign) in Blood Punch
• Writers Celebration March 9, 9:30 a.m. - 3:00 p.m., San Jose Repertory Theater: Neil Gaiman conversation (Maverick Spirit Award) and documentary on Frank Miller's career inspire the writer in all of us.
• Cinequest Grown Parties: Fostering its theme of "Connect", Cinequest produces all of its celebrations and parties internally and with community partners. Daily Soirees from 5 p.m. - 7 p.m., nightly Meetups from 9:30 p.m. onward and the four-block proximity of Cinequest's state-of-the-art venues facilitate the spectacular connection of visiting artists, innovators, executives and film lovers.
   

CINEQUEST AT A GLANCE

Ticket, event and schedule information:

• Complete lineup and schedule at www.cinequest.org.
• Tickets and passes may be purchased by phone (408) 295-FEST (3378) or online.
• Sophisticated Tablet, Droid, and iPhone applications at www.cinequest.org/mobile-home or simply by logging onto www.cinequest.org via your mobile device.
• Press releases and media information available at www.cinequest.org/news-media

CQFF Partners: Applied Materials (NYSE: AMAT), City of San Jose, Barco, Kaiser Permanente, Knight Foundation, Harmonic (NYSE: HLIT), Synaptics (NYSE: SYNA), Comcast-Xfinity (NYSE: CMCSK), NBC Bay Area, KGO 810, KFOG 97.7, Cisco (NYSE: CSCO), Dolby (NYSE: DLB), Stella Artois (NYSE: BUD), Tito's Handmade Vodka, iON, Adobe (NYSE: ADBE), eBay Foundation (NYSE: EBAY), Macy's (NYSE: M), Seagate (NYSE: STX), United Airlines (NYSE: UAL), PepsiCo, Inc. (NYSE: PEP), VTA, Liquid Agency and Agile. 

VIDEOHOLICA 2014
INTERNATIONAL VIDEO ART FESTIVAL
7TH EDITION
7
OPEN CALL FOR VIDEO ART
1 - 7 AUGUST 2014, VARNA, BULGARIA

VIDEOHOLICA International Video Art Festival in Varna, Bulgaria starts the new open call for video art submissions for its 7th edition.

The 7th VIDEOHOLICA will take place between 1st and 7th August 2014 in Varna, Bulgaria.

This year's edition of VIDEOHOLICA will be accompanied by an international panel discussion on the issues and opportunities for alternative video art distribution and creating on-site archive of video art in Bulgaria.

The theme of VIDEOHOLICA 2014 is 7.
_

7 appears to be a hyper functional number featuring multiple typical symbolic and meaningful encumbrances. According to many, 7 is a sacred or primal number, a symbol of beginning and creation. Others define 7 as the golden mean between the first number 1 and the odd 13. According to some, 7 symbolizes the end or death, because it closes a series of various human phenomena in a cycle of 7, after which nothing happens. There are concepts, according to which 7 symbolizes harmony, connectivity and integrity bringing together 3 as a symbol of the intangible and ideological and 4 - as that of intangible. If in this irrational syncretism the disposition of 7 is also a base (beginning), medium, end, and all taken together, then the math is definitely funny and a hypothetical artistic study - very curious.
 
In its 7th year, VIDEOHOLICA recognizes 7 as its own existential performativity, but not to highlight its existing complex symbolism but to provoke new multidirectional thinking, associations and interpretations beyond the real potentiality of 7. What does 7 count for/ depict? What is more and what is less than 7? Is 7 enough? Where is the place of 7 in today's multitudinous/ multifunctional world? With these and other questions we are searching for poetic, abstract, ironic, conditional, metaphoric and literal comments on the moving image, committed to decompose the audio-visual and conceptual matrix of the figure 7.
_

VIDEOHOLICA 2014 will be again composed of the sections: video art, short films and animation.

VIDEOHOLICA 2014 will award the following prizes:
First Prize - GOLDEN VIDEOHOLIC - EUR 1000
Second Prize - SILVER VIDEOHOLIC
Third Prize - BRONZE VIDEOHOLIC
Award for young Bulgarian author - BG VIDEOHOLIC

The 6th VIDEOHOLICA has a submission fee of EUR 15.

VIDEOHOLICA 2014 will accept both regular mail applications and online applications.

VIDEOHOLICA 2014 OPEN CALL will run until 1st June 2014 and all applications are very welcome.
 
Videoholica 2014 Terms and Conditions & Application Form: http://www.videoholica.org/

Join us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/videoholica.festival

The Dramatic Stories, Personal Sacrifices Behind the Headlines

18-28 March 2014

The 18th edition of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in London will be presented from 18 to 28 March, 2014 with a programme of 20 award-winning documentary and feature films. The festival will take place at the Curzon Mayfair, Curzon Soho, Ritzy Brixton and for the first time at the Barbican.

This year’s programme includes ten UK premieres and three exclusive previews organised around five themes: Armed Conflict and the Arab Spring; Human Rights Defenders, Icons and Villains; Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Rights; Migrants’ Rights and Women’s Rights and Children’s Rights.

“This year’s programme demonstrates the risks filmmakers take to capture the stories behind the headlines, and our centrepiece film, the E-Team, reveals the tenacity and heroic efforts of human rights activists to bring war crimes to the world’s attention,” said John Biaggi, Human Rights Watch festival director. “We look forward as ever to welcoming many filmmakers and film subjects to festival screenings, which will give audiences insight and understanding into some of the most complex situations in the world today”.

On 18 March at the Curzon Mayfair, a fundraising benefit film and reception for Human Rights Watch will feature a screening of Jehane Noujaim’s Academy Award® nominated The Square followed by discussion with special guests moderated by David Mepham, UK director at Human Rights Watch. 

 

The Opening Night event on 20 March at the Curzon Soho will be the UK premiere of Dangerous Acts Starring the Unstable Elements of Belarus attended by the director Madeleine Sackler, the director. The Belarus Free Theatre is an acclaimed troupe that defies Europe’s last remaining dictatorship. With smuggled footage and uncensored interviews, Sackler’s film conveys not only the group’s great emotional, financial, and artistic risks but also their risk of censorship, imprisonment, and exile. 

The festival will close on 28 March at the Ritzy with the UK premiere of Return to Homs, winner of the World Cinema Jury Prize, Documentary, Sundance Film Festival 2014. Tamara Alrifai, Middle East/North Africa advocacy and communications director at Human Rights Watch, will discuss the film with a special guest.

Between August 2011 and August 2013 Derki filmed a group of young revolutionaries in the western Syrian city of Homs who fight for justice through peaceful demonstrations. As the army acts ever more brutally and their city transforms into a ghost town, the young men begin to take up arms. The close-up camerawork takes the viewer right into the city, and scenes of grim battles in a deserted city soon replace those of lively protest parties in the streets.

