Karlovy Vary Film Festival Postponed to August Amid Pandemic

The 28th SXSW Film Festival revealed the Audience Award winners today with Tom Petty, Somewhere You Feel Free, The Fallout and Not Going Quietly among the list of honorees. The news comes after the online edition of the fest announced its jury awards.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefThe New Zealand International Film Festival, normally held in mid-year, will shift to new dates later in 2021. It plans to operate as an in-cinema event in October, November and December.The move reflects an anticipated improvement in coronavirus conditions by the fourth quarter of the year.

EXCLUSIVE: Acclaimed director Roger Spottiswoode is set to premiere his latest film, “a love poem to New York,” at a time when some have questioned the city’s post-pandemic future.

The Beijing International Film Festival, which typically takes place in mid-April but has yet to announce its plans for 2021, is considering a postponement to August. Organizers are hoping that by late summer the pandemic will have subsided to an extent that international filmmakers and guests are able to travel to China to participate in the event, sources in contact with organizers of the government-backed festival told The Hollywood Reporteron Friday.

Also Read: Spike Lee Returns as Cannes Jury PresidentOfficial dates still need to be confirmed, but the pre-screenings will begin no earlier than May 24.

Spike Lee, who was set to lead last year’s jury for the Cannes Film Festival that was ultimately cancelled by the pandemic, will preside over this year’s jury instead.

Spike Lee will head up this year's competition jury for the Cannes International Film Festival, organizers announced on Tuesday. He had been tapped to head up the jury for the 2020 festival, which ended up getting canceled due to the pandemic.

The Cannes Film Festival said Tuesday that Spike Lee will be its jury president in 2021, one year after he was due to preside over the festival but couldn’t due to its cancellation.

It is truly beginning to feel like we’re in a time loop. It was only a year ago when the Cannes Film Festival announced that Spike Lee would be the Jury President for the film festival.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentSpike Lee is set to preside over the 74th edition of the Cannes Film Festival, which is expected to take place July 6-17. The director and activist will be the first Black president of the festival’s jury.Lee was on track to preside over last year’s festival which was canceled due to the pandemic, and had vowed to return to the French Rivera-set festival if the health situation allowed for it.

Andrew Barker Senior Features WriterFew film institutions, and certainly no film festivals, experienced a COVID trial by fire quite as SXSW did last year. The mammoth Austin event — which includes a film festival, a tech conference and its original smorgasbord of musical performances — was the first major film festival to cancel in response to the pandemic when the city of Austin shut it down on March 6, a week before it was supposed to kick off.

Rebecca Davis editorThe Shanghai International Film Festival will take place this year from June 11 to June 19.The news comes less than two weeks after Gao Yunfei, the head of Shanghai’s municipal film administration and vice-minister of its propaganda department, stated at a press conference that the city was considering pushing the event back to July.Registration for the 24th annual event is now open to “Chinese and foreign filmmakers and industry people,” the festival said, implying a door

The Tokyo International Film Festival unveiled a range of operational changes Monday, including the appointment of a new programming director and a move of locations within the Japanese capital. The shakeup reflects the continued influence of former Japanese diplomat Hiroyasu Ando, who was appointed festival chairman in 2019 and has vowed to boost the festival's global relevancy.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefJust weeks after Japan’s Olympic Games chief was forced to resign over his sexist comments, the Tokyo International Film Festival has become the first major festival in Asia to sign a gender parity pledge. The move was announced on Monday as part of a quartet of major shakeup development moves.The festival said that it will relocate to a new district in Tokyo for the first time in 16 years and rethink its competition section.

The Balkan war drama Quo Vadis, Aida? by director Jasmila Žbanić picked up the top jury prize and the critics award at the 38th edition of the Miami Film Festival, which handed out trophies on Sunday. The film about the 1995 genocide in Srebrenica as seen through the eyes of a courageous UN interpreter, Aida, earned the juried Knight MARIMBAS Award.

Haley Bosselman editorJasmila Žbanić’s film based on the true events of the Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia, “Quo Vadis, Aida?,” took home the top prize at the Miami Film Festival.The Balkan war drama earned the $25,000 Knight Marimbas Award for its richness and resonance for cinema’s future, in addition to the Rene Rodriguez Critics Award.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefJapanese comedy-drama “Ito” (aka “Itomichi”) was named as the Grand Prix winner of the 16th edition of the Osaka Asian Film Festival. It also claimed the audience award.The festival ran March 5-14.

UPDATED with latest: Carey Mulligan will receive the Cinema Vanguard Award next month at the 36th annual Santa Barbara Film Festival, joining the likes of Bill Murray, Amanda Seyfried and Delroy Lindo on the fest’s honorees list this year.

Refresh for latest…: The Berlin Film Festival is unveiling its Competition winners this afternoon following five days of virtual screenings. Given the ongoing pandemic, this year was a hybrid event that included the European Film Market and the competition films being made available only to industry delegates and the international jury from March 1-5.

EXCLUSIVE: Gravitas Ventures has acquired North American rights to Giants Being Lonely, the coming-of-age drama that had its world premiere at the 2019 Venice Film Festival. The pic, which marked the feature debut for mixed media artist Grear Patterson, will now bow April 6 day-and-day in theaters and on demand.