News 2008
Karlovy Vary 2008
July 4th-12th, 2008. The 43rd edition of Karlovy Vary has completed its run. The Grand Prix went to Danish film "Terribly Happy" ("Frygtelig Lykkelig"), directed by Henrik Ruben Genz, about a police officer from Copenhagen transfered to a small town on the Jutland peninsula.
- Best director: Alexey Uchitel for the film "Captive" (Russia).
- Best Actress: Martha Issova on "Night Owls".
- Best actor: Jiri Madl on "Night Owls".
- Special Jury Prize: Nan T. Achnas' film "The Photograph", a co-production between Indonesia, France, Netherlands, Switzerland and Sweden.
- Best Documentary: "Man on Wire" by James Marsh (UK).
Special mentions went to Czech director Petr Zelenka for his film "The Karamazovs" and to Hungarian director Atilla Gigor for "The Investigator [making of]".
Hungarian director Gyula Nemes's "Lost World" was named Best Documentary under 30 minutes long.
Best Film in the East of the West competition went to Sergey Dvortsevoy's film "Tulpan".
Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
Recent Spanish Cinema at the American Cinematheque
June 12th-22nd, 2008. Presented in collaboration with the Instituto de la Cinematografía y de las Artes Audiovisuales (ICAA) of the Spanish Ministry of Culture, EGEDA and the Spanish Institute for Foreign Trade, ICEX and Consulate General of Spain in Los Angeles.
This year Spanish Cinema received more international recognition with the popular success of Juan Antonio Bayona’s "The Orphanage" ("El Orfanato"). But there are even more
Spanish films out there to amaze you! We’ll be showing Goya Award winners, Jaime Rosales’ "Solitary Fragments" ("La Soledad") (Best Picture, Director and New Actor), Emilio
Martínez Lázaro’s "13 Roses" ("Las 13 Rosas") (Best Supporting Actor and Cinematography) and Gracia Querejeta’s "Seven Billiard Tables" ("Siete mesas de billar francés")
(Best Actress and Supporting Actress), plus popular festival hits Icíar Bollaín’s "Mataharis", Julio Medem’s "Chaotic Ana" ("Caótica Ana"), Rodrigo Plá’s "The Zone"
("La Zona")
and Ventura Pons’ "Barcelona (A Map)" ("Barcelona (Una mapa)") -- plus more great, recent Spanish cinema! An event supported by ELMA.
Recent Spanish Cinema
Italian filmmaker Dino Risi passed away
June 7th, 2008. Dino Risi, famous for his ferocious satires, has died, at the age of 91. His "Scent of A Woman" in 1974 got him Oscar nominations for best foreign language movie and best adapted screenplay. Some of his other well-known films include "Poor But Beautiful", "15 From Rome", "Torture Me But Kill Me With Kisses", "The Easy Life and In the Name of the Italian People". He worked with a range of great actors from Sophia Loren to Jean-Louis Trintignant, one of his favorites being Vittorio Gassman, who appeared in many of his films. Dino Risi was presented a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the Berlin Film Festival in 2002.
Cannes Film Festival 2008
The 61st Festival de Cannes, presided over by Sean Penn, revealed its Prize winners during the closing ceremony, May 25th.
Laurent Cantet's
"Entre les Murs" ("The Class") won the Palme d'Or. "The Class" presents a highschool in a difficult Parisian suburb. Laurent Cantet's previous features
include award-winning "Human Resources" ("Ressources Humaines") and "Time Out" ("L'emploi du temps"). It had been 21 years since a French film had won the Palme d’Or, the last French filmmaker to win being Maurice Pialat for
“Under the Sun of Satan” ("Sous le soleil de Satan").
Palme d'Or
"Entre les Murs" by Laurent Cantet
Grand Prix
"Gomorra" by Matteo Garrone
Best Actress
Sandra Corveloni - "Linha de Passe" (Brazil)
Best Actor
Benicio Del Toro - "Che" (France/Spain/US)
Special Prize - Ex Aequo
Catherine Deneuve
Clint Eastwood
Best Director
"Three Monkeys" by Nuri Bilge (Turkey)
Best Screenplay
"Lorna's Silence" by Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne (Belgium)
Jury Prize
"Il Divo" by Paolo Sorrentino (Italy)
Caméra d´Or
"Hunger" by Steven McQueen (UK)
Special Mention
"Everybody Dies but Me" by Valeria Gaia Germanica (Russia)
Palme d´Or for Best Short Film
"Megatron" by Marian Crisan (Romania)
Special Mention
"Jerrycan" by Julius Avery (Austria)
Croatian Series
May16th-18th, 2008. The Consulate General of the Republic of Croatia and the American Cinematheque present a series of all new films from Croatia, Friday May 16 through to
Sunday the 18th, 2008, at the Aero theatre, in Santa Monica. An event supported by ELMA.
New Croatian Cinema
South East European Film Festival
April 30th-May 5th, 2008, at the Goethe Institute, with a closing night at the Clarity Theatre. From thrilling to thought provoking, some 20 of the region's most acclaimed
films arrive from Romania, Turkey, Greece, Serbia, and more… Explore this land of
complicated cultures and see how hope is bridging across
age-old divides. Filmmakers bring to life stories of remarkable people, tackling subjects that include today's hot topics and critical moments of the cold war.
An event supported by ELMA.
