Saturday, September 16---For several decades, the American government has successfully demonized the country of Iran, referring to it as an "evil empire" as a member of the "axis of evil". The rhetoric has ratcheted up in recent months, as Iran attempts to take hold of its own destiny by producing nuclear power, and possibly nuclear weapons. But what do we really know about this ancient culture that is one of the most influential nations in the Middle East? What more can we know without trave...

The Secret, a full length feature film that's already impacting thousands of lives around the world, will have its first public screening at the Tahoe Reno International Film Festival on August 23rd at 8:00 p.m.Tapping into the phenomenal momentum of a film that’s already changing lives around the world, the Tahoe-Reno International Film Festival (T-RIFF) today announced its opening night film.The Secret (www.thesecret.tv) will make its world premiere at T-RIFF on Wednesday, August 23rd. The f...

Second Tahoe/Reno International Film Festival brings Social Consciousness to Pristine SettingWeaving socially responsible content into pure entertainment at one of the most pristine locations on the West Coast is the driving force behind the country’s fastest growing, emerging film festival. In just its second year out, The Tahoe/Reno International Film Festival (T-RIFF) offers a unique film festival experience that educates, touches hearts, inspires ideas, and connects audiences to the joy d...

The inaugural Fullerton Film Festival will take place August 3 through 6 in the heart of downtown Fullerton with screenings and programs scheduled at the Plummer Auditorium, the Wilshire Auditorium and Fullerton College. Fullerton’s first film festival is presented by the Fullerton Historic Theatre Foundation (FHTF) which is currently restoring the Fox Fullerton theatre to its original 1920s glory. “The Film Festival is all about summer fun, said Jon Wagner, FHTF execut...

Film is my life... That sums up how I feel about the movies.I don't care much for the big budget blockbuster American films and don't see many of them. I live for the small films with small budgets where you still see people and hear stories about people. They also have no car chases and big explosions which I don't see as art.I discovered the Durban International Film Festival in 2005 by accident when I read on the Internet that they will be premiering Paradise Now and the two main actors and d...

CHAOS is just a theory in physics, but it's a full blown practice at the Minneapolis film festival. Whether or not a can of film will arrive at its designated venue at all, or, if it does arrive, whether it will be wound on backward or inside out -- therefore unshowable -- is often a toss-up. One such instance, Werner Herzog's latest, "The Wild Blue Yonder" -- an astronaut fantasy in a post-Armageddon world -- arrived at the Oak Street theater projection booth cut into unmarked segments, so th...

54th TRENTO FILMFESTIVAL, THE GOLD GENTIAN TO THE ENGLISH FILM “CONFLICT TIGER”The English director Sasha Snow, with his film Conflict Tiger, is the winner of the 54th TrentoFilmfestival – mountain exploration adventure.The International Jury awarded the most prestigious prize, the Gold Gentian - Gran Premio Città di Trento – from among the fifty films in competition, to a film that “creates suspense and intense emotions”, set in the forests of Eastern Russia. This film, between fic...

Yesterday, Hot Docs announced its official programming line-up for the 2006 festival, coinciding with the opening of the CBC Newsworld Advance Box Office, where tickets and es for Hot Docs screenings can be purchased from now until the end of the festival. Hot Docs will screen 99 films from 23 countries between April 28 - May 7, including 18 world premieres, 17 international premieres, 13 North American premieres, 30 Canadian premieres, and seven Toronto premieres. Hot Docs' Canadian Spectru...

New Directors/New Films, one of the most anticipated film events on the New York film calendar, opens this week end. The program, tly presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Department of Film and Media of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), will unspool 25 feature films and 5 shorts from March 22 through April 2, 2006. The program opens with the East Coast Premiere of HALF NELSON, a Sundance sleeper about a committed teacher in New York’s public schools, played by rising star...

PALM BEACH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVALUNVEILS 2006 LINE-UP Over 125 Films Headline April 20 - 28 Event The Palm Beach International Film Festival Executive Director Randi Emerman announced today the film line-up for the 11th annual event to be held April 20 – 28. Over a 125 films will screen at this years event, including features, documentaries and shorts. The eight-day Fest will introduce 18 world premieres, 3 U.S. premieres and 59 Florida premieres, including 31 international films.Opening...

Vaclav Havel presents his own prize to “Total Denial” at the One World Int’l Human Rights FestivalMilena Kaneva’s feature documentary, “Total Denial” has been awarded the Vaclav Havel humanitarian award in Prague, presented by the poet, playwright and former president of the Czech Republic himself. “Total Denial” tells the story of Ka Hsaw and his ongoing struggle to save the Karen tribes people of Burma. Great cultures have always been built on the backs of slaves. Unfortunatel...

The crush to get a gander at HOFFMAN AS CAPOTE was so great yesterday that an extra press screening had to be improvised a half hour after the initially scheduled one in the Cinemaxx multi-screen theatre complex. Presumably, the half hour decollage allows reels of the film to be switched from one hall to the other without missing a beat. Unfortunately, the press conference time remained unchanged, so that those condemned to the later viewing (like myself), found the conference already well unde...

SYNOPSIS:Bob Barnes (George Clooney) is a veteran CIA agent nearing the end of a long and respectable career, with a son (Max Minghella) headed for college and the possibility of spending the latter days of his service in a cushy desk job. On Bob's last assignment, one of two Stinger missiles he is providing for a covert assassination falls into the wrong hands. Bob is promised a promotion after one last undercover mission - assassinating the independently minded Prince Nasir (Alexander Siddig)....

