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YouTube has just announced the launch of the rumored YouTube Screening Room. The news broke yesterday that YouTube was going to be delving into professional films, with the possibility breaking out of their 10 minute mold and into longer form. YouTube is actively pursuing filmmakers to try and get high quality content for the site. The YouTube Screening Room has debuted with four short films, including one Academy Award winner and one nominee.

Throughout the Screening Room’s first month of operation, YouTube will screen short films from Norway, Sweden, Canada, the UK, and US, featuring well-known actors and award-winning filmmakers as well as undiscovered gems. During the rest of the year, films from Germany, Austria, France, Kenya, Australia, and Ireland will all grace YouTube’s virtual stage.

Submissions are welcomed, and those interested should be happy to know the panel will be working with partners like the Sundance Channel to ‘identify prospects.’ More than that, support can be given to the filmmakers directly by buying physical or digital copies of the work through the site. Between that and shared ad revenue, YouTube says creators that make consistently popular work (one million views-popular) can make several grand a month.

A short documentary by Matteo Bellizzi. Some women are praying near the road, looking at a Madonna positioned on a wall of a farm. Just before the sun goes down.

On its 15th anniversary, Sónar 2008 delves into one of the most significant exhibition ventures in the festival’s history. For the first time, a central theme will run through most of Sónar’s exhibition areas: Cinema.

Cinema Beyond Cinema is an unusual journey into the present and future of film. But it is a journey that begins on the edges of film, beyond film.

It frames the areas of SonarMàtica, Sonarama, Digital Art A La Carte and on of the SonarCinema’s menu. Two exhibitions, five showcases and three audiovisual shows come together to form Cinema Beyond Cinema, an unprecedented adventure for the eyes of visitors.

In the 21st century, new means of production –the tools for digital creation– and of distribution –the Internet– have revolutionised audiovisual culture in general and are starting to transform the possibilities of the art of cinema in particular, from the outside.

The exhibition areas of Cinema Beyond Cinema are as follows:

1. SonarMàtica – FUTURE PAST CINEMA
This year, SonarMàtica, the festival’s main exhibition area, presents Future Past Cinema, an extraordinary exhibition project that creates links between the past and the future of Cinema under a single vision.
SonarMàtica is an exhibition that transports the visitor to the fascinating universe of the moving image of the 19th century, as seen through the eyes of artists working with contemporary media. The display is complemented with the simultaneous exhibition of ten machines for creating moving images from the 19th century, from the Tomás Mallol collection at the Girona Film Museum.

2. Sonarama – LIGHT AND SOUND
Sonarama is on the one hand an exploration based around new forms of articulating film, focusing on light as a seminal element of cinematic art and on the other, it presents a selection of ideas with the potentialities of light as their constituent theme.

3. Digital Art A La Carte – LIVE CINEMA, YOUTUBE, SHORT FILMS AND VIDEO GAMES:
This presents some of the new areas of contemporary audiovisual production by means of four digital exhibitions:
- Homo Ludens On The Net deals with the History of Video Games.
- Live Cinematic Explorations In The Era Of Realtime takes a closer look at the most important recent audiovisual production areas: Live Cinema.
- All You Zombies shows that YouTube and GoogleVideo are the great collective participatory video library of the new millennium. The director Jonathan Caouette, a pioneer in the use of Internet in film, shows is his favourite online videos.
- Notodofilmfest.com and Bigas Luna present a selection of the best short films from the latest festival, showing the rude health of this film format on the Internet.

4. SonarCinema – CINE-MATERIA
The works selected for Cine-Materia are based on a common idea: the appropriation and manipulation of others’ material: silent films, educational films, Hollywood classics and advertising. Editing becomes a vital tool in all of them –the distorting (or creative) element that gives a new form and meaning to the footage encountered.

Press here. to see all the complete programme of Multimedia-Exhibition Area.

Cinema City, international film and new media festival, is to take place from 14th to 21st of June in Novi Sad, in the organization of Exit Association. During the eight days of the festival, Novi Sad will be a city-festival, with rich film, music, and academic program.

The program concept of the festival encompasses film, music, and academic program, as well as new media festival, and they are to take place on more than 20 locations. In eight days, 135 movies in more than 160 shows are to be presented.

The film program is going to present 14 selections of domestic and foreign production, with three competition selections and numerous retrospectives. The movies are to be shown in 4 indoor and 3 outdoor cinemas with most modern cinema equipment.

Cinema City is also to present rich academic program with over than 30 panels and participants from more than 10 countries. In the evening hours of the festival days, various music events are going to take place.

Cinema City Festival is based on the concept of the city festival, which was promoted in Film Festival of Serbia, 2007, on whose foundation it was developed. With significant changes in the program concept, the festival is now an international one, with National Class as a separate competition unit. Cinema City is going to accommodate a large number of film authors, both foreign and domestic, and the attractive film and academic program is intended for both film professionals and wider audience.

NAZIROCK

A feature-documentary by Claudio Lazzaro

The extreme right seen from the inside: its music, its leaders, its alliances, its rites, and the political acceptance that is opening the Italian Nazi-fascists the doors to institutionalized power.

But why are they being accepted and recognized? Because in Italy the radical right wing accounts for 500,000 votes that play a key role within the Italian election system, where 25,000 votes can make the difference and decide who is going to govern the Country.

NAZIROCK tells the story of this political transition using the “skin”, “oi”, “white power” and “punkadestra” musical bands who sing fascists songs as a main theme.

