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Dissident Iranian film professionals have reiterated calls to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) to reconsider its relationship with Iran’s government-controlled Farabi cinema org which currently oversees the country’s Oscar submission process.

“In a world where Iranian artists and filmmakers suffer under the oppression of the Islamic Republic government, it is alarming that Farabi, a state-controlled entity known for censorship and repression, is still permitted to select the representative of Iranian cinema for the Oscars,” the Independent Iranian Filmmakers Association (Iifma) said in a statement.

The org, which made the same request last year, issued the statement in the wake of Farabi’s announcement on Sunday that it had selected In The Arms of The Tree to represent Iran in the best international feature film category at the 97th Academy Awards.

Iifma was created in 2023 in response to the Woman Life Freedom movement which grew...

The Berlinale’s World Cinema Fund (Wcf) has backed 10 feature projects in its 40th session, at a total of €260,000.

The latest funding pot has awarded eight production and two distribution grants, to projects from Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, Cameroon, Egypt, Iran, Lesotho, Nepal and Sudan.

Scroll down for the full list of projects

Aisha Can’t Fly Away, the debut feature of Egyptian filmmaker Morad Mostafa, received €25,000. Mostafa participated in the 2024 Berlinale Talents, was named a Screen Arab Star of Tomorrow in 2023, and will take part in the Final Cut in Venice lab with his project in September after shooting this summer.

In seiner 40. Jurysitzung hat der World Cinama Fund der Berlinale acht Produktions- und zwei Verleihförderungen in einer Gesamthöhe von 260.000 Euro vergeben.

Einer von zehn Filmen, der aktuell vom World Cinema Fund der Berlinale Förderung zugesprochen bekommen hat: „Goodbye Julia“(Credit: Pierre de Villiers / Rushlake Media GmbH)

Projekte und Filme aus Ägypten, Algerien, Argentinien, Brasilien, dem Iran, Kamerun, Lesotho, Nepal und dem Sudan haben in der 40. Jury Sitzung des Berlinale World Cinema Fund Förderittel in einer Gesamthöhe von 260.000 Euro zugesprochen bekommen. Wie die Berlinale heute mitteilt, waren insgesamt 195 Projekte aus 55 Ländern eingereicht worden.

Vincenco Bugno, Leiter des 2004 von der Kulturstiftung des Bundes und der Berlinale initiierten World Cinema Fund: „In einer Zeit, in der die Komplexität der Welt oft verdrängt wird, bieten die Jury-Meetings des WCFeinen Raum der Reflexion, in dem wir uns mit den Welten um uns herum in all ihrer wunderbaren und komplizierten Vielfalt befassen können. All dies ist...

The 50th Annual Seattle International Film Festival (Siff) wrapped up on Sunday and announced the winners of the 2024 Golden Space Needle Audience and Juried Competition Awards.

The festival began on May 9 and screened 261 films representing 84 countries with “62% of the feature films were created by first or second-time filmmakers; 43% were created by women or nonbinary filmmakers; 35% of filmmakers identify as a Bipoc director; and nearly 60% are currently without U.S. distribution and may not screen commercially in the United States,” according to Siff.

Siff holds two categories of competition: juried and audience based. Juried competitions include five feature subcategories including the Official Competition, New American Cinema Competition, New Directors Competition, Ibero-American Competition and Documentary Competition. Short film categories include live action, animation and documentary.

In addition, over 32,000 ballots were submitted for the Golden Space Needle Awards (Gsna). Films judged through the GSNAs are selected by audience members through post-screening ballots. The categories include best film,...

Noah Pritzker’s San Sebastian competition feature ‘Ex-Husbands’ stars Griffin Dunne and James Norton

Luxbox has picked up international sales rights to Noah Pritzker’s San Sebastian competition feature Ex-Husbands and has sold the film to Avalon in Spain and September Films in Benelux.

UTA is handling North American rights for Pritzker’s second feature about three generations of men in the same family simultaneously experiencing marital disappointment.

Griffin Dunne stars as a man floundering after his father (Richard Benjamin) leaves his mother after 65 years of marriage and his own wife (Rosanna Arquette) leaves him after thirty-five. With the wedding...

Dissident Iranian film professionals are calling on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to consider an alternative film to represent Iran in 2024 Oscars’ Best International Feature Film category rather than the one submitted this week as the country’s official entry.

Iran’s government-controlled Farabi Cinema Foundation said Tuesday that it had selected Reza Mirkarimi’s The Night Guardian as the country’s submission to the 96th Academy Awards.

The announcement comes just days after the first anniversary of the beginning of the Woman Life Freedom protests, provoked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini on September 16, 2022, after her police detention for not wearing her veil correctly.

More than 500 protestors have been killed by Iranian security forces over the past year and thousands have been injured. A number of directors including Jafar Panahi, Mohammad Rasoulof and most recently Saeed Roustayi have wound up in jail in a related...

At the 2023 TIFF Tribute Awards hosted at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel in Toronto presenters Barry Jenkins and Chaz Ebert went off-script to emphasize how much it meant to hand the Ebert Director Award to Spike Lee.

The Oscar-winning “Moonlight” director went first, sharing how he was one of two Black men in his film program at a predominantly white college. While his peer would say he wanted to be the next Spike Lee, he said, “‘I want to be the first Barry Jenkins,’ and I would qualify that by saying I think that’s the way Spike would want it.” In town serving as one of the judges for the festival’s Platform programming block, Jenkins continued, “So Spike I just wanted to say you’ve carried so much weight for so many of us for so damn long that I’m on this jury and I’m tired as hell.

Despite the first simultaneous strikes of actors and writers since 1960 — 16 years before the first edition of the Toronto International Film Festival, or, as it was known then, the Festival of Festivals — a host of big names came out to present and receive honors Sunday evening at the fifth annual TIFF Tribute Awards.The gala dinner fundraiser for the fest’s philanthropic efforts — and an occasional harbinger of Oscar recognition — is held each year at Fairmont Royal York Hotel.

This year’s highest-profile Tribute Award honoree, Spike Lee, has no ties to the ongoing awards season. Lee was presented with the Ebert Director Award by TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey, filmmaker Barry Jenkins (who called Lee “one of the best filmmakers of our time” and thanked him for carrying “so much weight for so many of us [Black filmmakers] for so damn long”) and the late film critic Roger Ebert‘s widow Chaz Ebert...

Venice Film Festival’s red carpet swapped glamour for politics on Saturday, hosting a flash mob in solidarity with the Iranian people, fighting against repression, as well as filmmakers who are being oppressed – and arrested – because of their work.

Such as “Leila’s Brothers” director Saeed Roustaee, recently sentenced to six months in prison for showing the film in Cannes. He has also been banned from making movies.

“Born in 1989, Roustaee represents a new generation of Iranian auteurs, and one who’s sly enough to embed his complex social critiques so deep into the fabric of sprawling modern stories that he hasn’t upset the regime. Not yet, at least,” ominously wrote Variety’s Peter Debruge following its premiere at the French fest.

Roustaee also made “Life and a Day” and thriller “Just 6.5,” which was shown in Venice.

Elham Erfani, Zahra Amir Ebrahimi and guests attend the Flash Mob in Solidarity With Iranian People.

Kohn’s Corner is a weekly column about the challenges and opportunities of sustaining American film culture.

Cinema is a global industry, but Hollywood struggles to see beyond its own reflection. This past week, much was made about the international impact of “Barbie,” a mass-market takedown of the patriarchy that somehow has been able to screen in Saudi Arabia but not in Kuwait, and got banned in Algeria for “homosexuality and other Western deviances” a month after its release, presumably because censors decided to see “Oppenheimer” first.

Yet far less attention in the West has been paid to Iran, which did not screen “Barbie” or any other American movie this month, and shows no sign of doing that anytime soon. The Middle Eastern country banned the theatrical release of most foreign films years ago, which means that most Iranian audiences for Hollywood blockbusters come from the industry’s greatest foe: piracy sites.

Ever since Abbas Kiarostami’s And Life Goes On premiered back in 1992, movies set in cars have become the modus operandi of some of Iranian cinema’s greatest works.

Kiarostami followed Life with Through the Olive Trees, where driving is also a major part of the narrative, and then made his masterly Palme d’Or winner Taste of Cherry, where the main character is at the wheel for nearly the entire film. Director Jafar Panahi, who was once Kiarostami’s assistant, won Berlin’s Golden Bear in 2015 for Taxi, in which he pretended to be a cab driver in order to scrutinize his country’s dire social situation. In 2021, Panahi’s son, Panah, made his debut with the exuberant and crowd-pleasing Hit the Road, about a family taking one last road trip together toward the Turkish border.

There are reasons for this phenomenon. First off, driving scenes are essentially cinematic,...

He has been sentenced to six months along with the film’s producer Javad Noruzbegi.

The Iranian director of Cannes 2022 title Leila’s Brothers, Saeed Roustaee, has been sentenced to six months in prison for screening his film at the festival, according to local media reports.

Leila’s Brothers played in competition, where it won the Fipresci prize. It explores a family grappling with financial struggles in Tehran, with themes of gender and succession.

The family drama was banned in Iran after it supposedly entered the Cannes festival without authorisation, with the director refusing to “correct it” as requested by the culture minister at the time.

Critical Zone, an Iranian drama shot in secret by dissident director Ali Ahmadzadeh, has won the Golden Leopard honor for best film at the 2023 Locarno Film Festival.

