Four Minutes, German director Chris Kraus' film about a young musical genius turned killer, was named best film at the ninth Shanghai International Film Festival.
A citation delivered by the panel of judges said the film "tells a difficult and emotional story on many levels, with excellent performances from the lead actors and interesting secondary characters."
In other awards announced late Sunday, the Jury Grand Prix went to China's The Forest Ranger (天狗), directed by Qi Jian (戚健). Its citation said the film "creates a striking and memorable portrayal of village life in the mountains.'"
PHOTO: AFP
Fabienne Godet's French film Burnt Out, about a man who copes with tragedy, clinched best director and best actor.
The jury praised Godet for her "skill at mixing a strong, emotional story with a very believably achieved reality."
This year's jury included French director Luc Besson, Chinese director Feng Xiaogang
Wanmacaidan, a director who goes by one name, won best director in the Asian New Talent Prize section for The Silent Holy Stones, which won the International Film Critics Federation prize, known as the FIPRESCI, at the Hong Kong International Film Festival in April.
The film is about a young Tibetan Buddhist monk who returns to a home changed by modern influences.
Oscar-winning actor Nicolas Cage has donated US$2 million to establish a fund for former child soldiers, Amnesty International announced Wednesday.
The money will be used for rehabilitation shelters, medical services and psychological and reintegration services for children forced to take part in armed conflicts world-wide, the human rights monitor said.
"Nicolas has worked tirelessly to raise awareness about the horrors faced by child soldiers and other human rights tragedies," Amnesty US executive director Larry Cox. "We commend his efforts and appreciate his generosity."
The Blood Diamond, a film in production starring Leonardo DiCaprio, could hurt diamond sales and the livelihoods of people in Africa, industry leaders have warned.
The Warner Brothers film being shot in Africa shows how "conflict diamonds" financed bloody civil wars. DiCaprio portrays a mercenary jailed for smuggling in Sierra Leone, where a civil war lasting until 2002 killed 50,000 people.
Industry officials attending the opening of the World Diamond Congress said the situation with conflict diamonds had dramatically improved in recent years and expressed concern that the movie would not reflect this.
"The problem of conflict diamonds is practically over," Shmuel Schnitzer, out-going president of the World Federation of Diamond Bourses, said at the conference in Tel Aviv, among the world's top diamond cutting and trading centers.
"To show a film that will lead the public to think the situation is still the same is an injustice to our industry which has done so much," he said.
In a press release issued in February, Warner Bros Pictures said The Blood Diamond, starring DiCaprio and Jennifer Connelly, had started production in South Africa and Mozambique.
It did not say when it will be released and company officials could not be reached for comment. The unofficial IMDb movie database has the US release date as January, 2007.
The diamond industry fears the movie could hurt sales, especially if it hits theatres around the end of the year during the peak holiday shopping season.
"The people that the movie is trying to help could be hurt the most if it's left without an explanation since livelihoods in Africa depend on income from diamonds," said Eli Izhakoff, chairman and CEO of the World Diamond Council.
"It will hurt them with a downturn in sales. It can have an adverse effect on all of Africa," Izhakoff said.
Twentieth Century Fox plans to keep the mutants coming with a spinoff of its popular X-Men film franchise starring Australian-born actor Hugh Jackman in the title role of Wolverine. A studio spokesman confirmed on Wednesday that the film is in development with a script currently in the works but no director yet on board.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist