Qatar’s Doha Film Institute (DFI) has cancelled the 11th edition of its Ajyal Film Festival, which was due to take place from November 8 to 16, due to the Israel-Hamas conflict.
30.09.2023 - 16:21 / variety.com
Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Turkey’s Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival, the country’s top international film event, has been canceled due political pressure following a storm of controversy prompted by the presence of an explosive documentary in the lineup. The doc, titled “Decree” and directed by Nejla Demirci, is about the plight of a doctor and a teacher who were fired from their government jobs under a state of emergency declared after a failed attempted coup on July 15, 2016, in Turkey.
On that day a group of Turkish soldiers using tanks, warplanes and helicopters launched a plot to overthrow Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Erdogan immediately blamed his former ally, U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, who is in exile in the U.S.
and has denied these allegations. Subsequently more than 130,000 alleged Gulen supporters in Turkey were fired from their jobs under an emergency purge following the military uprising.
Antalya Mayor Muhittin Bocek (pictured above) announced the fest’s cancellation on Friday evening, after the Turkish Culture and Tourism Ministry withdrew its support for the event, saying that it would “not be part of the effort to discredit the epic struggle of our beloved nation on July 15 and to use art as an element of provocation.” The Antalya fest’s artistic director Başak Emre confirmed to Variety in a text message that the event – scheduled to run Oct. 7-14 – has been scrapped after lots of back and forth about the inclusion of “Decree” in the selection.
Festival organizers a few days ago had agreed to pull the “Decree” doc following claims that there were pending legal issues. This, in turn, sparked a fusillade of fire within Turkey’s film community with several jury
.Qatar’s Doha Film Institute (DFI) has cancelled the 11th edition of its Ajyal Film Festival, which was due to take place from November 8 to 16, due to the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Ellise Shafer Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival has now been postponed indefinitely due to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. The festival was previously rescheduled to Oct. 27- Nov.
Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent The Cairo International Film Festival’s upcoming 45th edition has been canceled due to the Israel-Hamas conflict. The Cairo fest and market, which is the oldest running film event in the Middle East and Africa, announced its decision Wednesday on Instagram with the following statement: “Minister of Culture Dr. Neven El-Kelany has decided to postpone the 45th edition of the Cairo International Film Festival, which was scheduled to take place from Nov.
Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Turkish producer Onur Güvenatam founded OGM Pictures in 2019, and has since shepherded a steady stream of hit series and movies such as drama “The Red Room,” the widely-sold “Golden Boy” and “One Way for Tomorrow,” the first Netflix original film out of Turkey. For Netflix, OGM has also made Turkish original film “Paper Lives” and the series “The Gift.” Güvenatam is at Mipcom with new shows “Stickman” (Çöp Adam), “Miracle of Love” (Yüz Yıllık Mucize), and “Broken Destiny,” (Toprak ile Fidan) being sold by his recently launched in-house sales company OGM Universe. He spoke to Variety about the secret to OGM’s success, and vented frustrations about the business model imposed by U.S.
Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Veteran media exec Christian Toksvig is launching Cocoa Media, a distribution company dedicated to placing content on Free Advertising Supported Television (FAST) platforms. Cocoa has pacted with cutting edge Turkish content aggregator Merzigo to bring Turkish dramas into the FAST sphere.
Ellise Shafer Daniel Kaluuya world premiered his feature directorial debut, “The Kitchen,” at the BFI London Film Festival on Sunday night, calling it “one of the best days of my life.” Kaluuya was on hand alongside his co-director Kibwe Tavares, producer Daniel Emmerson and several of the film’s actors, including “Top Boy” star Kane Robinson and newcomer Jedaiah Bannerman. Set in a dystopian London where all social housing has been banned, the film follows the residents of a community called the Kitchen who must fight to save their home. Speaking before the premiere, Kaluuya and Tavares explained that it’s taken nearly a decade to bring the Netflix film to the screen.
Japanese filmmaker Ryusuke Hamaguchi has clinched the best film award in the main official competition of the 67th London Film Festival with his latest feature, Evil Does Not Exist.
Anna Tingley Up until Thursday night, New York Film Festival had never once featured a TV show on its annual premiere lineup, so when Benny Safdie approached NYFF artistic director Dennis Lim with a new series he created alongside Nathan Fielder, the likelihood that it would get a big-screen premiere was low. But Lim gave it a chance, and after he finished the fifth episode he knew he had to figure out how to make something work.
Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Solids by the Seashore,” “The Berefts” and “House of the Seasons” were all multiple winners of the Vision Awards at the Busan International Film Festival on Thursday evening. Another winner was “Yellow Door: ’90s Lo-fi Film Club,” a documentary celebrating Korea’s early cinephiles, who include “Parasite” director Bong Joon-ho. The Vision Awards precede the main New Currents Competition and the Jiseok Competition prizes which will be presented on Saturday at the festival’s closing ceremony.FIPRESCI Award“That Summer’s Lie” Dir. Sohn Hyun-lok.
EXCLUSIVE: Bruce Weber’s Academy Award-nominated documentary Let’s Get Lost has received a 4k restoration, which will debut at this year’s Lumiere Film Festival.
Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Ryadh-based media conglomerate SRMG has partnered with Warner Bros. Discovery to launch Asharq Discovery, a free-to-view pan-Arabic-language platform with a lineup that includes shows that have never been seen for free in Arabic before. These include international dating reality TV series “90 Day Fiancé” (pictured), reality shows “Gold Rush” and “Wheeler Dealers” and the Morgan Freeman-hosted science docs program “Through the Wormhole.” Warner Bros.
Cailee Spaeny dazzles while promoting her new film Priscilla at the 2023 BFI London Film Festival on Monday (October 9).
Dear Jassi arrives with echoes of Madonna’s 1989 hit “Dear Jessie” and its sugary promise of pink elephants and lemonade, but none of that turns out to be forthcoming in Tarsem Singh Dhandwar’s beautiful and brutal sixth feature. Instead, we have perhaps the most disturbing bait-and-switch since George Sluizer’s original iteration of The Vanishing, a Punjabi Juliet-meets-Romeo story that’s much harsher that any so-far-filmed version of West Side Story and a whole lot funnier. This dissonance takes a while to reveal itself, but when it does, the shock is visceral. The fact that almost everything is true is the killer blow, and the shockwave of that reverberates through the poignant final credits, a static shot that forces the audience, or maybe just simply dares them, to think about what they’ve just seen.
“The events of the last couple of days have been quite difficult for everybody,” said filmmaker Jonathan Glazer as his film about a Nazi commander at Auschwitz screened Sunday at the New York Film Festival.
Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival is back after a one-year hiatus with a rich mix of Arabic and international titles launching into the Middle East and plenty of promising projects from Arab countries set to be unveiled to prospective partners at its CineGouna industry side. The event launched in 2017 by Egyptian telecom billionaire Naguib Sawiris – whose brother Samih built the El Gouna resort in a swathe of desert near the tourist town of Hurghada 250 miles south of Cairo – was put on pause in 2022 ostensibly due to the country’s economic crisis following five editions during which fest co-founder Amr Mansi and chief Intishal Al Timimi had managed to rapidly put El Gouna on the international festival map while also making it a favourite with the local crowd.
Marta Balaga Warsaw Film Festival sets out to spotlight a slew of new local releases, from “Anxiety” by Sławomir Fabicki – Oscar-nominated for his short “A Man Thing” – to this year’s opener “Song of Goats” by Andrzej Jakimowski. The latter, featuring “EO” star Mateusz Kościukiewicz and set in Greece, will show characters living close to an active volcano, exploring the question of how “each of us is responsible for maintaining our fragile heritage,” says the director.
Sharareh Drury Miami Dade College’s Miami Film Festival GEMS has announced the full lineup for its 2023 festival, which will run from Nov. 2-5. The 10th edition of the fest will feature 26 films from 14 countries, all taking place at MDC’s Koubek Center and Silverspot Cinema.
EXCLUSIVE: The DTLA Film Festival has set the full feature lineup for its 15th edition, taking place at Regal L.A. Live from November 1-5, announcing the Jack Huston starrer Hail Mary as its opening night film.
Director Steve McQueen said his unusual four-hour Holocaust documentary shot in Amsterdam is rooted in his strong sense that “the past is present” in physical manifestations all around us, as well as a reminder to stay vigilant.
Foe, a complicated love story set in the near future amid burned out farmland, intertwines AI and climate catastrophe with the challenges of keeping a marriage together — all elements director Garth Davis (Lion) said pulled him to the story.