Inaugural ASEAN International Film Awards – winners

The first ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) International Film Festival and Awards in Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia concluded this weekend at the Borneo Convention Centre Kuching with the presentation of the award-winners.

The top winner of the event was Emmanuel Quindo Palo's Sta Nina (Philippines). It won Best Picture - Drama as well as Best Actress (Alessandra de Rossi) and Best Supporting Actress (Anita Linda).

The Malaysian film Songlap by Effendee Mazlan and Fariza Azlina Isahak was also a multiple prize-winner. It took Best Picture - Action and Best Actor (Shaheizy Sam).

The Best Picture - Comedy winner was another Malaysian film, Istanbul Aku Datang by Bernard Chauly. Malaysia's Hanyut by U-Wei Haji Saari was given a Special Honour Award. Saari incidentally was the head of the nominating jury.

Call for submissions: Telefilm Canada PITCH THIS!

Telefilm Canada PITCH THIS!

This September, Telefilm Canada PITCH THIS! returns to the Toronto International Film Festival® for its 14th consecutive year!

Six participant teams have six minutes to pitch their feature film idea to a live audience of over 200 industry professionals. The winner, selected by a jury of international industry experts, will be awarded $10,000 CAD from Telefilm Canada to develop the project further.

Congratulations to Ian Harnarine, winner of the 2012 Telefilm Canada PITCH THIS! competition for his project Doubles with Slight Pepper!

Call for submissions: Toronto After Dark Film Festival

The Toronto After Dark Film Festival is now accepting submissions for its 8th annual festival this fall of 2013.

Toronto After Dark Film Festival is one of the world’s leading showcases of new horror, sci-fi, action and cult films. Now in its 8th year, the critically acclaimed annual event, screens thrilling new feature films and shorts from around the world, and a number of Toronto After Dark titles can also be found amongst the Official Selections of the Sundance, South By South-West (SXSW), Tribeca, and Cannes film festivals.

On a local level, the festival has grown to become a signature event in Canada’s largest city, enjoying an annual attendance of over 10,000 enthusiastic film fans and 100-plus members of press and industry. In a poll of local filmgoers, Toronto After Dark was also voted Runner-Up for Best Film Festival in the City.

Call for submissions: Innoversity Pitch Competition

The Innoversity Creative Summit has announced their call for submissions for their 2013 Innoversity Pitch Competition.

The Innoversity Pitch Competition offers four talented teams a chance to make their production dream come true. Winners in each category will receive development funds, post-production services and professional mentorship - everything you need to launch your project. The deadline for entries is April 15, 2013 at 11:59pm EST.

The four possible categories are 1. TV: Scripted; 2. TV: Unscripted; 3. Digital Media Storytelling; and 4. Short Film.

Call for submissions: Thought for Food pitch competition

Your WorldView has teamed up with the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, the largest documentary festival, market and conference in North America, to launch an exclusive online pitching opportunity to be awarded a £1,000 grant to fund a short film, as part of the Your WorldView Thought for Food season.

Filmmakers will have only 3 weeks to tweet their pitch for a short film on ‘food’. The 140-character pitches will then be judged by both organisations and a shortlist of 6 will be asked to film their pitches and submit them to Your WorldView. The winner will be announced at the ‘I’ve pitched. Now what?’ session on Friday 3 May and via Twitter at the 20th Hot Docs, running from 25 April to 5 May 2013. The winner will receive a grant of £1,000 to turn their idea into a reality.

Call for submissions: Mascara & Popcorn Film Festival

The Mascara & Popcorn Film Festival is now accepting submissions to their 2013 festival.

Mascara & Popcorn is a film festival that delves into the horror genre for the most part, as well as the experimental, the weird and the wonderful. Mascara and Popcorn also showcases projects that go beyond film: theatre, music, fundraisers and live performances within the underground arena, helping entrepreneurs and artists connect and kick start opportunities for themselves. The festival strives to support independent film, promote all types of thought-provoking dark art and human passions to the extreme: horror, experimental, post-apocalyptic, film noir, horror-comedy, gore, dark fiction, dark fantasy, dark animation, dark science-fiction and most dramas. Any film of the imagination that steps out of the ordinary. Intense, disturbing, provocative, unclassifiable material. Low budget works with high production value.

Premiile Gopo 2013, Romanian film awards – winners

Tonight, the Asociaţia Pentru Promovarea Filmului Românesc (Association for Romanian Film Promotion) held the gala ceremony for their 7th Annual Premiile Gopo (Gopo Awards) for Romanian cinema at the Opera Națională in Bucharest. Mihai Bobonete (Bobo) hosted the evening.

Two films dominated the evening. Radu Jude's Toată lumea din familia noastră (Everybody in Our Family) came away with six awards including the top awards of Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor (Şerban Pavlu), Best Supporting Actor (Gabriel Spahiu), Best Supporting Actress (Mihaela Sîrbu) and Best Screenplay.

However, Silviu Purcărete's Undeva la Palilula (Somewhere in Palilula) managed to scoop more awards overall with seven, all in the technical and craft categories. It had led the nominations with eleven. The film's cinematographer Adrian Silișteanu picked up an additional prize from the Romanian Society of Cinematographers.

2013 Festival International du Film sur l'Art (FIFA) Awards – winners

The 31st Annual Festival International du Film sur l'Art (International Festival of Films on Art) or FIFA, presented in association with Astral, closed on Sunday with supplementary screenings of some twenty films. From March 14 to 24, FIFA’s legions of fans were able to enjoy a total of 248 films from 28 countries, embracing a wide range of artistic disciplines, at nine of Montreal’s most prominent cultural institutions. For the first time, FIFA proudly presented recent works from Cuba, Cambodia, South Korea and the Bahamas.

