HIFF 2016 Competition Titles Announced!

Discover thrilling new talent in our prestigious Competition section. Each year, the HIFF Awards honor emerging narrative and documentary directors with global perspectives, representing cinema’s next generation of innovative film artists. Juried by world-class filmmakers and industry professionals, these competitions represent the impressive, provocative premieres by cinema’s next wave of filmmakers. NARRATIVE FEATURE COMPETITION  THE […]

Q&A: Matt Sobel on the Delicate Balance of ‘Take Me to the River’

Note: This interview was first published during HIFF 2015. TAKE ME TO THE RIVER is now playing in select theaters. Find tickets. Accompanying his parents to a Nebraskan family reunion couldn’t be more uncomfortable for Ryder (Logan Miller), a gay Californian teenager. For his mother’s sake he agrees to act “normal,” but nonetheless attracts some unwanted attention […]

Q&A: Jon Fox on the Enigmatic Man at the Center of ‘Newman’

Orphan. Entrepreneur. Recluse. Genius. Megalomaniac. Inventor Joseph Newman is all of the above. A controversial figure in the scientific community, Newman rose to notoriety with “The Newman Device,” an electromagnetic machine that he claimed produced more energy than it took to power it. What should have been a revolutionary discovery was stopped by a lengthy […]

Q&A: Ilinca Calugareanu on the Cinematic Tribute of ‘Chuck Norris Vs Communism’

In the 1980s, the last decade before the revolution overthrew communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, Romania was marred by intense austerity, isolationism and a pervasive cultural blackout. For the oppressed population, a new form of escapism emerged: illicit video nights in which smuggled Western films were shown. The majority of the films were dubbed by the […]

Q&A: Jean-Gabriel Périot on the Timeless Questions in ‘A German Youth’

Covering a decade of worldwide political unrest (1965-1975), A GERMAN YOUTH is a compelling portrait of the Baader-Meinhof Group (a.k.a. The Red Army Faction), a radical movement which drew into its orbit not only disillusioned students, but also established journalists and intellectuals as well as important filmmakers such as Michelangelo Antonioni, Jean Luc Godard and […]