Ahmadzadeh, who has been banned from leaving Iran, was unable to attend the awards ceremony, held at the Swiss city Saturday night. The Iranian government pressured the director to pull the film from competition. Through its story of a man and his dog, who navigate Tehran’s underworld, selling drugs and talking to troubled souls, Critical Zone depicts a nation rebelling against an oppressive regime in any way it can. Produced by Germany’s Counter Intuitive Film, Critical Zone is being sold worldwide by Luxbox.

Another proudly political filmmaker, British legend Ken Loach, won the audience award, the Ubs Prix du Public, at Locarno’s 76th annual festival for his latest (and perhaps last) feature film: The Old Oak. The drama, which premiered in Cannes,...

Critical Zone.International Competition(Jury: Lambert Wilson, Zar Amir Ebrahimi, Lesli Klainberg, Charlotte Wells, Matthijs Wouter Knol)Golden Leopard: Critical Zone (Ali Ahmadzadeh)Special Jury Prize: Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World (Radu Jude)Best Direction: Stepne (Maryna Vroda)Best Performance: Dimitra Vlagopoulou (Animal)Best Performance: Renée Soutendijk (Sweet Dreams)Special Mention: Nuit Obscure - Au Revoir Ici, N'importe Où (Sylvain George)Filmmakers Of The PresentGolden Leopard: Dreaming & Dying (Nelson Yeo)Best Emerging Director: Katharina Huber (A Good Place)Special Jury Prize: Camping Du Lac (Éléonore Saintagnan)Best Performance: Clara Schwinning (A Good Place)Best Performance: Isold Halldórudóttir and Stavros Zafeiris (Touched)Special Mentions: Excursions (Una Gunjak), Negu Hurbilak (Colective Negu)First Feature(Jury: Omar El Zohairy, Devika Girish, Isabel Sandoval)First Feature Award: Dreaming & Dying (Nelson Yeo)Pardi Di Domani(Jury: Ewa Puszczyńska, Matthew Rankin, Amos Sussigan)Best...

The Golden Leopard Winner

In case of emergency call the ambulance, for it might bring you a different type of medical aid in the time of need neatly packed in bags, even if it comes with side-effects. One of such ambulance cars is “tunneling” its way through the opening scene of Ali Ahmadzadeh’s shockingly daring adrenaline- & drug infused Locarno contender “Critical Zone”, one of this year’s strongest international competition titles. A good deal of the film’s narrative is happening in a moving car which is the formative model adopted from some of the finest works of Abbas Kiarostami or Jafar Panahi, but almost everything else in it, visually- and content-wise writes a new chapter in the Iranian cinema.

The making of this movie heavily loaded with taboo-breaking content, and likewise its way to the world premiere was made possible only through the meticulous planning: development of different...

Director was prevented from travelling to the festival in person by Iranian authorities.

Iranian director Ali Ahmadzadeh‘s Critical Zone has won the Locarno Film Festival top prize, the Golden Leopard.

The Iranian-German co-production, secretly shot on the streets of Tehran without official permission, follows a man driving through Tehran’s underworld with his dog, dealing drugs, healing troubled souls and discovering seeds of resistance.

Director Ahmadezadeh, who was prevented from travelling to Locarno to present his film in person, had faced pressure from the Iranian authorities ahead of the festival to withdraw his film from the competition and was...

The hype is real: Ali Ahmadzadeh’s “Critical Zone” (“Mantagheye bohrani”) has picked up the top Golden Leopard at Locarno.

It has been a bumpy ride for the film, set in Tehran over the course of one lonely night and described by the fest as “a hymn to freedom and resistance.”

As reported by Variety, Iranian authorities have been pressuring Ahmadzadeh to pull it from the Swiss festival – arguing it was shot without permission – and with the director himself banned from leaving the country.

“Instead of actors, I worked with real people. In most situations, we had to hide the camera or find complicated tricks to work around the limitations. Making this film was a big rebellion. Showing it means an even bigger victory for us,” said Ahmadzadeh in a statement, with Locarno’s artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro calling for his release.

“It means a lot. Not only for Ali,...

Iranian filmmaker Ali Ahmadzadeh clinched the Golden Leopard in the main international competition of the 76th Locarno Film Festival with his latest feature Critical Zone (Mantagheye Bohrani).

Ahmadzadeh was not in attendance to receive the award as he is currently banned from leaving his native Iran. Last month, the country’s authorities summoned Ahmadzadeh to the Ministry of Security, where he was pressured to pull Critical Zone from Locarno’s official competition. The film’s international sales agent Luxbox Paris and the producer, Sina Ataeian Dena, also said they had received threatening emails and messages demanding the film be pulled from the fest.

The pic, described as “a hymn to freedom and resistance in Iran,” was shot without permission from authorities before recent protests started. The plot follows a man who drives through Tehran’s underworld with his dog, dealing drugs and healing troubled souls. Born in Tehran in 1986, Critical Zone...