This year’s programme features a centrepiece event: a special preview of Ross Kauffman and Katy Chevigny’s E-Team, winner of the Excellence in Cinematography Award, Documentary, Sundance Film Festival 2014. When atrocities are committed in countries held hostage by ruthless dictators, Human Rights Watch sends in the E-Team (Emergencies Team), a collection of fiercely intelligent individuals who document war crimes and report them to the world.

Kauffman and Chevigny take viewers to the front lines in Syria and Libya, where shrapnel, bullet holes, and unmarked graves provide mounting evidence of atrocities by government forces. The crimes are rampant, random, and often unreported—making the E-Team’s effort to get information out of the country and into the hands of media outlets, policymakers, and international tribunals even more necessary.  Ross Kauffman, Katy Chevigny and the film’s subjects will attend the festival screenings.

The festival will also feature Abounaddara Collective Shorts From Syria followed by a panel discussion.  Abounaddara is a collective of filmmakers working towards providing an alternative image of Syrian society. Since April 2011, the collective has produced one short film every week, using a very particular cinematographic language – a sort of ‘emergency cinema’. Working in a state of emergency, the collective’s members are subject to certain constraints: difficult access to film sites, the need to protect the safety of those filmed, even the state of the internet connection. The event will include screenings of five Abounaddara Collective shorts and a discussion about ‘emergency cinema’ in the context of Syria and other countries in the region.

Panelists include:  Tamara Alrifai of Human Rights Watch; Rachel Beth Anderson, filmmaker of First to Fall;  and Charif Kiwan, spokesperson for the Abounaddara Collective

Other titles within Armed Conflict and the Arab Spring include Rachel Beth Anderson & Tim Grucza’s First to Fall, a story of friendship, sacrifice, and the madness of war. Hamid and Tarek leave their lives as students in Canada and travel to Libya, their homeland, to join the fight to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi although neither of them has ever picked up a weapon. A second-hand video camera becomes Hamid’s ticket to the front, where he documents battles to liberate the city of Misrata. He eventually earns a gun and becomes a fully-fledged soldier with an AK-47 in one hand and his video camera in the other. Meanwhile Tarek joins a training camp and eventually a katiba  — a freedom fighter battalion — in Misrata. In a battle to liberate Zawya, his hometown, Tarek’s life will change forever.  Rachel Beth Anderson & Tim Grucaz will attend festival screenings. 

 

Sara Ishaq, filmmaker of The Mulberry House, (UK premiere) is Yemeni-Scottish. In 2011, after 10 years away, she travels back to Yemen and takes her camera along. She hopes to feel at home in the place that was once so close to her heart, but the complications soon become clear. Outside the gates of her family home, people are protesting President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s authoritarian rule, and Ishaq and her family quickly become caught up in the movement. Ishaq contributes by acting as a local correspondent, sharing news with the international press. In this personal film, Ishaq captures events in her own home throughout this tumultuous period, when multiple changes are afoot. Sarah Ishaq will attend the festival screenings.

In addition to E Team, three other titles play within Human Rights Defenders, Icons and Villains: Watchers of the Sky, Nelson Mandela: The Myth and Me and Big Men.

Inspired by Samantha Power's Pulitzer Prize-winning book ‘A Problem From Hell’, Watchers of the Sky  (UK premiere) (winner of the Documentary Editing Award / US Documentary Special Jury Award for Use of Animation, Sundance Film Festival 2014), is the latest documentary by the award-winning filmmaker Edet Belzberg. In her characteristic cinéma vérité style, Belzberg interweaves the stories of five exceptional humanitarians  — Benjamin Ferencz, Raphael Lemkin, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, Samantha Power, and Emmanuel Uwurukundo — whose lives and work are linked together by the on-going crisis in Darfur. Through the stories of these contemporary characters, the film uncovers the forgotten history of the Genocide Convention and its founder Raphael Lemkin, the international lawyer who dedicated his life to preventing genocide.

In Nelson Mandela: The Myth and Me, (UK premiere) (winner of the Special Jury Award, IDFA 2013), the filmmaker Khalo Matabane uses conversations with politicians, activists, intellectuals, and artists to question the meaning of freedom, reconciliation and forgiveness—and challenges Mandela's legacy in today's world of conflict and inequality. The film juxtaposes Matabane’s inner quest for coherence with the opinions both of people who knew Mandela and of those whose political perspectives were shaped by him. Matabane weighs equally the words of his subjects, leading viewers to question these concepts as well. Khalo Matabane will attend the festival screenings.

 

A cautionary tale about the toll of American oil investment in West Africa, Big Men reveals the secretive worlds of both corporations and local communities in Nigeria and Ghana. The director, Rachel Boynton, gained unprecedented access to Africa's oil companies and has created an account of the ambition, corruption, and greed that epitomise Africa's ‘resource curse.’ The film uncovers the human impact of oil drilling and contains footage of militants operating in the Niger Delta.  Rachel Boynton will attend festival screenings.

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights:

Cameroon has more arrests for homosexuality than any other country in the world. For Born This Way (UK premiere) the filmmakers Shaun Kadlec and Deb Tullmann gained intimate access to the lives of four young gay Cameroonians, to offer a portrait of day-to-day life in modern Africa. This is a story of what is possible in the global fight for equality. Shaun Kadlec will attend festival screenings.

Can Candan’s My Child introduces a courageous group of mothers and fathers in Turkey, who are parents of LGBT individuals. They have not only gone through the process of accepting their children for who they are personally, but have taken the next step: to share their experiences with other LGBT families and the public. Seven parents intimately share their experiences as they redefine what it means to be parents and activists in a homophobic and transphobic society. Two of the film’s subjects and two producers will attend festival screenings.

Migrants Rights:

Mano Khalil’s The Beekeeper (UK premiere) relates the story of Ibrahim Gezer, a displaced Kurdish beekeeper from southeast Turkey, and his experience of integration into Switzerland. The turmoil of the decades-long conflict between the Turkish state and the armed Kurdish guerrilla movement, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), robbed Gezer of everything he had: his wife, two of his children, his country, and over 500 bee colonies—his means of making a living. He has been left only with his love for bees and his unshakeable faith in humanity. 

 

A visual essay in five parts, Evaporating Borders, looks at what it means to be displaced and examines the idea of belonging and notions of diaspora, exile, and migration. Filmed on the island of Cyprus, one of the easiest points of entry into Europe, the film explores the lives of asylum seekers and political refugees. Through the microcosm of the current situation on the island, the filmmaker Iva Radivojevic explores tolerance and immigration practices throughout Europe and the Western world—where migrating populations have become subject to a variety of human rights abuses.  Iva Radivojevic will attend the exclusive preview screenings.

