Great World has to be saved! Here's the aim of Rob Stewart's work as a videomaker, here at Cannes FF 2013 to spread the absolutely amazing documentary Revolution, already presented and winner at Toronto FF and Vancouver FF, and produced by Gus Van Sant. REVOLUTION is a film about changing the world, going for it,  [ Read More ]

Jia Zhang-Ke presents a picture of contemporary China, through four interrelated portraits: four individuals from four different corners of China, confronted with the country's growing inequalities and new aspirations for democracy and freedom.     A miner who is exasperated by corruption, a man who is forced to migrate to another region to find work,  [ Read More ]

  Lee Tamahori (Wellington, 1950) is the famous director from New Zeeland who Started his carreer as a filmmaker with Once Were Warriors (1994), to jump into thriller with Mulholland Falls (1996), just before his success The Edge (1997) and Die Another Day (2002), the twentieth James Bond movie with Pierce Brosnan. After directing too  [ Read More ]

INteRVIew wIthFRANçoIs ozoN What was the catalyst forYOUNG & BEAUTIFUL? Directing Ernst Umhauer and Bastien Ughetto for INTHE HOUSEwas such a pleasure I wanted to work with young actors again. Myearly shorts and features explored adolescence, but from UNDERTHE SAND on, I’ve worked essentially with older actors. SoYOUNG & BEAUTIFUL started with my desire to  [ Read More ]

  Estela is a 12 year old girl who has just fallen crazy in love with a young policecadet who wants to run away with her and get married. Trying to achieve thisdream, her family will have to live the violence that is devastating the region. INTERVIEW WITH AMAT ESCALANTE HELI is your third movie  [ Read More ]

CANNES FF 2913 OUT OF COMPETITION The Great Gatsby Twelve years after Romeo+Juliet, based on Shakespeare’s tragedy, Baz Lurhmann set out to adapt the famous novel by Francis Scott Fitzgerald in an attempt to reveal its unspoken side. Three film versions of The Great Gatsby have been made since the novel, considered a major work  [ Read More ]

    Acclaimed Danish film director Thomas Vinterberg is the winner of the 2013 European Union Prix MEDIA. The prize is awarded to the best new film project with box-office potential eligible for support from the EU MEDIA programme for cinema. The award will be presented to Vinterberg by Androulla Vassiliou, European Commissioner for Education,  [ Read More ]

American director William Friedkin will receive the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 70 Venice International Film Festival (28 August – 7 September 2013). The decision was made by the Board of Directors of the Biennale chaired by Paolo Baratta, upon recommendation of the Director of the Venice Film Festival Alberto Barbera. In presenting  [ Read More ]

Cannes FF 2013, may 15th – 25th       IN COMPETITION Opening Film Baz LUHRMANN THE GREAT GATSBY (H.C.) 1h45 *** Valeria BRUNI-TEDESCHI UN CHÂTEAU EN ITALIE 1h44 Ethan COEN, Joel COEN INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS 1h45 Arnaud DESPALLIÈRES MICHAEL KOHLHAAS 2h05 Arnaud DESPLECHIN JIMMY P. (PSYCHOTHERAPY OF A PLAINS INDIAN) 2h Amat ESCALANTE HELI  [ Read More ]

While the Official Selection of feature films for the 66th Festival de Cannes will be revealed on Thursday 18th April, the list of Short Films is unveiled in advance. The Cinéfondation and Short Films Jury, presided by Jane Campion, will nominate the prize-winners for the Short Film Competition and the Cinéfondation Selection. THE SHORT FILMS  [ Read More ]

DOCUMENTA MADRID presents the first titles of the Official Selection. The Oscar nominated documentary “The Gatekeepers”, the best European documentary “Winter Nomads”, the winner of Panorama Berlin “The Act of Killing” and the sequel to the famous hit “The Staircase” directed by the Oscar-winning Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, shall take us in a fantastic voyage from  [ Read More ]

By Chiara Spagnoli Gabardi   The year 2012 has set a record for French film in Italy, that hadn’t been as high ever since the 80s. This newly achieved peak, is probably due to the craftsmanship approach adopted by the French cinéastes who manage to create “auteur” movies that are popular and emphatically enthralling. This  [ Read More ]

