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Sri Lankan auteur Vimukthi Jayasundara, whose “The Forsaken Land” (2005) won the Camera d’Or at Cannes, has started principal photography on his next film “Turtle’s Gaze on Spying Stars.”

One of the producers on the film is India’s Nila Madhab Panda, with whom Jayasundara collaborated to produce Nidhi Saxena’s “Sad Letters of an Imaginary Woman,” which is world premiering this week at the Busan International Film Festival.

“Turtle’s Gaze on Spying Stars,” is currently shooting in and around the hills of central Sri Lanka. It is set in a future ravaged by a mysterious pandemic caused by the over-dependence of mankind on technology. The protagonist is a refugee from Sri Lanka who returns to the country and is forcibly admitted into a valley resort that has been converted into an isolation facility. Once there, memories from his Sri Lankan past haunt him, but, instead of producing fear,...

Indian filmmaker Nidhi Saxena’s directorial debut “Sad Letters of an Imaginary Woman” has unveiled a first trailer and poster ahead of its world premiere at the 29th Busan International Film Festival this October. The film will screen in the “A Window on Asian Cinema” section.

The trailer offers a glimpse into a poignant world where memory and reality intertwine. Set in a dilapidated ancestral home, the film follows Nidhi, a middle-aged woman, and her ageing mother, Meera, as they grapple with deep-rooted trauma and unfulfilled lives.

Saxena, who previously received Busan’s Asian Cinema Fund in the post-production category, describes the project as deeply personal. “It feels as if I’ve laid down all my defenses, standing bare, exposed before the world, consciously choosing to embrace both vulnerability and courage,” she said. “The trailer and poster capture the suffocating loneliness and the feeling of being trapped – echoes running through this story’s heart.

U.K.-based sales agent Reason8 Films has sold 2023 Venice title “The Red Suitcase” to HBO for Europe and Suraya Filem for Malaysia and Brunei.

The 15 territories covered under the HBO deal include Albania, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Moldova, Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia and Bulgaria. Reason8 Films said that advanced negotiations are on for North America and Latin America.

“The Red Suitcase” premiered in the Venice Film Festival‘s Horizons strand and its festival run included Zurich and Mumbai.

In the mystery tale, a pick-up truck driver leaves Kathmandu airport for a two-day drive with a delivery arriving from abroad to a remote mountain village. On the high road, a solitary figure slowly makes his way, wheeling a small red suitcase toward the same village. The cast includes Saugat Malla, Prabin Khatiwada, Bipin Karki, Shristhi Shrestha, Sonam Lama, Anju Deuja and B. Bishowkarma.

The film,...

Indian film project “Notun Gur – A New Sweetness” has attracted a host of international co-producers.

Fran Borgia of Akanga Film Asia, Singapore, Camera d’Or winner Vimukthi Jayasundara of Film Council Productions, Sri Lanka, Ivy Yu-Hua Shen of Betula Films, Taiwan and Ajay Rai of In Front Films, U.K. have boarded the project as international co-producers.

The script is by Deyali Mukherjee, who will also direct. The producer is Sriram Raja of India’s Srdm Productions. Indian producers on board include Prateek Chakravorty of Pramod Films and Samir Sarkar of Magic Hour Films. The film is currently in the financing stage.

Raja was selected at the Asian Producers Network (Apn), an initiative of the Singapore International Film Festival (Sgiff) Film Academy, as an emerging producer. The mentors are Borgia, Lorna Tee and Park Heeseong of the Korean Film Council (Kofic).

“This is an exclusive program for independent producers who...

“The Red Suitcase,” which world premieres in the Venice Film Festival’s Horizons strand, is a rare Nepal-Sri Lanka co-production. The producers have released a first clip from the film.

The film marks the feature directorial debut of Fidel Devkota, who previously directed the short “The Last Yak Herder of Dhe” (2014) and documentary short “Wind of Change in Lo Mustang” (2016).

In mystery tale “The Red Suitcase,” a pick-up truck driver leaves Kathmandu airport for a two-day drive with a delivery arriving from abroad to a remote mountain village. On the high road, a solitary figure slowly makes his way, wheeling a small red suitcase toward the same village.

The film is produced by Ram Krishna Pokharel and Shova Thapa for Nepal’s Icefall Productions (2023 Karlovy Vary title “Guras”) and for Sri Lanka’s Film Council Productions, auteur Vimukthi Jayasundara, whose “The Forsaken Land” (2005) won the Camera d’Or at Cannes,...

Film is the debut feature from Nepalese filmmaker Fidel Devkota.

UK sales outfit Reason8 has picked up world sales for drama horror The Red Suitcase, the feature debut from Nepalese filmmaker Fidel Devkota, ahead of its world premiere Venice Film Festival’s Horizons section.

The mystery story unravels as a pick-up truck driver leaves Kathmandu Airport in Nepal for a two-day drive with a delivery arriving from abroad to a remote mountain village. On the high road, a solitary figure slowly makes his way, wheeling a small red suitcase toward the same village.

It is produced by Nepalese producer Ram Krishna Pokharel’s Icefall Productions,...

Sri Lankan auteur Vimukthi Jayasundara, whose “The Forsaken Land” (2005) won the Camera d’Or at Cannes, is readying his next project “Turtle’s Gaze on Spying Stars.”