Women’s Rights & Children’s Rights:

 

Scheherazade’s Diary (UK premiere) is a tragicomic documentary that follows women inmates through a 10-month drama therapy/theatre project set up in 2012 by the director Zeina Daccache, at the Baabda Prison in Lebanon. Through ‘Scheherazade in Baabda’, these ‘murderers of husbands, adulterers and drug felons’ reveal their stories—tales of domestic violence, traumatic childhoods, failed marriages, forlorn romances, and deprivation of motherhood. In sharing their stories, the women of Baabda Prison hold up a mirror to Lebanese society and all societies that repress women.  Zeina Daccache will attend the festival screenings.

 

Berit Madsen’s Sepideh – Reaching for the Stars, introduces viewers to a young Iranian woman who dares to dream of a future as an astronaut. At night, she stares up at the universe. At home, full of hope and longing, she watches recordings of the first female Iranian in space, Anousheh Ansari. When her father died suddenly six years earlier, Sepideh discovered that she could feel closer to him by watching the stars. And so her dream was born. But not everyone appreciates her boundless ambition. As we follow Sepideh, it becomes clear just how much at odds her dreams are with her current reality and the expectations of those around her.  

Jasmila Zbanic's drama For Those Who Can Tell No Tales (UK premiere) is inspired by the play ‘Seven Kilometers North-East’ written by Kym Vercoe who plays herself in the film. A summer holiday in Bosnia-Herzegovina leads Vercoe, an Australian tourist, to discover the silent legacy of wartime atrocities in a seemingly idyllic town on the border of Bosnia and Serbia. An overnight stay at the Viilina Vlas hotel in Visegrad inexplicably gives way to anxiety and sleepless nights. Back in Australia, she finds out that the hotel was used as a rape camp during the war. Questions around the region's atrocities begin to haunt her, as does the question of why the guidebook, or the town itself, made no mention of the event. The testimonies she later finds online compel her to return to Visegrad and investigate this hidden history for herself.

Richie Mehta’s drama Siddharth is set in New Delhi. Twelve-year-old Siddharth is sent away by his father, Mahendra, to work in a trolley factory to help support their family. When he fails to return for the Diwali festival, his distraught father begins a desperate search to find his missing son. The authorities believe that Siddharth may have been abducted and trafficked.  Mehta brings to life Mahendra's moving, tangled, and often futile-seeming journey with a touch that transforms it into both a commentary on modern India and a portrait of one family within that society.

An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker, from the acclaimed Bosnian director Danis Tanovic, enlists a cast of non-professionals to reconstruct a harrowing personal ordeal that became a national scandal. Struggling to make ends meet as a scrap-metal forager in the remote Roma community of Poljice, Nazif Maujic has a routine that becomes a desperate fight for survival when his partner, Senada, suffers a miscarriage. Without medical insurance or the means to pay the couple are denied admittance to the local hospital. So begins a hellish 10-day odyssey pitting the couple against social prejudice and a callous bureaucracy, exposing the institutional discrimination faced by Bosnia-Herzegovina's Roma minority.

In Hisham Zaman’s Before Snowfall (UK premiere) Siyar, the oldest son in his household, confronts the question of family honour after his older sister, Nermin, flees an arranged marriage.  The film is a look at killing in the name of honour, at the intricate web of connections that sustain the brutal tradition, and the unbelievable lengths to which some will go to see it through.

For more information on the Human Rights Watch Film Festival, please visit:
http://ff.hrw.org/london

For downloadable images and press kits, please visit:

http://ff.hrw.org/press

Follow on Twitter: @hrwfilmfestival

For further information about interviews, review copies, and press ticket requests, please contact: 
Sarah Harvey: sarah@sarahharveypublicity.co.uk
Nikki Cummins: nikki@sarahharveypublicity.co.uk
Sarah Harvey Publicity: +44-207-232-2812

Notes to Editors:.

Human Right Watch Film Festival 2014

Full Listings (tickets on sale 7 February)

Tuesday 18 March 18.45 | Curzon Mayfair | Benefit Film & Reception         

The Square

(Dir Jehane Noujaim, Egypt/US, 2013, 99min) Doc

In English and Arabic with English subtitles

2014 Academy Award® Nominee for Best Documentary Feature

Thursday 20 March 18.30 | Curzon Soho | Opening Night Film & Reception

Dangerous Acts Starring The Unstable Elements Of Belarus (UK premiere)

(Dir Madeleine Sackler, US/UK/Belarus, 2013, 76min) Doc

In English and Belarusian and Russian with English subtitles

Friday 21 March 18.30 | Ritzy | Q&A with filmmaker

Saturday 22 March 16.00 | Curzon Soho | Q&A with filmmaker

Nelson Mandela: The Myth and Me (UK Premiere)

(Dir Khalo Matabane, South Africa/Germany, 2013, 84min) Doc

In English and German and French with English subtitles

Special Jury Award, International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam 2013

Friday 21 March 18.30 | Curzon Soho | Q&A with filmmaker and film subjects

Saturday 22 March 16.00 | Barbican | Q&A with producers and film subjects

My Child

(Dir Can Candan, Turkey, 2013, 82min) Doc

In Turkish with English subtitles

Friday 21 March 21.00 | Ritzy

Saturday 22 March 18.30 | Curzon Soho

An Episode In The Life Of An Iron Picker

(Dir Danis Tanovic, Bosnia and Herzegovina/France/Slovenia, 2013, 74min) Drama

In Bosnian with English subtitles

Silver Bear, Jury Grand Prix and Silver Bear, Best Actor, Berlin Film Festival 2013

Friday 21 March 18.30 | Barbican | Q&A with filmmaker

Saturday 22 March 16.00 | Ritzy | Q&A with filmmaker

Scheherazade’s Diary (UK Premiere)

(Dir Zeina Daccache, Lebanon, 2013, 80min) Doc

In Arabic with English subtitles

Friday 21 March 21.00 | Curzon Soho

Saturday 22 March 18.30 | Barbican

Sepideh – Reaching for the Stars (Exclusive Preview)

(Dir Berit Madsen, Denmark/Iran/Germany/Norway/Sweden, 2013, 91min) Doc

In English and Farsi with English subtitles

Saturday 22 March 18.30 | Ritzy | Q&A with filmmaker

Sunday 23 March 18.00 | Curzon Soho | Q&A with filmmaker

Big Men

(Dir Rachel Boynton, US, 2013, 99min) Doc

In English and Ijaw and Twi with English subtitles

Sunday 23 March 16.00 | Barbican

Monday 24 March 18.15 | Ritzy

The Beekeeper (UK Premiere)

