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Asia's most significant film education program, Chanel X Biff Asian Film Academy, has appointed this year's dean and faculty, beginning the preparations for its 2023 edition.

The 2023 Chanel X Biff Asian Film Academy's faculty consists of director Suwa Nobuhiro as dean, director Kim Hee-Jung as directing mentor, and cinematographer Artur Żurawski as cinematography mentor. Through this year's faculty appointment, a blueprint for discovering new talents in Asian cinema is underway.

Director Suwa Nobuhiro, who is set to lead the 2023 Chanel X Biff Asian Film Academy, came to the forefront with his official debut, 2/Duo (1997) which was honoured with the Netpac Award at the 1997 Rotterdam International Film Festival and a Special Mention for the Dragons and Tigers Award at the 1997 Vancouver International Film Festival. Following his debut, he received the Fipresci Award at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival with his second film, M/Other (1999), and the Jury's Special Prize and C.I.C.

Emirati Movie

British actor Jefferson Hall will soon appear on screen in Emirati director Nayla Al Khaja’s psychological thriller “Three,” about a young boy who appears to be possessed.

Al Khaja – who is known for standout shorts including horror film “The Shadow” and “Animal” that both play on Netflix – has just wrapped the independently-produced “Three,” her debut feature, which was shot in Thailand.

Besides, Hall, “Three” also stars Faten Ahmed; Noura Alabed (“Wiladah”); veteran U.A.E. actor Mari Al Halyan (“On Borrowed Time”); Mohannad Bin Huthail (“Rashash”) and emerging Emirati talent Saud Alzarooni.

“Three” marks a rare case of a drama in which a Brit becomes enmeshed with the core of an Emirati family. The film unfolds in an unspecified modern-day Middle Eastern city, where a young boy named Ahmed begins exhibiting strange behavior, eventually leading his mother Maryam, to believe he is possessed. As the plot thickens,...

Japanese Director Nobuhiro Suwa most recent film “The Phone of the Wind” is set for release on January 24, 2020. The drama is inspired by true events, in 2011 Itaru Sasaki built a white telephone booth in a garden, as a way to communicate to his cousin who passed away in the 2010 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. The phone booth served thousands of people to help them mourn the passing of loved ones. A trailer for the production was previously made available, and can be viewed below.

Synopsis

Haru in Hiroshima goes back to her hometown in Iwate Prefecture. She comes upon the “Wind’s Telephone.” Set in a garden, the “Wind’s Telephone” is a white phone booth with a black telephone placed in it. The phone booth is not connected to any telephone lines or wires. People come here to talk to those that passed away or are missing. During Haru’s journey,...

Films from Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano, Alexandros Avranas and Diego Lerman added to competition line-up.

Further competition titles for the 2017 San Sebastian Film Festival (22-30 September) have been announced, including The Disaster Artist.

Written, directed and starring James Franco, the project tells the story of Tommy Wiseau’s infamous cult film The Room. It will also appear at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Other titles competing for the Golden Shell include Diego Lerman’s A Sort Of Family (Una Especie De Familia); Love Me Not from Alexandros Avranas; Barbara Albert’s Mademoiselle Paradis; and The Lion Sleeps Tonight from Nobuhiro Suwa.

Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano’s C’est La Vie!, Ivana Mladenovic’s Soldiers. Story From Ferentari and Matt Porterfield’s Sollers Point have also been announced.

Alexandros Avranas won the best director Silver Lion at Venice for Miss Violence in 2013. Diego Lerman’s Suddenly won the Silver Leopard at the Locarno Festival in 2002.

Nakache...

Exclusive: Svod service adds six titles, including Berlin Panorama opener I, Olga and Mathieu Amalric drama; theatrical, UK and Us deals among haul.

Ambitious Svod service Mubi has secured world digital rights to two titles and UK theatrical and digital rights on four more.

Mubi has secured all UK and Ireland rights for Berlinale Panorama opener I, Olga, Tomas Weinreb and Petr Kazda’s intense re-telling of the Czech murderess Olga Hepnarova, set in 1970s Prague.

Mubi will premiere the feature in cinemas and on the service in the coming months.

Mubi has secured rights in Us, UK and Ireland for Rachel Lang’s feature length debut, Baden Baden, and also rights in the UK and Ireland for Eugène Green’s latest feature, Son Of Joseph. They will both premiere in cinemas and on the service later this year.