  BE OPEN is a creative think tank whose mission is to promote people and ideas: a cultural and philanthropic initiative that aims to harness the brainpower of the global creative minds in the arts, education, design, business, and the media – and asks them to imagine and then build solutions for the future. BE  [ Read More ]

FROM CANNES FF 2013 website: http://www.festival-cannes.fr It is on The Great Gatsby by Australian director Baz Luhrmann, that the curtain will rise at the inauguration of the 66th Festival de Cannes, on Wednesday 15th May, in the Grand Théâtre Lumière of the Palais des Festivals, out of Competition in the Official Selection. Adapted from the  [ Read More ]

By Chiara Spagnoli Gabardi “Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman, Be he live, or be he dead I'll grind his bones to make my bread.” Is the historical and most popular quatrain chanted by children who are fond of the British fairytale ‘Jack and the Beanstalk. Bryan Singer’s movie is mainly inspired by  [ Read More ]

by Chiara Spagnoli Gabardi The author of the ‘Twilight’ franchise, Stephanie Meyer has written the novel ‘The Host,’ adapted on screen by the film-maker from New-Zealand Andrew Niccol. The sci-fi thiller romance reveals a future in which Earth has been occupied by a parasitic alien species that overtakes the human race by controlling their bodies and  [ Read More ]

By Chiara Spagnoli Gabardi What triggers a producer to pick a script amongst heaps of screenplays? This question remains unanswered after viewing ‘The Place Beyond The Pines,’ a movie that makes no sense from start to finish and if it weren’t for Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper, no-one would bother considering it. The plot is  [ Read More ]

by Chiara Spagnoli Gabardi http://www.tobefashion.it/ To Be or not To Be Eco-friendly? That is the question! Well the Florentine Brand, ‘To Be’, designed by the entrepreneur Simone Vannuzzi, has come up with an entire capsule collection using ecological fabrics. The green philosophy that inspires the brand uses natural yarn extracted by bamboo, cereals, pineapple, banana,  [ Read More ]

Review by Chiara Spagnoli Gabardi The French animation movie created by Rémi Bezançon and Jean-Christophe Lie, is inspired by the true story of 1826, when the first giraffe travelled from Alexandria to Paris. France’s ambassador to Egypt came up with the idea of giving the little giraffe Zarafa as a present from the Pasha to  [ Read More ]

Review by Chiara Spagnoli Gabardi The Flintstones are beyond shadow of a doubt the timeless cartoon-family of the stone age. But DreamWorks tries to supply its own 3D animation version of prehistoric kith and kin cavemen facing evolution.   ‘The Croods’ tells the story of the world’s first family road trip: when their cave is  [ Read More ]

Oz the Great and Powerful the review by Chiara Spagnoli Are you prepared to discover how it all began before Dorothy was thrust by a whirlwind Somewhere Over the Rainbow? Disney’s fantastical adventure ‘Oz The Great and Powerful,’ directed by Sam Raimi, imagines the origins of L. Frank Baum’s beloved wizard character. When Oscar Diggs  [ Read More ]

Here we are with the annual Academy Awards Winners article. Are you ready? List of the 85th annual Academy Award winners announced Sunday in Los Angeles: 1. Best Picture: “Argo.” 2. Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, “Lincoln.” 3. Actress: Jennifer Lawrence, “Silver Linings Playbook.” 4. Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, “Django Unchained.” 5. Supporting Actress: Anne Hathaway, “Les  [ Read More ]

“Gangster Squad“ Review by ChiaraSpagnoli If you’re in the mood for a guilty pleasure Ruben Fleisher’s film will be just your cup of tea! ‘Gangster Squad’ projects the viewer in 1949’s Los Angeles. The city of angels is tackling with the ruthless mob king Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn). But his entire racket will have to  [ Read More ]

Marina Suma: the icon, cinema and her jewels interview by Alessandra Izzo It was in 1981 when at the Venice Film Festival, all shouted to the miracle, about a new star of cinema born after years of dark. The star, Marina Suma, actress and icon of cinema of these years, was the protagonist of the  [ Read More ]

PRIZES OF THE INTERNATIONAL JURYGOLDEN BEAR for the Best Film Poziţia CopiluluiChild's Pose by Călin Peter Netzer JURY GRAND PRIX (Silver Bear) Epizoda u životu berača željeza An Episode in the Life of an Iron Pickerby Danis Tanović ALFRED BAUER PRIZE (Silver Bear) – in memory of the Festival Founder –for a feature film that  [ Read More ]

