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Eight projects in development from eight countries in South-East Europe will receive €9,000 each. The 31st session of the See Cinema Network's general assembly took place online on 19 January, where the winners of the 2020 funding competition for feature-length projects in development were selected from the pool of 15 films – two from each of the participating countries. Each of the projects, which previously secured funding from their national film funds and have another co-production company from another South-Eastern European country on board, will receive €9,000. The winners include the new projects by up-and-coming filmmakers, such as Maya by Cyprus's Tonia Mishiali (Pause), who is also producing with her outfit Bark Like a Cat Films; Burek by Kosovo's Ismet Sijarina (Cold November), staged by Leonora Lushtaku; Planet 7693 by Montenegro's Gojko Berkuljan (Iskra), produced by Marko Jaćimović (A Production); That Burning Light by Greece's Efthimios Kosemund...

The 28th Annual Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival announces award winners and attendance results

The 28th Annual Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival (Sliff), which kicked off on Nov. 7, concluded on Nov. 17. Total attendance was 26,329, including approximately 10,000 St. Louis-area students (some schools participating in our Cinema for Students program have not yet reported numbers).

Sliff screened 389 films in 214 public programs: 81 narrative features, 63 documentary features, 227 shorts, and 18 film programs exclusive to Cinema for Students. The fest also featured 12 special-event programs, including four master classes and our closing-night awards presentation. This year’s festival had 63 countries represented.

The festival honored a trio of significant film figures with our annual awards. St. Louis natives Josh Aronson, an Oscar-nominated documentary director for “Sound and Fury,” and Brad Schiff, the animation supervisor for Laika Studios and Oscar nominee for “Kubo and the Two Strings,” each received our Charles Guggenheim Cinema St. Louis Award, and...

Other winners at the 17th edition of the Albanian event included Take Me Somewhere Nice, Cold November and A Decent Man, while the Iranian short Tattoo qualified for Oscars. Bulgarian directors Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov's Karlovy Vary Crystal Globe winner The Father scooped the main award, the Golden Owl for Best Feature Film, at the 17th Tirana International Film Festival (23-29 September). Bosnian-Dutch filmmaker Ena Sendijarević picked up Best Director for her Heart of Sarajevo winner Take Me Somewhere Nice, while Ismet Sijarina and Arjan Krasniqi pocketed Best Screenplay for Cold November (Kosovo/Albania). The Best Eye on Tiff Prize for Best Debut Film went to Hadrian Marcu's A Decent Man (Romania), and Tonia Mishiali received a Special Mention for Pause (Cyprus/Greece). Aga's House by Kosovar filmmaker Lendita Zeqiraj bagged the Audience Award. As of this year's edition, the Tirana Iff is one of the qualifying festivals for the Academy.

Gustav Möller’s The Guilty wins critics’ choice award.

Lukas Dhont’s Girl won the Golden Eye for best international feature film at this year’s Zurich Film Festival (26 Sept - 7 Oct).

The film, about a 15-year-old transgender girl studying at a prestigious Belgian dance academy, premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Caméra d’Or award for best first feature, as well as the Queer Palm. It is the Belgian submission for the 2019 Oscars.

Heartbound by Janus Metz and Sine Plambech won the international documentary film prize. Both international awards...

Pushing into international acquisitions, Bilbao-based distributor Barton Films has picked up Spanish distribution rights to three films playing at the 66th San Sebastian Festival’s New Directors sidebar.

Barton’s most recent international-title release slate is headed by “The Third Wife,” the feature debut by New York and Vietnam-based Ash Mayfair, which recently won the Netpac award at the Toronto Film Festival.

A second buy, “A Decent Man,” by Romanian Hadrian Marcu, highlighted at the first edition of San Sebastian’s Glocal in Progress showcase in 2017, toplines Bogdan Dumitrache, winner last year of a San Sebastian Silver Shell for best actor for Constantin Popescu’s “Pororoca,” another Barton Films pickup.

Ismet Sijarina’s “Cold November,” a Kosovo-Albania-Republic of Macedonia co-production world premiering at New Directors, is a family drama based on real events in the turbulent times after Yugoslavia abolishes Kosovan autonomous institutions in 1990.

“Increasing the volume of independent international movies acquisitions,...

The winning director and Spanish distributor in the section will receive €50,000.

Update: French Production Meteorites directed by Romain Laguna and China’s Breeze by Kun Yang have been added to the line-up.

Meteorites focusses on a 16 year-old girl who is spending the summer in a town in the South of France and works in a theme park. Breeze revolves around a man’s homecoming journey from Yunnan to the town of his birth.

Original story: The 2018 San Sebastian Film Festival (Sept 21-29) has revealed 13 of the first and second films by European, Asian and Latin American filmmakers set to compete for the Kutxabank-New Directors Award.

The winning director and Spanish distributor in the section will receive €50,000.

The 2018 San Sebastian Film Festival (Sept 21-29) has revealed 13 of the first and second films by European, Asian and Latin American filmmakers set to compete for the Kutxabank-New Directors Award.

Among the films are Notes For A Heist Film directed by León Siminiani - Goya nominated for documentary Mapa (Map) in 2013 - and Core Of The World from Natalia Meschaninova, who competed in Rotterdam with her first feature The Hope Factory in 2014.

Further titles includeThe Third Wife, from Vietnamese director Ash Mayfair whose screenplay won the Spike Lee Film...