Call for submissions: Regent Park Film Festival

The Regent Park Film Festival has opened their call for submissions to their 10th annual edition of RPFF.

They accept submissions from around the world for films suitable for their diverse community. They have three programming categories:

SCHOOL PROGRAM: For Grade 1-8 addressing themes of difference, racial diversity, bullying, gender identity, poverty, health, and other issues relevant to youth.

GENERAL PROGRAM: RPFF seeks works made by filmmakers from multi-cultural and/or Aboriginal backgrounds and/or films that celebrate difference and solidarity, immigrant experiences, urbanization, inner city issues, cultural identity and multicultural relationships.

2012 International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA) Awards - winners

The International Film Music Critics Association has announced the winners for their Eighth Annual IFMCA Awards.

John Williams dominated with his five wins. He was named Film Composer of the year for his work on both Steven Spielberg films, The Adventures Of Tintin: The Secret Of The Unicorn and War Horse. His score for War Horse won Film Score of the Year, Best Original Score for a Drama Film and Film Music Composition of the Year ("The Homecoming") while The Adventures Of Tintin: The Secret Of The Unicorn won for Best Original Score for an Animated Feature. He had led the field with seven nominations.

Michael Giacchino won for another Steven Spielberg film. The Spielberg-produced Super 8 by J.J. Abrams won for Best Original Score for a Fantasy/Science Fiction/Horror Film.

The Artist composer Ludovic Bource was the winner at the Golden Globes and is considered the frontrunner at the Academy Awards. His only win was for Breakout Composer of the Year.

2012 Independent Music Awards (Indies) - nominees

The Canadian Association for the Advancement of Music & The Arts (C.A.A.M.A.) has announced the nominees for the 12th Annual Independent Music Awards, also known as the Indies.

Both The Sheepdogs and Rich Aucoin led with four nominations each. The Sheepdogs were nominated for Single of the Year, Group or Duo of the Year, Live Artist/Group or Duo of the Year and Rock Artist/Group or Duo of the Year. Rich Aucoin received his nods for Solo Artist of the Year, Live Artist/Group or Duo of the Year, Electronic Artist/Group or Duo of the Year and Emerging Artist of the Year.

Those receiving three nods were The Pack A.D., Coeur de Pirate, Danny Fernandes and Timber Timbre. Other nominees included Feist, Bruce Cockburn, Fucked Up, The Weeknd, Deadmau5, Adele and AWOLNATION.

International Cinephile Society's ICS Awards - winners

The International Cinephile Society has announced the winners for their 9th ICS Awards.

Asghar Farhadi's A Separation was crowned Best Picture of 2011 by the ICS. It also won for Original Screenplay, Acting Ensemble, and Best Film not in the English Language. Furthermore, actors Peyman Moaadi and Shahab Hosseini were chosen as runners-up in their respective categories of Actor and Supporting Actor. It had led with ten nominations.

The Tree of Life also managed four wins. ICS gave prizes to director Terrence Malick, supporting actor Brad Pitt, cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, and to its team of editors.

Tom Cullen won for Best Actor with Weekend and Margaret actresses Anna Paquin and J. Smith-Cameron won for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress respectively.

Mysteries of Lisbon by Raoul Ruiz was recognized for Adapted Screenplay. It also was a runner-up in non-English Language Film, Cinematography and Original Score.

Genie Awards announce Claude Jutra Award for Anne Émond's Nuit #1

Anne Émond Wins Claude Jutra Award for Nuit #1

(Toronto, ON) February 22, 2012 - The Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television is pleased to announce that this year’s Claude Jutra Award goes to Anne Émond for her film Nuit #1.

This Special Genie Award honours outstanding achievement by a first-time feature filmmaker. It was established in 1993 in honour of the late Quebec director Claude Jutra, best known for Mon Oncle Antoine.

“The Academy is thrilled to present cinéaste Anne Émond with the Claude Jutra Award for Nuit #1 which is a very daring and accomplished debut feature,” says Helga Stephenson, Interim CEO,Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television.

In addition to winning the Claude Jutra Award, Nuit #1 is in the running for two Genies: Best Original Screenplay, for Anne Émond and Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role, for Catherine De Léan.

Cinema Kabuki, February 22-26

Cinema Kabuki returns to Cineplex theatres in Toronto and Vancouver.

Starting tonight in Toronto, you'll have an opportunity to see The Zen Substitute, Murder in a Hell of Oil, Heron Maiden and Hokaibo. On Sunday afternoon in Vancouver, Murder in a Hell of Oil and Heron Maiden will screen.

Kabuki is a form of traditional Japanese theatre involving music, drama and dance. Its origins date back to the 1600s and often involves wild costumes and swordfights.

2012 Reel Artists Film Festival, February 22-26

The Canadian Art Foundation presents their ninth annual Reel Artists Film Festival starting tonight.

Tonight's opening night gala is a sold-out Canadian premiere screening of Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present which just won the Documentary Audience Award at Berlinale. The gala includes an opening cocktail dinner reception and is followed by a celebration. The director Matthew Akers, producers Maro Chermayeff and Jeff Dupre, and documentary subject Marina Abramović will be in attendance. The film will screen again on closing night.

Other films being screened include the World Premiere of Mark Dion; the North American Premieres of Candida Höfer, Thomas Struth, Thomas Ruff and Massimo Vitali; the Canadian Premiere of Moon Mirror Journey; and the Toronto Premieres of Mark Lewis: Nowhere Land, Hiroshi Sugimoto: Visions in My Mind and Oliviero Toscani: The Rage of Images.

2012 Costume Designers Guild (CDG) Awards - winners

On Tuesday night, the Costume Designers Guild held their 14th Annual CDG Awards ceremony at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California. The event was hosted by actress Jane Lynch and included presenters Billy Bob Thornton, Diane Lane, Robert Duvall, Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher.

In the Contemporary Film category, the winner was Trish Summerville with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. She had been up against the costume designers for Bridesmaids, The Descendants, Drive and Melancholia.

For Period Film, the prize went to Arianne Phillips for her work on Madonna's W.E. She edged out the designers for The Artist, Jane Eyre, The Help and multiple Oscar-winner Sandy Powell of Hugo.

Jany Temime won for Fantasy Film with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 over Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Red Riding Hood, Thor and X-Men: First Class.

BRIT Awards 2012 - winners

The ceremony for the BRIT Awards 2012 took place tonight at London's O2 Arena.

Fresh off her wins at the Grammy Awards, Adele continued her winning streak with two major wins for Best Female Solo Artist and British Album of the Year for 21. Her competition for Female Solo Artist had been Florence & the Machine, Jessie J, Kate Bush and Laura Marling, while her co-nominees for British Album of the Year had been Coldplay (Mylo Xyloto), Ed Sheeran (+), Florence & The Machine (Ceremonials) and PJ Harvey (Let England Shake). She has recently announced that she would be taking a five-year sabbatical.

Ed Sheeran also won a pair of awards, claiming British Male Solo Artist and British Breakthrough Act. He had led with four nominations.

Premiile Gopo 2012 - Romanian film awards - nominations

The Asociaţia Pentru Promovarea Filmului Românesc (Association for Romanian Film Promotion) announced the nominees today for their 6th Annual Premiile Gopo (Gopo Awards) for Romanian cinema.

Bogdan George Apetri's Periferic (Outbound) led the field with twelve nominations. Its nods included Best Picture, Debut Feature, Director and Actress (Ana Ularu). It was followed by Cristi Puiu's Aurora which received ten nominations. Four of them went to Cristi Puiu himself for Best Picture, Director, Actor and Screenplay.

The other Best Picture nominees were Anca Damian's Crulic – Drumul spre dincolo (The Path to Beyond), Adrian Sitaru's Din dragoste cu cele mai bune intenții (Best Intentions) and Cătălin Mitulescu's Loverboy. Both Sitaru and Mitulescu were also nominated for Best Director, and Sitaru also scored a Screenplay nomination.

Call for submissions: 2012 Film Pop

The POP Montreal International Music Festival has put out a call for submissions for their 11th edition of the accompanying film festival known as Film Pop.

The festival accepts features, short films and other media presentations of music-related work created after October 1, 2011. There is no entry fee.

The deadline for submissions is June 1, 2012. They strongly encourage early entries, however, as it will help your chances of selection.

The 11th POP Montreal International Music Festival and Film Pop takes place from September 19-23, 2012.

2012 MPSE Golden Reel Awards - winners

The Motion Picture Sound Editors (MPSE) held their 59th Annual Golden Reel Awards on Sunday night at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel &Suites in Los Angeles. The awards were spread around evenly with no film taking multiple awards.

Both Steven Spielberg films picked up an award. The Adventures of Tintin won for Animated Feature Film, while War Horse won for Sound Effects and Foley. Another film he produced, Super 8 by J.J. Abrams, was the winner for Dialogue and ADR. Super 8 had led with three nominations.

Martin Scorsese's two films also picked up a trophy. George Harrison: Living in the Material World won the Documentary category and Hugo won for Music.

The winner for Music in a Musical Film was James Bobin's The Muppets. The Foreign Language category went to the Chinese epic film The Flowers of War by Zhang Yimou and starring Christian Bale.

2012 Writers Guild Awards - winners

Sunday night, the Writers Guild of America held simultaneous ceremonies for their 64th Annual Writers Guild Awards at both the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles and at the B.B. King Blues Club in New York.