Beautiful Creatures review by Chiara Spagnoli After obsessive-Twilight-saga years, people have grown a certain allergic reaction to romantic dramas between mortals and supernatural creatures. And yet ‘Beautiful Creatures’ is undoubtably a delightful surprise. The film directed by Richard LaGravenese is based on the New York Times bestselling fantasy young adult novel, written by the girl-power  [ Read More ]

A Good Day To Die Hard review by Chiara Spagnoli “Bang Bang” is what Nancy Sinatra sang in the late 60s and how the 5th Die Hard film would generally add up to: “Bang bang, he shot me down, Bang bang, I hit the ground, Bang bang, that awful sound, Bang bang, my baby shot  [ Read More ]

    Since 1986 the Berlin International Film Festival has presented the Berlinale Camera to film personalities or institutions to which it feels particularly indebted and wishes to express its thanks.   At the 63rd Berlin International Film Festival, US filmmaker Richard Linklater was honoured with a surprise Berlinale Camera.   Richard Linklater is a  [ Read More ]

Berlinale Residency 2012 filmmakers   Tuesday, February 12   The Berlinale Residency programme supports writer/directors from around the world, who have already enjoyed their first festival and cinema successes, in developing their new fiction, documentary film or cross-media projects. The first Berlinale Residency took place from September – December 2012. The selected filmmakers stayed in  [ Read More ]

STATE 194 PANORAMA DOKUMENTE at the Berlin FF 2013 SYNOPSIS: If you build the foundations of peace . . . will it come? This fascinating question lies at the heart of STATE 194, a vital and revealing look deep inside Israel and Palestine at the men and women trying to seize an historic opportunity to  [ Read More ]

The Perks Of Being A Wallflower by Chiara Spagnoli ‘The Perks Of Being A Wallflower’ started out as a coming-of-age epistolary novel, written by the American writer Stephen Chbosky: it was published in February of 1999 by MTV and in 2012 was made into a movie starring Logan Lerman, Ezra Miller, Emma Watson, and was  [ Read More ]

The Berlin International Film Festival is celebrating its opening tomorrow, on February 7, 2013 at 7.30 pm. After a few words of greeting from Minister of State for Cultural and Media Affairs Bernd Neumann and Governing Mayor of Berlin Klaus Wowereit, the Festival will be officially opened by Jury President Wong Kar Wai (Hong Kong,  [ Read More ]

Broken City, the review by Chiara Spagnoli   ‘Broken City’ is a crime drama, that unveils the dark side of the moon of mayorship interacting with the police department.   Billy Taggart (Mark Wahlberg) is an NYPD detective who is arrested for the murder of Mikey Tavarez, who raped his girlfriend Natalie Barrow (Natalie Martinez).  [ Read More ]

First show of the 2013 program of the Vicenza Theatre, ‘Macbeth’, the well known tragedy by William Shakespeare, in the modern version directed by Italian director Andrea De Rosa, with translation by Nadia Fusin,is a production by Fondazione Teatro Stabile of Torino and of Teatro Stabile of Veneto “Carlo Goldoni”. Main role given to  the  [ Read More ]

  Thinking about women-music legend, you may think to great artists like Janis Joplin, Patti Smith, Debbie Harry, Stevie Nicks, Grace Slick, Joan Baez and so on.But in the world of the music and first of all of rock from that amazing period of 60s and 70s there were other types of woman-myths. Beauty, audacious,  [ Read More ]

The Impossible movie review by Chiara Spagnoli The acclaimed Spanish horror-film director, Juan Antonio Bayona, has released an outstanding dramatic masterpiece, based on the true story of Maria Belón who lived, with her husband Enrique and three sons Lucas, Simon, and Tomas, the experience of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Maria is portrayed by Naomi  [ Read More ]

Berlinale 2013: International Jury With WONG Kar Wai serving as Jury President, the International Jury will decide who will receive the Golden Bear and Silver Bears of the 2013 Berlinale Competition. The other members of the International Jury will be Susanne Bier, Andreas Dresen, Ellen Kuras, Shirin Neshat, Tim Robbins and Athina Rachel Tsangari. Chinese  [ Read More ]

