Middleburg Film Festival Celebrates 10 Years of Movie Loving

Steven Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical, coming-of-age drama The Fabelmans has been announced as the opening film of 44th Cairo International Film Festival, running from November 13 to 22.

Peter Caranicas Deputy Editor EnergaCamerimage, the international cinematography-focused film festival, will honor Oscar winner Sam Mendes with the Special Krzysztof Kieslowski Award for Director during its 30th anniversary edition, which will run in Toruń Poland Nov. 12-19. The helmer’s “Empire of Light,” starring Academy Award winner Olivia Colman (‘The Favourite,” “The Lost Daughter”) and BAFTA-winner Michael Ward (“Blue Story,” “Top Boy”), will open the Camerimage fest in addition to being one of the Main Competition nominees. Aside from “Empire of Light,” Mendes’ notable films include “American Beauty” (for which he won his best director Oscar), “Road to Perdition,” “Revolutionary Road,” “Skyfall,” “Spectre” and “1917.”

Clayton Davis J.D. Dillard’s “Devotion” was announced as the Audience Award winner for best narrative film following the conclusion of the Middleburg Film Festival. The Sony Pictures historical drama, which stars Jonathan Majors and Glen Powell, was a heavy favorite from patrons and could be a quiet dark horse contender in the Oscar race. Dillard and actor Christina Jackson were both in attendance in Virginia for a post-screening Q&A. Written by Jake Crane and Jonathan Stewart, the film is based on Adam Makos’ novel and tells the inspirational, true story of two elite U.S. Navy fighter pilots who fought in the Korean War in the 1950s. “We were honored to have these filmmakers join us at the festival to present their exceptional films to our audiences and engage in thoughtful conversations,” said Susan Koch, MFF executive director.

Is there a better way to prove the virtue of the cinematic experience than to get 5,000 people on their feet giving a film a standing ovation?  Cannes Film Festival chief Thierry Fremaux did just that on the opening night of his 14th Lumière Film Festival in Lyon with Louis Garrel’s romantic comedy “The Innocent.”  The movie played in the jam-packed Halle Tony Garnier before a star-studded crowd, including Garrel and his cast, Noémie Merlant and Roschdy Zem, as well as Sebastián Lelio, Costa Gavras, Leila Bekhti, Marina Fois, Lee Chang-dong, Nicole Garcia, Sabine Azema and Damien Bonnard. 

Emma Corrin showcased her edgy sense of style as she stepped out to the My Policeman premiere during 66th BFI London Film Festival at the Royal Festival Hall on Saturday. The actress, 26, wore a multicoloured one-shoulder mini dress with an abstract spray paint design. Screen star Emma's ensemble finished high above her knee, with the garment tied on her shoulder with a crimped length of material fanning out to the side.

Janelle Monáe was fashionably late as she strolled onstage at the BFI Southbank, where she headlined the London Film Festival’s final major keynote ‘screen talk’ Friday afternoon. 

Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan are stepping out for a screening of their new movie at the 2022 New York Film Festival.

While your future planning probably only extends to Thanksgiving, the Sundance Film Festival is already thinking ahead to January, the 2023 edition of their festival. Today,  the nonprofit Sundance Institute announced today the first two films in the lineup for the 2023 Sundance Film Festival and they are the 25th Anniversary and digital restoration screening of “SLAM” and the uncensored director’s cut and restoration of “The Doom Generation.” Directed by Marc Levin and written by Levin, Saul Williams, Sonja Sohn, and Richard Stratton, “SLAM” was first introduced to audiences at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival, where it premiered in the U.S.

Japanese director Naomi Kawase will preside over the international jury of the 44th edition of the Cairo International Film Festival, running November 13 to 22.

The 16th Film London Production Finance Market opened Tuesday morning with a keynote talk featuring BFI CEO Ben Roberts who spoke at length about his 10-year funding plan for British cinema and the financial issues hitting the industry, including the recent shuttering of the Edinburgh Film Festival.

