A special guest report from Israel about the upcoming Israeli film awards - Editor
Top contenders for the Israeli Oscar
by Johnathan Tsuria
The 2022 Ophir awards will take place at September the 18th, and the film which wins the top prize will represent Israel at the Oscars. For most Israelis, that is the only point of interest about these awards, as they are plagued by countless decisions that prevent moviegoers here from caring. The major problem is that there is zero connection between the films released so far in cinemas and the films which end up competing for the awards. For example, from the 5 nominees for Best Picture, only one (Where is Anne Frank) was released before the nominations were announced. Another (Cinema Sabaya), was released after they were announced, and the presumed frontrunner (Karaoke) will be released only after the ceremony. The other two have no release date scheduled...
Top contenders for the Israeli Oscar
by Johnathan Tsuria
The 2022 Ophir awards will take place at September the 18th, and the film which wins the top prize will represent Israel at the Oscars. For most Israelis, that is the only point of interest about these awards, as they are plagued by countless decisions that prevent moviegoers here from caring. The major problem is that there is zero connection between the films released so far in cinemas and the films which end up competing for the awards. For example, from the 5 nominees for Best Picture, only one (Where is Anne Frank) was released before the nominations were announced. Another (Cinema Sabaya), was released after they were announced, and the presumed frontrunner (Karaoke) will be released only after the ceremony. The other two have no release date scheduled...
- 9/15/2022
- by GUEST CONTRIBUTOR
- FilmExperience
For a film journo who closely followed last year’s he said (filmmakers)/she said (Isis “sex slave” subjects) controversy that entangled Hogir Hirori’s Sundance-premiering (followed by film-festival-shunned) Sabaya, the recent Cph:dox panel “Beyond Courage: Trauma-Informed Storytelling” was simply a must-see. The discussion, expertly moderated by Gavin Rees, Executive Director of Dart Center Europe (a satellite of Columbia Journalism School’s Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma), was part of the “Claim Your Story!” program, one of three engaging afternoons under Cph:conference’s “Business As Unusual” banner. (“Follow the Money!” and “Shaping Success.” were likewise smartly curated by The Catalysts, a multimedia agency that “turns […]
The post “People Are Not ‘the Trauma They’ve Experienced'”: Trauma-Informed Storytelling at Cph:conference 2022 first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “People Are Not ‘the Trauma They’ve Experienced'”: Trauma-Informed Storytelling at Cph:conference 2022 first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 4/25/2022
- by Lauren Wissot
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
For a film journo who closely followed last year’s he said (filmmakers)/she said (Isis “sex slave” subjects) controversy that entangled Hogir Hirori’s Sundance-premiering (followed by film-festival-shunned) Sabaya, the recent Cph:dox panel “Beyond Courage: Trauma-Informed Storytelling” was simply a must-see. The discussion, expertly moderated by Gavin Rees, Executive Director of Dart Center Europe (a satellite of Columbia Journalism School’s Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma), was part of the “Claim Your Story!” program, one of three engaging afternoons under Cph:conference’s “Business As Unusual” banner. (“Follow the Money!” and “Shaping Success.” were likewise smartly curated by The Catalysts, a multimedia agency that “turns […]
The post “People Are Not ‘the Trauma They’ve Experienced'”: Trauma-Informed Storytelling at Cph:conference 2022 first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “People Are Not ‘the Trauma They’ve Experienced'”: Trauma-Informed Storytelling at Cph:conference 2022 first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 4/25/2022
- by Lauren Wissot
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Nathalie Álvarez Mesén’s Clara Sola was the big winner at the 2022 Swedish Film Awards, known as the Guldbagges, scooping Best Film and Best Director. Scroll down for the full list of winners.
Mesén also picked up Best Screenplay, shared with co-writer Maria Camila Arias, for the Spanish-language movie set in Costa Rica, which follow a 36-year-old woman who takes off on a journey to break free from social and religious conventions and become the master of her sexuality.
Below the line, Clara Sola also picked up Cinematography and Sound Design, taking its total wins on the night to five.
Further winners included A Christmas Tale, Hannes Holm’s live-action adaptation of the popular Swedish novel, which was previously made into an animated pic that has become a holiday classic in Sweden. Holm’s version won Best Actor for Jonas Karlsson and Best Supporting Actress for Jennie Silfverhjelm.
The Best...
Mesén also picked up Best Screenplay, shared with co-writer Maria Camila Arias, for the Spanish-language movie set in Costa Rica, which follow a 36-year-old woman who takes off on a journey to break free from social and religious conventions and become the master of her sexuality.
Below the line, Clara Sola also picked up Cinematography and Sound Design, taking its total wins on the night to five.
Further winners included A Christmas Tale, Hannes Holm’s live-action adaptation of the popular Swedish novel, which was previously made into an animated pic that has become a holiday classic in Sweden. Holm’s version won Best Actor for Jonas Karlsson and Best Supporting Actress for Jennie Silfverhjelm.
The Best...
- 1/25/2022
- by Tom Grater
- Deadline Film + TV
“And the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature goes to… My Octopus Teacher… to American Factory… to Icarus.”
The Motion Picture Academy has enveloped Netflix nonfiction features with love again and again in recent years, rewarding the streamer with three trophies since 2018, not to mention half a dozen nominations overall.
But the story this year seems less Netflix and more National Geographic.
