October 17 – 21, 2017

Among the most important Italian Fantastic film festivals, TOHORROR FILM FEST starts from cinema and then explores all possible means of communication, with the purpose of analysing contemporary society through the deforming lenses provided by the fantastic and horror culture. Thus, through the young authors’ videos and the films made by more expert directors, the meetings, the theatrical performances, the concerts, the art and comics exhibitions, we are enabled to interpret reality, filtering it through a most wild imagination.

After Master Dario Argento, godfather of our first edition, other famous guests have honoured us with their presence in the last years: namely, Massimo Picozzi, Ruggero Deodato, Jean Rollin, Richard Stanley, Aldo Lado, Andreas Marchall, Richard Cherrington, Claudio Simonetti, Sergio Stivaletti, Antonio Caronia, John Duncan, Federico Zampaglione, Ivan Zuccon, Alda Teodorani, Claudio Chiaverotti, Alessandra C., John Carr, Lorenzo Bianchini, Forzani&Cattet and many others...

Awards & Prizes

Rules & Terms

January 22 – 28, 2018

Michael Resin

FESTIVAL VICE PRESIDENT

Eric Feig

PRESIDENT

March 31, 2017 Earlybird Deadline I August 1, 2017 Regular Deadline I October 1, 2017 Late Deadline

Awards & Prizes

Rules & Terms

Revival of the international Fantastic Festival in Avoriaz (France) in January 2018 
Screenings at Cinema "Portes du soleil" from 22 to 28 january 2018 
Fantastic,Horror,Gore,Fantasy,music,video games 
28 January is prizes day. 

Awards & Prizes

Rules & Terms

History Film Festival is a unique international festival which brings together and appraises the production of historical documentary films, a genre which lately attracts more and more followers. The first edition of History Film Festival will take place in Rijeka (Croatia, Europe) from September 6 to 9, 2017. History Film Festival aims at offering viewers and film experts an insight into contemporary film and TV production of historical documentary films, at the same time providing a place where film professionals can meet and share their creative ideas for future projects. Among thousands of film festivals around the world, History Film Festival is one of a kind because no other festival deals exclusively with historical documentary films.

One day of the festival will be dedicated to the presentations of TV companies and their documentary production. By introducing the themes and the production methods used, it will offer an opportunity for both TV companies and independent producers to present their projects and possibly establish valuable business relations. Moreover, films in competition will be divided in two main categories: independent production documentaries and documentaries produced by TV companies. All films are submitted online through Film Freeway:

                                                                                                            https://filmfreeway.com/festival/HistoryFilmFestival

The Official Deadline for submissions ends on April 18, 2017.

We would be grateful if you could submit one of the documentaries from your historical documentary production to our festival. We are also inviting you to attend the first edition of History Film Festival where you will be given a chance to present your projects, share ideas and establish new connections with filmmakers from all over the world.

For further information regarding History Film Festival please visit our web site at http://www.historyfilmfestival.com/ , follow us on social networks or contact us anytime. See you in Rijeka!

The first edition of the Frontières Finance & Packaging Forum successfully concluded after 3 days of meetings, strategy sessions and networking from February 16-18 in Amsterdam. This collaborative initiative between the Fantasia International Film Festival and the Marché du Film - Festival de Cannes, and hosted in Amsterdam with the support of the Netherlands Film Fund, served as an invitational incubator for genre film projects in the late stages of financing. It officially marked the launch of the major partnership between the Marché du Film and Fantasia, as the first joint event in a 3-stop slate of networking and market opportunities for genre film projects at various stages in development & financing.

Doreen Boonekamp, CEO of the Netherlands Film Fund: We are pleased that the Frontieres Financing and Packaging Forum has been successful to all participants and experts and very happy that Amsterdam turned out to be a perfect location!

12 genre projects from across Europe and North America in the final stages of financing participated in the Amsterdam-based Forum. Project helmers included producers Julie Baines (DETOUR), Katie Holly (LOVE & FRIENDSHIP), Sophia Lin (COMPLIANCE, TAKE SHELTER), Magnus Paulsson (SHELLEY), and Casey Walker (THE VOID). 25 industry leaders from across Europe and North America specializing in finance, packaging & distribution were invited to meet with the projects via group strategy sessions, one to one meetings, and a proof of concept development lab. Represented organizations included experts from CBS Films, Creativity Capital, Epic Pictures, IFC Films, Magnolia Pictures, Motion Picture Capital, MPI Media Group, Soda Pictures, Vertigo Releasing, Universal Pictures International, and XYZ Films. The Forum also featured a case study of past Frontières project RAW (dir. Julia Ducournau), with producers Jean Des Forêts (Petit Film) and Jean Yves Roubin (Frakas Productions), who met at the 2014 edition of the Frontières market in Brussels, followed by a Dutch Avant-Premiere screening of the film RAW at the EYE Institute.