Naman Ramachandran Oscar and Venice-winning filmmaker Laura Poitras (“Citizenfour,” “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed”) and fellow filmmakers Georgia Oakley (“Blue Jean”), Roberto Minervini (“What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire?”) and Ondi Timoner (“Last Flight Home”) were among those who protested against the imprisonment of Iranian filmmakers and other incarcerated artists around the world, and to demonstrate support for the tenacious women of Iran who are challenging for their freedom at the BFI London Film Festival on Monday. They joined festival director Tricia Tuttle, producer Madeleine Molyneaux (“Gospel Hill”); actors Aurélia Petit (“Saint Omer”) and Taki Mumladze (“A Room of My Own”); actor and writer Mariam Khundadze (“To Batumi and every single memory”); writer Morgan M. Page (“Framing Agnes”); industry leaders Tabitha Jackson, Clare Binns and Jason Wood; and other festival delegates in a moment of solidarity and reflection.

Vanessa Kirby shows off the details on the back of her black velvet mini dress at the premiere of her movie, The Son, in London, England on Monday (October 10).

Italian producer Lorenzo Mieli gave a spirited and often humorous rundown of his career as a producer working with directors such as Luca Guadagnino and Paolo Sorrentino during a keynote talk at the London Film Festival Monday.

The strengths and possibilities of cinematic language were heavy on Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s mind as he sat down for a keynote ‘screen talk’ at the London Film Festival on Sunday afternoon.

K.J. Yossman “White Noise” director Noah Baumbach spoke about his career highlights – and low points – as well as his creative partnership with Greta Gerwig during the BFI London Film Festival on Friday afternoon (Oct. 7). Asked about the eight-year gap between making “Mr. Jealousy” and “The Squid and the Whale,” Baumbach quipped: “I thought, you know what? I really needed about eight years off.” “No, it wasn’t by design, it was by accident,” he quickly clarified. “I sort of had two careers in a way. I had this early career very quickly and I was really figuring it all out as I was doing it. I had never really been on a movie set before I made ‘Kicking and Screaming.’ But I had this sense of how a movie should be and what I wanted a movie to be. And then after ‘Mr. Jealousy’ [the way] I experienced it at the time is that I was having trouble getting things made. I think, also, I didn’t really know what I wanted to make. And I think maybe, in some ways, my ambitions sort of exceeded my ability.”

Emma Thompson, Stephen Graham, and Lashana Lynch passed through the London Film Festival on Wednesday, where they discussed their new film Matilda The Musical, directed by Matthew Warchus.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Next month’s London Korean Film Festival cloaks itself in a panoply of the country’s recent cinema, with a mix of commercial blockbusters, festival titles and documentaries. The long-running event also pays tribute to Kang Soo-youn, the performer who was the first Korean to win a best acting award in Venice and who died in May this year. The event runs from Nov. 3 – 17, 2022 in venues across London and comprises 35 films. It opens with a previously announced screening of “Alienoid.” The Cinema Now section includes: Jeong Ji-yeon’s psychological thriller “The Anchor”; Davy Chou’s “Return To Seoul,” which premiered in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard; Byun Sung-hyun’s “Kingmaker”; “Hot Blooded,” the long-awaited directorial debut by acclaimed novelist and screenwriter Cheon Myeong-kwan; nostalgic road chase movie “Stellar: A Magical Ride”; “Director’s Intention,” by Kim Min-geun.

Guy Lodge Film Critic A total of 164 feature films will play at this year’s London Film Festival, alongside an abundance of shorts, TV series and an expanded program of XR (extended reality) works — and that’s in a comparatively slimmed-down era of curation for a public-facing festival that has long aimed to bring the best of the global festival circuit to non-traveling cinephiles. What has definitely grown is the LFF’s national reach: In what fest director Tricia Tuttle terms the festival’s “new normal” format after a few years of structural shifts and COVID-era adjustments, the capital-centered event will also be hosting screenings in 10 other cities around the U.K., from Manchester to Edinburgh to Belfast — sealing its status as the country’s preeminent film festival. A digital program of up to 20 titles will also be made available for online viewing, while short films and screen talks will be free to stream on the BFI Player platform: “It’s really important to us to get to those places we can’t reach with our venue partnerships,” says Tuttle, adding that their priority is “to give new audiences a taste of what the festival is like.”