One hundred and sixteen miles outside of Los Angeles, the desert town hosts the annual event through Jan. 16. This story appears in the Jan. 13 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. With the Palm Springs International Film Festival set to run Jan. 5 to 16 -- and with the annual Coachella music and arts fest coming in April -- it's high season for visiting the desert city 116 miles outside L.A., which is growing in popularity every year. Virgin America recently launched direct service from San Francisco and same-plane flights from JFK. (United Airlines long has run a costly L.A.-to-Palm Springs flight, but producer Jerry Weintraub -- who winters at his estate in the posh Bighorn community in nearby Palm Desert -- says he travels by private jet.) PHOTOS: 2011 Palm Springs Film Festival Gala The area also is heating up with a slew of new or soon-to-open hotels, from design-centric boutiques to a long-awaited luxury resort. Set to bow in February is THE SAGUARO (rooms from $169, 1800 … [Read more...] about Where to Sleep and Dine During the Palm Springs Film Festival

The annual fest has become a key global marketing platform for brands such as Elie Saab, Valentino and L'Oreal as style steals the film fest spotlight. This story first appeared in the May 17 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. If you think Cannes is just about movies, you’ve been hiding under the Croisette. While the Oscars and Met Ball were the fashion ne plus ultras for years, Cannes now gives those sartorial tentpoles a run for their euros. “Cannes is like two weeks of the Oscars,” says Sahar Sanjar of La Chambre, which represents Palais-steps mainstay Elie Saab. Adds Carlos Souza of Valentino: “Red carpets now rule the day — and the red carpet at Cannes is truly for the entire world.” More than even the Oscars, the fest connects brands to a global audience — including the Asian retail market — with ambassadors such as China’s Fan Bingbing and Li Bingbing and India’s Aishwarya Rai, Sonam Kapoor and Freida Pinto. To … [Read more...] about Cannes Film Festival Fashion: Why Major Designers Vie for Prime Festival Spots

The 60th Sydney Film Festival will open with Ivan Sen's "Mystery Road," also starring the Australian actor. SYDNEY - Australian actor Hugo Weaving will be a major presence at the 60th edition of the Sydney Film Festival, both as president of the international jury for the festival’s competition and starring in the opening night film, Ivan Sen’s Mystery Road. Weaving and the rest of the yet-to-be-announced jury will judge a total of twelve features competing for the $60,000 Sydney Film prize, for the sixth year of the festival's international competition. PHOTOS: 'Great Gatsby' Premiere: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jay-Z and Carey Mulligan Hit the Red Carpet The twelve films include five features in competition at this month’s Cannes Film Festival, three winners from the 2013 Berlin Film festival and two documentaries for the first time. Alex Van Warmerdam’s Borgman will compete at Sydney, coming direct from Cannes, as will Nicholas Winding Refn’s Only God Forgives, … [Read more...] about Hugo Weaving to Head Sydney Film Festival Jury

The South African festival will screen Asghar Farhadi's Cannes competition entry "The Past" and films from the likes of Wong Kar Wai, David Cronenberg and Bernardo Bertolucci. South Africa's Durban International Film Festival on Thursday unveiled the lineup for its 34th edition this summer, which will include 72 feature films, 48 documentaries and 45 shorts. Beyond its traditional focus on movies from South Africa and the rest of Africa, the festival will put a spotlight on U.S. independent films from the likes of Derek Cianfrance and works from European veterans such as Michael Winterbottom and Bernardo Bertolucci. African-noir film Of Good Report by Jahmil XT Qubeka, which tells the story of a serial killer obsessed with young girls, will open the Durban festival, while the closing film will be Free Angela and All Political Prisoners, directed by Shola Lynch. The documentary chronicles the life of young college professor Angela Davis, her social activism and how it implicates her in … [Read more...] about Durban Film Festival Unveils Lineup With 72 Features, 48 Docs