Jérôme Paillard, Executive Director, Marché du Film - Festival de Cannes: The Amsterdam Forum brought together a very high level of expertise within the group of 60 professionals present for 3 days. The projects all in advanced stage of development took advantage of the participation of these seasoned experts invited to focus on this qualitative selection of projects. We look forward to welcoming them all at the Marché du Film next May.

Next step for Frontières will be in May in Cannes at the Marché du Film where the 12 Forum projects will unveil their completed proofs of concept to the international market during a screening on Saturday May 20. The proof of concept presentation will be a featured activity in the Frontières Platform in Cannes, a dedicated section of networking activities and presentations geared towards the genre film industry.

Other Frontières Platform events in Cannes include Frontières Goes to Cannes, a screening of footage from 4 work-in-progress films on Sunday May 21, and participation in the Fantastic Fanatics Mixer.

Julie Bergeron, Head of Industry Programs at the Marché du Film - Festival de Cannes: The Amsterdam Frontières Forum, our first joint initiative with Fantasia, proved to be a good moment for the projects in-between Frontières in Montreal in July and the Marché du Film next May in Cannes. The event gathered a selective group of seasoned experts to meet and discuss in-depth with the projects to prepare them better for their pitching in Cannes. We are very excited to present, for the first time in Cannes, a “proof of concept” screening of high quality genre films. Mark your agenda for the morning of Saturday May 20!

Lindsay Peters, director of Frontières & industry director at the Fantasia International Film Festival: After 8 editions of our co-production market, this collaboration with the Marché du Film will bring Frontières to a new level and provide expanded networking opportunities for the genre community. The Forum in Amsterdam is our first step in creating a new format for collaborative development and financing strategies for genre films, which will continue in Cannes at the Platform events, as well as at the Fantasia market in July.

The Frontières Finance & Packaging Forum is co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union, and was made possible thanks to the support of the Netherlands Film Fund, Wallimage, the Imagine Film Festival and the Eye Film Institute.

The Frontières Platform in Cannes will take place May 20-21 at the Marché du Film - Festival de Cannes; submissions are open until March 1 for the work-in-progress presentation Frontières Goes to Cannes. The 9th edition of the Frontières International Co-Production Market will take place July 20-23 at the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal.

Submissions for projects in development and early financing are open until March 24. 

Animaze Daze in Cannes Screenings May 23

Regular Deadline is March 15

Submit your best short animated films for a screening May18th at Cannes Film Festival.
Enjoy industry visibility in front of the animation professionals attending Cannes during Animation Day in Cannes (second edition). take advantage of free promotion to buyers and media on our Animation Day in Cannes Newsletters, animation Day in Cannes website, filmfestivals.com pages dedicated to Animation Day in Cannes and our Youtube channel, which will be offered for buyers and Media.

Info I Submit Now I Website I Facebook I Twitter I Contact Laurie Gordon

Montreal International Animation Film Festival - ANIMAZE August 17 – 20, 2017

Late Deadline March 31, 2017

In partnership with filmfestivals.com

Montreal International Animation Film Festival is a people's film festival an dindutry conference dedicated to the art of animation for film and technology. 
All genres and forms are welcome.
Software an award prize. Visibility in out travelling show in Berlin, Cannes Annecy, Glasgow and more.

Animaze - Montreal International Animation Film Festival's blog I Website I Submit I Facebook I Twitter I Contact Laurie Gordon

by Alex Deleon, <filmfestivals.com>

Looking back over the recently completed 69th installment of the Berlin Film Festival I must say it was one of the best in recent memory. The weather, as to be expected in February in Berlin, was bad -- freezing, then rainy --  but this is good for staying inside to watch films.  The social scene was as lively as ever, especially with the Golden Bear Lounge next to the press conference room to hop in and out of between screenings --

the perfect place for quick meetings with old friends.

