The Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) is an annual fortnight of cinema screenings and related events taking place each June. Established in 1947, it is the world's oldest continually running film festival. EIFF presents both UK and international films, in all genres and lengths. It also presents themed retrospectives and other specialised programming strands. The 2016 edition was the Festival's 70th. Spain was the country focus in 2019. The 73rd edition of EIFF ran from 19 – 30 June 2019. The full programme was announced on 29 May 2019.
The Busan International Film Festival, held annually in Haeundae-gu, Busan, South Korea, is one of the most significant film festivals in Asia. The first festival, held from 13 to 21 September 1996, was also the first international film festival in Korea. The main focus of the BIFF is to introduce new films and first-time directors, especially those from Asian countries. Another notable feature is the appeal of the festival to young people, both in terms of the large youthful audience it attracts and through its efforts to develop and promote young talent. In 1999, the Pusan Promotion Plan was established to connect new directors to funding sources. The 16th BIFF in 2011 saw the festival move to a new permanent home, the Busan Cinema Center in Centum City. The Busan Cinema Center is an about USD 150 million structure designed by Austria-based architecture collective Coop Himmelblau. The about 30,000 m² Cinema Center includes a 4,000-seat outdoor theatre; four indoor screens under an LED-covered roof; media centre; archive space; and conference rooms; allowing the festival to include industry forums and educational activities.
The Bergen International Film Festival (BIFF) is a film festival held annually in October in Bergen, Norway since 2000, and is the largest film festival in the nation in number of films. The 17th edition of the festival in 2016 featured 160 films in the program. The festival leader is Tor Fosse, and BIFF is owned by Bergen Cinema.
The Brisbane International Film Festival (BIFF) is an annual film festival held in Brisbane, Australia. Organised by the Screen Culture unit at Screen Queensland, the festival has taken place since 1992, with the program including features, documentaries, shorts, experimental efforts, retrospectives, late night thrillers, animation, and children's films. The festival has attracted more than 400,000 visitors across its history. The festival was replaced by the Brisbane Asia Pacific Film Festival from 2014-2016 but has been revived in 2017 while the Brisbane Asia Pacific Film Festival has ceased operations. In 2018, BIFF will be held at Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA), with screenings to be held across multiple venues.
The Beloit International Film Festival (BIFF) is an annual film festival in Beloit, Wisconsin, usually held in mid-February. The first edition of the festival took place in 2006. BIFF has evolved from a single weekend to now span 10 days and seven venues. Most venues are in downtown Beloit and within easy walking distance between each. With more than 300 volunteers, it is a community-wide effort, welcoming filmmakers from across the nation and around the world.
Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community is a 1984 American documentary film about the LGBT community prior to the 1969 Stonewall riots. It was narrated by author Rita Mae Brown, directed by Greta Schiller, co-directed by Robert Rosenberg, and co-produced by John Scagliotti and Rosenberg, and Schiller. It premiered at the 1984 Toronto Festival of Festivals and was released in the United States on June 27, 1985. In 1999, producer Scagliotti directed a companion piece, After Stonewall. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Teddy Awards, the film was shown at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2016. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in 2019, the film was restored and re-released by First Run Features in June 2019. Later in 2019, the film was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
The Boulder International Film Festival (BIFF), sponsored by the Colorado Film Society, is held annually on Presidents Day Weekend in Boulder, Colorado USA, and has developed a reputation as one of the most compelling young film festivals in the U.S., exhibiting a number of new-but-unknown feature films, documentaries, animations, and shorts that have gone on to significant box-office success and multiple Oscar nominations, including Monsieur Lazhar, Burma VJ, Revanche, Wasp, Miracle Fish, The Conscience of Nhem Eh, Waste Land, Incident in New Baghdad, Instead of Abracadabra, Raju, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, West Bank Story, The Secret of Kells, 5 Broken Cameras, Chasing Ice, Curfew, Asad,The Missing Picture, and The Wind Rises. More than 23,600 filmmakers, national media, special guests and film enthusiasts attended the four-day BIFF 2014.
