CANNES: Director Mike Leigh's reflection on the passage of time, ageing, loneliness, and life will stand as a work alongside his best films such as Vera Drake and Secrets and Lies as a work that is both profound, and, well, ordinary.

This week FNE will be looking at a small country that has managed to make a serious impact on the European film industry. As Estonia prepares to host the European Film Academy Awards this December and embrace the Euro in 2011 we catch up with what is going on in Estonian film today.

In recent years Georgian cinema has been witnessing a period of rebirth and revival. Yet another generation of filmmakers emerged, and the directors who stopped making films in the 1990s returned to the country. Financial support from the state and private industry has helped. Georgian cinema has appeared on the international arena and continues to attract the interest of the international film market.

Georgian cinema has a long and distinguished history but it has also become in recent years a vital new source of young European filmmaking talent and an important partner for European coproducers.

VENICE: Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski's Essential Killing picked up the Special Jury Prize of the main competition at the 67th Venice International Film Festival while the Turkish film Majority directed by Seren Yuce which screened in the Venice Days section won the Young Lion of Tomorrow award.