The film is set in a future ravaged by a mysterious pandemic caused by the over dependence of mankind on technology. The protagonist is a refugee from Sri Lanka who returns to the country and is forcibly admitted into a valley resort that has been converted into an isolation facility. Once there, memories from his Sri Lankan past haunt him, but, instead of these producing fear, as is the facility’s intention, it has the opposite effect and he develops love and compassion from meeting strangers.

The film will be produced by Vincent Wang and Fred Bellaiche’s Paris-based House on Fire (“Whether the Weather is Fine”) and Sri Lanka’s Film Council Productions (“Dark in the White Light”), with Le Fresnoy Studio National des Arts Contemporains...

Makbul Mubarak’s “Autobiography” has won Best Asian Film, the top prize at the Singapore International Film Festival’s Silver Screen Awards, continuing its award-winning spree.

The film made a winning debut at Venice earlier this year and went on to win prizes at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards, Golden Horse, Marrakech, QCity, Jogja-netpac, Stockholm and Tokyo Filmex.

The jury, which included filmmakers Lav Diaz, Ritu Sarin and Kim Soyoung and New York Film Festival artistic director Dennis Lim, commended the film’s “control and clarity of vision” and praised it for being a “vivid character study, a powerful allegory of national trauma, an urgent dissection of the fascist mindset and how it persists,” in their citation.

The award comes with a cash prize of SGD8,000 and an online, audio post and Dcp package, audio final mix and Dcp feature worth SGD45,000 from Mocha Chai Laboratories.

“We celebrate cinema tonight despite motherfucker Putin,...

Six co-productions will each receive more than 60,000 in support.

Upcoming features from Guatemala’s Cesar Diaz and Sri Lanka’s Vimukthi Jayasundara, both winners of the Camera d’Or at Cannes, are among six co-productions to receive support from the Hubert Bals Fund.

The projects by filmmakers from Argentina, Egypt, Guatemala, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Yemen will each receive 60,800 from the International Film Festival Rotterdam‘s (IFFR) Hbf+Europe: Minority Co-production Support scheme for 2022.

The projects will be awarded through their European co-producers in Austria, Belgium, France, and the Netherlands.

Jayasundara is the selection’s most prolific filmmaker and is supported for his latest feature,...

Funding

Sri Lanka’s Vimukthi Jayasundara and Guatemala’s César Díaz, winners of the Cannes Golden Camera for “The Forsaken Land” (2005) and “Nuestras madres” (2019) respectively, are among the recipients of the Hubert Bals Fund (Hbf) of the International Film Festival Rotterdam‘s (IFFR) Hbf+Europe: Minority Co-production Support scheme for 2022.

Out of 25 applications, six projects by filmmakers from Argentina, Egypt, Guatemala, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Yemen have been awarded a contribution of €60,000 each through their European co-producers in Austria, Belgium, France, and the Netherlands.

Jayasundara is supported for “Turtle’s Gaze on Spying Stars”, set on a mysterious resort where the protagonist must quarantine and reckon with his past on his return to Sri Lanka, while Díaz gets it for “Fidelidad”, a love triangle set on Lake Atitlán in Guatemala.

In “The Station” by Yemeni-Scottish filmmaker Sara Ishaq (Oscar nominee for 2012’s “Karama Has No Walls”), the war in Yemen...

The old president has fled, the new one is just as unpopular, and a state of emergency is in place as Sri Lanka weathers the worst economic crisis in its history.

The island nation known as the pearl of the Indian Ocean — where films like “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” “Tarzan, the Ape Man” and “The Bridge on the River Kwai” were shot on location — has been through some extraordinary times in recent weeks.

In the last year, the government’s economic mismanagement has precipitated a foreign currency and agricultural crisis that has led to shortages of medicine, fuel and basic food staples amid a 50 rise in inflation. The country declared bankruptcy earlier this month. While the impact to local film and TV production isn’t high on the priority list amid a looming famine, Sri Lankan industry insiders say it will take years for the creative sector to recover.

“Drive My Car” filmmaker Hamaguchi Ryusuke, director Karim Ainouz (Berlin-winner “Central Airport Thf”) and actor Connie Nielsen (“Wonder Woman”) will join president M. Night Shyamalan on the international jury of the Berlin Film Festival.

Also serving on the international jury are producer Saïd Ben Saïd (“Benedetta”) and filmmakers Anne Zohra Berrached (“24 Weeeks”) and writer-director Tsitsi Dangarembga (“I Want a Wedding Dress”). The international jury decides the Golden and the Silver Bear winners.

The jury for the festival’s Encounters strand includes Mubi director of content Chiara Marañón and filmmakers Ben Rivers (Venice Fipresci prize winner “Two Years at Sea”) and Silvan Zürcher (Berlin Fipresci prize winner “The Girl and the Spider”). They will choose the winners for the strand’s best film, best director and the special jury awards.

The jury for the Gwff Best First Feature Award includes Gaia Furrer, artistic director of the Venice Film Festival’s Venice...

The International jury will be headed by US director M. Night Shyamalan.

The Berlin International Film Festival has confirmed its full juries for the 2022 edition, with Japanese filmmaker Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Brazil’s Karim Ainouz joining president M. Night Shyamalan on the main international jury.

Also on the seven-person international jury are German director Anne Zohra Berrached; Tunisian-French producer Said Ben Said; Zimbabwean writer Tsitsi Dangaremba; and Danish actress Connie Nielsen.

The international jury will select the winners of the Golden and Silver Bears from the 18 films playing in Competition. Shyamalan was selected as jury president in October last year.

