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Bonding time! Peter Facinelli and girlfriend Jaimie Alexander had a family moment on the red carpet Tuesday night -- and they weren't alone! The Twilight alum brought along two of his daughters he shares with ex-wife Jennie Garth while out in Santa Monica, Calif. on Jan. 21. During the outing, Facinelli, 40, and the 29-year-old Thor actress kept close as they posed for photographs at the opening night of Cirque du Soleil's "Totem" on the Santa Monica Pier. Alexander held Facinelli's youngest, Fiona, 7, while Facinelli stood [...]...

Germany’s Zum Goldenen Lamm Filmproduktion, the producer of Marc Rensing’s The Woman Who Dares which has its world premiere at Zurich, is currently shooting the feature debuts from Marc Brumund and Christina Schiewe.

Brummund is tackling the subject of abuse at Church-run institutions in Freistatt, shooting at the real-life reformatory of the same name in Lower Saxony, which was the scene of such abuse in the past.

The screenplay, co-written with Nicole Armbruster, was awarded the Emden Screenplay Prize last year and the Golden Lola for Best German Screenplay during February’s Berlinale.

The cast is headed by Louis Hofmann, who played Tom Sawyer in Hermine Huntgeburth’s Twain adaptation last year, playing a 14-year-old rebelling against the home’s brutal working conditions, with other parts taken by Max Riemelt, Alexander Held and Uwe Bohm.

Edition Salzgeber will be releasing the film theatrically in Germany in 2014.

At the same time, principal photography...

Netflix has revolutionized the home movie experience for fans of film with its instant streaming technology. Netflix Nuggets is my way of spreading the word about independent, classic and foreign films made available by Netflix for instant streaming.

This Week’s New Instant Releases…

Promised Lands (1974)

Streaming Available: 04/19/2011

Cast: Documentary

Director: Susan Sontag

Synopsis: Set in Israel during the final days of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, this powerful documentary — initially barred by Israel authorities — from writer-director Susan Sontag examines divergent perceptions of the enduring Arab-Israeli clash. Weighing in on matters related to socialism, anti-Semitism, nation sovereignty and American materialism are The Last Jew writer Yoram Kaniuk and military physicist Yuval Ne’eman.

Vision: From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen (2009)

Streaming Available: 04/19/2011

Cast: Barbara Sukowa, Heino Ferch, Hannah Herzsprung, Gerald Alexander Held, Lena Stolze, Sunnyi Melles

Synopsis: Directed by longtime star of independent German cinema Margarethe von Trotta, this reverent...

Sophie Scholl – Die Letzten Tage / Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (2005) Direction: Marc Rothemund Cast: Julia Jentsch, Fabian Hinrichs, Gerald Alexander Held, Johanna Gastdorf, André Hennicke Screenplay: Fred Breinersdorfer Oscar Movies, European Film Award Movies Recommended Julia Jentsch, Fabian Hinrichs, Sophie Scholl: The Final Days Directed with clenched fists by Berlin Film Festival winner Marc Rothemund, who seems to have been at least partly inspired by Robert Bresson's minimalist The Trial of Joan of Arc, Sophie Scholl: The Final Days is an intense, unsentimental, impeccably produced retelling of the last days of the young female leader of the White Rose, the German resistance movement. Set in 1943, Fred Breinersdorfer's screenplay chronicles the events that followed the arrest of Sophie Scholl (Julia Jentsch) and her brother Hans (Fabian Hinrichs) after they're accused of distributing "subversive" leaflets at a German university. In the complex title role, Berlin Film Festival, German Academy Award,...

Vision: From The Life Of Hildegard Von Bingen is the biography of Hildegard von Bingen, the multi-talented 12th century German nun. Von Bingen was an author and playwright, composer of Gregorian chants, a visionary bibliophile, physician, botanist, and a practitioner of holistic medicine with advanced knowledge of herbal healing. Sounds exciting, huh? It’s not but German director Margarethe von Trotta’s film is an impressive accomplishment on many levels. Historically it must have been a real challenge to illustrate so vividly this life lived almost 900 years ago with such attention to facts and details and visually it’s a real stunner. Von Trotta, an actress turned director, gets great work from her mostly female cast but the film goes on too long and ultimately left this reviewer cold

Vision: From The Life Of Hildegard Von Bingen takes place in a time when men dominated, especially within the church, and...

Barbara Sukowa as Hildegard von Bingen in Vision Margarethe von Trotta's Vision, Official Selection at the Telluride and Toronto film festivals, will open (via Zeitgeist Films) in Los Angeles at the Laemmle theaters on November 12. A national release will follow. In Vision, two-time European Film Award nominee Barbara Sukowa plays Hildegard von Bingen, a 12th-century Benedictine nun who was a Christian mystic, composer, philosopher, playwright, poet, naturalist, scientist, physician, herbalist and ecological activist. Vision is the fourth feature-film collaboration between writer-director von Trotta and star Sukowa. Their prior joint effort, L'africana, was released in 1990. The first von Trotta-Sukowa effort, Die Bleierne Zeit / Marianne and Juliane, won the Golden Lion at the 1981 Venice Film Festival. Von Trotta was the first female director to take home that award. Also in the Vision cast: Heino Ferch, Gerald Alexander Held, Hannah Herzsprung, Annemarie Düringer and Lena Stolze. Photo: Zeitgeist Films...

Director: Margarethe von Trotta Writer: Margarethe von Trotta Starring: Barbara Sukowa, Heino Ferch, Hannah Herzsprung, Gerald Alexander Held, Paula Kalenberg, Sunnyi Melles, Annemarie Düringer, Devid Striesow, Annika, Katinka Auberger Hildegard von Bingen (Barbara Sukowa) is a 12th-century Benedictine nun-turned-magistra -- as well as a seer, composer, philosopher, playwright, poet, scientist, naturalist and herbalist -- who is often revered as an early feminist icon. Sent to Disibodenberg Cloister at age 8 (many historians claim von Bingen was not cloistered until age 14), von Bingen is placed in the care of the magistra of the cloister, Jutta (Lena Stolze). Upon Jutta's death, von Bingen is elected as magistra of the cloister. After one of her nuns becomes pregnant at Disibodenberg, von Bingen and about twenty nuns move into the newly constructed St. Rupertsberg monastery -- von Bingen’s loyal confident and teacher Volmar (Heino Ferch) serves as their provost. Vision is reminiscent of director...