Woody Allen won the Original Screenplay award for Midnight in Paris against four other comedy scripts, Will Reiser's 50/50, Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig's Bridesmaids Tom McCarthy and Joe Tiboni's Win Win, and Diablo Cody's Young Adult. Ineligible screenplays, however, included the awards-season frontrunner The Artist. This was Woody Allen's 20th WGA nomination and his fifth win.

For Adapted Screenplay, the winner was The Descendants by Alexander Payne and Nat Faxon & Jim Rash. It emerged victorious against The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steven Zaillian, The Help by Tate Taylor, Hugo by John Logan, and Moneyball by Steven Zaillian, Aaron Sorkin and Stan Chervin. This caps a very successful weekend for The Descendants in which also won the Scripter Award and at the ACE Eddie Awards.

2012 Premios Goya (Spanish Film Awards) - winners

The Academia de las Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas de España (Spanish Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences) held their 26th Annual Premios Goya (Goya Awards) on Sunday night in Madrid.

The surprise leader of the night was Enrique Urbizu's No habrá paz para los malvados (No Rest for the Wicked). It won seven awards including the main categories of Best Film, Director, Screenplay and Actor (Jose Coronado). Its competitors for Best Film had been La piel que habito (The Skin I Live In), La voz dormida (The Sleeping Voice) and Blackthorn. Sin destino (Blackthorn).

Pedro Almodovar's La piel que habito (The Skin I Live In) had led the field with 16 nominations. It came second with five awards as did Blackthorn. Sin destino (Blackthorn)

2012 South African Film and Television Awards (SAFTAs) - nominations

The National Film and Video Foundation of South Africa (NFVF) announced the nominees for the 6th Annual South African Film and Television Awards (SAFTAs, also known as the Golden Horns) at a private function that took place at The Venue in Melrose Arch, Joburg.

The film Black Butterflies about South African poet Ingrid Jonker led the field with nine nominations. It's mentions included Best Feature Film and Writing Team.

The two other Best Feature Film nominees were Skoonheid and Roepman which followed with six nominations. Retribution also picked up six nominations but missed the Best Feature Film category.

Steven Silver's Canadian-South African co-production The Bang Bang Club picked up five nominations. It was nominated for Best Cinematographer, Editor, Music, Makeup/Hair and Sound Design.

2012 American Cinema Editors' ACE Eddie Awards - winners

The American Cinema Editors (ACE) held their 62nd Annual ACE Eddie Awards ceremony at the Beverly Hilton on Saturday night. The main winners were The Descendants and The Artist, both of which were winners at the Golden Globes.

Editor Kevin Tent of The Descendants won for Best Edited Feature (Drama). The competition had been The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Angus Wall, Kirk Baxter), Hugo (Thelma Schoonmaker), Moneyball (Christopher Tellefsen) and War Horse (Michael Kahn). The director of The Descendants Alexander Payne was also the recipient of the honourary ACE Golden Eddie Filmmaker of the Year, presented to him by Reese Witherspoon and Kevin Tent.

Director Michel Hazanavicius served as editor alongside Anne-Sophie Bion for The Artist which won for Best Edited Comedy. They had been competing against Bridesmaids (William Kerr, Michael L. Sale) Midnight in Paris (Alisa Lepselter), My Week with Marilyn (Adam Recht) and Young Adult (Dana E. Glauberman).

2012 Cinema Audio Society (CAS) Awards - winners

On Saturday night, the Cinema Audio Society held the ceremony for their 48th Cinema Audio Society Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing.

In the Motion Picture category, Hugo emerged as the winner. It had been competing against Hanna, Moneyball, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and Super 8. Hugo leads the nominees at the 84th Academy Awards too with eleven, mostly because the presumed favourite The Artist is a silent film and thus didn't get either of the two nominations for sound while Hugo did.

The winners for television were Too Big to Fail, Boardwalk Empire and Deadliest Catch: New Blood.

2012 Scripter Award goes to The Descendants

THE DESCENDANTS ASCEND WITH SCRIPTER WIN

Authors and screenwriters of the family drama take the 2012 USC Libraries Scripter Award.

Author Kaui Hart Hemmings and screenwriters Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, and Jim Rash won the 24th-annual USC Libraries Scripter Award for their creative contributions to The Descendants. Selection committee co-chair Naomi Foner announced the winners at the black-tie ceremony on Saturday, Feb. 18.

“This is such a wonderful honor and to be part of something that celebrates and puts books on a pedestal and none of this would have been possible without Kaui’s wonderful book,” said Rash. “It was such a wonderful journey for us to fall in love with the book and have the opportunity to turn it into the film.”

Hemmings noted that the collaboration has been a positive experience for her.