The Nelson Mandela biopic "Long Walk to Freedom" and the Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal-starrer "Prisoners" will also screen at the Canadian event in September. TORONTO – The Toronto International Film Festival unveiled most of its lineup on Tuesday, including films by John Wells, Ron Howard and Mike Myers'directorial debut. Among the first 13 features tapped to screen in the high-profile sidebar at Roy Thomson Hall is Wells’ dramedy August: Osage County from The Weinstein Co., starring Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts. Also getting gala treatment in Toronto is Myers’ documentary Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon, about the Hollywood talent manager. CLICK HERE TO SEE THE FULL LIST OF 2013 TIFF TITLES UNVEILED TUESDAY The Nelson Mandela biopic Long Walk to Freedom, from director Justin Chadwick, to be released by The Weinstein Co. on November 29, is also getting gala treatment, as is writer/director Peter Landesman's Parkland, which stars Zac Efron and Billy Bob … [Read more...] about 2013 Toronto Film Festival Lineup Includes ‘August: Osage County,’ Mike Myers’ Directorial Debut

Budget cuts and local political infighting haven't stopped Germany's answer to Sundance from celebrating its second decade in style. OLDENBURG – The Oldenburg International Film Festival kicked off its 20th anniversary this week in proper celebratory style with the gala premiere of Lola Randl’s drama, The Invention of Love. Randl, along with the film’s leads Sunnyi Melles and Mira Partecke, Oldenburg jury president Bobcat Goldthwait, festival-mainstay Seymour Cassel and filmmaker Xan Cassavetes were in attendance. For organizers, particularly festival founder and director Torsten Neumann, the relief was palpable. It’s been a tough year for Oldenburg, with previous budget cuts still in effect and a municipal standoff that has threatened to torpedo the indie festival billed as Germany’s answer to Sundance for years. PHOTOS: The Scene at the Toronto Film Festival 2013 It all started, as many of these conflicts do, with issues unrelated to the festival: as a … [Read more...] about Oldenburg Film Festival Celebrates 20 Years of Independent Spirit

Kelly Reichardt’s “Night Moves,” Stephen Frears’ “Philomena” and Chinese director Jia Zhangke’s Cannes winner “A Touch of Sin” will compete for the festival's best narrative feature award. Daniel Schechter’s Life of Crime, based on a novel by the late, great Elmore Leonard, will open this year’s Abu Dhabi Film Festival (ADFF). Described by Schechter as his “dream project,” it stars Jennifer Aniston and Tim Robbins and follows the misfortunes of two small-time criminals who hit it off in prison and decide to join forces for a big score on the outside. It premiered as the closing film of this year’s Toronto Film Festival. PHOTOS: Toronto: Exclusive Instagram Photos of the Fest's Biggest Stars In the festival's main feature competition, also announced today, highlights include Kelly Reichardt’s Night Moves, starring Jesse Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning and Peter Sarsgaard; Stephen Frears’ Philomena, … [Read more...] about Daniel Schechter’s ‘Life of Crime’ to Open Abu Dhabi Film Festival

Hirokazu Kore-eda's switched at birth drama, recently picked up for a remake by Dreamworks, wins Best Picture and Best Director at the cinema awards show hosted in Macau. Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda was the big winner at the Asia Pacific Film Festival awards in Macau over the weekend, taking the key categories of Best Picture and Best Director with his film Like Father, Like Son. Organized by the Federation of Motion Picture Producers in Asia-Pacific (FPA), the APFF is one of the region's oldest film events. The first edition, established to promote Asian cinema and encourage cross-border collaboration, was held in Tokyo in 1954. Member territories have taken turns hosting in the years since. Kore-eda's domestic drama, about the families of two sons switched at birth, premiered at this year's Cannes film festival, where Steven Spielberg was jury president. The film won the Cannes Jury Prize and Dreamworks bought the remake rights in September. Zhang Ziyi took Best Actress for … [Read more...] about Japan’s ‘Like Father Like Son’ Wins Big at Asia-Pacific Film Festival Awards

Jeff Goldblum, Toni Collette, Lake Bell, Whoopi Goldberg and Catherine Hardwicke are among the 33-person jury for the fest, which runs April 16-27. The Tribeca Film Festival announced on Tuesday the 33 jury members for the 2014 event, including actors Jeff Goldblum, Toni Collette, Lake Bell, Whoopi Goldberg, Heather Graham, Anton Yelchin and Paul Wesley. The Hunger Games director Gary Ross and Sheila Nevins, president of HBO Documentary Films, are also among the jury members. STORY: Tribeca: Nas Documentary 'Time Is Illmatic' to Receive Inaugural Candescent Award The jury will be divided among the seven competitive categories during the festival, which runs April 16-27. The winning films, filmmakers and actors in each category will be announced at the TFF Awards Night ceremony on April 24. “The diverse group of voices that make up this year’s jury will make for very interesting deliberations,” said Jane Rosenthal, co-founder of the Tribeca Film Festival. The seven … [Read more...] about Tribeca Film Festival Jury Announced