(Dir Mano Khalil, Switzerland, 2013, 107min) Doc

In German and Kurdish with English subtitles

Sunday 23 March 19.00 | Barbican

Monday 24 March 21.00 | Ritzy

For Those Who Can Tell No Tales (UK Premiere)

(Dir Jasmila Zbanic, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2013, 72min) Drama

In English and Bosnian with English subtitles

Sunday 23 March 16.00 | Ritzy

Monday 24 March 21.00 | Curzon Soho

Siddharth

(Dir Richie Mehta, Canada/India, 2013, 96min) Drama

In English and Hindi with English subtitles

Monday 24 March 18.15 | Curzon Soho | Q&A with filmmakers and film subjects

Tuesday 25 March 18.30 | Barbican | Q&A with filmmakers and film subjects

E-Team (Exclusive Preview)

(Dirs Katy Chevigny and Ross Kauffman, US, 2013, 88min) Doc

In English and French/German/Russian/Arabic with English subtitles

Monday 24 March 18.30 | Barbican | Q&A with filmmaker

Wednesday 26 March 18.30 | Ritzy | Q&A with filmmaker

Evaporating Borders (Exclusive Preview)

(Dir Iva Radivojevic, US/Cyprus, 2014, 73min) Doc

In English and Arabic and Greek with English subtitles

Tuesday 25 March 18.15 | Ritzy | Q&A with filmmaker

Wednesday 26 March 20.30 | Curzon Soho | Q&A with filmmaker

Born This Way (UK Premiere)

(Dirs Shaun Kadlec and Deb Tullmann, Cameroon, 2012, 84min) Doc

In English and French with English subtitles

Tuesday 25 March 20.45 | Ritzy | Q&A with filmmakers

Thursday 27 March 18.30 | Curzon Soho | Q&A with filmmakers

First To Fall

(Dirs Rachel Beth Anderson/Tim Grucaz, UK/US, 2013, 80min) Doc

In English and Arabic with English subtitles

Tuesday 25 March 18.15 | Curzon Soho

Thursday 27 March 18.30 | Barbican

Watchers of the Sky (UK Premiere)

(Dir Edet Belzberg, US, 2014, 114min) Doc

In English and Zaghawan/Spanish/French with English subtitles

Wednesday 26 March 18.30 | Curzon Soho | Panel Discussion On ‘Emergency Cinema

Abounaddara Collective Shorts from Syria

Wednesday 26 March 20.45 | Ritzy | Q&A with filmmaker

Thursday 27 March 18.30 | Ritzy | Q&A with filmmaker

The Mulberry House (UK Premiere)

(Dir Sara Ishaq, Syria/Yemen/Egypt/Scotland/United Arab Emirates, 2013, 64min) Doc

In English and Arabic with English subtitles

Wednesday 26 March 20.45 | Barbican

Thursday 27 March 20.45 | Ritzy

Before Snowfall (UK Premiere)  

(Dir Hisham Zaman, Germany/Norway, 2013, 105min) Drama

In Kurdish with English subtitles

Friday 28 March 18.30 | Ritzy Cinema | Closing Night Film & Reception

Return to Homs (UK Premiere)

(Dir Talal Derki, Syria/Germany, 2013, 87min) Doc

In Arabic with English subtitles

Armed Conflict and the Arab Spring

     Abounaddara Collective Shorts from Syria

     First to Fall

     The Mulberry House

     Return to Homs

     The Square

Human Rights Defenders, Icons, and Villains

     Big Men

     Dangerous Acts Starring the Unstable Elements of Belarus

     E-Team

     Nelson Mandela: The Myth and Me

     Watchers of the Sky

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Rights

     My Child

     Born This Way

Migrants’ Rights
     The Beekeeper

     Evaporating Borders

Women’s Rights and Children’s Rights

     An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker

     Before Snowfall

     For Those Who Can Tell No Tales

     Scheherazade’s Diary

     Sepideh

     Siddarth

THE RIVIERA MAYA FILM FESTIVAL 2014 : MARCH 9th-15th

The Riviera Maya Film Festival announced its official program of domestic and international films to be screened at this year’s annual event (March 9th-15th). In its third edition, the Festival continues its mission of promoting and distributing quality cinema for a larger audience, as well as showcasing the state of Quintana Roo as a cultural and travel destination which attracts and supports film development throughout the world. This year’s festival to includes more than 50 feature films from 23 countries.

The competitive sections of the Festival are Mexican Platform, in which the jury bestows two Kukulkan Awards endowed with 300,000 MXN each and a Kukulkan Youth Jury Award, endowed with 100,000 MXN; the RivieraLAB/Co-production Forum, where two selected projects will receive a financial incentive of 200,000 MXN each; and the RivieraLAB/Work in Progress, where two selected projects will receive a financial incentive of 200,000 MXN each. In total, the Festival grants 1,500,000 MXN in prizes.

“In our 3rd edition, we want to continue working towards the promotion and distribution of the film industry, bringing it to the largest possible audience,” stated Paula Chaurand, Director of the Festival. “Under the motto ‘Cinema Unites Us’ we would like to create a sense of appropriation that involves the residents of the Riviera Maya as well as its visitors.”

“Due to the quality level of the submissions, it was hard to narrow the number of participating projects this year,” said Maximiliano Cruz, Coordinator of the Mexican Platform. “The international committee chose projects that reflect the cinematic contrasts of various national cultures.”

“This year, 82 films from 18 countries have been submitted to the Co-production Forum and 71 films from 20 countries to the Work-in-Progress section. These competitive sections are made for film projects looking for international funding and co-production aid as well as for sale agents and distribution to begin their promotion,” said the RivieraLAB Director, Sandra Gómez.

The Riviera Maya Film Festival will take place in Cancun, Puerto Morelos, Playa del Carmen, and Tulum, from March 9th to the 15th.

Below you can find a selection of some of the films which will be shown at the 2014 Riviera Maya Film Festival:

·         A Promise (Director Patrice Leconte, Starring Rebecca Hall, Alan Rickman, Richard Madden, Toby Murray)

·         Age of Uprising: The Legend of Michael Kohlhaas (Director Arnaud des Pallières, Starring Mads Mikkelsen, Delphine Chuillot, David Kross)

·         Grand Central (Director Rebecca Zlotowski, Starring Tahar Rahim, Oliver Gourmet, Léa Seydoux)

·         Hard to Be a God (Director Aleksei German, Starring Leonid Yarmolnik, Dmitriy Vladimirov, Laura Lauri)

·         Holy Field Holy War (Director Lech Kowalski)

·         Night Moves (Director Kelly Reichardt, Starring Dakota Fanning, Jesse Eisenberg, Peter Sarsgaard, Alia Shawkat)

·         Nymphomaniac: Volume 1 & Volume 2 (Director Lars von Trier, Starring Charlotte Gainsbourg, Christian Slater, Uma Thurman, Shia LaBeouf)

·         Oldboy (Director Spike Lee, Starring Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Olsen, Samuel L. Jackson)

·         R100 (Director Hitoshi Matsumoto, Starring Mao Daichi, Lindsay Kay Hayward, Hairi Katagiri, Gin Maeda)

·         Seduced and Abandoned (Director James Toback, Starring Ryan Gosling, Martin Scorsese, Jessica Chastain, Diane Kruger)

·         The Double (Director Richard Ayoade, Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Sally Hawkins, Mia Wasikowska)

·         Til Madness Do Us Apart (Director Wang Bing)

·         Tip Top (Director Serge Bozon, Starring Isabelle Huppert, Sandrine Kiberlain, Karole Rocher)

·         Why Don´t You Play in Hell (Director Shion Sono, Starring Hiroki Hasegawa, Gen Hoshino, Akihiro Kitamura)

*Additional titles to be forthcoming.

