VENICE: Director Paul Schrader arrives in competition at 78th Venice IFF with The Card Counter staring Oscar Isaac, Tiffany Haddish, Tye Sheridan and Willem Dafoe. The 75 year old Schrader who shot to fame 45 years ago as the scriptwriter of Taxi Driver has had a long and distinguished career as both director and scriptwriter. Most recently his 2017 film First Reformer brought him kudos and acclaim and an Oscar nomination. Schrader has also written the screenplay for the film and his Venice entry is hotly anticipated.

MOSCOW: Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn directed by Radu Jude (Romania, Luxembourg, Croatia, Czech Republic) won the top prize at the third international East West Golden Arc annual prize for films from Eastern Europe and Western Asia. The awards ceremony took place on 25 October 2021 at the newly renovated Khydozhestvenny Cinema, one of the oldest in Russia.

GDYNIA: The 46th Polish Film Festival Gdynia, which took place 20-25 September 2021, awarded its top prize of Golden Lion for Best Film to Fears / Wszystkie nasze strachy directed by Łukasz Ronduda and Łukasz Gutt.

VENICE: French director Audrey Diwan was awarded the top prize for her film Happening / L’Évenment in the main competition of the 78th Venice Film Festival, which took place from 1 to 11 September 2021.

FNE TV spoke to Polish director Jan P. Matuszyński about his new film Leave No Traces, a Polish/Czech/French coproduction that screened in the main competition of the 78th Venice Film Festival.

VENICE: FNE spoke to Boglárka Nagy, the managing director of the Confederation of Arthouse Cinemas CICAE and the Arthouse Cinema Training, and programme coordinator Javier Pachón, who summed up the insights shared and lessons learned by the participants at the CICAE training programme on the island of San Servolo in Venice this year.

FNE spoke to Christian Bräuer: President of the International Confederation of Arthouse Cinemas CICAE about the mission of CICAE and the future of art house cinema after the pandemic.

FNE spoke to Mira Staleva, one of the trainers at the International Confederation of Arthouse Cinemas CICAE Arthouse Cinema Training on the island of San Servolo in Venice. Mira Staleva runs Cinema House in Sofia and is a director at Sofia IFF in Bulgaria. She is also involved in production, distribution, exhibition and audience development projects.