In a ceremony as lavish as the Arabian Nights, Dubai wrapped up its third international film festival on Sunday night with new cash awards for Arab cinema scooped up by Algerian, Tunisian and Palestinian films.
The festival's top prize -- $50,000 for best feature film -- went to "Barakat!", an Algerian road movie about a woman's quest to find her husband after he is kidnapped by Islamic militants.
Iranian graphic designer Reza Abedini will receive the Prince Claus Award, a sum of € 100,000.00, in the Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ in Amsterdam on 13 December 2006. Reza Abedini teaches graphic design and visual culture at the University of Teheran, and also works as an independent art director. He is the driving force behind the Iranian Biennial for graphic design.
Algerian-descended film director Rachid Bouchareb's powerful new war film, 'Days of Glory' which tells the little known story of the 300,000 Arab and north African troops who helped liberate France and Italy during World War II, has helped shame the French authorities into belatedly paying full pensions to the 80,000 surviving ex-colonial soldiers, repairing a half century of injustice. These men have since 1959 received a fraction of what French military veterans receive.
Gillo Pontecorvo, one of Italy's leading filmmakers renowned for 'The Battle of Algiers', a realistic representation of Algeria's independence war against France, died on Thursday night. He was 86. The Battle of Algiers, which Pontecorvo wrote with Franco Solinas and directed in 1966, won the Venice film festival that year and was nominated for three Oscars - best director, screenplay and foreign film. The documentary-style movie showed the plight of Algerians during the 1954-62 war, denouncing the bombings and torture of civilians by the French military. It was banned in France until 1972 and in Britain until 1969.
The Chicago International Film Festival ends this week, with the award for Best Film going to Iranian director Asghar Farhadi's "Fireworks Wednesday."
Michael Kutza, founder and artistic director of the festival, announced the winners for this year at the Feature Film Competitions.
The networking site MySpace announced that it is sponsoring "Rock for Darfur," a fundraising project including concerts across the United States.
At least 20 concerts are scheduled on Oct.21.
MySpace also plans a public service commercial featuring Samuel L.Jackson to be shown in movie theaters in October and has created a "Rock for Darfur" page on its site with video footage from George Clooney's trip to Darfur and footage from an upcoming documentary, "The Devil Came on Horseback."
|
|||||||||