Edduverðlaunin 2012 - Edda Awards for Icelandic film - winners

Íslenska kvikmynda- og sjónvarpsakademían (Icelandic Film and Television Academy) held the ceremony for the 14th Annual Edduverðlaunin (Edda Awards) for film and television at the Icelandic Opera House.

The film Eldfjall (Volcano) dominated with five awards. They were the five main creative categories of Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, Lead Actress and Lead Actor. Eldfjall had led with with 13 nominations.

Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson's Á annan veg (Either Way) was next with three wins. Þorsteinn Bachmann was nominated for Supporting Actor with both Á annan veg and Eldfjall but won for Á annan veg. It also won for Cinematography and Costumes.

Best Documentary went to Andlit norðursins (Last Days of the Arctic). It also picked up the prize for Music. Hetjur Valhallar - Þór (Legends of Valhalla: Thor) also picked up two trophies, winning for Editor and Art Direction.

World Stage 2012, February 18 - May 19

Harbourfront Centre kicks off World Stage 2012 tonight with Everything Under the Moon, an all-ages production with hand-animated projected images as well as narrative song.

World Stage 2012 continues with productions of Entity, The Wooster Group's Version of Tennessee Williams' Vieux Carré, Ajax & Little Iliad, Paris 1994/Gallery, Agwa/Correria, The Shipment and Dance Marathon.

The festival continues until Saturday, May 19 at Harbourfront Centre, 235 Queens Quay West, Toronto.

PTC Punjabi Film Awards 2012 - winners

The Indian network PTC Punjabi held the second edition of the PTC Punjabi Film Awards tonight in Chandigarh.

Jihne Mera Dil Luteya by Mandeep Kumar swept the awards with seven awards. Its wins included the main categories of Best Film, Director, Actor (Diljit Dosanjh-Gippy Grewal), Actress (Neeru Bajwa) and Screenplay/Dialogue.

Dharti by Navneet Singh followed close behind with six awards. Its actors Rannvijay Singh and Surveen Chawla won the Best Debut categories for Male and Female respectively. It also took the Critics Awards for Best Movie and Best Director.

2012 Berlinale Awards - winners

As the 62nd Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin (Berlin International Film Festival) or Berlinale draws to a close, the awards were handed out a closing gala ceremony. Among the attendees were Jury President Mike Leigh and members of the International Jury Anton Corbijn, Asghar Farhadi, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Jake Gyllenhaal, François Ozon, Boualem Sansal and Barbara Sukow.

The winner of the Golden Bear for the best film was Paolo and Vittorio Taviani's Cesare deve morire (Caesar Must Die). It also won the competition category for the Ecumenical Prize.

The Jury Grand Prix-Silver Bear went to Bence Fliegauf's Csak a szél (Just The Wind). It earned a pair of others, taking the Peace Film Award and the Amnesty International Film Prize.

NAACP Image Awards - winners

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) held their 43rd annual NAACP Image Awards tonight at the Shrine Auditorium. Sanaa Lathan and actor Anthony Mackie hosted the event.

The Help led the Motion Picture field with wins for Outstanding Motion Picture and acting awards for Actress Viola Davis and Supporting Actress Octavia Spencer. The Help had led the nominations with eight along with Pariah.

Salim Akil's Jumping the Broom tied the three wins by The Help with its own trio of prizes. It claimed Best Director and the both Actor and Supporting Actor for Laz Alonso and Mike Epps respectively.

The only win for Pariah was for Independent Motion Picture. The winner for Foreign Motion Picture was In the Land of Blood and Honey. The award for Writing in a Motion Picture went to Ann Peacock for The First Grader

Free events this weekend at Lightbox

Tomorrow morning, TIFF Bell Lightbox kicks off a weekend of free screenings and activities for people of all ages as part of their festivities for the Family Day long weekend.

In addition to a free screening of their regular weekly Family Classics series (this week's feature is Fantastic Mr. Fox), there will be addition free screenings of Moonbeam Bear and His Friends, The Flying Classroom, Sergeant Pepper, Signe Taylor and a collection of animated short films based on children's literature Cover to Cover: Literature Meets Animation.

They will also have a number of free workshops for children on button-making, voice-dubbing, and using green screen, puppets and other visual effects with animals.

Call for submissions: NSI New Voices program

Winnipeg's National Screen Institute (NSI) has put out a call for submissions for their 2012 New Voices program.

The program is a 14-week training program for Aboriginal Canadians 18-35 years of age. It provides culturally sensitive training in the film and television industry. There is a small application fee but no tuition fee for the program. Participants will in fact be paid minimum wage during the program.

Non-residents of Winnipeg may apply but must provide for their own travel and accommodation and demonstrate that they are able to do so.

The program begins April 30 and runs for fourteen weeks. The first phase is six weeks of skills development training, followed by a second phase of eight weeks in a work placement. Additionally, participants will shoot, edit and screen three short films.