Lukasz Zal to Receive Variety Artisan Award at Toronto Film Festival

Naman Ramachandran Anand Patwardhan, the doyen of Indian documentary filmmaking, will premiere his new film, “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam” (“The World Is Family”) at the Toronto Film Festival. The film focuses on Patwardhan’s parents and close family members and juxtaposes Mahatma Gandhi and the history of India’s independence movement with contemporary times. “As my parents began to age, I began filming to preserve their memory for myself but had no intention to make a film as such.

Christopher Vourlias Six years after “Loving Vincent,” their groundbreaking biopic of the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh earned an Oscar nomination and raked in more than $50 million at the global box office, the filmmaking team behind that hit is back with a bigger, more ambitious animated feature that utilizes the same stunning hand-painted animation technique to tell an operatic story of life and love in a 19th century Polish village. “The Peasants” world premiered Sept.

The first real clue comes when Andrzej is called up for national service and, standing in front of the army medics in his underwear, refuses to take his socks off. His toenails were painted blue, he tells his mates cheerfully a couple of years later, as if it were a joke. But it isn’t a joke; it is the most serious thing in his life. He is waving a flag at the time; they are in the bloom of the Solidarity movement and the promise of a new world, when it feels like anything goes. 

EXCLUSIVE: Radu Jude’s Do Not Expect Too Much From The End Of The World, which has just been submitted as Romania’s official entry into the International Oscar race, has been picked up by Mubi for multiple key territories. 

Christopher Vourlias When U.K. writer-director Jonathan Glazer approached Polish cinematographer Łukasz Żal about “The Zone of Interest,” a provocative Holocaust drama adapted from a 2014 novel by Martin Amis, he had a bold proposition for the film, which centers on the domestic life of an Auschwitz commandant and his family living in the shadow of the notorious concentration camp. What if, Glazer suggested, they shoot the scenes inside the Höss family home without a single camera on set? Working on location, production designer Chris Oddy and his crew built a replica of the camp commandant’s real-life house.

Christopher Vourlias The fall festival circuit features a powerhouse lineup of Polish cinema that showcases an industry in full stride, with hard-hitting topical dramas, award-season hopefuls and potential box-office breakouts highlighting the strength and diversity of filmmaking in a country with a storied cinematic history. Among the hotly anticipated premieres at this week’s Toronto Film Festival is “The Peasants,” a lavish, hand-painted animated feature from the filmmaking team behind Oscar nominee and box-office sensation “Loving Vincent.” Meanwhile, three-time Oscar nominee Agnieszka Holland will be on hand for the North American premiere of “Green Border,” her searing portrayal of Europe’s refugee crisis that just bowed in competition at the Venice Film Festival.

Marta Balaga Controversy over Venice title “Green Border” continues to heat up as director Agnieszka Holland gave an ultimatum to Poland’s Minister of Justice Zbigniew Ziobro following his comments about her film. According to the statement shared with Variety, Holland has hired the lawyers Sylwia Gregorczyk-Abram and Michał Wawrynkiewicz.

EXCLUSIVE: Anonymous Content’s sales and finance division AC Independent and France’s Goodfellas are joining forces to handle global sales on Burhan Qurbani’s upcoming feature No Beast. So Fierce.

Holly Jones Carolina Markowicz returns to the circuit to release her second feature “Toll” (“Pedágio”), cementing another world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, this time in its Centrepiece strand, billed as championing “compelling stories, global perspectives,” before heading to San Sebastian for closing night honors in its Horizontes Latinos competition later this month. Paris-based Luxbox handles international sales and has provided Variety with an exclusive first look at the riveting trailer.

As if to come to the aid of her national cinema after the debacle that was Roman Polanski’s The Palace, Poland’s Agnieska Holland, soon to turn 75, restores some of her homeland’s cultural dignity with a devastating exposé that angrily, and quite brilliantly, questions its humanity and political integrity. At 144 minutes, and in black and white, it is not exactly a Trojan horse, and its moral rigor does not come with a spoonful of sugar. But Green Border earns every second of that running time, and with a focus and energy that belies its directors age. Awards-wise, this may prove to be the international feature to beat.

