festival reports

San Francisco. As the oldest continuously running film festival in the Americas, it has played a major role in introducing foreign films to American audiences. This year, it again highlighted current trends in international film and video production. Recipients of honorary awards this year included filmmakers Mike Leigh and Errol Morris, screenwriter Robert Towne, actor Maria Bello and film critic Jim Hoberman. More

Oberhausen. The oldest short film festival of the world. In addition to its four competitions, Oberhausen is known for its extensive thematic programs and retrospectives. In 2008, the main theme program entitled "Border-Crossers and Trouble-Makers" explored the history of political cinema, a second theme program "Whose History?" concerned the question how artists (film and video) look at history, including works by Marcel Broodthaers, Ken Jacobs, Alexander Kluge, Malcolm Le Grice, Lis Rhodes and Emily Wardill. Other programs were dedicated to British filmmaker and artist Andrew Kötting and Lebanese video artist Akram Zaatari. More

Lisbon. IndieLisboa is establishing itself as a platform for world independent cinema. The international competition section is devoted to young filmmakers with one or two feature-length films under their belts, while the national competition presents a selection of new Portuguese films. In addition to this, the festival showcases the most significant contemporary works in auteur cinema. More

Lecce. The 9th edition of the European Cinema Festival in Lecce, Italy, showed art house movies from ten countries in competition along with a retrospective of Russian director Nikita Mikhalkov, born in 1945, and a tribute to Italian actor and director Michele Placido, born in 1946. Specials cover new Italian movies on "Cinema and Reality" and experimental works. More

Buenos Aires. At its 10th edition, the Festival of Independent Cinema offered an expansive program, showed a mission to define contemporary Argentinean values, and took take care of those filmmakers whose careers were launched in the festival — Lisandro Alonso or Mariano Llinás, for instance. Retrospectives were dedicated to Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi. More

Istanbul. The 27th edition of the Istanbul International Film Festival confirmed its reputation as a major cinematographic event of the region, linking European and Asian cultural traditions. The national competition presented a diversified panorama of recent Turkish productions. Actress Claudia Cardinale received the Festival's Lifetime Achievement Award. More

Wiesbaden. The 8th goEast Festival in the German town near Frankfurt offered an overview on Middle and Eastern European films. The well organized symposium "Iconography and Nation (Re-Building)" gave an overview on film documents of the Ex-Yugoslavian region. The festival organized also homages to Armenian director Sergei Parajanov (1924-1990) and Hungarian director Benedek Fliegauf, born in 1974. More

Toulouse. The 20th edition of the "Rencontres Cinémas d'Amérique Latine" in the French city offered a meeting point for Latin American cinemas, their makers and their public. This year's anniversary allowed to show not only the recent production from the continent in the feature fiction, documentary and short-film programs, but also to rediscover some of the titles that marked these past two decades. Within the Rencontres, the 13th edition of "Cinéma en Construction", the initiative that helps Latin American projects make their way through post-production, was another true encounter. More

Hong Kong. The festival, a center of Asian cinema (and, for the city, a showcase of new international films), allowed an extensive overview on tendencies on the continent. Taiwanese filmmaker Edward Young (who died recently) was honored with an homage, a retrospective was dedicated to Hong Kong filmmaker Eric Tsang. More

Guadalajara. The Mexican festival, founded two decades ago as a showcase of Mexican cinema, has in the last years — headed by former producer Jorge Sánchez and critic Lucy Virgen (program) — grown considerably and presented itself (with an intelligently composed program and a series of panels and workshops) as a center of, and meeting point for Latin American cinemas. Read more

Sofia. The festival has grown to a center of Balkan cinemas (including Bulgaria, the hosting country). Balkan films were attractive in particular for foreign visitors, because they were filmic statements about the Balkan. Even if it seems a cliché, they recall again the ambiguities of the transition from communism, where capitalism is a dead end and a way out at the same time. Read more

Thessaloniki Documentary. The festival "Images of the 21st Century" celebrated its tenth anniversary and presented an important selection of international and Greek docs. Our jurors report on the anniversary edition, and on Tanaz Eshaghian's Be Like Others (which received our award) and Greek films. Read more

Mumbai. With ten films in the different languages of india coming from different regions of the country the 10th edition of the Mumbai International Film Festival gave an overview on the huge variety of filmmaking in India. With 140 films from all over the world including silent movies with live music and retrospectives to honor Andrzej Wajda and Ritwik Ghatak, the only independent festival of India (presented by the Mumbai Academy of Motion Pictures) also proved to be a good place to keep up with actual tendencies. Read more

Miami. At the 25th anniversary edition of the Miami International Film Festival, the first under the stewardship of industry veteran Patrick de Bokay, our jury surveyed the 15 films of the World Dramatic Features section and presented its single award to the violent drama Foul Gesture (Tnu'a Meguna), the second feature (after Giraffes) by fortysomething Israeli director Tzahi Grad. Read more

Fribourg. At the first edition to be directed by our colleague Edouard Waintrop, the films in competition challenged the viewer and were cinematographic constructions using out-of-frame images, encouraging the audience to complete the film in their minds, thus making them a part of the filmmaking process. Among them, the FIPRESCI jury awarded the Korean film With a Girl of Black Soil (Geomen Tangyi Sonyeo Oi) by Jeon Soo-il. Read more

Mexico City. There was, at FICCO — the Mexico City International Contemporary Film Festival, a thorough, very impressive selection of recent Latin American documentaries and features. Thinking locally, FICCO offered a Mexican digital section of  young, talented filmmakers. Conceiving globally, FICCO provided an extraordinary group of retrospectives, almost too much for enthusiastic cinephiles to take in. Mexico City audiences were treated to major showings of the oeuvres of Frederick Wiseman, Aki Kaurismäki, Maurice Pialat, Carl Theodor Dreyer. And let's not forget an important section featuring the movies of the New Philippine Cinema. Read more

Berlin. Berlinale is undoubtedly one of the biggest film events worldwide and Fest Head Dieter Kosslick manages to make it even bigger from one year to the next. He has enriched the four classical sections of Competition, Panorama, Forum and Retrospective with a series of additional sections, events, panels, showings of German films, hommages, a gigantic (but useful) Talent Campus... The critics forming our jury write on different aspects of the festival, including reviews on the three films winning our prize, Lake Tahoe (Fernando Eimbcke), Mermaid (Anna Melikyan), Shahida — Brides of Allah (Natalie Assouline). — For the sixth time, FIPRESCI coorganized (together with Berlinale Talent Campus and Goethe Institute) the "Talent Press", giving eight young critics the possibility to attend the festival and to daily cover it, tutored by experienced colleagues. Read more

Mumbai
Rotterdam
Goteborg
Tromso
Dhaka
Palm Springs

2006 retrospective. Selected reports published in 2006.
2005 retrospective. Selected reports published in 2005.
2004 retrospective. Selected reports published in 2004.
2003 retrospective. Selected reports published in 2003.
All festival reports. Visit our archive.

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