Month: November 2007

The 48th annual Thessaloniki International Film Festival closed on Sunday. The main prize, the Golden Alexander for Best Film, went to Chinese drama The Red Awn, written and directed by Cai Shangjun. The Red Awn had previously won the FIPRESCI prize, awarded by a jury of international film critics, at the Pusan Film Festival in South Korea in October. It is the story of a Chinese man who returns to his hometown after being declared dead and tries to reconnect with his son, whom he has not seen [Read more...]

The 17th Festival of Eastern European Cinema closed yesterday in Cottbus, Germany, after a five-day run. The leading event in promoting films from the region, the Cottbus Festival both lends international exposure to the best films that come out of film industries in Eastern Europe, provides financial support to the most promising filmmakers and serves as an arena for dialogue about trends in the region. This year, the International Festival Jury presented the main prize to Investigation [Read more...]

Directors Vincent Paronnaud and Marianne Satrapi won the Sutherland Trophy for their feature Persepolis at the 51st annual London Film Festival, which closed yesterday after a two-week run. Based on a graphic novel by Satrapi, the animated film offers a young girl’s perspective of life during the Islamic revolution in Iran. The famous names who lent their voices for the feature include Chiara Mastroianni, Catherine Deneuve, Sean Penn, Gena Rowlands and Iggy Pop. The FIPRESCI International [Read more...]