CANNES: A jury headed by Robert De Niro awarded the Palm d'Or to Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life. The Grand Prix was shared by The Kid with a Bike directed by the Dardennes and Once Upon a Time in Anatolia directed by Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan and produced by Zeynep Ozbatur Atakan. Kirsten Dunst won the Best Actress award for her role in Lars von Trier's Melancholia. Von Trier provoked a storm of controversy during the festival with his remarks about Nazism during a press conference.

CANNES: Polish pubcaster TVP reported a number of deals and festival invitations during the Cannes IFF film market this year.

CANNES: Film New Europe (http://www.filmneweurope.com/) was presented at the Russian Pavilion during a Roundtable on Russian Film Distribution in Cannes on 17 May 2011. Speakers at the roundtable were distinguished Russian distributors Armen Dishdishyan of Central Partnership, Tigran Dokhalov of West, Nadezda Motina of CP Digital, Anna Franklin FNE general director and roundtable moderator Dmitry Livniev publisher of Russia's Action film magazine.

CANNES: Lithuania has made its Cannes IFF debut with its first-ever market stand organized by the newly restructured Lithuanian Independent Producers Association. The stand provided an umbrella for 18 Lithuanian producers in Cannes and a number of festival directors and other Lithuanian industry professionals.

CANNES: Bulgarian Script writer Iglika Triffonova was awarded the Krzysztof Kieslowski Award for best Eastern and Central European Script at a gala awards ceremony in during Cannes IFF on 18 May. The award was for her script False Witness and carries a cash prize of 10,000 Euros.

CANNES: Paris based international sales outfit Le Pacte has picked up both of the Bulgarian films that are screening in official selection in Cannes IFF this year. The Island directed by Kamen Kalev and produced by his Waterfront Film (Bulgaria www.waterfrontfilm.net) and coproduced by Chimney Pot (Sweden) is screening in the Directors' Fortnight and Ave directed by Konstantin Bojanov and produced by KB Films (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) and coproduced by Camera Ltd is screening in Critics' Week.

BUDAPEST: Pal Adrienn directed by Agnes Kocsis and produced by Ferenc Pusztai won the main prize for best feature film and best producer at this year's edition of the Hungarian Film Week (www.magyarfilmszemle.hu).

ISTANBUL: The 30th edition of the Istanbul International Film Festival (www.iksv.org) awarded its top prize, the Golden Tulip for the International Competition, to Egyptian director Ahmad Abdalla's Microphone. The Special Jury Prize was given ex aequo to Seyfi Teoman's Our Grand Despair and Federico Veiroj's A Useful Life. The Golden Tulip Best Turkish Film was given to Tayfun Pirselimoğlu's film Hair which also won the Best Director award.

ISTANBUL: Development funding for a number of new feature film projects was announced at the Istanbul IFF (http://film.iksv.org/trrnfor ) Meetings on the Bridge industry event last night. The new Turkish German Development Fund backed jointly by the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg Film Fund, the Hamburg Film Fund and the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism awarded development funding to seven projects out of 13 projects presented for a total of 100 000 Euros. This was the first round of funding to be awarded by the new fund which was a launched last year.

BERLIN: Polish cinematographer Wojciech Staron's lensing of competition entry The Prize (El Premio) with his extreme close-ups and somber images dominates this film and gives it a tension and a feeling of menace. Directed by Argentine born and Mexican based director Paula Markovitch the film is partly autobiographical.