Busan International Film Festival (BIFF, October 4-13) has unveiled its full line-up, including opening and closing films, and announced that Hong Kong star Chow Yun-fat has been named as Asian Filmmaker of the Year. 

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The Busan International Film Festival put aside many of its recent internal and local political problems to Tuesday unveil a large selection ranging from bleeding edge art titles to international festival favorites. “The difficult times are not behind us, but hard work has made this year’s festival better than ever,” said programmer and interim festival chief Nam Dong-chul, speaking at an online press conference. International guests expected to attend the festival include Luc Besson, Chinese superstar Fan Bingbing, Japanese directors Hamaguchi Ryusuke and Kore-Eda Hirokazu, Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf, and Korean Americans Justin Chon (“Gook”) and Lee Isaac Chung (“Minari”). Hong Kong-based superstar Chow Yun-fat has been named as Busan’s Asian Filmmaker of the Year and will be in person to receive the award.

‘Bardot’ Series Sells After Netflix Launch

It’s hard to believe that it’s now over 60 years since Roman Polanski teamed up with Jerzy Skolimowski for the landmark 1962 Polish thriller Knife in the Water. But it’s even harder to believe that these two giants of international cinema reunited more recently to pool their braincells and come up with the most terrible, joyless farce since the heyday of the ’70s British sex comedy. Forget for a moment, if you can, the furor surrounding Polanski’s controversial status as a fugitive from justice and concentrate instead on the fact that the Venice Film Festival, in its infinite wisdom, went ahead and booked this entirely dreadful offering anyway, deeming it somehow worthy of a prestigious Out of Competition slot.

Roman Polanski’s Venice Film Festival feature The Palace received a 3 minute ovation tonight at its world premiere screening.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Renowned Hong Kong actor Tony Leung Chiu-wai ditched his quiet, brooding persona on Saturday in Venice, where he is to receive a Golden Lion Lifetime Achievement Award. Instead, at a press conference in his honor, Leung positively gushed about his upcoming first European movie role and about the strengths of the “golden era” acting training he received in Hong Kong in the 1980s. Leung has made a speciality of saying little in many of his films.

Tony Leung Chiu-wai has starred in three movies that have scooped the top prize Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, and today he is receiving his very own Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement. 

The Hong Kong International Film Festival Society (HKIFF Society) and CAA China are launching a joint initiative to foster Chinese-language genre projects.

This year’s Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival will open with a double bill of Snow In Midsummer, directed by Malaysia’s Chong Keat-aun, and Be With Me, from Taiwanese filmmaker Hwarng Wern-ying.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The main competition section of the Busan International Film Festival is set to showcase two new features from Bangladeshi directors, the feature debut of Japanese documentary maker Mori Tatsuya and ruminations on Hong Kong by mainland Chinese director Choi Ji. The festival on Wednesday unveiled its New Currents competition section, reserved for films by directors making their first or second works of fiction, as well as its Jiseok section, a showcase for somewhat more established Asian auteurs. In addition to the Bangladesh duo, New Currents includes two films from Japan, two from Korea and one each from China, Thailand, Malaysia and India. From Bangladesh, Iqbal H. Chowdhury’s “The Wrestler” sees an old fisherman challenge a wrestling champion to combat, and in “The Stranger” Biplob Sarkar tells a coming-of-age, gender-identity tale. From Japan, Mori recounts the events of the Great Kanto earthquake in “September 1923,” while Yamamoto Akira delves into profound and shocking love in “After the Fever.” New Currents’ Korean contributions come from Lee Jong-su, whose “Heritage” tracks a man who opts out of military service and his supervisor, and Sohn Hyun-lok, whose “That Summer’s Lie” blurs truth and fiction in memories of a past romance. India’s Rajesh S.