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Nine Global Lens Films Featured in April 2015 Series at MOMA

By The Global Film Initiative, on March 13th, 2015%

New York audiences have a second chance to view 9 Global Lens films that they might have been overlooked during their initial screenings. Our special thanks to Curator Jytte Jensen who has championed GFI’s activities for the past twelve years, and for her role as an uncompromising supporter of films from emerging nations.

The films and the dates of screenings are as follows:

Saturday, April 4

About 111 Girls (Darbare 111 Doktar)

Iraq | Directed by Nahid Ghobadi & Bijan Zamanpira (79 mins.) — A government official, carrying a message from Iran’s president, travels across Iranian Kurdistan with his driver and a young guide on a mission to stop 111 young Kurdish women from committing suicide.

Sunday, April 5

Cairo 678

Egypt | Directed by Mohamed Diab (100 mins.)- Three Cairene women from different backgrounds join together in uneasy solidarity to combat the sexual harassment that has impacted each of their lives.

Student

Kazakhstan by Darezhan Omirbayev (90 mins.)-A solitary philosophy student steers his directionless life toward the commission of a violent crime.

Monday, April 6

Pegase

Morocco | Directed by Mohamed Mouftakir (104 mins.)-An emotionally exhausted psychiatrist assigned to a pregnant young woman found in the street muttering about “The Lord of the Hope.”

Qarantina

Iraq | Directed by Oday Rasheed (90 mins.)-A broken family with

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Recipient of 2012 Global Film Initiative Grant Factory Girl – Congratulations!

By The Global Film Initiative, on February 6th, 2015%

Cairo, Egypt | Friday- 6 February, 2015

In a fresh breakthrough for Mohamed Khan‘s Factory Girl across film festivals worldwide, Arab Cinema in Sweden (ACIS), a distribution arm under the umbrella of Malmo Arab Film Festival, has announced the theatrical release of Factory Girl across Sweden on Friday, April 24th, 2015. Marking the film’s first release beyond the Arab world, Factory Girl is part of the European Film Market (EFM) within 65th Berlin International Film Festival.

Across Sweden where the largest Arabic-speaking community resides in Europe, Factory Girl will release in 12 screening venues including, Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö, Norrkoping, Fajo, Umeå, Luleå, Lund and Hillsburg.

Produced by Mohamed Samir‘s DayDream Art Production, MAD Solution handled the distribution of Factory Girl in the Arab world, which also helms the Arab Cinema Center in its 1st edition at Berlinale as part of its long-term strategy to support and promote the Arab filmmaking industry in the Arab world.

Alaa Karkouti, CEO and Co-founder of MAD Solutions commented, “Factory Girl‘s theatrical release across Sweden is going to function as a new window on the Arab cinema for all film lovers in Sweden. He further added, “Our collaboration with the ACIS is an important step to us, as the screening of Factory Girl will highlight the artistic diversity and abundance of the Arab cinema. Since its inception, Malmo Arab Film Festival has been playing a crucial role in backing Arab filmmakers and this step marks a culmination of these long-standing efforts.”

Expressing his eagerness

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Now Playing: Global Lens Dives Into Summer

By The Global Film Initiative, on May 31st, 2013%

THE PARADE (Global Lens 2013) plays The Human Rights Watch Film Festival in New York this June

THE PARADE, STUDENT and the rest of Global Lens 2013 soak up the summer screen…

Global Lens 2013 is heating up screens across the country all through the summer! This month in the spotlight:

Srdjan Dragojević’s THE PARADE is set to screen at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival this month (June 13-23) in New York City. Through its humane and shrewdly comedic story, this powerful film exposes us to gay rights issues that many face in Serbia today.

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GRANTING: Ten Years to the Day in Global Film Funding

By The Global Film Initiative, on May 16th, 2013%

Ten years ago today, GFI announced the recipients of the inaugural granting program, and look at us now…

granting

On April 10, The Global Film Initiative announced it’s most recent grant recipients from the Winter 2012 granting cycle. The list of grantees features 11 works from both emerging and established filmmakers, representing 10 different countries around the world, and each project demonstrates great promise and vision. As Susan Weeks Coulter, Founder and Board Chair, said in the announcement: “We are pleased to identify and support these eleven unique and powerful narratives.”

What makes this granting cycle particularly special, however, is that it is the most recent in GFI’s now decade-old granting program. Ten years ago to the day, the very first round of grantees were announced on May 16, 2003. In celebration of this milestone, we’re taking a look back on the films GFI has funded over the years.

Again and again, our grantees represent filmmakers who are not afraid to challenge convention-to make sometimes dangerous, but always fiercely truthful statements about the society, and the world, that reflect them. These films often represent new perspectives and voices in storytelling-voices which are too often silenced or misrepresented in the mainstream-and hold promise in heralding a new generation of filmmakers.

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NOW PLAYING: Bright Lights on BEIJING FLICKERS

By The Global Film Initiative, on April 3rd, 2013%

“Beijing Flickers looks deep into the psyches of this generation that doesn’t know quite what it wants, and finds at least flickers of hope that they can, together, make their own future.” – Vancouver International Film Festival

The accolades continue to roll in as Global Lens 2013 enters the Spring! This month in the spotlight: BEIJING FLICKERS, which recently played at both Chapman University’s Busan West Film Festival and the Miami International Film Festival, where it won the Miami Future Cinema Critics Award.

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FESTIVALS & AWARDS: Africa Movie Academy Awards, Miami IFF, ReelWorld FF and festivals, festivals, FESTIVALS!

By The Global Film Initiative, on March 27th, 2013%

Screening of TANTA AGUA

NINAH’S DOWRY (Cameroon), SO MUCH WATER (Uruguay) and WHEN I SAW YOU (Palestine/Jordan) are just a few titles among a host of Global Lens films and grant recipients keeping our news feed a-buzzing…

The buzz just won’t stop. From nominations, to awards, to screenings in festivals across the globe, GFI grant recipients and Global Lens films are continuing to impress in a big way. Check out the most recent news:

Continue reading FESTIVALS & AWARDS: Africa Movie Academy Awards, Miami IFF, ReelWorld FF and festivals, festivals, FESTIVALS!

NOW PLAYING: Come into THE FANTASTIC WORLD OF JUAN OROL

By The Global Film Initiative, on March 20th, 2013%

“A visually playful biopic on Mexico’s Ed Wood.” -Variety

The accolades continue to roll in as Global Lens 2013 enters the Spring! This month in the spotlight: THE FANTASTIC WORLD OF JUAN OROL, which recently played at the San Diego Latino Film Festival.

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INDUSTRY: Feast Your Eyes on FICG 28

By The Global Film Initiative, on March 16th, 2013%

“For all hands”

Acquisitions and Granting Manager Angelica Dongallo recounts the sights and sounds of Mexico’s prestigious film festival…

Guadalajara: home of mariachis, tequila country, and the Festival Internacional de Cine en Guadalajara (FICG). I arrived in the “valley of stones” during the wee hours of the day of opening night activities, and contemplated the next few days’ prospects as we drove through the speckled-lit streets of the sleeping city.

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