MOSCOW: European film Promotion (EFP) will launch Westwind on 23-27 October 2013 with screening of 11 new European films at Moscow’s 35mm Cinema. Westwind is a special European Film Showcase which included networking opportunities for sales agents from Europe and local buyers.
MALTA: Malta’s top underwater and location services outfit, Film Corporation www.filmcorporation.com.mt , will be in MIPCOM with its newly produced TV content in the form of short documentaries formatted for lifestyle, culture or travel channels.
VENICE: The distinctive vision that Terry Gilliam brings to all his films is very much in evidence in The Zero Theorem although the chaotic world the director portrays does not seem to add up.
VENICE: The ex-Polish president and leader of Solidarity, Lech Walesa, stole the show as he appeared on the red carpet in Venice for the world premier of Andrzej Wajda’s biopic, Walesa, Man of Hope.
VENICE: Documentaries have been turning up and winning prizes at major film festivals in Berlin and Cannes in increasing numbers in recent years and Gianfranco Rosi’s stunning Sacro Gra is certainly a worthy addition to the trend.
VENICE: Few directors can match Stephen Frears when it comes to getting just the right mixture of laughter and tears from audience and still end up with a thought provoking and intelligent film.
VENICE: Director Kelly Reichardt’s Night Moves is rather hard to swallow as the premise for the film rests on the idea of radical environments blowing up a hydroelectric dam – regarded by most environmentalists as the cleanest form of sustainable and renewal energy.
VENICE: Sometime Hollywood action hero Nicholas Cage reminds us that he started out as a very fine actor in this outing directed by David Gordon Green.
GDYNIA: The biggest surprise of the 38 Gdynia Film Festival (9-14 September 2013) was undoubtedly the appearance of Polish director Roman Polanski at the closing ceremony to hand out the award to Pawel Pawlikowski for his Grand Prix winner Ida. Polanski had arrived at the festival earlier to present his film Venus in Furs at a special screening.
VENICE: A jury headed by Bernardo Bertolucci awarded the Golden Lion for Best Film at the 70 Venice Film Festival to the Italian documentary Sacro Gra directed by Gianfranco Rosi. Rosi spent two years in a minivan filming on and around the GRA, Rome’s giant ring road, and the result is an extraordinary contemporary portrait of Roman life and its fringes.