The company has inked global digital rights on Luis Lopez-Carrasco’s experimental 80s-set Locarno 2013 title El Futuro...

Chicago – What can be said for a man who has portrayed Jesus close to 5,000 times, and starred in the definitive Broadway and film versions of the most famous rock opera about Christ? Ted Neeley is as virtuous as his famous title role in “Jesus Christ Superstar.”

Ted Neeley had the perfect show business start when coming of age in the 1960s. After venturing out of his native Texas to find a music career in Los Angeles, Neeley landed the role of Claude in both the Los Angeles and New York versions of “Hair” in 1969. The director of that show remembered Neeley when he was casting for the Broadway stage version of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s rock opera, “Jesus Christ Superstar.” He understudied in New York, and played the role on Broadway and in Los Angeles. That garnered interest from the producers of the 1973 film version, and he...

Actress Marta Heflin has died at the age of 68. The daughter of actress Frances Heflin and the niece of actor Van Heflin, she appeared on Broadway in the 1960s and early 1970s in Fiddler On The Roof, Hair, and Jesus Christ Superstar. She made her movie debut in 1976 in the Barbra Streisand-Kris Kristofferson A Star Is Born, then appeared in Robert Altman’s ensemble comedy A Wedding (1978), kicking off a fruitful partnership. A year later, Altman cast Heflin as the female lead in his romantic comedy A Perfect Couple, where she was a last-minute replacement for Sandy ...

Marta Heflin, who was known for her roles in film, television and on Broadway, died on Sept. 18 after a long illness, according to a paid obituary in The New York Times.  She was 68. She frequently worked with director Robert Altman, including the comedy musical A Perfect Couple, A Wedding and Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean Jimmy Dean.  She starred alongside Barbra Streisand in A Star is Born.  A versatile performer, her roles on Broadway included Fiddler on the Roof, Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar.  She performed cabaret frequently at New York City nightclubs. Broadway: Fiddler on the Roof, Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar, Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean Jimmy Dean...

Marta Heflin, the niece of the Oscar-winning actor Van Heflin and an accomplished actress in her own right, died Sept. 18 after a lengthy illness, according to a paid obituary in The New York Times. She was 68. A stage and cabaret performer with large eyes and a waifish frame that often belied her commanding presence, Heflin frequently worked with film director Robert Altman, in such movies as Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (Altman and Heflin also worked on the Broadway stage version together), A Perfect Couple and A Wedding. In addition, reports The Times, Heflin...

Broadway actress Marta Heflin dead at 68: Featured in several Robert Altman movies (photo: Marta Heflin in ‘A Perfect Couple’) Stage actress Marta Heflin, who was featured in a handful of movies in the ’70s and early ’80s, including three Robert Altman efforts, died on September 18, 2013, after "a long illness." Heflin (born on March 29, 1945, in Washington, D.C.) was 68. On Broadway, Marta Heflin was featured in the musicals Fiddler on the Roof, Hair, Soon, and Jesus Christ Superstar (replacing Yvonne Elliman as Mary Magdalene). Additionally, she was seen in Ed Graczyk’s Robert Altman-directed 1982 play Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, about a group of James Dean fans — among them Karen Black, Cher, Sandy Dennis, Kathy Bates, Sudie Bond, and Mark Patton — who get together on the twentieth anniversary of Dean’s death. Marta Heflin movies Along with her fellow Come Back to the Five and Dime,...

Marta Heflin, an actress from a famous Hollywood family who appeared for Robert Altman in the Broadway and film versions of Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, has died. She was 68. Heflin, who also starred as a young groupie matched up with a middle-aged businessman (Paul Dooley) in Altman’s romantic comedy A Perfect Couple, died Sept. 18 after a long illness, according to a paid obituary in The New York Times. Heflin’s uncle was Oscar-winning actor Van Heflin (Johnny Eager, Shane, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers), and her aunt was Frances

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Turbo movie box office: A costly disappointment-in-the-making? DreamWorks Animation / 20th Century Fox’s Turbo debuted on Wednesday at 3,551 North American locations, grossing a barely passable $5.55 million according to figures found at Box Office Mojo. True, Turbo isn’t a sequel like Despicable Me 2 or Monsters University, but the 3D animated feature cost a reported $135 million. Could Turbo be thus considered a domestic box-office flop-in-the-making? Well, that’s much too early to tell, as animated films at times develop sturdy legs — and not only in the U.S. and Canada, but elsewhere as well. (Image: Turbo snail racer.) (Friday, July 19, update: Following a solid Thursday midnight debut, it looks like the domestic weekend box office will belong to the low-budget horror movie The Conjuring. The paragraph below has been slightly amended to reflect that.) Box-office pundits had been expecting Turbo to top the domestic box-office chart this weekend, with approximately $28-30 million,...

