News

The Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival was awarded to Norway’s Dag Johan Haugerud for Dreams (Sex Love) tonight (February 22), the first time this honour has gone to the country.

Scroll down for full list of winners

Dreams (Sex Love) sees Haugerud complete his Sex Love Dreams trilogy with the story of a young woman whose writings about a crush on her French teacher shock her mother and grandmother, causing them to re-examine their own fantasies. M-Appeal is handling sales.

Haugerud said on stage that it was “beyond [his] wildest dreams” to win the Golden Bear and, speaking...

The Berlin International Film Festival has announced its full lineup for the 55th Forum section, the festival’s sidebar focusing on experimental and avant-garde cinema.

Section head Barbara Wurm said the 2025 selection aims to showcase contemporary cinema that “moves beyond the cult and the commercial” while functioning as a “seismograph of our time.”

The program’s exploration of time is highlighted by Stefan Hayn’s 2024 (2023), which juxtaposes political Berlin with private Bavaria, utilizing both film and painting as frames for observation. Cao Yiwen’s AI-driven What’s Next? poses a philosophical question about the future, while Su Hui-Yu’s The Trio Hall presents a pastiche featuring historical dictators engaged in theatrical performances.

Around half the films at this year’s Forum are documentaries, with highlights including Tatiana Fuentes Sadowski’s The Memory of Butterflies, a reconstruction of Indigenous slavery and colonial crimes; Lee Anne Schmitt’s Evidence, which explores...

UK Global Screen Fund Awards

The UK Global Screen Fund, backed by Dcms and administered by the BFI, has awarded a further £2.1M ($2.8M) to UK companies through its £7M ($9.3M) International Business Development strand. The financial support will provide companies from around the UK with funding for business strategies to create, acquire and exploit Intellectual Property (IP) for increased international revenue, activities and profile.d The awards come in the form of non-repayable grants and range between £50,000 and £117,600 in total over a three-year period. Companies to benefit from this round include Number 9 Films (Mothering Sunday), The Ink Factory (The Night Manager), Warp Films (Everybody’s Talking About Jamie) and Good Chaos. Further awards went to: Alphablocks Limited; Avanti Media; The Black Camel Picture Company; Blazing Griffin; Bohemia Club; Cantilever Media; Digital Media Distribution; Dog Ears; Dorothy Street Pictures; Ida Rose; Ie Ie Productions Little Door Productions; Outsider Games...

The festival will open with Sun Hong’s This Is Life, while Zhang Yang’s So Far So Close will screen as the Special Presentation.

Pingyao International Film Festival (Pyiff) has unveiled the full line-up for its fourth edition (October 10-19), which like many Asian festivals during the Covid-19 pandemic is taking place as a physical event without international guests.

The festival’s opening film and Special Presentation are both world premieres of Chinese productions – Sun Hong’s This Is Life will open the festival, while Zhang Yang’s So Far So Close will screen as the Special Presentation title...

Nineteen French feature films, including minority coproductions, will screen at the 77th edition of the Venice Film Festival, which runs Sept. 2-12. There are also four short films produced by France, and six French VR productions.

Nicole Garcia will represent France in the Official Competition with “Lovers,” her ninth feature film. She will be joined in the section by Amos Gitaï, whose film “Laila in Haifa” is a majority-French coproduction.

In addition to those movies, six films majority produced or coproduced by France will be showcased at the festival. They include Quentin Dupieux’s “Mandibules,” presented out of competition, and “Princesse Europe” by Camille Lotteau, to be shown in a special screening. The competitive Orizzonti section features four majority-French films.

“Honey Cigar” plays in Giornate degli Autori, a sidebar event.

Majority-French Feature Films in Venice

“Lovers”

Section: In Competition

Director: Nicole Garcia

Cast: Stacy Martin, Pierre Niney, Benoît Magimel

Sales:...

14th Mumbai Film Festival (Mff) announced its complete lineup today in a press conference. Mff will be held from October 18th to 25th at the National Centre for the Performing Arts (Ncpa) and Inox, Nariman Point, Liberty Cinemas, Marine Lines as the main festival venues and Cinemax, Andheri and Cinemax Sion as the satellite venues. Click here to watch trailers and highlights from the festival.

Here is the complete list of films to be screened during the festival (October 18-25)

International Competition for the First Feature Films of Directors

1. From Tuesday To Tuesday (De Martes A Martes)

Dir.: Gustavo Fernandez Triviño (Argentina / 2012 / Col. / 111′)

2. The Last Elvis (El Último Elvis)

Dir.: Armando Bo (Argentina / 2012 / Col. / 91′)

3. The Sapphires

Dir.: Wayne Blair (Australia / 2012 / Col. / 103′)

4. The Wall (Die Wand)

Dir.: Julian Pölsler (Austria-Germany / 2012 / Col. / 108′)

5. Teddy Bear (10 timer til Paradis)

Dir.: Mads Matthiesen (Denmark / 2012 / Col. / 93′)

6. Augustine

Dir.: Alice Winccour (France / 2012 / Col.