Winners of the 51st annual London Film Festival announced

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...]

Academy announces Best Foreign Language Film candidates

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences revealed this year's contenders for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar earlier today. The best movies from 63 countries - a record number of submissions - were announced by Academy president Sid Ganis. The awards for outstanding achievements in cinema in 2007 will be presented at the annual awards ceremony on February 24, 2008 at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood. Here they are: Argentina - XXY (Lucia Puenzo) Australia - The Home Song Stories [Read more...]

Pusan International Film Festival ends

The Pusan International Film Festival, held in Busan, South Korea annually, closed yesterday. The winners in the competitive category New Currents are Life Track, a Chinese and South Korean co-production directed by Jin Guanghao, the Malaysian film Flowers in the Pocket, directed by Liew Seng-tat, and Wonderful Town by Aditya Assarat from Thailand. Flowers in the Pocket has also won the audience award at the festival, while the international film critics jury presented the FIPRESCI Award to the [Read more...]

Blade Runner: The Final Cut – in NY & LA theatres tomorrow

25 years after its original release, Blade Runner is back in select movie theatres in New York and Los Angeles on October 5. The Final Cut of the film will be released on DVD in December in several editions, some of which will include all the four previous cuts, footage that didn't make it into any of them and, most importantly, a brand new documentary about the movie - Dangerous Days. More info on the DVD can be found here and here. Also, Wired did an interview with Ridley Scott recently and [Read more...]