European development programme Less Is More (Lim) has selected 16 feature film projects for its 2024 edition, including titles from the UK, Ireland, Greece and three from Ukraine.
The titles include Isla Badenoch’s UK feature Whisperer, a BFI-backed production about a neurodiverse teenager whose relationship to horses helps her navigate the joy and pain of growing up.
Scroll down for the full list of Lim 2024 projects
Also selected is Gift From God, the debut feature of Scottish filmmaker Catriona MacInnes, whose 2008 short I’m In Away From Here played at Venice.
Further projects include Like There Is No Tomorrow from Norwegian...
The titles include Isla Badenoch’s UK feature Whisperer, a BFI-backed production about a neurodiverse teenager whose relationship to horses helps her navigate the joy and pain of growing up.
Scroll down for the full list of Lim 2024 projects
Also selected is Gift From God, the debut feature of Scottish filmmaker Catriona MacInnes, whose 2008 short I’m In Away From Here played at Venice.
Further projects include Like There Is No Tomorrow from Norwegian...
- 2/13/2024
- ScreenDaily
Georgis Grigorakis's Digger is showing exclusively on Mubi in many countries starting February 16, 2021 in the series Festival Focus: Berlinale.The spark for the story is the character of Nikitas, a man who lives and works alone in the heart of a beautiful mountain forest. He battles with an industrial Monster that eats away the land he is on, threatening his property, but more importantly his way of life. He can’t leave this place as all he has is associated with it and he continues living there under constant threat. The forest protects him, and he protects it. Is he a man consistent with his values, who takes it to the end to support his life choices? Or an obsessive, who denies the dead end and suffers because of his inability to change. Does truth lie somewhere in the middle? Every truth is half a truth. It’s is a universal law of nature.
- 2/12/2021
- MUBI
Fernanda Valadez’s road movie has won the International Competition, Georgis Grigorakis received five awards, and Ameen Nayfeh was the big winner in Meet the Neighbors. The debut feature by Mexican film director-screenwriter-editor Fernanda Valadez, Identifying Features, has won the “Theo Angelopoulos” Golden Alexander for Best Feature Film at the 61st Thessaloniki International Film Festival, which ran from 5-15 November entirely online and attracted more than 80,000 viewers and film-industry professionals. The international jury, comprising Macedonian writer-director Teona Strugar Mitevska, director of the International Film Festival Rotterdam Vanja Kaludjerčić, Greek director Yorgos Tsemberopoulos, Iranian actress Melika Foroutan, and Icelandic sound designer and mixer Björn Viktorsson, handed the €15,000 prize to the Mexican-Spanish road movie, as they were “impressed by the directorial approach to the cinematic form, a form that never overpasses the natural flow of the story, but constantly elevates it to a higher and deeper stance and proposition”. The second...
- 11/17/2020
- Cineuropa - The Best of European Cinema
“Identifying Features,” Fernanda Valadez’s searing abduction drama set along the U.S.-Mexico border, was awarded the Golden Alexander for best feature film at the 61st Thessaloniki Film Festival.
The awards were announced Monday at the conclusion of the Greek fest’s digital edition, which ran Nov. 5-15. Valadez’s feature debut, which was a double award winner in the World Cinema dramatic competition in Sundance, follows the extraordinary ordeal of a woman who sets out in search of her teenage son two months after he left their village to find work in the U.S.
“In a cruel world of heartbreaks, tragedy and survival, a story of an unexpected bond is born,” the international jury said in its decision. “The film stands as a reminder of the limitless space artistic expression can take.”
Greek director Georgis Grigorakis took home the Silver Alexander Special Jury Award for his feature debut,...
The awards were announced Monday at the conclusion of the Greek fest’s digital edition, which ran Nov. 5-15. Valadez’s feature debut, which was a double award winner in the World Cinema dramatic competition in Sundance, follows the extraordinary ordeal of a woman who sets out in search of her teenage son two months after he left their village to find work in the U.S.
“In a cruel world of heartbreaks, tragedy and survival, a story of an unexpected bond is born,” the international jury said in its decision. “The film stands as a reminder of the limitless space artistic expression can take.”
Greek director Georgis Grigorakis took home the Silver Alexander Special Jury Award for his feature debut,...
