At a time when all cultural events have once again moved to an online environment, international streaming portal DAFilms is set to celebrate its 15th anniversary come October 29th. The portal was created in the same year as the global video sharing platform YouTube at a time when many still had yet to see the potential in online distribution. However, the initial reluctance of filmmakers to put their films online has now been cast aside, and DAFilms has managed to establish itself as an international platform that festivals and independent films depend on. Right now, DAFilms is helping to mediate online versions of such documentary film festivals as the Czech Republic’s Ji.hlava IDFF and Portugal’s Doclisboa.

Following the decision announced on October 28th, 2020 by the Federal Government of Germany to contain the coronavirus pandemic, which includes the four-week closure of all cinemas, the organisers of the FilmFestival Cottbus (FFC) have decided to postpone the 30th edition. The dual festival will take place with film screenings in real cinemas from December 8th to 13th, 2020, the nationwide streaming offer will be available on the festival website from December 8th to 31st, 2020.

The initiatives of Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event, Script Pool Tallinn and POWR Baltic Stories Exchange focusing on scriptwriting, announced selected projects - including participants from Chile, Turkey, Faroe Islands, Spain, Russia as well as Nordic and Central European countries, attending the programmes this year. 

The seventh Riga International Film Festival (RIGA IFF) ended on Sunday 25 October. This year, the festival lineup consisted of 129 films in 10 thematic programs and was presented in a new format – films were available for viewing in person as well as online across Latvia. Viewers in Riga, Jurmala, Ogre, Liepaja and Valmiera used the festival's online screenings most frequently. Ivan I. Tverdovsky’s drama Conference (Konferentsiya, Russia), a film about overcoming post-traumatic stress disorder over the course of many years and coming to terms with a tragic event, won the festival's feature film competition's main prize.

Art can imitate life’s complex and idiosyncratic stories in many ways, making them emotionally resonant for audiences throughout the world and their messages universally recognizable. But it can also heighten the terrifying mundanity of mankind’s many dark hours to the extent that the cinematic handling of the real stories about the many fallacies of human nature can become art itself. This is only one of numerous cultural and social issues director Andrew Levitas tackles in his sophomore feature Minamata, a gruesome tale of the legendary war photographer W. Eugene Smith’s artistic war against the negligence of a powerful corporation dumping toxic chemicals to a river nearby Japanese city of Minamata. Smith’s trail of tears to document the effects mercury poisoning had on the people was captured in beautiful yet artistic and subtle tones by the famed cinematographer Benoît Delhomme, producing yet another film that is visually astounding and emotionally evocative at the same time.

Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival sub-festival announces 115 titles across five different competition as PÖFF Shorts (17th-25h November 2020) celebrates its first year of being an Academy Award qualifying festival.

The 2020 edition of PÖFF Shorts, an official sub-festival of the A-List Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, has revealed the films which will be part of its six competitions. More than 110 short films and animations will be screened between 17th and 25th November both online and in cinemas.