The 72nd Berlin International Film Festival has confirmed its various juries, including who will be joining M. Night Shyamalan to award the International Competition prizes.

Alongside International Jury president Shyamalan will be Karim Aïnouz (Brazil / Algeria), Anne Zohra Berrached (Germany), Saïd Ben Saïd (France / Tunisia), Tsitsi Dangarembga (Zimbabwe), Ryûsuke Hamaguchi (Japan), and Connie Nielsen (Denmark / USA).

In the competitive Encounters program, a three-member jury will choose the winners for Best Film, Best Director and a Special Jury Award: Director of Content Chiara Marañón (Spain), artist and filmmaker Ben Rivers (United Kingdom) as well as producer, screenwriter and director Silvan Zürcher (Switzerland).

Elsewhere, the Gff Best First Feature will be awarded to one debut film across Berlin’s various sections, and will be decided by a three-person jury: Gaia Furrer (Italy), Vimukthi Jayasundara (Sri Lanka) and Shahrbanoo Sadat (Afghanistan).

The Berlin Documentary Award jury this year are: Wang Bing (People’s...

By Eranda Mahagamage

Sri Lanka

Sulanga Gini Aran (Dark in the White Light) directed by Vimukthi Jayasundara is a film which is a direct meditation on death. In this world, people react to death in different ways. In Dark in the White Light, death is everywhere: it is invisibly visible in all the frames, it is hanging in the haunting music of the film and in the wind that blows in the beautiful lonely landscapes. It is present in the busy streets, in the dark hospital corridors, in the darkness of the night and even in the bed sheets that cover corpses. It is in the hard and the soft winds that blow in the forest and in the fire that blazes the bodies of the living and the dead. One certainty that none can deny about death is that it is singular: humans die alone and death cannot be shared.

Deepa Mehta’s latest film, an adaptation of Shyam Selvadurai’s Sri Lanka-set coming-of-age novel “Funny Boy,” has been picked up by Ava DuVernay’s Array Releasing, and will land on Netflix this December, Variety can reveal.

The Oscar-nominated “Earth” and “Midnight’s Children” director wrote the screenplay for the film alongside Selvadurai, whose debut 1994 novel is set in Sri Lanka during the 1970s and 1980s and was ground-breaking in its discussion of identity politics against the backdrop of escalating conflict between the island nation’s Sinhalese majority and Tamil minority.

Shot on location in Colombo, the film explores Tamil protagonist Arjie’s (Arush Nand/Brandon Ingram) sexual awakening from a young boy, deemed “funny” by disapproving family, to a teenager enamoured by a male classmate, just as political tensions escalate between the Sinhalese and Tamils in the years leading up to the 1983 uprisings — violence that led into a 26-year civil war.

After more than 30 years of civil war, Sri Lanka has slowly returned to normalcy. But the work of a generation of filmmakers has been informed by the war. One of them is Vimukthi Jayasundara, whose “The Forbidden Land,” with the war as a backdrop, won the Camera d’Or at Cannes in 2005. His subsequent films have played Venice, Rotterdam and Locarno.

Jayasundara’s “The Question of Innocence,” one of 29 projects chosen for the Busan Asian Project Market, deals with life after war. It will follow a little girl who has the ability to foretell death, and the consequences this has in contemporary Sri Lankan society.

For Jayasundara, the process of cinematically dealing with the aftermath of the war began with the 2018 anthology film “Her. Him. The Other,” directed alongside his compatriots Prasanna Vithanage and Asoka Handagama, whose “Asandhimitta” is showing in Busan this year.

“Basically what we have experienced about...

20 feature films, 17 documentaries and 20 TV dramas set for pitching forum.

A slate of 20 feature films, 17 documentaries and 20 TV dramas have been selected for the pitching session at the fourth edition of the Mia Market in Rome (October 17-21).

Feature Film

This year’s feature film projects, which come from 16 different countries, were selected by Jason Ishikawa (international sales at Cinetic Media), Anne Lai (cirector of creative producing and artist support for the feature film program at the Sundance Institute) and Sophie Mas (producer at Rt Features). Half the projects are directed by women.

Among these are productions that passed through the Sundance Screenwriting lab,...

Selection focuses on first-time filmmakers from Laos, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand.

Source: Seafic

(Top, left to right) Geck Geck Ang (Singapore), He Shuming (Singapore), Xaisongkham Induangchanthy (Laos), (Bottom left-right) Sorayos Prapapan (Thailand), Tumpal Tampubolon (Indonesia)

Southeast Asia Fiction Film Lab (Seafic) has finalised the selection for its second edition, focusing on first-time filmmakers from Laos, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand.

Established producers such as Fran Borgia (A Yellow Bird) and Anthony Chen (Pop Aye) are attached to some of the projects, which cover topics including family strife, sociopolitical bureaucracy, cross-cultural humour and deadly crocodiles (see details below).

The five projects were selected by a committee that includes Sri Lankan director Vimukthi Jayasundara, Japanese producer Yukie Kito, New Europe Films Sales CEO Jan Naszewski, Macao film festival’s Lorna Tee, Berlinale Talents’ Florian Weghorn and former Fortissimo Films chief Michael J. Werner.

The first session of the Seafic script and mentoring lab will take place February 24-March 3, 2018 at Monoceros Resort...

Exclusive: Five films to screen on streaming platform in August.

New York-based streaming platform Filmatique has curated an August selection in partnership with the Locarno Festival.

