festival reports

"The Tieniest Place" (Mar del Plata)

"Blowfish" (Geneva)

"Southwest" (Rio)

"Palawan Fate" (Almaty)

"Blood of My Blood" (San Sebastian)

"The First Man" (Toronto)

"Shame" (Venice)

"Wedding..." (Durres)

"Noordzee..." (Montreal)

"Back to Stay" (Locarno)

"Collaborator" (K.Vary)

"The Waves" (Moscow)

"Tilva Ros" (Cluj)

"Take Shelter" (Cannes)

"Press" (Istanbul)

"Poetry" (Fribourg)

"The Turin Horse" (Berlin)

Leipzig, Valladolid, Kiev, Vienna, Cottbus, Bratislava, Geneva, Thessaloniki, Mar del Plata. Reports follow.

Abu Dhabi. The youngest international film event in the Arab world. For the last three years the festival has been under the direction of Peter Scarlet. This year, it showcased a Narrative Feature Competition of sixteen full-length features, including the new works of David Cronenberg, Todd Solondz, Andrey Zvyagintsev, Arturo Ripstein, Michael Winterbottom and Leila Kilani. More

Perm, Warsaw. Reports follow.

Rio de Janeiro. The Rio de Janeiro Film Festival is the annual family feast of Brazilian cinema. "Premiere Brasil" is the festival's main section, and the cinema showing it is the Odeon theater, which is strategically set in Rio's downtown area. There were queues every night. It was an astonishing experience to see how the Brazilian public is especially interested in Brazilian films, and not only interested, but emotionally involved, with a measure of national pride. More

Oslo. The program of "Films From the South" is made up of films from Latin America, Asia and Africa. In the different sections films range from the most-awarded of the year to more commercially based prospects. Special guests were, among others, Eric Khoo, Nadine Labaki and Matias Bize. More

Busan. The 16th BIFF was a hub for major Asian directors, with guest appearances by Tsui Hark, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Hong Sang-soo, Bong Joon-ho, Sion Sono and Nobuhiro Yamashita.  As usual, there was an abundance of Japanese, Hong Kong and Korean films. More

Reykjavik. "New Visions", RIFF's main competitive category, comprised 12 films by first or second-time feature directors. Just over half of the films in the category were European, while the rest were from the USA, Russia, Palestine, Argentina and Brazil. The Critics' Prize went to Volcano (Eldfjall) by Rúnar Rúnarsson (Iceland, 2011), presented in the "New Visions" section. More

Almaty. Eurasia is an international film festival in Central Asia, which involves both eastern and western films; which tries not to drag behind the processes in world cinematography; and which, along with the films awarded at Class A festivals, offers something new, different, and idiosyncratic. If we cast a look at the post-Soviet space, not too many countries can boast of shooting so many films annually — 25 films per year — as Kazakhstan, which confirms that they are making films, trying to develop the film industry, and are looking for new, expressive methods and their own language. This in itself means that cinema is alive in Kazakhstan. More

Barcelona. The fourth Film Critics' Meeting on Catalan Cinema took place in Barcelona in October, was organized by the Association of Catalan Critics and Cinema Writers, with the support of the Catalan Institute for Cultural Industries, and offered a good chance to get acquainted with recent Catalan cinema. More

San Sebastian. The San Sebastian Film Festival celebrated its 59th edition, as one of the oldest in the world, and welcomed Jose Luis Rebordinos in his debut year as fest head. The official competition showcased the work of 16 directors, with the return of eminent figures such as Kim Ki-Duk, Hirokazu Koreeda, Isaki Lacuesta, Terence Davies, Arturo Ripstein, Sarrah Polley or João Canijo. More

Riga. In addition to film screenings (an international and a Baltic competition), the festival hosted a few talks and special events. The proudest was a celebration of Riga's renowned documentarist Herz Frank, who turned 85 this year: Frank was in attendance at the opening of an exhibition on his life and work at the Riga Film Museum. More

Toronto. The Toronto International Film Festival is in its 36th year, and its second with the lofty-ceilinged, glass-fronted TIFF Bell Lightbox as its main home. The building was filled with long, snaking lines for much of the ten days as demand for seats ran high. It's an event in thrall to stars, its Oscar-race clout drawing celebrities to the red carpet, and the rare decision to open with a documentary (Davis Guggenheim's From the Sky Down) seemed less about pushing format than angling for a rock-star glean for the evening through the attendance of Bono and The Edge. However, the calibre of films screening was no less for that, the festival's growing reputation as a rival for Venice proving its weight. More

