Latest news with #filmfestival
Times of Oman
16 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Times of Oman
Participation opens for 3rd Al Batinah International Film Festival
Muscat: Oman Film Society, in cooperation with the North Al Batinah Governor's Office, has announced the opening of participation for the official competition of the 3rd Al Batinah International Film Festival, scheduled to take place during 27-30 October 2025. Participation will be accepted until 20 September through the festival's official online forms. Held biennially, the Al Batinah International Film Festival serves as a cultural and artistic platform aimed at promoting Oman and its governorates both locally and internationally, spreading cinematic culture within society, and stimulating artistic engagement among youth while enhancing the quality of Omani film production. This edition is organised under the supervision of Oman Film Society in partnership with several public and private sector institutions, as part of efforts to strengthen Oman's cinematic presence at regional and international levels. Oman Film Society invites all interested filmmakers, production companies, and cinema enthusiasts to submit their works across the festival's official competition categories.
South China Morning Post
16 hours ago
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
Hong Kong's Summer International Film Festival 2025: 10 must-see movies and programmes
Every summer, the Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF) stages Summer IFF, a mini showcase that presents a crowd-pleasing smorgasbord of brand new festival delights, future cult favourites and restored classics from around the world. This year's line-up includes a number of highlights from the latest Berlin and Cannes film festivals, including It Was Just an Accident, the Palme d'Or winner from controversial Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi. The programme also includes documentary, animation and short-film sections, while a mouth-watering selection of remastered classics is not to be overlooked. Oscar winners One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and Amadeus (1984), both directed by Milos Forman, are back on screens, as are a pair of Latin American favourites, Amores Perros (2000) and The Motorcycle Diaries (2004), starring Gael Garcia Bernal. Jack Nicholson (centre) in a still from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Forgotten Iranian drama Downpour (1972) from Bahram Beyzaie is given a new lease of life, while the Maurice Chevalier musicals One Hour With You and Love Me Tonight, both from 1932, look and sound better than ever. Below are 10 highlights not to be missed from this year's summer festival.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Ukrainian, Iranian Docs, Kenyan Sci-Fi Set for Venice Days Lineup
Politically-charged dramas and documentaries from Ukraine to Iran, and from Mexico to Kenya will share the spotlight at the Venice film festival's Venice Days sidebar, which announced its 2025 lineup today. The diverse program ranges from the section's opening night film, the autobiographical drama Memory Ukrainian artist and filmmaker Vladlena Sandu, a survivor of the war in Chechnya, who studies her traumatic memories in order to transcend and transform them via the art of cinema; to Spanish director Gabriel Azorín's Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes about two young men returning from the front who spend a day of confession and revelation in an ancient Roman thermal bath; to Memory of Princess Mumbi, from Kenyan filmmaker Damien Hauser that combines elements of sci-fi, mockumentary and animation to tell a dystopian fable set in an imaginary Africa in the year 2093 after an A.I.-precipitated disaster. More from The Hollywood Reporter Golshifteh Farahani to Receive Locarno Excellence Award Davide Campari 'Matthew Perry: A Hollywood Tragedy' Sets Summer Air Date on ITV in the U.K. (Exclusive) ITV Sets New Cost Cuts, CEO Talks Disney Streaming Deal and Using AI for 'Love Island' Casting The 10-film competition lineup put together by Venice Days artistic director Gaia Furrer includes 2 Iranian films about exile. The documentary Past Future Continuous from Firouzeh Khosrovani and Morteza Ahmadvand, which follows an Iranian woman who fled following the Islamic Revolution and now can only observe her parents via the security cameras installed in their home in Tehran, and Inside Amir, from director Amir Azizi, which explores his own fears and doubts when considering emigration. Venice Days' out-of-competition special events lineup includes several documentaries, including Who Is Still Alive, from Swiss filmmaker Nicolas Wadimoff, recounting the experiences of nine Palestinian refugees from Gaza; and With Writing Life, from French documentarian Claire Simon, which uses the words of Nobel Prize-winning novelist Annie Ernaux, through readings of her books by French high school students, to form a portrait of the younger generation. The sidebar also includes the 9-film out-of-competition section Venetian Nights, which highlights titles from major Italian producers. Italian director Gianni Di Gregorio, whose sleeper hit Mid-August Lunch won Venice Critics' Week's Lion of the Future prize in 2008, returns to the Lido with the