The Santa Barbara International Film Festival will honor Vera Farmiga, Peter Sarsgaard, Stanley Tucci and Christoph Waltz with the Cinema Vanguard Award at the 25th edition of the Fest, which runs February 4-February 14, 2010, it was announced today by SBIFF Executive Director Roger Durling.  The Tribute will take place on Friday, February 12, 2010.   The Cinema Vanguard Award was created in recognition of an actor who has forged his/her own path - taking artistic risks and making a signific...

The Rencontres internationales du documentaire de Montréal (RIDM) are proud to announce the awards of their 12th edition. CAMERA STYLO AWARD - presented by the Association des réalisateurs et réalisatrices du Québec (ARRQ): The Sound of Insects - Record of a Mummy, by Peter Liechti. For its ability to communicate in pure cinematic form a disturbing meditation on life and death, while delivering a powerfully sensual experience with remarkable evo...

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 ...