Filmatique will screen five features that screened under the auspices of the Locarno Open Doors international co-production initiative in 2016.

The programme runs from 2016-2018 and is designed to help South Asian filmmakers from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The Locarno Festival opened this week and runs through August 12.

The selections on Filmatique include: Deepak Rauniyar’s Highway (pictured), which charts the lives of passengers aboard a bus from Darjeeling to Kathmandu; Bangladeshi filmmaker Rubaiyat Hossain’s exploration of religious fundamentalism and patriarchy in her second feature, Under Construction; and Burmese filmmaker Maw Naing’s The Monk, about a young man’s crisis of faith deep in the countryside of Myanmar.

Rounding out the five are two films about contemporary Sri Lanka: Rasanna Jayakody’s 28 and [link=nm...

In 2015, a French director won the Cannes Film Festival's top prize with a film inspired by Sri Lanka's contemporary political troubles; now, the South Asian country's very own filmmakers have finally offered their own riposte. Revolving around a war widow's near-complete physical and psychological breakdown as she goes to extremes to feed her family, Sanjeewa Pushpakumara's Burning Birds is a much more poised and harrowing affair than Jacques Audiard's Palme d'Or-winning Dheepan.

Burning Birds is, first and foremost, a fiery indictment about how women struggle and sink in war-torn, machismo-dripping societies. Just like his compatriot Vimukthi Jayasundara (The Forsaken...

If Sri Lanka movies had for many years been mistaken with Bollywood movies because of the huge reign of imported Indian movies and the many (unofficial) local remakes, the industry has finally built its own identity and shaped one of world’s most poetic cinematographies – as proved by two Golden Cyclos in 2012 and 2013 for August Drizzle by Aruna Jayawardanaand With Your Without You by Prasanna Vithanage.

Lester James Peries (97 years), the « Father of Sri Lanka Cinema », has not only contributed to the founding of local industry after popular success of his Rekava (Line of Destiny) in 1956, but he also proved there could be a more realistic and personal approach other than the ever-repeating musical formula movies made in Bollywood.

The success of his Gamperaliya (The Changing Village) in 1963 has paved the way for a whole new generation of young and talented directors such as Sumitra Peries, Siri Gunasinghe, Mahagama Sekera,...

Exclusive: Company will aim to attract international productions to Sri Lanka.

Cannes Camera d’Or winner Vimukthi Jayasundara [pictured] and his fellow Sri Lankan filmmaker Prasanna Vithanage are among the co-founders of a new production and distribution company, Film Island, which aims to bring international productions to Sri Lanka.

Vithanage and Jayasundara are working with a team of producers and strategic business partners to promote Sri Lanka as a shooting destination and offer production services for international shoots.

“As filmmakers ourselves we can answer any questions that filmmakers coming from Paris to Beijing might have about shooting in the country,” said Jayasundara, who won the Camera d’Or in 2005 for The Forsaken Land and returned to Cannes in 2011 with Mushrooms.

The new outfit has already signed four MOUs with overseas partners, including France’s Les Films de l’Etranger, which will represent Film Island in the global market.

Film Island has also signed two agreements with India’s Drishyam...

Tibetan director Pema Tseden’s Tharlo was awarded both the Grand Prize and the student jury prize at this year’s Tokyo Filmex, which wrapped on Sunday night (Nov 29).

The jury said of the film: “a simple concept, that a man seeks an identification card and loses track of himself, is beautifully made into cinema.” The Grand Prize came with a cash award of $6,000 (Y700,000).

Chinese filmmaker Zhao Liang’s Behemoth, about coal miners in Inner Mongolia, was awarded the special jury prize, which came with a cash award of $2,500 (Y300,000).

Special mentions went to Dark In The White Light, from Sri Lanka’s Vimukthi Jayasundara, and Japanese director Okuda Yosuke’s The Dork, The Girl And The Douchebag.

Hong Kong director Peter Ho-sun Chan’s Dearest won the audience award, while the Talents Tokyo Award 2015 went to Lau Kek Huat’s Malaysia-Taiwan co-production A Love To Boluomi.

Headed by Busan International Film Festival director Lee Young-kwan, the...

The Assassin will compete for best feature at this year’s Asia Pacific Screen Awards on Nov 26.Scroll down for the full list

Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s festival hit The Assassin, which won him best director at Cannes this year, has been nominated for three prizes at this year’s Asia Pacific Screen Awards.

The film will compete for best feature, achievement in directing for Hou Hsiao-Hsien and achievement in cinematography for Mark Lee Ping-Bing.

Other nominees in the best feature category include multi-territory co-production Cementery Of Splendour, Korean feature End Of Winter and Japanese/French drama Journey To The Shore.

Elsewhere, France’s foreign language Oscar submission Mustang received a best youth feature film nod, while Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Look Of Silence will compete for best documentary.

A total of 39 films from 22 countries have received nominations.

The awards ceremony takes place on Thursday 26 November at City Hall, Brisbane.

Full...

The Assassin will compete for best feature at this year’s Asia Pacific Screen Awards on Nov 26.Scroll down for the full list

Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s festival hit The Assassin, which won him best director at Cannes this year, has been nominated for three prizes at this year’s Asia Pacific Screen Awards.

The film will compete for best feature, achievement in directing for Hou Hsiao-Hsien and achievement in cinematography for Mark Lee Ping-Bing.

