“Nominations and award winners prove that filmmaking in Britain is alive and well”, says Elliot Grove, the founder of Raindance and the British Independent Film Awards.

“Slumdog Millionaire” directed by Danny Boyle (“Trainspotting”) and Steve McQueen’s “Hunger” both won three honors at the BIFA.

“Slumdog Millionaire” won the top two awards – Best British Independent Film and Best Director.

Steve McQueen with his movie “Hunger” was nominated for both Best Debut Director and Best Screenplay and won Douglas Hickox award for debut director. Michael Fassbender who plays Bobby Sands in “Hunger” won prize for Best Actor. The third prize for this movie is for Best Technical Achievement for Cinematography – Sean Bobbitt.

“In Bruges” written and directed by Martin McDonagh won one but great, screenplay award, of six nominations: Best Actor – Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, Best British Independent Film, Best Screenplay – Martin McDonagh, Best Supporting Actor – Ralph Fiennes and Best Technical Achievement – Jon Gregory (for editing).

Israeli animated “Waltz With Bashir” written and directed by Ari Folman is the winner in Best Foreign Film category at the British Independent Film Awards.

It wasn’t a great night for director Eran Creevy’s low-budget “Shifty,” about 24 hours in the life of a crack dealer, with five nominations but without award.

Take a look at the list of the winners:

BEST BRITISH INDEPENDENT FILM – “Slumdog Millionaire”

BEST DIRECTOR – Danny Boyle – “Slumdog Millionaire”

THE DOUGLAS HICKOX AWARD [BEST DEBUT DIRECTOR] – Steve McQueen – “Hunger”

BEST SCREENPLAY – Martin McDonagh – “In Bruges”

BEST ACTRESS – Vera Farmiga – “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas”"

BEST ACTOR – Michael Fassbender – “Hunger”

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS – Alexis Zegerman – “Happy-Go-Lucky”

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR – Eddie Marsan – “Happy-Go-Lucky”

MOST PROMISING NEWCOMER – Dev Patel – “Slumdog Millionaire”

BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN PRODUCTION – “The Escapist”

RAINDANCE AWARD – “Zebra Crossings”

BEST TECHNICAL ACHIEVEMENT – Cinematography – Sean Bobbitt – “Hunger”

BEST DOCUMENTARY – “Man on Wire”

BEST BRITISH SHORT – “Soft”

BEST FOREIGN FILM – “Waltz with Bashir”

THE RICHARD HARRIS AWARD (for Outstanding Contribution to British Film) – David Thewlis

THE VARIETY AWARD – Michael Sheen

THE SPECIAL JURY PRIZE – Joe Dunton

Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman hit the red carpet in New York for the premiere of their epic movie “Australia” on Monday, November 24.

Kidman, 41, looked glamourous in a sequinned gold and black dress when she arrived with her husband, country singer Keith Urban, also 41. But she was booed by waiting crowds when she shunned interviews and instead rushed inside the Ziegfeld Theatre.

Joining Jackman and Kidman on the red carpet were director Baz Luhrmann and co-producer Catherine Martin. Aside from them, other celebrity guests, like Kelsey Grammer, Olivia Newton-John, Lauren Bacall, Alicia Witt, Deborra-Lee Furness, Helena Christensen, and many others, have also been spotted attending the special event.

Australia follows the story of Lady Sarah Ashley, played by Nicole Kidman, who inherits a remote cattle station called Faraway Downs in the mid-1930s, before World War II.

When cattle barons plot to take her land, she reluctantly joins forces with a rough-hewn drover, played by Jackman, to drive thousands of cattle across the country, only to face the bombing of Darwin by Japanese forces.

The movie is scheduled to open in U.S. theaters on November 26.

“Twilight” has whipped up such a frenzy among tween and teenage girls that advance ticket sales are the biggest for any film since “The Dark Knight.” – Variety

“Twilight,” the big screen adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s novel opened this Friday. Directed by Catherine Hardwicke from a script by Melissa Rosenberg, the Summit release stars Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, Billy Burke, Peter Facinelli, Elizabeth Reaser, Cam Cigandet, Nikki Reed, Jackson Rathbone and Ashley Greene.

Seems most of the major outlets have published reviews, and they’re quite positive, there are also lots of disappointment.