As for the selection of films, with over 300 entries to choose from in a diversity of sidebars, Panorama, Forum, Retrospectives, etc.

the Berlinale is something like playing the lottery. Aside from a few "old reliables" -- directors and actors whose work you know -- much of the selection is from unknowns and remote corners of the world. I did manage to see eleven of the eighteen films in competition and a total of 27 films in nine days, plus a number of interesting press conferences, always a highlight of the Berlin week.

To start with, the opening film, Django, about the famed mid-century gypsy guitarist, Django Reinhardt, was a memorable landmark with an incredible performance by French actor RedaKateb.  Most competition films, however, were about bad personal relationships and an ordeal to sit through. What ever happened to films about good relationships? -- They are obviously not favored by the climate of the times. Fortunately there is no law that says you have to sit through a "feel bad" film to the bitter end and so half a dozen psychological ordeal films resulted in an early walkout. The comp films were about evenly divided between ordeals and nonordeals. The winning film, Ildiko Eniko's Hungarian entry, "About Body and Soul" was a delight, and two other films interesting purely from an ethnic standpoint: "Felicité" set in Kinshasa, the capital of Congo and spoken in the Lingala language, and "One Thousand Ropes" set in a Samoan ghetto in New Zealand, probably the first film ever spoken in Samoan. Both were however personal Ordeal films. 

Among highlights, memorable films outside of the competition section were the following:

"The Kings Choice",  a WW II  historic drama from Norway about King Hakon's difficult decision not to cave in to the invading Germans; "Viceroy House", also an historical drama set in 1947 and showing the brutal partition of India from the British point of view; "The World on a Wire" a little known 1974 made for TV scifi fantasy drama by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, similar to The Matrix, but preceding it by ten years -- a true mind bender; Agnieska Holland's Polish drama "Spoor" calling for an end to the slaughter of wildlife, with an older woman as the central figure; The French pas-de-deux "Midwife" (Sage-Femme) involving French stars Catherine Deneuve and Catherine Frot, as an alienated mother- daughter reconciling -- Among the retrospectives; The classic Hollywood "War of the Worlds" 1953, with marvelous special effects by Hungarian FX master George Pal, long before the age of artificial computer illusions; finally  Francis Coppola's unique Gangster Musical, "The Cotton Club" of 1974. 

What it came down to was at least one memorable film every day,  topped off on the very last day by Finnish master of laconic celluloid wit, Aki Kaurismäki's latest, "The Other Side of Hope" which takes a non-judgemental but highly incisive look at Muslim immigration in Finland, a very hot issue these days in Germany. Kaurismäkis press conference was one of the high points of the Berlin week and, true to form since he is known as a heavy drinker, Aki was too loaded to take the stage to accept his Best Director Silver Bear award on closing night -- a perfect windup to an excellent film festival.

The Los Angeles based Israel Film Festival, the largest showcase of Israeli films in the U.S., is launching its 31st edition by hosting an awards luncheon honoring CAA’s Adam Berkowitz, award-winning producer David Shore and real estate developer/philanthropist Max Webb, it was announced by Festival Founder and Executive Director Meir Fenigstein. Berkowitz, the co-head of the television department at Creative Artists Agency, has been named the 2017 IFF Career Achievement Award recipient. Writer/producer Shore will receive the 2017 IFF Visionary Award, and Max Webb, the founder of Shapell Properties, will collect the 2017 IFF Lifetime Achievement Award. The gala luncheon will take place on Thursday, March 16 at the Four Seasons Hotel, with Elon Gold serving as Master of Ceremonies.

Berkowitz is co-head of the television department at Creative Artists Agency (CAA), where he works with many of the world's leading television producers, writers and directors. Berkowitz has been instrumental in packaging and selling numerous television programs, including Seinfeld, Everybody Loves Raymond, Arrested Development, Two and a Half Men, Masters of Sex, True Detective, Justified, Rescue Me, Big Love and Netflix's House of Cards, amongst others. Additionally, he sold the first Israeli series ever to Netflix, The Greenhouse, as well as the critically acclaimed Israeli series Fauda. Berkowitz also represents many of Israel's leading production companies, writers, directors and actors. Prior to joining CAA in 1997, Berkowitz was an Agent at the William Morris agency. He currently serves on the board of the Hollywood Radio & Television Society and is chairman of the entertainment division of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles.

