Free Republic

As missiles rained down on Kramatorsk last night, killing nine people, including three children, and wounding at least 56 more (see more below), Kyiv did one of the things that Russian President Vladimir Putin hates the most: it celebrated the diversity of its LGBTQ+ community with the Sunny Bunny Film Festival, Ukraine’s first film festival dedicated to queer filmmaking. It was a milestone for the flamboyant and attention-grabbing activist in Ukraine, which despite being more open than Russia, is still conservative when it comes to LGBTQ+ rights. “You’re the first to know!” she exclaimed about her name change, through her...

GRyan re-nominated for Nobel Peace Prize Thursday, January 29, 2004 By The Leader-Champaign/Urbana Bureau CHAMPAIGN -- Last week, former Governor George Ryan was re-nominated for Nobel Peace Prize by Francis Boyle, Professor of International Law and Human Rights at the University of Illinois. "During the past year George Ryan has attempted to generate a wave of opposition to the death penalty all over the world. George Ryan has done more effective work against the death penalty than all of us American Abolitionists put together," Boyle said this week. "For these reasons I believe that George Ryan has, in the words...

The Venice Film Festival just wrapped up in Palazzo del Cinema, Lido, Italy, and the big winners were all smiles. This is apparently considered something of a big deal because winners of this festival frequently go on to win at the Oscars, as was the case with The Shape of Water. The top prize (the Golden Lion award) went to a Joaquin Phoenix film called Joker. (This one sounds pretty good and I might even go see it.)That wasn’t the big news for me, however. The second-place winner, given the Grand Jury Prize, was a film called An Officer...

They like her. They really, really like her. A documentary of the story about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign to unseat a long-time incumbent won the annual audience award in the documentary category at the Sundance Film Festival. The political media’s darling has won over the Hollywood film industry, too. Rachel Lears wrote, produced and directed a documentary and financed it with a Kickstarter campaign. The documentary is titled “Knock Down the House” and the filmmaker really lucked out. She was in the right place at the right time. Choosing four women candidates running for elected office in 2018, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez...

Five North Korean movies about the country's nature and people will be screened at the Ulju Mountain Film Festival (UMFF) on Friday to Tuesday. A romance movie titled "The Other Side of Mountain (2012)," which deals with inter-Korean separated families, will screened on Saturday. The other four films are short North Korean animations with themes about nature ― "Ant rolled Korean Melon (1983)", "A Peasant and a Brindled Dog (1999)", "Potato arrived in Hyanggi-Gol (2000)" and "A Present from Old Tree (2007)". They will be presented as a combined film next Tuesday. Korean-American Joon Bai, writer of "The Other Side...

Thirty-seven years ago, at the age of 32, Moustapha Dali quit show business. An Algeria native, he'd begun to build an acting career in France but tired of his Paris agents telling him he'd have to change his name to one "less Arabic, more French." As Dali recounts it, "I told them I wanted to keep my name. I said Omar Sharif didn't change his name, but they said, 'He's not a French actor, he works in Hollywood.' " Today, at age 69, the scholarly, erudite Dali is the soft-spoken but righteous rector of the Mosquee Al Madina, the main...

Laguna Beach's LSD culture in the 1960s, a cranky widower befriended by his chatty neighbors and a man who's dealing with the fallout from his reality show days are all stories that will be told at the Newport Beach Film Festival this year. At this, the 17th annual festival, there are more than 400 features, short films and documentaries from 50 different countries. It's a chance to see things that likely won't appear elsewhere, especially in the United States. The festival starts this Thursday and runs until the following Thursday. "The largest misconception about any film festival is that these...

A group of 40 British filmmakers and artists have sent an open letter to The Guardian on Monday calling for the Curzon and Odeon cinema chains to stop screenings of an Israeli film festival opening in London this week. Seret 2015, the London Israeli Film and Television Festival, will open Thursday with a gala screening at Bafta, followed by a number of screenings at the aforementioned theaters in the days to follow. Denying the boycott is about refusing to show films by individual filmmakers, the letter stresses cinemas should cancel the screenings because the Israeli state is “promoting this festival...

Like many young twentysomethings, the Los Angeles Film Festival has experimented with its identity as it's grown up, often screening scrappy indies, serious-minded documentaries and splashy studio pictures side by side. For its 21st installment, which takes place Wednesday through June 18 and is sponsored by The Times ...

... [Jake] LaMotta has been the subject of several books, a film considered one of the greatest in American cinema, and a failed stage show called "Lady and the Champ." Now there's a second feature film about his life, this one titled "LaMotta: The Bronx Bull." LaMotta will be in Orange County on Saturday when the new movie, produced by Irvine-based Main Street Films, premieres as part of the Newport Beach Film Festival ...

