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With an awards season and year-end lists that tend to favor films that have been released in the last few months, there’s many films that can go overlooked. For our yearly feature highlighting the 50 best films you might have missed––arriving before our overall top 50 films––we’ve sought to dig deep to find the gems that deserved more attention upon their initial release and have mostly been left out of year-end conversations. Hopefully, with many widely available on a variety of streaming platforms, they will begin to find an expanded audience.

While many documentaries would qualify for this list, we stuck strictly to narrative efforts; one can instead read our rundown of the top docs here. We also haven’t included 2024 films that only got awards-qualifying runs this year, including Universal Language and Armand. And while there’s some films that deserved bigger audiences, such as Here, Juror...

As the Thessaloniki Film Festival’s industry arm, Agora, celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, organizers are looking to maintain the right balance for an event that continues to grow in stature while retaining its carefully curated, almost intimate feel.

To that end, industry head Angeliki Vergou — an Agora veteran who assumed her current post in 2022 — is pragmatic in her approach to the Thessaloniki event and where it fits into the broader marketplace. While several thousand exhibitors and industry professionals will descend on Las Vegas next week for a whirlwind, new-look AFM, Vergou stresses that the Agora is determined to maintain its “friendly,” personal approach.

“We really want to keep having this scale of a market — not too big, but the right amount of professionals coming and meeting with each other,” Vergou tells Variety. “Our specialty is to nurture talents and offer them their first experience in a market. An...

Exclusive: The Thessaloniki International Film Festival’s industry-focused Agora section has selected 15 projects from 17 countries for this year’s Crossroads Co-production Forum. Scroll down for the full list of projects.

Hailing from across southeastern Europe and the Mediterranean region, the projects are in various stages of development. The selection features debut and sophomore feature films alongside more experienced directors.

Among the notable projects is the latest feature film by prolific Romanian director Adrian Sitaru. There are also sophomore film projects from Yorgos Goussis, Kaltrina Krasniqi, Diego Llorente, Nikola Mijović, Ahu Ozturk, Sonia Liza Kenterman, and Ahmad Ghossein. Debut feature filmmakers are Neritan Zinxhiria and Thelyia Petraki.

The selected projects hail from countries including the Czech Republic, Slovakia, France, Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Jordan, Kosovo*, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Serbia, North Macedonia, Palestine, Romania, Spain, and Turkey. This year’s selection was co-curated by an advisory committee featuring industry consultant Thibaut Bracq...

Georgian filmmaker Tato Kotetishvili, whose feature directorial debut, “Holy Electricity,” won the Golden Leopard in the Concorso Cineasti del Presente section at the recently wrapped Locarno Film Festival, is prepping his next film, a docufiction that follows a family trying to illegally enter the U.S. from across the Mexican border.

The director also released a trailer for his prize-winning debut, which plays this week in competition at the Sarajevo Film Festival. Variety has been given exclusive access below.

The untitled project from the cinematographer-turned-director traces the odyssey of a Georgian family trying to make it to America via an arduous, three-week journey across Latin America. The family’s first trip overseas, it will be seen through the eyes of a child “who is not really concerned with the problems of the past or the anxieties of the future,” said Kotetishvili.

The film, which reunites the director with producer Tekla Machavariani of Tbilisi-based Nushi Film,...

Elene Naveriani’s Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry, starring Eka Chavleishvili as a woman navigating the prospect of growing older on her own, headed the winners at the inaugural Eliso awards, the new national film awards ceremony for Georgia.

Naveriani won best director, with Chavleishvili taking the best actress prize.

Ani Mogeladze received a special mention for her performance in the film; as did Nina Eradze for her role in Liza Go On.

Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry premiered in Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes 2023.

Lomero Akhvlediani won the best cinematography prize for work on Luka Beradze’s documentary Smiling Georgia. The film also received...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

American Fiction (Cord Jefferson)

Thelonious “Monk” Ellison is in a rut. He’s still trying to get a publisher to accept his latest book in a market that doesn’t exactly embrace his erudite style. His gig as a college professor lecturing to students that are too “goddamn delicate” to embrace thorny topics of race has him ostracized from colleagues. He’s estranged from family, all of whom are juggling their own issues––health problems, divorce, the financial strain that comes with both. When Monk concocts an elaborate joke to get more fame and acceptance, it’s taken shocking seriously, setting off a series of misadventures exploring how white America is more willing to accept the most reductive, pandering stories of Black...