Shore created what was at one point the world's most watched television program, House. The first-season episode "Three Stories" won him a Peabody, a Humanitas Prize and the 2005 Emmy® Award for Outstanding Writing. Since then, David co-created Battle Creek for CBS and Sneaky Pete for Amazon, and served as an executive producer of Houdini and Doyle, which aired on Fox in 2016. David has served as a director of the Writers Guild of America, West; the Writers Guild Foundation; the Humanitas International Foundation; and the International Board of Israel based Save a Child's Heart, an organization that saves children throughout the world who have congenital heart defects.

Webb, who just celebrated his 100th birthday this month, was born on March 2, 1917 in Lodz, Poland, one of seven children to Avraham and Sheva Weisbrot. During the war, Max survived twelve labor camps and six concentration camps, including Auschwitz Birkenau, where in 1943 he met Nathan Shapell, with whom he developed a lifelong friendship and partnership. Max, along with his brothers-in-law Nathan and David Shapell, founded Shapell Industries in 1955. For over 60 years they have provided thousands of homes throughout California as well as commercial areas. Having survived the nightmare of the camps is a constant reminder that his life was given back to him as a miracle from G-d. Following liberation Max promised to do whatever he could to help those less fortunate and to rebuild the Jewish people. As a great humanitarian, he has kept that commitment over the years by giving generously of his time and money to numerous worthwhile causes and organizations.

For over 30 years, the Festival has presented nearly 1,000 feature films, documentaries, television dramas and short films to close to million filmgoers and brought hundreds of Israeli filmmakers to the U.S. to share their art. The Israel Film Festival is produced by IsraFest Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization created in 1982. Among the Sponsors of the 31st Israel Film Festival are long-time partners Millennium Films, Rabinovich Foundation, New Regency Productions, Adelson Family Foundation, Israel Film Fund, The Hollywood Reporter, Eclipse, Variety, IAC (Israeli American Council), Israel Consulate in Los Angeles, Maurice Marciano Family Foundation, Diane & Guilford Glazer Foundation, Izek & Aline Shomof, IDB Bank, Four Seasons Hotel, The Orlando Hotel, Clear Channel, joined by Creative Artists Agency (CAA), Netflix, Showtime and Lionsgate.

www.israelfilmfestival.com *  310-247-1800/213-948-8800  *  info@israelfilmfestival.org

By Maria Esteves
The 54th New York Film Festival 2016 (NYFF54) Closing Night Premiere Press Conference of THE LOST CITY OF Z, with director James Gray; cast members , Sienna Miller, Robert Pattinson, Tom Holland, and Angus Macfadyen moderated by festival director Kent Jones, NYFF, was held at the Walter Reade Theater, NYC, Saturday, October 15, 2016.

Questions posed to director Gray and cast members by moderator Jones and members of the press included: When did you read this material for the first time, the David Grann’s? Can you talk about your experience shooting in the jungle and how difficult it was? Did you familiarize yourself with Herzog’s work in the Amazons? If you did, what is different in this film in what you tried to achieve? The actors, how did they oriented themselves within the world of this movie? How did you cultivated the father and son relationship? THE LOST CITY OF Z in theaters April 14, 2017. Watch trailer

NYFF54 The Lost City of Z Press Conference: L-R, festival director
Kent Jones, NYFF, director James Gray, actress, Sienna Miller, actors
Robert Pattinson, Tom Holland, and Angus Macfadyen.

NYFF54 The Lost City of Z Press Conference: Actress, Sienna Miller.

NYFF54 The Lost City of Z Press Conference: Festival director Kent Jones,
NYFF, left, and director James Gray.

NYFF54 The Lost City of Z Press Conference: Cast members Robert Pattinson,
left, and Tom Holland.

NYFF54 The Lost City of Z Press Conference: L-R, Cast members actor Robert
Pattinson, actor Tom Holland, and actor Angus Macfadyen.

MOMA’s presentation of innovative nonfiction films was held from February 16-26 with more than 20 features and 10 shorts, including a section of new media Canadian nonfiction films and a retrospective of Emiko Omori with six productions. As in prior editions the program covered a broad range of themes and issues as well as innovative approaches in documentary film making. This year’s edition presented an outstanding selection of films investigating global issues and problems faced by contemporary societies.

