Scotland's premiere short film award is open again, for its seventh year, to showcase the very best of Scotland's short film talent. The Jim Poole Scottish Short Film Award was launched in 1999 by the Cameo Cinema to jointly celebrate its fiftieth birthday and to demonstrate a commitment to supporting emerging filmmaking talent in Scotland.

The UK Film Council is sponsoring the film category for the Commission for Racial Equality's Race in the Media Awards (RIMA).  Now in its second year, the film category is hoping to attract entries from the widest possible talent spectrum.  Applicants have until the 17 March to submit their work.

Paul Haggis' Crash beat Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain to the best film award at the Oscars on Sunday in a night which favoured independent titles over studio pictures, and saw the brits pick seven gongs. The race relations drama also won best original screenplay and the award for best film editing.

Brit winners pictured - Rachel Weisz & Nick Park (click the photos for exclusive in-depth netribution interviews from Stephen  Applebaum).

 

The gay cowboys of Brokeback Mountain have taken best feature prize at the Independent Spirit Awards, arthouse equivalent of the Oscars. The win comes just a day before the picture competes for a leading eight honours at the Academy Awards.

Scots Oscar hopeful Sharon Colman has already come a long way from Balloch, but tonight she'll be mixing with moguls and stars. her seven minute debut animation, Badgered, has already opened doors for her and she has had meetings with the co-founder of Pixar Entertainment.

US movie fans are being offered the chance to download Oscar-nominated short films from iTunes.

Channel 4's hit comedy drama series Shameless looks set to dominate the Royal Television Society Awards for a second successive year after picking up the most nominations for this year's ceremony. Four nominations came the show's way including for Best Drama and Best Writer for Paul Abbott.

The new set for the film world's greatest drama - the Academy Awards, has been unveiled in Hollywood. It was created by Roy Christopher who has designed for the show since 1979.

 Pictured is Christopher with his design for the 2004 Oscar ceremony. His 2006 design is much miore glamourous and can be seen below, unveiled for the first time........