Action comedy The Fall Guy starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt heads the new titles at this weekend’s UK-Ireland box office, opening in 702 cinemas through Universal.

Directed by David Leith, The Fall Guy is written by Drew Pearce and loosely based on a 1980s TV series of the same name about stunt performers.

Gosling plays a stuntman working on his ex-girlfriend’s directorial debut action film, where he becomes involved in a conspiracy surrounding the lead actor.

The Fall Guy debuted at SXSW on March 12; it is Gosling’s first credit as producer since his 2014 directorial debut Lost River.

Warner Bros.’ “Challengers,” led by Zendaya, debuted atop the U.K. and Ireland box office with £1.6 million ($2 million), according to numbers from Comscore.

In its third weekend, Studiocanal’s “Back to Black” dropped to second place with £1.4 million for a total of £8.9 million. In third position, in its fifth weekend, Universal’s “Kung Fu Panda 4” collected £948,033 for a total of £19.7 million.

Entertainment Film Distributors’ “Civil War” placed fourth with £755,426 for a total of £5.1 million. Rounding off the top five was Warner Bros.’ “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” with £597,587 in its fifth weekend for a total of £13.7 million.

The other debut in the top 10 was Anime Ltd’s “Spy x Family Code: White,” which debuted in eighth place with £280,729.

Coming up, there are two releases on May 2 ahead of the long bank holiday weekend in the territory. Universal is opening “The Fall Guy,” starring Emily Blunt, Ryan Gosling, Hannah Waddingham and Aaron Taylor-Johnson,...

A month so staggering in quality new releases that a new Mad Max film from George Miller barely cracked the top five, May kicks off the summer movie season with a bang. From the best American film of the year to a long-awaited U.S. release from the director who topped last month’s list, and much more, check out my picks of the best movies arriving this month below.

17. Aggro DR1FT (Harmony Korine; May 10-16 in theaters)

Though a film I almost actively hated in the moment, reflecting back on Harmony Korine’s Aggro DR1FT, it’s certainly a nightmare that has stayed with me. Rory O’Connor said in his review, “Is it possible to leave your enfance without losing your terrible? The one-and-only Harmony Korine, now 50 years young, returns with Aggro Dr1ft, a premiere out-of-competition at the Venice Film Festival this week and, by my count, the only...

Cannes parallel section Directors’ Fortnight has unveiled the line-up for its 56th edition running from May 15 to 23, at a press conference in Paris’ Forum des Images cultural center.

The section, launched in 1969 and overseen by the French Directors Guild, will present 21 feature films and 10 short films.

It is the second line-up overseen by Delegate General Julien Rejl, who took up the role last year.

Discoveries of his inaugural edition included Georgian director Elene Naveriani’s late coming-of-age drama Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry; U.S. indie film Riddle Of Fire by Weston Razooli, as well as Vietnamese filmmaker Phạm Thiên Ân’s 2023 Cannes Caméra d’Or winner Inside The Yellow Cocoon Shell.

The 2024 edition will open with late director Sophie Fillières’ final feature This Life of Mine, starring Agnès Jaoui as a woman whose sense of self starts to unravel as she turns 55.

Fillières died shortly after completing the shoot and her...

Georgian director Elene Naveriani’s late-coming-of-age, female empowerment drama Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry topped the prizes at the Swiss Film Awards in Zurich over the weekend.

The drama, which world premiered in Cannes Directors’ Fortnight last year, revolves around an independent-minded, single woman in her 40s in a small Georgian village, who faces a personal crossroads when she unexpectedly falls in love.

The feature won Best Feature Film, as well as Best Screenplay and for Best Screenplay for Naveriani and for Best Film Editing for Aurora Franco Vögeli.

The Swiss-Georgian co-production was produced by Thomas Reichlin, Ketie Danelia and Bettina Brokemper for Alva Film in Switzerland and Takes Film in Georgia.