We already shared some pretty cool clips and posters for the upcoming rom-com I Give It a Year, remember? Good, ’cause now is the perfect moment to take another look at Rose Byrne, Rafe Spall, Anna Faris and Simon Baker, who (in case you forgot) all star in Dan Mazer‘s directorial debut. Head inside to check them out! Described as a movie that lifts the veil on the realities of the first year of marriage, the upcoming British comedy revolves around ambitious high-flyer Nat, played by Byrne, and a struggling novelist Josh, played by Spall. A perfect couple despite their differences, whose wedding is a dream...

Director Robert Altman.

Robert Altman: Eclectic Maverick

By

Alex Simon

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the April 1999 issue of Venice Magazine.

It's the Fall of 1977 and I'm a bored and rebellious ten year old in search of a new movie to occupy my underworked and creativity-starved brain, feeling far too mature for previous favorites Wily Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) and Return of the Pink Panther (1975), and wanting something more up-to-date and edgy than Chaplin's City Lights (1931). I needed a movie to call my favorite that would be symbolic of my own new-found manhood (and something that would really piss off my parents and teachers). Mom and Dad were going out for the evening, leaving me with whatever unfortunate baby-sitter happened to need the $10 badly enough to play mother hen to an obnoxiously precocious only child like myself. I scanned the TV Guide for what...

Henry Gibson, who died on Monday from cancer at the age of 73, was a fine comedic actor and living pun. (Born James Bateman, his stage name was a tip of the hat to playwright Henrik Ibsen.) Gibson initially became famous in the late '60s with his turns on the satirical comedy show Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In and, more recently, portrayed an idiosyncratic judge on Boston Legal. His film credits included The Incredible Shrinking Woman, Wedding Crashers, and the Blues Brothers, in which he memorably essayed a Nazi. He was also a favorite actor of the director Joe Dante who cast him in Innerspace, the 'burbs, and Gremlins 2. It is an indication of Gibson's talents that another of his Hollywood patrons was the very un-Dante-esque Robert Altman. The late great auteur cast him in a number of films, such as Nashville and A Perfect Couple. But, to me, Gibson will...

Henry Gibson, whose name you might not know but whose face you'll almost certainly recognise, has died at home in Malibu, a week before his 74th birthday.Gibson's hangdog expression disguised a great talent for deadpan comedy. His first movie role was in Jerry Lewis' original The Nutty Professor in 1963, and he was a regular on the sketch show Rowan and Martin's Laugh In from 1968 to 1971 alongside Lily Tomlin and Goldie Hawn. One of his characters was a flower-wielding poet, all of whose material was written by Gibson himself.Robert Altman cast him four times, in Nashville, The Long Goodbye, A Perfect Couple and Health, and Joe Dante used him three times, giving him the role of Tom Hanks' nemesis in The 'Burbs, Mr Wormwood in Innerspace, and a cameo in Gremlins 2. He was the leader of the Illinois Nazis in John Landis' The Blues Brothers.

Actor Henry Gibson died of cancer at the age of 73, a week before his 74th Birthday. While you might not recognize his name, you will almost certainly recognize Gibson's face from one of his many screen credits from the last 45 years. Gibson got his break in the 1963 Jerry Lewis comedy The Nutty Professor, but received his first major role as a three year stint as part of the cast of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. Children of the 1980's (like myself) will probably remember Gibson from the 1989 Joe Dante comedy, The 'Burbs, in which Gibson played the villain. He also played the leader of the "Illinois Nazis" in the 1980 John Landis classic The Blues Brothers. Director Robert Altman cast him in four of his films: The Long Goodbye, A Perfect Couple, Health, and Nashville. He made a brief appearance in Altman protege Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia as an ...