News

Erol Mintaş has revealed the cast for his upcoming feature “Earth Song.”

Dilan Gwyn, Ali Seçkiner Alıcı (“Burning Days”), Feyyaz Duman (“Yalan”) and Zenan Tünc will star in the film written by Mintaş and Mikko Viljanen, which also debuts first-look photos.

Previously, Mintaş directed Duman in his debut “Song of My Mother,” awarded at Sarajevo.

Produced by Mete Sasioglu and Mintaş for Sons of Lumière, “Earth Song” is co-produced by Anna Blom for Jamedia Production (Finland) and Tanja Georgieva-Waldhauer for Elemag Pictures (Germany). With Finnish broadcaster Yle on board, Cinemanse will distribute the film in Finland, while Folkets Bio will handle Sweden.

In the drama – now in post-production and presented at Haugesund’s New Nordic Films Works in Progress session – Rojin, a Kurdish-Finnish woman (Dilan Gwyn), lives in Helsinki with her husband Ferhat (Feyyaz Duman) and their 12-year-old adopted daughter Azad. She finds her life and family crumbling apart as...

The Marrakech Film Festival’s sixth Atlas Workshops kicks off today under the fresh curation of former indie film sales agent and publicist Hédi Zardi.

Running November 27 to 30 in a rambling riad on the outskirts of Marrakech, the project and talent incubator is showcasing 25 projects hailing from Mena and Africa, 16 in development and another nine in production or post-production.

Zardi is best known on the market and festival circuit as the former co-founding head of Paris-based sales banner Luxbox, which he created in 2015 with Fiorella Moretti who continues to run the company.

Together, the pair launched a raft of buzzy festival titles on the market, brokering deals to Ava DuVernay‘s Array for Isabel Sandoval’s trans migrant drama Lingua Franca, Oscilloscope Laboratories for Costa Rican Oscar entry Clara Sola by Nathalie Alvarez Mesen, and KimStim for Suzanne Lindon’s coming-of-age debut feature Spring Blossom.

After eight years on the sales circuit,...

The Marrakech International Film Festival folks have revealed 25 projects chosen for the sixth edition of its industry-oriented Atlas Workshops, designed to support up-and-coming talent from Morocco, the Arab region, and Africa — and as we saw this past Cannes Film Festival we really do feel the emergence of dozens of great filmmakers coming out of these regions. Atlas Workshops will feature 16 projects in various stages of development and nine films either in production or post-production. They were chosen from a pool of 300+ applications originating from across the Arab world and the African continent. We are quick to notice the Directors’ Fortnight selected Under The Fig Trees‘ Erige Sehiri presenting a new project in Marie & Jolie and Critics’ Week selected The Gravedigger’s Wife‘s Khadar Ayderus Ahmed is moving forward with his sophomore project titled Thundering Smoke.…...

Projects come from 11 different countries across the Arab world and African continent.

The Atlas Workshops, the industry platform of the Marrakech International Film Festival, has unveiled 25 projects for its sixth edition, which runs from November 27-30.

Atlas Workshops has lined up 16 projects in development and nine films in production or post-production from 11 countries across the Arab world and African continent.

The line-up includes projects from Tunisian directors Youssef Chebbi and Erige Sehiri. Chebbi’s feature Ashkal played in Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes last year, as did Sehiri’s Under The Fig Trees.

Also coming to The Atlas Workshops is Somalia...

A theatrical release is plotted for spring 2024.

Aya Films has picked up Cannes title Omen (Augure), the directorial debut from Belgium-Congolese rapper, Baloji, from Paris-based Memento International.

A theatrical release is plotted in the UK and Ireland for spring 2024.

The magic realist film will premiere in the UK at BFI London Film Festival this October, following Baloji’s win of the Un Certain Regard – new voice prize at this year’s Cannes.

It centres on a young Congolese man who travels back to his hometown in Kinshasa to reunite with his family and culture, alongside his European fiancée. Complexities abound...

Finland’s Aamu Film Company will invest in Jenni Jauri’s new production company Silmu Films, Variety has found out exclusively.

Aamu, founded in 2001 and co-owned by Jussi Rantamäki and Emilia Haukka, has become a local arthouse powerhouse thanks to its festival-friendly slate, especially Juho Kuosmanen’s “The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki” and Golden Globe-nominated “Compartment No. 6,” awarded the Grand Prix in Cannes.

“We had a good film with decent sales and we started to think about what we should do next,” Rantamäki said. “Aamu’s brand is simple and clear: we only work with a select few directors. We don’t want to change that; we don’t want to turn into a factory where you don’t know what is happening and with whom. So first we decided not to grow, and then realized we could invest in a new company instead.”