Pierre Monnard’s clandestine fight club drama Bisons also won three prizes: Best Film Score for Nicolas Rabaeus, Best Cinematography for Joseph Areddy and Best Actor for Karim Barras.

Swiss-French Barras will also soon be seen in period drama Winter Palace,...

Channeling the French approach of having a female protagonist and focusing almost exclusively on her, as seen in films like “Blue is the Warmest Color” and “L'evenement”, Elena Naveriani turns the whole thing on its head, by having a middle-aged, plain-looking woman as her protagonist instead of a gorgeous young woman. Her approach is both refreshing and functions as a kind of meaningful irony regarding cinema standards, in a script based on a 2020 novel by feminist author Tamta Melashvili.

Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry is screening at Osaka Asian Film Festival

One morning, a 48-year-old shopkeeper named Etero is out foraging wild blackberries near her small Georgian village when the sighting of a blackbird causes her to slip and fall down a ravine. Her near-death experience has her seeing various instances of herself dead, but also makes her contemplate her life, and particularly her single status, despite the fact that she was happy with it until now.

Osaka Asian Film Festival 2024 announced on January 31, 2024 that 8 more films have been added to the line-up. The number of films chosen for this year's festival comes to 63 in total, including The Special Opening Film and The Closing Film.

The films that have been added are:

[Competition]

Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry / Georgia, Switzerland / Director: Elene Naveriani / 2023 / 110min / Japan Premiere

*The total number of films in Competition: 14 films

Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry

[Spotlight]

Tenement / Cambodia / Directors: Inrasothythep Neth,  Sokyou Chea / 2023 / 88min / Asia Premiere

[Spotlight] / [Special Program <Special Focus on Hong Kong 2024>]

Out of the Shadow / Hong Kong / Director: Ricky Ko / 2024 / 90min/ World Premiere

[Special Program <Thai Cinema Kaleidoscope 2024>]

Supposed / Thailand / Director: Thanakorn Pongsuwan / 2023 / 98min / International Premiere

Death Whisperer / Thailand / Director: Taweewat Wantha / 2023 / 121min / Japan Premiere

*The total number of films in this program: 8 films (including 2 films programmed in other sections)

[Special Program <Taiwan: Movies on the Move 2024>]

The Winter of 1905 / Hong Kong / Director: Yu Wei-Cheng / 1981 / 94min / Japan Premiere

*The total number of films in this program: 7 films (including 3 films programmed in other sections)

[Special Program <Special Focus on Hong Kong 2024>]

Nomad (4K Restored...

Blackbird Lands In Osaka

The Osaka Asian Film Festival has added eight more titles to its line-up, including the award-winning Georgian drama “Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry,” which will play in competition.

Elene Naveriani’s “Blackbird,” about a middle-aged woman’s relationship decision, has had wide festival play in Europe and earned multiple prizes for lead actor Eka Chavleishvili.

Other additions are Cambodian directing duo Inrasothythep Neth and Sokyou Chea’s “Tenement”; the world premiere of Hong Kong director Ricky Ko’s “Out of the Shadow”; “Supposed,” by Thanakorn Pongsuwan and “Death Whisperer,” by Taweewat Wantha, which expand the festival’s selection of Thai films to eight; and “The Winter of 1905,” a 1981 film by Hong Kong director Yu Wei-Cheng, which joins the Taiwan: Movies on the Move 2024 special section.

Other revival inclusions are: the 4K restored director’s cut of Patrick Tam’s 1982 Hong Kong movie “Nomad” and “240 Hours in One Day,...

After a bumper 40th anniversary edition of IFFR Pro last year, there’s a sense that Rotterdam’s industry strand has fined tuned things rather than introduced major changes for 2024.

IFFR Pro centres around key initiatives including co-production market CineMart, talent development programme Rotterdam Lab, works in progress section Dark Room and financial support for filmmakers through the festival’s Hubert Bals Fund.

Head of IFFR Pro a.i. Alessia Acone, who is overseeing the industry strand while IFFR Pro head Inke Van Loocke is on maternity leave, says one of the main differences about CineMart this year is that...