Venice. May the Lido of Venice be not very inviting in these days, inside the screening rooms film critics and visitors alike were pleased with a program which included classic names such as David Cronenberg, Roman Polanski, Alexandr Sokurov, William Friedkin, Ermanno Olmi and Steven Soderbergh, as well as edgy newcomers such as British visual artists Steve McQueen and Andrea Arnold, Swedish genre-bender Tomas Alfredson, Iranian and Italian cartoonist Marjane Satrapi and Gipi, and Japan's manga follower Sion Sono. The program rivaled the best of international festivals in this, or any year. More

Durres (Albania). Now in its fourth year, the Durrës International Film Summerfest continues to expand apace on a very modest budget. Assembled by the festival's Artistic Director, Anila Varfi, the program consisted of two main strands, a pan-European Contemporary Visions competition and a Balkan World competition. More

Montreal. The Critics' jury presented two prizes, to a film in the World Film Competition: Black Thursday by Antoni Krauze; and to a film in the First Feature Film Competition: North Sea Texas by Bavo Defurne. More

Locarno. Run for the second year by Olivier Père, the "Festival del Film Locarno" saw the return of Hollywood on the Piazza, with open-air screenings of Super 8 by J.J. Abrams, Cowboys and Aliens by Jon Favreau, and Friends with Benefits by Will Gluck. A number of more 'cinephile' events echoed back to Père's previous life as a programmer at the Cinemathèque Française: tributes to the Gérard Depardieu-Maurice Pialat partnership, to Harrison Ford, Leslie Caron, Claudia Cardinale and Isabelle Huppert, and an extensive Vincente Minnelli retrospective. More

Motovun. Reports follow.

Odessa. Klaus Eder attended the 2nd Odessa International Film Festival and had the pleasure to see the restored version of Fritz Lang's Metropolis on the stairs which lead from the historical center down to the harbor and where Sergei Eisenstein had shot, in 1925, one of the most famous scenes of film history. In the festival program, Klaus Eder liked particularly A Useful Life (Uruguay) and Journey to Portugal with a wonderful Maria de Medeiros in the lead. More

Wroclaw. At this event attracting an astonishingly big young public from the region, the Hungarian film The Gravedigger (A Siraso) by Sandor Kardos was most appreciated by the critics forming our jury. More

Yerevan. The 8th Golden Apricot International Film Festival in Yerevan, Armenia, offered a number of finely selected programs, including international feature and documentary competitions, an Armenian panorama and a new program of short films called "Stone" — the apricot kernel. More

Karlovy Vary. Under its new artistic director Karel Och (who took over from Eva Zaoralová who stayed with the festival as artistic consultant), the festival continued to build a bridge between East and West. The "East of the West" competition was consequently, together with the international competition, the event's center. Traditionally, an overview on new Czech films was offered. Tributes were dedicated to Denis Villeneuve and Samuel Fuller. More

Moscow. With upwards of 200 films from more than 40 countries, the 33rd Moscow International Film Festival has aimed to combine quality and breadth, choice items from the recent Cannes festival with offerings from such off-the-beaten-track locations as North Korea and Venezuela. Faithful to its original Soviet-era mission of providing a showcase for films from Russia's near-neighbours, the festival allocated nine of its 17 competition slots to movies from east-central Europe. More

Seattle. Reports follow.

Cluj. The Transsilvania International Film Festival in the Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca organized the first complete retrospective of one of the most acclaimed directors of Romania, Lucian Pintilie. The competition looked strong as ever, celebrations around the tenth anniversary included a dvd box, a special English magazine with essays about Romanian cinema and a masterclass by Cristi Puiu. More

Troia. The Portuguese festival invited 12 films in the official competition, organized an homage to Turkish cinema which did not only include recent titles but also classics from the 80s and 90s, offered a special selection of films which relate with the theme of food and love; and also next to the main competition, two more sections with competitions, the "First Works" which showcased first features, and "Man and His Environment" which included ecology theme films. More

Annecy. Annecy International Animation Film Festival, which ran June 6-11, 2011, on the shores of Lake Annecy (France), is a great and unique opportunity to certify the worldwide booming of animation industry. The official competition includes feature movies, short films, TV films, commissioned films and graduation films. More

Krakow. The FIPRESCI Prize at this traditional short film festival went to 1994 by Kaveh Tehrani (Norway, 2010, 29 mins).

