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Lea Glob’s documentary Apolonia, Apolonia, a 13-year portrait of Paris-born painter Apolonia Sokol, has won best film at the 2022 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), the world’s largest documentary film fest.

The honor, announced at an awards ceremony in Amsterdam on Thursday night, comes with a €15,000 (15,000) cash prize.

The Danish director stitched her doc together from multiple meetings over the years with Sokol, as she traced the artist’s development and reflects on her personal and professional obsessions, including art, love, motherhood, sexuality, queerness, capitalism and the patriarchy.

The best film prize in the IDFA’s Envision Competition section, and its 15,000 cash prize, went to Angie Vinchito’s Manifesto, a found-footage doc compiled from videos Russian teenagers posted on social media.

IDFA’s best director honor in the international category, and a €5,000 (5,200) cash prize, went to Simon Chambers for Much Ado About Dying,...

Festival continues through Sunday.

Danish director Lea Glob’s Apolonia, Apolonia has won best film in the international competition at the 35th edition of International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), running 9-20 November.

The award,which comes with a €15,000 euro cash prize, was confirmed on Thursday evening in a ceremony at Ita (International Theatre Amsterdam) that was streamed live.

Apolonia, Apolonia, backed by HBO Max and Arte and sold by Cat&Docs, follows brilliant young artist Apolonia Sokol over a period of 13 years. It was produced by Sidsel Siersted for Danish Documentary Production.

“This film has characters who breathe life and take us on a journey,...

Lea Glob’s documentary Apolonia, Apolonia, about the Paris-born painter Apolonia Sokol, earned Best Film in international competition as the IDFA awards ceremony unfolded in Amsterdam tonight.

The prestigious honor comes with a €15,000 cash prize. Announcing the award, the five-member jury noted, “This film has characters who breathe life and take us on a journey, opening us up to the worlds of culture and art, of business and politics, of the mechanics of a success story. It is infused with love.”

Glob has been following Soko’s career for well over a decade. According to the Villa Medici website, the figurative painter is “known for her political stance on the art of portraiture, claiming the need to use it as a tool of empowerment and deconstruction of marginalization or domination. That is why she addresses multiple issues such as feminisms, queerness, women’s representation throughout art history and body politics in general.

Festival programmes tribute to Mantas Kvedaravicius, filmmaker killed in Ukraine.

New films from Martin Scorsese, Patricio Guzman, Gianfranco Rosi and Ruth Beckermann are among the Masters selection for the 35th International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA).

Scorsese and David Tedeschi’s music film Personality Crisis: One Night Only will have its international premiere at IDFA, following a world debut at New York Film Festival in October. The film shows a set from US singer-songwriter David Johansen at New York’s Café Carlyle from January 2020.

The festival will also play Gianfranco Rosi’s first archive-based film In viaggio, which considers the human...

Festival runs September 29-October 1.

GuadaLAjara Film Festival (Glaff) will honour Latinx star Xolo Maridueña and Rosario Dawson at this year’s event in Downtown Los Angeles, running September 29-October 1.

Maridueña will receive the Arbol de la Vida Trailblazer Award on opening night for his achievements as an actor, breaking down barriers, and inspiring the next generation of Latin talent. He has played the lead in Netflix series Cobra Kai for the last five seasons.

Dawson will receive the Arbol de la Vida Artist and Advocacy Award on closing night in recognition of her activism and philanthropy work. Her credits include the Sin City franchise,...

Festival runs September 29-October 1.

GuadaLAjara Film Festival (Glaff) will honour Latinx star Xola Maridueña and Rosario Dawson at this year’s event in Downtown Los Angeles, running September 29-October 1.

Maridueña will receive the Arbol de la Vida Trailblazer Award on opening night for his achievements as an actor, breaking down barriers, and inspiring the next generation of Latin talent. He has played the lead in Netflix series Cobra Kai for the last five seasons.

Dawson will receive the Arbol de la Vida Artist and Advocacy Award on closing night in recognition of her activism and philanthropy work. Her credits include the Sin City franchise,...

In what promises to be an incredibly busy Annecy, Brinca Animation Studio will premiere its animated feature “Home is Somewhere Else” at the French animation meet’s Contrechamp section, its major sidebar.

Co-directed by Carlos Hagerman and Jorge Villalobos, the Mexican animated feature reflects on the lives of the many undocumented Hispanic immigrants arriving in the U.S.; less interested in simply stating the immense difficulty that this means for them and keener on observing with care the emotional consequences that it entails. Built around the voices of real characters and their families, the toon’s varied styles become deeply intimate. Seen from the protagonists’ worldview, the film becomes an earnest call for empathy in a country that is witnessing an unprecedented influx of immigrants.