- 11/16/2020
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
This summer a new board of directors took the reins at the Greek Film Center (Gfc), the body that oversees all aspects of the country’s film policy, from bolstering the development and production of local cinema to luring international film and television shoots to the Mediterranean nation. Despite recent years in which the Gfc has often appeared adrift, industry veterans have thus far been cautiously optimistic that the shake-up will bring much-needed stability and continuity to the organization.
Markos Holevas, who was recently named president of the Gfc’s board, told Variety that the center would waste little time in ensuring that the Greek industry hits the ground running in 2021. “We want to change many things before the end of the year, to begin the new year with a new profile,” he said.
As the Thessaloniki Film Festival winds down, Holevas said the new board was now determined “to...
Markos Holevas, who was recently named president of the Gfc’s board, told Variety that the center would waste little time in ensuring that the Greek industry hits the ground running in 2021. “We want to change many things before the end of the year, to begin the new year with a new profile,” he said.
As the Thessaloniki Film Festival winds down, Holevas said the new board was now determined “to...
- 11/16/2020
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
With days to spare before the opening night of this year’s Thessaloniki Intl. Film Festival, organizers were suddenly forced to contend with a dramatic spike in coronavirus cases in Greece’s second city, prompting them to scrap plans for a hybrid edition and move entirely online.
The sudden reversal, said festival director Orestis Andreadakis, was “really, really difficult,” but not entirely unforeseen, as the country grapples with a second wave of Covid-19 that has far outpaced the first wave in the spring. Contingency plans were already in place, as Andreadakis and his colleagues spent months preparing for a variety of scenarios. “It was extremely difficult, because it was as if [we were] preparing three festivals” at the same time, he said.
On Nov. 3, the Greek government introduced a raft of new measures determined to halt the pandemic’s spread, including a curfew in both Thessaloniki and the country’s capital, Athens,...
The sudden reversal, said festival director Orestis Andreadakis, was “really, really difficult,” but not entirely unforeseen, as the country grapples with a second wave of Covid-19 that has far outpaced the first wave in the spring. Contingency plans were already in place, as Andreadakis and his colleagues spent months preparing for a variety of scenarios. “It was extremely difficult, because it was as if [we were] preparing three festivals” at the same time, he said.
On Nov. 3, the Greek government introduced a raft of new measures determined to halt the pandemic’s spread, including a curfew in both Thessaloniki and the country’s capital, Athens,...
- 11/4/2020
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
Visar Morina’s “Exile,” a tense psychodrama about a Kosovan pharmacologist in Germany who becomes increasingly paranoid over a series of menacing events, won the top prize at the Sarajevo Film Festival, earning the Kosovo-born German director the Heart of Sarajevo.
The award ceremony took place online Thursday night, with Morina winning top honors from a jury led by Academy Award-winning director Michel Hazanavicius (“The Artist”) and comprised of Carlo Chatrian, artistic director of the Berlin Intl. Film Festival; Croatian actress Jadranka Đokić; Serbian director Srdan Golubović; and Andrea Stavenhagen, head of industry and training projects at the Morelia Film Festival.
Director Michel Franco and actor Mads Mikkelsen were given honorary Heart of Sarajevo awards.
The timely drama from Morina, who was named one of Variety‘s 10 Europeans to Watch earlier this year, is a poignant study of identity and belonging at a time of ongoing uncertainty in Europe over...
The award ceremony took place online Thursday night, with Morina winning top honors from a jury led by Academy Award-winning director Michel Hazanavicius (“The Artist”) and comprised of Carlo Chatrian, artistic director of the Berlin Intl. Film Festival; Croatian actress Jadranka Đokić; Serbian director Srdan Golubović; and Andrea Stavenhagen, head of industry and training projects at the Morelia Film Festival.
Director Michel Franco and actor Mads Mikkelsen were given honorary Heart of Sarajevo awards.
The timely drama from Morina, who was named one of Variety‘s 10 Europeans to Watch earlier this year, is a poignant study of identity and belonging at a time of ongoing uncertainty in Europe over...
