The Beijing International Film Festival, originally scheduled for late April, will be postponed to an unknown future date due to the coronavirus epidemic, organizers said.

The 38th Fajr International Film Festival (FIFF), Iran’s major international film event, was postponed due to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus across the world.

Iranian acclaimed film ‘Driving Lessons’ by Marzieh Riahi is to compete in several world festivals this month.

Iranian documentary ‘The Extinction Vortex’, directed by Fat’hollah Amiri about the endangered Asiatic cheetahs, was named as one of the finalists for World Wildlife Day Film Showcase at the United Nations.

Bong Joon-ho started his 20th year as a feature filmmaker on a high note with a history-making evening at the 92nd Academy Awards. Bong’s beloved social thriller ‘Parasite’ won South Korea its first Oscars (the film took home prizes for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best International Feature Film) and became the first foreign-language movie to receive the Academy Award for Best Picture. But the Oscar wins aren’t the only way Bong kicked off a milestone year in his career.

Two-time Oscar winner Asghar Farhadi is heading into production on a new film, ‘A Hero’.

Critical acclaim usually isn’t enough to guarantee an Oscar win, and in some cases, the nominees most beloved by critics don’t even stand a chance. That logic certainly applies to the results of IndieWire’s annual critics’ survey, which asks participants to vote on the nominees that should win in every category, regardless of whether or not pundits predict that they will. Many of the results diverge from the expected outcomes.

Iranian short film ‘The Feast of the Goat’, directed by Saeid Zamanian, is set to attend the 14th edition of the Taos Shortz Film Festival (TSFF) in New Mexico, the United States.

Art & Culture Desk

South Korean satire ‘Parasite’ unexpectedly emerged the big winner at the London Critics’ Circle film awards, taking home prizes for film of the year and director of the year for Bong Joon-ho.

After launching two Oscar Best Picture nominees in ‘The Irishman’ and ‘Marriage Story’, Netflix is re-stocking its star-driven prestige film arsenal with a big one. Netflix has acquired all rights to the untitled Leonard Bernstein film that Bradley Cooper will direct, star in and produce from the script he co-wrote with Oscar-winning ‘Spotlight’ scribe Josh Singer. The project exits Paramount Pictures, which set the film as a priority project in May 2018.

Three Iranian films, ‘Mr. Deer,’ ‘21 Days Later,’ and ‘The Time of the Pomegranate’s Smile’ will be screened at the 9th Kolkata International Children’s Film Festival (KICFF) in India.

Iranian feature film, ‘Domino,’ directed by Laleh Barzegar, will take part in the 2020 Max Ophüls Prize Film Festival in Germany, slated for January 20-26.

The winners of Ammar Popular Film Festival (APFF) were announced in a ceremony in Tehran late Friday.

Kasra Tirsahar has been selected as juror of the international section of the biennial Hollywood Week Film Festival in the United States, slated for April 1.