Film Festials of Summer 2012

This is the time of year in the United States that the movie calendar is full of big budget loud movies meant to appeal to the youngsters on summer break from high school and college. Amidst all the shouting, I like to see what films the festivals in the U.S., and around the world, are highlighting. I love to look for little gems that will be big movies when the major awards season arrives in November.

In Scotland, wedged between the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and the Olympic games in the U.K., the prestigious Edinburgh International Film Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland (EIFF), opened 20 June 2012, and closed today, 1 July, after the final big screening last night of Disneys latest animation from Pixar, BRAVE. This year, the Festival returned to bestowing awards and the big winners are:

Director Penny Woolcock was awarded The Michael Powell Award for Best British Feature Film for ONE MILE AWAY, which received its World Premiere at the Festival. The Jury choosing the Michael Powell award winners was chaired by actor Jim Broadbent

Andrea Riseborough and Bríd Brennan jointly won The Michael Powell Award for Best Performance in a British Feature Film for their performances in James Marsh’s SHADOW DANCER, which had its UK Premiere last night.

The Award for Best Film in the International Feature Competition went to the drama HERE, THEN, about rootless youngsters in China, from director Mao Mao, with his first credit as a director. Elliot Gould presided over the Jury.

WEBSITE  

Heart of Sarajevo

Next up is a festival that most in the world may never have heard of, but one that has the backing of the likes of Actor Kevin Spacey and U2's Bono. It's the 18th SARAJEVO FILM FESTIVAL (SFF) held in Bosnia Herzegovina, opening July 6 and running through the 14th. Because this festival arose from the ashes of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina between April 1992 and December 1995, we feel it is important to cover it. Last year, Angelina Jolie was awarded the Heart of Sarajevo for her efforts to bring awareness of the war through her movie, LAND OF BLOOD AND HONEY.

The Festival Program Journal has been published. It is available at the Main Box Office, and single tickets are on sale. This year the Festival will present 210 films from 57 countries. There is also an online version of this year's Program Journal with information about all the screenings. We highly recommend you take a look at it as it is bilingual with English, and there is a beautiful spread featuring handsome Michael Fassbender:    
JOURNAL

Special screenings will include Steven Spielberg's SCHINDLER'S LIST, and some screenings will take place under the stars. The opening feature is Aida Begic's CHILDREN OF SARAJEVO (Dejeca), which won the Special Distinction of the Jury at this year's Cannes Film Festival. THE ANGEL'S SHARE will close. The already award-winning THE BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD, filmed in and around New Orleans will screen in competition, and it is the directorial debut of U.S. director Benh Zeitlin.

WEBSITE (English)   

VENICE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

The 69th Venice International Film Festival (VIFF) will run August 29th to September 8th, directed by Alberto Barbera. New features of the next edition include a new foyer of the Palazzo del Cinema; the Venice Film Market, a new service that will join the Industry Office; and Biennale College - Cinema, a workshop open to young filmmakers for the production of low-budget films.

 

The Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement has been awarded to Italian director and screenwriter Francesco Rosi. The award will be presented on August 31st, on the occasion of the screening of the restored copy of Rosi's masterpiece, Il caso Mattei (The Mattei Affair, 1972).

WEBSITE

 

 

The 36th Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), originally known as the Festival of Festivals, will be held in September from the 6th to 16th in Toronto, Canada. The Festival will be screening more than 300 films from over 60 countries, as it does every September. Tickets sales are available, but the full program has not yet been announced.

Toronto's programers have earned a reputation for excellence, and a diverse array of films are shown. There are Hollywood galas, complete with red carpet glamor but, most of all, the best in international cinema and potential Academy Award winners are screened. Toronto's track record of booking eventual Academy Award winners is legendary.

WEBSITE 

 

Could this be the surprise movie of the year?

BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD

Sarajevo's Regional Provillon at Cannes

This year, eight countries from the Balkan region will join together at the most important film market in the world – Marche du Film of the Cannes Film Festival.

Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Macedonia, Montenegro, Slovenia, and Serbia have joined their forces in order to present themselves together to the rest of the film world, in the South-East European Pavilion. The initiative of the Regional Pavilion was announced two years ago at the Sarajevo Film Festival (July 22-20, 2011) in the framework of the Regional Forum, begun last year.

The initiative of linking regional cinema gradually has become stronger supported by the hopes of filmmakers that the implementation of the European idea of regionalization of film art will create more space for everyone.

The Regional Pavilion has been envisaged as a joint space for all filmmakers from the above mentioned countries attending the Cannes Film Festival to gather, meet colleagues, organize meetings, and find opportunities for their projects.

SERIES - “Upcoming Film Festivals”

Traverse City, Sarajevo & Telluride

Traverse City FF Tickets On Sale

This is it! Tickets for the 5th Traverse City Film Festival went on sale Sunday at noon in downtown Traverse City, Michigan, for Friends of the Festival, which will run Tuesday, 28 July through Sunday, 2 August.

Remaining tickets will go on sale to the general public this coming Saturday, 18 July, at 12 noon in the box office located at 300 E. Front Street, Traverse City. Sales online and by phone (231-946-3731) begin at 6 pm.

For more about the Festival, see my two previous blog posts in this series, Upcoming Film Festivals. There is still time to become a Friend of the Festival. The best way is through the Web site. While you are there, check the site for other passes, get information on the many special programs the Festival is offering this year, as well as the films showing.
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Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina

The Sarajevo Film Festival began during the Serbian invasion of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1994-1995, Sarajevo’s residents decided to establish the Sarajevo Film Festival. In the beginning, it looked like a pipe dream, like fighting the windmills. No one thought that the dream of a group of movie enthusiasts would grow from amongst war into the most important annual event not only in B-H, but in the entire region.

Now, the Festival is one of the biggest cultural events in B-H, and the one with the most attendance. The Festival award is the Heart of Sarajevo. This year is the 15th edition, and it will run from 12 - 20 August. American Actor Kevin Spacey, who helped found the Festival is expected to attend again this year. So is UK director Mike Leigh, another Festival sponsor.

Opening the festival is TALES FROM THE GOLDEN AGE, written and directed by Cristian Mungiu, whose last movie was the acclaimed 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS & 2 DAYS (2007). GOLDEN AGE is described as an unconventional personal history of the late Communist period in Romania. Remember what they did to the disabled and orphan children? Web site.
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TELLURIDE

A quick note about Telluride, which will be in the spotlight in the next post of this series. Passes are now on sale. They are expensive and they go fast. If you want to take a chance, go here.
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Some festivals that will be spotlighted in the continuation of the Series:

August -

Montreal WFF: Le Festival des Films du Monde Montréal, Canada, 27 August - 7 September.

Venice: 2 - 12 September, Italy, the granddaddy of them all.

Telluride 4 - 7 September, Colorado, a wonderful time of year to be there.

Toronto: 10-19 September, Canada.

San Sebastián: 18 - 26 September.

Film Festivals and Awards in June Wrap

Sir Sean Connery presented the awards in Edinburgh.

All the film festivals that I follow in June have wrapped, Edinburgh (Scotland) and Los Angeles (USA) this past weekend. For information about these, and others held this month: Jackson Hole (USA), AFI SILVERDOCS (D.C.), and Shanghai (China), click the link on the right sidebar for my Film Festivals Page II. There is also a link for Part I, which began in January with Palm Springs and ended with Cannes.

Next up: Michael Moore's Traverse City (fellow Michigander Madonna will be there with her new film) and then, Sarajevo (Bosnia). Festivals in August and September are also in Part II.

The Daytime Emmy and Broadway's Tony Awards wrapped in June, too. The Emmys had three awards sessions: the sports awards, daytime creative arts and entertainment awards, and the 35th daytime Emmy gala hosted by ABC's Cameron Masterson (All My Children) and Sherri Shepherd (The View). Regis Philbin (Live With Regis and Kelly) took home the lifetime achievement Emmy.

For more on these awards and many more for this year, click the link on the right sidebar for my Awards Page.

June! Tony and Emmy Awards, and Film Festivals!

Whoopi Goldberg will host Tonys.

Regis gets Lifetime Emmy.
Ah. The month of June will be here next week. Two of my favorite award shows come out of the gate in June - the Tony Awards (15 June, NYC) and the Daytime Emmy Awards (20 June, Hollywood).

The nominations for both organizations are in, and the hosts have been announced. Click here for the Tony nominations, and for the Daytime Emmy nominations. To find much more, and access official sites, click my 2009 Awards Page link on the right sidebar.

At the same time the Theatre Wing and the Television Academy are honoring their own in June, the film festival crowd tries to beat the heat in Wyoming (Jackson Hole), Scotland (Edinburgh), or on the beach in L.A. It's a great life, if you can live it. Should they prefer more exotic and hotter times with their movies, they may head for Shanghai. Or, later, to Sarajevo.

I'm now following so many film festivals that one page is not enough. So, for 2008, I'm splitting the coverage into at least three parts.

Part I began in Palm Springs, California, and ended in Cannes, France. Cannes closed this week, but you can read about it, and others during the first part of year, for as long as you like by clicking the link for Part I on the right sidebar.

Film Festivals Part II is now online, with lots of interesting festivals. A link is also on the sidebar.

Part II begins with the Jackson Hole Festival and ends in early October with the 46th New York Film Festival in NYC. In between you'll find Montreal, Telluride, San Sebastian, and more.

Coming online in August will be Part III. It begins with Vancouver in September. I'm not sure where it will end. It may be necessary to add a Part IV. At any rate, watch this blog for notification when Part III is online sometime in August.

To get the overview of the film festivals I cover during a year, take a look at my Film Festivals Page 2007.

Film Festival Page Updated

My new updates include the about-to-wrap San Diego Latino and the just-wrapped South by Southwest (SXSW) Festivals. There is new information on the upcoming Memphis (TN), River Run (NC), Canadian Hot Docs Documentary (Toronto), Ebertfest (IL), Tribeca (NYC), San Francisco (CA), and the festival most festival-watchers consider the world's most prestigious film festival, Cannes (France).

You can read about those already completed this year, which included Berlin (Germany), Santa Barbara and Palm Springs (CA), Sundance (UT), Miami (FL), and the Mexican sister-festivals, Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta (MX). That's just Part I of Mimi Film Festivals 2008.

Part II, which will include festivals from June through September 2008, will go online sometime in April. The festivals highlighted will begin with Jackson Hole (WY) and probably conclude with San Sebastián (Spain) or San Diego (CA), but new ones are always cropping up, so there are no guarantees at this point.

In between, there will be the world's oldest festival, Venice (Italy), and the world's bravest, Sarajevo (Bosnia). Major festivals in the USA include Los Angeles (CA) and Telluride (CO). Foreign ones, other than San Sebastián, include Montreal and Toronto (Canada), Deauville (France), and Edinburgh (UK), plus any new ones that may spring up during this time frame.

My Film Festival Page News

Counted today and found there is information and links for 34 film festivals so far this year on my Film Festival Page, including some that are difficult to find information about such as the Festival of New Latin American Cinema held each December in Havana, Cuba. Ten are upcoming, or going on now, with the rest already completed this year. Altogether, there's a wealth of info. Here is the list of the 34:

AFIFEST, Berlin, Boston, Times BFI London, Canadian Hot Docs, Cannes, Deauville, Edinburgh, Guadalajara, Huelva, Havana, Jackson Hole, Los Angeles Independents, Memphis, Miami, Montreal, New York, Palm Sprngs, Puerto Valarta, River Run, Rome, San Diego, San Sebatian, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Sarajevo, Sitges, Sundance, SXSW, Telluride, Toronto, Tribeca, Vancouver, and Venice.

This weekend, I installed quick links to help you find the festivals in which you are interested. Just find the name of the festival you want, click, and you are there. Click the title of this post, which will take you to my Film Festival Page, and near the top you will find the links for the festivals going on now, or upcoming through December, including the one in Havana. There is a separate set of links for those already completed. Remember, there is always a link to my Film Festival Page on the right sidebar of this blog as well.

George Clooney and Jerry Weintraub at a recent Boston Film Festival gala.

My Film Festiva Page News

Wes Anderson’s new film, THE DARJEELING LIMITED, featuring Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman, and Anjelica Huston. (Fox Searchlight)

Winners at the Sarajevo and Edinburgh Film Festivals were posted today on my Film Festival Page as the fall film festival season is underway. My MIMI'S FILM FESTIVAL PAGE is currently reporting on happenings at the Edinburgh (England) and Sarajevo (Bosnia) festivals as well as the following: Montreal (Canada), Venice (Italy), Telluride (Colorado, USA), Toronto (Canada), San Sebastián (Spain), Vancouver (B.C.), New York (NYC, USA), Catalonian (Sitges, Spain), and the Times BFI London (UK) festivals. Others will be added as information becomes available.

The page is designed as a "quick stop" for viewers/readers to catch the highlights, and access the official sites immediately through quick links. Updates are sporadic, because they are made whenever information is received from various sources.

So, go visit and bookmark/favor the page for convenient frequent checking.