.............                                                                                                                                                          NEWSLETTER N° 495: february 4, 2011 Follow this LINK if you cannot read the newsletter properly The Berlin edition of the IFFS Festival Summit 2011 Bruno Chatelin, your editor, will co chair the Berlin edition 2011.   ...

  Shortly after the Berlinale invited Jafar Panahi to be on this year's International Jury, he was sentenced to six years in prison and banned from filmmaking for the next 20 years. Ever since, people have been protesting worldwide against this verdict as it violates the right to freedom of opinion and expression in the arts.     The Berlin International Film Festival very strongly condemns the harsh sentences imposed on the distinguished Iranian director Jafar Pan...

  Amnesty International, the human rights organization, is building a petition campaign to protest the sentence of Jafar Panahi, a leading Iranian filmmaker and human rights activist. Panahi, an internationally celebrated film director who won the coveted Golden Lion prize at the Venice Film Festival for his 2000 film "Dayareh" (Circle), has been sentenced to six years in prison plus a twenty-year ban on all his artistic activities—including film making, writing scrip...

Isabella Rossellini is one of the most renowned actresses in international cinema. In recent years she has also made her mark as a producer and director. The daughter of Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman and Italian director Roberto Rossellini has played in more than 40 feature films and worked with such directors as Robert Zemeckis, Joel Schumacher, Peter Weir, Abel Ferrara, Peter Greenaway and David Lynch or John Schlesinger, with whom she filmed The Innocent in Berlin in 1992. She celeb...

Isabella Rossellini is one of the most renowned actresses in international cinema. In recent years she has also made her mark as a producer and director. The daughter of Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman and Italian director Roberto Rossellini has played in more than 40 feature films and worked with such directors as Robert Zemeckis, Joel Schumacher, Peter Weir, Abel Ferrara, Peter Greenaway and David Lynch or John Schlesinger, with whom she filmed The Innocent in Berlin in 1992. She celebrated he...

In of the convicted Iranian director Jafar Panahi, the Berlin International Film Festival is launching a number of initiatives at the Berlinale. In his films, Jafar Panahi critically explores the social situation in his homeland. His conviction violates the right to freedom of opinion and expression in the arts.   In 2011 the Berlinale will show several films by Jafar Panahi in a number of its sections and so draw attention to the extraordinary oeuvre for which this art...

The selection for the Competition programme of the 61st Berlin International Film Festival has been completed. It includes 22 films, 16 of which will be competing for the awards. In addition there will be two special screenings: In solidarity with the convicted Iranian director Jafar Panahi, his film Offside will be presented on February 11, the anniversary of the Iranian Revolution. Also, the European premiere of Werner Herzog's 3D documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams will be shown as a...

  The selection for the Competition programme of the 61st Berlin International Film Festival has been completed. It includes 22 films, 16 of which will be competing for the awards. In addition there will be two special screenings: In solidarity with the convicted Iranian director Jafar Panahi, his film Offside will be presented on February 11, the anniversary of the Iranian Revolution. Also, the European premiere of Werner Herzog's 3D documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams will be shown...

Opening with Potiche (french film by François Ozon starring french icon Catherine Deneuve) just six days after New Years the Palm Springs Film Festival can probably lay claim to the honor of being the very first such festival of any size or signifigance on the annual international film festival calendar. While this is not a festival one hears too much about, being well off the beaten track and coming at a time when most of us are still recovering from year end Holidaze entertainment ove...

Opening just six days after New Years the Palm Springs Film Festival can probably lay claim to the honor of being the very first such festival of any size or significance on the annual international film festival calendar. For readers unfamiliar with the geography of Southern California, most of the lower part of the state is actually a desert and Palm Springs is a kind of extremely upscale oasis in the middle of this desert, a hundred miles away from Los Angeles and halfway to more desert over ...

  MOHAMMED RASULOFThe Thessaloniki International Film Festival denounces the sentences conferred upon Iranian filmmakers Jafar Panahi and Mohammed Rasulof.  The recent accusations against them, as well as the excessive penalty imposed on them for spreading “propaganda against the system”, for participation in the protests that ensued after Ahmadinejad’s re-election and for their socially focused work, is a direct and unabashed violation of civil liberties. Thessaloniki Film Festival...

  International reaction is building as news emerges from Iran that Jafar Panahi, one of that country's most internationally respected film artists, has been sentenced to a lengthy prison term. The Berlin International Film Festival is the first of many film institutions around the world to sharply condemn the harsh sentences handed down to the renowned Iranian director Jafar Panahi and his directing colleague Mohammed Rasulof. Accused of spreading “propaganda against the system”,...