Rahul Jain’s feature Machines, (2016, India/Germany/Finland) opened the program. This first production by a film maker still attending school provides a superb visual exploration of a huge textile factory in Gujarat, India including interviews with workers and managers setting the political context of the documentation. Workers seem to be part of the machinery they attend. Given extensive unemployment for the semi and unskilled labor force in that and other Indian areas employers can readily replace workers. One worker states that those who rebel are considered dangerous and get killed. Workers in turn become dependent on minimal wages because they cannot assert themselves. During the first six months of their employment only half of the salary is paid because they are in training.  Workers, including many teenagers and children, complete 12-hour shifts under dreadful conditions. As Jain’s visual exploration of the work process and the aged machinery shows, there is virtually no modern technology or automation used, thus there is no need to hire skilled labor which would require higher wages.  Management expresses contempt for their workers and even suggests that they are overpaid. Yet the verbal exchanges recede behind the visual imagery, the long cuts and a superb score. Colorful textiles dominate the screen yet they are balanced by the juxtaposed images of the environmental damage the production process causes. As Jain pointed out in the post screening discussion, American features tend to have more than a thousand cuts while Machines has only about 170. The score uses sounds recorded by 70 contact microphones which Jain attached o to the factory machinery. Rahul Jain plans to rent theatres in India to show his film and wants to present it on Indian television, stimulating a debate of the issues presented.

Plastic China, Jiu-liang Wang, 2016, China. 

The filmmaker finished Beijing Besieged by Waste in 2011, a comprehensive documentary that received widespread attention in China and caused the government to force the municipality of Beijing to address the problem[MM1]  of environmentally sound waste disposal. Plastic China investigates an equally important issue, disposal of highly toxic plastic waste. China is the world’s largest importer of plastic waste generated by advanced industrial societies, specifically the United States. More than half of the global plastic waste is imported by China. In 2011 one million tons were shipped from the US to China, a figure that is much higher now given the growing costs of recycling in the US. Whereas advanced technologies permit the US to process some plastic waste the bulk of it is shipped to China. 30 Chinese towns handle the imported plastic with devastating consequences for the environment, polluting air, water, and impairing the health of the people processing it. Increased consumption in China adds to the amount that must be processed or recycled. The work is carried by mainly small family based enterprises and requires few skills. Jiu-lang Wang investigates two families with children, which make a living processing the waste that surrounds them. In Machines, the surplus of unskilled labor in India forces people to accept poorly paying work to survive. The same holds for the plastic waste processing in China. Sorting out plastic waste requires few skills and as large numbers of people migrate from the countryside to cities where farming skills cannot be applied plastic processing can becomes one of few options for employment. Income is needed to survive but also to pay for the schooling of children; motivating their parents to engage in dirty labor and forcing the children to help. There are upsetting images in this documentary. A family literally lives in the plastic toxic trash which serves as a playground for the children, eating food found in the waste. They also get dead fish from a polluted creak and after frying they eat the fish. According to the film maker his documentation resulted in the closure of some processing facilities. Hopefully, this film will help to foster the consideration of toxic waste pollution which has not yet figured prominently as an issue in Chinese public discussion.

Austerlitz, Sergei Loznitsa, 2016, Germany 

There is no single documentary answer to reporting about the challenging theme of concentration camps. Loznitsa does not probe what his images present, holocaust tourism.  His camera does not move and remains fixed recording black and white images of visitors to two concentration camps near Munich and Berlin; Dachau and Sachsenhausen. Dressed like summer tourists we see them entering and leaving the camps and buildings which harbored horror. We watch those taking pictures of themselves in front of and behind the ignominious Arbeit Macht Frei[MM2]   (Work Liberates) sign of the entry gate. They talk with each other sometimes, and listen to the tour guides. The documentary has no score and is restricted to few excerpts of the explanations offered by the guides. The facial expressions of the visitors do not reveal the impact of what they see, or at least their faces do not seem to show emotions when they inspect the furnaces where thousands were cremated. Rather, we see selfies of the visitors taken from all kind of angles. The inscriptions on their casual t-shirts reflect the tourist mentality. They seem to be consuming the experience of the camp, apparently disconnected from the horror and murder that took place seven decade ago. There is no discernible link. As the film’s title Austerlitz , referring to a vaguely known century-old battle implies,  a clear memory of the  historical and the dreadful seems to be drifting away. The question remains in the discussion of the tourism which Loznitsa depicts, what motivates individuals to visit places of horror and destruction. Is their curiosity restricted to the consumption of visual images or does it still encompass learning and commiseration?

Wolf and Sheep, Shahrbanno Sadat, 2016, Denmark/France/Sweden/Afghanistan.

