Festivals
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Dubai International Film Festival empowers female directors in the Middle East
While the region around it has descended in political chaos and religious strife, Dubai continues to flourish and prosper, becoming an oasis of harmony and progress, where the natives constitute less than 12% of its multinational…
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Sundance movies explore the terrifying impact of authority on human behaviour
Participating movies in the Sundance film festival are usually made on shoestring budgets and often by first-time directors, but they are rich in their substance, bold in their themes and unique in their subjects. This year,…
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Great performances but no clear winner at Toronto International Film Festival
In the last 10 days, hundreds of thousands of film fans and experts descended on Toronto charged with great expectations and hopes to discover next year’s potential Best Picture Oscar winner. Armed with their precious tickets,…
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Why does Toronto International Film Festival matter?
Last week, Venice Film Festival rocked the film industry with the opening of Alejandro Gonzales Iñárritu’s “Birdman,” which has become an instant favourite to dominate next year’s Oscars. Other movies such as Reese Witherspoon’s starrer “Wild”…
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Overlapping Dark Themes at the Cannes Film Festival
Following a limping opening with the controversial biopic “Grace of Monaco,” that was panned by the critics, condemned by the royal family of Monaco, and avoided by its American distributor Harvey Weinstein who was glaringly absent…
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How New Wave was François Truffaut’s cinema?
In its 18th edition, Colcoa (City of Lights, City of Angels) Film Festival, which is considered the biggest French film festival outside of France, screening this year 61 films this year, celebrated the legacy of iconic…
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What is buzzing in the 30th Sundance Film Festival?
Every year, tens of thousands of filmmakers, film lovers, buyers, executives and party goers flock to Park City in Utah, braving the subzero temperature, to attend the Sundance Film Festival, which has become the epicentre of…
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Toronto Film Festival ignites the race to the Oscars
In the last few years, The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has increasingly become more of a barometer for Oscar contenders than a platform to discover small movies that often rely on festivals to gain some…
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Lebanese and Iranian Directors take the spotlight at the Jerusalem Film Festival.
The Jerusalem Film Festival, held at the Cinematheque, a modern four-story building built into a hill overlooking the walls of the old city, is the most important film event in Israel. In the last 30 years,…
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Lack-Lustre Rome Film Festival Divides Critics with its Winning Choice
When Marc Muller, the former artistic director of Venice of Film Festival, which attracts the brightest stars from Hollywood and beyond, took over Rome Film Festival this year, many expected to see Rome glittering with the…