Iran has sentenced two prominent filmmakers to six years in jail each on vague charges of working against the ruling system, their lawyers said Monday. One of the two, the renowned filmmaker Jafar Panahi, has won awards at the Chicago, Cannes and Berlin film festivals. His films have been screened at various film festivals in India. He was invited as chief guest at the recently concluded 41st international film fest in Goa (IFFI) but was not allowed to leave the country. Iran has ...

Before beginning his movie career, Jafar Panahi made a number of short films and documentaries for Iranian television and worked as assistant director. Panahi’s features have won many awards at international festivals: his directorial debut, Badkonake sefid (The White Balloon, 1995 Camera d’or in Cannes), was followed by Ayneh (The Mirror, 1997 Golden Leopard in Locarno), Dayereh (The Circle, 2000 Golden Lion in Venice), Talaye sorkh (Crimson Gold, 2003 Prix du Jury - Un Certain Regard in Ca...

The Norwegian Crown Prince, His Majesty Haakon and film director/actress Liv Ullmann officially opens a Film & Music Live Gala screening at The Norwegian Opera on October 10, 2010, presenting legendary Brazilian artist Mario Peixoto´s masterpiece, LIMITE, in a newly restored version. Celebrated Norwegian composer/musician, Bugge Wesseltoft, has composed new music for the film and will be presenting it live in collaboration with acclaimed Brazilian musicians, such as Naná Vasconcelos, Marlui Mi...

Selection Committee Announcement Kamran Shirdel (Head of Film Selection Committee)DocumentarianConsidered a pioneer of Iran's NEW cinema. Born in born 1939 in Tehran, he studied architecture, urbanism, and design at the University of Rome and film direction at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia of Rome. After graduating in 1964, he worked as an assistant director with John Huston on The Bible before making his diploma film, Gli Specchi (The Mirrors), in Rome. He returned to Iran and star...

Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer is Best Film of the Year, according to the of the International Federation of Film Critics – FIPRESCI who voted for the Grand Prix 2010. The 296 film critics from throughout the world that took part in the poll expressed their preference among the feature-length films premièred during the previous year (after July 1, 2009), according this distinct sign of critical acclaim to The Ghost Writer. Leading actress Olivia Williams will receive the FIPRESCI ...

THE PLEASURE OF BEING ROBBED You've heard of the Warner brothers and the Baldwin brothers.....well, make way for the Safdie brothers, the directorial team of Benny and Josh Safdie, American indie's dynamic duo. The BAMcinématek located at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York has turned the asylum over to the inmates for the eclectic film series titled Emotional Sloppy Manic Cinema: Films Directed and Selected by Benny and Josh Safdie. The series, a collection of 19...

Venice Days (Giornate degli Autori), a special section of the 67th edition of the Venice Film Festival, will host the World Premiere of Iranian director Jafar Panahi's latest work, The Accordion. The film, produced by ART for The World as part of the new film project "THEN AND NOW, Beyond Borders and Differences" based on article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is a short film that stresses the rights of "freedom of thought, conscience an...

Shirin Ebadi   DIALOGUE WITH SHIRIN EBADI 2003 Noble Prize Winner, Shirin Ebadi, Iranian lawyer and human rights advocate talked with famous screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière at the DAY IN TEHRAN event, organized, June 13th, in Paris, on the grounds of the Cinémathèque Française. Shirin Ebadi is one of the very first female judges in Iran. Her constant and unfailing efforts in fostering  Human Rights for the weak and needy, in particular, women's rights, ch...

Abbas Kiarostami, 1997 Palme d'Or winner, returned to Cannes presenting his In Competition film, Copie Conforme. Tuesday morning's press conference, however, veered toward a heavier subject as Kiarostami called for the release of fellow Iranian filmmaker, Jafar Panahi, who has been imprisoned in a Tehran jail since March 1. Kiarostami hoped to draw attention to the struggle filmmakers face in his native country who are persecuted for having creative ideas, for films that haven't even been compl...

  Beginning of March, Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi had been arrested by the police of his country. Over two months later, he's still in prison.   The International Federation of Film Critics FIPRESCI, a non-profit, apolitical organization consisting of from 68 countries worldwide, strongly protests the arrest and unjust confinement of filmmaker Jafar Panahi. In the collective view of FIPRESCI, Panahi is not only an outstanding filmmaker - he has merited the FIPR...