The 66th annual Venice International Film Festival, held in Venice, Italy, was held from 2 to 12 September 2009, with Maria Grazia Cucinotta serving as the festival's hostess. The opening film of the festival was Baarìa by Giuseppe Tornatore and the closing film was Chengdu, I Love You by Fruit Chan and Cui Jian. The international competition jury, chaired by Ang Lee, awarded the Golden Lion to Lebanon by Samuel Maoz.
Kazuo Hara is a Japanese documentary film director. After dropping out of university to work at a special education school, he made his 1972 debut work Goodbye CP about a group of individuals with cerebral palsy. He won the award for Best Director at the 12th Hochi Film Award and at the 9th Yokohama Film Festival for The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On. That film also earned him the Directors Guild of Japan New Directors Award. In 2017 he released the documentary Sennan Asbestos Disaster which received the 2017 Audience Award at the Tokyo Filmex International Film Festival and the 2017 BIFF Mecenat Award at the Busan International Film Festival. His documentary works often depict people who push against the boundaries of propriety and obedience in Japanese society.
Searching for Sugar Man is a 2012 Swedish–British–Finnish documentary film about a South African cultural phenomenon, directed and written by Malik Bendjelloul, which details the efforts in the late 1990s of two Cape Town fans, Stephen "Sugar" Segerman and Craig Bartholomew Strydom, to find out whether the rumoured death of American musician Sixto Rodriguez was true and, if not, to discover what had become of him. Rodriguez's music, which had never achieved success in the United States, had become very popular in South Africa although little was known about him in that country.
The Bengaluru International Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Bengaluru, the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka, which previews films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1996, Suchitra Bangalore International Film Festival, was held for a week from 22 to 28 December 2006 in collaboration with Suchitra Film Society. More than 100 films were screened during festival.
Mehrdad Oskouei is an Iranian independent producer, director and screenwriter of documentary films and film educator.
The Storm Makers is a 2014 documentary film directed by Guillaume Suon about human trafficking in Cambodia. The term "Storm Makers" refers to the traffickers and the damage they inflict on villages and families. One such trafficker shown in the film claims he has sold more than 500 Cambodian girls, some as young as 14.
Hemanth M. Rao is an Indian film director and screenwriter who works in Kannada cinema. He rose to fame following the success of his directorial debut Godhi Banna Sadharana Mykattu (2016).
Jung Sung-il is a South Korean film critic, director and screenwriter. A well regarded film critic-turned-director, Jung debuted with the romance melodrama film Cafe Noir (2009). His next two works document two well-known directors: Night and Fog in Zona (2015) on Chinese documentary filmmaker Wang Bing, and Cloud, Encore (2018) on Korean filmmaker Im Kwon-taek.
Night and Fog in Zona is a 2015 South Korean documentary film directed by Jung Sung-il. The cine-essay follows the renowned Chinese filmmaker Wang Bing as he works on two of his projects, 'Til Madness Do Us Part (2013) and Alone (2013). It made its world premiere at the 20th Busan International Film Festival in 2015.
The 66th National Film Awards ceremony was the award ceremony which took place in 2019 to honour the best films of 2018, in the Indian cinema. The declaration of awards was delayed due to 2019 Indian general election.
The Biggest Little Farm is a 2018 American documentary film, directed by Emmy Award Winning director John Chester. The film profiles the life of Chester and his wife Molly as they acquire and establish themselves on Apricot Lane Farms in Moorpark, California.
Bunkar: The Last of the Varanasi Weavers is an Indian documentary that focuses on the lives of the weavers of Varanasi. It was directed by Satyaprakash Upadhyay. It showcases the nuances of the handloom sector in Varanasi, what makes it stand out from other handloom products and the issues that affect its artisans. The film was made in 2018 and had its world premiere in the Indian Panorama at 49th International Film Festival of India in Goa. The film's director, Satyaprakash Upadhyay, has also won Best Debutante Director (Documentary) Award at Jaipur International Film Festival (JIFF) 2019. It won "Best arts and culture film" in the 2018 National Film Awards.
Jan Komasa is a Polish film director, screenwriter, and producer best known for directing the films Suicide Room (2011), Warsaw 44 (2014), Corpus Christi (2019). His films were premiered or won awards at Cannes Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, Berlin Film Festival, Venice Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival. His film Corpus Christi (2019) was nominated for the Best International Feature Film at the 92nd Academy Awards.
