Blaga’s Lessons, Bulgaria’s International Film Oscar submission, has set a release in multiple countries.
31.10.2023 - 11:17 / variety.com
Will Tizard Contributor Czech punk rocker visual artist Marta Kovarova says it was becoming a mother that made her realize she had to do something radical to fight climate change. So, five years ago, she embarked on making “The World According to My Dad,” which won the Czech Joy student jury prize at the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival on Saturday. “When my children were born, environmental grief fell upon me,” she says.
“I had to start doing something. By that time, my dad had been trying to get his idea published in reputable journals for over a decade. But there was no response.
I told him that nobody reads professional articles and that we would make a documentary.” Kovarova’s father, Jiri Svoboda, a materials expert at the Czech Academy of Sciences, has been advocating for years a simple plan like that of U.S. academic James Hansen that he believes would dramatically cut greenhouse gasses: create a unified global carbon tax to be paid at its source – coal mines – to create a price for harmful behavior. Then use the funds to reward those who maintain a low carbon footprint.
So Kovarova set out to document his idea and a campaign to get the world to sit up and take notice. She filmed him explaining it at home while she created art to illustrate his points; and she followed him to work and eventually on the road to join climate change rallies and get the attention of influential figures. As the two worked out scenes and strategized, creating a video diary accompanied by Kovarova’s songs, she says their relationship began to change.
Blaga’s Lessons, Bulgaria’s International Film Oscar submission, has set a release in multiple countries.
Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Matteo Garrone’s “Io Capitano” is getting a special screening on Wednesday in Brussels, where hundreds of EU parliament members will watch the timely immigration drama on which Pathè has announced a slew of sales. The film, which is Italy’s Oscar candidate for best international feature film, world premiered to strong reviews in September at Venice Film Festival, where it won best director for Garrone and best emerging actor for its co-star Seydou Sarr.
The streets of San Francisco were reportedly cleaned up before President Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping arrived for the current Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, but not entirely, it seems, as on Monday a public television news crew was reportedly robbed at gunpoint.
UPDATED with trailer: “Time is a funny thing. The past, the future. It all gets mixed up. There’s only one way to keep it straight. Always remember who you are.” The voiceover at the beginning of the first trailer sets the stage for Netflix‘s anticipated live-action series Avatar: The Last Airbender. You can watch it above.
Keanu Reeves is set to perform at Rock For People in the Czech Republic with his band Dogstar, it was announced today.The trio formed in the early 1990s, and became a firm cult favourite, with their alternative rock style and impressive tours alongside the likes of David Bowie and Bon Jovi.After two studio albums and 20 inactive years, the band reunited earlier this year, with their new studio album ‘Somewhere Between The Power Lines And Palm Trees’ being released last month. They are currently touring the US, with their final show taking place in Nashville, Tennessee on December 20.In a statement, Michal Thomes, the Festival Director at Rock For People spoke on the forthcoming performance by the John Wick star, saying: “Having Dogstar perform with the stellar Keanu Reeves on bass is a real dream come true for me.”And it isn’t the first time the group were sought after by the festival.
A woman who fatally stabbed her ‘abusive’ boyfriend in the chest following a row about a man has been jailed for over five years.
EXCLUSIVE: Golden Globe winner Emma Corrin (The Crown) and Cesar nominee Lucie Zhang (Paris, 13th District) are set to star in Jenny Suen’s English language feature debut Peaches, which Coco Francini (Fingernails) will produce and Oscar winner Cate Blanchett and Andrew Upton will executive-produce for Dirty Films.
Swedish director Ruben Östlund has been announced as a guest of honor at the 15th edition of France’s Les Arcs Film Festival, in the role of its Talent Village Ambassador.
Just 24 hours before his tragic passing, Friends actor Matthew Perry was spotted on a mystery dinner date and now the woman he was with has spoken out and given an insight to the actor's final hours before his death.