“A disappointingly anemic tale of forbidden love that should satiate the pre-converted but will bewilder and underwhelm viewers who haven’t devoured Stephenie Meyer’s bestselling juvie chick-lit franchise.” (Justin Chang – Variety) full story

“Twilight” already has such a buzz that you sense all we really need to do is stand back to let hordes of teenage girls rush into theaters to exalt in this romance between a human girl and a vampire boy.” (Kirk Honeycutt – Hollywood Reporter) full story

“Neither strong sunlight nor the sight of oozing blood will deter the romance between a teenage girl and her vampire dreamboat in Twilight. And despite questionable casting, wooden acting, laughable dialogue and truly awful makeup, nothing is likely to stop young girls from swarming to this kitschy adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s popular novel.” (USA Today – Claudia Puig) full story

“…Robert Pattinson, the young British heartthrob who plays Edward Cullen, Twilight’s dreamy, sculpted hunk of a teenage vampire. With pasty skin, red lips, and those peepers that pop open wide with a touch of madness, Pattinson has a look so broodingly unearthly it’s no wonder he doesn’t sprout fangs. His creepy bedroom stare is a special effect all its own.” (EW.com) full story

“…If there were no vampires in “Twilight,” it would be a thin-blooded teenage romance, about two good-looking kids who want each other so much because they want each other so much. Sometimes that’s all it’s about, isn’t it? They’re in love with being in love. In “Twilight,” however, they have a seductive disagreement about whether he should kill her.” (Roger Ebert) full story

“…Written by Stephenie Meyer, “Twilight” is the first in a series of enormously popular vampire love stories that are now poised to spawn one of the hottest Hollywood literary franchises since “Harry Potter.” (LA Times Blogs) full story

Check out the “Twilight” Movie Stills Gallery and “Twilight” FF Movie Page

“It is between the film and the audience,” he said of the reviews at the press conference, describing the film as an epic in the style of ‘Out of Africa’ or ‘Gone with the Wind.’ I wanted to make a film that everyone could go and see.”

Nicole Kidman said the film’s release should be reason for the whole country to celebrate: “This is a celebration for me and hopefully for this country, she said, It’s not meant to be the second coming, but it is meant to be let’s have fun and enjoy it.”

Of her famed kissing scene with Jackman, Kidman joked: “Obviously we were in character, but it was good to go to work.”

Kidman said Australia might be her final film as she concentrates on motherhood: “I’m in a place in my life where I have had some great opportunities. I may just choose to have some more children. I have no idea what is in my future, but I’m very at peace with where I want to be. There are many things I want to do besides act.”

Hugh Jackman called his character the greatest role he’s ever had. He revealed his eight-year-old son Oscar also had a small part in Australia: “He did four days’ work and he decided it was so boring he never wanted to do it again.”

Earlier this week we posted the first “Australia” review. Today you can read what the critics are saying about Baz Luhrmann’s new movie.

“Baz Luhrmann’s long-awaited, and over-budget epic Australia manages, against the odds, to avoid turning into one big sunburnt stereotype about Godzone country. Instead, in what turns out to be a multi-layered story it describes an Australia of the 1940s that is at once compellingly, beautiful and breathtakingly cruel.” (Anne Barrowlcough, The Times online) full story

“Baz Luhrmann has delivered a shamelessly melodramatic, often eccentric spectacle with true-blue blockbuster potential. The most expensive Australian film ever made is rousing and passionate.
Despite some cringe-making Harlequin Romance moments between homegrown Hollywood stars Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, the 1940s-set Australia defies all but the most cynical not to get carried away by the force of its grandiose imagery and storytelling.” (Megan Lehmann, The Hollywood Reporter) full story

“The film is not without flaws, it’s not the masterpiece that we were hoping for, but I think you could say that it’s a very good film in many ways. While it will be very popular with many people I think there’s a slight air of disappointment after it all.”
“Despite its flaws – and it certainly has flaws – I think Australia is an impressive and important film, and if I were to give it a star rating I would give it three-and-a-half out of five.” (David Stratton, The Australian) full story

“As you watch, memories of other movie moments flicker into view. The film’s orange skies conjure up Gone With The Wind. Yet Nicole Kidman’s transplanted English aristocrat, Lady Sarah Ashley, looks to be claiming kinship with Meryl Streep’s Karen Blixen in Out Of Africa.”
“A big-hearted melodrama, it takes a series of fascinating risks, some of which come off. But it’s no super-movie.” (Sandra Hall, Sydney Morning Herald) full story

