This Year's Film Bazara November 21 - 24, 2012 Goa Marriott Resort, India

ABOUT FILM BAZAAR

An evolving trade market for film industry professionals, Film Bazaar is committed to discover and support significantly compelling talent from South Asia and address key concerns of the world film community in the dynamic domain of film development, production, and distribution. From 2007 onwards FB is a converging point for buyers and sellers of film rights and is aimed at facilitating sales of world cinema in the South Asian region and the promotion of Indian Cinema in the international domain.

2012 will see 6 original stories by Indian writers, 25 potential projects relating to South Asian stories, Knowledge Series sessions with noteworthy film industry doyens & prominent film organizations. The Film Bazaar Viewing Room will house unseen films looking for gap finance/distribution partners/scrfestival selection as also films featured in the Indian Panorama (IFFI). A partner program with Primehouse (Germany) PrimeXchange is a co-production initiative that provides a forum for independent European and Indian Producers to engage in an open and collaborative environment with hands-on media industry experts.The market is also equipped with an Exhibitors Section where booths can be booked, and digital theatres for trade screenings of films. 

Organised annually alongside the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) at the Goa Marriott Resort, the market is a gamut of activity where delegates buy, sell, exhibit and pitch their content. The sixth Film Bazaar will be held from November 21 - 24, 2012.

Celebrating the World Refugee Day with a Short Film

June 20^th is the World Refugee Day that is celebrated all over the world.

This year, based the UNHCR announcement, the Afghans still have the highest number of refugees and asylum seekers in the world.

World Refugee Day was celebrated in a public library in Milan Italy with many refugees from Afghanistan and African countries.     

“Within The Mists” a short film by M. Amin Wahidi was projected and the director talked about his experiences as a refugee and how his film was inspired and then made.

Film Title: “Within the mists” 

Written and Directed by: Mohammad Amin Wahidi

Location: Milan-Italy

Duration: 31 Minutes

Production: Deedenow Cinema Afghanistan- Remspot Italy 

Year: 2011

Language: Italian

Subtitles: English

Plot
A refugee writer/poet is trying to make relation with the city he has moved into but he fails. A man alone, the citizen of nowhere tries to find a link between his present and past. Suffering solitude Mr X is the search of a meaning for his life. Could this meaning be love, love of a human being. What if he leaves the city and its crazy people, could this be a concrete solution for him?
In three words this film is about: nostalgia, solitude and homelessness.  

 

The Global Film Initiatives Call for Applications: Summer 2012 Feature Film Production Grants

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS
Summer 2012 Feature Film Production Grants
Application deadline: July 16, 2012

In its continuing effort to promote original storytelling by individuals from around the world, the Global Film Initiative is pleased to announce a Call for Applications for the Summer 2012 cycle of its narrative feature film production grants program.

Applications are accepted for feature-length, narrative film projects in all stages of production by directors from eligible nations of Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Central & Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Oceania. Applications may be submitted from May 15, 2012 through July 16, 2012, and granting decisions are announced in October 2012.*

APPLICATION DEADLINE: July 16, 2012

*For Applications, Eligibility Requirements and Granting Guidelines, please visit: www.globalfilm.org/granting.htm

*****

About the Granting Program
The Global Film Initiative's Granting Program awards fifteen to twenty grants per year, of up to $10,000 each, to filmmakers whose work exhibits artistic excellence, authentic self-representation and accomplished storytelling. Funds received from grants are used to support completion of film production and to subsidize post-production costs such as laboratory and sound mixing fees, and access to advanced editing systems.

Since the Initiative's founding in 2002, the Granting Program has awarded 122 grants to filmmakers worldwide. Grant recipients include:

• BEATRIZ'S WAR (A GUERRA DA BEATRIZ), dir. Bety Reis, East Timor
  First locally produced and directed narrative feature film from East Timor. GFI grant awarded in 2011.
• THE MIRROR NEVER LIES, dir. Kamila Andini, Indonesia
  Awarded the FIPRESCI Prize at the 2012 Hong Kong International Film Festival. GFI honorable mention awarded in 2011.
• MISS LOVELY, dir. Ashim Ahluwalia, India
  Official Selection of the 2012 Cannes Film Festival (Un Certain Regard). GFI grant awarded in 2010.
• LA RUTA DE LA LUNA, dir. Juan Sebastián Jácome, Panama
  World Premiere at the 2012 International Film Festival Panama. GFI honorable mention awarded in 2011.