In a typical year, Netflix might easily boast five contenders. But this time around it’s Nat Geo with a quintet of competitors: Torn, The First Wave, Playing with Sharks, The Rescue—directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin—and Becoming Cousteau, the film about celebrated French marine explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau directed by two-time Oscar nominee Liz Garbus.
“Nat Geo has taken the scene by storm,” Garbus concurs. “The films are really, one and all, so different and so beautiful.”
When Disney acquired most of the Fox assets...
The Motion Picture Academy has enveloped Netflix nonfiction features with love again and again in recent years, rewarding the streamer with three trophies since 2018, not to mention half a dozen nominations overall.
But the story this year seems less Netflix and more National Geographic.
In a typical year, Netflix might easily boast five contenders. But this time around it’s Nat Geo with a quintet of competitors: Torn, The First Wave, Playing with Sharks, The Rescue—directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin—and Becoming Cousteau, the film about celebrated French marine explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau directed by two-time Oscar nominee Liz Garbus.
“Nat Geo has taken the scene by storm,” Garbus concurs. “The films are really, one and all, so different and so beautiful.”
When Disney acquired most of the Fox assets...
- 12/9/2021
- by Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
Animation, documentary submissions also tallied.
The Academy has confirmed it has received 93 country submissions for the international feature film category in the run-up to the 94th Oscars on March 27, 2022.
The Academy said on Monday (December 6) it had also received 26 animated feature and 138 documentary feature submissions.
The entire list of international feature film submissions can be viewed here and includes a first submission from Somalia. The Academy said some of the films have not yet had their required qualifying release and must fulfil that requirement and comply with all the category’s other qualifying rules to advance in the voting process.
The Academy has confirmed it has received 93 country submissions for the international feature film category in the run-up to the 94th Oscars on March 27, 2022.
The Academy said on Monday (December 6) it had also received 26 animated feature and 138 documentary feature submissions.
The entire list of international feature film submissions can be viewed here and includes a first submission from Somalia. The Academy said some of the films have not yet had their required qualifying release and must fulfil that requirement and comply with all the category’s other qualifying rules to advance in the voting process.
- 12/6/2021
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
Animation, documentary submissions also tallied.
The Academy has confirmed it has received 93 country submissions for the international feature film category in the run-up to the 94th Oscars on March 27, 2022.
The Academy said on Monday (December 6) it had also received 26 animated feature and 138 documentary feature submissions.
The entire list of international feature film submissions can be viewed here and includes a first submission from Somalia. The Academy said some of the films have not yet had their required qualifying release and must fulfil that requirement and comply with all the category’s other qualifying rules to advance in the voting process.
The Academy has confirmed it has received 93 country submissions for the international feature film category in the run-up to the 94th Oscars on March 27, 2022.
The Academy said on Monday (December 6) it had also received 26 animated feature and 138 documentary feature submissions.
The entire list of international feature film submissions can be viewed here and includes a first submission from Somalia. The Academy said some of the films have not yet had their required qualifying release and must fulfil that requirement and comply with all the category’s other qualifying rules to advance in the voting process.
- 12/6/2021
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
MTV Documentary Films’ Hogir Hirori’s “Sabaya” and Jessica Kingdon’s “Ascension” will make their streaming debut on Paramount Plus today as the MTV ramps up its awards campaign for both.
Both feature docs are in the running for an Oscar nomination and will become available to stream today at 10 a.m. Pt on the ViacomCBS service formerly known as CBS All Access. The service is the streaming home for other MTV projects, including the Emmy-award winning doc “76 Days,” about Wuhan, China, on lockdown just after the Covid-19 pandemic first hit.
Sheila Nevins, a documentary powerhouse that now heads MTV Documentary Films, executive produced “Sabaya” and “Ascension.” She acquired “Sabaya” after the doc’s Sundance Film Festival premiere in January and “Ascension” following the film’s Tribeca Film Festival premiere in June.
Hirori’s “Sabaya,” which won the Sundance directing award in the World Cinema Documentary category, is about...
Both feature docs are in the running for an Oscar nomination and will become available to stream today at 10 a.m. Pt on the ViacomCBS service formerly known as CBS All Access. The service is the streaming home for other MTV projects, including the Emmy-award winning doc “76 Days,” about Wuhan, China, on lockdown just after the Covid-19 pandemic first hit.
Sheila Nevins, a documentary powerhouse that now heads MTV Documentary Films, executive produced “Sabaya” and “Ascension.” She acquired “Sabaya” after the doc’s Sundance Film Festival premiere in January and “Ascension” following the film’s Tribeca Film Festival premiere in June.
Hirori’s “Sabaya,” which won the Sundance directing award in the World Cinema Documentary category, is about...
- 11/15/2021
- by Addie Morfoot
- Variety Film + TV
Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car triumphed this eve at the 14th Asia Pacific Screen Awards. The movie scooped best film, which Japanese filmmaker Hamaguchi shared with producer Teruhisa Yamamoto, and best screenplay, which the director shared with Oe Takamasa. Scroll down for the full list of winners on the night.
Further winners included Asghar Farhadi, who took Best Director for A Hero, and Hogir Hirori’s Sabaya, which win Best Documentary Feature Film.
Two Jury Grand Prizes were awarded this year, one to Abdullah Mohammad Saad, director of Rehana, and Leah Purcell for The Drover’s Wife The Legend of Molly Johnson.