Tamara Tatishvili is going full steam into her first edition of the International Film Festival Rotterdam, which runs Jan. 25 – Feb. 4, following her appointment as the head of the festival’s funding arm, the Hubert Bals Fund. She started full-time in early January.

“I will use the festival to connect to professionals outside of IFFR, hosting informal think tank meetings with industry professionals, producers and sales agents within a close environment to see what their observations and ideas are, and how this could feed into the future thinking strategies of Hubert Bals Fund,” she tells Variety.

She went on to emphasize the importance of festivals from a funder’s point of view. “Festivals are key platforms to connect the stories funds help create to audiences. Audience engagement is a key topic. Funders and producers believe films need to be made to reach audiences. It’s how you create impact and how...

2023 was a year of seemingly seismic change for the film industry, as superhero movies (especially Marvel) lost their grip on the box office while more auteur-led efforts such as Oppenheimer and Barbie made serious bank. Audiences seem hungry for a return to thoughtful and engaging efforts, voting for their wallets against a decade of cape-clad hegenomy in favour of more challenging (and visually interesting) cinema. But as with the majority of contemporary film analysis, these are mostly concerns for Hollywood. The international arthouse scene plugs away as usual, providing a diverse range of exciting visions that once again expand the very possibilities of the cinematic form. I went back and forth on this list several times, only coming to a final top ten this very morning. With courtroom drama, oddball romance, epic character study and even outright horror, this year’s selection subverted and expanded genre norms, showing that great cinema,...

The 36th European Film Awards took place in Berlin on Saturday, honoring the best cinema to emerge from Europe in 2023. The nominations, which were selected by the European Film Academy, were heavy on arthouse hits that emerged from the Cannes Film Festival including Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall,” Aki Kaurismäki’s “Fallen Leaves,” and Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest.” The results played out similarly to those from Cannes, with Triet’s Palme d’Or-winner taking the top prize of Best European Film.

“Anatomy of a Fall” additionally won the European Director award for Triet, who also shared the European Screenwriter award with Arthur Harari. Sandra Hüller was nominated twice in the European Actress category for her performances in “Anatomy of a Fall” and “The Zone of Interest,” ultimately winning for the former.

The results mirrored those of the 2022 European Film Awards, when “Triangle of Sadness” followed...

Justine Triet’s courtroom drama “Anatomy of a Fall” triumphed at the 36th European Film Awards, taking statuettes for best film, director, screenwriter and actress at the ceremony, which took place Saturday in Berlin. It had been previously announced that it had won the best editing prize as well.

“Anatomy of a Fall” won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, and recently took the screenplay and international feature awards at the Gothams, but was not selected to represent France in the international feature film category of the Oscars. Despite that setback, Triet said the film would still compete for other categories at the Oscars. “Now we are in the race, of course. We continue down that road,” she said at a press conference following the ceremony in Berlin.

Triet, who co-wrote the screenplay with Arthur Harari, said that they had written it for Sandra Hüller, winner of the best actress award.

“Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World,” from Romania’s Radu Jude, added to its ever larger silverware collection, winning the top Albar Award at Spain’s Gijón Festival.

Gijón’s big win join not only a Special Jury Prize at August’s Locarno Film Festival, where the film was the most talked about – one of Jude’s aims– and lauded of competition titles among reviewers, plus a Chicago Silver Hugo best performance nod (Ilinca Manolache) in October and a Lisbon Fest Jury Prize late last month.

Over 61 editions, and most especially when José Luis Cienfuegos, now Valladolid chief, took over its reins in 1995, the Gijón-Xijón Film Festival (Ficx) has carved out an identity as highlighting edgier international auteurs and indie fare, moving into promoting often more singular movies from a burgeoning new generation of Spanish filmmakers, greeted with enthusiasm by discerning and predominantly YA audiences...

‘Slow’ and ‘Animalia’ both world premiered to acclaim at Sundance while ’The Hypnosis’ picked up prizes at Karlovy Vary.

Paris-based Totem Films has agreed a slew of deals for acclaimed Sundance premieres Slow and Animalia as well as Karlovy Vary-winning feature The Hypnosis.