A portrait of four different characters presented by a sharp-witted narrator called “El Deportee,” voiced by José Eduardo Aguilar – whose real-life story is also told...

Twenty titles have been selected for its main feature competitions.

The Annecy International Animation Film Festival has unveiled its main feature competition line-up for the upcoming 2022 edition (June 13-18).

Ten titles have been selected for official competition, including Eric Warin and Tahir Rana’s Charlotte which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2021. Based on the true story of the young Judeo-German artist Charlotte Salomon, the voice cast includes Kiera Knightley, Marion Cotillard, Sam Claflin and Helen McCrory.

Scroll down for the full list of titles

Other titles include Japanese filmmaker Shinya Kawastura’s The House Of The Lost...

Hot Docs, one of the world’s top documentary feature film festivals, has selected 36 projects from 18 countries to take part in Hot Docs Deal Maker, a curated one-on-one pitch meeting program for producers seeking financing from the international marketplace.

Since the program’s launch in 2013, the number of decision makers taking part has more than doubled and will reach almost 100 this year. In total, 433 projects and 516 filmmakers have pitched in 4,000 Deal Maker meetings, with millions of dollars raised.

Notable projects that have pitched at Hot Docs Deal Maker in previous years include the 2020 Hot Docs Festival opening night film “Softie,” 2020’s “Downstream to Kinshasa,” 2019’s “Smog Town and The Forum,” 2018’s “Love, Gilda,” and 2017’s “My Enemy, My Brother,” directed by Ann Shin, whose film “A.rtificial I.mmortality” will open this year’s festival.

Featuring a diverse selection of projects showcasing varied perspectives, stories and styles from established and...

Turkish festival announces films, guests and industry lineups amid challenging security climate.

The Istanbul Film Festival has announced the lineup of its 35th edition, which will take place from April 7-17.

This year the festival, Kerem Ayan’s first as director, will host 221 feature films from 62 countries, as well as panel discussions, concerts and industry pitching session Meetings on the Bridge.

Films participating in the festival’s International Golden Tulip competition include Brady Corbet’s The Childhood Of A Leader (pictured) and recent Berlin favourite United States Of Love.

Actresses Suzan Avci, Perran Kutman and Jeyan Ayral Tozum, director Ulku Erakalin, and producer Seref Gur will receive the festival’s Cinema Honorary Awards, while Belgica director Felix van Groeningen, recent Oscar nominee Ciro Guerra and Golden Bear winner Gianfranco Rosi will also make appearances.

Additionally, the festival will feature new music and ‘Hidden Gems’ sections as well as tributes to director Otto Preminger and American avant garde cinema...

The Scorecard Review will be there to cover the interviews, movie reviews and red carpet moments of the Chicago International Film Festival in October. Here’s a list of 21 movies that will be a part of the event. We’ll have all the news you’ll need to be ready for the fest right here.

October 8 – 22, 2009

Chicago, September 16, 2009 – Cinema/Chicago is proud to announce another 20 films that will appear at this year’s Chicago International Film Festival. From dazzling CGI animation to tales of existential ennui and little white lies gone wrong, The 45th Chicago International Film Festival promises an impressive array of diverse films that will excite cinema fans in Chicago and beyond. Below is a newly released sampling of the 145 films that will be shown at this year’s Chicago International Film Festival, which will take place October 8th through the 22nd at the AMC River East 21 Theater (322 E.

The Los Angeles International Film Festival, which ran from June 18-28, has decided on its winners. Here’s a breakdown of what films and filmmakers came away with awards.

Sam Fleischner and Ben Chace’s Wah Do Dem (What They Do) earned the Target Filmmaker Award for best narrative film, while Juan Carlos Rulfo and Carlos Hagerman’ Those Who Remain (Los Que se Quedan) took home the Target Documentary Award. The two top festival awards, which have a $50,000 cash prize each that go to the directors, were announced at Film Independent’s Filmmaker Awards Ceremony Brunch at the Hammer Museum in Westwood.

Wah Do Dem is the story a man who takes a Caribbean cruise alone after he is dumped by his girlfriend. Those Who Remain looks at Mexican families who are left behind after some of their family members emigrate north. This year the fest also presented a new award,...

• Spain: Local Film Scene Teaserland is a very unique film festival. It is solely comprised of film trailers for films that do not exist. This is exactly the point of this brand new festival created under the guidance of the Sitges Film Fest folk. The winner walks away is with 30.000€ and so his/her trailer has the opportunity to take the shape of an actual short film. The competition, which started more as a funny, crazy idea than anything else has up to this point received more than one thousand fake trailers. Among the jury we find the influential figures of the Spanish cinema in: director Jaume Balagueró (Rec) and film critics Jaume Figueres and Mirito Torreiro. There are only 4 trailers remaining in the competition and every week one of them is eliminated via a popularity vote on the fest's website. You can go ahead and vote for your favorite at www.