Other nominees in the best feature category include multi-territory co-production Cementery Of Splendour, Korean feature End Of Winter and Japanese/French drama Journey To The Shore.

Elsewhere, France’s foreign language Oscar submission Mustang received a best youth feature film nod, while Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Look Of Silence will compete for best documentary.

A total of 39 films from 22 countries have received nominations.

The awards ceremony takes place on Thursday 26 November at City Hall, Brisbane.

Full...

Below you will find our favorite films of the 68th Locarno Film Festival, as well as an index of our coverage.Daniel Kasmantop Picksi. L’Accademia delle Muse, CosmosII. Thithi, Happy Hour, Right Now, Wrong ThenIII. Deux Rémi, deux, 88:88COVERAGEDay 1: James White (Josh Mond), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Don Siegel)Day 2: Infinitas (Marlen Khutsiev), I Am Twenty (Marlen Khutsiev), The Ballad of Cable Hogue (Sam Peckinpah)Day 3: Cosmos (Andrzej Żuławski), The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah)Day 4: Thithi (Raam Reddy), Te prometo anarquía (Julio Hernández Cordón), Chant d'hiver (Otar Iosseliani), July Rain (Marlen Khutsiev), Year of the Dragon (Michael Cimino)Day 5: L’Accademia delle Muse (José Luis Guerín), Les idoles (Marc'o), Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (Sam Peckinpah), The Killer Elite (Sam Peckinpah)Day 6: Good Morning, Night (Marco Bellocchio), No Home Movie (Chantal Akerman), Epilogue (Marlen Khutsiev)Day 7: Chevalier (Athina Rachel Tsangari...

Newsroom (Real and Algerian): Malek Bensmail’s Checks and BalancesOn the eve of the general election for President of the Algerian Republic in 2014, Algerian filmmaker Malek Bensmail set off to Algiers to document the campaign that will eventually lead to the 4th mandate of Abdelaziz Bouteflika. As he did in 2004 for his Le grand jeu, Bensmail uses documentary cinema to examine the struggle of his country to conquer real democracy, come out of an infernal cycle of political crisis and civil conflicts, and to break with the "old ways" (structured by corruption, confiscation of power by a caste and the lack of a modern project).In 2004, Bouteflika campaigned for his second mandate and Bensmail was in the "war room," examining the mechanisms of control and corruption under the mask of a civilian regime. This time, the campaign is seen from the offices of the most important and respected independent French-speaking daily,...

World premieres for new films by Athina Rachel Tsangari, Hong Sangsoo, Ben Rivers; Southpaw, Trainwreck among Piazza Grande titles.

The 68th Locarno Film Festival (August 5-15) will open with Jonathan Demme’s musical comedy-drama Ricki And The Flash, in which Meryl Streep stars as a musician who tries to make things right with her family after giving up everything to pursue her dream of rock-and-roll stardom.

Written by Diablo Cody, the film gets a Piazza Grande berth alongside Judd Apatow’s Trainwreck, Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s Me And Earl And The Dying Girl, Catherine Corsini’s La Belle Saison and Antoine Fuqua’s Southpaw.

Also playing is Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter. Cimino is being honoured with a Pardo D’onore Swisscom and will be taking part in an onstage conversation.

14 of the 18 films competing in the festival’s International Competition section for the Golden Leopard Award are world premieres including Andrzej Zulawski’s Cosmos, Ben Rivers’ The Sky...

Directors include Brillante Mendoza, Vimukthi Jayasundara, Yeon Sang-ho.Scroll down for full list

Busan’s Asian Project Market (Apm) has announced this year’s line-up including films from directors Brillante Mendoza, Vimukthi Jayasundara, Yeon Sang-ho and July Jung.

Winner of the 2005 Cannes Film Festival Camera d’or, Vimukthi Jayasundara (The Forbidden Land) will present Sri Lankan project Hair Of The Dog That Bit You.

The drama is about a female tourist guide’s loss of memory and identity, and her struggle to come to terms with what is left of her life and an unknown future.

Cannes 2009 Best Director winner Brillante Mendoza (Kinatay) has Philippines-France-Germany co-production Fowl in the Apm line-up.

The story follows Ramon, a Filipino contract worker working at Singapore Post. When his wife Jenny suddenly dies, he has to travel back to the Philippines with her as if she were one of the many parcels he is so used to handling.

Korean directors...

Directors include Brillante Mendoza, Vimukthi Jayasundara, Yeon Sang-ho.

Busan’s Asian Project Market (Apm) has announced this year’s line-up including directors Brillante Mendoza, Vimukthi Jayasundara, Yeon Sang-ho and July Jung.

Winner of the 2005 Cannes Film Festival Camera d’or, Vimukthi Jayasundara (The Forbidden Land) will present Sri Lankan project Hair Of The Dog That Bit You.

The drama is about a female tourist guide’s loss of memory and identity, and her struggle to come to terms with what is left of her life and an unknown future.

Cannes 2009 Best Director winner Brillante Mendoza (Kinatay) has Philippines-France-Germany co-production Fowl in the Apm line-up.

The story follows Ramon, a Filipino contract worker working at Singapore Post. When his wife Jenny suddenly dies, he has to travel back to the Philippines with her as if she were one of the many parcels he is so used to handling.

Korean directors include July Jung, the [link=nm...

The Asian Project Market, the co-production market of the Busan International Film Festival, has unveiled its selection of 30 projects from 20 countries.