The South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival is honored to announce the full lineup of features scheduled to be a part of the 2006 event in Austin, Texas, March 10-18. Among the highlights are Paul Weitz’s American Dreamz, starring Hugh Grant, Dennis Quaid and Mandy Moore, concluding the festival, on March 18. The festival will open on March 10, with the North American Premiere of A Prairie Home Companion, directed by Robert Altman. The festival’s “Spotlight Premieres” section will inclu...

22nd Sundance Film Festival Opens with FRIENDS WITH MONEY ALPHA DOG by Nick Cassavetes as Closing FilmAmongst the delicate snow flakes of the ski town Park City, Sundance Film Festival opened on January 19, 2006 with the World Premiere of FRIENDS WITH MONEY, written and directed by Nicole Holofcener and starring an dynamic cast that includes Jennifer Aniston, Scott Caan, Joan Cusack, Catherine Keener and s McDormand. With the fresh snow blanketing the filmgoers, Sundance had the exciteme...

The 14th Annual Pan African Film and Arts Festival (PAFF) today announced the 2006 roster for official feature, documentary and short film selections, as well as special screenings, s and workshops. The twelve-day event will be held on February 9-20, 2006 in Los Angeles. The PAFF, which will screen 160 films this year, including 64 documentaries, 54 short films, and 47 feature films. PAFF is America’s largest Black history month event and is an official event of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio ...

Florence hosts the 46th edition of Festival dei PopoliDecember 2 - 8The competition section proposes thirteen films; all Italian premieres, all representative of the new trend of the contemporary documentary cinema for style, language and content. Over 900 titles, which came from 65 different countries, participated at the pre-selection: these figures established an absolute record for our festival and we consider this a tangible sign of the extraordinary attention that Festival dei Popoli recei...

A winner of 13 Australian “Oscars,” a French thriller that played in the prestigious closing night slot at the Toronto and New York Film Festivals, and the latest documentary from the woman who took the doc form into the mainstream are among the more than 50 narrative, documentary and short films to be screened at the 2005 HIGH FALLS FILM FESTIVAL, which takes place in Rochester, NY, November 9-13. High Falls is a festival with a difference – its mission. Susan B. Anthony lived in Roches...

THE 13TH ANNUAL HAMPTONS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVALOCTOBER 19-23, 2005 Hiam Abbass ~ Danny Aiello ~ Kevin Bacon ~ Jon Robin Baitz ~ Alec Baldwin ~ Ned Beatty ~ Bob Berney ~ Dyan Cannon ~ Alan Cumming ~ Hope Davis ~ David Dinerstein ~ David Marshall Grant ~ Ted Hope ~ Eugene Jarecki ~ Cherry Jones ~ Marc Levin ~ Claude LeLouch ~ Bill Nighy ~ Martin McDonagh ~ Liza Minnelli ~ Sarah Paulson ~ Zac Posen ~ Paul Reiser Miranda Richardson ~ Charlie Rose ~ Kyra Sedgwick ~ Vivienne Tam ~ Christine Vach...

The 30th Toronto International Film Festival runs September 8-17.Filmgoers are guaranteed to be shocked, rocked, and electrified by Midnight Madness at the 30th Toronto International Film Festival. The Festival's popular, iconoclastic midnight programme is guaranteed to keep audiences wide awake. Now in its 18th year, Midnight Madness showcases the best in sci-fi, horror, and outrageous documentaries, gleefully highlighting the devilishly weird and wonderful. The titles below the previou...

Tango Odyssey Leads Filmmaker Back Home to Bay AreaWhen local filmmaker Joshua Dylan Mellars got the idea to film his first documentary Tango Illusions in Buenos Aires, he had no idea that it would take a seven-year journey to complete it. Like good wine, filmmaking can take time. Tango Illusions premieres at the Napa-Sonoma Wine Country Film Festival on Saturday, August 13 at 6 pm at the Nicholson Ranch Winery in Sonoma.“My desire to film Tango Illusions has taken me to some strange places. S...

Nine documentary projects from Central and Eastern Europe that will premiere in the autumn of 2005 or in 2006 were presented by a documentary film yesterday. The was organized by the Institute of Documentary Film and the International Festival of Documentary Film in Jihlava and it heralds the establishing of a film market for Central and Eastern European documentaries right at the Jihlava festival. “We wanted to take documentary films out of the shadows of acted films, because we b...

ROME FOREVER IN THE ITALIAN FILM FESTIVAL UK8 to 28 April 2005All roads lead to Rome for the 12th edition of the Italian Film Festival UK, the annual showcase for the best of il cinema italiano, ed by the country’s cultural institutions in Scotland and London and a whole host of companies with Italian connections. It runs in Edinburgh, Glasgow, London, Manchester, Aberdeen and Dundee from 8 to 28 April 2005.The Eternal City will be the focus for a unique Retrospective and associated Exh...

ROME FOREVER IN THE ITALIAN FILM FESTIVAL UK8 to 28 April 2005All roads lead to Rome for the 12th edition of the Italian Film Festival UK, the annual showcase for the best of il cinema italiano, ed by the country’s cultural institutions in Scotland and London and a whole host of companies with Italian connections. It runs in Edinburgh, Glasgow, London, Manchester, Aberdeen and Dundee from 8 to 28 April 2005.The Eternal City will be the focus for a unique Retrospective and associated Exh...

Dave Barry Turns Movie Star at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival The Santa Barbara International Film Festival has always been a bit adventurous with its selection of films. Along with the requisite slate of solid international and American independent features, the festival does a great job ing local films and filmmakers. This year, midway through the 20th edition, more than two thousand people packed the Arlington Theatre for the Centerpiece screening and World Premiere of ...