Marija Kavtaradze’s second feature Slow has sold to KimStim for theatrical distribution in North America and to Conic Film for the UK and Ireland. It was also scooped up by Salzgeber in Germany, Filmin in Spain, Falcon for Indonesia, New Horizons in Poland and HBO for Eastern Europe.

Slow world premiered at Sundance this year in...

Five European films dominate the nominations for this year’s Awards

The European Film Academy has revealed the nominees for the main categories of the European Film Awards which take place in Berlin on November 9.

The Academy has shortlisted five of the highest profile films to come out of European this year for its best European film category, with the directors of the five films also all nominated in the best European director category. The five films also dominate the acting and screenwriting categories.

Three of the best European film nominees world premiered at Cannes. Justine Triet’s Palme d...

Jonathan Glazer’s harrowing Holocaust drama The Zone of Interest leads the nominations for this year’s European Film Awards (EFAs), picking up five nominations, including for best film and best director, in nominations announced via video on Tuesday.

Zone of Interest, the U.K. official entry for the 2024 Oscars in the best international feature category, also scored Efa nominations for best screenwriter, for Glazer, and best actress and best actor noms for leads Sandra Hüller and Christian Friedel.

Hüller will be competing against herself in the best actress category, having picked up a second Efa nom for her starring role in Justine Triet’s courtroom drama Anatomy of a Fall. The Palme d’Or winner recieved four Efa noms, including for best European Film, best director for Triet and best screenplay for Triet and co-writer Arthur Harari.

Other best European film nominees include Matteo Garrone’s refugee drama Io Capitano from Italy,...

Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest” and Aki Kaurismäki’s “Fallen Leaves” led the European Film Awards race after nominations for the major categories were revealed Tuesday.

The films were nominated in all five major categories – European film, director, screenwriter, actor and actress.

Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall” was close behind with four nominations – film, director, screenwriter and actress.

All three films were prizewinners at Cannes: “The Zone of Interest” took the festival’s Grand Prize, “Fallen Leaves” won the Jury Prize, and “Anatomy of a Fall” was the Palme d’Or winner.

Agnieszka Holland’s “Green Border,” the Special Jury Prize winner at Venice, took three nominations – film, director and screenwriter.

“Me Captain,” Venice’s best director winner, and “The Teachers’ Lounge” each nabbed two nominations.

“Afire,” “Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry,” “How to Have Sex,” “La Chimera” and “The Promised Land” took one nomination each in major categories.

Elene Naveriani in Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry

An unforgettable film about an extraordinary woman who gradually comes to see beyond the bounds of her very ordinary Georgian village life, Elene Naveriani’s Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry has been flying around the festival circuit and has just alighted at Belfast. With a stunning central performance by Eka Chavleishvili as shopkeeper Etero, it focuses on an unexpected middle aged romance, but the heroine’s journey takes her far beyond that on a voyage of self discovery. When Elene and I met up ahead of the festival, she explained how the story got a grip on her and how she felt compelled to bring that character to the screen.

“In 2020 there was the release of the new feminist novel by Tamta Melashvili, the writer. I was in Georgia. I was visiting the family, and I bought it because it's something that I always do. She's a very interesting author.

A total of 39 European companies, surpassing 2022, will promote and sell films from the continent at Busan International Film Festival’s accompanying Asian Contents & Film Market (Acfm).

Of these, 32 will be onsite while seven more will participate online. The companies will operate under the Europe! Umbrella, a long-standing collaboration between Efp and Unifrance that has been an Acfm regular for years.

To help with the promotion of European cinema to East Asia at the market, Efp is awarding Film Sales Support (Fss) to 10 sales companies to enhance their digital and physical marketing campaigns. Alpha Violet, Fandango, Film Factory Entertainment, Films Boutique, Indie Sales, Kinology, Latido Films, LevelK, Pulsar Content and TrustNordisk will benefit from the support.

The European presence at the festival includes French-Canadian co-production “The Beast” by Bertrand Bonello (Kinology); Polish Oscar entry “The Peasants” by D.K. and Hugh Welchman; “An Endless Sunday” by Alain Parroni; Danish Oscar entry...

