The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival is an annual film festival held in Venice, Italy. It is the world's oldest film festival and one of the "Big Five" International film festivals worldwide, which include the Big Three European Film Festivals, alongside the Toronto International Film Festival in Canada and the Sundance Film Festival in the United States. These festivals are internationally renowned for giving creators the artistic freedom to express themselves through film. In 1951, FIAPF formally accredited the festival.
Michelangelo Antonioni was an Italian director and filmmaker. He is best known for his "trilogy on modernity and its discontents"—L'Avventura (1960), La Notte (1961), and L'Eclisse (1962)—and the English-language film Blowup (1966). His films have been described as "enigmatic and intricate mood pieces" that feature elusive plots, striking visual composition, and a preoccupation with modern landscapes. His work substantially influenced subsequent art cinema. Antonioni received numerous awards and nominations throughout his career, being the only director to have won the Palme d'Or, the Golden Lion, the Golden Bear and the Golden Leopard.
Sir Carol Reed was an English film director and producer, best known for Odd Man Out (1947), The Fallen Idol (1948), The Third Man (1949), and Oliver! (1968), for which he was awarded the Academy Award for Best Director.
Penmetsa Ram Gopal Varma, often referred to by his initials RGV, is an Indian film director, screenwriter and producer, known for his works in Telugu cinema in addition to Hindi, Kannada language films, and television. Varma has directed films across multiple genres, including parallel cinema and docudrama noted for their gritty realism, technical finesse, and craft. Regarded as one of the pioneers of new age Indian cinema, he was featured in the BBC World series Bollywood Bosses in 2004. In 2006, Grady Hendrix of Film Comment, published by the Film at Lincoln Center cited Varma as "Bombay's Most Successful Maverick" for his works on experimental films.
Flower & Garnet is a Canadian drama film, written and directed by Keith Behrman and released in 2002.
Sanjay Leela Bhansali is an Indian filmmaker and music composer, who is known for his work in Hindi films. He is the recipient of several awards, including seven National Film Awards and 12 Filmfare Awards, in addition to a nomination for a BAFTA Award. In 2015, the Government of India honoured him with the Padma Shri, the fourth-highest civilian award. Critically acclaimed for his use of aesthetics, musical vision and Period dramas, Bhansali is regarded as one of the best filmmakers of Indian cinema.
Hugh Hudson was an English film director. He was among a generation of British directors who would begin their career making documentaries and television commercials before going on to have success in films.
Eric Khoo Kim Hai is a Singaporean film director and producer who is often credited for the revival of the Singapore modern film industry.
Mitchell Wilson Lichtenstein is an American actor, writer, producer, and director.
Saint Ralph is a 2004 Canadian comedy-drama film written and directed by Michael McGowan. Its central character is a teenage boy who trains for the 1954 Boston Marathon in the hope a victory will be the miracle his mother needs to awaken from a coma.
Raghupati Dwarakanath Dixit is an Indian singer-composer, producer, and film score composer who is the frontman for the Raghu Dixit Project, a multilingual folk music band. Dixit prominently works in Kannada cinema as soundtrack composer.
Christian-Jaque was a French filmmaker. From 1954 to 1959, he was married to actress Martine Carol, who starred in several of his films, including Lucrèce Borgia (1953), Madame du Barry (1954), and Nana (1955). In 1961 he married Laurence Christol
Zombie is a 1995 horror novel by American writer Joyce Carol Oates, which explores the mind of a serial killer. It was based on the life of Jeffrey Dahmer.
The Frameline Film Festival began as a storefront event in 1976. The first film festival, named the Gay Film Festival of Super-8 Films, was held in 1977. The festival is organized by Frameline, a nonprofit media arts organization whose mission statement is "to change the world through the power of queer cinema". It is the oldest LGBTQ+ film festival in the world.
The Orphanage is a 2007 gothic supernatural horror film directed by J. A. Bayona in his directorial full-length debut. The film stars Belén Rueda as Laura, Fernando Cayo as her husband, Carlos, and Roger Príncep as their adopted son Simón. The plot centers on Laura, who returns to her childhood home, an orphanage. Laura plans to turn the house into a home for disabled children, but after an argument with Simón, he goes missing. The film is an international co-production film between Spain and Mexico.
Rodolfo R. Lana Jr., known professionally as Jun Robles Lana, is a Filipino filmmaker. The winner of 11 Palanca Awards for Literature, he became the youngest member of the Palanca Hall of Fame in 2006. In 2015, he directed the actual one-shot film, Shadow Behind The Moon, which won the Best Director, NETPAC and FIPRESCI awards at the 13th Pacific Meridian Film Festival. At the 20th International Film Festival of Kerala, he won the Best Director award for the same film.
Father is a 2000 Chinese film directed by the writer Wang Shuo. To date, it is Wang's first and only directorial effort. The film is based on Wang's own novel, Wo Shi Ni Baba. Despite being partially backed by the state-run Beijing Film Studio, Father suffered from years of bureaucratic red tape due to being seen as an interpretation of as deconstructing authority in China. Made in 1996, the film was not screened until 2000, when it surreptitiously premiered at the 2000 Locarno International Film Festival.
Old Partner is a 2008 South Korean documentary film directed by Lee Chung-ryoul. Set in the small rural town of Hanul-ri in Sangun-myeon, Bonghwa County, North Gyeongsang Province, the film focuses on the relationship between a 40-year-old cow and an old farmer in his 80s.
What a Wonderful Place is a 2005 Israeli drama film directed by Eyal Halfon. It includes three seemingly unrelated storylines which intersect at the end, set in southern Tel Aviv, the Arabah and an unidentified Israeli urban suburb. The film deals with issues of trafficking of women and the lives of foreign workers in Israel.
Goran Rušinović is a Croatian film director and screenwriter.