The international jury of the 31st FIFA, presided over by Olivier Kaeppelin, director of the Maeght Foundation in Saint-Paul-de-Vence (France), revealed the 12 prizewinners from 8 countries at the Awards Ceremony held at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts last Saturday, March 23. The other jury members included American filmmaker and composer Michael House; New Brunswick producer, director and screenwriter Monique LeBlanc; Quebec producer Michel Ouellette; and Belgian producer-director Françoise Wolff.

Canadian Society of Cinematographers (CSC) Awards 2013 – winners

The Canadian Society of Cinematographers hosted the ceremony last night for their 56th Annual CSC Awards at the Frontenac Ballroom of the Westin Harbour Castle.

The winner for Theatrical Feature Cinematography was Kamal Derkaoui for his work on The Tall Man by Pascal Laugier and starring Jessica Biel. For Documentary Cinematography, the winner was Vic Sarin for the shooting his own documentary Desert Riders.

In the television categories, the winners included Paul Sarossy for The Borgias and Glen Winter for Arrow.

Japanese Documentary Festival, Mar 25-28

The Japan Foundation of Toronto is hosting "an observational film festival" featuring four films by acclaimed filmmaker Kazuhiro Soda. All of the screenings are free.

The films being screened are Theatre 1, Campaign, Peace, and Theatre 2. All films will be screened in the original Japanese with English subtitles. After the screenings, discussions will take place in English.

Soda takes a verité approach and believes that "a filmmaker should minimize preconceived ideas and should simply learn from the crude reality captured on camera," encouraging the view to form their own opinions about the images they see with little interference from the filmmaker.

Jameson Empire Awards 2013 – winners

Tonight at the Great Room at the Grosvenor House Hotel, London, the presentation for the Jameson Empire Awards took place, with comedian Ed Byrne hosting the evening's festivities.

Skyfall picked up Best Film, with director Sam Mendes also winning Best Director and a special Empire Inspiration award for good measure. The awards, voted for by fans, also saw The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey take Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy and Best Actor for Martin Freeman, while Jennifer Lawrence was voted Best Actress for The Hunger Games.

Elsewhere, Sightseers won Best British Film and Headhunters took Best Thriller, while Best Comedy went to Ted. Hammer's The Woman In Black was Best Horror, and its star Daniel Radcliffe won an Empire Hero prize. Best Male Newcomer was The Impossible's Tom Holland, while Samantha Barks was Best Female Newcomer following her turn in Les Misérables.

2013 Genesis Awards – winners

The Humane Society of the United States held its 27th Annual Genesis Awards last night at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. The awards are given in honour of news and entertainment media “for their role in raising awareness of animal issues.”

Big Miracle by Ken Kwapis was named winner for the Feature Film award. The drama starring John Krasinski and Drew Barrymore is about a reporter who gets help from his ex-girlfriend to save a family of trapped whales. It won against competition from Darling Companion, Delhi Safari and To the Arctic.

Television winners included the series Harry's Law, Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, and the Discovery Channel's Ivory Wars.

Kids' Choice Awards 2013 – winners

Nickelodeon held its ceremony for the 26th Annual Kids' Choice Awards tonight at the Galen Center in Los Angeles, California. Actor Josh Duhamel hosted the event. Performers included Pitbull and Christina Aguilera with "Feel This Moment" and Ke$ha with "We R Who We R" and "C'Mon".

The Hunger Games by Gary Ross was the winner of Favourite Movie. The series of books by Suzanne Collins also won for Favorite Book.

Kristen Stewart took two awards on her own. She won Favorite Movie Actress for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 and Favorite Female Buttkicker for Snow White and the Huntsman.

Schweizer Filmpreis 2013 (Swiss Film Awards) – winners

This evening, the Schweizer Filmakademie (Swiss Film Academy) held their awards ceremony for the 16th Annual Schweizer Filmpreis (Swiss Film Awards) at the Bâtiment des Forces Motrices in Geneva. The evening was co-hosted by Fabienne Hadorn and Alain Croubalian.

Three films dominated this year’s awards. Sister won in the Best Fiction Film and Best Screenplay categories. More than Honey took the Best Documentary Film and Best Film Score awards, while Hiver Nomade (Winter Nomads) won the Best Cinematography Award as well as the Special Award of the Academy.

The 2013 Best Actress/Actor awards went to Sibylle Brunner, Kacey Mottet Klein and Antonio Buil. All winners received a “Quartz” trophy, designed by French artist and sculptor, Jean Mauboulès.

2013 Indie Music Awards – winners

The 13th Annual Independent Music Awards or SiriusXM Indies were handed out last night at the Kool Haus in Toronto. Nine of the 39 awards were handed out at the presentation. Live performers at the show included Cadence Weapon, The Wooden Sky, Diamond Rings, Matt Mays, Yukon Blonde and Metric.

The top winner of the night was Carly Rae Jepsen who claimed Artist of the Year to go with her wins for Single of the Year (Call Me Maybe) and Most Played Independent Artist or Group of the Year. Her win was greeted with boos by the live audience.

Metric had a good night, winning Group or Duo of the Year to go with a win for Best-Selling Independent Release of the Year for Synthetica. Their win and performance was enthusiastically received by the crowd.