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AWARDS. L'ALTERNATIVA 2009
FICTION FEATURE FILM AWARD (6500€)
Poliţist, Adjectiv (Police, Adjective) Corneliu Porumboiu (Romania)
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE AWARD (4500€)
O'er the Land Deborah Stratman (USA)
SPECIAL MENTION DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Archipels Nitrate Claudio Pazienza (Belgium / France)
SHORT FILM AWARD (3000€)
14 Asitha Ameresekere (UK)
SPECIAL...
The winners of the 2009 Ojai-Ventura International Film Festival's competition categories were announced this year. The top awards went to Acholiland and Garbage Dreams and more awards were handed out for the best Shorts (narrative and documentary) The Fenceline and Watershed Revolution, the Best feature films (Children of Invention and American Outrage).
Art Director and Founder Steve Grumette said, "I am delighted that we have awarded films from such diverse origins, helping to la...
Israeli filmmaker Eyal Sivan has been asked by IDFA to program a personal Top Ten List of his favorite films for this year's event. Sivan is in Amsterdam for the premiere of his latest film Jaffa, The Orange Clockwork, which screens in the IDFA Competition for Feature-Length Documentaries. During the festival, Sivan will also present a masterclass in which he will explain his choices for his list.
Eyal Sivan grew up in Jerusalem and worked as a photograp...
If you are an industry professional who works in the world of documentaries, it is a pretty sure bet that you are spending this week in Amsterdam at the IDFA International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. Aside from the hundreds of completed films on display, the Festival sponsors a co-production market for filmmakers to network with potential financiers and distributors for new projects (that will most probably come to IDFA next year as completed films).
IDFA’s annual c...
Dutch cinema circuit Pathé Netherlands, a long-time collaborator with IDFA through its Tuschinski and Munt theaters which host many of the festival’s events and screenings, is launching a new documentary label called Pathé Docs, aimed at bringing documentaries to a wider audience.
The label, which has been devised in close collaboration with IDFA, will go live during the festival with the screening of three IDFA titles – Icelandic eco-doc Dreamland, Michael Moore’s C...
Scott Hillier
Hi! Our early deadline is getting near so if you directors want your film to be in competition at ÉCU 2010 you’d best work on locking that picture and send us a screening copy as soon as possible! You’ll find submission details at www.ecufilmfestival.com.
While everyone seems to have spent the year being battered from pillar to post due to the World’s economic implosion, submissions have been coming in to us at a steady stream. As usual we ar...
By Clémentine Briand
ECU would like to spotlight author Paul Osborne and his article “Film Festival Dos and Don’ts,” which outlines rules for filmmakers on the collaboration between filmmaker and film festival that must take place to have a successful screening. Take a look at our own Scott Hilllier’s comment in reponse to this intuitive article on festivals.
...
Article by Sarah Schutzki Voisin
Rodrigo Vila pitching his project "Hero of Two Sisters Mountain" to a professional panel at ECU's Perfect Pitch 2009
From London (Good Pitch) to Scotland (The Edinburgh Pitch) to Barcelona (DocsBarcelona) to Paris (ECU’s The Perfect Pitch!!), workshops, forums and presentations on the art of pitching have become one of the backbones of the independent film festival.
In addition to offering up a great reason to travel, these ...
The City of Trento will be feasting from 29 april to 9 may 2010.
For the TrentoFilmfestival, the oldest and most acclaimed international festival of films devoted to the mountains, directed by Maurizio Nichetti, the journey to the 58th edition begins.
Regulations and entry forms are downloadable from www.trentofestival.it. Significant news in Regulations 2010, are the wording for some of the Prizes. In particular the three "silver gentians" wil...
Article by Anna Takayama
Director, Alice Mitterrand recently submitted her film, D’UNE VIE A L’AUTRE to the ÉCU 2010 Dramatic Short category. She discusses the joys and sorrows of motherhood as well as her own struggles as a filmmaker.
Q: What is your film about?
