Getting a prize at IDFA, the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, can be of major significance to a documentary film at the start of its long journey through the Festival circuit and, hopefully, to theatrical, television and ancillary distribution. The Festival's imprimatur is highly regarded and respected in the world of programmers and festival directors, who are here in Amsterdam scouring for the best in non-fiction film. Here is the first part of the films compet...

  The Oscar for Best Animated Short Film is in the group of 10 nominated films announced by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences yesterday. In all, 37 short animated films from around the world were submitted, and that list has now been culled down to 10 films. The Short Films and Feature Animation Branch Reviewing Committee viewed all the eligible entries for the preliminary round of voting in screenings held in New York and Los Angeles.  They will now select the fin...

  The program part ‘Competitions' will bring two novelties during this year`s festival. Besides the Competition of Feature Films the festival will also offer Competition of Documentary Films and Competition of Short Films. The aim of the festival is to fill up the empty space in Slovak distribution, to present the best of the international documentary works, and also give space to young talents. The 11th IFF Bratislava enriches its program by two competitive sections - Competit...

    In what has to be a first, the prestigious Museum of Modern Art in New York is  devoting considerable museum space to a working Hollywood filmmaker. Just opening this weekend is Tim Burton, a major retrospective exploring the full scale of Tim Burton’s career, both as a director and concept artist for live-action and animated films, and as an artist, illustrator, photographer, and writer. On view through April 26, 2010, the exhibition brings together over 700 examples ...

Celebrating African Talent in frontof and behind the camera during the 2009 African Diaspora Film Festival This year was FESPACO year, the festival was held in Ouagadougou, Burkina Fasofrom February 28 to March 7, 2009. The Golden Yennenga Stallion went to "Teza"by Haile Gerima and the Silver Yennenga Stallion was awarded to "Nothing butthe Truth" by internationally recognized, multiple award-winningSouth African actor/director John Kani. In "Saturday Night in th...

  The American documentary U.N. ME, a lacerating look at the inefficiencies of the United Nations, has its word premiere at the IDFA International Documentary Festival Amsterdam this week. In a film that exposes the incompetence and corruption at the heart of the United Nations, filmmakers Ami Horowitz and Matthew Groff show how an organization created to ennoble mankind now actually enables evil and sows global chaos. When the United Nations was founded more than sixty yea...

.............WELCOME TO OUR NEWSLETTER N° 441: November 20, 2009 Follow this LINK if you cannot read the newsletter properly Contact the Editor, Advertise on the sites. Our newsletter reaches 77 000 film professionnals. COMING SOON THE NEXT FESTIVAL DAILIES ON FEST21.COM Tallinn Black Nights, IDFA, We follow 4 000 festivals. Stay tuned. ____________________________...

The Hedgehog (Le Herisson) scooped three awards in Cairo last night. In only her third film as a director, Mona Achache won the Critics' Prize, Best Director and the Special Jury Prize. The Hedgehog was inspired by the eponymous novel by Muriel Barbery. The screenplay was written by Achache. The film tells the story of Renée Michel a fifty-something female concierge with an insatiable thirst for knowledge and a passion for great works of literature. Paloma is a 12-year...

For the eleventh year, the Nihilist Cultural Foundation presents the Nihilist International Film Festival.  This year's evening of films will be presented at the Echo Park Film Center.  The show will start at 7:30 pm on Sunday, December 20. The festival includes two hours of short films from around the country and around the world.  The films range from troubling to hilarious, from profound to completely silly.  Pretty much, something for everyone (except children and clergy). Festival Di...

Lourdes (Dir Jessica Hausner 2009 Austria) Jessica Hausner's new film Lourdes may be the most mysterious film screened at this year's Tallinn film festival, one that takes a story of religious and spiritual import and casts that world and those themes down a gauntlet that suggests Hitchcock and Tati in its supremely calibrated conceptual suspense and encircling humor.  The story finds a wheelchair-bound Sylvie Testud, whose character is suffering from multiple-sclerosis, traveling...