“While it’s unlikely to surpass Australian classics such as Gallipoli, Muriel’s Wedding or Newsfront on all-time favourite local lists, it’s a homegrown movie that deserves to be seen (not something that can be said for many recent Australian productions).” (Des Partridge, The Courier-Mail) full story

“Luhrmann has given himself a huge challenge with an overload of themes, styles, events and characters. He holds it together and delivers a huge entertainment with moments of greatness. It’s corny, I know, it’s also a film that has the looks as big as it’s title.” (Stan James, The Adelaide Advertiser) full story

“If only Baz had made the damn thing shorter by at least half an hour.” (Jim Schembri, Canberra Time) full story

John Lasseter, chief creative officer for Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios and executive producer of the animated film

For Bolt (voiced by John Travolta), every day is filled with adventure, danger and intrigue, at least until the cameras stop rolling. When the canine star of a hit TV show is accidentally shipped from his Hollywood soundstage to New York City, he begins his biggest adventure yet, a cross-country journey through the real world.

Armed only with the delusions that all his amazing feats and powers are real, and with the help of two unlikely traveling companions, a jaded, abandoned housecat named Mittens (voiced by Susie Essman), and TV-obsessed hamster in a plastic ball named Rhino, Bolt discovers he doesn’t need superpowers to be a hero. Miley Cyrus brings her vocal talents to the role of Penny, Bolt’s human co-star on the television series.

Actress and singer Miley Cyrus (L) and actor John Travolta, who provide voice work in the animated film

Chris Williams made his directorial debut with “Bolt,” but has previously written scripts for other Disney films like “Mulan” and “The Emperor’s New Groove.”

His new movie “Bolt” which is in run for Oscar nomination is scheduled to hit theaters on November 26th 2008.

Check out “Bolt” trailers, clips, photos, posters and more movie info.

Previous Friday best was “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,” earning $6.5 million in 2005. Bond 21st – “Casino Royale” did $4.7 million on its opening Friday (2006). “Casino Royale,” was a huge box office success with a global haul of $594 million.

“Quantum of Solace” from director Marc Forster is scheduled to appear in US theaters on November 14th 2008.

Take a look at photos of the film’s stars from the event – Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Giancarlo Giannini and Bond girls Gemma Arterton and Olga Kurylenko.

Check out “Quantum Of Solace” Movie Page

Keira Knightley faces life as “The Duchess” premiering at the Odeon Cinema, Leicester Square on Wednesday, September 3 2008.

“The Duchess” is the story of an extraordinary woman who rose to fame by staying true to her passions in a world of protocol, gossip and social rules – and paid the price.

Academy Award nominee Keira Knightley and Academy Award winner Ralph Fiennes head an international cast that also includes Dominic Cooper as the abolitionist Charles Grey, the Duchess’s favorite lover, Haley Atwell as the Duchess’s alluring best friend and rival, Lady Elizabeth “Bess” Spencer; and Charlotte Rampling as the Duchess’s mother, the Lady Spencer.

At this point, “The Duchess” has been picked up by a distributor and has been scheduled to appear in US theaters on September 19th, in limited release.

“The Burning Plain” is a drama that explores the mysterious connection between several characters separated by time and space: Mariana (Jennifer Lawrence), a 16-year-old girl trying to put together the shattered lives of her parents in a Mexican border town; Sylvia (Charlize Theron), a woman in Portland who must undertake an emotional odyssey to burnish a sin from her past; Gina, Sylvia’s mother (Kim Basinger) and Nick (Joaquim de Almeida), a couple who must deal with an intense and clandestine affair; and Maria (Tessa Ia), a young girl who helps her parents find redemption, forgiveness and love.

The film is the first of five U.S. entries to appear in the main competition at the Venice Film Festival.

“The Burning Plain” is the directorial debut by acclaimed Mexican screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga who is best known for his scripts that include well received dramas “Amores perros“, “21 Grams” and “Babel“, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. Arriaga also wrote “The Burning Plain.”

“I enjoyed every single moment of it. I can tell you that directing was maybe the happiest moment of my professional life. Just arriving on set I had a smile … and it hasn’t vanished until now”

he told reporters.

As well as time, the film explores the elements, each storyline represents either earth, air, fire or water. Landscape is central to the movie which Arriaga initially had titled, “The Four Elements.” Water, earth, wind and fire are present as the story moves back and forth from the searing dryness of New Mexico to the nonstop rain in Portland, Ore.

