Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival soars with its 27th edition

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Though the Red Sea Film Festival will feature a slew of films from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region – including 11 feature films from Saudi Arabia – there is a rich roster of international fare set to launch locally from Jeddah. Kaleem Aftab, the festival’s director of international programming, says they received lots more submissions for this year’s third edition.

EXCLUSIVE: Boutique distributor Juno Films has picked up North American and UK rights to This World is Not My Own, a documentary portrait of the folk artist Nellie Mae Rowe from filmmakers Petter Ringbom and Marquise Stillwell, which premiered earlier this year at SXSW. The award-winner will be released in theaters in the summer of 2024.

Tilda Swinton has many talents, including performing, producing, collaborating, writing, and dressing up, not to mention expressing herself beautifully on screen and in her choice of language. It’s the second time that I’ve interviewed the performance artist at the Marrakech International Film Festival, and I love how she talks.

Our favourite coffee machines, New Look skirts and Ninja cookers have hit their lowest Black Friday price. There's been a lot of chatter about whether Black Friday is still the bargain bonanza it once was. Consumer group Which? recently found that 98% out of 214 products on sale during Black Friday 2021 were cheaper or the same price at other times in the year, meaning only 2% of the deals were genuinely good value.

Fans of Ninja are scrambling to buy a five-star rated air fryer with more than 7,000 glowing five-star ratings as it's been slashed to less than £80 in Amazon's huge Black Friday sale.The air fryer is said to be so cheap and efficient to use, it has allowed Amazon customers to "ditch their ovens" and reduce their energy bills in turn. Normally £149.99, the 4-in-1 Ninja Air Fryer has been reduced to its lowest ever price and is now £79.The "bill reducing" Ninja Air Fryer AF100UK features four cooking functions.

Martin Scorsese has cancelled his trip to the Marrakech International Film Festival at the eleventh hour, which he was due to attend as the special honorary guest of its 20th edition.

Jessica Chastain, resplendent in a shimmering silver tasseled jump suit, championed the power of art to bring about positive change at the opening night of the Marrakech Film Festival on Friday evening.

Ahhh, Black Friday. The one day a year where it’s socially acceptable to get in a fight over a flat screen TV that has been very, very deeply discounted.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Producer and screenwriter, Darren Dale has been named as the new board chair of the Sydney Film Festival, following the retirement of Dianne Weir. He is a leading advocate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander content and has been director of Blackfella Films since 2000.

OK! has put together a comprehensive guide to the shopping event with answers to common questions like when is Black Friday 2023? I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here is finally back on our screens, and so far the campmates have been enduring some particularly wet and dreary weather during their time in the jungle. A far cry from the usual scorching Australian heat, the celebs have seen almost constant rain since they entered camp on Sunday, which left us wondering exactly what walking boots they’ve been wearing to help keep their feet warm and dry because let’s face it – we could all do with some of those during the UK’s soggy winter months.

IDFA – the largest documentary film festival in the world — has just wrapped its 36th edition, and it was a memorable one by every definition. Two hundred and fifty films screened in Amsterdam, representing work from across the globe –the Middle East to Africa, Asia, North and South America, and Europe.

EXCLUSIVE: Bombay Berlin Film Productions (BBFP) has revealed that August Diehl has been cast to play the role of German Olympic athlete Otto Peltzer in upcoming biopic The Distant Near. 

Navigating social media advice on fragrances can be tricky, given the highly personal nature of choosing scents. However, there's a product creating quite a buzz among perfume enthusiasts for its affordable price, diverse range of delightful aromas and overall value for money: the Sol de Janeiro Cheirosa Body Mists.

Sundance Film Festival will take place in Park City, Utah from January 19th -29th and the full line-up has just been revealed.As usual, there’s a ton of new movies on offer. Stand-outs include To the Bone, a new film with with Lily Collins and Keanu Reeves, Cate Shortland’s Berlin Syndrome with Teresa Palmer, Burning Sands with Moonlight’s Trevante Rhodes, David Lowery’s A Ghost Story with Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara, and Anton Yelchin’s final film Thoroughbred.

At the Award Ceremony of the 27th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF), awards were presented to the winners of the festival’s five competition programmes and PÖFF’s youth and children’s film sub-festival Just Film.The jury of the Official Selection Competition, headed by Trine Dyrholm, selected Emma Dante’s drama Misericordia as their favourite, handing the film the Grand Prix for Best Film. Dante adapted her own play of the same name, telling the story of three prostitutes who live in the wasteland by the sea, where a village of outcasts has emerged. Its star Simone Zambelli also scooped the Best Actor Award.

John Bleasdale Guest Contributor Italian writer-director Emma Dante’s “Misericordia” has won the top prize at the Black Nights Film Festival in Tallinn, Estonia. Adapted from her own play, her third feature tells the story of a young man (Simone Zambelli) with learning difficulties, cared for by a group of sex workers on an island, protecting him from the cruelty of his abusive father. It’s a raw portrait of a marginalized group of people, mixing natural beauty of the locations with the grime of everyday existence.

John Bleasdale Guest Contributor “Being from a small country is not an obstacle but a plus because you have a story no one has heard of,” Lithuanian actor and showrunner Gabija Siurbyte (“Troll Farm”) told the TV Beats panel during this week’s Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event, hosted by the Black Nights Film Festival. It was the kind of optimism and can-do spirit that characterized the industry forum, which comprised an impressive range of industry panels, workshops and pitching sessions, as well as including a few innovations of its own.

EXCLUSIVE: The Jackson Hole International Film Festival will debut December 8 to 10 in Jackson, WY, via a new partnership with the Hamptons International Film Festival.

Christopher Vourlias Sofia Exarchou’s “Animal” won the Golden Alexander at the 64th Thessaloniki Film Festival on Sunday, marking the first time in 30 years that a Greek film took home the top honors at the country’s longest-running film event. Exarchou’s sophomore feature, which premiered at the Locarno Film Festival, was praised by Variety’s Jessica Kiang as “a poignant portrait of life amid the sequins and the seediness of a Greek resort.” The film follows a group of entertainers at an all-inclusive island resort preparing for the busy tourist season who are forced to wrestle with the dark reality that the show must go on as the sultry Mediterranean nights turn violent.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent “Casino Royale” Bond villain Mads Mikkelsen and Moroccan actor-director Faouzi Bensaïdi will be celebrated with career achievement awards at the upcoming 20th Marrakech International Film Festival that will run Nov. 24- Dec.