The filmmaker who is Afghanistan’s first female feature director received the 2016 Cannes Art Cinema Award for Wolf and Sheep, a film which crosses the traditional boundaries of filmmaking. Her presentation of everyday life in a small Afghan shepherd village is a mélange of ethnographic and naturalistic folkloric elements incorporating the fairy tale of a green nude female visible for brief moments.  There are no actors and the story is carried by dozens of imported villagers and children playing themselves. The action takes place in a village which the director recreated for security reasons in neighboring Tajistan because her crew consisted of foreigners and the film’s tale was considered offensive to the Taliban. The audience gains an intimate view of the life of male and female villagers and their children whose spheres are gender segregated. Time seems to stand still for these people and their communication is shaped by gossip and their daily experiences. Young girls and boys tend the flock of sheep and the adults continue repetitive activities which have remained unchanged over decades. Slowly paced, the story evolves with some high points, a funeral opening the film, wolfs killing some sheep, a boy losing an eye in a slingshot accident, and, closing the story, the villagers deserting their homes because of outsiders threatening them. The superb photographic and sound work in this film and the captivating delivery of the story by non-actors conveys to Wolf and Sheep authenticity.

Claus Mueller,  filmexchange@gmail.com

,

Focus on documentaries / more than 100 films from Japan /
diverse supporting program

From May 23 to 28, 2017 the seventeenth edition of the Nippon Connection Film Festival will take place in Frankfurt am Main. With more than 100 short and feature length films, it is the biggest festival for Japanese film worldwide, offering a varied and exciting insight into Japanese cinema. Many directors and actors are present to introduce their works to the local audience for the first time. Apart from the films, a diverse supporting program gives visitors the chance to delve into the multi-faceted culture of Japan. The main venues are at Künstlerhaus Mousonturm and at Theater Willy Praml in der Naxoshalle.

Focus on documentary films

At this year's festival a special attention will be directed at documentary films. Among others, Atsushi Funahashi will present his film Raise your Arms and Twist, in which he observes the everyday life of Japanese pop idol singers of the group NMB48. The director skillfully combines social and media critique without degrading the stars or their fans. In her film 95 and 6 to Go young American filmmaker Kimi Takesue explores the history of her Japanese ancestors who emigrated to Hawaii, taking the conversations with her grandfather as a starting point. Steven Okazaki's Mifune: The Last Samurai portrays the life and work of legendary actor Toshiro Mifune, who has written film history through his cooperation with Akira Kurosawa.

Numerous German premieres

Once more, many films can be seen for the first time on German screens. Nippon Honor awardee Kiyoshi Kurosawa mixes love drama and subtle horror in his latest work, Daguerrotype. It is the first film the renowned director shot outside of Japan. A tough and uncompromising approach is chosen by 35-year-old director Tetsuya Mariko in his drama Destruction Babies, awarded at last year's Locarno Film Festival. The film tells the story of Taira, a youth without prospects, and his descent into a spiral of violence.

Filled with tender humor, Ryota Nakano's award-winning drama Her Love Boils Bathwater unfolds the story of Futaba, who is terminally ill and tries to reunite her scattered family during her last days. In the drama The Long Excuse by Miwa Nishikawa, a lonely writer must get a grip back on his life after a heavy blow of fate. Director Miwa Nishikawa will attend the festival. In his family drama Harmonium, director Koji Fukada shows how the appearance of an old acquaintance can turn an ordinary family life upside down. Harmonium received the Jury Prize in the section “Un certain regard” at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival.

As a highlight of the Nippon Animation section, Nippon Connection presents the German premiere of Naoko Yamada's anime A Silent Voice in cooperation with Kazé. Based on the manga of the same title by Yoshitoki Oima, the film centers around the character of Shoya Ishida, who had bullied his deaf classmate Shoko Nishimiya in school. A couple of years later, Shoya, stricken by remorse, starts looking for Shoko to apologize for his behavior.

Reboot of Nikkatsu Roman Porno films

In the 1970s and 1980s the so-called Roman Porno films from the Japanese film studio Nikkatsu served as a field of experimentation and a stepping stone for young directors. For the 45th anniversary of that genre, the Nippon Connection Film Festival shows two installments of the “Roman Porno Reboot Project” as German premieres. Kazuya Shiraishi's Dawn of the Felines deals with three young women and their work as prostitutes in Tokyo. Akihiko Shiota's Wet Woman in the Wind depicts the relationship between theater author Kosuke, who lives as a recluse in the woods, and the nymphomaniac waitress Shiori.