comedy Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don't, in which he also stars as a retired professors whose placid and monotonous existence is shaken up by the arrival of his daughter and his rowdy grandchildren. The film will close Venice Days, running out of competition. The president of this year's Venice Days jury is Norwegian writer and director Dag Johan Haugerud, whose queer love story Dreams, the final film in his Sex, Love, Dreams trilogy, won the Golden Bear for best film at the Berlinale in February. Haugerud's breakout film, Barn premiered at Venice Days in 2019. Joining him on the jury are Italian producer Francesca Andreoli (Vermiglio), Franco-Palestinian filmmaker Lina Soualem (Bye Bye Tiberias), Tunisian cinematographer Sofian El Fani (Timbuktu), and New York's MoMA film curator Josh Siegel. Check out the full Venice Days lineup below. OFFICIAL COMPETITION Memory, dir. Vladlena Sandu (France, Netherlands) (Opening film)Gioia, dir. Nicolangelo Gelormini (Italy)Bearcave, dir. Stergios Dinopoulos, Krysianna Papadakis (Greece, UK)Short Summer, dir. Nastia Korkia (Germany, France, Serbia)A Sad and Beautiful World, dir. Cyril Aris (Lebanon, USA, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Qatar)Past Future Continuous, dir. Firouzeh Khosrovani, Morteza Ahmadvand (Iran, Norway, Italy)Memory of Princess Mumbi, dir. Damien Hauser (Kenya, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland)Vainilla, dir. Mayra Hermosillo (Mexico)Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes, dir. Gabriel Azorín (Spain, Portugal)Inside Amir, dir. Amir Azizi (Iran) Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don't, dir. Gianni Di Gregorio (Italy, France) (Closing film, out of competition) SPECIAL EVENTS Laguna, dir. Sharunas Bartas (Lithuania, France)Writing Life – Annie Ernaux Through the Eyes of High School Students, dir. Claire Simon (France)I Want Her Dead, dir. Gianluca Matarrese (Italy)Who Is Still Alive, dir. Nicolas Wadimoff (Switzerland, France)Do You Love Me, dir. Lana Daher (France) NOTTI VENEZIANE (Venetian Nights) 6:06, dir. Tekla Taidelli (Italy)Amata, dir. Elisa Amoruso (Italy)Confession – How I found out I wouldn't make the revolution, dir. Bonifacio Angius (Italy, Poland)A near thing, dir. Loris Nese (Italy)Dom, dir. Massimiliano Battistella (Italy, Bosnia-Herzegovina)A State Film, dir. Roland Sejko (Italy)Full speed backward!, dir. Antonio Morabito (Italy)Life Beyond the Pine Curtain – America the Invisible, dir. Giovanni Troilo (Italy)Toni, my father, dir. Anna Negri (Italy) Best of The Hollywood Reporter The 40 Greatest Needle Drops in Film History The 40 Best Films About the Immigrant Experience Wes Anderson's Movies Ranked From Worst to Best Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Rotterdam Unveils 2025 Hubert Bals Fund Projects
The International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) has unveiled the projects that will receive this year's grants from its Hubert Bals Fund (HBF), which supports films from less-developed regions. The fund picked 15 feature projects from more than 900 submissions, selecting work from filmmakers from across Africa, Asia, the Middle East and the Americas. This year's selection includes the first HBF-backed project from Tanzania, the satire Last Cow from director Amil Shivij, whose feature debut Tug of War screened in Toronto in 2021 and was Tanzania's official Oscar submission. It was picked for this year's Locarno film festival and will screen in the Open Doors sidebar. More from The Hollywood Reporter Imax Quarterly Revenue and Profit Rise Amid Hollywood's Theatrical Comeback Ukrainian, Iranian Docs, Kenyan Sci-Fi Set for Venice Days Lineup Golshifteh Farahani to Receive Locarno Excellence Award Davide Campari Other African projects this year include Mwadia, a magic-realist drama on Mozambique's colonial past and present trauma; the feature debut of documentary filmmaker Inadelso Cossa (The Nights Still Smell of Gunpowder); Tears, the debut feature from Rwandan director Moise Ganza; and Coumba, the new film from Senegalese director Mamadou Dia, whose HBF-backed debut, Nafi's Father, won the Golden Leopard at the 2019 Locarno film festival and was Senegal's official entry for the Oscars. IFFR alumni talent can be found throughout this year's selection, with new features from Syrian director Farida Baqi (The Rapture), Indonesia's Timoteus Anggawan Kusno (Orphaned Atlas), Kazakhstan filmmaker Renata Dzhalo (Nobody to See Us), Malaysian director Amanda Nell Eu (Lotus Feet) and Brazil's Stephanie Ricci (Boca da noite) among the 2025 HBF recipients. The selected directors will receive a €10,000 ($11,760) grant each to help develop their projects into finished features. In addition to its regular fund, the HBF launched two new development schemes this year. Together with two-time Oscar winner Cate Blanchett, the HBF in January announced the Displacement Film Fund, offering grants of €100,000 ($104,000) each to five filmmakers, displaced by war or conflict, to make original shorts. A jury, made up of Blanchett, Wicked star Cynthia Erivo, documentarians Jonas Poher Rasmussen (Flee) and Waad Al-Kateab (For Sama), director Agnieszka Holland (Green Border), Rotterdam festival director Vanja Kaludjercic, activist and refugee Aisha Khurram and Amin Nawabi [alias], the LGBTQ+ asylum