Festival Reports

The challenging work of Paolo Benvenuti has never been so beautiful: his latest film, Puccini e la fanciulla ("Puccini and the Young Girl"), co-directed with his romantic and professional partner Paola Baroni, screens at the Venice Film Festival. The title is not vying for the Golden Lion, but only because Müller and his team of selectors wanted to keep it out of competition.

Is it a "regurgitation of the war" that Mehir feels rise up in his stomach, reaching his head and heart? Or is it merely "matrimonial empathy", the same sickness that his wife has been suffering since she discovered she was pregnant?

Forty-year-old Tuzla-born director Namik Kabil studied in Los Angeles before settling in Sarajevo, where he set his debut feature, Nightguards. Full of black humour, the film reflects on the post-war years in former Yugoslavia.

The line between fiction and reality is not so much blurred as it is erased in Barbet Schroeder's Venice Competition title Inju - The Beast in the Shadow.

The SBS and La fabrique de films production tells the story of a popular French crime writer (Benoît Magimel), who visits Japan for a promotional tour of his latest book.

"Nobody wants to be alone, do they?" says young Heidi on the phone to her mother. Her husband mistreats her, abandons her and their baby of a few months and, once reconciled with her, makes love by brutally sodomising her. But nobody wants to be alone, do they?

Venice 2008German director Christian Petzold continues his exploration of ambling lives in a bankrupt society in the Venice Competition entry Jerichow, a strong film that further consolidates his reputation as one of Northern Europe's finest auteurs.

"Festivals are not like the Olympics: each film is different, there are no records. It's impossible to determine who the winner is". These are the words of Manoel de Oliveira, who will turn 100 in December but remains - according to festival director Marco Müller - "the youngest of the filmmakers at the 65th Venice International Film Festival".

The 33rd Toronto International Film Festival adds twelve titles to the Vanguard and Visions programmes. Six titles join Vanguard and six films have also been added to Visions. "Visions and Vanguard films both push boundaries - Visions for form, Vanguard for content," says Co-Director Cameron Bailey. "We find TIFF audiences love a new challenge; this is where to find it."

Akshay Kumar and Katrina Kaif starrer Bollywood potboiler "Singh is Kinng" has made it to the Toronto International Film Festival. The film will be a part of Special and Gala presentations section of the festival that also includes Oscar winning Coen Brother's latest film "Burn after reading". The festival will open on September 4 and run through September 13.

Enrique Rivero's Parque vía is the first Mexican to win the Grand Prize at the recently concluded Locarno International Film Festival. The film also picked up the International Film Critics' Federation (Fipresci) Prize. The 61st Locarno International Film Festival (August 6-16) - headed by artistic director Fréédéric Maire - announced its prize-winners on Saturday.

Mexican director Enrique Rivero walked away with Golden Leopard for his "Parque Via" at 61st Locarno International Film Festival. Awards were announced in the closing ceremony that was followed by the world premiere of French/Islandic comedy "Back Soon".