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Universal Pictures' "Public Enemies," starring Johnny Depp as John Dillinger, will screen as the Centerpiece Premiere at the Los Angeles Film Festival, which runs June 18-28.

Directed by Michael Mann, whose "Collateral" screened as a sneak peek at the festival five years ago, "Enemies" also stars Christian Bale and Marion Cotillard. The film opens nationally July 1.

Organized by Film Independent, the fest announced the bulk of its lineup Tuesday,encompassing more than 70 feature films, 70 shorts and 50 music videos drawn from more than 30 countries.

Said Rebecca Yeldham, who recently stepped into her new role as the festival's director: "The Laff is a celebration of culture, cinema and community. We're dedicated to our public, and we're dedicated to our filmmakers. We see ourselves as part of the international community of artists and passionate cinephiles."

Joining Yeldham and programming director Rachel Rosen at the Hotel Palomar in Westwood, actors Gael Garcia Bernal...

The award-winning Mexican movie "De la Calle" (Streeters) presents an engrossing, contemporary look at the life of teenagers and young children living on and under the streets of Mexico City. Although not a documentary, the film is able to create a gritty, realistic atmosphere. It even manages to evoke a bleak beauty and some sense of hope amid the squalor and depravity. Following a rocky production history, it could emerge as the second recent Mexican film (on the heels of the breakout hit "Y Tu Mama Tambien") to score with American audiences.

"De la Calle" follows 15-year-old Rufino and his girlfriend, Xochitl, as they try to escape from the hopeless poverty and dead-end existence of the urban sprawl of the capital for a new life in the port city of Veracruz. They dream of gazing at the sea. Rufino hears that dockyard work should be plentiful. Complicating matters is Xochitl's infant son, more or less cared for by friends. Her visits with the boy are fleeting; Xochitl spends her time living and sleeping alongside other young orphaned addicts in the sewers while occasionally picking up the menial job or two.

Rufino is a charismatic youth and natural born leader, but he is not the upstanding hero of romantic films of yore: He is a drug runner who fearlessly scams dealers and tries to outwit his connections. Rufino has incurred the wrath of the short-fused, corrupt neighborhood cop, Ochoa, who also happens to be a volatile surrogate father figure. Then the teenager is told by a grizzled street bum that his biological father (long given up for dead) may actually be living in the vicinity. The film combines the boy's search for his long-lost parent with his and his girlfriend's struggle to tie up loose ends to head to the seaside.

If all this sounds like a melodramatic concoction of Dickensian proportion, director Gerardo Tort pulls it off with style. "De la Calle" gets high marks for its admirable lack of pretense and the momentum that propels the narrative from start to finish. Marina Stavenhagen's tight script may not break new ground, but it convincingly depicts the pathetic lives of disenfranchised youth in a living hell with restraint. Occasional artistic flourishes (such as Rufino's recurring hallucinatory dreams -- shades of Bunuel's 1950 classic "Los Olvidados" -- of a Virgin Mary apparition, glimpsed amid the tenements) don't prevent the story from moving fast and furiously toward a violent, sexual and generally downbeat conclusion.

Tort, making his feature debut, has directed and co-edited with a sure sense of story. Lensing by cinematographer (and co-producer) Hector Ortega is first-rate. Luis Fernando Pena seems perfectly natural as Rufino -- brooding but impetuous, balancing the shenanigans of a boy with the maturity of a teen who has grown up much too fast. He is certainly an actor with a future.

DE LA CALLE

Tiempo y Tono Films in association with Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografia/Foprocine/Zimat Consultores

Credits:

Director: Gerardo Tort

Screenwriter: Marina Stavenhagen

Based on a play by: Jesus Gonzalez Davila

Producers: Lillian Haugen, Hector Ortega

Director of photography: Hector Ortega

Production designer: Ana Solares

Music: Diego Herrera

Editors: Carlos Hagerman, Gerardo Tort

Cast:

Rufino: Luis Fernando Pena

Xochitl: Maya Zapata

Cero: Armando Hernandez

Ochoa: Mario Zaragoza

Lencho: Jorge Zarate

Felix: Abel Woolrich

Seno: Cristina Michaus

Amparo: Vanessa Bauche

Chicharra: Luis Felipe Tovar

Running time -- 85 minutes

No MPAA rating...