Best Performance by an Actor was awarded to Georgian actor Merab Ninidze for Alexey German Jr’s House Arrest, while Best Performance by an Actress went to Azmeri Haque Badhon for Rehana. Nguyễn Vinh Phúc won achievement in cinematography for Taste.
This was Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s...
Further winners included Asghar Farhadi, who took Best Director for A Hero, and Hogir Hirori’s Sabaya, which win Best Documentary Feature Film.
Two Jury Grand Prizes were awarded this year, one to Abdullah Mohammad Saad, director of Rehana, and Leah Purcell for The Drover’s Wife The Legend of Molly Johnson.
Best Performance by an Actor was awarded to Georgian actor Merab Ninidze for Alexey German Jr’s House Arrest, while Best Performance by an Actress went to Azmeri Haque Badhon for Rehana. Nguyễn Vinh Phúc won achievement in cinematography for Taste.
This was Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s...
- 11/11/2021
- by Tom Grater
- Deadline Film + TV
Japan’s Hamaguchi Ryusuke earned double honors on Thursday at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. His “Drive My Car” was named best film, while he shared the best screenplay award with the film’s co-writer Oe Takamasa.
The 14th Apsa ceremony was held at the Home of the Arts in Queensland, Australia and gave prizes to ten films from eleven territories. The event also marked the official opening of the third Asia Pacific Screen Forum conference series.
The second place or Jury Grand Prizes were awarded jointly to Abdullah Mohammad Saad, director of Bangladesh drama “Rehana” (aka “Rehana Maryam Noor”) and to Leah Purcell for her debut feature “The Drover’s Wife The Legend of Molly Johnson.” “Rehana” lead Azmeri Haque Badhon was awarded the prize for the best performance by an actress.
Iran’s Asghar Farhadi was awarded achievement in directing prize for “A Hero” (aka “Ghahreman”) which the Apsa jury called “an intimate epic.
The 14th Apsa ceremony was held at the Home of the Arts in Queensland, Australia and gave prizes to ten films from eleven territories. The event also marked the official opening of the third Asia Pacific Screen Forum conference series.
The second place or Jury Grand Prizes were awarded jointly to Abdullah Mohammad Saad, director of Bangladesh drama “Rehana” (aka “Rehana Maryam Noor”) and to Leah Purcell for her debut feature “The Drover’s Wife The Legend of Molly Johnson.” “Rehana” lead Azmeri Haque Badhon was awarded the prize for the best performance by an actress.
Iran’s Asghar Farhadi was awarded achievement in directing prize for “A Hero” (aka “Ghahreman”) which the Apsa jury called “an intimate epic.
- 11/11/2021
- by Patrick Frater
- Variety Film + TV
In other prizes Mounia Akl’s Costa Brava, Lebanon clinches Fipresci prize and inaugural Green Award.
Finnish director Teemu Nikki’s dark comedy-drama The Blind Man Who Did Not Want To See Titanic scooped the El Gouna Film Festival’s $50,000 Golden Star award for best narrative film over the weekend.
Its star Petri Poikolainen also won best actor for his performance as a blind man who ventures out of his small apartment and onto the streets to travel by train to spend time with his long-distance girlfriend.
The film world premiered in Venice’s new Horizon Extras where it won the audience award.
Finnish director Teemu Nikki’s dark comedy-drama The Blind Man Who Did Not Want To See Titanic scooped the El Gouna Film Festival’s $50,000 Golden Star award for best narrative film over the weekend.
Its star Petri Poikolainen also won best actor for his performance as a blind man who ventures out of his small apartment and onto the streets to travel by train to spend time with his long-distance girlfriend.
The film world premiered in Venice’s new Horizon Extras where it won the audience award.
- 10/25/2021
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- ScreenDaily
The 17th Zurich Film Festival concluded Saturday with wins for Jonas Carpignano‘s “A Chiara” and Fred Baillif’s “La Mif,” with Renato Borrayo Serrano’s “Life of Ivanna” named best documentary.
The jury, led by Daniel Brühl, and featuring director Stéphanie Chuat, former Berlinale chief Dieter Kosslick and producer Andrea Cornwell, decided to award “A Chiara” with the prize for the best film of the Feature Film Competition. The Italian-French-Swedish-Danish co-production sees a teenage girl in a Calabrian town discovering her father’s criminal involvement.
“We were swept away by the modern take on the Italian neorealist tradition, the exceptional use of music and sound design and the outstanding performances by Swami Rotolo and her family, all making their film debuts. This film is nothing less than a cinematic masterpiece,” argued the jury, calling the decision “unanimous.”
Clint Bentley’s “Jockey” – praised for “an incredible performance” by Clifton Collins Jr.,...
The jury, led by Daniel Brühl, and featuring director Stéphanie Chuat, former Berlinale chief Dieter Kosslick and producer Andrea Cornwell, decided to award “A Chiara” with the prize for the best film of the Feature Film Competition. The Italian-French-Swedish-Danish co-production sees a teenage girl in a Calabrian town discovering her father’s criminal involvement.
“We were swept away by the modern take on the Italian neorealist tradition, the exceptional use of music and sound design and the outstanding performances by Swami Rotolo and her family, all making their film debuts. This film is nothing less than a cinematic masterpiece,” argued the jury, calling the decision “unanimous.”
Clint Bentley’s “Jockey” – praised for “an incredible performance” by Clifton Collins Jr.,...
