TOP 30 - BEST OF 2018

My favorite 30 BEST FILMS of 2018 (in alphabetical order):

24 FRAMES

۲۴ فریم 
Abbas Kiarostami (Iran)

ARABY

Arábia
João Dumans & Affonso Uchoa (Brazil)

AVA

 آوا
Sadaf Foroughi (Iran)

BARBARA

Mathieu Amalric (France)

BIRDS OF PASSAGE

Pájaros de verano
Cristina Gallego & Ciro Guerra (Colombia)

BLACKKKLANSMAN

Spike Lee (US)

BLOODY MILK

Petit paysan
Hubert Charuel (France)

BURNING

버닝
Lee Chang-dong (South Korea)

CAPERNAÜM

کفرناحوم
Nadine Labaki (Lebanon)

COLA DE MONO

Alberto Fuguet (Chile)

COLD WAR

Zimna wojna
Paweł Pawlikowski (Poland)

DISTANT CONSTELLATION

Shevaun Mizrahi (Turkey/US)

DOGMAN

Matteo Garrone (Italy)

EL ANGEL

Luis Ortega (Argentina)

THE FAVOURITE

Yorgos Lanthimos (US/UK)

THE FIRST LAP

초행
Kim Dae-hwan (South Korea)

FIRST REFORMED

Paul Schrader (US)

THE GREAT BUDDHA+

大佛普拉斯
Huang Hsin-yao (Taiwan)



HAPPY AS LAZZARO

Lazzaro felice
Alice Rohrwacher (Italy)

HARD PAINT

Tinta bruta
Marcio Reolon & Filipe Matzembacher (Brazil)

ISLE OF DOGS

犬ヶ島
Wes Anderson (US)

LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT 

地球最后的夜晚
Bi Gan (China)

NEVER LOOK AWAY

Werk ohne Autor
Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (Germany)

RADIANCE

光
Naomi Kawase (Japan)

ROMA

Alfonso Cuarón (Mexico)

RUBEN BRANDT, COLLECTOR

Milorad Krstić (Hungary)

SHOPLIFTERS

万引き家族
 Hirokazu Kore-eda (Japan)

TIME SHARE
Tiempo compartido
Sebastián Hoffman (Mexico)

THE WILD BOYS

Les Garçons sauvages
Bertrand Mandico (France)

ZAMA

Lucrecia Martel (Argentina)

SFFLA 2019

20th Scandinavian Film Festival L.A.
5, 6, 19, 20, 2019 - WGA in Beverly Hills

SCREENING SCHEDULE:

Saturday, January 5

11:30 Mihkel - Iceland
12:45 To Be Continued - Latvia
02:30 Border - Sweden
05:30 Opening Gala and Buffet
07:30 The Guilty - Denmark

\

Sunday, January 6

11:00 Euthanizer - Finland
01:00 Woman at War - Iceland
03:00 What Will People Say? - Norway
04:30 Unknown Soldier - Finland
07:00 Morgen (short) - Norway
07:30 The 12th Man - Norway

Saturday, January 19

10:00 Rendel: Dark Vengeance - Finland
12:00 Ted: Show Me Love - Sweden
02:30 Three August Days (short) - Estonia
03:00 Take It or Leave It - Estonia
05:30 Vultures - Iceland
07:30 The Cake General - Sweden

Sunday, January 20

12:00 Lithuanian Shorts
12:30 Wonderful Losers - Lithuania
02:00 Becoming Astrid - Denmark
04:30 The Green Valley (short) - Norway
05:00 Utoya: July 22 - Norway
07:30 One Last Deal - Finland


For more information please visit SFFLA2019

DONBASS

Ukraine's Oscar Entry

It’s awards season in Los Angeles where guild members and film lovers experience the best films from around the world competing for the Academy Awards. Sergei Loznitsa’s Donbass is the Ukrainian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 91st Academy Awards. Thanks to the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation, I had the privilege of watching this compelling masterpiece on November 4th at the NeueHouse on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood, followed by an intimate discussion with the filmmaker himself.