Qissa director Anup Singh’s next project, Mantra – The Song of Scorpions, has been selected for the Apm. A co-production between India, Switzerland and France; the film, set in Rajasthan, is a contemporary tale of twisted love, revenge and the redemptive power of a song, which unfurls like a folktale.

Vasan Bala’s Side Hero, which was recently invited for Sundance Screenwriters Lab, is also part of the market. To be produced by Guneet Monga, the film revolves around a teenager who lives by the codes of his beloved kung fu movies but must find his own way when he discovers that he may never get to be the hero.

Other prominent Asian projects in the market include Bangladeshi director Mostofa Sarwar Farooki’s No Land’s Man, a co-production between Bangladesh,...

The 19th Busan International Film Festival (Biff) has announced 29 projects selected to benefit from Asian Cinema Fund (Acf) 2014, including projects by award-winning directors such as O Muel (Jiseul) and Hannah Espia (Transit).

Acf this year picked 11 projects from Korea and 18 from around the rest of the continent.

Organisers stated Acf got a total of 565 submissions, approximately 30% up from last year. The submissions came from 52 countries including 161 projects from India and 50 from China.

“We think this big increase in submissions is due to the fact that we’ve publicized the Acf a lot, but also possibly because the production environment in Asia has gotten more difficult,” said Acf director Hong Hyosook.

The Acf 2014 Script Development Fund goes to eight projects - three from Korea and five from the rest of Asia. Each will receive a cash grant of KW10m (currently approximately $9,880).

They include projects from filmmakers who previously screened films in Busan like Cambodian-French director Davy Chou, whose...

A still from Proposition for a Revolution

Two Indian documentaries have been selected to receive the Asian Network of Documentary (And) Fund 2014 of the Busan International Film Festival: Proposition for a Revolution by Khushboo Ranka and Vinay Shukla and Like Ants for Sugar by Shirley Abraham.

Proposition for a Revolution will receive a grant of approx. Usd 10,000. The documentary chronicles the journey of the Aam Aadmi Party from its formation in November 2012 to the Delhi state elections in December 2013.

Like Ants for Sugar will receive approx. Usd 5,000. The documentary has also been selected for the Sundance Documentary Edit and Story Lab to be held from July 6-14 as well as received a Development Grant under the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program. It chronicles the travelling tent cinemas of India.

The Asian Cinema Fund (Acf) 2014 has supported 29 projects in 3 categories – Script Development Fund, Post-Production Fund, and Asian Network of Documentary (And) Fund.

Although it has existed for more than six decades now, the film industry in Sri Lanka is still struggling to find its footing. A particularly poor last decade has thrown Sri Lankan cinema on a downward spiral except for a few films that made their presence felt at international film festivals. Theatres recorded 5.5 million admissions in 2010 against 17 million in 2001.

Even though the Sri Lankan civil war ended in 2009, with only 168 theatres left in the country, the film industry is far from recovery.

Reasons behind this downfall range from government apathy to the absence of an organized film industry in the country. The National Film Corporation, which was instrumental in bringing about a boom in local cinema during the 70s by handing out no-interest loans to filmmakers, completely stopped funding films by 2010.

Even though the Sri Lankan civil war ended in 2009, with only 168 theatres left in the country, the film industry...

A still from Oass

Abhinav Shiv Tiwari’s feature debut Oass won three awards at the Ladakh International Film Festival (Liff) 2013 including Best Film and Best Screenplay. The Snow Leopard trophy for Best Film comprises a cash prize of Rs. 2, 00,000 to be shared between the director and the producer of the film .

The film, based on human trafficking, also picked up the Best Actress award for Divya Chhetri .

The second edition of the Ladakh International Film Festival was held from September 13-15, 2013 in Leh, Ladakh.

The international jury of the festival was chaired by filmmaker Aparna Sen. The other jury members included Canadian filmmaker and South Asian Film Festival co-founder Terri C. McLuhan and Sri Lankan filmmaker Vimukthi Jayasundara.

The Best Director award at the festival went to Manju Patra Borah for Ko:Yad. Nepalese film Who will be a Gurkha by Kesang Tsepan won the Best Documentary. Abhilash Vijayan’s...

The upcoming Ladakh International Film Festival (Liff) will host a Retrospective on poet, lyricist and director Gulzar curated by filmmaker Vishal Bharadwaj. The Retrospective will screen Mere Apne, Achanak, Ijazat, Khushboo, Angoor and Machis.

The festival will held in Leh, Ladakh from July 5-7, 2013. It will be inaugurated by Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir, Omar Abdullah and I&B Minister of India Manish Tiwari will be the Chief Guest for the closing ceremony.

Directorate of Film Festivals has curated a special section of women oriented films made in India. This section will screen Diamond Queen by Homi Wadia, Meghe Dhaka Tara by Ritwik Ghatak, Mirch Masala by Ketan Mehta, Dasi by B. Narsing Rao, Dahan by Rituparno Ghosh, Chandani Bar by Madhur Bhandarkar, Mee Sindhutai Sapkal by Anant Mahadevan and Byari by Suveeran.

The green carpet premiere at Liff 2013 will be Teri Mc Luhan’s documentary Frontier Gandhi, on the forgotten freedom fighter,...

Is Somebody Looking For His Stuffed Toy Octopus? Does Anybody Know A Man Missing A Plushy Darling?