seeker who was Rasmussen's inspiration for his Oscar-nominated documentary Flee, announced the first fund grantees in Cannes this year. Also in Cannes, the HBF announced a cooperation with the three leading Brazilian film promotion bodies — Spcine, RioFilme, Projeto Paradiso — launching HBF+Brazil: Co-development Support, a three-year initiative to provide early development funding for up to nine fiction films, with €10,000 ($11,760) grants each. The submission deadline for HBF+Brazil projects, on is Sept. 15. Full list of 2025 Herbert Bals Fund development support projects Amateur, Carlos Díaz Lechuga, Cuba, SpainThe Appalling Human Voice of the Animals, Neritan Zinxhiria, Greece, AlbaniaBoca da noite, Stephanie Ricci, BrazilCoumba, Mamadou Dia, SenegalGirl With a Camera, Xiaoxuan Jiang, Hong Kong, ChinaThe Immigrants, Suman Mukhopadhyay, IndiaLast Cow, Amil Shivji, Tanzania, CanadaLotus Feet, Amanda Nell Eu, MalaysiaMoto, Chris Chong Chan Fui, MalaysiaMwadia, Inadelso Cossa, MozambiqueNobody to See Us, Renata Dzhalo, Kazakhstan, France, MoldovaOrphaned Atlas, Timoteus Anggawan Kusno, IndonesiaThe Rapture, Farida Baqi, Syria, Lebanon, Germany, NetherlandsTears, Moise Ganza, RwandaWhere Shadows Wait, Arya Rothe, India, Italy Best of The Hollywood Reporter The 40 Greatest Needle Drops in Film History The 40 Best Films About the Immigrant Experience Wes Anderson's Movies Ranked From Worst to Best Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Film festival returns with global cinema line-up
Warwickshire's Big Picture Film Festival returns to Stratford-upon-Avon this summer for a weekend of international cinema. Organised by Live & Local, this year's festival takes place from 28-31 August with the theme of connection and disruption. The festival, which is supported by Stratford Town Trust, will open with a screening of David Attenborough's latest documentary, Ocean with David Attenborough, after organisers partnered with local environmental groups Stratford Net Zero and River Hope. Live & Local said the line-up included an array of cinema, from classics to modern independents, from live music scores to documentaries and animated works. This year, the festival will be based at The Bear Pit Theatre every day, with additional events taking place at Holy Trinity Parish Centre and Stratford Youth Hub, as well as several fringe events in Warwickshire yet to be announced. What's being shown during the festival? The varied line-up includes a screening of the oldest surviving animated feature film in the world, Lotte Reiniger's The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926), which will be accompanied by a band playing the original music for the film. Another classic being shown is Toshio Matsumoto's debut feature Funeral Parade of Roses (1969), hailed by the British Film Institute as a "landmark of Japanese queer cinema". Stratford-based refugee charity Welcome Here is partnering with Stratford Amnesty International Group to present a screening of the Iranian/Scottish co-production, Winners (2022) - a film set in a small Iranian town as two children find a lost academy award. Also on the line-up is Thelma (2024), featuring 94-year-old June Squibb playing a woman seeking vengeance after being scammed out of $10,000. Local groups Stratford Net Zero, Welcome Here, River Hope and Stratford Amnesty are also presenting a screening of the 2024 Oscar-winning animated film Flow, which follows a black cat in a flooded world, joining other displaced animals on a journey of survival and co-operation. Are other events taking place? Several Q&A sessions will also take place as part of the festival. Stratford-based Bafta winning duo The Brothers McLeod will lead a discussion about the life and death of ideas, called False Starts and Surprises. The festival also welcomes Bafta breakthrough filmmaker Ella Glendining and international award-winning director Gordon Main for Q&A screenings of their documentaries. Ella Glendining's Is There Anybody Out There? (2023) presents a first-hand account of living with disability. Gordon Main's London Recruits (2024), tells the story of the undercover anti-racism missions carried out by ordinary Londoners during the South African apartheid. Screenwriter Geoff Thompson, director Michael B. Clifford and producer Natasha Carlish - all from Warwickshire - will also do a Q&A event about their trilogy of three short films, filmed across two decades, including Bouncer, which starred Ray Winstone and Paddy Considine, and Brown Paper Bag, which won a Bafta. Alongside the main festival, there will also be an awards ceremony and Q&A screening of this year's short film competition winners. How much do tickets cost? The festival has maintained its pay-as-you-feel box office, with organisers saying this meant there was "no financial barrier to attend". Chris Davis from Live & Local said: "We are extremely grateful for the support of Stratford Town Trust, which has allowed us to bring our film festival back to the town and also helps to make the festival more accessible to audiences. "We have some great events lined up and we encourage audiences to come along and enjoy, whatever their budget." Follow BBC Coventry & Warwickshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram. Related internet links Live & Local Big Picture Film Festival