The film is about motherhood, which is a very sensitive time in a woman’s life. Everything changes: one’s way of thinking, one’s priorities, and one’s vision on life. In this s...
Article by Anna Takayama
Turnstunde, from director Hannes Rall, a recent submission to the ÉCU 2010 Animation category, is about the adventures of a young boy and his unusual nightmare: the gym lesson! Anna Takayama finds out what inspired the director, and more.
Q: What is your film about?
A chubby little boy is faced with the the recurring traumatic experience of attending a gym lesson. He is confronted by his evil and slightly sadistic sport...
Article by Anna Takayama
SÆKZI, a recent submission to the ÉCU 2010 Dramatic Short category, is an honest story of a woman’s battle with her lack of self-confidence through the eyes of her devoted lover. Director Lars T. Moen gives interviewer Anna Takayama his views on women, beauty, ideals, and love in modern times.
Q: What is your film about?
Sækzi is a film about self-confidence, and how it shouldn’t matter what you look like. The film port...
Mugabe and the White African, one of the films in this year's Soundtrack International Film and Music Festival (Nov 18-22 http://www.soundtrackfilmfestival.com/) has been shortlisted for an Oscar, adding more prestige to a festival described by Danny Boyle as "crucial".
The powerful and intimate feature-length documentary about the Mugabe regime is amongst the 15 Documentary Features shortlisted for an Academy Award, hoping to make it onto the final five list ready for t...
Article by Anna Takayama
Director Dean Bajramovic gives us an enticing sneak peak into his recent ÉCU 2010 Non-European Dramatic Feature submission, GANGSTER EXCHANGE, a quirky and dynamic (and somewhat autobiographical) gangster comedy about a Japanese Yakuza member smuggling heroin…in a toilet. Anna Takayama get’s the gritty details.
Q: What is your film about?
The film is an action comedy about a couple of gangsters, one Japanese, one Amer...
Article by Kaly Halkawt
NYU film student, Gabrielle Demeestere, who recently submitted her short The Last Cigarette to ÉCU 2010’s Non-European Dramatic Short category discusses the humorous side of smoking.
Q: Tell me briefly about your film?
The Last Cigarette is a short comedy I directed in my first year of graduate school at NYU film school. It tells the story of Lise, a French tourist, who finds herself alienated by her smoking habit in...
Article by Anna Takayama
Four Roses, a recent submission to the ÉCU 2010 European Dramatic Feature category, explores themes of isolation, love, and being. Director Kris De Meester talks to Anna Takayama about the charm of police sirens, the color of black and white, and flying hippos in France.
Q: What is your film about?
Four Roses is about everything and nothing, the unbearable lightness of being and the eternal sense of every passing minute. As Henry David Thoreau once w...
By Sophie Nellis
The view of Paris from Parc de Belleville
Next stop on our tour of Paris is the area of Belleville. Straddling the 19th and 20th arrondissements, Belleville is located between Rue de Belleville, Rue des Pyrénées, Rue de Ménilmontant and Boulevard de Belleville. It is situated on and around a hill and if you make it to the Parc de Belleville there are some amazing views of the city’s skyline.
Belleville began its life as a working cla...
The results are in for the 2009 International Vampire Film Festival are as follows:
http://www.vampirefilmfestival.com/
"All of the films selected were exceptional in one way or another, but The Revenant stood out because it worked as pure vampire fiction and as a contemporary commentary on socially relevant issues. Plus, it was funny." Tim Cogshell, Programmer Vampire Film Festival
Outstanding Vampire Feature: The Revenant (USA) Directed by Kerry Prior
...
The winners of ANIMATED DREAMS were announced on Saturday, 21 November at the award ceremony in Sõprus Cinema.
The Animated Dreams, for the first time ever, gave out monetary prizes this year. The winner of the Grand Prix, in addition to the Wooden Wolf made by Estonian puppet masters, received 1000 euros sponsored by studio A Film Estonia. The...
