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.
Earlier this month Economic Affairs Minister Kuo Jyh-huei (郭智輝) proposed buying green power from the Philippines and shipping it to Taiwan, in remarks made during a legislative hearing. Because this is an eminently reasonable and useful proposal, it was immediately criticized by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). KMT Legislator Chang Chia-chun (張嘉郡) said that Taiwan pays NT$40 billion annually to fix cables, while TPP heavyweight Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) complained that Kuo wanted to draw public attention away from Taiwan’s renewable energy ratio. Considering the legal troubles currently inundating the TPP, one would think Huang would
Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (將萬安) last week told residents to avoid wearing scary Halloween costumes on the MRT so as not to alarm other passengers. Well, I thought, so much for my plan to visit Taipei dressed as the National Development Council’s (NDC) biennial population report “Population Projections for the Republic of China (Taiwan): 2024-2070,” which came out last week. Terms like “low birth rate” and “demographic decline” do not cut it — the report is nothing short of a demographic disaster. Yet, in Taiwan, as in other countries, it is solvable. It simply requires a change in mindset. As it
Chiayi County is blessed with several worthwhile upland trails, not all of which I’ve hiked. A few weeks ago, I finally got around to tackling Tanghu Historic Trail (塘湖古道), a short but unusually steep route in Jhuci Township (竹崎). According to the Web site of the Alishan National Scenic Area (阿里山國家風景區), the path climbs from 308m above sea level to an elevation of 770m in just 1.58km, an average gradient of 29 percent. And unless you arrange for someone to bring you to the starting point and collect you at the other end, there’s no way to avoid a significant amount
For three films now, Tom Hardy has smushed Jekyll and Hyde into one strange and slimy double act. In a Marvel universe filled with alter egos that cloak stealthy superpowers, his investigative reporter Eddie Brock doesn’t transform. He shares his body with an ink-black alien symbiote (voiced with a baritone growl by Hardy), who sometimes swallows him whole, sometimes shoots a tentacle or two out and always chipperly punctuates Eddie’s inner monologue. These have been consistently messy, almost willfully bad movies, but Hardy’s performance has been a strangely compelling one-body buddy comedy. It’s one thing to throw a cape on and