CANNES: Cannes Film Festival kicks off next week and one of the highlights will be the NEXT programme, which focuses on innovation in the cinema industry. FNE invited Julie Bergeron the head of Cannes NEXT project to join us and tell us about how innovation in the AV sector is shaping the future of cinema.

MOSCOW: Russian director Eduard Novikov received the Golden George for Best Film for his The Lord Eagle at the 40th edition of the Moscow International Film Festival, which took place 19-26 April 2018.

BERLIN: Gus Van Sant’s Don’t Worry He Wont Get Far on Foot which screens in the main competition of the Berlinale is one of his best films in recent years after a rather unproductive run of films from the talented American director in his last few outings.

BERLIN: Bulgarian director Milko Lazarov offers a poignant view on a vanishing way of life with his Berlin competition entry Aga

BERLIN: Russian director Alexei German Jr has scored a slot in the main competition with the Russian, Polish, Serbian coproduction Dovlatov about six days in the life of the brilliantly ironic Russian Jewish writer Sergei Dovlatov who eventually left the Soviet Union for the USA when his writings were not possible to publish in the USSR.

BERLIN: Polish director Małgorzata Szumowska arrives back in the main competition with her latest film Mug after winning the Best Director prize here with her film Body in 2015. It’s another noteworthy entry from this masterful director who is now in the prime of her career and fully in command of her art.

BERLIN: Romanian experimental filmmaker Adian Pintilie’s debut feature Touch Me Not is probably one of the most unusual films to unspool in the Berlinale main competition this year.  The film mixes the fiction and non-fiction genres in a mind bending examination of human intimacy that will leave both critics and audiences divided over whether to love or hate this unusual film.

WARSAW: The 71 Cannes Film Festival has just added three more films to its competition lineup, produced with minority coproduction partners from Poland, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

MOSCOW: The Oscar nominated Loveless directed by Andrei Zvyagintsev won awards for Best Film, Best Director, Best Music and Best Cinematography at the first ever edition of the East West Golden Arch awards, a new prize for films from the 32 countries of Eastern Europe and Western Asia.

MOSCOW: The Moscow International Film Festival will take place 19-26 April 2018 this year after being kicked out of its usual June slot by the 2018 FIFA Football, which is being held in Russia during June this year.