Category: International

MUMBAI: Hanoi will be celebrating its 1000th anniversary with the opening of Vietnam‘s first international film festival in 2010.

This was announced by the cinema department of the country‘s ministry of culture, sports and tourism that will be the co-organiser of the festival. The festival will run from 27 to 31 October, next year.

Said Vietnam Media vice president of sales & acquisitions Ngo Thi Bich Hanh, “We want to start out small but stable so that we can make sure to do things right and not try to grow too quickly. For the first year we‘re going to invite 50 to 60 feature films.”

The festival will have a feature competition section for Asian directors with a focus on South-East Asia and competitions for shorts and documentaries.

An international jury will select the best feature, short and documentary, while the audience will choose a favourite actor or actress.

The fest will also have a ‘Vietnam Cinema Today‘ section that will have recent feature film from Vietnamese directors and a World Cinema Today section.

The ‘Country In Focus‘ section will showcase established directors from a chosen country each year while the Tribute section will showcase films from a certain notable Vietnamese filmmaker, actor or actress.

MUMBAI: Tatum O‘Neal will be seen in the title role of the indie drama Sweet Lorraine.

She will play a former queen of the New York underground scene who, after moving to small-town New Jersey, gets caught up in local politics when her ex-lover becomes the mayor.

The actress recently completed shooting for The Runaways opposite Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning. She also has a role in the FX series Rescue Me.

O‘Neal has appeared in My Brother, Little Darlings and Paper Moon for which she received an Oscar award while she was 10 years old.

MUMBAI: The 30th American Film Market (AFM) that runs from 4 to 11 November will screen films like Get Low starring Bill Murray, Sissy Spacek and Robert Duvall; Unthinkable starring Samuel L. Jackson and Harry Brown starring Michael Caine and Emily Mortimer.

More than 8,000 film buyers and industry professionals from more than 70 countries are expected to attend, according to AFM managing director Jonathan Wolf.
The AFM has lined up 445 films including 73 world premieres and 311 market premieres.

The simultaneous AFI Fest, which is partnered with AFM, will screen 23 films that are represented at the market, including Joe Dante‘s The Hole, Michael Hoffman‘s The Last Station and Lee Daniels‘ Precious.

MUMBAI: Three Hollywood actors namely Julianne Moore, Bradley Cooper and Ryan Kavanaugh are among the honourees who will be feted at the upcoming 13th Annual Hollywood Film Festival (HFF) and Hollywood Awards.

The ceremony will take place in Beverly Hills on 26 October.

Julianne Moore stars in two of the award contending films like A Single Man and Chloe and is due to collect the Hollywood

supporting actress award while Bradley Cooper will receive the Hollywood comedy award for The Hangover.

Relativity Media chief Ryan Kavanaugh will collect the Hollywood producer award. His films include the remake of Brothers, War Of Gods and The Strangers 2.

Actors Shohreh Aghdashloo, Melanie Lynskey, Paul Schneider and Zachary Quinto will be presented with the Hollywood spotlight awards.

MUMBAI: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures International‘s Up has hauled $21 million from overseas territories thus boosting its overall total to $257.1m.The film surged past $250m and overtook Terminator Salvation to rank as the studios‘ fifth biggest international release of 2009.

Screening in 3,500 screens in 25 markets, Up was number one in the UK delivering $9.7m (?6.1m) from 550 screens in what is the biggest animated launch of the year-to-date.
The Disney/Pixar release remains potent in Germany after one month of release and ranks third on $3.2m from 680 for $20.3m.

In Australia, it took Universal‘s new release

Couples Retreat to edge Up out of the number one slot after a magnificent five-week reign – the longest since The Dark Knight last year. Nonetheless the release added $1.8m from 365 for a memorable $20.5m and has grossed almost 70% more than the entire run of Ratatouille and more than 30 per cent more than Wall-E.

Up launched top in Belgium and Holland on a combined $2.3m from 130 and followed up last weekend‘s record debut in Denmark with a $745,000 number one hold from 70 theatres that raised the tally to $2.1m. Up touches down next weekend in Italy, Hungary, Turkey, Sweden and Poland.