Georgian cinema continues to show thriving signs of life in Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry, a film about a contently independent woman who is faced with the thrills and spills of companionship for the first time. A breakout at Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes earlier this year and a deserved winner, last week, of both best film and actress at the Sarajevo Film Festival, Blackbird is the latest from Elene Naveriani, a 38-year-old director who co-wrote the script with the writer and feminist activist Tamta Melashvili. From that collaboration springs an unlikely tale about the shock of attraction, about how bodies appear depending on how we see them and who’s looking, and about the joys of touch and solitude and whether or not they need be mutually exclusive.

Naveriani’s third feature opens with swagger and a literal cliffhanger: Eto, our immediately likable champion of self-sufficiency, is out picking berries when she...

Mubi has snagged all rights for the film in Germany and Austria and will release it theatrically in those territories.

Paris-based international sales and production house Totem Films has sold Anna Roller’s road movie Dead Girls Dancing to Mubi for Germany and Austria following the film’s parallel Tribeca and Munich premieres in June, and has boarded the German writer-director’s second feature Manatee, which they will also co-produce.

Mubi has snagged all rights for the film and will release it theatrically in those territories.

Dead Girls Dancing, Roller’s debut feature, is produced by the company’s production...

The Austrian director gave a masterclass at the Sarajevo Film Festival.

Austrian filmmaker Jessica Hausner is writing a film about workplace culture with the working title Toxic.

Hausner, most recently in Cannes Competition with Club Zero, said this will be her most optimistic and hopeful film. “The new idea is going to be about someone who tries to improve the world and the film has a happy end. It’s about the hope you can change things for the better.”

The film will be about “working hours, the working atmosphere - toxic workers,” she continued, explaining she had yet to...

Other prize winners included Philip Sotnychenko’s ’La Palisiada’ and Vladimir Perisic’s ’Lost Country’.

Elene Naveriani’s Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry was the big winner at the Sarajevo film festival’s awards ceremony on Friday (August 18), taking home prizes for best feature and best actress for Ekaterine Chavleishvili.

Scroll down for list of key winners

The Georgia-set romantic drama premiered in Directors’ Fortnight, and stars Chavleishvili as a prickly, self-sufficient woman whose life changes after she narrowly escapes a fatal accident. Totem are handling international sales.

Philip Sotnychenko won the €10,000 best director prize for Ukrainian cop thriller La Palisiada, which premiered at Rotterdam.

Georgian filmmaker Elene Naveriani clinched the Best Feature Award in the main international competition of the 29th Sarajevo Film Festival with her latest pic Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry. The award comes with a €16,000 cash prize.

The film also picked up the Best Actress award for Ekaterine Chavleishvili, which comes with a €2,500 cash prize. Overall, eleven films battled it out in the main competition, and Mia Wasikowska’s jury—including MoMA Film Head Josh Siegel, actor Zlatko Burić, actress Danica Ćurčić, and director Juraj Lerotić, spread the love quite widely.

The Ukrainian pic La Palisiada won the Best Director Award for Philip Sotnychenko, while Jovan Ginić won the Best Actor prize for the Serbian film Lost Country. In the festival’s documentary section, the top prize went to Bottlemen by Slovenian director Nemanja Vojinović.

Check out the full list of winners below:

Honorary Heart of Sarajevo

Mark Cousins, director and screenwriter

Lynne Ramsay,...

Elene Naveriani’s “Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry” won the top prize, the Heart of Sarajevo Award for best feature film, Friday at the Sarajevo Film Festival. The Georgian film, in which a stoically independent woman in her late 40s experiences a gentle existential awakening during an affair with a local deliveryman, also won the best actress prize for Ekaterine Chavleishvili’s performance.

The award for best director went to Ukraine’s Philip Sotnychenko for “La Palisiada,” and the best actor prize was picked up by Serbia’s Jovan Ginić — who won the Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award at Cannes — for “Lost Country.” Serbian director Nemanja Vojinović’s “Bottlemen” took the documentary film award.

