WARSAW: The Girl with the Needle, which was shot mostly in Poland by Swedish director Magnus von Horn, will compete for the Palm d’Or in the 77th Cannes Film Festival’s Competition.

SKOPJE: The Greek/Macedonian coproduction Kyuka – Before Summer’s End by writer/director Kostis Charamountanis will open the 2024 Cannes’s parallel section ACID, run by France’s Association for the Diffusion of Independent Cinema.

BERLIN: The awards of the 74th edition of the Berlin International Film Festival (15 – 25 February 2024), were announced on 24 February 2024. The Golden Bear for Best Film went to Dahomey directed by Mati Diop.

WARSAW: After the recent Polish elections, Polish filmmakers are hoping to see Polish film open up once again to greater participation in international and pan-European organisations. FNE speaks to Joanna Szymanska, one of the leading figures in Polish film, who is working at pan-European level to see greater inclusion and cultural diversity in filmmaking.

TALLINN: The Italian production Misericordia directed by Emma Dante was awarded the Grand Prix for Best Film in the main competition of the 27th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF), which was held 3 – 19 November 2023.

TALLINN: Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event wrapped on 17 November 2023 with eight awards for projects in various stages of scriptwriting, development or postproduction, and an additional two awards recognising promising producers.

VENICE: FNE TV looks at how Venice Film Festival celebrated its 80th birthday. We sum up the festival and talk to some of the participants.

VENICE: Poor Things (UK) directed by Yorgos Lanthimos was awarded the top prize in the main competition of the 80th Venice Film Festival, which took place from 30 August to 9 September 2023. The Special Jury Prize went to Green Border / Zielona granica (Poland, Czech Republic, France, Belgium) directed by Agnieszka Holland, which also picked up a number of collateral awards.

VENICE: FNE spoke to Ivan Ostrochovský and Pavol Pekarčík the directors of the Slovak/Czech/Ukrainian coproduction Photophobia, which screened in the Venice Days section of the festival winning the Europe Cinemas Label Award.

FNE asked Pascal Diot how the Venice Production Bridge has evolved since it started eight years ago.