- 8/20/2020
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
A few minutes before the end of “Digger,” first-time feature director Georgis Grigorakis arrives at a closing shot for the ages: an ambiguous, breath-halting ellipsis that distills all the film’s themes of dueling familial, economical and community values into one spooky, funny man-versus-machine tableau. Except, as it turns out, it’s not the closing shot, as “Digger” continues into a needless bow-tying epilogue that double-underlines points the film has already made elegantly clear.
A little like the clashing men at its center — an estranged father and son fighting for family land in an absurd, escalating war of physical and emotional attrition — Grigorakis doesn’t exactly know when to quit. The rest of his debut, however, could hardly be more exactingly poised and composed, drenched in thick, cloudburst-blue mood that lends heft and consequence to its small-scale storytelling.
A Berlinale Panorama premiere which later resurfaced in the Sarajevo lineup, “Digger...
A little like the clashing men at its center — an estranged father and son fighting for family land in an absurd, escalating war of physical and emotional attrition — Grigorakis doesn’t exactly know when to quit. The rest of his debut, however, could hardly be more exactingly poised and composed, drenched in thick, cloudburst-blue mood that lends heft and consequence to its small-scale storytelling.
A Berlinale Panorama premiere which later resurfaced in the Sarajevo lineup, “Digger...
- 8/18/2020
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
For many of the visitors who descended on the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year, packing their day planners with meetings at the Gropius Bau and red-carpet premieres at the Berlinale Palast, there was a surreal sense of business as usual. But with coronavirus already ravaging Italy—and soon to be sweeping across the rest of Europe—Sarajevo Film Festival director Mirsad Purivatra knew that he and his team had little time to spare.
“We started immediately to think what to do with our festival,” Purivatra told Variety on the eve of Sarajevo’s 26th edition, which runs Aug. 14-21. Even though the festival’s opening night was still months away, “we had [in mind] the worst-case scenario that it could be a bad situation with the numbers of Covid-19” cases in Bosnia.
As spring turned to summer, Purivatra and his colleagues were confident that a scaled-down version of the physical festival...
“We started immediately to think what to do with our festival,” Purivatra told Variety on the eve of Sarajevo’s 26th edition, which runs Aug. 14-21. Even though the festival’s opening night was still months away, “we had [in mind] the worst-case scenario that it could be a bad situation with the numbers of Covid-19” cases in Bosnia.
As spring turned to summer, Purivatra and his colleagues were confident that a scaled-down version of the physical festival...
- 8/14/2020
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
For a feature debut that he describes as a contemporary Western, Greek director Georgis Grigorakis settled on a familiar archetype — “a lonely guy with his horse, with his shotgun” — who, in keeping with the genre’s conventions, is drawn into a confrontation and is prepared to fight to the bitter end in the defense of his beliefs.
But while the battle lines may seem clear at the outset of “Digger,” which world premiered in the Panorama section of the Berlin Film Festival and now plays in the main competition lineup of the Sarajevo Film Festival, a more unsettling conflict takes shape for Nikitas (Vangelis Mourikis) when his son Johnny (Argyris Pandazaras) appears after a 20-year absence, demanding his share of the family’s land. An offer to buy the property for a princely sum pits the two men against each other, while exposing deeper rifts in a mountain community struggling for its survival.
But while the battle lines may seem clear at the outset of “Digger,” which world premiered in the Panorama section of the Berlin Film Festival and now plays in the main competition lineup of the Sarajevo Film Festival, a more unsettling conflict takes shape for Nikitas (Vangelis Mourikis) when his son Johnny (Argyris Pandazaras) appears after a 20-year absence, demanding his share of the family’s land. An offer to buy the property for a princely sum pits the two men against each other, while exposing deeper rifts in a mountain community struggling for its survival.
- 8/14/2020
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
Festival will world premiere 12 features across its dramatic and documentary competitions.
Eight features have been selected for the main competition of the Sarajevo Film Festival, which is taking place as a physical event from August 14-21.
They include the world premieres of More Raça’s Andromeda Galaxy; Fatih Özcan’s Mavzer; Ruxandra Ghițescu’s Otto The Barbarian; and Ru Hasanov’s The Island Within. A further three films played in the Berlinale’s Panorama section earlier this year: Visar Morina’s Exile; Andrea Staka’s Mare; and Georgis Grigorakis’ Digger, which won the strand’s Cicae Award.
Scroll down for...