Cannes. "What a program!", goes Klaus Eder into raptures over the 2011 edition. "Woody Allen, Nanni Moretti, the Dardenne Brothers, Terrence Malick, Aki Kaurismäki, Lars von Trier, Takashi Miike, Pedro Almodóvar, Nuri Bilge Ceylan ... No other festival can come up with such an exquisite selection of the best names in world cinema. This was the best program in years, not just in the official competition but also in the official section "Un Certain Regard", which featured Gus Van Sant, Kim Ki-duk, Robert Guédiguian, Andreas Dresen, Bruno Dumont and Eric Khoo — though not all of the films delivered on the promise of their pedigrees." Read the extensive reports

Ankara. The Ankara Flying Broom International Women's Film Festival is a major cultural event held by Flying Broom, a network of women's NGOs in Turkey, that has been working relentlessly to promote gender sensitivity and women's rights in the country. "Power" was the defining theme of its 14th edition. More

Oberhausen. "For it melancholy and unflinching look at the life of a teenage girl, and its slightly unreal atmosphere tThat is captivating from beginning to end", the FIPRESCI-Jury gave its prize to Handebol by Anita Rocha de Silveira (Brazil). More

San Francisco. The FIPRESCI jury at the 54th San Francisco International Film Festival has chosen to award its prize to a movie "with a very precise sense of place and character, yet which also makes a provocatively ambivalent statement about the value of work in the aftermath of local economic collapse: The Salesman, directed by Sebastien Pilote." More

Lecce. Reports on the 2011 edition of the "Festival del Cinema Europeo — Festival of European Cinema" in the south Italian city of Lecce (in the province of Apulia) follow.

Krakow. Our first visit to the curiously named Off Camera Plus Festival of Independent Cinema was highly interesting. The festival has a very wide-ranging program, including the best of the years' indies, and New Asian, Irish and German Cinema. Most interesting was the Polish film section and the strong one of first and second movies. More

Buenos Aires. Texts on BAFICI follow, the Buenos Aires Festival of Independent Cinema.

Wiesbaden. New fest head Gaby Babić sticked to the original orientation of the festival as showcase of central and eastern European films, but broadened the program especially with a section called "Beyond Belonging", reserved for "an exploration of new perspectives". The festival's backbone is still the competition with ten feature films and six documentaries this year. More

Istanbul. For generations of Turkish filmmakers the festival worked as a "school" where they could study what their colleagues worldwide were doing, and how they were doing it. For foreigners, the festival worked and still works as a bridge to Turkish cinema (many festival programmers come to scout for Turkish entries). This is particularly interesting since a new, young Turkish cinema has attracted international interest and attention (provoked by the work of Nuri Bilge Ceylan, who's new film Once Upon A Time In Anatolia was not included in the program as it will world premiere in the Cannes competition later in May). Hungarian director Béla Tarr received an "Honorary Award", together with Turkish actor Metin Akpinar and Turkish director Yusuf Kurcenli. French director Claire Denis headed the international jury. Texts

Hong Kong. Reports on the 2011 edition of the Hong Kong International Film Festival, showcase in particular of Asian cinema, follow soon.

Fribourg. French critic Edouard Waintrop's last edition as festival head. The Fribourg International Film Festival is dedicated to the cinemas of Africa, Asia and Latin America. A sections focused on films about different kinds of black music. A retrospective of Georgian cinema had been organized, a tribute to the Argentinean producer Lita Stantic, a panorama of the Malaysian "New Wave" through the Da Huang Network company. More

Toulouse. The "Rencontres Cinémas d'Amérique Latine" is one of the most important festivals for South American movies outside the Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries. 15 feature films were presented in the official competition for the main award "Coup de coeur" (Heartbeat). Country in focus: Mexico. More

Thessaloniki. Reports on the Documentary Film Festival "Images of the 21st Century" follow.

Sofia. Reports on the Sofia International Film Festival follow.

Cartagena. This year's 51st edition is the first headed up by the new team of Lina Rodriguez Fernandez, General Manager, and Monika Wagenberg, Director. This "dynamic duo" seems determined to raise both the national and international profiles of the event. For the first time the participation of FIPRESCI could be arranged. Main spotlight falls on the Official Competition of fiction features, which presents first, second, or third features by Iberoamerican cineastes. The Iberoamerican designation refers to filmmakers from Latin American, Spain, and Portugal. More

Berlin. Berlinale Talent Campus, Goethe-Institut and FIPRESCI organized in the framework of the festival the "Talent Press" workshop. This initiative allows young critics from all over the world to attend the festival, and to win experience in writing, on a daily basis and on one of the biggest film festivals of the world. We published their daily coverage of the festival. Texts

Earlier festivals of the year: Göteborg / Rotterdam / Tromsö / Palm Springs.
Selected festivals 2010: Moscow
Selected festivals 2008: Yerevan, Valladolid, Warsaw, Leipzig, Mar del Plata, Cottbus

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