Apart from Kuosmanen,...

Global sales shingle The Yellow Affair has acquired world rights to the modern love story “Power of Love” by German helmer Jonas Rothlaender, whose breakthrough movie “Fado” nabbed a Silver Hugo at Chicago and a German Film Critics’ for best feature debut.

Julia M. Müller and Luisa Leopold are producing for Germany’s StickUp Filmproduktion, in co-production with Misha Jaari and Mark Lwoff of Finland’s Bufo (“The Gravedigger’s Wife”).

The director’s sophomore feature film turns on power dynamics in a couple and the social norms expected of a male/female relationship.

Toplining the feature are Saara Kotkaniemi and Nicola Perot as Saara and Robert, both in their 30s, who set off on an extensive summer holiday in the Finnish archipelago.

Their love is a constant play with gender role clichés, yet behind the unconventional façade, they struggle with their own insecurities. Stuck on the island and influenced by its rough nature,...

The title premiered in Cannes Critics’ Week in 2021.

Aya Films, a UK distribution company with a focus on African and Black films, has acquired Finnish-Somali filmmaker Khadar Ayderus Ahmed’s directorial debut The Gravedigger’s Wife.

The Somali-language feature will be released theatrically from October 21 across the UK. It will mark the first time a fully Somali-language feature has been released in UK cinemas. France’s Orange Studio handles international sales.

The title premiered in 2021 at Cannes Critics’ Week, and made history in the same year as Somalia’s first ever Oscar submission.

Set in Djibouti City in the Horn of Africa,...

The industry event will take place from October 17-19.

Vanja Kaludjercic, festival director of the Rotterdam International Film Festival, Julien Rejl, new director of Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight, and Olivier Barbier, head of acquisitions at mk2 films, will sit on the jury of the fifth edition of the European Works In Progress Cologne (Ewip)

The industry event will take place from October 17-19, in the run up to Germany’s Cologne Film Festival (October 20-27). Thirty European co-productions will pitch to an international industry audience for several prizes worth a total of €52,500.

Also on the five-personjury is Saralisa Volm, a German filmmaker,...

The industry event will take place from October 17-19.

Vanja Kaludjercic, festival director of the Rotterdam International Film Festival, Julien Rejl, new director of Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight, and Olivier Barbier, head of acquisitions at mk2 films, will sit on the jury of the fifth edition of the European Works In Progress Cologne (Ewip)

The industry event will take place from October 17-19, in the run up to Germany’s Cologne Film Festival (October 20-27). Thirty European co-productions will pitch to an international industry audience for several prizes worth a total of €52,500.

Also on the five-personjury is Saralisa Volm, a German filmmaker,...

Bifa has been awarded almost £300,000 from the fund.

The British Independent Film Awards (Bifa) has received almost £300,000 from the latest round of British Film Institute (BFI) Audience Fund awards.

The BFI Audience Fund awards funds from the National Lottery. Its key objective is to support projects which boost diversity and inclusivity in audiences, onscreen and in the workforce.

The £297,160 award will support Bifa in its ‘always on’ marketing campaign, running from July 1 2022 to March 31 2023. This includes new ticketing strategies and the continuation of podcast production for younger, UK-wide audiences.

The fund will also be used to support Bifa in delivering its annual awards ceremony.

Some stories of struggle and survival have the power to grip you and The Gravedigger’s Wife does so with a certain ease.

Part of this year’s Glasgow Film Festival African Stories strand comes the latest from writer-director Khadar Ayderus Ahmed. And there’s much to cheer about with movie picking up Best Film at the African Movie Academy Awards 2021.

Set in the city of Djibouti it opens with a group of men digging graves where we are introduced to Guled (Omar Abdi). We follow Guled who is battling to provide for his family, be a role model to his son Mahad (Kadar Abdoul-Aziz Ibrahim) and take care of his sick wife Nasra (Yasmin Warsame). From here we see him dealing with this turmoil in his life and his decision to go the arduous journey for help in paying medical bills.

From the start you get a sense that...

Norway's first film noir Death Is A Caress will screen as part of the Edith Carlmar retrospective The Glasgow Film Festival has announced further programme details for this year's festival, which will run from March 2 to 13.

The festival, which will run in hybrid format, will screen a programme of African Stories - a collection of contemporary films celebrating the rich diversity of life in countries across the continent. The films range from Casablanca Beats, a joyous salute to the power of music to transform lives in Morocco and Khadar Ayderus Ahmed’s multi award-winning Djibouti-set The Gravedigger’s Wife, to documentaries including Once Upon A Time in Uganda, about one man’s mission to create an action movie industry in the country. Gff is working with Scotland’s Africa in Motion film festival on events around some key titles. This programme of films will combine to provide a taste of a vital and booming filmmaking continent.