Eight features have been selected for the main competition of the Sarajevo Film Festival, which is taking place as a physical event from August 14-21.
They include the world premieres of More Raça’s Andromeda Galaxy; Fatih Özcan’s Mavzer; Ruxandra Ghițescu’s Otto The Barbarian; and Ru Hasanov’s The Island Within. A further three films played in the Berlinale’s Panorama section earlier this year: Visar Morina’s Exile; Andrea Staka’s Mare; and Georgis Grigorakis’ Digger, which won the strand’s Cicae Award.
Scroll down for...
- 7/23/2020
- by 1100453¦Michael Rosser¦9¦
- ScreenDaily
"Just sell it and give me my share. You owe me." The Match Factory has revealed an official sales promo trailer for a film called Digger, a Greek contemporary western that marks the feature directorial debut of filmmaker Georgis Grigorakis. This just premiered at the Berlin Film Festival last month, playing in the Panorama section. Digger is about a father and his "long lost" son, who returns to his secluded home on a motorbike and demands the inheritance that he's owed. Berlinale describes: "Director Georgis Grigorakis sets his rain-drenched woodland Western against a majestic backdrop and finds robust yet tender images to tell this tale of rapprochement between two men. A story of resistance more powerful than the strongest excavator." Starring Vangelis Mourikis, Argyris Pandazaras, and Sofia Kokkali. From this footage, it reminds me a lot of the German film Western, which is also an examination of masculinity in modern times.
- 3/17/2020
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
The company has also secured deals on Berlin titles ‘Bad Tales’ and ‘Father’.
German sales firm The Match Factory has racked up sales on several Berlinale films, led by Christian Petzold’s competition title Undine.
The film, which won the Fipresci prize and Silver Bear for actress Paula Beer, has been sold to Spain (Golem), Benelux (Cherry Pickers), Italy (Europictures), Scandinavia (Future Film), Portugal (Leopardo), Austria (Polyfilm), Czech Republic and Slovakia (Film Europe), ex-Yugoslavia (Demiurg), Greece (Ama), Hungary (Vertigo), Poland (Aurora), Romania (Independenta) and Switzerland (Filmcoopi).
IFC Films acquired Us rights to the film during the festival.
The drama, in...
German sales firm The Match Factory has racked up sales on several Berlinale films, led by Christian Petzold’s competition title Undine.
The film, which won the Fipresci prize and Silver Bear for actress Paula Beer, has been sold to Spain (Golem), Benelux (Cherry Pickers), Italy (Europictures), Scandinavia (Future Film), Portugal (Leopardo), Austria (Polyfilm), Czech Republic and Slovakia (Film Europe), ex-Yugoslavia (Demiurg), Greece (Ama), Hungary (Vertigo), Poland (Aurora), Romania (Independenta) and Switzerland (Filmcoopi).
IFC Films acquired Us rights to the film during the festival.
The drama, in...
- 3/10/2020
- by 57¦Geoffrey Macnab¦41¦
- ScreenDaily
Berlinale 2020: Father and Welcome to Chechnya got the Audience Awards in the Panorama section, while Digger received the Cicae Art Cinema Award. The parallel juries have handed out their trophies ahead of the awards ceremony of the 70th Berlin Film Festival. The Europa Cinemas Label for Best European Film in the Panorama section was given to Hope by Norwegian filmmaker Maria Sødahl, while the Cicae Art Cinema Award went to by Digger, the first feature by Greek director Georgis Grigorakis, in the Panorama section, and to Chinese film Ping jing (The Calming) by Song Fang, in the Forum section. The Audience Awards in the Panorama section went to the new film by Serbian director Srdan Golubović, Father, and to Us documentary Welcome to Chechnya, directed by David France, in the documentaries section. Lastly, the Teddy Award went to German title No Hard Feelings, directed by Faraz Shariat, selected in.
Greek filmmaker Georgis Grigorakis' first feature is a contemporary western which will world-premiere in the Berlinale's Panorama section. We present the trailer for the first feature by Greek director Georgis Grigorakis, Digger, which will have its world premiere in the Berlinale's Panorama section on Monday 24 February. Written by Grigorakis and with the story credited to him, Maria Votti and Vangelis Mourikis, who also stars along with Argyris Pandazaras and Sofia Kokkali, Digger is a contemporary western about a native farmer who lives and works alone in a farmhouse in the heart of a mountain forest in Northern Greece. For years now, he has been fighting against an expanding industrial monster digging up the forest, disturbing the lush flora and threatening his property. Yet the greatest threat comes with the sudden arrival of his young son, after a 20-year separation. They turn into enemies under one roof. Father and son...
