By Rand Paul
Obama acts as though we no longer have a Constitution
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
A Romanian drama that centers on a woman's effort to cover up her son's responsibility for an accident in which a boy is fatally injured won the Berlin film festival's top Golden Bear award on Saturday.
A new movie from dissident Iranian director Jafar Panahi, which defies a ban on filmmaking and reflects his frustration at being unable to work officially, makes its debut at the Berlin film festival Tuesday.
Martial arts epic "The Grandmaster" kicked off the Berlin Film Festival on Thursday, introducing an international audience to Yip Man, the man who mentored Bruce Lee and brought kung fu to the masses.
New movies from directors Steven Soderbergh and Gus Van Sant and a trio of films starring French divas will be competing this year at the Berlin International Film Festival.
The top 10 films of 2012, according to AP Movie Critic Christy Lemire:
Filmmakers love to make movies about making movies. Yes, it is a navel-gazing business, but crafting films about this craft is one more means of self-expression. We've seen several emerge this year alone, including the likely Oscar contender "Argo." And this week we have "Hitchcock," about the making of "Psycho," starring Anthony Hopkins as the master director.
Two Iranian dissidents _ a lawyer and a film director _ were awarded the 2012 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.
Even the promise of unlimited debauchery can't get critics to RSVP "yes" for "Project X."
One needn't look far to find evidence that the Iranian regime isn't thrilled by the success of "A Separation," the Golden Globe winner for best foreign-language film. The Culture Ministry has permitted no more than a trickle of grudging acknowledgments of its festival awards in official news releases. Perhaps the censors are even more upset by the film's record-breaking domestic box office than by its international acclaim.
American filmmaker Michael Moore has asked for permission to travel to Iran to attend Cinema Verite, an Iranian international festival for documentary films, according to Mehr News, the mouthpiece news agency of Iran's Islamic regime.
Normally filmmakers send the Cannes Film Festival their submissions by mail. Internationally acclaimed Iranian director Jafar Panahi smuggled his out of the country and to festival organizers on a USB key hidden in a cake.
Organizers say the Cannes Film Festival will screen two new films by Iranian filmmakers recently sentenced to six-year prison terms at home.
Iranian director Asghar Farhadi's "Nader and Simin, A Separation," a drama that centers on a disintegrating marriage, won the best movie honor and swept the acting awards at the Berlin film festival on Saturday.
An Iranian director is competing at the Berlin film festival with a portrayal of a disintegrating marriage that highlights a clash between traditional and modern ways of living and thinking.
Iran has sentenced two prominent opposition filmmakers to six years in jail each on vague charges of working against the ruling system, their lawyers said Monday.
Mr. Panahi stated in an open letter on the occasion of the 2011 Berlin International Film Festival, Berlinale (which he was barred from attending) "The reality is that they have deprived me of thinking and writing for twenty years; however, I cannot avoid dreaming that in twenty years the inquisition and intimidation will be abolished.