Of the six Sub-Saharan African submissions, the buzziest titles include Somalia’s first-ever entry, “The Gravedigger’s Wife” from feature debutant Khadar Ayderus Ahmed and Chad’s Cannes competitor, “Lingui: The Sacred Bonds” from veteran helmer Mahamet-Saleh Haroun.

Meanwhile, South Africa’s dysfunctional family dramedy “Barakat” from Amy Jephta earns points for likeability although it represents a genre not usually awarded by the Academy. Nevertheless, the tale of a family feud developing when the clan matriarch decides to take a second chance on love is a universally relatable one.

“The Gravedigger’s Wife” arri-ves at the Academy screenings trailing the top prize from Fespaco, Africa’s largest film festival. Mogadishu-born director-writer Ahmed came to Finland as a refugee at the age of 16 and returned to his African roots for his first feature, which is both a touching love story and a tragedy of social injustice about a poor man trying to get treatment for his ailing wife.

After going dark for the first time in more than half a century, the return of the Cannes Film Festival proves one major point: the event is still a significant launch pad when it comes to the International Feature Film Oscars. Indeed, of the 90-plus submissions recorded so far this year, nearly a quarter made their debut on the Croisette, be it in Competition, Un Certain Regard, Directors’ Fortnight or Critics’ Week. It’s perhaps to be expected—since the Academy first introduced the category in 1956, foreign-language auteur works have dominated more commercial fare—but the skew towards Cannes is telling. Other festivals have their place—notably Berlin and Venice, with Sundance emerging this year as an unexpected new contender—but, as a rough guide, Cannes has physically premiered six of the last 10 winners and presented last year’s victor, Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Round (Denmark) under the umbrella of its virtual 2020 label.

CAA has signed Khadar Ayderus Ahmed, the up-and-coming director of “The Gravedigger’s Wife,” Somalia’s first ever official submission for the Oscars international feature film race.

“The Gravedigger’s Wife,” Ahmed’s feature debut,” world premiered at Cannes’ Critics’ Week and went on to win the Amplify Voices Award at Toronto. The film also played BFI London, Chicago and Palm Springs, as well as the Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (Fespaco) where it scooped the top prize.

The movie recently played in Mogadishu at the National Theatre of Somalia, Ahmed’s native country. Orange Studio represents the film in international markets. It was produced by Finland’s Bufo, and co-produced by Germany’s Twenty Twenty Vision and France’s Pyramide Productions.

Set in the African town of Djibouti City, the drama portrays a poverty-stricken family and revolves around a gravedigger (Omar Abdi) on a desperate quest to fund an...

The long Thanksgiving weekend provides an opportunity for awards voters to get through the first pile of screeners — or in the case of the Academy Awards and BAFTA groups, scroll through their streaming room platforms. In multiple discussions with awards voters, it’s been interesting to note how few movies they’ve seen at this point in the year. Perhaps it’s related to the pandemic, and many of them returning to work and under the gun of deadlines, or maybe not hearing about anything that’s drummed up enough passion for them to seek it out.

The in-person awards screenings in Los Angeles have been brimming especially for films like Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune” and most recently, Paul Schrader’s “The Card Counter,” both with star Oscar Isaac in attendance. But in this first year where DVDs are barred from being sent to Oscar and Bafta voters, will each...

Jury

Italy’s Giuseppe Tornatore, director of the Oscar, BAFTA and Cannes winning film “Cinema Paradiso,” will preside over the features competition jury at Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Film Festival (Dec. 6-15). Tornatore’s latest documentary, “Ennio,” about revered composer Ennio Morricone, which bowed at Venice, will have its Arab premiere at the festival out-of-competition in the International Spectacular strand.

Joining Tornatore on the jury are Tunisian actor Hend Sabry (“The Blue Elephant 2”) Palestinian-American director, writer, actor and producer Cherien Dabis (“Amreeka”), Morelia International Film Festival director Daniela Michel and Saudi filmmaker Abdulaziz Alshlahei (“Zero Distance”).

The Red Sea shorts competition jury will be led by Egypt’s Marwan Hamed, director of Tribeca winner “The Yacoubian Building”) who will be joined by Saudi Arabian actor and director Ahd Kamel (“Wadjda”) and Finnish-Somali director and writer Khadar Ayderus (“The Gravedigger’s Wife”).