We found this poor creature in the men's room of Rotterdam's Cinerama right after a screening of some serious Brazilian smut-fest, Jean Garret's Fuk Fuk à Brasileira (1986). It was lying around there looking lost. There was nobody else at the pissoirs. The stalls proved empty. Someone was obviously so lost in his own sweet or sour self that he forgot his stuffed toy octopus! What could he have been thinking about for this to happen?

Could he have contemplated the programmers' collective nastiness which made them select a film in which, as we were told, a donkey gets slaughtered en detail and for an extended period of running time? And no, we won't mention the title here knowing only too well that this might encourage some sickos to search out this...this.

Raya Martin's The Great Cinema Party, the final third of the 2012 edition of the Jeonju Digital Project which includes new works by China's Ying Liang and Sri Lanka's Vimukthi Jayasundara, is uncharacteristically joyous. Despite starting with several minutes of footage of war, the film is surprisingly held together by an atmosphere that seems new in a Raya Martin film. While Martin's preoccupation with Philippine history is still there, it isn't met with the same sorrow or regret that features pronouncedly in his previous works. There's something more than the erstwhile levity here, an emotion that overpowers Martin's expected angst about the painful inadequacies of what we presently perceive as a country's recorded past. There's actual joy.The monochrome snippets from various unearthed footage of...

Anurag Kashyap

After Vasan Bala’s Peddlers at Cannes Critics Week comes another good news for Indian cinema. Anurag Kashyap’s latest directorial venture Gangs of Wasseypur will screen at Directors’ Fortnight at the 65th Cannes Film Festival.

Gangs of Wasseypur, a gangster revenge drama features Jaideep Ahlawat, Manoj Bajpai, Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Richa Chadda.

Directors Fortnight is a non-competitive section at the Cannes Film Festival. Since its inception, it has showcased the first films of Werner Herzog, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Nagisa Oshima, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, Ken Loach among others.

Indo-France co-production Chhatrak(Mushrooms) directed by Sri Lankan filmmaker Vimukthi Jayasundara was part of the official lineup of Cannes Directors Fortnight last year.

Jean-Pierre Dardenne

Jean-Pierre Dardenne (Belgian director, scriptwriter and producer) will preside over the jury for the Cinéfondation and short films at the 65th Cannes Film Festival.

Dardenne shared the honours of the Grand Prix with his brother Luc for The Kid with a Bike in 2011, after winning two Palmes d’Or, first in 1999 for Rosetta and then in 2005 for The Child, and the prize for best screenplay in 2008 for Lorna’s Silence.

The jury comprises of five well-known personalities from the world of cinema and literature: Arsinée Khanjian (Canadian actress), Karim AÏNOUZ (Brazilian director and scriptwriter), Emmanuel CARRÈRE (French writer, scriptwriter and director) and Yu Lik-wai (Chinese director of photography and filmmaker).

The Jury will select three films presented in the Sélection Cinéfondation, composed of works by cinema-schools, to which they will award prizes of €15,000, €11,250 and €7,500 respectively.

The jury will also award the Palme d’Or for Short Films, to...

Every year since 2000, the Jeonju International Film Festival has commissioned three short works for its Jeonju Digital Project and, about a month ago now, the festival announced it'd selected Raya Martin, Vimukthi Jayasundara and Ying Liang for this year's edition (you may remember the three directors' video messages). The 2011 films are still making the rounds, and in fact, when they screen tomorrow at Exit Art, two of them — Claire Denis's To the Devil and José Luis Guerín's Memories of a Morning, both 45 minutes — will be seeing their NYC premieres. The third is Jean-Marie Straub's An Heir (22 mins, image above). If you're planning on being there, you'll want to read Robert Koehler's dispatch from Locarno last summer, touching briefly on the Denis and Guerín films but really digging into the Straub.

Reading. "With the main focus on African and Asian cinema and documentary film, Camera Lucida no 7 also...

I've only just now caught wind of a one-time-only event that took place in the Port of Tallinn last Thursday, 60 Seconds of Solitude in Year Zero, via Alison Nastasi at Movies.com: "An international collective of directors… contributed their shorts to the single 35mm film anthology that was screened for an audience one time — as part of Estonia's 2011 European Capital of Culture celebration — and then burned to the ground (along with the screen itself). Why, exactly? The project's website describes it as 'flying in the face of the cynicism of marketing, production, business operators, and the moral majority … dedicated to preserving freedom of thought in cinema.'" The roster of participating directors and artists is pretty impressive:

Brian Yuzna (USA), Michael Glawogger (Austria), Aku Louhimies (Finland), Ken Jacobs (USA), Gustav Deutsch (Austria), Tom Tykwer (Germany), Mark Boswell (USA), Malcolm Le Grice (UK), Aki Kaurismäki (Finland), Bruce McClure (UK), Mika Taanila...

I would not have guessed I would gain easy access to good seats for a Gus van Sant film. Turned out the seats were much better then the film. Sentimental stuff about a girl with three months to live and her boyfriend who has an imaginary friend and a fascination for gate-crashing memorial services. A few scenes worked, most others were trite. Just how many retreads of Love Story can you take? Made me Restless.

Robert Guediguian’s The Snows of Kilimanjaro was so much talked about, it became the natural choice for the second film. For the first 20 minutes it was the story of an ageing plant worker who is retrenched and looks to spending a quiet life with family and friends. But then the tale takes an unexpected turn which changes your perception about the film. I felt the film could have been much better with a brisker ending.