Extensive cultural program

Apart from the films, the festival offers a wide variety of workshops, lectures, and exhibitions, inviting the audience to get to know more about Japanese culture. Interested visitors can participate in the manufacturing of kyogen masks in a wood carving workshop, or they can learn about vital points of the human body and their application in the martial arts in the kyusho jitsu workshop. In cooperation with Weltlesebühne e.V., Ursula Gräfe, known as a translator of the works of Japanese star author Haruki Murakami, will give insight into various aspects of her work.

Again, there are also many exciting events for the youngest visitors in the Nippon Kids section. The wonderful puppet animation film Chieri and Cherry by Makoto Nakamura will be shown as a children's film with German live dubbing. Kids can have a go at traditional Japanese drums in the taiko workshop or they can try out preparing tasty Japanese sweets in the panda dango cooking class. Taruto Fuyama, professor at Tokyo University of the Arts in Yokohama, will show in his workshop how to create handmade painted animation films.

The festival

The Japanese Film Festival Nippon Connection is organized on a voluntary basis by the 70 members of the non-profit Nippon Connection registered association. The festival is under the patronage of Peter Feldmann, Mayor of the City of Frankfurt am Main, and Takeshi Kamiyama, Consul General of Japan in Frankfurt am Main. Festival centers are located at Künstlerhaus Mousonturm and Theater Willy Praml in der Naxoshalle. Additional events take place at Mal Seh’n Kino, the German Film Museum, Ausstellungsraum Eulengasse and the Theater Die Käs.

The complete program as well as tickets will be available from April 29, 2017 at the festival website: www.NipponConnection.com

Further information
www.NipponConnection.com
www.facebook.com/NipponConnection
twitter.com/NipponFilmfest

Adele Hartley, Dead by Dawn's Festival Director announced that The Evil Within will have its UK premiere and open the festivalt:  Scotland's International Horror Film Festival 24th Edition / 20 - 23 April, 2017 www.deadbydawn.co.uk

FB: www.facebook.com/DeadByDawnHorrorFestival

Twitter: @deadbydawnfest

THE EVIL WITHIN will open this year's festival, screening at 8.30pm on Thursday 20 April.

The screening takes place in Cinema One at Filmhouse, Edinburgh, and tickets will be on sale from the beginning of April through www.filmhousecinema.com

The Evil Within will be eligible for the Audience Award for Best Feature.

* THIS IS HORROR Award Winner: UK EVENT OF THE YEAR *

The SF Film Society will present a special tribute to acclaimed actor, writer, and filmmaker Ethan Hawke at the 60th San Francisco International Film Festival.

Dear filmmakers, the festival season officially starts with the Call for Entries, which began February 15th. Early Bird submissions end on March 31st! Films can be submitted via the platform Withoutabox.

Competition categories

The competition comprises of the following three categories:

• International Feature Film Competition
• International Documentary Film Competition
• Focus Switzerland, Germany, Austria (Feature Films and Documentary Films)

The Golden Eye endowed with a CHF 25,000 cash prize will be awarded in each of the two categories International Feature Film Competition and International Documentary Film Competition by two separate juries. The Golden Eye endowed with a CHF 20,000 cash prize will be awarded in the competition category Focus Switzerland, Germany, Austria by a separate jury. Winning films with Swiss distribution further profit from P&A contribution for a theatrical release in Switzerland.

Competition entry requirements

Submissions to the competition must fulfill the following criteria:

-Director's 1st, 2nd or 3rd feature-length film (> 60 min)
-Projects completed after October 1, 2016
-Minimum status requirement: Swiss Premiere at ZFF



Out of Competition sections

(Documentary Films, Feature Films, Series).

• Gala Premieres
• Special Screenings
• New World View
• Border Lines
• Window to the World
• TVision
• ZFF for Kids

Submissions to the Non Competition sections must fulfill the following criteria:

-Films must be at least 60 minutes long (except TV pilots)
-Projects completed after October 1, 2016
-Minimum status requirement: Swiss Premiere at ZFF
 

Submission fee

-Early Bird until March 31: Euro 50
-From April 1 until June 30: Euro 75

Please submit your film here!

For questions regarding submissions, please contact Christine Albrecht.

We're looking forward to receiving your submission!