Trailer

Universal Pictures has released a trailer for “Redeeming Love,...

In a ghoulish age when many Americans are resorting to online crowdfunding to finance potentially lifesaving health care, the simple, sorrowful fable spun by “The Gravedigger’s Wife” may not feel as distant to Western viewers as it looks. Charting the increasingly desperate efforts of a poverty-stricken Djibouti family to fund an urgent kidney operation that is cruelly beyond their means, this plaintively moving from other, soapier dramas on the subject.

Though “The Gravedigger’s Wife” is effectively a European production, co-financed by Finland, France and Germany, it feels authentically embedded in the everyday fabric of life on the impoverished outskirts of Djibouti, its perspective free from exoticization or condescension. Neighboring Somalia, where Ahmed was born and raised, has entered it as its international Oscar submission, a further boost to the profile of a film already warmly received on this year’s festival circuit, beginning with a Cannes Critics’ Week premiere. Though...

Keep track of all the submissions for best international feature at the 2022 Academy Awards

Entries for the 2022 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

Scroll down for profiles of each Oscar entry

The 94th Academy Awards will take place on March 27, 2022 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. This is the first time since 2018 that the ceremony will take place in March, having moved to avoid conflicting with the Winter Olympics.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture produced outside the US with a predominantly non-English dialogue...

Africa’s biggest film festival unfolded in Burkina Faso from October 16 to 23.

Finnish-Somali filmmaker Khadar Ayderus Ahmed’s The Gravedigger’s Wife scooped the top prize at the 27th edition of the Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (Fespaco) in Burkina Faso over the weekend.

The largest film festival in Africa, the biannual event normally takes place end-February, start-March but was pushed to October 16-23 this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Its top prize is the $36,000 Golden Stallion of Yennenga (Étalon de Yennenga) award. The prizes are named after legendary warrior princess Yennenga, who is considered the mother...

Khadar Ayderus Ahmed, who directed the acclaimed drama, reveals the struggle to portray his community ‘with dignity and compassion’

“I am Somali and I made this film for Somali people to watch a film in their mother tongue without needing subtitles,” says film director Khadar Ayderus Ahmed. Ahmed made his feature debut with The Gravedigger’s Wife, and after premiering in May at the Cannes film festival’s Critics’ Week, it made headlines as the first film from Somalia to be put forward for the Oscars.

“As a film-maker, I felt a sense of responsibility to tell the story of how I view my Somali community and to tell this story with dignity, tenderness and compassion – all the qualities I’ve been raised with,” says Ahmed, who was born in Somalia before moving to Finland as a teenager.

Keep track of all the submissions for best international feature at the 2022 Academy Awards.

Entries for the 2022 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

Scroll down for profiles of each Oscar entry

The 94th Academy Awards will take place on March 27, 2022 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. This is the first time since 2018 that the ceremony will take place in March, having moved to avoid conflicting with the Winter Olympics.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture produced outside the US with a predominantly non-English dialogue...

Keep track of all the submissions for best international feature at the 2022 Academy Awards.

Entries for the 2022 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

Scroll down for profiles of each Oscar entry

The 94th Academy Awards will take place on March 27, 2022 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. This is the first time since 2018 that the ceremony will take place in March, having moved to avoid conflicting with the Winter Olympics.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture produced outside the US with a predominantly non-English dialogue...

Keep track of all the submissions for best international feature at the 2022 Academy Awards.

Entries for the 2022 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

Scroll down for profiles of each Oscar entry

The 94th Academy Awards will take place on March 27, 2022 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. This is the first time since 2018 that the ceremony will take place in March, having moved to avoid conflicting with the Winter Olympics.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture produced outside the US with a predominantly non-English dialogue...

The Moin Filmförderung supported 13 features at Filmfest Hamburg and several industry initiatives.

Northern Germans traditionally greet each other with a heartfelt “Moin!“ instead of a “Guten Tag” or “Guten Abend“ but another meaning has now been coined after the regional fund Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein (Ffhsh) underwent a major rebranding this summer.

“The fund’s name change to Moin Filmförderung (Moving Images North) was important for us an organisation to be much clearer in how we communicate what we do,“ says the fund’s CEO Helge Albers.

“There’s a lot to this claim,“ he explains. “it covers regionality and a...

The Moin Filmförderung supported 13 features at Filmfest Hamburg and several industry initiatives.

Northern Germans traditionally greet each other with a heartfelt “Moin!“ instead of a “Guten Tag” or “Guten Abend“ but another meaning has now been coined after the regional fund Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein (Ffhsh) underwent a major rebranding this summer.

