There is an interesting tension at the Sarajevo Film Festival which, though this was my first time, I suspect exists as a matter of course. And this is a tension between the spirit of the people I meet here – ebullient, good-humoured and indefatigable (they really know how to party) – and the films themselves, which suggest a country and a region still reeling from the turmoil of its recent past. It’s a strange experience, then, poised between light and gloom.The origins of the festival embody this tension. It began in 1995, in the midst of the Siege of Sarajevo, one of the many cultural Read more ...

Odessa must be one of Central Europe’s more distinctive cities, characterised by a profoundly cosmopolitan ethnic mix over more than two centuries. It was one of the most international cities in the Tsarist empire, while in Soviet times it honed that identity, based not least on the size of its Jewish population, and the brand of humour – accompanied by an almost distinct language – that resulted. So what am I doing here, I asked myself, watching a Monty Python film retrospective, in a packed late-night showing, where a fair part of the audience seems to know the lines off by heart?The answer Read more ...

In its second year under creative director David Ansen and in its new home at the LA Live complex, the Los Angeles Film Festival seems to have recovered from the slightly rocky start of its downtown debut last year. While one or two of the several hundred volunteers still seemed to be in it for the free T-shirt, most were clearly film enthusiasts themselves, eager to swap tips with patrons about screenings and potential sleeper hits.The primary venue itself, the luxurious Regal theatre complex in downtown Los Angeles, remains an odd choice for this sort of arts event. Its location in an Read more ...

A teenage boy howls casually at the full moon; elephants in a river take a midnight dip, glossy with water and moonlight; a drunk on a park bench can’t hold back the laughter as he listens to an iPod. What were you doing on 24 July, 2010? It’s a question that executive producer Ridley Scott and director Kevin MacDonald, with the mighty aid of YouTube, asked people across the globe. Demanding footage of everything from the daily rituals of eating, washing and travelling to moments of heightened or unusual significance, the film-makers’ only stipulation was that the material be filmed within a Read more ...

During the 1960s, when decolonisation movements were sweeping the world, it was joked that, after achieving independence, a country had to do three things: design a flag, launch an airline and found a film festival. Western Sahara has a flag but no airline and, despite a 35-year struggle, has yet to achieve independence. The closest Western Sahara comes to its own film festival is the Sahara International Film Festival (known as FiSahara), the world's most remote film festival, whose eighth edition took place this month in a refugee camp deep in the Algerian desert.FiSahara takes place Read more ...

The Sundance Film Festival: you have to pack moonboots, parka and thermals. The showcase for independent films, whose public face since its inception in 1978 has been Robert Redford, takes place each January in Utah. In April of next year it is setting up a new branch in the moonboot-free environment of the 02 Arena in London.Sundance London won’t confine itself to the movies. The multi-disciplinary four-day event will include not only screenings but also live music and discussions. One imagines that other festival directors in London will welcome it through gritted teeth. Raindance – an Read more ...

Another 400 films, another rush for seats, another biting wind from Vladivostock: the 61st Berlin Film Festival - the Berlinale - has packed ’em in in the centre of town at Potsdamer Platz (mainly) over the last 10 days and hoped to light up the inevitably gloomy middle of February, and almost succeeded. But boy were there some tedious competition films this year.2011's Golden Bear Jodaieye Nader az Simin ("Nader and Simin: A Separation", the lead actors Leila Hatami and Peyman Moadi pictured below) was a hot contender from the moment the Iranian film hit Berlin. Director Jafar Panahi, Read more ...

Tainted by its origins and association with the pulp cinema of the 1950s (classics like Bwana Devil, It Came from Outer Space and House of Wax were pioneers of stereoscopic technology), 3D cinema has remained the province of entertainment cinema, a novelty no art-house auteur would touch. Spin The Hurt Locker’s shock Oscar win in 2010 any way you want, it made an emphatic statement about the value the cinematic academy placed on technological advancement. For that was surely the terminal problem with Avatar. A thrilling visual spectacle, it harnessed its innovations to a recycled plot Read more ...

A documentary film I made recently, The First Movie, won the Prix Italia. Wim Wenders sent an email which said, “I loved it.” When I showed it at the prestigious Telluride Film Festival last month, nearly 1000 people turned up to see it, and many were in tears. How did all this happen? I’m not sure that I know. But, looking back, I can see a chain of decisions about the making of the film and the impulses behind it. Don’t all artworks have such a chain? The first link was, perhaps, watching Dennis Hopper’s great film The Last Movie, which is about a Hollywood film crew intruding in the Read more ...

Cambridge is in pre-term cocktail mood, almost. Its Film Festival slips in after Locarno and Venice, and as Toronto ends, and before Rome (increasingly important) and London (internationally a struggler) start. It tilts in the same direction as the aforementioned, with fully fledged art movies, provocative documentaries and work from a dozen language groups or so, though it's very small and many people might not know it exists.This year, it nearly didn't exist at all. No corks popped as it opened, arriving at its 30th birthday - yes, 30 years of festival films in a city far more famous for Read more ...

This slot is always one of the trickiest to fill satisfactorily, though last year’s choice – Pixar’s delightful animation Up – was inspired. Coming on the same day as the film’s release date, alas, Robin’s rain-lashed, Ridley-less premiere felt like a non-event from the get-go, putting the festival on the back foot before it had even begun. Ground was made up the following day thanks to an out of competition showing of Oliver Stone’s belated Wall Street sequel, Money Never Sleeps, a film that, while rather undermined by its perverse determination to de-fang Michael Douglas’s rapacious Gordon Read more ...

New films by Mike Leigh, Stephen Frears and Sophie Fiennes figure in the line-up of the 63rd Cannes Film Festival, which was announced at a press conference in Paris this morning. As expected, Leigh's Another Year will vie for the Palme d'Or, the only British film to be selected. Frears's Tamara Drewe, based on the Guardian comic strip, plays out of competition, as does Oliver Stone's Wall Street - Money Never Sleeps and Woody Allen's London-set You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger. Also out of competition, Fiennes's Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow, a film about the artist Anselm Kiefer, gets Read more ...