The awards were given by a jury headed by actor Mia Wasikowska (“Club Zero”), which included Danish-Croatian actor Zlatko Burić (“Triangle of Sadness”), Serbian-Danish actor Danica Ćurčić (“The Chestnut Man”), Museum of Modern Art Department of Film...

Further Cannes titles to be selected include ’Firebrand’ and ’The Old Oak’.

The first titles in the running for the 2023 European Film Awards have been revealed by the European Academy, including Cannes premieres Anatomy Of A Fall, How To Have Sex, The Old Oak and Firebrand.

Anatomy Of A Fall won the Palme D’Or for French director Justine Triet at Cannes. The Hitchcockian mystery thriller is about a woman, played by Sandra Hüller, accused of murder when her husband dies of suspicious causes. Marie-Ange Luciani and David Thion produce.

How To Have Sex won the top Un Certain Regard...

The European Film Academy has fired the starting gun in the race for the European Film Awards. It has recommended 19 films to its members who will then select the nominees from this list, as well as some additional titles from the summer festivals, which will be announced next month.

Among the selected films are Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or winner “Anatomy of a Fall,” and the winner of its Jury Prize, “Fallen Leaves,” along with fellow Palme d’Or contenders “Kidnapped,” “Firebrand,” “La Chimera” and “The Old Oak.”

Other titles include “How to Have Sex,” which won the Un Certain Regard Award in Cannes, “The Animal Kingdom,” which also played in Un Certain Regard, Cannes Directors’ Fortnight titles “Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry” and “The Goldman Case,” and “Close Your Eyes,” which played in the Cannes Premiere section.

Also selected are “Afire,” which won the Grand Jury Prize at the Berlinale,...

Bono made a surprise appearance at the Sarajevo Film Festival this evening, where he accompanied the crew behind the U2-inspired Bosnian war documentary Kiss The Future, which opened the festival.

Bono was joined by his U2 band member The Edge on the red carpet at Bosnia’s National Theatre alongside CNN journalist Christiane Amanpour, who also features in the doc, during which she recounts her time as a young reporter covering the Bosnian conflict.

Directed by filmmaker Nenad Cicin-Sain, Kiss the Future tells the story of the underground community that continued to work and live throughout the 1990s siege of Sarajevo. Amid the breakup of Yugoslavia, the citizens of Sarajevo woke up to find their city under siege and wider Bosnia at war.

Bono and Christiane Amanpour.

In a far-fetched scheme inspired by local resistance, Bill Carter, an American aid worker living in Sarajevo, reached out to the world...

When the Sarajevo Film Festival returned to full strength last year after successive, slimmed-down pandemic editions, a robust turn-out was to be expected. For nearly three decades, the audience-facing event has been the cultural lifeblood of the lively, cosmopolitan city it calls home.

The 2022 edition broke attendance records set in 2019, and just days after its online ticketing system launched this month, the fest appears on pace to surpass that mark again. It is a testament to the enduring love affair between a city and a festival that was founded in impossible circumstances in 1995, at the tail end of a brutal, four-year siege — proof that even in times of war and scarcity, cinema could endure.

The festival returns Aug. 11 – 18, with organizers insisting the event’s 29th edition will stay true to its roots. “We wanted to keep the festival focused on its main goals: presenting the best of cinema today to...

The Sarajevo Film Festival has long been the biggest showcase of Southeast European cinema and this year’s edition, which unspools on August 11, is on course to be its most reflective and regionally focused edition yet.

“Our manifesto has always been to support young filmmakers and productions from the region while rebuilding an international film industry around it and this year our aim is to strengthen that even further,” says festival director Jovan Marjanović, who is currently in his second year in the role after taking over from festival founder Mirsad Purivatra, who started the event in 1995 during the siege of Sarajevo in the Bosnian War.

This year’s official selection will see 49 films compete for Heart of Sarajevo awards across its four competition sections – feature, documentary, short and student film – and included in this are 22 world, two international, 22 regional and three national premieres. Films in the official line-up include...

The jury awarded a special mention to French director Anthony Lapia’s debut feature ‘After’.

Argentine director Rodrigo Moreno’s The Delinquents received the Grand Prix and a cash prize of €10,000 at the 23rd edition of the New Horizons International Film Festival (July 20-30) in the Polish city of Wroclaw.