“The fund’s name change to Moin Filmförderung (Moving Images North) was important for us an organisation to be much clearer in how we communicate what we do,“ says the fund’s CEO Helge Albers.

“There’s a lot to this claim,“ he explains. “it covers regionality and a...

Other African submissions so far include Nabil Ayouch’s Casablanca Beats for Morocco.

Finnish-Somali filmmaker Khadar Ayderus Ahmed’s The Gravedigger’s Wife, which world premiered in Cannes Critics’ Week in July, has been selected as Somalia’s first-ever Oscar submission for the 2022 Academy Awards.

Set in Djibouti City in the Horn of Africa, the drama stars Finnish-Somali actor Omar Abdi as a gravedigger on a quest to raise the money for the kidney transplant desperately needed by his beloved wife, played by Canadian-Somali model and actress Yasmin Warsame.

The film’s selection for consideration in the best international film category...

Five works in progress and 11 films in development due to be showcased at event running December 8-11.

The Red Souk, the industry component of Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea International Film Festival’s project market, has unveiled fresh details for its inaugural edition running December 8-11.

Running within the framework of its larger parent festival, which will also mark its first edition this year from December 6-15, the souk will focus on Arab and African filmmakers and will feature a project market, work in progress screenings, an exhibition space and an industry talks programme.

Lebanese-French director Wissam Charaf’s Beirut-set romantic drama Dirty Difficult Dangerous,...

Fresh off another win at Finland’s Jussi Awards, this time for his short film “The Bouncer,” Aleksi Salmenperä is already in post-production with his upcoming feature “Bubble,” about to be presented at Helsinki International Film Festival’s industry event Finnish Film Affair in its Fiction in Progress section.

“I was sort of embarrassed by this win,” he jokes. The comedy was shot six years ago and originally intended as a part of an episodic film. At previous Jussi Awards, Salmenperä was named best director for “Distractions” in 2016, and drama “Void” won best director and best film in 2019. “Bubble,” set to premiere in the spring of next year, is bound to surprise some of his fans, however, with Salmenperä calling it “the cosiest film” he has ever made.

“I don’t know what happened! Maybe I am just getting old, but there is so much warmth in this film. I...

Winner has earned Oscar best picture nomination in last 11 years.

Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast has won the 2021 TIFF People’s Choice audience award in a boost to its award season prospects.

Winners of the award have gone on to garner a best picture Oscar nomination in the past 11 years with last year’s Nomadland and some years prior Green Book and Slumdog Millionaire winning the ultimate prize. Jamie Dornan, Caitriona Balfe, Jude Hill, Judi Dench and Ciarin Hinds star in Northern Ireland-born Branagh’s childhood memoir set during the onset of The Troubles.

‘Belfast’: Review

Scarborough from Shasha Nakhai...

Kenneth Branagh’s semi-autobiographical, black-and-white drama Belfast claimed the TIFF People’s Choice Award on Saturday night, affirming its status as a major player to contend with in the 2022 Oscars race.

Jessica Chastain (The Eyes of Tammy Faye) and Benedict Cumberbatch were also big winners at the TIFF Tribute Awards ceremony, which wrapped up the 46th edition of the festival, claiming its Actor Awards.

The TIFF Ebert Director Award went to Dune‘s Denis Villeneuve, with musician Dionne Warwick (subject of the doc Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over) receiving a Special Tribute Award. Other major titles recognized in Toronto tonight included The Rescue—the latest doc from Free Solo helmers Jimmy Chin and E. Chai Vasarhelyi—and Julia Ducournau’s Palme d’Or winner, Titane.

“2021 brought an exceptional selection of films that excited Festival audiences around the world,...

Kenneth Branagh’s black-and-white drama “Belfast” has won the People’s Choice Award at the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival, TIFF announced on Saturday.

The gentle drama, which is based on Branagh’s childhood growing up in Northern Ireland, won over Shasha Nakhai and Rich Williamson’s “Scarborough,” a story of three low-income children that finished second, and Jane Campion’s revisionist Western “The Power of the Dog,” which finished third.

In its review of the film from TIFF, TheWrap wrote, “Visually stunning, emotionally wrenching and gloriously human, ‘Belfast’ takes one short period from Branagh’s life and finds in it a coming-of-age story, a portrait of a city fracturing in an instant and a profoundly moving lament for what’s been lost during decades of strife in his homeland of Northern Ireland.”

Other films in competition for the award included “Dear Evan Hansen,” “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” and “The Guilty.

Documentary Exposure from The Babushkas Of Chernobyl director Morris gets its world premiere.