“We experienced the desert and the sun and the extreme cold in the desert to the nonstop rain in Oregon. I think the weather and the landscape also influences the character.”

“We never in real life tell stories in a linear way. We tell it always in a decomposed way. I think that cinema is a very young medium and it’s beginning to find its own language and among these languages is the deconstruction of time”

Arriaga said.

It also deals with death.

“I have been obsessed with the weight of death over the living ones. My identity is constructed by the people that I love, by the people that surround me. Every time one dies, part of my identity is broken and lost. I am obsessed at how that loss of someone that I love affects my own identity.”

Theron, who plays the emotionally-scarred Sylvia in “The Burning Plain”, was also a producer on the film.

“I don’t have to do it every time, but it’s something that I really enjoy when I feel I meet people where we’re like-minded and we walk the same road and tell the same story.”

Basinger, who plays Sylvia in the movie, was not at the press conference in Venice. The movie is told through four converging plot lines, and cuts back and forth through time to reveal Sylvia’s story.

“This is the exploration of the mystery of a woman called Sylvia who has an emotional journey that takes her to the extremes. It explores what makes her so damaged”

Arriaga said.

The film, is one of 21 movies competing for the Golden Lion, which will be awarded Sept. 6. Other U.S. films in competition in Venice include “Rachel Getting Married“, directed by Oscar-winner Jonathan Demme and starring Anne Hathaway and Debra Winger, and “The Wrestler” with Mickey Rourke and directed by Darren Aronofsky. Kathryn Bigelow also presents Iraq war drama “The Hurt Locker“.

The movie re-unites Joel and Ethan Coen with George Clooney, who appeared in “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” and actress Frances McDormand (Joel’s wife) who won an Oscar for her role in their 1996 film “Fargo“.

“I’ve done three films with them and they call it my trilogy of idiots”

Clooney told reporters after a press screening (”O Brother, Where Art Thou?”, “Intolerable Cruelty” and “Burn After Reading”).

He plays a nervous, twitchy federal marshal whose extra-marital affairs bring him into contact with a gym instructor, played by Pitt, desperately seeking to extort money from a sacked CIA analyst whose memoirs go missing.

“After reading the part, which they said was hand-written for myself, I was not sure if I should be flattered or insulted”

said Brad Pitt, whose character the directors describe as a “knucklehead”.

Brad was asked how the chosen ones are doing.

“The twins are fine. They can speak 10 languages, they are on their way to finding the cure for cancer and they just qualified for the Olympics in 2012. They will compete in every single event,” he said.

Joel Coen said he and his brother had “a long history of writing parts for idiotic characters.”

Although there are five U.S. films in the main competition lineup of 21, they represent “independent” cinema as opposed to the big studios, which are not in Venice this time around.

Festival director Marco Mueller said that writers’ strike that ended in February hurt the selection for Venice and added: “American cinema is very much at the centre of the program.”

But, the last two years, there was a surprise in-competition announced at the last minute. So, everything is possible.

“Burn After Reading” is not in competition, but U.S. films in the main lineup include “Rachel Getting Married“, directed by Oscar-winner Jonathan Demme and starring Anne Hathaway and Debra Winger, who has been nominated three times for an Academy Award.

Kathryn Bigelow directs Iraqi drama “The Hurt Locker“, a year after Brian De Palma’s “Redacted” stunned audiences in Venice with its brutal reconstruction of events from the war.

Mickey Rourke stars in Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler” while acclaimed Mexican screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga makes his directorial debut with “The Burning Plain” starring Oscar winners Charlize Theron and Kim Basinger.

Natalie Portman’s directorial debut will open the Venice Film Festival’s short-film sidebar – Corto Cortissimo, with the actress-director expected to be on hand for the event’s Sept. 1 opening.

Portman’s 17-minute “Eve,” which Venice organizers called “a civilized comedy,” stars Lauren Bacall and Ben Gazzara.

The animated movie Kung Fu Panda with voices of Jack Black, Jackie Chan, Dustin Hoffman, Lucy Liu, Angelina Jolie had its premiere yesterday at Cannes Film Festival, out of competition, of course.