The Last Stand The review by Chiara Spagnoli   The governor is back on the silver screen! Indeed ‘The Terminator’, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who had taken time off from film-making to dedicate himself to taking care of the State of California, having concluded his mandate as governor, has returned to his acting career.   The South-Korean  [ Read More ]

Looper by Chiara Spagnoli Have you ever asked yourself “if only I could turn back time?” The new American science-fiction film written and directed by Rian Johnson actually deals with the topic of time travel. In a futuristic gangland in the year 2044, 25-year-old Joseph Simmons (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), is a ‘looper’, i.e. a professional hit  [ Read More ]

Silver Linings Playbook When two negatives make a positive By Chiara Spagnoli Every cloud has a silver lining just as every distortion has the potential to be fixed by love. This is essentially what the feature film directed by David Owen Russell, starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, is all about. ‘Silver Linings Playbook’ is  [ Read More ]

Film producers who are looking for exciting literary material for the screen should be in their element at “Books at Berlinale” on February 12, 2013. Ten novels that might make good movies will be presented at this year’s “Books at Berlinale” within the scope of the Berlinale Co-Production Market. At the breakfast following the pitch,  [ Read More ]

Quartet the movie review by Chiara Spagnoli We are accustomed to seeing Mr Dustin Hoffman in front of the camera ever since he played the young Benjamin Braddock seduced by the sensuous Anne Bancroft-Mrs Robinson in ‘The Graduate’. Today at age 75, Hoffman has decided to step behind the camera for his directorial debut in  [ Read More ]

Warm Bodies by Chiara Spagnoli In the past few years we’ve been sucked up in the realm of vampire love stories: pathos, blood, pretentiousness, all elements that produced the audience’s exasperation. This time the Transylvanians get substituted by a funny new twist on a classic love story between dead and alive, between cold bodies and  [ Read More ]

                  “Hip Hop Hassid” by Francesca Pagani by Chiara Spagnoli Shneur Hasofer has chosen DeScribe as nome de plume. He’s a very unique artist as he’s probably the only known rapper to be Jewish. The Hasidic performer lives in Brooklyn, combining his music with his spiritual call,  [ Read More ]

    ROME FILM FESTIVAL FESTIVAL INTERNAZIONALE DEL FILM DI ROMA   Friday January 4th Lifetime Achievement Award to Quentin Tarantino and Django Unchained gala screening   The 7th Rome Film Festival (Festival Internazionale del Film di Roma) will confer its Lifetime Achievement Award to Quentin Tarantino. The American director, screenwriter, actor, and producer, winner  [ Read More ]

            The silver screen is accustomed to telling the stories of the rock bands who make it, but director David Case has decided to take a different angle with his poignant, vibrant and sardonic ‘Not Fade Away’. The story seems to draw inspiration from the director’s life, since just as  [ Read More ]

          Ever dreamt of meeting in real life a superhero like Superman or Batman? Well you now stand a chance thanks to the young and talented director Sheldon Candis who has spotted out the the contemporary masked heroes who patrol the streets of America as activists, fighting against violent crime. “The  [ Read More ]

LOTUS EATERS by Chiara Spagnoli from NY Once upon a time there was a contemporary Alice in Wonderland who got plunged in London’s West End of wealthy spoilt kids, engaged in procrastination, sex, drugs and ennui. “Lotus Eaters” sets Alexandra McGuinness’ debut as a director through, an incredibly alluring movie, which has had a great  [ Read More ]

THE PRIZES AWARDED TO THE FILMS IN COMPETITION The International Jury, chaired by Jeff Nichols and composed of Timur Bekmambetov, Valentina Cervi, Edgardo Cozarinsky, Chris Fujiwara, Leila Hatami and P.J.Hogan, has conferred the following awards: – Golden Marc’Aurelio for Best Film: Marfa Girl by Larry Clark – Best Director Award: Paolo Franchi for E la  [ Read More ]

Brasil meets Rome Film Festival. Presented n the last day of the italian cinema kermesse, Mundo Invisivel is a collection of 11 short movies directed by Wim Wenders, Atom Egoyan, Beto Brant e Cisco Vasquez, Gian Vittorio Baldi, Jerzy Stuhr, Manoel De Oliveira, Marco Bechis, Maria De Medeiros, Guy Baddin, Lais Bodanzky. With productin by  [ Read More ]