indieWIRE - The European premiere of Grant Gee’s documentary “Joy Division” will open the 14th Sheffield Doc/Fest with the filmmaker and former Joy Division band members present at the screening. The fest also announced over 100 films that will screen over 5 days, including 22 World, 7 European and 23 UK premieres. A new addition to the festival is nightly “film strands,” in which there will be a music doc, sports doc and a “controversial” doc (called an “Anti-Doc”) running each night. Also running throughout the festival is an environmentally themed program called “green docs” and “bent docs,” which will showcase gay/lesbian and transgender documentaries… [Full Story]

indieWIRE - The Middle East International Film Festival in Abu Dhabi has announced Joe Wright’s “Atonement” as the opening night film of their inaugural year. Starring James McAvoy and Keira Knightley, the film has previously shown to warm reception at Venice and Toronto. Additional special presentations that were announced include Todd Haynes’ “I’m Not There,” Brian De Palma’s “Redacted,” Gavin Hood’s “Rendition,” and Claude Lelouch’s “Roman de Gare.” “It is an honor to receive such outstanding support from international studios in our inaugural year,” said Executive Director Nashwa Al-Ruwaini. “We are extremely proud of our Special Presentations and look forward to announcing an equally impressive selection of festival competition films.” The festival will take place October 14-19, 2007… [Full Story]

The Canadian Press - The 50,000 people who call the northwestern Alberta city of Grande Prairie home are finding themselves, however briefly, at the centre of the Canadian movie universe.

Oscar-winning filmmaker Denys Arcand’s latest work, “L’Age Des Tenebres” (”Days of Darkness”), is having its first commercial screening in Grande Prairie. The film, the third in Arcand’s trilogy that started with 1986’s “Le Declin De l’Empire American” (”The Decline of The American Empire”), is getting rave reviews from residents.

“It’s definitely as good if not better than the other films,” said Derek Hall, head of a local film group who saw the movie Sunday.

“Is it as accessible as the other two? Will people be as drawn to it? That remains to be seen.”… [Full Story]

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The Canadian Press - It’s a warm September day at the Hotel Intercontinental - celebrity headquarters during the Toronto International Film Festival - and a sober and dignified Romeo Dallaire seems utterly out of place amid the Hollywood stars, deal-makers and publicists buzzing about.

Dallaire is soft-spoken and retiring as he sips coffee and chats in French to Roy Dupuis, the Quebec acting superstar who’s playing him in the new Roger Spottiswoode film, “Shake Hands With the Devil,” opening this Friday.

It’s a familiar title to Canadians - Dallaire’s personal account of the 1994 Rwandan genocide came out in book form a few years ago, and his story was retold in an award-winning documentary in 2004.

The film from the Canadian-born Spottiswoode, the man behind “Under Fire” and “Hiroshima,” is a dramatic re-enactment that tells the story of Dallaire’s peace-keeping mission in Rwanda, where he’s shackled by an unclear United Nations mandate and desperately under-staffed as a civil war looms… [Full Story]

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• Dallaire doc scores Emmy win - CBC.ca
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Cinematical - Cinematical was just handed four exclusive images from the upcoming (and might I add, highly-anticipated) No Country for Old Men, directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. Their first feature-length film since 2004’s The Ladykillers, No Country for Old Men is based on the book by Cormac McCarthy and has already received tons of praise (”the best Coen Bros. film in years!”) since first premiering last May at the Cannes Film Festival. As James put it ever-so-simply in his Cannes review of the film: “An ordinary man stumbles across a ring of corpses surrounding a fortune in cash and a mountain of heroin. A bad man follows in search of the money; a good man follows in search of the man.” That’s the set-up for No Country for Old Men; from there, I take it a whole mess of trouble creeps into the lives of each man, played by Josh Brolin (the hunter), Javier Bardem (the villain) and Tommy Lee Jones (the Sheriff trying to figure out what in God’s name is going on)… [Full Story]

/Film - Here’s the standard recap: I saw Juno at the Toronto Film Festival and in my review I said that it was “the best movie of the year (so far)” and it is this year’s “Little Miss Sunshine”. You may as well find another website to read if you want to avoid an overload in Juno news in the next couple months before the film is unleashed upon the world. Festival screenings have pushed the film to a 9.1 rating on IMDb, and 100% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes… [Full Story]

Hartford Courant, United States - David Cronenberg wants you to know there’s no Hereafter. No harps to serenade you. No virgins doing the lambada.

What we ooze and spurt in the throes of death is pretty much it.

This comes from a director who made heads explode in “Scanners,” so take the lesson for what it’s worth. He has a new film out, Eastern Promises, that strays from his horror roots but still illuminates corpus disgustingus. Gore happens when Russian gangsters in London try to hide secrets. Blood flows when a midwife (Naomi Watts) saves the tell-all diary of a prostitute who has just died after giving birth. Flesh surely strips from bone when a naked henchman (Viggo Mortensen) confronts two knife-wielding baddies in a bathhouse… [Full Story]

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AFP - Canadian director David Cronenberg’s crime thriller “Eastern Promises,” set in London’s expatriate Russian underworld, opened the 55th annual San Sebastian Film Festival in northern Spain on Thursday.

The film is one of 16 competing for the coveted Concha de Oro, or Golden Shell, prize for best film, to be awarded by a jury headed by US writer-director Paul Auster, author of “The New York Trilogy”.

Cronenberg said his new movie showed audiences the “new Russia, coming with a very brutal capitalism that reminds us what capitalism really looks like before it has a sophisticated evolution.”

“It’s a story of gangsters and criminality. For them, violence is a way of life,” said Cronenberg of his first film since his 2005 Oscar-nominated “A History of Violence.”… [Full Story]

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Toronto After Dark Film Festival - Toronto After Dark Film Festival is delighted to announce half its lineup of new horror and fantasy feature films which will premiere at its second annual edition, this October 19-25, at the Bloor Cinema, in Toronto, Canada. The first seven feature films revealed are: THE TRIPPER, David Arquette’s star-studded debut horror film as writer-director, POULTRYGEIST: NIGHT OF THE CHICKEN DEAD, Lloyd Kaufman’s much anticipated new new zombie musical, THE WOLFHOUND, the most expensive Russian fantasy film ever made, AACHI & SSIPAK, a groundbreaking new sci-fi animation from Korea, MULBERRY STREET and AUTOMATON TRANSFUSION, two critically acclaimed and gut-renching new zombie outbreak films, and AUDIENCE OF ONE, a hilarious, award-winning documentary about one priest’s disastrous attempt to shoot a Christian version of Star Wars.

Seven more feature film premieres, and a collection of 36 cutting-edge horror and fantasy short films will complete this year’s Toronto After Dark program, when they are announced online at the festival website on Sept. 26. Fans can watch trailers to the announced films, and pre-order Festival Passes at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival website here: http://torontoafterdark.com

Variety - Anton Corbijn’s biopic “Control” and Roy Andersson’s “You, the Living” will bookend the 20th Helsinki Film Festival.

Theme of the fest, which opens today and runs until Sept. 30, is “Love and Anarchy.” Guests include Andersson; Goro Miyazaki, son of the Studio Ghibli director Hayao Miyazaki; and Jonas Cuaron.

Event introduces three new sections. Mexico Lindo consists of Mexican fest favorites, including Cuaron’s debut, “Ano Una.” In the Middle of East celebrates films from Turkey, Egypt and Israel. The Pervert’s Guide to Media discusses media criticism in film… [Full Story]