- 10/2/2021
- by Marta Balaga
- Variety Film + TV
“Sabaya” producer Antonio Russo Merenda has responded to a bombshell article published on Monday in The New York Times claiming that many Yazidi women portrayed in the Sundance prize-winning documentary never agreed to be in the film.
Merenda issued a statement on Thursday evening saying that he and director Hogir Hirori “received written, verbal or filmed consent from everyone who appears” in “Sabaya,” as well as from the legal guardian of the young girl who is featured in the film.
Merenda also provided statements from one of the main female protagonista of “Sabaya,” as well as from a Syrian Kurdish filmmaker who worked with Hirori. He also presented a letter from the Swedish Film Institute, which financed the documentary.
“Sabaya” follows a fearless rescue group risking their lives to save women who were abducted by Isis and turned into sex slaves. It played at this year’s Sundance and won...
Merenda issued a statement on Thursday evening saying that he and director Hogir Hirori “received written, verbal or filmed consent from everyone who appears” in “Sabaya,” as well as from the legal guardian of the young girl who is featured in the film.
Merenda also provided statements from one of the main female protagonista of “Sabaya,” as well as from a Syrian Kurdish filmmaker who worked with Hirori. He also presented a letter from the Swedish Film Institute, which financed the documentary.
“Sabaya” follows a fearless rescue group risking their lives to save women who were abducted by Isis and turned into sex slaves. It played at this year’s Sundance and won...
- 10/1/2021
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
Filmmakers behind the documentary Sabaya are rebutting a published report claiming they failed to properly obtain consent from some of the victims of sexual enslavement who appear in the award-winning film, about Yazidi women and girls seized by Isis fighters in Iraq.
“Director Hogir Hirori and I have received written, verbal or filmed consent from everyone who appears in our film Sabaya (as well as from the legal guardian of the young girl who is featured),” producer Antonio Russo Merenda insisted in a statement obtained by Deadline. “Sabaya is a Swedish production following Swedish law and per Swedish law: written, verbal and filmed consent are equally valid. Consent forms were provided in both Arabic (the official language in both Syria and Iraq) and English.”
The statement was released three days after a New York Times article, co-authored by the paper’s Baghdad bureau chief, appeared under the headline, “Women Enslaved...
“Director Hogir Hirori and I have received written, verbal or filmed consent from everyone who appears in our film Sabaya (as well as from the legal guardian of the young girl who is featured),” producer Antonio Russo Merenda insisted in a statement obtained by Deadline. “Sabaya is a Swedish production following Swedish law and per Swedish law: written, verbal and filmed consent are equally valid. Consent forms were provided in both Arabic (the official language in both Syria and Iraq) and English.”
The statement was released three days after a New York Times article, co-authored by the paper’s Baghdad bureau chief, appeared under the headline, “Women Enslaved...
- 10/1/2021
- by Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
Further new releases include ‘Reminiscence’, ‘Pig’.
Prano Bailey-Bond’s UK horror Censor starts its run in UK-Ireland cinemas this weekend, released by Vertigo Releasing.
The film will open in 170 sites. It is Bailey-Bond’s directorial debut, produced by Helen Jones for Silver Salt Films, with Rook Films and Timpson Films, plus backing from the BFI Film Fund, Film4 and Ffilm Cymru Wales.
Censor first screened at the online Sundance Film Festival in January 2021, going on to play events including the Berlinale, Galway Film Fleadh and Sundance London.
It follows a film censor who, after viewing a familiar video nasty, sets...
Prano Bailey-Bond’s UK horror Censor starts its run in UK-Ireland cinemas this weekend, released by Vertigo Releasing.
The film will open in 170 sites. It is Bailey-Bond’s directorial debut, produced by Helen Jones for Silver Salt Films, with Rook Films and Timpson Films, plus backing from the BFI Film Fund, Film4 and Ffilm Cymru Wales.
Censor first screened at the online Sundance Film Festival in January 2021, going on to play events including the Berlinale, Galway Film Fleadh and Sundance London.
It follows a film censor who, after viewing a familiar video nasty, sets...
- 8/20/2021
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
Sabaya may be an important social-issue documentary, but much of its content would fit equally well in a Hollywood action movie. There are rescue raids, spy missions, car chases and fires in this depiction of brave people trying to rescue sex slaves in Syria. However, it’s also a thoughtful depiction of how human rights violations can create a ripple effect of emotional scars, both in the victims and the people trying to help them.
The film takes place five years after Isis, aka Daesh, killed thousands of Yazidis, the Kurdish minority group, after capturing the Sinjar province of Iraq. While Isis supporters are now detained in a camp in north-eastern Syria, there are more than 70,000 of them, and the camps are dangerous and volatile. The documentary follows the efforts of Mahmud and his colleagues at the Yazidi Home Centre, a group that seeks to locate the countless women and girls.
The film takes place five years after Isis, aka Daesh, killed thousands of Yazidis, the Kurdish minority group, after capturing the Sinjar province of Iraq. While Isis supporters are now detained in a camp in north-eastern Syria, there are more than 70,000 of them, and the camps are dangerous and volatile. The documentary follows the efforts of Mahmud and his colleagues at the Yazidi Home Centre, a group that seeks to locate the countless women and girls.
- 8/19/2021
- by Jeremy Mathews
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Sony Pictures Classics’ sci-fi drama Nine Days starring Winston Duke opens in four theaters in a specialty market buoyed by recent releases like Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain and Pig. New York’s arthouse scene, outpaced by LA of late, is perking up, distributors say (Ailey numbers were super there) and moviegoers are rewarding unique films and strong stories.