For more information, please visit: http://rmff.mx/

About the Riviera Maya Film Festival

The Riviera Maya Film Festival was created in 2012 with the goal to meet one of the greatest needs of the film industry in Mexico and perhaps in the entire world: the distribution of quality international cinema.

By bringing this sort of films to a larger number of people we reaffirm our belief in the transforming power of cinema due to its ability to show different glances and ways of thinking. That’s why we decided the festival should be for free and that is also why we decided to revitalize the experience of watching a film by organizing screenings in all kinds of stages and contexts, such as at the beach or in public squares.

FMX 2014  April 22-25, Stuttgart, Germany

February 6, 2014. With three months to go before FMX 2014 opens its doors, the very first program glimpses are now to be had. Europe's most influential conference on digital entertainment seeks to illustrate the differences and synergies between the Animation, Effects, Games and Transmedia communities, thus transforming into an international meeting place "Where Art, Technology and Business meet." In 2014, FMX takes place under the slogan "A Realtime Experience" and emphasizes industry changes and developments that are captured in topical issues such as Realtime, Immediate Feedback, Virtual Production, Disruption as well as a multitude of other key terms. These topics are at center of the Conference program with its presentations, screenings, workshops and masterclasses and they are also discussed at the Marketplace, Recruiting Hub and the School Campus.

Program highlights abound at FMX. Outstanding presentations in the limelight feature Transmedia projects such as the award-winning game franchise The Walking Dead, the evolution of PDI/DreamWorks, game favorites such as Beyond: Two Souls and many more.

Contributions of this quality are only made possible by international expertise, says FMX Program Chair Jean-Michel Blottière:

Art, Technology and Business merge one more time at FMX. Some of the most brilliant brains of this planet bring their cutting edge vision and exhilarating perspectives to FMX - we can't wait to hear from them.

As in previous years, FMX takes place in spring - April 22 to April 25 - in the Haus der Wirtschaft, Stuttgart.

Press accreditation is possible via the press section on the FMX website.

Disruption and Open Source

The paradigm shift's inherent disruption continues to transform the industries and confronts us with more than mere challenges: it also holds great potential for technological advances. Accordingly FMX puts an emphasis on the latest trends in Open Source in 2014 and welcomes renowned, award-winning speakers such as Jeremy Selan, Software Developer and Imaging Supervisor at Sony Pictures Imageworks, to Stuttgart. Selan delivers a presentation on OpenColorIO (OCIO), for which he received an Academy Scientific and Technical Achievement Award this year, and he also addresses Katana, IBL and scene processing. Moreover, Andrew Kaufman, Research & Development Programmer at Image Engine Design Inc., demonstrates the deployment of Open Source Projects Cortex and Gaffer for the film pipeline that was used for all Image Engine projects including Zero Dark Thirty, White House Down and Elysium. In addition, Ken Museth, R&D FX Supervisor and Principal Engineer at DreamWorks Animation, discusses the Open Source C++ library OpenVDB, an Open Source sparse volume data structure and toolset. Crytek tops off this year's focus on Open Source: Lead Software Engineer Xiaomao Wu and Cinebox Product Manager Kirthy Iyer reveal insights into the company's latest Open Source projects.

VFX: Star Trek planet archives and more

Visual effects continue to evolve beyond the boundaries of blockbuster entertainment. Sandra Joy Aguilar sheds light on the importance of archiving visual effects, providing insights into her past work archiving more than 150,000 visual effects elements at ILM and explicating the method of using tape robots at CBS Digital to archive new planets from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Chuck Peil, a founding member and Head of Business Development/Strategic Partnership with Reel FX, spotlights tenacious entrepreneurship and what it takes to build an animation studio from scratch.  In his presentation, he dissects the challenges and successes he and his company encountered establishing themselves alongside the biggest players in animation. Reel FX employs over 350 team members in Dallas, Texas and Santa Monica, California. The innovative creative shop is currently in production on their next highly anticipated CG feature film, The Book of Life, with 20th Century Fox, director Jorge R. Gutierrez and producer Guillermo Del Toro (in theaters October 2014).

Animation: "The Early Days of PDI"

In order to grasp the evolution of animation, FMX looks at the origins of one of the longest-lasting computer animation studios, namely PDI/DreamWorks. It brings together the founders of PDI (Pacific Data Images), Carl Rosendahl, Associate Professor at the Entertainment Technology Center at the Carnegie Mellon University, and Richard Chuang, CEO at Cloudpic Global, for a dedicated panel discussion called "The Early Days of PDI." PDI, which was merged with the feature animation division of DreamWorks, is the computer animation production company behind notable PDI/DreamWorks movies, including the Shrek and Madagascar franchises.

Games: Beyond: Two Souls and Killzone: Shadow Fall

FMX acknowledges the fact that game technologies and workflows often set new standards across the industries. Dominic Cianciolo, Cinematic Director at NetherRealm Studios, curates a track on Game Cinematics - a field where this trend is especially apparent. Animation Director Kenneth McDonald and Animation Supervisor Teppei Takehana from Quantic Dream aptly illuminate the successful interactive drama action-adventure video game Beyond: Two Souls for PlayStation 3 that stars Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe. Beyond: Two Souls, which blurs the lines between films and games, was even chosen to be showcased at the Tribeca Film Festival. Moreover, FMX features a Realtime Rendering track curated by Confetti's CEO Wolfgang Engel. Dan Calvert and Alex Zapata, Art Directors at Guerrilla Games, introduce their upcoming Next Gen AAA Asset Production Killzone: Shadow Fall that is one of only a handful of titles released exclusively for next gen consoles. In addition, Wolfgang Engel presents a talk called  "Realtime Global Illumination in Games - Overview on the different Techniques that are used in Games today."