Christopher Vourlias When director Yorgos Lanthimos approached production designers James Price and Shona Heath with a vision for his latest feature, “Poor Things,” the Venice sensation and Golden Lion winner that’s landed the filmmaker and lead actress Emma Stone at the forefront of this year’s Oscar race, the notoriously meticulous and demanding director had no shortage of notes for the duo. Nor did he have any reservations about the scale of what he wanted to achieve.
DJ Shadow has shared details of 2024 international tour in support of his new album ‘Action Adventure‘ – find ticket information below.The DJ and producer, real name Joshua Paul Davis, heads out on his first full tour in seven years next year with a handful of dates scheduled before the end of 2023.One of the dates will see the artist perform at Outernet’s HERE venue in central London (March 23, 2024).Tickets go on general sale this Friday (November 3) at 10am local time here.
Marta Balaga During the making of his Jihlava Film Festival winning film, “Distances” director Matej Bobrik walked right into the middle of an argument. “Actually, I was standing a bit to the side. It was my cinematographer Filip [Drożdż] who was at the center of it all,” he jokes, recalling heated discussions of his protagonists: a Nepali family who moved to Warsaw in search of a better life.
EXCLUSIVE: Picture Tree International (PTI) has boarded sales on German Iranian director Alireza Golafshan’s comedy Everything’s Fifty Fifty about a divorced couple who embark on a family vacation, ahead of the AFM.
Will Tizard Contributor From hulks of collective ruins to immigrant family struggles, marginalized communities and climate crises, the 27th Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival wrapped Saturday with honors for work from diverse perspectives on a myriad of pressing subjects. The Opus Bonum main prize went to Elvis Lenic’s Croatian doc “Ship,” an exploration of an unintentional monument to socialist worker collectives in the form of the Uljanik shipyard, once the country’s largest.
Will Tizard Contributor Producer Pierre-Olivier Bardet has become a hero to filmmakers who rock the boat – feature and documentary revolutionaries who work in ways that he says are “completely unique,” as he puts it: Albert Serra, Frederick Wiseman, Wang Bing and Alexandr Sokurov. And it’s hard to imagine anyone else who would have agreed to produce an English version of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” directed by Kenneth Branagh (after Francis Ford Coppola and several luminaries declined the project), set in World War I.
Malia Obama, the eldest daughter of former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama, has always been in the public eye. Her fashion choices and personal style have consistently drawn attention.
Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic Like “Testament” — the 1983 made-for-TV movie that imagined the fallout, both nuclear and psychological, after an atomic bomb is dropped on American soil — “Leave the World Behind” depicts a plausible doomsday scenario from the perspective of a handful of ordinary characters. Not military experts, not scientists, but two families obliged to shelter under the same roof out in the East Hamptons while something scary unfolds a few hours away, off-screen, in New York.
Marta Balaga Péter Kerekes will follow “107 Mothers” – which won Venice’s Horizons Award for best screenplay – with “Marathon,” currently in production and eyeing a winter 2024 release. Set in his Slovak hometown and revolving around the Košice Peace Marathon, established in 1924, the doc will clock in at exactly 2 hours and 7 minutes, mirroring its current record. “It’s not just about people who run, get to the finish line and that’s it, end credits.
Will Tizard Contributor Launching an ambitious program of compelling global and Czech work, the 27th edition of the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival opened on Tuesday, kicking off six days of more than 350 film screenings by veteran and new filmmakers. Fest head and founder Marek Hovorka, who launched the event in his hometown in 1997, introduced what is now Central and Eastern Europe’s main event for docs, defining the fest mission as “a celebration of films, image, sound, gestures and diversity.” The films selected this year are “all very original,” he told the opening gala audience, and show filmmakers “perceive the world very differently.” The fest, raising its curtain in the location that remains its home, the communist-era DKO “house of culture,” as the pre-1989 regime dubbed such multi-purpose spaces, attracts for its launch hundreds of guests seated at white-decked tables, sipping local wine.
Will Tizard Contributor Petr Jancarek’s chronicle of the last years of Vaclav Havel’s life, “Havel Speaking, Can You Hear Me?,” screening in its world premiere at the Ji.hlava Intl. Documentary Film Festival, is as naturalistic and down to earth as its subject.