Jack Black and 40 Kung Fu Pandas kicked off the Cannes Film Festival yesterday, and here’s some photos:

The Cannes film festival opens tonight with ‘Blindness‘, an apocalyptic nightmare adapted from the 1995 novel by Nobel laureate José Saramago and directed by Fernando Meirelles. The film is superbly photographed by Cesar Charlone.

In an unnamed city of the near future, a terrifying epidemic of “white blindness” – the sufferers seeing only milky white light – spreads like wildfire. The infection’s ground zero is a Japanese businessman (Yusuke Iseya) who staggers sightlessly from his luxury automobile which is promptly stolen by an opportunist thief who also goes blind.

The man finds himself in the offices of an eye doctor (Mark Ruffalo) who is also treating a high-class prostitute (Alice Braga) in the business of servicing clients in a hotel, with the help of a discreet barman (Gael García Bernal). All go blind and from this nexus, the disease spreads.

The city of the blind opens its inhabitants’ eyes to their former civilisation’s brutality and indifference. What is fascinating to see is how the blind prisoners are admitted to the quarantine camp in the order in which they made fleeting contact in the preceding narrative: a pharmacy clerk, a cop, a hotel maid, all connected via the fleeting and heedless contact of the modern, uncaring city, and now joined in a chain of terrible significance.

As the shuffling inmates become used to their blindness, they experience a crisis, being and being perceived: they see no one and no one sees them. Do they exist? Did they exist before? Other inmates, however, see a new equality or democracy in blindness: young and old, ugly and beautiful, all are levelled.

And all the time Julianne Moore, exiled from the community of suffering, must endure a vision of horror from which everyone else is spared.

‘Blindness’ starring Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover, Gael Garcia Bernal, Yusuke Iseya, Yoshino Kimura and Alice Braga.

More photos at FF Cannes Film Festival gallery HERE

Watch the third clip from ‘Blindness’ after jump

The “Sex and the City” stars lit up London’s Leicester Square for the world premiere of the cinematic sequel to their New York adventures, delighting fans with glamorous – and sometimes quirky – outfits that helped make the show an international hit.

Sarah Jessica Parker, who plays columnist Carrie Bradshaw, stole the show with her soaring Philip Treacy hat. She was joined by co-stars Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis, known on screen as Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte. They were eager to gloss over the reported problems that delayed the film’s production – and chat instead of the boost the series has given their careers.

“Professionally it’s been the best 10 years of my life. I wouldn’t have wanted to have done it any differently with any different women or any different men,” Parker said. “So it’s been glorious.”

All were dressed in the designer clothes that made the series about sex and shopping such a huge fashion-industry hit. Parker’s hat, bearing flowers, grasses and a butterfly, was complemented by a pale green dress by Alexander McQueen – an outfit Carrie would have loved. Cattrall wore a red Vivienne Westwood dress and Nixon was in a floor length black pleated Calvin Klein gown. Davis wore a more modest vintage fuschia dress.

There had been some controversy over the decision to hold the premiere in London rather than New York, the city showcased so beautifully in the series. But Nixon said Monday’s premiere was just a build up to the main event in New York.

“We’re having a kind of smallish premiere here (and) we’re having a smallish premiere in Berlin. We’re building to the New York premiere which is enormous and happens just before the film opens worldwide,” she said.

The film opens May 30 in the United States.

Director Jon Favreau, Shaun Toub, Faran Tahir, Jack Black, Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor, Channing Tatum, Vince Vaughn, Stan Lee, Avi Arad, Kevin Feige, Pete Wentz and many others walked down the red carpet of the Los Angeles Premiere of Iron Man.

Iron Man played at about 2,500 locations last night with the screenings starting at 8pm. The country’s largest exhibitor Regal Cinemas generated an estimated $1.3M in ticket sales for the Jon Favreau-directed superhero flick while the AMC chain is reporting $1.2M.

Robert Downey’s trainer, Brad Bose, told the IESB that he starts training with Downey just after this final premiere in LA. Downey has had a few months off in between going to work on Ben Stiller’s Tropic Thunder. Then, he will have him ready to wear the suit again in just 5 months. This time around he wants to put an extra 10 pounds on the actor, for a little more bulk.

So most likely, fan can look for a production start in early 2009 for Iron Man 2. The first film is tracking highly and can expect a big box-office opening weekend.

Sumner Redstone and Paramount Pictures CEO Brad Grey told that if the movie does as well as expected, Paramount will greenlight a sequel for the same week in 2010.

‘Iron Man 2′ is coming…quickly!

See more photos here