British films by directors Kenneth Branagh, Ken Loach and Peter Greenaway are in competition for the top prize at this year's Venice Film Festival.

British and US films dominate this year's selection, with Atonement, starring Keira Knightley and James McAvoy, previously announced as the opening film in competition for the Golden Lion.

 

 

Simon Miller's shoestring budget feature made in Gaelic language Seachd: The Inaccessible Pinnacle is to premier at Edinburgh IFF and will be in contention for the Michael Powell Award.

Seachd (pronounced "shack")was picked up by Soda for UK and Ireland distribution at this years's Cannes film market. There is strong international interest in Seachd already and is very likely to be screened at another major European festival soon after Edinburgh. On-line, the film's biggest fan base is in Canada and the USA.

The Melbourne International Film Festival kicks off on  25th July with the Michael Moore offering, Sicko, which takes a critical view of the American health service - and sometimes a rather too rosy one of our very own NHS.

 

Some 12,000 fans were at the Hallam FM Arena, with more at BBC big screens in Leeds, Bradford and Rotherham, to witness the stars arrive at the annual Indian film awards.

The event is held in a different location around the world each year to increase the profile of Bollywood film.

Some 10% of income for Bollywood films come from outside India and Pakistan, while the UK is the second-biggest market for Indian films.

Your Last Chance to Submit to the UK's Largest Indie Film Festival

 

Raindance, the UK’s largest independent film festival, is accepting final submissions for its fifteenth anniversary edition. We are accepting shorts and features of all genres from anywhere in the world. The festival dates have been set for 26th September to 7th October 2007 and we will be accepting your submissions until 1st June with an extended 15th June deadline for Withoutabox users.

 

 CANNES DEBUT FOR ROGUE RUNNER MOBILE STUDIO

RogueRunner are excited to announce the formation of the UK's smallest film studio. So small in fact that it fits inside a Ford transit van.

The creation of Director Dan Hartley who began his film career driving around Ewan, Jude and Bob and then went on to create the position of ‘floor editor' on the Harry Potter films, the RogueRunner is an industry first.

Equipped with a production camera, edit suite, cinema screen and satellite Internet, the RogueRunner can fulfil all the functions of a film studio but with the added advantage of being fully mobile.

As Cannes puts the finishing touches to its 60th edition, we're just making plans for the launch there of our new world funding book on May 16th.  With information on funding and tax incentives in over 50 countries, details of more than 1000 funds around the world,  a new chapter on the Internet, 400 entry glossary and significantly expanded information about low and microbudget production, production finance, the new UK, German and US tax incentives, and approaching the industry, it runs at a whopping 480 pages and hopefully covers everything you could need to know.

To support this we're pleased to say we are an official partner of the Cannes Marche Producers Network. In addition fellow author Adam P Davies, who has consulted on some 200 features, is speaking on a number of panels, including the International Chamber of Commerce's conference on film finance and distribution, the Producers Network itself, and Independent Feature Project (IFP)'s panel on film finance.

NB - to be the first to know when our book goes on sale - just register at Netribution, we will send you an email! 

DepicT! short film competition, part of the renowned Encounters International Short Film Festival (Wed 21 – Sun 25 Nov ‘07), once again challenges filmmakers from across the globe to come up with a compelling, imaginative idea and distil it into 90 seconds of cinematic originality.

Not only will shortlisted films gain priceless industry exposure at Encounters, “The UK’s most important short film festival” (The Guardian), but they’ll be in the running for the top cash prize of £2000.