(The slow reviving specialty scene is keeping its head down as day-and-date tensions in wide release blockbuster-land explode.)
Nine Days hits NYC and LA today before rolling out nationwide August 6 in 250-275 theaters, said Jason Michael Berman, a producer, and president of Mandalay Pictures — of course depending on how it does. He’s upbeat after 800 people turned out for LA screening this week at The Theatre at the Ace Hotel with EP Spike Jonze introducing the film, written and directed by Edson Oda,...
(The slow reviving specialty scene is keeping its head down as day-and-date tensions in wide release blockbuster-land explode.)
Nine Days hits NYC and LA today before rolling out nationwide August 6 in 250-275 theaters, said Jason Michael Berman, a producer, and president of Mandalay Pictures — of course depending on how it does. He’s upbeat after 800 people turned out for LA screening this week at The Theatre at the Ace Hotel with EP Spike Jonze introducing the film, written and directed by Edson Oda,...
- 7/30/2021
- by Jill Goldsmith
- Deadline Film + TV
Sabaya MTV Documentary Films Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net linked from Rotten Tomatoes by: Harvey Karten Director: Hogir Hirori Writer: Hogir Hirori, based on an idea by Lorin Ibrahim Cast: Mahmud, Ziyad, Siham, Zahra, Suleiman, Shadi, Leila, Mitra Screened at: Critics’ link, NYC, 6/27/21 Opens: July 30, 2021 You don’t have to be a Trumpite […]
The post Sabaya Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.
The post Sabaya Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.
- 7/26/2021
- by Harvey Karten
- ShockYa
"You're safe now. No one's going to hurt you." MTV has released an official trailer for a documentary film titled Sabaya, which originally premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival earlier this year where it won a Directing Award. It also played at Cph Dox and the Nantuck & True/False Film Fests. The film follows a group into Syria's Al-Hol, a dangerous Isis camp, risking their lives to save a women being held as abducted sex slaves. "Led by Mahmud and Ziyad, these men and women volunteers tirelessly coordinate searches, infiltrate the camp, and plan rescue operations to bring back Yazidi victims. The ones they manage to free are traumatized and ashamed, fearing rejection by their community and families. The process of reinstating some sense of normalcy in their lives is only now beginning. Sabaya is a visceral, often petrifying journey that will keep you on the edge of your seat.
- 7/15/2021
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Few documentaries made an impact at Sundance comparable to Sabaya—it did win their World Cinema Documentary Directing Award, after all. Which surely played no small part in an acquisition from MTV Documentary Films, who will release Hogir Hirori’s picture, about rescue missions for women held captive by Isis, on July 30. Naturally, a trailer ensues.
The intensity therein may be match by the final result. Writing out of Sundance, Isaac Feldberg called Sabaya‘s level of access “nerve-janglingly scary,” further saying “Hirori often presses forward, ducking under regulation mint-green tent flaps to peer into refugees’ makeshift living quarters; it’s difficult not to instinctively recoil at the potential unknowns waiting on the other side. It says plenty about Hirori that he doesn’t flinch. His camera often looks through the front and rear windshields of their vehicles, lending Sabaya a literal front-seat immediacy as this rescue team hurtles toward or away from danger.
The intensity therein may be match by the final result. Writing out of Sundance, Isaac Feldberg called Sabaya‘s level of access “nerve-janglingly scary,” further saying “Hirori often presses forward, ducking under regulation mint-green tent flaps to peer into refugees’ makeshift living quarters; it’s difficult not to instinctively recoil at the potential unknowns waiting on the other side. It says plenty about Hirori that he doesn’t flinch. His camera often looks through the front and rear windshields of their vehicles, lending Sabaya a literal front-seat immediacy as this rescue team hurtles toward or away from danger.
- 7/13/2021
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
MTV Documentary Films has set set July 30 as the theatrical release date for “Sabaya.”
The documentary that generated strong reviews at Sundance this year follows the sexual exploitation of women in the Kurdish religious minority group of Yazidi. The title refers to the term used for individuals who are abducted and forced into sexual slavery. The film will have theatrical runs in New York, Los Angeles and other key markets as MTV Documentary Films has high hopes for its chances as an film awards contender.
The film follows Mahmud, Ziyad and their group of fellow Yazidis who, armed with only a mobile phone and a gun, risk their lives trying to save Yazidi women and girls being held by Isis in the most dangerous camp in the Middle East, Al-Hol in Syria.
Writer-director Hogir Hirori recently won the directing award in the World Cinema Documentary category at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.
The documentary that generated strong reviews at Sundance this year follows the sexual exploitation of women in the Kurdish religious minority group of Yazidi. The title refers to the term used for individuals who are abducted and forced into sexual slavery. The film will have theatrical runs in New York, Los Angeles and other key markets as MTV Documentary Films has high hopes for its chances as an film awards contender.
The film follows Mahmud, Ziyad and their group of fellow Yazidis who, armed with only a mobile phone and a gun, risk their lives trying to save Yazidi women and girls being held by Isis in the most dangerous camp in the Middle East, Al-Hol in Syria.
Writer-director Hogir Hirori recently won the directing award in the World Cinema Documentary category at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.
- 7/12/2021
- by Antonio Ferme
- Variety Film + TV
Sundance title “Captains of Zaatari” has sold into Utopia for the U.S., where it will get a theatrical release this fall.
London-based sales agent Dogwoof secured the movie with Robert Schwartzman and Cole Harper’s fledgling distributor Utopia, which is planning a day-and-date release in cinemas on Nov. 19 in New York and Los Angeles, alongside a premiere on Apple TV and Altavod.
Directed and produced by Ali El Arabi from Egypt, the film follows two best friends, Mahmoud and Fawzi, living in the Zaatari Refugee Camp in Jordan, who dream of becoming professional soccer players. Despite being confined under challenging conditions, they remain hopeful and practice day in and day out. When a world-renowned sports academy visits, both have a chance to turn their dream into a reality.
The film, which world premiered in competition at Sundance in January, has also sold into Sherry Media (Canada), Trigon (Switzerland) and...
London-based sales agent Dogwoof secured the movie with Robert Schwartzman and Cole Harper’s fledgling distributor Utopia, which is planning a day-and-date release in cinemas on Nov. 19 in New York and Los Angeles, alongside a premiere on Apple TV and Altavod.
Directed and produced by Ali El Arabi from Egypt, the film follows two best friends, Mahmoud and Fawzi, living in the Zaatari Refugee Camp in Jordan, who dream of becoming professional soccer players. Despite being confined under challenging conditions, they remain hopeful and practice day in and day out. When a world-renowned sports academy visits, both have a chance to turn their dream into a reality.
The film, which world premiered in competition at Sundance in January, has also sold into Sherry Media (Canada), Trigon (Switzerland) and...
- 7/7/2021
- by Manori Ravindran
- Variety Film + TV
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Documentary filmmaking is often a scrappy enterprise — at its core, all you really need is a camera and a desire to tell a story. In the case of at least eight of the filmmakers whose documentaries were a part of the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, it’s one camera in particular.
Their gear of choice? The Canon Eos C300 Mark II, which was used for the U.S. Documentary Competition entries “Ailey,” “At the Ready,” “Cusp,” and “Rebel Hearts,” World Cinema Documentary Competition entry “Sabaya”; Next entry “Searchers”; and premieres “Philly D.A.” and “My Name Is Pauli Murray.” Of course, the camera body you use is only one part of the equation — the lenses...
Documentary filmmaking is often a scrappy enterprise — at its core, all you really need is a camera and a desire to tell a story. In the case of at least eight of the filmmakers whose documentaries were a part of the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, it’s one camera in particular.
Their gear of choice? The Canon Eos C300 Mark II, which was used for the U.S. Documentary Competition entries “Ailey,” “At the Ready,” “Cusp,” and “Rebel Hearts,” World Cinema Documentary Competition entry “Sabaya”; Next entry “Searchers”; and premieres “Philly D.A.” and “My Name Is Pauli Murray.” Of course, the camera body you use is only one part of the equation — the lenses...
- 2/5/2021
- by Jean Bentley
- Indiewire
Hogir Hirori, director of “Sabaya,” a documentary from Sweden on the fight to rescue women and girls from Isis slavery at a vast refugee camp on the Syrian side of the Syrian-Iraqi border, said he feared for his safety when he was working alone in the war-torn area.
“In many situations it was dangerous, when I thought: ‘Should I be doing this, is it worth it?’ ” he said.
In a conversation with moderator Steve Pond at TheWrap’s Sundance Studio, presented by Nfp and National Geographic, Hirori said he had originally planned to do the documentary with his wife as a joint project. “But then as the war increased and the situation down there was getting worse with time, I decided it was not safe for the whole family to be there and film together.”
Speaking through translator Hannah Valenta, Kurdish director Hirori said he has made several documentaries about...
“In many situations it was dangerous, when I thought: ‘Should I be doing this, is it worth it?’ ” he said.
In a conversation with moderator Steve Pond at TheWrap’s Sundance Studio, presented by Nfp and National Geographic, Hirori said he had originally planned to do the documentary with his wife as a joint project. “But then as the war increased and the situation down there was getting worse with time, I decided it was not safe for the whole family to be there and film together.”
Speaking through translator Hannah Valenta, Kurdish director Hirori said he has made several documentaries about...
- 2/5/2021
- by Diane Haithman
- The Wrap
Last year’s Sundance Film Festival – one of the few in-person festivals of 2020 – saw a marked gain in Asian-American cinema with the win of Yoon Yuh-jung-starring “Minari”. This year, after six days and 73 feature films, Sundance sees less wins on the Asian and Asian-American cinematic front — and instead sees a turn of attention to the first day of the festival. Though three of the four Grand Jury Prizes awarded to films showcased on Sundance’s opening night, their presence must have been difficult to forget over the last six days — among them including “Flee,” a Denmark-France-Sweden-Norway animated documentary about an Afghan refugee.
Asian stories stood out in this year’s World Cinema: Documentary category, however. “Writing with Fire” (Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh) — a film exploring the accomplishments of a Dalit women-run news outlet in India — notably won the Audience Award and Special Jury Award: Impact for Change Award. Kurdish...
Asian stories stood out in this year’s World Cinema: Documentary category, however. “Writing with Fire” (Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh) — a film exploring the accomplishments of a Dalit women-run news outlet in India — notably won the Audience Award and Special Jury Award: Impact for Change Award. Kurdish...
