Ru Hasanov on Sarajevo Player ‘The Island Within’ and the Rising Azerbaijani Film Biz

Ed Meza @edmezavarCelebrated Azerbaijani filmmaker Hilal Baydarov has won international acclaim for a fast-growing body of work that has included seven films in the past two years while also attracting high-profile collaborators.Baydarov is making his Venice debut with the competition title “In Between Dying,” a film he produced with Elshan Abbasov and co-producers Joslyn Barnes of Louverture Films and Mexican filmmaker Carlos Reygadas and his Splendor Omnia Studios.

Rebecca Davis editorCambodian director Rithy Panh survived the brutal Khmer Rouge regime that took the lives of many of his friends and family.

Ellise Shafer editorDanish actor Mads Mikkelsen — best known for his skillful and distinctly human portrayal of dark characters in films like “The Hunt,” and “Casino Royale” as well as the television series “Hannibal” — trained as a dancer before enrolling in acting classes.“I loved every second of it.

Tom Grater International Film ReporterAfter being forced to pivot entirely online last-minute due to a COVID spike, Bosnia’s Sarajevo Film Festival is coming to a close and has unveiled its prize winners for this year’s edition.A jury chaired by Michel Hazanavicius and featuring Berlinale director Carlo Chatrian, actress Jadranka Đokić, director Srdan Golubović and the Morelia Film Festival’s Andrea Stavenhagen, awarded the festival’s top prize, the Heart of Sarajevo, to Visar Morina’s Exile.

Christopher Vourlias Visar Morina’s “Exile,” a tense psychodrama about a Kosovan pharmacologist in Germany who becomes increasingly paranoid over a series of menacing events, won the top prize at the Sarajevo Film Festival, earning the Kosovo-born German director the Heart of Sarajevo.The award ceremony took place online Thursday night, with Morina winning top honors from a jury led by Academy Award-winning director Michel Hazanavicius (“The Artist”) and comprised of Carlo Chatrian, artistic

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentMichel Franco’s “New Order,” a Venice Festival main competition premiere, looks set to mark a huge step-up in scale for Franco and indeed most Latin American movies at large.It couldn’t be otherwise, Mexican writer-director-producer Franco said at a Sarajevo Film Festival masterclass, hosted Wednesday in the Variety Streaming Room.Teasing through-lines in a career that has made him one of the most laureled of Latin American directors, Franco also

Ed Meza @edmezavar“Bad Blood,” an ambitious new Serbian feature film and TV series, has become the first project from the Sarajevo Film Festival’s CineLink Drama co-financing forum to go into production since the event’s establishment in 2016.Set in the Ottoman Empire of the 19th century, “Bad Blood” is based on the works of renowned Serbian writer Borisav Stankovic and a script written by Yugoslav filmmaker Voja Nanovic in the early 1970s while he was living in New York City and working for

Christopher Vourlias When a wolf pack attacks the herd of a shepherd living in the mountainous hinterlands of Anatolia, he vows to get a better gun to protect himself, his sheep and his family: a Mauser, the so-called “king of rifles,” and the most powerful gun of its time. He strikes a bargain with a local dealer who agrees to give him a rifle if he can prove his mettle as a hunter.

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Christopher Vourlias While the murder of George Floyd and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement triggered months of protests in the U.S.

Christopher Vourlias Veena Sud, creator of AMC’s “The Killing” and Netflix’s “Seven Seconds,” says the television industry is ready for “radical, real change,” calling on industry gate-keepers to rethink hiring practices, promote more women and people of color, and address a systematic lack of representation, “and not be in the same place we are now that we were in 30 years ago.”Sud appeared in conversation Monday with producer Paula Vaccaro (“On the Milky Road”) as part of the Sarajevo Film

Eli Countryman French writer, director and producer Michel Hazanavicius discussed his career path and the future of film as part of the 2020 Sarajevo Film Festival masterclass series, hosted in the Variety Streaming Room.Hazanavicius is this year’s jury president for the film festival.

Christopher Vourlias Rome-based Fandango Sales, the sales arm of Domenico Procacci’s production company Fandango, has scooped up world rights, excluding Spain and Andorra, for “Andromeda Galaxy,” the feature directorial debut of Kosovo filmmaker More Raça, which had its world premiere in competition at the Sarajevo Film Festival.“Andromeda Galaxy” tells the story of Shpëtim (Sunaj Raça, the director’s father and the film’s producer), a down-at-the-heels single father struggling to make ends

Coronation Street's Lucy Fallon and Love Island star Jack Fincham are among the famous faces in ITV's "gruelling" new show Don't Rock the Boat.

Christopher Vourlias After tragedy strikes Aliki and her husband Petros, they flee Athens with their young son Panagiotis, seeking refuge in a provincial seaside town. But when Petros finds temporary work as the caretaker of a luxurious villa, the family gradually begins moving in, blurring the line between reality and the fantasy world they increasingly habit.

Alissa Simon Film CriticThe micro-budget feature “Focus, Grandma” from Bosnian helmer-writer Pjer Žalica is a black comedy set in Sarajevo during the spring of 1992, when members of a dysfunctional family are summoned to the bed of their dying matriarch.

Christopher Vourlias Two years ago, Ivana Mikovic—former COO of public broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia—took a look at the booming local TV landscape and saw an opportunity for a bold new venture.

Christopher Vourlias Bosnian director Pjer Žalica recently found himself standing before Sarajevo’s National Theater, which in less troubled times would have hosted the world premiere of his comic drama “Focus, Grandma”—the opening film of the 26th edition of the Sarajevo Film Festival. “In front of the theater, there is this red carpet and nothing else,” Žalica told Variety.

Christopher Vourlias For many of the visitors who descended on the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year, packing their day planners with meetings at the Gropius Bau and red-carpet premieres at the Berlinale Palast, there was a surreal sense of business as usual.