For more information about the Granting Program, please visit: www.globalfilm.org/programs.htm

Questions about our Granting Program? Visit our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page.

www.globalfilm.org

No Better Subject than “Afshar Massacre” for Angelina Jolie’s New Movie in Afghanistan

By Mohammad Amin Wahidi

First Published on Kabul Press and Hazara People

Two months after her first movie’s premiere and worldwide success, as a new director, Angelina Jolie has announced to the media that she has an idea and is writing a script on the Afghanistan Civil War.

Her debut feature, “In the Land of Blood and Honey”, a critically acclaimed movie about the civil war in the former Yugoslavia has expanded her fame as an emerging director and it proved her talent in making good movies as well in addition to be an extraordinary actress.

This new announcement seems to be good news for the people who look for justice in Afghanistan; the victims of the civil war and genocides such as Afshar Massacre.

Suffering injustice in Afghanistan even after ten years of two new governments, people are still hopeless for the transitional justice to be applied by the corrupted government of Afghanistan, but millions believe cinema as an effective medium can make their dream come true; depict the picture of committed crimes during these years which may push the war criminals to the justice courts.

Afshar Massacre, as a brutal genocide and a spot of shame in the contemporary history of Afghanistan, has caused the loss of almost 5,000 innocent people including women and children in a one-day military operation in west of Kabul in February 1993.

This evident massacre, has been recorded by different international human rights organizations and many documents including names and statistics, photos and videos of the killed and captured people are available in the HR organizations achieves.

Besides there are some documentaries available which have interviews with the remainders of the victims and their relatives that could help write a strong script based on this harsh scene of the contemporary Afghanistan History.

The result of a film on Afshar Massacre could be a Hotel Rwanda II which will not only have a humanitarian value but a critic acclaim and a box-office success for sure.

The Academy Award winner actress, Angelina Jolie is famous for her humanitarian assistances to the poor, war-torn countries as she has been a Goodwill Ambassador of the UNHCR and has so far made several trips to the countries in conflict- zone including, Afghanistan, Chad, Iraq, Libya and Sudan.

Her background as UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador since 2001 has helped her gain a deep knowledge and understanding the level of sufferance the people in these war torn countries face and how many victims remain unhealed even long after the war.

Thus in her first movie as a director, she has proved to have had understood the meaning, the essence and the consequences of a civil war that is horrible and its consequences destroy even generations.

Afghanistani filmmakers and script writers would welcome Ms. Jolie to come and work on an Afshar Massacre script for her new movie in Afghanistan where she will be warmly welcomed, assisted and supported by them.

Milan: Film Screening and Discussion about Afghanistan after 2014

Storie Afghane: Film screening and discussion about Afghanistan after 2014

Amin Wahidi (film director), Novo Umberto Maerna, (Cultural Assessor of Province of Milan), Gian Micalessin, (Journalists in conflict zones) and Marco Masante (director of photography) were the speakers in this event in Milan.

How simply a good film is made: Making-of "A Separation" a film by Asghar Farhadi

"A Separation" a film by Asghar Farhadi (Iranian) winner of Golden Globe Award 2012 as The Best Foreign Language Film






Complete List of its Winnings and Nominations

Storie Afghane: Una serata con due cortometraggi Afghani a Milano

Comunicato Stampa - Milano, 29 dicembre 2011

Giovedì 12 gennaio 2012, alla Casa delle culture del mondo: “Storie afghane”, incontro con Mohammad Amin Wahidi, regista afghano rifugiato in Italia, e proiezione di due suoi cortometraggi. Intervengono Novo Umberto Maerna, Gian Micalessin e Marco Masante.

Giovedì 12 gennaio, alle ore 18.30, alla Casa delle culture del mondo, Via Giulio Natta 11, Milano (M1 Lampugnano): “Storie Afghane”, un incontro sull’ Afghanistan e la condizione degli esuli politici promosso dall’Assessorato alla Cultura della Provincia di Milano.

