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 Film Festival in Canada and the Sundance Film Festival in the United States. The Festivals are internationally acclaimed for giving creators the artistic freedom to express themselves through film. In 1951, FIAPF formally accredited the festival.
A Special Day is a 1977 period drama film directed and co-written by Ettore Scola, produced by Carlo Ponti, and starring Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni. Set in Rome in 1938, its narrative follows a housewife (Loren) and her neighbor who stay home the day Adolf Hitler visits Benito Mussolini.
Takashi Miike is a Japanese film director, film producer and screenwriter. He has directed over one hundred theatrical, video, and television productions since his debut in 1991. His films run through a variety of different genres, and range from violent and bizarre to dramatic and family-friendly movies. He is a controversial figure in the contemporary Japanese cinema industry, with several of his films being criticised for their extreme graphic violence. Some of his best known films are Audition, Ichi the Killer, Gozu, the Dead or Alive trilogy, and various remakes: Graveyard of Honor, Hara-kiri and 13 Assassins.
Shinya Tsukamoto is a Japanese filmmaker and actor. With a considerable cult following both domestically and abroad, Tsukamoto is best known for his body horror/cyberpunk film Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989), which is considered the defining film of the Japanese Cyberpunk movement, as well as for its companion pieces Tetsuo II: Body Hammer (1992) and Tetsuo: The Bullet Man (2009).
Suicide Club, known in Japan as Suicide Circle, is a 2001 Japanese independent horror film written and directed by Sion Sono. The film explores a wave of seemingly unconnected suicides that strikes Japan and the efforts of the police to determine the reasons behind the strange behavior.
Sion Sono is a Japanese filmmaker, author, and poet. Best known on the festival circuit for the film Love Exposure (2008), he has been called "the most subversive filmmaker working in Japanese cinema today", a "stakhanovist filmmaker" with an "idiosyncratic" career.
Marco Martins is a Portuguese Film and Theatre director, best known for his 2005 film Alice, which premiered at Cannes and won the Best Picture Award at the Directors' Fortnight.
Hazard is a 2005 Japanese film mostly shot in New York City, written and directed by Sion Sono, starring Joe Odagiri and Jai West. It is the story of three youths who attempt to avenge their rights in a society of criminals and thugs.
Love Exposure is a 2008 Japanese comedy-drama film written and directed by Sion Sono. The film gained a considerable amount of notoriety in film festivals around the world for its four-hour runtime and themes including love, family, lust, religion and the crime of upskirt photography. The first version was originally six hours long, but was trimmed at the request of the producers.
Alcove Entertainment is an independent film production and finance company, based in the UK and the UAE. Alcove Entertainment has occasionally acted as a distributor for its own films. The company was founded by Amina Dasmal and Robin Fox in 2005.
Sushi Typhoon is a Japanese genre film production company founded in 2010 and currently owned by media conglomerate Nikkatsu Corporation, Japan's oldest existing film studio.
Cold Fish is a 2010 Japanese film directed by Sion Sono. Cold Fish premiered at the 67th Venice International Film Festival on September 7, 2010, and received the best screenplay award in the Fantastic Features section at Fantastic Fest 2010. The film was released as part of the Bloody Disgusting Selects line.
Himizu (ヒミズ) is 2011 Japanese drama film based on the manga series of the same name by Minoru Furuya and directed by Sion Sono. The word himizu is the Japanese name for a species of mole. The film competed in competition at the 68th Venice International Film Festival in September. At the festival, Shōta Sometani and Fumi Nikaidō received the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best New Young Actor and Actress for their work in the film.
Why Don't You Play in Hell? is a 2013 Japanese film directed, written and scored by Sion Sono.
Patricio Valladares is a Chilean film director, screenwriter and comic book writer, best known for his work in horror films, who mixes elements of both arthouse and grindhouse, with an emphasis on modern extreme violence, action and some gore. He is also involved in comics and short movies, and frequently injects black humor or homages to grindhouse movies, along with artistic cinematography, somewhat intellectual dialogue and the occasional surrealism. His serial killers tend to make repeat appearances in his movies.
Cineville is an American streaming platform, production and international distribution company founded in 1990 by Carl Colpaert and Christoph Henkel. Cineville has produced over 55 feature films which have participated in many major film festivals.
The Whispering Star (ひそひそ星) is a 2015 Japanese science fiction film directed by Sion Sono. The film was released in 2015 and, in March 2016, was played during the Environmental Film Festival at the National Museum of American History, Warner Brothers Theater, in Washington, DC.
FRED is a London-based multichannel internet radio station, focusing on the world of independent cinema and international film festivals. FRED's mission is to promote and convey the unique and extraordinary experience of attending film festivals and at the same time spread the passion for independent cinema, in different languages, among different cultures.
Matthew Chozick is an American actor, writer, filmmaker, scholar, and television personality (tarento) in Japan.
Bodyguard Kiba: Apocalypse of Carnage 2, also known as Bodyguard Kiba 3: Second Apocalypse of Carnage, Bodyguard Kiba: Combat Apocalypse 2, or simply Bodyguard Kiba 3, is a 1995 Japanese direct-to-video martial arts/action film directed by Takashi Miike. It is the final part of Miike's Bodyguard Kiba trilogy, following the 1993 film Bodyguard Kiba and the 1994 film Bodyguard Kiba: Apocalypse of Carnage.
