BERLIN: Escape from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster seems like an obvious topic for a fast moving action film with tension mounting as the clock ticks off the minutes. Russian director Alexander Mindadze in his second feature has given us a nail biting beginning as Valery Kabysh played by Anton Shagin arrives at Chernobyl just as the reactor blows up.
BERLIN: Turkish film director Seyfi Teoman follows his internantionally successful Summer Book with the light-hearted Our Grand Despair. While the film's story begins with Nihal (Gunes Sayin) a young woman who is trying to recover from her grief after her parents are killed in a traffic accident it is really about the relationship between Ender (Ilker Aksum) and Cetin (Fatih Al) two Turkish men in their thirties sharing a flat in Ankara.
BERLIN: Ralph Fiennes does not disappoint with his directorial debut of Shakespeare's Coriolanus. Indeed Fiennes' mastery of the Shakespearian material makes this look more like the work of an experienced director than a first-timer. The language has been updated by John Logan and set by Fiennes in the modern day Belgrade but the story has lost none of its Shakespearian power.
BERLIN: It was a Berlinale triumph for Polish and Hungarian talent with Hungarian auteur Bela Tarr winning the Grand Jury Prix for his The Turin Horse while the prize for Outstanding Artistic Achievement was shared ex aequo between Polish cinematographer Wojciech Staron and production designer Barbara Enriquez for their work on El premio (The Prize) directed by Paula markovitch a coproduction with Poland which h was supported by the Polish Film Institute (www.pisf.pl).
This month we interview Ruta Boguzaite manager of the Vilnius cinema Kino Pasaka.
BERLIN: Hungarian born Hollywood producer Andrew G. Vajna announced that he would deliver the new strategy for the future of the Hungarian film industry in just 90 days. It was the first public statement Vajna has made since he was appointed Commissioner for the Film Industry by the Hungarian government just two weeks ago. Speaking at a hall packed with anxious Hungarian producers and directors during a roundtable organized by the Collegium Hungaricum at the Berlinale Vajna said he had come to Berlin mainly to reassure international partners. Vajna said he had been given a year by the government to evaluate the current situation in the Hungarian film industry after the collapse of Hungarian Motion Picture Foundation (MMK www.mmka.hu) last year but that he realizes the difficult situation of Hungarian film professionals and vowed to deliver the new strategy within 60 to 90 days.
BERLIN: German Ukrainina director Sergei Lotznitza has inked a deal with Lativan Rijafilms (www.rijafilms.lv) to shoot his new production In the Fog in Latvia in September.
CYPRUS: The deadline for the submission of entry forms to the "Global Images - International Competition Section" for the 9th annual Cyprus Film Days is 15 February 2011. The entry form and all terms and conditions can be found on www.cyprusfilmdays.com and www.filmfestival.com.cy .
CYPRUS: The Ministry of Education and Culture announces that the 9th CYPRUS FILM DAYS -International Film Festival 2011, co-organised with the Rialto theatre has been upgraded to an international competition festival. The festival, which is being held for the 9th time this year, will host an international competition section titled "Global Images" in which film-makers from around the globe and Cyprus are invited to submit their films. The festival will be held from 9-17 April in Nicosia and Limassol.
SOFIA: The Executive Director of Bulgaria's National Film Centre (www.nfc.bg) Alexander Donev resigned on 23 December 2010. Donev was elected to the position in May 2009. It was the second major administrative change in the area of film, following soon after Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov fired the deputy minister of culture Dimitar Dereliev on 11 December 2010.