UPDATED: Films from Tommy Lee Jones, Bennett Miller, David Cronenberg, Jean-Luc Godard, Michel Hazanavicius, Ken Loach and Mike Leigh will all compete for the Palme d'Or. PARIS – Tommy Lee Jones' The Homesman, Moneyball director Bennett Miller's Foxcatcher, The Artist director Michel Hazanavicius' Chechnya war film The Search, Ken Loach's Jimmy's Hall and David Cronenberg's Maps to the Stars will all be part of the competition lineup of the 67th edition of the Cannes Film Festival in May. The lineup is heavy on films featuring Hollywood and international stars, but somewhat light on U.S. directors. Female directors have a strong presence this year. Overall, 18 films, down from 20 last year, will compete for the festival's main award, the Palme d'Or. One film could be added, organizers said. The opening film, Olivier Dahan's Grace of Monaco, will screen out of competition. PHOTOS: 50 Exclusive Portraits From Cannes 2013 Other competition titles include Mike Leigh's Mr. Turner … [Read more...] about Cannes Film Festival Unveils Lineup

UPDATED: Last year's best screenplay winner, Zhangke Jia from China, also will join the Jane Campion-led jury. PARIS – With Palme d'Or-winning director Jane Campion previously announced as the jury president for the 67th edition of the Cannes film festival, organizers announced an eclectic mix of Cannes regulars and international actors to round out the main competition jury Monday morning. This year's jurors will be director Sofia Coppola and actor Willem Dafoe representing the U.S. French actress Carole Bouquet, South Korean actress Do-yeon Jeon, Iranian actress Leila Hatami, Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal, Chinese director Jia Zhangke, and Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn. Festival regulars Coppola and Winding Refn will make return appearances to the Croisette. Winding Refn took home the best director prize for the Ryan Gosling vehicle Drive in 2011, and he returned with Only God Forgives in official competition last year. PHOTOS: Cannes: Steven Spielberg, Nicole Kidman … [Read more...] about Cannes Film Fest Adds Sofia Coppola, Willem Dafoe, Nicolas Winding Refn to Competition Jury

New films from Woody Allen, Todd Haynes, Gus Van Sant and Natalie Portman along with Pixar's 'Inside Out' are set for the Croisette. At a packed Paris press conference on Thursday morning, Cannes Film Festival director Thierry Fremaux and president Pierre Lescure unveiled a star-studded lineup for the festival’s 68th edition. Among the competition titles: Gus Van Sant's Sea of Trees, starring Matthew McConaughey and Naomi Watts; 1950’s romantic drama Carol by Todd Haynes, starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara; Denis Villeneuve's cartel thriller Sicario with Benicio Del Toro, Josh Brolin and Emily Blunt; Cannes regular Nanni Moretti's autobiographical drama Mia madre, which co-stars John Turturro and opens Thursday in Italy; and fellow Italian auteur Paolo Sorrentino's second foray into English-language filmmaking, Youth, starring Rachel Weisz and Michael Caine. Adding more star power, the festival will have out of competition screenings for the likes of Woody Allen's … [Read more...] about Cannes Film Festival Unveils Lineup for 68th Edition

Despite a censorship conflict over an anti-government doc (and slashed funding that followed), the event celebrates its 20th edition thanks to the help of some very powerful friends. This story first appeared in the Oct. 2 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe. Since its humble beginnings in 1996, the Busan International Film Festival has grown to become Asia's largest and most prestigious film event. But instead of enjoying a much-deserved victory lap for its 20th anniversary edition in 2015, the celebrated South Korean fest unexpectedly finds itself at a crossroads. The trouble began in October, when festival director Lee Yong-kwan refused to heed political demands to cancel the world premiere of The Truth Shall Not Sink With Sewol, a trenchant guerrilla documentary about government incompetence and media collusion in the aftermath of the April 2014 South Korean ferry disaster that left more than 300 passengers, mostly high school … [Read more...] about Busan: Asia’s Biggest Film Festival Tries to Overcome Hurdles