The international competition jury including UK director Mark Jenkin and Polish filmmaker Aga Woszczyńska described Moreno’s bank heist dramedy as “an extraordinary journey, shapeshifting through multiple genres, tracing a playful, surreal, imposing love letter to cinema.”

The film premiered the Un Certain Regard sidebar at Cannes this year and...

The Sarajevo Film Festival has unveiled its official selection for this year’s edition, with Elene Naveriani’s Cannes Directors’ Fortnight title Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry among the titles playing in Competition.

A total of 49 films will compete for the Heart of Sarajevo awards. The Festival’s four competition sections – feature, documentary, short, and student film – will feature 22 world, two international, 22 regional, and three national premieres.

Additional titles featured in the main competition program include Animal by Greek filmmaker Sofia Exarchou, Tigru by Andrei Tănase, and the Turkish series Rumi from producers Ahmet Okur, Kerim Ayyildiz, and director Can Ulkaj playing as a special screening.

The festival said Creative Director Izeta Građević saw 935 films submitted for consideration, including 200 feature fiction films, 235 documentaries, 500 shorts, and student titles.

The Sarajevo Film Festival competition programme is open for films and filmmakers from Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Georgia, Hungary, Kosovo*, North Macedonia,...

Forty-nine films will compete for the Heart of Sarajevo awards at the 29th Sarajevo Film Festival, which runs in Bosnia and Herzegovina from Aug. 11 to 18.

The Feature Film Competition will present 11 titles, with two world premieres, one international and five regional premieres.

World premieres include “Europa” from Austrian-Iranian filmmaker Sudabeh Mortezai, whose credits include 2018 Venice Days entry “Joy,” the Best Film winner at London Film Festival, and “Macondo,” which competed for the Golden Bear at Berlin Film Festival in 2014.

The other world premiere is “Medium,” from Greek director Christina Ioakeimidi, whose debut feature was “Harisma” in 2010.

The international premiere is Romanian filmmaker Tudor Giurgiu’s “Freedom,” which world premiered at Transilvania Film Festival, and won the Public’s Choice award. Last year, “Freedom” won the jury prize in the Work in Progress section of CineLink Industry Days, Sarajevo’s industry program.

The festival’s four competition sections – for feature, documentary,...

Submissions to the competition sections up 23% for this year’s festival.

Sudabeh Mortezai’s Europa is one of 10 feature world premieres set to screen in competition at the Sarajevo Film Festival next month (August 11-18).

Europa is the fifth feature from Austrian-Iranian filmmaker Mortezai, and follows an ambitious executive working at a mysterious corporation looking to expand into the Balkans. Mortezai’s previous feature Joy debuted at Venice in 2018; while her 2014 title Macondo premiered at the Berlinale.

Five of the 10 titles in the feature film competition are directed by women. Also having its world premiere in the feature film competition...

In the past decade or so, the country of Georgia has produced many raw and powerful films from women directors examining the country’s modern women as they seek their newfound independence. Director and co-writer Elene Naveriani’s romantic drama “Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry” is a striking new entry to this film movement, anchored by a fierce and sensual performance from star Eka Chavleishvili.

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Set in a remote village, Chavleishvili plays Etero, an earthy 48-year-old who cherishes her independence above all else.

Continue reading ‘Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry’ Review: Georgian Romantic Drama Is A Striking Ode To Female Independence [Karlovy Vary] at The Playlist.

When director Elene Naveriani first read the book upon which “Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry” is based, they immediately recognized a whole community. “It was the story of my mom, the story of my aunt, the story of my neighbor,” Naveriani tells Variety. “I could name so many women around me that they were really going through the same interior kind of struggle, and I found it very important to bring this character to life on screen.”

Playing in Directors’ Fortnight, “Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry” follows 48-year-old Etero (Eka Chavleishvili – the filmmaker’s first and only choice for the character) as she discovers her sexuality and enters into her first relationship later in life. In the film’s startling opening sequence, shopkeeper Etero survives a brush with death, returns to her small corner store, and seduces the first man who walks in – having her initial sexual relation on a momentary whim.

Though Etero...