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This November, India will host two big film festivals that will change the country’s movie scene and show how committed it is to telling a wide range of stories.

The 55th International Film Festival of India (Iffi) in Goa is making waves with the innovative Golden Peacock competition, which goes against the rules of the film business. Nine of the 15 films in competition were made by women, which is a big step forward for how women are portrayed in movies.

The foreign films in the festival’s lineup are great, with world premieres of films like “Fear & Trembling” from Iran and “Raavsaheb” from India. Some of the films that will be competing are “Holy Cow” from France, which won the Un Certain Regard Youth Prize at Cannes 2024, and “Toxic” from Lithuania, which won the Golden Leopard at Locarno 2024.

The films in the competition will be judged by a...

Hitman dramedy “Knok,” pandemic-thriller “Lt-21,” and dystopian sendup “Rictus” will head off Have A Good One’s (Hago) Mipcom slate, as the Paris-based TV development and sales company has boarded two additional series currently in production.

Produced by Mifa Pictures (Groupe StoryPlus) and N22 Productions for 13ème Rue France, and created by Guillaume Duhesme, Bastien Ughetto and Lucie Moreau, the off-kilter “Knok” follows a hapless single-dad inducted into the underworld and made an unwilling contract-killer after accidentally witnessing a hit. César-winner Sylvie Testud (“Fear and Trembling”) and up-and-comer Johann Cuny lead the cast for a loopy six-part season that won acclaim at the La Rochelle Fiction Festival earlier this year.

Given the spotlight at the Biarritz Unifrance Rendez-vous last month, eco-thriller “Lt-21” tracks a disquieting pandemic plot about an international virus that forces amnesia on those afflicted. Actors Arnaud Valois (“Bpm”) and Léonie Simaga (“The Eddy”) play a pair doctors...

Award-wining French film director best known for Tous les Matins du Monde

It is fair to say that the majority of audiences who saw the film Tous les Matins du Monde (All the Mornings of the World, 1991) – directed by Alain Corneau, who has died of lung cancer aged 67 – had previously never heard of (or heard) the music of the baroque composer and viola da gamba virtuoso Marin Marais. However, the lacuna was soon filled after this sensitive, painterly and vivid recreation of 17th-century French musical life had won seven Césars (France's Oscars), become an international success and resulted in a bestselling CD of the soundtrack by Le Concert des Nations ensemble.

Starring Gérard Depardieu as the older Marais, looking back on his reckless younger self (played by Depardieu's son, Guillaume), it remains Corneau's biggest success outside France. In fact, Tous les Matins du Monde, one of the few films...