- 2/4/2021
- by Grace Han
- AsianMoviePulse
Chicago – The 2021 Sundance Film Festival will be long remembered as the “virtual” version due to the pandemic, but there are always the real films, and the festival announced their competition honorees on February 2nd, in a virtual ceremony hosted by comedian Patton Oswalt.
After six days, 73 feature films and 50 Short Films, the Grand Jury Prizes were awarded to “Coda” (U.S. Dramatic) … Coda is an acronym for Child of Deaf Adults, and highlights the character of Ruby. “Summer of Soul” (U.S. Documentary) … the “Black Woodstock” of Harlem in the same Summer of 1969. “Flee” (World Cinema Documentary) … a child immigrant grows up to be a respected academic, but still harbors a secret. And “Hive” (World Cinema Dramatic) … a woman has a husband missing in action during the Kosovo war – should she continue to support herself or wait?
The list of all award winners are below.
Grand Jury Prize
Coda
Photo credit: Sundance Film Festival
U.
After six days, 73 feature films and 50 Short Films, the Grand Jury Prizes were awarded to “Coda” (U.S. Dramatic) … Coda is an acronym for Child of Deaf Adults, and highlights the character of Ruby. “Summer of Soul” (U.S. Documentary) … the “Black Woodstock” of Harlem in the same Summer of 1969. “Flee” (World Cinema Documentary) … a child immigrant grows up to be a respected academic, but still harbors a secret. And “Hive” (World Cinema Dramatic) … a woman has a husband missing in action during the Kosovo war – should she continue to support herself or wait?
The list of all award winners are below.
Grand Jury Prize
Coda
Photo credit: Sundance Film Festival
U.
- 2/3/2021
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
The mostly virtual 2021 Sundance Film Festival is coming to a close. The festival announced awards winners Tuesday night, trading an in-person ceremony for one broadcast live and hosted by Patton Oswalt. The biggest winner was Sian Heder’s coming of age drama “Coda,” which earned four U.S. Dramatic Competition awards, including the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award. Other Big winners were “Summer of Soul,” which took home the two top U.S. Documentary awards.
Blerta Basholli’s “Hive” won three awards in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition: the Directing and Audience awards and the Grand Jury Prize. Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh’s “Writing with Fire” earned two World Cinema Documentary awards.
A total of 72 features screened over the last week, along with 50 shorts, four Indie Series, and 14 New Frontier VR/new media projects. Those projects were judged by a jury made up of Zeynep Atakan, Raúl Castillo,...
Blerta Basholli’s “Hive” won three awards in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition: the Directing and Audience awards and the Grand Jury Prize. Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh’s “Writing with Fire” earned two World Cinema Documentary awards.
A total of 72 features screened over the last week, along with 50 shorts, four Indie Series, and 14 New Frontier VR/new media projects. Those projects were judged by a jury made up of Zeynep Atakan, Raúl Castillo,...
- 2/3/2021
- by Chris Lindahl
- Indiewire
The narrative feature “Coda” and the documentary “Summer of Soul” swept the top categories at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, winning the Grand Jury Prizes and also taking the audience awards in the U.S. dramatic and documentary competitions.
“Coda,” director Sian Heder’s coming-of-age story in which Emilia Jones plays the only hearing member of a deaf family, also won an award for its ensemble, many of them deaf actors who performed in ASL. Its wins come three days after the film set a record for the largest sale in Sundance history, a $25 million deal with Apple.
“Summer of Soul,” which like “Coda” screened on the festival’s opening night, is a documentary by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson built around long-unseen concert footage from the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, a six-weekend event that first-time director Questlove uses as a launching pad to explore race relations and Black culture in that tumultuous time.
“Coda,” director Sian Heder’s coming-of-age story in which Emilia Jones plays the only hearing member of a deaf family, also won an award for its ensemble, many of them deaf actors who performed in ASL. Its wins come three days after the film set a record for the largest sale in Sundance history, a $25 million deal with Apple.
“Summer of Soul,” which like “Coda” screened on the festival’s opening night, is a documentary by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson built around long-unseen concert footage from the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, a six-weekend event that first-time director Questlove uses as a launching pad to explore race relations and Black culture in that tumultuous time.
- 2/3/2021
- by Steve Pond
- The Wrap
There are many times in Hogir Hirori’s “Sabaya,” , where one might wonder how they pulled it off. That feeling is quickly followed by relief that they did.
The daring on display by Hirori, the 40-year-old Swedish filmmaker who left his native Kurdistan in 1999, is matched and (he’d certainly say) exceeded by the bravery of his subjects: the humanitarian rescuers of the Yazidi Home Center in northern Syria. Their mission? To send “infiltrators” into the nearby Al-Hol camp, which is part refugee relocation settlement, part prison. The 73,000-person camp contains both refugees displaced by the incursions of the former Islamic State (known in the film by the Arabic “Daesh”) but includes many members of Isis itself.
As part of Isis’s many atrocities during their brief rule over parts of Syria and Iraq in the mid-2010s, the terrorist group kidnapped thousands of Yazidi girls, many teenagers or prepubescent,...
The daring on display by Hirori, the 40-year-old Swedish filmmaker who left his native Kurdistan in 1999, is matched and (he’d certainly say) exceeded by the bravery of his subjects: the humanitarian rescuers of the Yazidi Home Center in northern Syria. Their mission? To send “infiltrators” into the nearby Al-Hol camp, which is part refugee relocation settlement, part prison. The 73,000-person camp contains both refugees displaced by the incursions of the former Islamic State (known in the film by the Arabic “Daesh”) but includes many members of Isis itself.