MUMBAI: Director Mike Nichols has been selected to receive the American Film Institute‘s Lifetime Achievement Award. The highest honor will be presented at a tribute, broadcast by TV Land Prime in Los Angeles next summer.

Nichols has received four best director Academy Award nominations, and won the Oscar in 1968 for directing The Graduate. He was also nominated for a best picture award in 1994 as one of the producers of The Remains of the Day.

During the course of his career, which he began in the ‘50s when he partnered with Elaine May for a comedy act, he has also won an Emmy, a Tony and a Grammy.

Nichol‘s film career began with Who‘s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in 1966. He also made Catch-22, Carnal Knowledge, Silkwood, Working Girl, Primary Colors, the HBO film Angels in America, Closer and the most recent Charlie Wilson‘s War.

MUMBAI: The Abu Dhabi Film Commission awarded Saudi director Haifaa Al Mansour with the $100,000 Sasha Grant for her film Wajda at the third annual Circle Conference that concluded in Abu Dhabi on Sunday.

Wajda is a coming-of-age story of an 11-year-old Saudi girl.

The grant recognizes rising talent in film and television in the Middle East.

Mansour was chosen from among five finalists, who came to the conference to pitch their projects to a jury of industry leaders in the hope of securing the production-funding prize.

The runner-up was Annemarie Jacir, who received a trip to the Melbourne International Film Festival for her project When I Saw You as part of a partnership between the ADFC and the MIFF 37 Degrees South Market.

MUMBAI: At a recent Hollywood auction, Michael Jackson‘s illuminated white glove was sold for a whopping 44,300 pounds. The glove came into prominence after Jacko, as he was popularly known, wore it on his 1984 Victory Tour.

The glove is said to be “the ultimate piece of Michael Jackson memorabilia”.

The glove, which was adorned with shining beads and crystal rhinestones, was fitted with 50 tiny lights, powered by a nine-volt battery in the cuff.

Other big sellers at the auction included a Stormtrooper‘s helmet from a 1983 film Return of the Jedi (51,600 pounds), a figure from Predator and Predator 2 (nearly 30,000 pounds) and an ET puppet (20,300 pounds).

MUMBAI

: Oregon State University (OSU) professor Shelley Jordon‘s hand-painted animated film Family History” has been chosen as an official selection at the Eugene International Film Festival that is currently on from 8 to 11 October.

Jordon‘s film explores issues of vulnerability and risk. She created the film by layering more than 500 new images over old ones, creating a painting that became a metaphor for life itself.

Family History received the Critic‘s Choice Award when it premiered at the Gold Coyote Super Short Film Festival in Marylhurst in May 2009. It has also been selected to be screened this fall at the Sydney Underground Film Festival in Marrickville, Australia, the Radar Hamburg Independent Film Festival in Hamburg, Germany, and the Tacoma Film Festival in Tacoma, Wash.

Jordon is a professor of art at OSU and has been a recipient of an Oregon Artist‘s Fellowship Award and a Fulbright-Hayes Group Travel Research Grant to Yemen and Tunisia. She has had more than 30 exhibitions nationally and internationally.

The film was screened yesterday.

MUMBAI: The Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF) opened Thursday. Welcoming the press guests with its opening film, South Korean-produced Good Morning, President, the festival began its nine-day run.

In the evening, a grand opening ceremony was held at an open theatrethat was attended by famous celebrities, including Josh Hartnett, and Han-ryu, or the Korean wave, stars like Jang Dong-gun and Lee Byung-hun.

Famous celebrities from China such as Fruit Chen and Terri Kwan, also appeared in the ceremony‘s photo zone, receiving a warm welcome from thousands of South Korean movie-lovers.

Jia Zhangke, Cui Jian, and Li Bingbing are also scheduled to visit Busan during the festival, with the Li-starred movie to be presented as the closing film.

This year‘s PIFF, marking its 14th event, is screening a total of 355 films from 70 countries, breaking its last record it set last year, 315 movies from 60 nations.

Among the participant films, 98 chose to world-premier, or showcase for the first time in the world, at the PIFF, which is also a record-high number.