Durante la serata, vengono proiettati due cortometraggi di Mohammad Amin Wahidi, giovane regista afghano di etnia hazara, rifugiato politico in Italia: “Within The Mists”, girato a Milano in lingua italiana, presentato quest’anno all’International Exhile Film Festival di Goteborg, e “Treasure In The Ruins”, in lingua dari (persiano) con sottotitoli in inglese.

Con il regista intervengono: Gian Micalessin, inviato di guerra per il Giornale; Marco Masante, direttore della fotografia di “Within The Mists”, e Novo Umberto Maerna, Vice Presidente e Assessore alla Cultura della Provincia di Milano.

“Within The Mists” (“Nelle nebbie”, 29 min. Italia, 2011)

Uno scrittore rifugiato politico, solo e spaesato in una nuova città, ricerca un legame tra il suo presente e il suo passato. Non più cittadino del Paese che ha lasciato, e non ancora di quello nuovo, la risposta può essere, ancora una volta, l’amore per un altro essere umano. Oppure una nuova fuga, questa volta dalla follia della città.

“Treasure in the ruins” (“Un tesoro tra le rovine”, 26 min, Afghanistan, 2007)

Homa, ragazzina dei sobborghi di Kabul, di giorno va a scuola e di notte tesse tappeti. Ogni sera, la mamma, molto malata, le racconta una storia. Per vivere una di queste storie ed inseguire i suoi sogni, Homa esce dalla sua dura realtà e con i suoi compagni di scuola va in cerca dei tesori nascosti di Kabul sotto le macerie della guerra.

Mohammad Amin Wahidi (Kabul, 1982), rifugiato in Pakistan con la famiglia all’età di 10 anni, al ritorno in patria ha studiato teatro e cinema alla Facoltà di Belle Arti di Kabul. Tra i primi presentatori televisivi in Afghanistan di etnia hazara, osteggiato dai fondamentalisti pashtoon fino alla chiusura delle sue trasmissioni, nel 2007 ha fondato con alcuni compagni la casa di produzione Deedenow Cinema (Nuova Visione), che, nonostante rischi e minacce, supporta il lavoro dei filmmaker afghani che vogliano trasmettere un messaggio di pace. Ne fanno parte, oltre a Wahidi: Reza Ahmadi, Hanif Elham, S Jalal Masoumi, Masoud Zarifi, Ali Akbar Mohebi, Nasim Sahar Ganji and S Zekeria Rezayee.

“L'incontro e il ciclo di proiezioni sull'Afghanistan e la drammatica condizione dell'etnia Hazara - spiega il Vice Presidente della Provincia di Milano, Novo Umberto Maerna - confermano ancora una volta la dinamicità e la vivacità della Casa delle culture, che nel corso del 2011, sotto la diretta gestione della Provincia e senza ricorrere a costose consulenze esterne, è divenuta un luogo prezioso di dibattito culturale nonché luogo di autentico dialogo. Focalizzare l'attenzione sull'Afghanistan significa riflettere su uno degli scenari di guerra più sanguinosi degli ultimi decenni, ma anche su uno tra i punti più strategici dell'assetto geopolitico mondiale. Una riflessione - conclude Maerna - che potremo condividere con Gian Micalessin, inviato di guerra e tra i maggiori conoscitori del mondo afghano”.

Ingresso libero.

Informazioni al pubblico:

Provincia di Milano/La Casa delle culture del mondo, tel. 02 334968.54/30

www.provincia.milano.it/cultura - culturedelmondo@provincia.milano.it

Ufficio stampa:

Provincia di Milano/Cultura, tel. 02 7740.6310/6359

g.bocca@provincia.milano.it; m.piccardi@provincia.milano.it

Addetto stampa Assessore, tel. 02 7740.6386 - f.provera@provincia.milano.it

Buz e Chini: The First Hazaragi 3D Short Animazion

Untitled from Republic Of Silence on Vimeo.

"Buz e Chini" is the title of the first Hazaragi 3D Short Animation that is being premiered in Oslo a couple of months ago.

Although since 2004 there are animators who make short animations in Afghanistan however the quality and the graphic style of "Buz e Chini" short animation is compared to the products of Pixar which is a hope for the future of Hazaragi Animations.

This short animation is based on an Afghan Folklore tale about a goat with its three kids that is being cheated by an old wolf.

Deedenow Cinema congratulates the premiere of this animation and wishes success for the future works by these animators.