As part of Isis’s many atrocities during their brief rule over parts of Syria and Iraq in the mid-2010s, the terrorist group kidnapped thousands of Yazidi girls, many teenagers or prepubescent,...
- 2/3/2021
- by Christian Blauvelt
- Indiewire
Tense and gripping, Hogir Hirori’s documentary Sabaya never positions itself as a thriller. There’s no need. Barring a few cards of scene-setting exposition, this vital dispatch embeds viewers with a rescue operation in the Middle East, and does so with a degree of first-person access that’s not just instantly bold: it’s nerve-janglingly scary.
In the summer of 2014, the Islamic State attacked and overran northern Iraq’s Sinjar region, ancestral homeland to the persecuted Yazidi minority. Soon slaughtering thousands of adult Yazidi men in a genocide, Daesh militants also captured thousands of Yazidi women and girls as sex slaves (or “sabaya”), believing them members of an “unfaithful religion” and thus deserving of such abuse.
Filmed last year by Hirori (also the film’s editor and Dp), Sabaya details the efforts of volunteers with the Yazidian Home Center––led by senior members Mahmud and Ziyad––to rescue these...
In the summer of 2014, the Islamic State attacked and overran northern Iraq’s Sinjar region, ancestral homeland to the persecuted Yazidi minority. Soon slaughtering thousands of adult Yazidi men in a genocide, Daesh militants also captured thousands of Yazidi women and girls as sex slaves (or “sabaya”), believing them members of an “unfaithful religion” and thus deserving of such abuse.
Filmed last year by Hirori (also the film’s editor and Dp), Sabaya details the efforts of volunteers with the Yazidian Home Center––led by senior members Mahmud and Ziyad––to rescue these...
- 2/2/2021
- by Isaac Feldberg
- The Film Stage
The last major stronghold of the Islamic State — also known as Isis, Isil and Daesh — fell in March 2019, when the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces liberated the town of Baghouz, on the border between Syria and Iraq. At the peak of its power, Isis controlled a swath of land the size of Britain between those two Middle Eastern countries, with some 8 million people under the rule of its so-called caliphate. Among the militant group’s highest-profile victims were the Yazidi, a religious minority in northern Iraq that was targeted by Isis for genocide and the mass ...
Mahmud is on his cellphone and he can’t get through. It’s the first image in Hogir Hirori’s startling “Sabaya,” an intense, deeply embedded documentary following the painstaking and perilous rescue of Yazidi women (a Kurdish religious minority), from enslavement by Isis, aka Daesh. It will not be the last time a call is dropped, a signal lost or a ringback tone times out — it becomes a recurring motif, a matter-of-fact reminder of all the people who can’t be reached.
The Al-Hol camp, on the Syrian side of the Syrian-Iraqi border, is the most notorious in the Middle East. Its acres of ramshackle tents house 73,000 refugees displaced in the ongoing battle between the Syrian Democratic Forces and Daesh. Among them are a few thousand Yazidi women and girls kidnapped by Daesh when they took control of the Northern Iraqi province of Sinjar five years prior. The Yazidi menfolk were murdered,...
The Al-Hol camp, on the Syrian side of the Syrian-Iraqi border, is the most notorious in the Middle East. Its acres of ramshackle tents house 73,000 refugees displaced in the ongoing battle between the Syrian Democratic Forces and Daesh. Among them are a few thousand Yazidi women and girls kidnapped by Daesh when they took control of the Northern Iraqi province of Sinjar five years prior. The Yazidi menfolk were murdered,...
- 2/2/2021
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
Hogir Hirori’s Sabaya is a harrowing tale of heroism from a filmmaker all too familiar with the wartime struggles of those he documents. With his latest, the final piece of a cinematic trilogy that includes The Deminer (which nabbed the Special Jury Award for Feature-Length Documentary at IDFA 2017), the Swedish director, who fled his native Kurdistan in 1999, returns to the battle zone to spotlight the dedicated civil servants of the Yazidi Home Center. Putting their lives on the line 24/7, two brave men and a slew of extraordinary, anonymous female “infiltrators” fight, using phones more than guns, to save […]
The post “It Was Not Really Possible to Use Any Safety Precautions or Protocols”: Hogir Hirori on his Sundance-debuting Sabaya first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “It Was Not Really Possible to Use Any Safety Precautions or Protocols”: Hogir Hirori on his Sundance-debuting Sabaya first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 2/1/2021
- by Lauren Wissot
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Hogir Hirori’s Sabaya is a harrowing tale of heroism from a filmmaker all too familiar with the wartime struggles of those he documents. With his latest, the final piece of a cinematic trilogy that includes The Deminer (which nabbed the Special Jury Award for Feature-Length Documentary at IDFA 2017), the Swedish director, who fled his native Kurdistan in 1999, returns to the battle zone to spotlight the dedicated civil servants of the Yazidi Home Center. Putting their lives on the line 24/7, two brave men and a slew of extraordinary, anonymous female “infiltrators” fight, using phones more than guns, to save […]
The post “It Was Not Really Possible to Use Any Safety Precautions or Protocols”: Hogir Hirori on his Sundance-debuting Sabaya first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “It Was Not Really Possible to Use Any Safety Precautions or Protocols”: Hogir Hirori on his Sundance-debuting Sabaya first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 2/1/2021
- by Lauren Wissot
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
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