Donbass is a political commentary told through thirteen segments of impressively choreographed vignettes that follows the war that has been raging in Eastern Ukraine for years and explores the mid-2010s conflict between Ukraine and the Russian-supported Donetsk People's Republic.

Loznitsa’s distinctive directorial style won him Best Director Award at Un Certain Regard section at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival. The film also screened at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Munich Film Festival, Transatlantyk Festival in Lodz, Poland, and at Odessa Film Festival in Ukraine.

This cinematic symphony of true-life events sourced from newspapers, TV clips, and YouTube is Loznitsa’s latest masterpiece. Using an ensemble cast, Donbass is an absurdist composition that depicts how the war is being fought and lost in Crimea.

Since 2014, following the events of Euromaidan and the Ukrainian revolution, the war in Eastern Ukraine has been raging between pro-Russian separatists loyal to Putin and nationals whose sympathies are with Europe, NATO, and the West. Regardless of region or alliance, memories of the Second World War and Stalinist purges and famines are close to the surface of the societal psyche, where there is no neutral position and apathy is not an option.

Sergei Loznitsa was born in 1964 in Belarus but raised in Ukraine. Many of his films have won awards at international film festivals. Made in partnership with master cinematographer Oleg Mutu, Donbass is Loznitsa’s most cutting political work to date, and Ukraine's 11th foreign-language Oscar submission since 1997. 

Selected Filmography:

• 2010 My Joy (Счастье мое)

• 2012 In the Fog (В тумане)

• 2014 Maidan (Майдан)

• 2015 The Event (Событие)

• 2016 Austerlitz (Аустерлиц)

• 2017 A Gentle Creature (Лагідна)

• 2018 Donbass (Донбас)

• 2018 The Trial (Процесс)

AWFF 2018

Asian World Film Festival 2018

Showcasing the Best Films from the Asian World
October 24 - November 1, 2018
ArcLight Cinemas in Culver City

Featuring 35 films from ASIA including 15 Oscar submissions!

All films that participate in the festival will have a unique chance to be guided through the challenging awards season, showcasing all foreign films to the Academy members, the Hollywood Foreign Press, and all Guilds for enhanced exposure, media attention and awards consideration.

THE GALAS:

Opening Night Film: LOVE SONIA (India)
Centerpiece Film: BURNING (버닝 South Korea)
Closing Night Film: IN HARM'S WAY 烽火芳菲 aka The Chinese Widow (China)


OFFICIAL SELECTIONS in COMPETITION:

Buffalo Boys (Singapore)
Butterflies (Turkey)
Cake (Pakistan)
Ghost Hunting (إصطياد أشباح Palestine)
The Journey (الرحلة Iraq)
The Lord Eagle (Russia)
Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts (Indonesia)
Million Loves in Me (寵我 Hong Kong)
Namme (Georgia)
Night Accident (Kyrgyzstan)
No Bed of Roses (Bangladesh)
No Date, No Signature (بدون تاریخ بدون امضا Iran)
Operation Red Sea (紅海行動 Hong Kong)
The River (Kazakhstan)
Signal Rock (Philippines)
Sobibor (Собибор Russia)
Village Rockstars (India)

SIGNATURE SCREENINGS:

1987: When the Day Comes (South Korea)
Dying to Survive (我不是药神 China)
Grain (Turkey)
Kok Boru: Game of the Tough (Kyrgyzstan)
The Road Not Taken (未择之路 China)
The Spy Gone North (공작 South Korea)
When Angels Sleep (Kazakhstan)


OFFICIAL SELECTIONS:

Cinar (Turkey)
The Elevator (Kazakhstan)
The Great Buddha+ (大佛普拉斯 Taiwan)
Heaven Without People (غداء العيد Lebanon)
In the Life of Music (Cambodia)
Spitak (Armenia)
The Tailor (Vietnam)
Tomorrow is Another Day (黃金花 Hong Kong)

For more information and the festival schedule please visit: AWFF2018