All articles by Antonia Carver – Page 2
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Lebanon hits the road
It may be at the whim of political and economic upheavals, and have a population of only 3.9 million, but Lebanon's film-makers are punching above their weight. Antonia Carver reports. It used to be possible to count on one hand the Lebanese films that had broken out internationally. But despite ...
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Nadine Labaki: beauty without cruelty
It might not be about war or politics but the debut project from a young Lebanese director says much about the peace that can be achieved. Antonia Carver reportsNadine Labaki (pictured) shot Caramel in Beirut in late spring 2006, when the troubled city was in a buoyant mood following the ...
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Arts festival may pave way for cinemas in Saudi Arabia
Speculation that Saudi Arabia is gradually moving towards opening cinemas will intensify following the second Festival of Visual Arts in Jeddah, which ends on Friday. The four-day festival, organized by local audio and visual productions company Ruwaad Media, includes 28 short films and documentaries from Saudi and other Gulf countries, ...
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Jon Fitzgerald to head new Abu Dhabi film festival
The Middle East International Film Festival is set to announce its director today. Jon Fitzgerald, who co-founded Slamdance, was Director of Festivals at the American Film Institute (AFI) between 1997 and 1999, and later an executive director of Santa Barbara International Film Festival, will head up the inaugural festival, which ...
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Screenwriting group eQuinoxe expands into Middle East
eQuinoxe, the international mentoring association that runs workshops for screenwriters, has set up in the Middle East. EQuinoxe Arabiya is styling itself as an 'incubator' focused on mentoring Arab filmmakers and their projects. A not-for-profit offshoot of Haroun Multimedia, an animation and post-production house based in Dubai Media City, the ...
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Arab film festivals launch guild to share expertise
Directors from key Middle Eastern film festivals have agreed to form an Arab Film Festival Guild, aimed at increasing cooperation and sharing expertise in the region, and promoting the Arab film industry internationally.The final plans for the Guild were discussed at a meeting held during Morocco's Rabat Film Festival attended ...
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Oliver Stone's Iranian biopic gets blocked by government
The 'not making of' Oliver Stone's latest film would make a good script in itself. In 2006, the US director approached Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's people, hoping to make a film about the Iranian president's rise to power. Unsurprisingly, he was turned down - albeit a year later, via the media, and ...
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Abu Dhabi to establish branch of New York Film Academy
The Abu Dhabi government has signed a deal to establish a branch of the New York Film Academy (NYFA), the first film and acting school in the Gulf. Mohamed Khalaf Al Mazrouei, the director-general of the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH), Jerry Sherlock, Director, President and Founder ...
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Marjane Satrapi: drawing on the past
Marjane Satrapi, the Iranian-born film-maker of Persepolis, tells Antonia Carver why she hopes it will be seen as a film that just happens to be animated. Following the success of her graphic novels, Marjane Satrapi received enquiries from several US studios. 'One wanted to make a kind of Beverly Hills ...
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Persepolis to have English-language makeover from SPC
Sony Pictures Classics is set to record an English-language version of Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud's warmly received Cannes competition title Persepolis, an animated project based on Satrapi's bestselling graphic novels.Catherine Deneuve, who plays the role of the mother in the French version, is re-recording her part this summer, joined ...
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Antonia Bird will produce Daradji's next Iraqi feature
Mohammed Daradji has arrived in Cannes fresh from location scouting inIraq.The young Baghdad-born director, who had festival success with hisfirst feature Ahlaam (Dreams), 2005, has teamed up with Britishdirector-producer Antonia Bird to produce his second film, also to be shotin the war-torn country. Bird, who has a particular interest in ...
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Rotana's Arab production slate includes potential US co-production
Ayman Halawani, head of film production for the Saudi Arabian media conglomerate Rotana, is in Cannes to promote a slate of Arab productions, including the company's first potential US co-production.'We're talking to various partners - it's a comedy about an Arab-American family, something like My Big Fat Greek Wedding,' Halawani ...
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Charity amfAR comes on board for Dubai Film Festival
The organisers of Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF) have teamed up with amfAR, the American foundation for AIDS research.This year's festival, Dec 9-16, will host a version of the Cinema Against AIDS event, the star-studded fundraiser that's become an annual fixture at Cannes.DIFF chairman Abdulhamid Juma confirmed that Sharon Stone, ...
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Lebanese films start to take the spotlight in Cannes
Lebanon, unlike most other Arab nations this year, is having a good Cannes. Besides Danielle Arbid's A Lost Man and Nadine Labaki's hot Caramel in Directors' Fortnight, and a showcase of recent productions as part of Tous les Cinemas du Monde, the state-funded Fondation Liban Cinema is promoting a raft ...
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Nadine Labaki attracts buyer buzz with debut feature Caramel
Nadine Labaki shot Caramel - now attracting buyer buzz in Cannes after its Directors Fortnight debut -- in Beirut in late spring 2006, when the troubled city was in buoyant mood following the departure of the Syrian army. 'The timing was so fortuitous, something of a miracle,' says producer Anne-Dominique ...
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Dubai's Frontrow makes strong start in Cannes market
Dubai-based distributor Frontrow Films Entertainments has struck a number of deals here.Managing director Gianluca Chacra was the first distributor to pick up Rowan Woods’s LA-set drama Winged Creatures from Peace Arch (for the Middle East), currently in post-production. He’s also taken Meg Ryan/LL Cool J comedy The Deal from Peace ...
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English-language debut for Kiarostami
Cannes veteran Abbas Kiarostami is to make his his 24th film and first English-language production.The $6m MK2 production Certified Copy is set in Italy, and stars Juliette Binoche. Producer Marin Karmitz told Screen International they were looking to cast an English actor to play the lead role, James, a 50-year-old ...
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Samira Makhmalbaf to resume troubled Afghan film
Shooting on Two-Legged Horse, Samira Makhmalbaf's latest feature, will resume soon in an undisclosed location, she announced at Cannes. Her first feature in five years came to an abrupt end on March 28 when an extra threw a handheld bomb into the northern Afghanistan-based set.In Cannes with her father Mohsen, ...
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Abu Dhabi announces inaugural film festival and new film fund
The Gulf emirate of Abu Dhabi announced that it is launching an international film festival in October 2007, and also launching a film fund to support local, regional and international films, supported by an 'unlimited' government budget.Postioning itself as the burgeoning cultural hub of the Gulf, Sheikh Sultan bin Tahnoon ...
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Palme d'Or winner: Abbas Kiarostami
When Abbas Kiarostami's Taste Of Cherry shared the Palme d'Or with Shohei Imamura's The Eel at the 50th Cannes Film Festival in 1997, the Iranian auteur was no stranger to Cannes. Life And Nothing More had won the Un Certain Regard award in 1992; Through The Olive Trees screened in ...
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