On the last day of the Mumbai Film Festival, I spotted Salim Ahamed, the director of Adaminte Makan Abu standing in a corner all by himself and the temptation to go chat with him (after having seen and praised the film here) was too much to resist. Aware of the problems language may pose, I walked upto him and was surprised when he agreed to spare some time. We were limited by his knowledge of Malayalam only and my lack of it, which prevented this from being a full-fledged interview. Nevertheless, here we go:

Salim Ahamed got the seed of the idea of the film while working in a travel

Salim Ahamed receiving the national award

agency ten years back. He had known right from his college days that he wanted to make films, but kept on working in sundry places after leaving college. He already has a bank of...

French auteur Jean Luc Godard once quipped, “Cinema doesn’t query the beauty of the woman, it only doubts her heart”. Can we replace ‘Cinema’ with ‘Society’ here? Molly Haskell argued in her ground-breaking From Reverence to Rape: The treatment of women in the Movies (1974)–”Film reflects the ideological and social construction of women who are either revered as the virgin or reviled (as the whore).”

From time immemorial, the patriarchal society marks the meaning and the importance of the female in her association with the male. This lack of identification has been central in the prevalent phallo-centric society which perceives ‘male’ as physically and symbolically dominant over ‘female’. So it never comes as a surprise that a woman who is beautiful, confident and desiring will be trampled aside by an unprepared society.

The entire preamble is with respect to a small video clip which was on youtube for sometime,...

Nadine Labaki’s Where Do We Go Now?, a Lebanese drama about the lengths a group of women will go to in order protect their village won the Cadillac People’s Choice Award, the top award at the festival.

The Toronto International Film Festival announced its audience award winners on Sunday.

The award for best documentary went to Jon Shenk’s The Island President while The Raid directed by Gareth Huw Evans won the Midnight Madness Award. Philippe Falardeau’s Monsieur Lazhar won the City of Toronto Award for Best Canadian feature.

The three Indian films that were presented at the festival are Ribhu Dasgupta’s Michael, Suseendran’s Azhagarsamy’s Horse and Vimukthi Jayasundara’s Chatrak (Mushrooms). Pankaj Kapoor’s Mausam could not be screened at the festival due to regulatory delays.

By Sean O’Connell

Hollywoodnews.com: Brad Pitt, Keira Knightley, George Clooney, Carey Mulligan, Rachel Weisz, Gerard Butler and Ryan Gosling are heading to Toronto for the 36tht international film festival, which kicks off on Thursday, Sept. 8.

The fest today confirmed the hundreds of celebrities that will be attending the can’t-miss event, promoting films and making the rounds as the annual awards season starts to take shape.

Davis Guggenheim, Francis Ford Coppola, Alexander Payne, Luc Besson, Oren Moverman, Malgoska Szumowska, Bennett Miller, Sarah Polley, Jessica Yu, Michael Winterbottom and Werner Herzog are just a few of the filmmakers who have confirmed their attendance.

Celebrities making the trek include Catherine Deneuve, Charlotte Rampling, Clive Owen, Jon Hamm, Shahid Kapoor, Michael Fassbender, Michelle Yeoh, Freida Pinto, Glenn Close, Matthew Goode, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Salma Hayek, Viggo Mortensen and Woody Harrelson. Musicians U2, Pearl Jam and Neil Young also are expected to...

Toronto - The 36th Toronto International Film Festival® welcomes hundreds of guests this year. Filmmakers expected to present their world premieres in Toronto include: Davis Guggenheim, Francis Ford Coppola, Alexander Payne, Agnieszka Holland, Guy Maddin, Luc Besson, Bill Duke, Oren Moverman, Malgoska Szumowska, Bennett Miller, Darrell Roodt, Sarah Polley, Jessica Yu, Michael Winterbottom and Werner Herzog.

Actors expected to attend include Catherine Deneuve, Charlotte Rampling, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Clive Owen, Gerard Butler, Jeon Do-Yeon, Jon Hamm, Shahid Kapoor, Michael Fassbender, Michelle Yeoh, Freida Pinto, Glenn Close, Matthew Goode, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rachel Weisz, Ryan Gosling, Salma Hayek, Viggo Mortensen and Woody Harrelson. Musicians include: U2, Pearl Jam and Neil Young.

The Festival also welcomes thousands of producers and other industry professionals bringing films to us.

The following filmmakers are expected to attend the Toronto International Film Festival:

Adam Shaheen, Adam Wingard, Adolfo Borinaga Alix Jr., Agnieszka Holland, Akin Omotoso,...

We here at Ioncinema.com like to think of the offerings in Tiff's Visions programme as the lieu where we find solace in cinema. Curators have grabbed envelope pushing items from Berlin in Dreileben (Three Lives) Christian Petzold, Dominik Graf and Christoph Hochhäusler, items we caught in Cannes from auteurs Bertrand Bonello, Alejandro Landes, Ruben Östlund and Vimukthi Jayasundara, Locarno's The Loneliest Planet (Loktev) and Venice items such as one of our most anticipated must see films of the year in Alps (see first look above) and Venice's Orizzonti section selected Swirl (Helvecio Marins Jr. and Clarissa Campolina), Kotoko (Shinya Tsukamoto) and Amir Naderi's Cut. Here's the press release.: Alps Yorgos Lanthimos, Greece/France North American Premiere A nurse, a paramedic, a gymnast, and her coach have formed a secret, illegal company. The service they provide is to act as stand-ins for the recently deceased, for the benefit of grieving relatives and friends.