Transmedia: From The Walking Dead to beActive's Collider

The Conference program features popular Transmedia formats in a series of talks on Serial Storytelling curated by Alexander Herrmann (Filmakademie). Cinematic Artist and Director Dennis Lenart explains how his company Telltale Games has risen to become the leader of episodic content in the video game industry and provides insights into the struggles and successes of the company's flagship franchise, The Walking Dead,which won over 80 Game of the Year awards in 2012. Moreover, Portugal makes its mark as a location for Serial Storytelling: Nuno Bernardo, CEO and founder of beActive, talks about his Sci-Fi realtime project Collider that includes a live action web series, a feature film, a CG series and a computer game where the same virtual assets are used and integrated. The CG series is produced in realtime with a machinima approach that makes production both fast and cost-effective.

FMX, ITFS and APD

ITFS, one of the world's biggest film festivals, takes place parallel to FMX, from April 22-27. For the 21st time, the popular festival invites directors, production companies and distributors to Stuttgart to present their animated features. ITFS offers all visitors including FMX attendees the opportunity to enjoy the latest and greatest animated features and film competitions. ITFS topics include Abstract Experimental Animation, Animation in World War I and the 3D movie Tarzan by Constantin Film, the biggest motion capture project in Europe. The ITFS 2014's guest country Israel presents current Israeli animation films and schools. Furthermore, ITFS and FMX 2014 host the Animation Production Day (APD), a business platform for the animation industry, on April 24 and 25. Once again, Stuttgart proves itself a central meeting point for professionals, companies, artists and attendees from all over the world and underlines Baden-Wuerttemberg's significance for the national and international film industry.

Opening Night at PAFF Was A Hit

(l-r) PAFF Executive Director Ayuko Babu, PAFF Life Time Achievement Award recipient Charles Dutton & Opening Night film director Jamil XT Qubeka

(left) Rocky Carroll, 2012 Lifetime Achievement award recipient Loretta Devine &

 Charles Dutton

(right) CCH Ponder, Vanessa Bell Calloway, Charles Dutton & PAFF Co-Founder Ja'Net DuBois

(left)  PAFF Life Time Achievement Award recipient Charles Dutton holding his award

(right) Loretta Devne, CCH Pounder, Jenifer Lewis & Vanessa Bell Calloway

(l-r) Vanessa Williams, PAFF Celebrity Juror Erica Gimpel, PAFF Life Time Achievement Award recipient Charles Dutton, Kristoff St. John,  Jamil XT Qubeka, CCH Pounder, Nicki Micheaux & "Of Good Report" Co-Star Petronella Tshuma 

17th New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival, March 13-20, 2014

Presented by the American Sephardi Federation the 17th New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival is now the only annual festival of its kind. A banquet for filmgoers, this year’s festival will feature world renowned singer Enrico Macias on opening night and productions from France, Israel, Greece, Austria, and Spain.  Rarely seen in the United States, the 16 films will share unforgettable stories of Bukhari, Iraqi, Iranian, Moroccan, Algerian, Greek and Spanish Jews, along with a timely spotlight on the bifurcated lives of Jews displaced from their ruptured Arab homelands.

The festival will launch with an unprecedented appearance by legendary Sephardi entertainer Enrico Macias.  The subject of the dazzling opening-night film “Enrico Macias:  A Life in Music”, Macias will receive the American Sephardi Federation Pomegranate Lifetime Achievement Award at a gala benefit reception. 

“Dual identities, longing, and loss have defined the Sephardi experience, especially with turmoil in many of their homelands in recent years.  This year’s films reflect the complexity of their experience with humor, warmth, and intelligence,” said Lynne Winters, director of the American Sephardi Federation, presenter of the festival.

“It’s also exciting for us to shine a spotlight on some key figures in Sephardi history through this year’s program, including human-rights activist Dr. Vicki Shiran and a larger-than-life entertainer like Enrico Macias, who’ll receive the Pomegranate Award for Lifetime Achievement.” Winters said.

A full schedule for the 17th New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival is available at www.sephardicfilmfest.org

Among the highlights:

-Enrico Macias: A Life in Song

A fascinating look at one of France’s most beloved entertainers.  Over the past 50 years, the Algerian-Jewish pied-noir musician has become the spokesman for the North African and Middle Eastern Jews who fled their homelands in the 1950’s and 1960’s.  Dir.:  Antoine Casubolo Ferro.  France, 2012.  52 mins. French w/English subtitles.  (Thurs. Mar. 13, 6:30pm)

-Stolen Documents? Franco and the Holocaust (Documentos robados? Franco y el Holocausto):              US premiere of a revelatory documentary about Franco and the Jews during the Holocaust – including testimonials from Sephardic Jews in Spain today.  Dir.:  Yolanda Villaluenga.  Spain, 2012.  53 mins.  Spanish w/English subtitles.  (Weds. Mar. 19, 6:30pm)

-The Longest Journey: The Last Days of the Jewish Community of Rhodes

The 2,000-year-old Jewish community of Rhodes was almost destroyed when residents were transported to Auschwitz in 1944.  This gripping film weaves testimonies of three survivors.  Dir.:  Ruggero Gabbai. Italy, 2012.  52 mins. Italian w/English subtitles. (Mon. Mar. 17, 6:30p).

Post-screening discussion with Stella Levi and Alessandro Cassin, Centro Primo Levi. 

We Fund Writers and Filmmakers!

Writers judge filmmakers, filmmakers judge writers!

Winning writer gets their script made by the winning filmmaker!

The writer gets their script made and they get paid. The filmmaker gets funded to shoot it!

Very limited entries and everyone gets lots of coverage of their work!

The winning filmmaker wins $50,000 (Feature) or $25,000 (Short) to shoot one of the top 10 scripts. Winning writer receives $20,000 (Feature) or $10,000 (Short) for their script!

February 10, 2014

The festival photographers 2014 are: Ali Ghandtschi, Richard Hübner, Andreas Teich, Alexander Janetzko and Sandra Weller for the Competition films, the special events and receptions and theBerlinale Special events, Dirk-Michael Deckbar in the Berlinale VIP Club, the BMW Golden Bear Lounge and the Partner Lounge, Peter Kreibich for “Berlinale Goes Kiez”, Brigitte Dummer and Gundula Krüger in the Panorama, Daniel Seiffert in the Perspektive Deutsches Kino, Max Kullmann forGeneration, Peter Himsel, Lydia Hesse, David Ausserhofer, Bettina Ausserhofer and Chiara Ferrau forBerlinale Talents, Dario Lehner in the Forum, Kay Strasser in the Forum Expanded, Sandra Weller for the Retrospective and the Homage, Juliane Eirich in the Berlinale Co-Production Market, Oliver Möst for the European Film Market, Jan Windszus for the sponsorship department, Heinrich Völkel for theBerlinale Shorts, Piero Chiussi for the Culinary Cinema as well as Trevor Good for the special series “NATIVe – A Journey into Indigenous Cinema.”

