79th Venice Film Festival

Finnish filmmaker Hanna Västinsalo attended the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s and Film Independent’s residency program earlier this year with her movie Palimpsest.  Her background in molecular genetics gives her film a unique point of view.

For five years the HFPA Global Residency program has been bringing emerging filmmakers from around the world to Hollywood and fulfilling the HFPA’s mission as ambassadors between the American film industry and world cinema by partnering with some of the world’s premiere film festivals. This year once again the Residency endeavored to give participating fellows a first-hand glimpse of American independent filmmaking.

As part of the 2023 HFPA Residency program, participating film makers introduced their films at a Los Angeles screening, followed by a Q&A moderated by an HFPA journalist.   LA-based Azeri actor/director Tahmina Raffaella screened Banu, an affecting chronicle of a woman’s quest to obtain a divorce and custody of her son, along with a personal emancipation from an abusive marriage, in a lonely struggle against the patriarchal mores that stack the game against her.

From the moment it had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, Argentina, 1985, the new film by Santiago Mitre starring Ricardo Darín and Peter Lanzani, has been a crowd pleaser, regardless of where it has been screened. It was not a surprise that it won the Audience Award at the San Sebastián Film Festival, or that it has become an instant hit in its own country, where lines form regularly around the block to enter the cinemas, a rarity in these days of watching content on platforms at home.

Hanging Gardens is Iraqi filmmaker Ahmed Yassin Al Daradji's first feature film. It follows twelve-year-old As’ad (Hussain Muhammad Jalil), who is trying to make ends meet in post-war Baghdad in Iraq.

Athena was one of the most talked about films at this year's Venice Film Festival. Just released in theaters, it will surely make audiences think, feel and discuss.

Don’t Worry Darling was on everyone’s tongue at TIFF. The film which premiered at the Venice Film Festival was the target of much discussion and little of it had to do with the film itself.

Survival of the fittest is the perfect way to describe my inaugural trip to La Biennale di Venezia, better known as the Venice Film Festival, on the Lido di Venezia, Italy. I spent nearly two full weeks in Venice.

In recent years, the film industry has made strides in showcasing female voices on and off screen. The 79th Venice Film Festival was no exception.

Japanese writer and director Kôji Fukada is no stranger to international film festivals. In 2016, his film Harmonium was selected to be presented at the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard.