All Middle East articles – Page 189
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News
Switzerland chooses Late Bloomers as Oscar contender
Swiss Films has entered Bettina Oberli's comedy Late Bloomers (Die Herbstzeitlosen) for Switzerland to the Academy Award race for a nomination in the Best Foreign Language Film category. To date, Late Bloomers is the most successful film in Switzerland since 1978 with just over 600,000 admissions. The film has also ...
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Reviews
La Maison
Dir: Manuel Poirier. France 2007. 96 mins.French director Manuel Poirier delivers his most convincing feature since the bittersweet 1997 road-movie Western with La Maison, an emotionally delicate romantic comedy that once again features Poirier regular Sergi Lopez in the lead role. A rural house that's up for sale becomes a ...
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Reviews
Mataharis
Dir: Icair Bollain. Spain 2007. 94 mins.A bittersweet tale of frustrated lives and loves centring on three female private investigators, Mataharis is a decently plotted but decidedly tame follow-up to Icair Bollain's previous film, the convincing 2003 wife-abuse drama Take My Eyes. A leading Spanish actress, Bollain was inspired to ...
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News
European Film Awards announce 13 short film nominees
The European Film Academy has announced the short film nominees for the 2007 European Film Awards. Nominees are determined by the Prix UIP at a year-long series of European festivals. The 1,800 members of the EFA will now vote for the winner. The nominees are: Salvador by Abdelatif Hwidar (Spain), ...
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News
Recycle and Salt Of This Sea win Cinema in Motion awards
Now in its third year, San Sebastian's Cinema in Motion programme has selected Mahmoud Al Massad's Recycle, an insightful documentary that exposes the economic and political instability of Jordan, and Anne Marie Jacir's moving portrait of Palestine, Salt Of This Sea, as this year's winners. The award helps film-makers from ...
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News
Wolfgang Braun to leave post at Disney Germany
Wolfgang Braun, general manager and senior vice president of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Germany (previously known as Buena Vista International [Germany]), is stepping down from his post after 15 years as of Oct 1. His successor as general manager will be Thomas Menne, until now VP sales and marketing ...
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News
Wolfgang Braun to leave post at Disney Germany
Wolfgang Braun, general manager and senior vice president of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Germany (previously known as Buena Vista International [Germany]), is stepping down from his post after 15 years as of Oct 1. His successor as general manager will be Thomas Menne, until now VP sales and marketing ...
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Reviews
Earth
Dir: Alastair Fothergill/Mark Linfield. UK/Germany 2007. 98 mins.Probably the most ambitious nature documentary ever produced, Earth is a feature-length condensation of the eleven-part BBC series Planet Earth, broadcast in the UK in 2006 and on Discovery Channel in the US in spring 2007. Better than a trip to the zoo, ...
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News
Beta Film picks up Wehling's desert-set drama Kronos
Beta Film has picked up the international distribution rights for Olav F. Wehling's Kronos which began shooting Monday on location in the Moroccan desert near Ouarzazate and Merzouga. The family drama is being produce d by Lisa Groezinger and Christopher Zwickler of the Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg with the ZDFtheaterkanal, CP Medien, ...
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News
Von Trotta comes to Utrecht for Binger & Screen International talk
Margarethe von Trotta will discuss her work and the future of European cinema during this year's Binger - Screen International Interview at the Netherlands Film Festival in Utrecht on Sept 28. Screen International's US Editor Mike Goodridge will conduct the public interview with the lauded German director, actress and screenwriter. ...
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News
Croatia selects Svilicic's Armin for Oscar consideration
The Croatian Association of Film Makers has chosen Ognjen Svilicic's Armin as its foreign language submission for the Academy Awards. The project is winner of numerous festival awards, including best screenplay at Croatia 's national Pula Film Festival and at Festroia, best actor for Emir Hadzihafizbegovic in Pula and Durban ...
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News
You, The Living enters Oscar race for Sweden
Swedish director Roy Andersson's You, The Living (Du levanda), which was launched in competition at Cannes, will be Sweden's official candidate for the Academy Award nomination as Best Foreign-Language Feature. The selection, which was announced at a press conference in Stockholm today (Sept 25), was made by the 15-member committee ...
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News
Ulrich Thomsen and Jack McGee join cast of Tykwer's The International
Festen's Ulrich Thomsen, Crash's Jack McGee and Million Dollar Baby's Brian F. O'Byrne have joined the multi-national cast for Tom Tykwer's action thriller The International, headlined by Clive Owen and Naomi Watts. The film started shooting earlier today at the Babelsberg studios outside of Berlin after a week of location ...
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Reviews
In the City of Sylvia (En la ciudad de Sylvia)
Dir. Jose Luis Guerin. Spain / France, 2007. 90 min.In the City of Sylvia is likely to be defined by some as 'a work of genius' and by others as like 'watching paint dry'. An audience in search of a plot with a beginning middle and end should look elsewhere. ...
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Reviews
The Obscure (Xiaoshuo)
Dir. Lu Yue. China 2006. 84 min.Potentiallya powerful soporific for any audience not fluent in Mandarin, Lu Yue's combination of documentary and improvised live action is almost self-defeating in its insistence to stick, for the first hour, to a purely theoretical seminar. As it is, Lu's picture could interest scholars ...
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News
The Trap and Short Circuits enter foreign Oscar race
The Serbian Academy of Film Arts and Sciences has selected Srdan Golubovic's The Trap (Klopka) for the Oscar race. The Serbian-German-Hungarian co-production is a thriller about a man who decides to take on a hitman's task in order to be able to pay for a life-saving operation for his son. ...
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Reviews
Foul Gesture (Tnuah Meguna)
Dir: Tzahi Grad. Israel 2006. 96 mins.A satirical social comedy turns into a terrific, slow-burn revenge drama in Israeli actor Tzahi Grad's second directorial outing. Though the rough, low-budget production values will put off mainstream distributors, arthouse and genre specialists should take a look at this title, whose strong script ...
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News
Cuerda starts shoot in Galicia for Blind Sunflowers
Spanish director Jose Luis Cuerda started shooting in Galicia for his 10th feature film, The Blind Sunflowers, based on Alberto Mendez's novel by the same name. Javier Camara and Meribel Verdu star. The film follows Elena (Verdu), who is living in post-war Spain hiding secrets about her family. Her teenage ...
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News
Wild Bunch closes a slew of deals on Buddha Collapsed Out Of Shame
The screening of Hana Makhmalbaf's French-Iranian drama Buddha Collapsed Out Of Shame in official competition at San Sebastian has sparked a flurry of international sales. Wild Bunch has secured sales of Iranian director Hana Makhmalbaf's first feature to the UK (Slingshot), Spain (Wanda), Canada (Crystal), Portugal (Lusomundo), Benelux (Imagine), Switzerland ...
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News
Bosnia and Herzegovina adds It's Hard To Be Nice to Oscar list
The Bosnian-Herzegovinian Association of Film Makers chose Srdjan Vuletic's It's Hard To Be Nice (Tesko Je Biti Fin) as the country's foreign language submission for the Academy Awards.The drama, about a Sarajevo taxi driver who involuntarily gets mixed up in a series of complicated situations, opened this year's Sarajevo Film ...