It has been years since audiences have been given a horror movie that wasn't a carbon copy of another film—big-budget film producers aren't exactly flowing with ideas. Thankfully, the Horror Showcase at the Newport Beach Film Festival, running April 23-30, aims to counter that fatigue with a new crop of filmmakers outside of the Hollywood milieu, presenting seven short films and one feature film that not only break the mold of clichés, but also eat their brains . . . or something. Because if there's one thing we can be mindful of, it's that some of the best, most memorable...

1. Orson Welles was born on May 6, 1915. 2. As a filmmaker, his three greatest pictures, in order, are Touch of Evil (1958), Citizen Kane (1941) and The Magnificent Ambersons (1942). 3. Ah, yes, but Citizen Kane tops many lists as the greatest film of all time (with Welles filling the top slot on many directing lists). The fictional story of a megalomaniac newspaper magnate (loosely based on William Randolph Hearst) and innocence lost is indeed a masterpiece . . . albeit a dated one. Newspaper magnates? Not in this century, bub. 4. John Houseman wrote in his 1972...

The Weekly Standard reported yesterday that, despite the invasion of Ukraine by Russia as well as Putin calling Obama’s bluff after the ‘stern warning’ given to Russia, Barack Obama failed to attend his National Security Team meeting to discuss the situation between Russia and Ukraine. Instead, he was later ‘briefed’ by Susan Rice. According to Todd Starnes from FOX News, rather than attend the security briefing, Obama instead ‘attended a White House Film Festival where pool reporters said he socialized with second graders.’ Prior to the terrorist attack at Benghazi, Obama demonstrated a pattern of missing his security intelligence meetings....

"I was like, Oh my God, this really happened to me." "When I see these kids, I want to, like, slap them."

The Way Nominated for Best Film at 2nd Annual Film Festival LOS ANGELES – Today, organizers of the Life Fest Film Festival, the premiere showcase for films that honor the value of human life and the unique importance of each life, announced that actor/producer Martin Sheen will receive the 2012 Spirit of Life Award. Now in its second year, the Festival will be held May 5-6, at the Los Angeles Convention Center. “Martin Sheen has been outspoken in his opposition to legalizing assisted suicide, a form of voluntary euthanasia, and in his opposition to abortion,” said Brian Johnston, director of...

Once again Hollywood will host a unique Film Festival in May 2012. It is not any ordinary film festival. You probably won’t see Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie. It’s the 2012 Life Fest Film Festival, which will be held in Los Angeles next summer. Life Fest will feature “films that reinforce the intrinsic worth of innocent human life, and the profound significance of each life”. This aspect of human dignity is rarely seen in films of our current culture. How nice to know that there are people out there who want to convey the message that...

Computers, television, film—moving images flickering across screens in hundreds of millions of homes across the U.S. are changing the world around us. Far more many people under thirty are likely to have seen the “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” or “The Lord of the Rings” than to have read either of the books. As our society develops a greater thirst for all things visual, what comes out of Hollywood matters more and more. The great news is that films that would have been passed over thirty or even twenty years ago because the message was too pro-life or...

Do you love films? Are you passionately pro-life? Then Life Fest Film Festival is just for you! Life Fest is the film festival dedicated to showcasing films that reinforce the intrinsic worth of innocent human life and the profound significance of each life. We are not just limited to abortion. This is our second annual festival, which will be held the weekend of May 5 at the LA Convention Center in Los Angeles, CA. Last year, we had well-known pro-life actors and actresses like Charlie Holliday, Clint Howard, Mell Flynn, Deborah Flora, Johnathan Flora, and AlfonZo Rachel in attendance. This...

Saturday's opening night of the 19th annual Silicon Valley Jewish Film Festival promises to be a big multicultural event in Cupertino. Sumo champion Byamba will take on a couple of large opponents as the live opening act before the screening of the Israeli Film Academy Award-winning film "A Matter of Size." The comedy is about overweight Israelis who decide to become sumo wrestlers, so festival organizers thought it would be fun to let the audience see the Japanese wrestling style up close. In addition to the 7 p.m. sumo demonstration, Japanese appetizers will be served before the movie at 9...

The 'garbage girl' of the mountains will get a 'green' award at an environment film festival to be held in the Himachal Pradesh state capital next month, an event organiser said in Shimla on Wednesday. British national Jodie Underhill's contribution towards helping clean up mountains of trash in the mountains surrounding McLeodganj, the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile in upper Dharamsala, was brought to the fore by IANS in its report, titled "The 'garbage girl' of the mountains" dated May 16. "We will honour Jodie with 'Green Hero' award at the inauguration of a three-day Shimla CMS Vatavaran-Environment and Wildlife...