The film opens and closes on the images of the demonstration attended by the famous “2 million supporters” summoned by the ex premier Silvio Berlusconi and that took place on December 2nd, in Rome (on the speaker’s podium, together with Berlusconi, you will also see Luca Romagnoli and Alessandra Mussolini, the main leaders of the neo-Fascist coalition). But what counts more is that the film will also take you to a kind of Nashville of the estreme right: a big event, organized by Forza Nuova, the political movement whose leader is Roberto Fiore (sentenced to nine years for forming an armed band) that took place from September 29th to October 1st, in Viterbo, Latium, with the participation of several leading rock bands, activists and political leaders coming from Spain, Germany, France, Greece, Lebanon and Romania.

During that event, called “Campo d’Azione 2006”, souvenir stands sold badges showing the face of Hitler to be sewn onto sweaters as well as books denying the existence of the Holocaust, like the one written by Carlo Mattogno and entitled “Auschwitz: fine di una leggenda” (Auschwitz, the end of a legend). Until very late at night, in the large hangar that during the day was animated by speeches and discussions, we assisted to a very disquieting show featuring several rock bands frantically acclaimed by a crowd performing the nazi-fascist stiff-arm salute and sporting a huge banner, printed for the occasion and stating in large capital letters: “MORE NAZISM FOR US ALL”.

One of the most acclaimed speakers in Viterbo was Luigi Ciavardini, sentenced to 30 years for the Bologna slaughter and who, ten days after participating in the Viterbo’s event, was arrested for a hold-up. Another very passionate speech was delivered by Andrea Insabato sentenced to 12 years – reduced afterwards to 6 – for a bomb attack against the headquarters of the daily “Manifesto”. These images are accompanied by the music of the rock band Hobbit, chanting an hallucinated hymn to violence anticipating and almost calling for the bloody clashes that took place in Catania football stadium where the Police Inspector Filippo Raciti lost his life.
Resorting to a fragmented editing alternating nazi rock songs and archival footage reminding us of the horrors and destructions brought about by an ideology that caused only death and shame, and through the interviews with some of the young people attending the event, we tried to depict this right-wing Nashville.
A nightmare that leaves us speechless and on the hop, because the question is always the same: “How is it possible history did not teach us nothing?”

http://www.nazirock.it/index.php

Every summer, the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema takes to the road, departing from Austin, Texas on a whirlwind tour and hosting free 35mm screenings of famous movies in famous places. Known as The Rolling Roadshow Tour, it has been to the Field of Dreams in Iowa to show Field of Dreams with Kevin Costner live in person, Devil’s Tower in Wyoming for a screening of Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind and Alcatraz Island for a screening of Escape From Alcatraz. In 2008, The Rolling Roadshow Tour is paying tribute to one of the most influential film series of the modern age, Sergio Leone’s “dollars” trilogy, Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

Quentin Tarantino will be in attendance at the screenings and will introduce one of the films.

VIP Tickets
Admission is free to the screenings and it’s first come, first serve. You can, however, purchase a VIP ticket for 80 Euros which includes a chair at each of the three screenings, the trio of hand-silkscrened art posters, one for each screening (retail 60 Euros) and a guaranteed spot at each of the three after-parties. VIP tickets are limited to 100, and we expect them to sell out quickly. Tickets will not be mailed out, but rather we will have a will-call list at screening location where you can also pick up your posters.

The Leone “Dollars” Trilogy
In 1964, Sergio Leone, an assistant director of Italian “sword and sandal” movies traveled to the Almeria region of Spain to shoot a small film based on Akira Kurosawa’s samurai adventure Yojimbo. The leading man was an unknown American bit-part television actor who at 34 years old was well past his matinee-idol potential. The film, was A Fistful of Dollars; the actor, Clint Eastwood. No one could have imagined the explosive force of this seemingly modest film. Sergio Leone is now considered by many film historians to be one of the most influential directors of all time. Few films have reshaped the visual style of cinema more than Sergio Leone’s quintessential “Spaghetti Western” trilogy, and even fewer films elevate the filming location to the status on par with lead actor. Like John Ford’s American southwest, Leone’s Almeria region plays a vital role in shaping the emotion and spirit of his films. Leone’s stylistic and graphic depictions of the Old West elevated a marginalized genre to an art form and influenced today’s filmmakers.

About The Alamo Drafthouse
Founded in 1997 by Tim and Karrie League in Austin, Texas, the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema combines new release films, repertory programming and a variety of unique special events all under one roof, as well as full food and beverage menu served right to your seat. The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema was named the “#1 Theater in America” by Entertainment Weekly Magazine. Founders Tim and Karrie League will be travelling with the Rolling Roadshow to Almeria to host the Leone Edition of the Rolling Roadshow Tour.

If you are planning to visit the area and stay for a while in the Almeria region, contact Tuco Tours, who offer guided and self-guided tours of all of the Sergio Leone locations.

Shows & Screenings:

* FISTFUL OF DOLLARS at Cortijo el Sotillo, Spain
@ Rolling Roadshow
Friday, June 06, 2008 + 8:30p

* FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE in Los Albaricoques, Spain
@ Rolling Roadshow
Saturday, June 07, 2008 + 8:30p

* THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY in Almeria Spain
@ Rolling Roadshow
Sunday, June 08, 2008 + 8:30p

In Madrid, from the 5th to the 14th of May, 2008

In 2007, the Rencontres Internationales, which initially took place in Paris and Berlin, opened up to a third city: Madrid. This event now constitutes a unique artistic and cultural platform in Europe for artists, professional networks and different audiences.

The Rencontres Internationales reflects the specificities and convergences of art practices between new cinema and contemporary art, explores emerging art practices and their critical purposes and allows this necessary time when points of view meet and are exchanged.

The event wish to contribute to a reflection on our contemporary culture of image via a demanding program open to everyone.

Download Programme 2008

Cinema is all about big screens!