About a month after the festival, selected photos will be stored in the online archive, where they will keep alive the memory of the most exciting moments, the stars and personalities that marked the year's Berlinale.

1999 in Mexico City: „Fede”, his roommate Santos and Fede´s younger brother Tomás hanging out in a spartan housing block apartment somewhere in the big city. They have nothing to do, because the university is currently on strike, the power is turned off and the fridge almost empty. And Fede, also called „Sombra” (shade), is afraid of going to be crazy – because of the Tiger, who is haunting in his head.

What fairly desolate starts, becomes in „Güeros” by Alonso Ruizpalacios an emphatic urban road-trip, which deals with the young characters lovingly. Tomás was sent by his mother to his elder brother in the capital, because she couldn´t stand him anymore. In his luggage he has not much more than the only legacy of the father: a tape with music by Epigmenio Cruz. He should be a forgotten Mexican rock legend , who even have Bob Dylan made cry once. When the three broken youngster read in the newspaper that Epigmenio is seriously ill, they hit the road in search for their hero to pay their last respects to him.

In five chapters, they roam more or less disoriented around the Megalopolis of Mexico City. Consistently shot in black and white in the old-fashioned 4:3 format, the film sometimes looks like that one is on a psychedelic Mexican peyote trip. Once in her rusty car, the three melancholy outsiders take a wrong turn, which puts them in mortal danger. They steal carrots in a neighborhood garden and on the grounds of the UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) they get into fierce political debates about how to continue with the strike. „Being young and not be a revolutionary is a contradiction”, says one poster. The scenes of the student protests bring back memories of own strike experiences at the university – and how it once was, to drift around and live in the moment.

Even the act of film making is occasionally ironized in „Güeros”. Cameras and crew members are getting visible, the actors discuss their dialogue and make jokes about themselves. At a snobby movie party with Fede´s great love, the student leader Anna, they swear around and jump with clothes in the swimming pool. In the end, they are losing each other at a large student demonstration.

Director Alonso Ruizpalacios succeeds in „Güeros” to show his young and fragil protagonists in a peculiar beauty. It is a humorous coming-of-age story, which brings aesthetically the Nouvelle Vague in mind. Afterwards Ruizpalacios tells, that he was not sure, whether the film with all its local allusions would work outside of Mexico. But it certainly does, and the audience in Berlin thanks with warm applause. Quite aware, says Ruizpalacios, he didn´t want to shoot any of these films made for foreign festivals, which show only the misery of his homeland and which he calls „Mexploitation” films. That he himself now stands on a festival stage, about this Ruizpalacios must laugh, too.

„Güeros” is another example of the special language used by the younger Mexican cinema that mixes local influences to global, and since „Amores Perros” is internationally respected. Following the world premiere in Berlinale´s Panorama section, „Güeros” enters the festival circuit until it should start at the end of the year in Mexico. Hopefully, the film finds also an international distributor and comes into the independent cinemas worldwide.

1999 in Mexico City: „Fede”, his roommate Santos and Fede´s younger brother Tomás hanging out in a spartan housing block apartment somewhere in the big city. They have nothing to do, because the university is currently on strike, the power is turned off and the fridge almost empty. And Fede, also called „Sombra” (shade), is afraid of going to be crazy – because of the Tiger, who is haunting in his head.

What fairly desolate starts, becomes in „Güeros” by Alonso Ruizpalacios an emphatic urban road-trip, which deals with the young characters lovingly. Tomás was sent by his mother to his elder brother in the capital, because she couldn´t stand him anymore. In his luggage he has not much more than the only legacy of the father: a tape with music by Epigmenio Cruz. He should be a forgotten Mexican rock legend , who even have Bob Dylan made cry once. When the three broken youngster read in the newspaper that Epigmenio is seriously ill, they hit the road in search for their hero to pay their last respects to him.

In five chapters, they roam more or less disoriented around the Megalopolis of Mexico City. Consistently shot in black and white in the old-fashioned 4:3 format, the film sometimes looks like that one is on a psychedelic Mexican peyote trip. Once in her rusty car, the three melancholy outsiders take a wrong turn, which puts them in mortal danger. They steal carrots in a neighborhood garden and on the grounds of the UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) they get into fierce political debates about how to continue with the strike. „Being young and not be a revolutionary is a contradiction”, says one poster. The scenes of the student protests bring back memories of own strike experiences at the university – and how it once was, to drift around and live in the moment.

Even the act of film making is occasionally ironized in „Güeros”. Cameras and crew members are getting visible, the actors discuss their dialogue and make jokes about themselves. At a snobby movie party with Fede´s great love, the student leader Anna, they swear around and jump with clothes in the swimming pool. In the end, they are losing each other at a large student demonstration.

Director Alonso Ruizpalacios succeeds in „Güeros” to show his young and fragil protagonists in a peculiar beauty. It is a humorous coming-of-age story, which brings aesthetically the Nouvelle Vague in mind. Afterwards Ruizpalacios tells, that he was not sure, whether the film with all its local allusions would work outside of Mexico. But it certainly does, and the audience in Berlin thanks with warm applause. Quite aware, says Ruizpalacios, he didn´t want to shoot any of these films made for foreign festivals, which show only the misery of his homeland and which he calls „Mexploitation” films. That he himself now stands on a festival stage, about this Ruizpalacios must laugh, too.

„Güeros” is another example of the special language used by the younger Mexican cinema that mixes local influences to global, and since „Amores Perros” is internationally respected. Following the world premiere in Berlinale´s Panorama section, „Güeros” enters the festival circuit until it should start at the end of the year in Mexico. Hopefully, the film finds also an international distributor and comes into the independent cinemas worldwide.

Image from Chimeras courtesy Mika Mattila and Navy Blue Bird Inc.

Don't miss the chance to see World, North American and Canadian film premieres and to meet curator Germano Celant, artists Kehinde Wiley, Michael Landy and Richard Deacon, and other famed art world figures who will be speaking after the screenings. Read David Balzer's interview with Richard Deacon, and visit canadianart.ca/raff for tickets and program.

Buy tickets now

Opening Night Screening & Celebration

Festival Programming

All screenings and panel discussions take place at
TIFF Bell Lightbox, Reitman Square, 350 King Street West.

The Reel Artists Film Festival is North America’s only festival devoted exclusively
to documentary films about visual art and artists. We showcase international feature-length
and short documentaries that address challenges and questions raised by artists.

For a full program with film descriptions, and more information on the panel discussions,
visit canadianart.ca/raff.

All screenings and panel discussions take place at
TIFF Bell Lightbox, Reitman Square, 350 King Street West.

Program subject to change.