The 57th Chicago International Film Festival has unveiled its international competitions line-up, a roster that includes Venice Silver Lion winner The Power Of The Dog, Tatiana Huezo’s Prayers For The Stolen, and the world premiere of Holly Morris’s documentary Exposure.

The programme includes the international premiere of Franziska Stünkel’s The Last Execution. The festival runs October 13-24 and is the longest running competitive festival in North America.

The International Feature Competition line-up comprises: Péter Kerekes’s 107 Mothers (Slo-Czech-Ukr); Mohammed Diab’s Amira (Egy-Jor-uae-Saud...

Helsinki International Film Festival – Love & Anarchy’s return to live, in-person screenings is an occasion for national celebration, says Anna Möttölä, the executive director of the event, now marking its 34th edition.

While cinemas in Helsinki must still be limited to 50% capacity for pandemic precaution reasons, screenings of hot new titles such as opening gala film Leos Carax’s tragicomic musical “Annette” and closer Mia Hansen-Løve’s “Bergman Island” have already sold out, Möttölä says, with audience anticipation for the beloved fest feeling palpable this year following a mainly online event in 2020. Foreign guests such as Ninja Thyberg, screening her Sundance sensation “Pleasure,” are also generating buzz this year, she notes.

Meanwhile the event has managed to maintain its dedication to diversity and inclusion despite Covid challenges, with some 46% of the 131 features and 149 shorts screening by women or non-binary filmmakers.

The popular Spotlight section has seen brisk ticket sales for its program,...

Finnish writer-director Khadar Ayderus Ahmed, born in Mogadishu, continues to enjoy his first feature’s successful festival run. Screening this week in Toronto, “The Gravedigger’s Wife” premiered at Cannes Critics’ Week in July.

“We finished the shoot in 2019. We were invited to Cannes last year, but decided to wait for better times,” explains the helmer. “In Cannes, me and my family, and my actors, we were the only Somalis in the audience. Now, in Toronto, there is this big Somali community. They are excited and waiting for the film – people are sending me screenshots of their tickets!”

Inspired by a sudden death that happened in his family 10 years ago in Helsinki, the film shows a man who “hunts bodies for a living,” waiting in front of hospitals for new corpses to bury. But when his wife (Canadian model Yasmin Warsame) needs expensive surgery, gravedigger Guled (Omar Abdi) and his young...

The 10th anniversary edition will take place as a hybrid event.

The Finnish Film Affair (Ffa) will celebrate its 10th anniversary edition with a hybrid industry event that will showcase 24 Finnish projects and four from the other Nordics.

Some 50% of the selected projects are directed by women or non-binary people.

Running in Helsinki from September 22-24, the Ffa will present projects in development including Family Time, the first feature of Tia Kouvo to be produced by Aamu Film Company, whose credits include Compartment No. 6. The drama, which has been part of Torino Film Lab, is an exploration of family life,...

Haugesund’s New Nordic Films industry event will present 17 upcoming features.

Haugesund’s New Nordic Films industry event will present 17 upcoming features in its annual works in progress showcase.

The most high-profile film to show first footage will be Erik Poppe’s The Emigrants, produced by Sf Studios and the latest adaptation of the famed Vilhelm Moberg novels about a Swedish family that moves to America in the 1850s. The cast includes Lisa Carlehed, Gustaf Skarsgård, Tove Lo and Sofia Helin.

Further projects include Sagres, a Sweden-Finland-Belgium co-production sold by Totem Films. The debut feature from Stockholm-based Lovisa Siren...

After the Viking conquest at July’s Cannes Festival, where Norway (“The Worst Person in the World”), Finland (“Compartment No. 6”) and Iceland (“Lamb”) collected kudos, more than 60 possible gems from the North are to be unveiled at the hybrid market New Nordic Films which will unspool over Aug. 24-27.

Scandinavia’s major film showcase, New Nordic Films runs parallel to Haugesund’s Norwegian Intl. Film Festival, which takes place Aug. 21-27.

Sony Pictures Classics’ Finnish pick-up “Compartment No. 6”, a Grand Jury Prize co-winner in Cannes, is set to kick-start the annual event and lead the pack of 24-plus finished titles. Most pics will screen online only, except those bowing in Haugesund cinemas as well, as fest official selections, such as “The Innocents,” “The Gravedigger’s Wife,” “Margrete-Queen of the North,” and “a-ha-The Movie.”

“It’s been a bit hard to finalize the market screenings, due to social distancing measures still in place in cinemas,...

After a muted 2020 due to Covid-19, the Norwegian International Film Festival in the picturesque coastal town of Haugesund will be back in full force over Aug. 21-27, with attendance expected to bounce back to pre-pandemic levels, both for the on-site festival and parallel hybrid confab New Nordic Films, according to festival director Tonje Hardersen.