Matteo Garrone to present ‘Pinocchio’ as the first Berlinale Special Gala.
The Berlinale has revealed the first films set to be screened at the 70th edition of the festival.
They include the live-action adaptation of Pinocchio, from Italian director Matteo Garrone, which is the first Berlinale Special Gala to be announced – a category that replaces ‘out of competition’. It will mark the international premiere of the film, starring Roberto Benigni, which is released in Italy this weekend.
Scroll down for full list of titles
The first 18 films selected for the Panorama strand have also been named, including 11 world premieres.
Among...
The Berlinale has revealed the first films set to be screened at the 70th edition of the festival.
They include the live-action adaptation of Pinocchio, from Italian director Matteo Garrone, which is the first Berlinale Special Gala to be announced – a category that replaces ‘out of competition’. It will mark the international premiere of the film, starring Roberto Benigni, which is released in Italy this weekend.
Scroll down for full list of titles
The first 18 films selected for the Panorama strand have also been named, including 11 world premieres.
Among...
- 12/17/2019
- by 1100453¦Michael Rosser¦9¦
- ScreenDaily
Matteo Garrone to present ‘Pinocchio’ as the first Berlinale Special Gala.
The Berlinale has revealed the first films set to be screened at the 70th edition of the festival.
They include the live-action adaptation of Pinocchio, from Italian director Matteo Garrone, which is the first Berlinale Special Gala to be announced – a category that replaces ‘out of competition’. It will mark the international premiere of the film, starring Roberto Benigni, which is released in Italy this weekend.
Scroll down for full list of titles
The first 18 films selected for the Panorama strand have also been named, including 11 world premieres.
Among...
The Berlinale has revealed the first films set to be screened at the 70th edition of the festival.
They include the live-action adaptation of Pinocchio, from Italian director Matteo Garrone, which is the first Berlinale Special Gala to be announced – a category that replaces ‘out of competition’. It will mark the international premiere of the film, starring Roberto Benigni, which is released in Italy this weekend.
Scroll down for full list of titles
The first 18 films selected for the Panorama strand have also been named, including 11 world premieres.
Among...
- 12/17/2019
- by 1100453¦Michael Rosser¦9¦
- ScreenDaily
Matteo Garrone’s “Pinocchio,” starring Roberto Benigni, will have its international premiere at the 70th Berlin Film Festival the event announced Tuesday as new artistic director Carlo Chatrian unveiled the first titles for his debut edition.
“Pinocchio” will play as part of the Berlinale Special Gala section, which replaces the Out of Competition category.
Chatrian, who co-heads the Berlinale with executive director Mariette Rissenbeek, said: “Garrone succeeds in re-telling the well-known story with his very own world of images. Although he is faithful to Carlo Collodi’s ideas, he has nevertheless created a very personal Pinocchio that is much more cheerful than we’ve experienced before.”
The first films selected for the Panorama, Perspektive Deutsches Kino, Generation and Forum Expanded sections were also announced (links attached).
Among other titles, Michael Stütz, the new head of the Panorama section, has picked films by Faraz Shariat (“No Hard Feelings”), Uisenma Borchu (“Black...
“Pinocchio” will play as part of the Berlinale Special Gala section, which replaces the Out of Competition category.
Chatrian, who co-heads the Berlinale with executive director Mariette Rissenbeek, said: “Garrone succeeds in re-telling the well-known story with his very own world of images. Although he is faithful to Carlo Collodi’s ideas, he has nevertheless created a very personal Pinocchio that is much more cheerful than we’ve experienced before.”
The first films selected for the Panorama, Perspektive Deutsches Kino, Generation and Forum Expanded sections were also announced (links attached).
Among other titles, Michael Stütz, the new head of the Panorama section, has picked films by Faraz Shariat (“No Hard Feelings”), Uisenma Borchu (“Black...
- 12/17/2019
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.