Shia LaBeouf, being not famous anymore, George Clooney, whistling the "Monuments Men" theme, or Tilda Swinton, offering Dieter Kosslick to come an clean sometime - we put together the highights of the first days of the festival for you. Enjoy!

Guided by the theme "Ready to Play? Breaking the rules", Berlinale Talents took place for the twelfth time from February 8 to 13, with 300 selected Talents and 150 experts, at the HAU Hebbel am Ufer in Berlin.

Berlinale Talents 2014 focused on the art of storytelling and finding innovative, playful approaches to content. Prominent screenwriters and directors like Michel Gondry (The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), James Schamus (Lust and Caution), Greta Gerwig (Frances Ha), Tony Grisoni (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas), Claudia Llosa (Aloft), Răzvan Rădulescu (Child´s Pose), Diego Luna (César Chávez), Maren Ade (Everyone Else), Christian Petzold (Barbara) and Benjamin Heisenberg (Superegos) shared their experiences with the Talents. Production designer Adam Stockhausen (TheGrand Budapest Hotel), sound designer Eugene Gearty (Hugo) and actress Nina Hoss (Barbara) spoke about their close collaborations with others and the contributions they made toward creating multifaceted stories and character intensity. Even serial formats were discussed: showrunner Neil Jordan (The Borgias) and producer Martha De Laurentiis (Hannibal) emphasised the importance of challenging oneself and bringing new ideas to the table: "What you want to is to come up with a new dialogue or a new language whether it's your writing or filmmaking or editing, you want to bring something fresh. And that's why it's important to foster youth into our industry. They are the ones with a lot of out of the box ideas,” says De Laurentiis.

Berlinale Talents once again offered a top-notch range of cinematography workshops with the support of Canon. Alongside Franz Lustig (How I Live Now), Stefan Ciupek (Blue Desert) and Christopher Doyle (In the Mood for Love), Agnès Godard (Beau travail) also gave insight into her work. In a masterclass she spoke about her close collaboration with Claire Denis and Ursula Meier, and about the power of images as well as their role in the storytelling process. “There's no such thing as images that speak on their own. They're a central part of storytelling,” says Godard.

The “Berlinale Talents Market Hub” at the European Film Market (EFM) was a complete success. The initiative, supported by Canon, developed into one of the most popular places to drop by; a meeting place for the ten invited distributors and other Talents that attracted countless market visitors. At the opening, the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media Monika Grütters visited the stand together with Festival Director Dieter Kosslick and EFM Director Beki Probst.

During the Talent Project Market, the 10.000 Euro VFF Talent Highlight Pitch Award was given to Bavo Defurne from Belgium for his project Souvenir. The nomination prizes, each worth 1.000 Euro, were awarded to Kaleena Kiff from Canada (The Long Midnight of Barney Thomson) and Ása Hjörleifsdóttir from Iceland (The Swan).

Participants in the 2014 Sound Studio had the opportunity to do sound design for a Dolby® Atmos policy trailer which will be used in Dolby® Atmos cinemas worldwide. Russian film sound designer Yulia Glukhova was selected to travel to Dolby® in Wootton Basset, England, to complete the final mixing using Dolby® Atmos.

During Berlinale Talents the Robert Bosch Stiftung issued once again the  Film Prize for International Cooperation. The three film teams each received one of the three prizes for their projects in the categories "Animation" (Manivelle-Memories of the Man of Tomorrow, Lebanon / Germany), “Documentary" (Possessed by Djinn, Jordan / Germany) and “Short Fiction Film” (Dry Hot Summers, Egypt / Germany). The prizes are worth up to 60.000 Euro each. 

Of more than 1,000 entries the selections have been completed for the international competitions for features and shorts. The Grand Prixs will be presented on Sunday March 23rd, the last day of the festival.

Selection Features
Eleven films have been selected for the international competition feature films, from romantic comedy and road movie to a documentary. For instance:

Is the Man Who is Tall Happy by Michel Gondry is an animated conversation with the famous linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky. In almost entirely hand-drawn animation Gondry illustrates  Chomsky’s words or rather, what he thinks Chomsky means. Fascinating, intelligent, not just for Chomsky fans.  

Asphalt Watches van Seth Scriver en Shayne Ehman is a true story. A feature-length animation based on a real-life hitchhiking trip taken by the two filmmakers, Asphalt Watches details the hilarious and harrowing journey of Bucktooth Cloud and Skeleton Hat as they travel eastward across Canada in the summer of 2000.

Mait Laas from Estonia made a musical in stop motion: Lisa Limone and Maroc Orange: A Rapid Love Story. Maroc  is the brave hero-type, bound by prejudice and poverty. Lisa is the daughter of a rich businessman and tomato plantation owner. The harshness of the life of a refugee (Maroc) is in sharp contrast to the playful details and the cheerful fruit animation.

The complete list of selected features can be found here.

Selection Shorts
A royal collection of 49 films from all parts of the world and a great range of narrative and as much as 16 non-narrative films. 
For instance:
•Canis (Anna Solanis en Marc Riba): disquieting horror in black and white animation featuring Teo, who survives isolated in a house constantly besieged by a horde of stray dogs.
•I Love Hooligans (Jan-Dirk Bouw): in this documentary we enter the world of a homosexual hooligan. Football is what he lives for. His sexual orientation is a well-kept secret and his love life had been relegated to the margin.
•Subconscious Password (Chris Landreth): a common social gaffe - forgetting somebody’s name - is the starting point for a mind-bending romp through the unconscious of Charles. Instant hit on several international festivals.

 The complete list of selected shorts can be found here.

NEW YORK NO LIMITS is currently accepting Feature film entries in any subject, category and language for the 2014 NYNL SUMMIT.

New York No Limits is proud to host its 4th annual Summit, a film festival event, in New York City on November 20th - 22nd at The Wild Project. NYNL is seeking films that express the most vital vision of the filmmaker. Our goal is to program the best in cutting edge film from all countries and to serve as a platform for filmmakers to explore multifaceted content. 

The 2013 Summit program included DIEGO STAR, Frederick Pelletier director and MY SISTER'S QUINCEANERA by Aaron Douglas Johnston. 

Films must be at least 40 minutes in length produced after January 2012. 

NYNL Feature FIlms Deadlines dates are as follows:

EARLY - May 15th, 2014 - $25

REGULAR - July 31st, 2014 - $30

LATE - August 23rd, 2014 - $35

EXTENDED - September 15th, 2014 - $40

**Please note the entry fees are based on the withoutabox free upgrade for filmmakers. 
To submit please go to our website at http://www.newyorknolimits.com.  
For questions please contact us at info@newyorknolimits.com 
Twitter: @newyorknolimits
Facebook: facebook.com/newyorknolimits