“The pandemic is still impacting Haugesund, forcing us to apply social distancing measures, notably in cinemas – with a maximum of 400 spectators per screen – but last year’s event gave us confidence,” she said. “The audience and industry reception last year was very positive, everyone is eager to meet in person, and I sense that the end of full Covid restrictions is getting closer. “

Haugesund’s fest honcho went on: “What sticks out is that 2021 has been very tough for the overall Norwegian film industry due to the pandemic, but it’s been a glorious year for Norwegian film production,...

The Toronto International Film Festival announced which films will fill the TIFF Docs, Midnight Madness, and Wavelength sections at this year’s edition of the event, which runs from Sept. 9-18. The festival also added new titles to the Special Presentation and Contemporary World Cinema programs.

Opening TIFF Docs is the world premiere of “Attica” by Stanley Nelson, which tells the story of the 1971 Attica prison riot. Coming about as a result of the prisoners’ fight for more humane living conditions and lasting for five days, it remains the deadliest prison rebellion in U.S. history.

Wavelengths will open with “Neptune Frost” from directors and married couple Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman. The film is billed a sci-fi musical romance between an intersex hacker and a coltan miner that will follow the “virtual marvel born as a result of their union.” This marks the North American premiere of the film,...

With only one more Wednesday announcement left in the bank (competition Platform section and the shorts get announced next week) today we saw the unveiling of the Midnight Madness, Wavelengths and TIFF Docs programmes. There were some addition tidying up of some of the other section with lots of carrying over from Cannes with the likes of Khadar Ayderus Ahmed’s The Gravedigger’s Wife, Juho Kuosmanen’s Compartment No. 6, and Nadav Lapid’s Ahed’s Knee, the big news today is the inclusion of the Palme d’Or winner – Titane.

After receiving it’s world premiere in Cannes (where it won the Palme) and it’s international premiere at the New Horizons fest in Poland, TIFF nabbed the North American premiere to Julia Ducournau’s sophomore feature as the Midnight Madness opener.…...

BenedictionThe lineup has been unveiled for the 2021 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival, which will take place over 10 days (September 9-18) both in-person and physically in Toronto, and digitally across Canada. Wavelengths - FEATURESFutura (Pietro Marcello, Francesco Munzi, Alice Rohrwacher)The Girl and the Spider (Ramon Zürcher, Silvan Zürcher)Neptune Frost (Saul Williams, Anisia Uzeyman)A Night of Knowing Nothing (Payal Kapadia)Ste. Anne (Rhayne Vermette)The Tsugua Diaries (Maureen Fazendeiro, Miguel Gomes)Wavelengths - SHORTSThe Capacity for Adequate Anger (Vika Kirchenbauer)Dear Chantal (Querida Chantal) (Nicolás Pereda)earthearthearth (Daïchi Saïto)Inner Outer Space (Laida Lertxundi)Polycephaly in D (Michael Robinson)“The red filter is withdrawn.” (Minjung Kim)Train Again (Peter Tscherkassky)Midnight Madness After Blue (Dirty Paradise) (Bertrand Mandico)Dashcam (Rob Savage)Saloum (Jean Luc Herbulot)Titane (Julia Ducournau)You Are Not My Mother (Kate Dolan)Zalava (Arsalan Amiri)TIFF DOCSAttica (Stanley Nelson)Beba (Rebeca Huntt)Becoming Cousteau...

Titles include a new film from ‘Host’ director Rob Savage.

Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has added 35 feature titles to its line-up for 2021, predominantly across the TIFF Docs, Midnight Madness and Wavelengths strands.

The new titles include 11 world premieres, consisting of eight in TIFF Docs and three in Midnight Madness.

Titles in the latter include Dashcam, the new film from Rob Savage, director of 2020 pandemic horror hit Host. Savage was named a Screen Star of Tomorrow in 2013.

Also in the Midnight Madness section is Kate Dolan’s You Are Not My Mother, inspired by the mythology of the Changeling, which...

New nonfiction films from directors Liz Garbus, Stanley Nelson, and E. Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin will screen at the Toronto International Film Festival as part of the TIFF Docs program, TIFF organizers announced on Wednesday.

Nelson’s documentary “Attica” will serve as the opening-night film in the section, while other docs at the festival will include Garbus’ “Becoming Cousteau,” Barry Avrich’s “Oscar Peterson: Black + White,” Penny Lane’s “Listening to Kenny G” and Vasarhelyi and Chin’s “Rescue.”