South East European Film Festival 
Polish Film Festival
April 24th to May 4th, 2008. The Ninth Polish Film Festival took place at different venues, mainly at the DGA and the Laemmle Sunset 5, presented by the Polish
American Film Society. The festival introduced a variety of features, shorts, animations and documentaries. An event supported by ELMA.
Polish Film Festival Los Angeles
City of Lights - City of Angels : A week of French Film Premieres in Hollywood
April 14th-20th, 2008. The 12th edition of the COL-COA film festival took place from April 14th to
April 20th at the Director's Guild of America. The festival featured 48
films, including 27 features and attracted a record audience of 11,500. This year, for the
first time and with the support of ELMA, COL-COA also hosted 2 screenings
reserved for high-school students. These were very successful with over
1,000 students from 12 high schools participating. For many of them it was
their first opportunity to see a foreign film on the big screen. The film
selected for these screenings was "Welcome to the Land of Ch'tis", an
acclaimed French comedy and a box office hit in France.
Les Ch'tis also received the Audience Award while the Critic's Award went to
"La Graine et le Mulet" (The Secret of the Grain), which had already won
four Cesars last February. Didier Canaux' "La Seconde vie du sucrier" (The
Second Life of a Sugar Bowl) won the 2008 COL-COA Short Film Award.
City of Angels - City of Lights
Oscars 2008
This year, an array of countries are represented amongst the Oscar winners. The best foreign film award was given to Austrian The Counterfeiters. This is the first time a film from Austria receives the Oscar for Best Foreign Film, although it is the second time one is nominated for such a title. The prize for Best Actress went to French actress Marion Cotillard for her performance in La Vie en Rose. Over the years, different French actresses have been nominated as Best Actress (Anouk Aimee, Isabelle Adjani, Marie-Christine Barrault, Juliette Binoche or Catherine Deneuve) but it was the first time that the nomination turned into an award since Simone Signoret in 1960. Daniel Day-Lewis from the UK won the prize for Best Actor in There Will Be Blood), Javier Bardem from Spain won Best Supporting Actor in No Country for Old Men, and Tilda Swinton from Scotland won Best Supporting Actress in Michael Clayton).
Europeans fared well in other categories as well. Best Short Animated Film went to Peter and the Wolf by British director Suzie Templeton. Alexandra Byrne won the best costume design Oscar for her work on Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Dante Ferretti, along with Francesca Lo Schiavio, from Italy, picked up the art director Oscar for Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street Italian composer Dario Marianelli won best score for Atonement and Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova won best song (Falling Slowly) for Irish film Once while Didier Lavergne and Jan Archibald won best make up for La Vie En Rose. French filmmaker Philippe Pollet-Villard won the best live action short award for Le Mozart des Pickpockets. Although nominated in many categories, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly did not win any prize. Persepolis lost to Ratatouille. List of all Oscar winners.
French Césars 2008
La Graine et le Mulet (The Secret of the Grain) wins four Césars including Best Film, Best Director and Best Screenplay. Mathieu Amalric wins Best Actor for his role in Julian Schnabel's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly; La Vie en Rose brings home five Cesars, including Best Actress; Persepolis wins Best Animation; Terror's Advocate (about the controversial lawyer Jacques Vergès) wins Best Documentary; Lives of Others (from Germany) wins Best Foreign Language Film César.
Berlinale 2008
The 58th Berlin International Film Festival took place from February 7th to the 17th. The Silver Bear for Best Actress 2008 went to Sally Hawkins for her performance in Happy-Go-Lucky by Mike Leigh. Revanche, by Austrian filmmaker Götz Spielmann, won the Europa Cinemas Label. (Berlinale's homepage.)
Sundance 2008
And the European winners are...
The King of Ping Pong, directed by Swedish filmmaker Jens Jonsson, renown for his shorts, received the
World Cinema Competition Award and the World Cinema Cinematography Award. The film is about an awkward teenage boy, rejected and made fun of by most of his peers,
with a strange family history, who finds refuge in ping-pong.
Man on Wire, documentary by British filmmaker James Marsh, has won both the World Cinema Documentary Jury Prize and the World Cinema Documentary Audience Award.
The film is a recounting of French artist Philippe Petit’s “artistic crime of the century” : his illegal high-wire walk across New York’s
World Trade Centre twin towers in 1974.
Finally, French existential comedy about romantic, aspiring criminals I Always Wanted to Be a Gangster (J'ai Toujours Rêvé d'Être un Gangster) won the World Cinema Screenwriting Award.
Sundance Awards 2008
Oscars 2008
Jan 22nd, 2008. Of the 63 films originally submitted for consideration to the Oscar nominations in the category of best foreign film, the top five have been selected today. Two of these are European (Read more)
Golden Globe Winners
Jan 14th, 2008. The award for Best Foreign Language Film went to Julian Schnabel's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (which was all filmed in France, in French). Schnabel also received an award for best director. Marion Cotillard received an award for Best Performance in a Musical for her role in La Vie en Rose. Spanish actor Javier Bardem received an award for supporting actor in the American film No Country for Old Men. Full results on Golden Globe winners
Scandinavian Film Festival L.A.
Jan 5th-13th. The American-Scandinavian Foundation presents the ninth annual Scandinavian Film Festival L.A., hosted at the Writers Guild Theater, Beverly Hills. It spans two weekends: Saturday and Sunday, 5-6 January; and Saturday and Sunday, 12-13 January, 2008. It showcases the five Scandinavian films submitted to the Academy this year as nominees for Best Foreign-Language Film, as well as documentaries, shorts and more feature films.