A female-led fest team has dubbed 2015 its "year of the strong woman," and unlike some events (Cannes, anyone?), it's not just talk. A version of this story first appeared in the Oct. 9 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe. While much of the slowly crescendoing noise around Hollywood's ongoing gender-equality debate has, understandably, been coming from Hollywood itself, across the Atlantic, the Brits have been serving up their own colorful views on the issue. Never one to shy away from a good swear word, Emma Thompson recently said the situation was worse than ever and, in more Thompson-esque tones, "still completely shit." Carey Mulligan has spoken out against the "sexist film industry," especially with regard to stories about women, while Helen Mirren took a leaf from Thompson's coloring book by stating it was "f—ing outrageous" that 30-something actresses often are considered too old to play the love interests of men in … [Read more...] about London Film Festival Goes Full Femme, Honors Cate Blanchett

The event, run by Russian state film archive Gosfilmofond, is set to take place in May and feature movies rejected by major international festivals, many of which "have become biased," Gosfilmofond's head says. Russia will launch a film festival in Nice, France as "an alternative" to the Cannes International Film Festival in May 2016, screening movies that were rejected by major international fests. "Many well-known festivals have become biased, especially Cannes, Venice and Berlin," Nikolai Borodachev, head of the Russian state film archive Gosfilmofond, which is set to run the event, was quoted as saying by the Russian daily Izvestia. "When I was at Locarno this year, I had this idea of a festival that will be an alternative to Cannes," he went on to say. "Let them have a festival in Cannes, and in Nice, we will screen films that were not accepted by large international forums." 2016 will be "the year of cinema" in Russia, which means extra funding for the film sector and, … [Read more...] about Russia to Run Film Festival in Nice as Cannes “Alternative”

Kirsten Dunst and Donald Sutherland are among those that will join president George Miller on the jury. Jury president George Miller will be joined by a bevy of past prize winners on this year's Cannes Film Festival jury. American actress Kirsten Dunst, who won the best actress prize at Cannes for Melancholia in 2011 and starred in Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette (2006), and Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen, who won the best actor prize four years ago for his performance in The Hunt, are among those who will walk the red carpet with the Mad Max helmer. Hungarian director Laszlo Nemes — whose first feature Son of Saul was a major surprise last year, winning the fest's Grand Prize and going on to win the best foreign-language film Oscar — also will be on this year's panel. Festival director Thierry Fremaux told The Hollywood Reporter that that film was "the biggest revelation" for him last year. Italian multihyphenate Valeria Golina, probably best known to American audiences for … [Read more...] about Cannes Film Festival Unveils Jury

The Toronto International Film Festival's announcement this week of a chunk of its 2014 lineup was the first demonstrable proof that distributors — and major filmmakers — are taking sides in an ugly dispute between Toronto and the Telluride Film Festival. Tuesday's announcement indicates, and multiple sources confirm, that Jason Reitman and Noah Baumbach, who both have histories of debuting films at Telluride, are abandoning that event and will be taking their new films — Reitman's Men, Women and Children (Paramount) and Baumbach's While We're Young (still seeking a U.S. distributor) — exclusively to Toronto. Meanwhile, Telluride has snagged the world premiere of Wild, the new film by Canadian filmmaker Jean-Marc Vallee, according to sources. Vallee debuted his last film, Dallas Buyers Club, at Toronto, but will unveil his new film, a Fox Searchlight release, in the Rockies before it then goes on to screen in Toronto. Both fests are undoubtedly ticked, but reps … [Read more...] about Toronto Film Festival’s Anti-Telluride Policy May Be Backfiring (Analysis)

The annual event, which kicks off with Paul Greengrass' "Captain Phillips," has unveiled a lineup that includes many returning directors as well as films that were greeted enthusiastically in Cannes. The Film Society of Lincoln Center has selected 35 films that will screen as the main slate at the 51st New York Film Festival, which runs from Sept. 27 to Oct. 1. The lineup includes a hefty sampling of films that played this year's Cannes Film Festival as well as the work of more than a dozen directors whose work was previously featured at the New York fest. The Cannes-approved titles include Abdellatif Kechiche's Blue Is the Warmest Color, winner of the 2013 Palm d'Or, as well as Joel and Ethan Coen's Inside Llewyn Davis, which won the Grand Prix Award; best screenplay winner Jia Zhangke's A Touch of Sin; Rithy Panh's The Missing Picture, winner of the Un Certain Regard prize; and Alexander Payne's Nebraska, for which Bruce Dern won Cannes' best actor award. Other films that also … [Read more...] about New York Film Festival Announces Full Slate