The festival’s Midnight Madness section will open with the Cannes Palme d’Or winner “Titane,” by Julia Ducournau, while TIFF has also added three Special Presentations films that also premiered in Cannes: Nadav Lapid’s “Ahed’s Knee,” Bruno Dumont’s “France” and Ari Folman’s “Where Is Anne Frank?”

In the Contemporary World Cinema section, additions include Juho Kuosmanen’s “Compartment No. 6” and Khadar Ayderus Ahmed’s “The Gravedigger’s Wife.

Samuel Goldwyn Films has acquired all U.S. rights to Pan Nalin’s (“Samsara”) India-set tale “Last Film Show” which world premiered at Tribeca last month. The film is represented in international markets by Orange Studio.

The movie follows Samay, a 9-year-old boy living with his family in a remote village in India. One day, he discovers films and is instantly mesmerized. Against his father’s wishes, he returns to the cinema day after day and sets off to become a filmmaker at all costs.

Daniel Marquet, Orange Studio’s head of international sales, said the film has lured distributors around the world.

Deals were closed for Czech Republic (Slovakia Bohemia Motion Picture), Russia/Cis (Capella), Spain (Karma Films), Italy, Germany and Austria (Neuevisionen), Portugal (Nos Lusomundo), Israel (Red Cape / Nachson), Turkey (Filmarti) and Japan (Shochiku). Orange Studio will handle the release in France.

“‘Last Film Show’ is a love...

Past winners of the first feature prize include Jim Jarmusch, Mira Nair, Naomi Kawase, Steve McQueen, Houda Benyamina and Lukas Dhont.

The Cannes Film Festival has named French actress Mélanie Thierry as jury president for the 2021 Caméra d’Or award reserved for all first features premiering across Official Selection and the parallel sections of Directors’ Fortnight and Critics’ Week.

”Nothing is as fragile or as miraculous as a first movie. This testifies to the courage and the faith of all the directors who, after such a long period of seclusion, succeeded in providing us with a window on the outside world,...

"I'm forty-five years old, and I hunt dead bodies for a living." ScreenDaily has revealed an official promo trailer for an indie film from Africa titled The Gravedigger's Wife, marking the feature directorial debut of a Somalian filmmaker named Khadar Ahmed. This is premiering at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival in the sidebar known as Critics' Week (Semaine de la Critique), where they often premiere a lot of great under-the-radar films. The Gravedigger's Wife is set in the East Africa country of Djibouti. In times of misfortune, Guled and his family have to push themselves to the limits. Guled is already working hard as a gravedigger to make ends meet: how can they find more money to save Nasra and keep the family together? The film stars Omar Abdi as Guled, Yasmin Warsame, Kadar Abdoul-Aziz Ibrahim, Samaleh Ali Obsieh, Hamdi Ahmed Omar, and Awa Ali Nour. "The family drama plays out...

Drama unfolds against the colourful backdrop of Djibouti CIty in Horn of Africa.

Screen can exclusively reveal the first trailer for Finnish-Somali filmmaker Khadar Ayderus Ahmed’s The Gravedigger’s Wife ahead of its world premiere in Cannes Critics’ Week in July.

Set in Djibouti City in the Horn of Africa, it stars Finnish-Somali actor Omar Abdi as a struggling gravedigger on a quest to raise the money for the kidney transplant desperately needed by his beloved wife, played by Canadian-Somali model and actress Yasmin Warsame.

The family drama plays out against the colourful backdrop of the makeshift homes and teeming streets of Djibouti City,...

Djibouti’s “The Gravedigger,” Morocco’s “Zanka Contact” and Ethiopia’s “Sweet Annoyance” were among the major winners in the post-production and development categories of the second edition of the Marrakech Film Festival’s Atlas Workshops.

“The Gravedigger,” by Khadar Ahmed, and “Zanka Contact,” by Ismaël el Iraki, won the top awards – €20,000 and $11,000 respectively – in the post-production competition, and “The Gravedigger” also won the new $3,300 Naas prize for film circulation. Both pics are first features.

Ethiopia’s “Sweet Annoyance,” by Hiwot Admasu Getaneh, Morocco’s “The Original Lie,” by Asmae El Moudir, and Rwanda’s “Ikimanuka – Seasons of the Weary Kind,” by Samuel Ishimwe, were the winners in the development competition, and received $11,000, $5,500 and $5,500 respectively.

The new $6,660 Artekino prize attributed during the workshops was awarded to Morocco’s “Les Meutes” by Kamal Lazraq. This is the first time that French-German broadcaster Arte has attributed an award in an African film festival.