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We are happy to say (ok, it's bragging, but what the hell!) that a lot of our friends and guests have won important international movie awards. Anyone who's ever been to Isola Cinema festival knows we aren't really about awards and prestige, but we are still happy to acknowledge the successes of our dear guests. After Joe Weerasethakul, Lisandro Alonso and others, the time has come to congratulate our friend Yasmine Kassari!

prepared by Nika Bohinc

And so he came, our Abbas Kiarostami. On a lovely thursday in Gorizia, during the Amidei film festival. One of the great authors of our time. A poet, a philosopher, a painter, a photographer, all that and more. Reserved at first, he got completely relaxed when he started to talk about his work and his art. After the press conference he sat among the audience, conversed with his fans and that very evening receieved an Amidei prize for his opus. A lot has been said in these days and we have collected a few of his precious thoughts below.

photo © JoĹľe Rehberger Ogrin

The guests on the Manzioli square on the closing night of the festival

Well, this is it. Isola Cinema 2005 is at an end. In the official programme we have shown 30 films in seven sections, 4 short feature films and seven animations. On the punta, which was extraordinary lively this year, Video on the beach projections were shown, all 70 of them. Next to an encouraging response from the slovenian public, the festival has hosted 83 guests and 68 journalists. 130 people of the festival staff made sure Isola Cinema 2005 was as user friendly as possible.

The most vibrant clique of the festival, carrying a meaningful name of happy dv, is not at rest. Yesterday they've said a word or two with Josue Mendez, a Peruan director of Days of Santiago. The projection schedule of the last day of Isola Cinema 2005 festival is available here, to view the interview, click on the link bellow.

Olaf Möller, for isolacinema.org

Most of the people who routinely tell you just how much they love Asian cinema (by which they tend to mean the cinemas of East Asia…) would probably freak out at Udine's Far East Film Festival, an annual event devoted to the more commercial kinds of glory from such major film cultures like Japan, Hongkong, or the Philippines – excactly the kind of films to give our event a cool and crazy kind of additional edge.

Today's the day!
First guests are arriving to Izola, Lisandro Alonso and Pablo Trapero already arrived yesterday, while Roger Gnoan M'Bala , Hanny Tchelley-Etibou and Clark Walker joined us today.
The 'Ĺ kamp' is filling up with campers and Punta is getting dressed up with bookstalls, workshops and music gear. The Happy DV crew is doing overtime, and you can already see the first results of their creative folly.

Olaf Möller, for Isola Cinema

Roger Gnoan M'Bala, famous for his social satires, once said – but does he still believe it, does it still work like that? Gnoan – born in 1943 in Grand Bassam; educated in the craft of directing in France and Sweden – belongs, together with the late and production-wise sadly marginal Etienne N'Dabian Vodio, to the second generation of filmmakers from the Ivory Coast.

Helmut Groschup, for Isola Cinema

African filmmaking is too often equated with film production from Mali, Senegal and Burkina Faso. It is true, of course, that these countries have produced many excellent directors, such as Djibril Diop Mambéty from Dakar, Bamako’s Souleyman Cissé and Idrissa Ouédraogo from Ouagadougou. Yet the cinema of these countries is largely influenced by the traditions of their colonial past. Besides being critical, it also reflects a conformity which is the inevitable result of economic restrictions. Being involved in filmmaking means, first and foremost, complying with the dictates of the market and with production demands.

Stout boys and girls from the volunteering brigade and their friends from the happy dv workshop have certainly had their hands full yesterday. The festival camp - Shrimp was finally conceived! But this is not the only victory of the day for the Shrimp got company - a brand new festival Fish. To see more photos of yesterday, click here.