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Pacha, a Bolivian film by Héctor Ferreiro will open the first edition of the Kochi International Film Festival today. The festival that will run from December 16-23 will be inaugurated by Kerala Chief Minister Oomen Chandy.

The festival will screen films from Latin America, Europe, Asia and USA, apart from films on the 100 Years of Indian Cinema and Centenary of Masters.

A total of 50 international films and 24 Indian films will be screened. Five films from Thailand, eight from Poland six films from Iran will be a part of the international section. While 18 Malayalam, one Tulu film and three Hindi films are in the line-up.

Line up of films:

100 Years of Indian Cinema

Malayalam Golden 10:

Elippathayam (The Rat Trap) by Adoor Gopalakrishnan

Chidambaram by G. Aravindan

Danny by T. V. Chandran

Amma Ariyan by John Abraham

Oppol by K. S. Sethumadhavan

Nirmalyam by M. T. Vasudevan Nair

Uppu by Pavithran

Olavum Theeravum by P.

Khule Darwaze (Open Doors) by Ashish Pandey won the award for Best Short Film at the 4th Jaipur International Film Festival which concluded on Tuesday. The film had also won the Special Jury award at Short Film Center, Goa 2011 recently.

Mitu Kumar won the Best Short Film Director award for Banwara Mann. Dilli by Sushmit Ghosh & Rintu Thomas won the Best Documentary.

The Golden Camel award for Best Director went to Asghar Farhadi for A Separation. Angelo Cianci of France won Best Debut Director for Top Floor Left Wing.

Handover by Saurabh Kumar got a Special Jury Mention—Feature Film.

About 180 films were screened during five days of the festival in Jaipur.

How do you turn a hostage situation concerning cocaine, eviction notices, and Algerian assassins into a stage for bureaucratic ineptitude and slum reform? Ask Angelo Cianci because his film Dernier étage gauche gauche [Top Floor, Left Wing] does it and more. A darkly comic take on generally serious circumstances, a normal day in the life of bailiff François Etcheveria (Hippolyte Girardot) becomes one he’ll never forget. The first apartment of twelve on his list to evict and catalogue property for compensation, no one could have known Mohand’s (Mohamed Fellag) home would be hiding the kinds of secrets it is. One desperate maneuver by son Salem (Aymen Saïdi), though, lands Etcheveria in the bathroom, tied up by tape, and looking down the barrel of a gun.

Both action and comedy start right after an opening credit sequence shows our main players passing each other on the street. Mohand is coming home as the...

The opening twenty minutes of Angelo Cianci's debut feature Top Floor, Left Wing (Dernier �tage gauche gauche) is a spectacularly amusing series of events. Fran�ois, a city official whose job is to oversee evictions, arrives at the home of Salem and his father Mohand to deliver the bad news that the money they owe is due now or they're going to lose their home. Salem isn't really sure what's going on but the police presence (apparently Fran�ois' job can get ugly) scares the would be drug dealer who's holding a couple of kilos of coke for a friend. He freaks out, takes Fran�ois hostage and in mere minutes, the simple eviction turns into a gong show.

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With a flurry of titles (from herlmers Kawase, Lanners, Rebecca Daly in the multiple Cannes sections, the future (Venice, and Tiff prospects) look equally as fruitful for Memento Films Int. The French Sales Agent and Prod Co. have a stellar bunch in post production items such from So Yong Kim's and Pen-Ek Ratanaruang's next films (see Headshot pic above), but pre-production items with an eye towards next year's Cannes with Laurent Cantet's and Cate Shortland's next features. Here's the cool slate below. Foxfire (Foxfire: Confessions D'Un Gang De Filles) by Laurent Cantet - Pre-Production Hanezu (Hanezu No Tsuki) by Naomi Kawase - Completed The Giants (Les Geants) by Bouli Lanners - Completed Bad Seeds (Mauvaises Herbes) by Safy Nebbou - Production Elles by Malgoska Szumowska - Post-Production For Ellen by So Yong Kim - Post-Production Headshot (Fon Tok Kuen Fah) by Pen-Ek Ratanaruang - Post-Production L'enfant...

Nader and Simin, a Separation and the other winners of the 2011 Berlin International Film Festival have been announced. The 61st Annual Berlin International Film Festival, often called the Berlinale, is “one of the world’s leading film festivals and most reputable media events.With 274,000 tickets sold and 487,000 admissions it is considered the largest publicly-attended film festival worldwide. Up to 400 films are shown in several sections, representing a comprehensive array of the cinematic world.” The full listing of the 2011 Berlin International Film Festival winners is below.

Golden Bear for Best Film

Jodaeiye Nader az Simin (Nader And Simin, A Separation) by Asghar Farhadi

Silver Bear – The Jury Grand Prix

A torinói ló (The Turin Horse) by Béla Tarr

Silver Bear – Best Director

Ulrich Köhler for Schlafkrankheit (Sleeping Sickness)

Silver Bear – Best Actress

to the actress-ensemble in Jodaeiye Nader az Simin (Nader And Simin, A Separation) by Asghar Farhadi

Silver Bear – Best...

Among those they have tapped for the fest they have a premium Midnight Screening for Gilles Marchand's Black Heaven and they are closing the festival with Julie Bertuccelli's The Tree. - The Sales/Distribution/Production company continually pluck from a batch of interesting U.S independent film auteurs (they are back on board with So Yong Kim for her to be released in the Fall title, For Ellen), grabbing select Euro titles Natalia Smirnoff's Puzzle (a Berlin) along with French films which we've been talking non-stop for the better half of year. Among those they have tapped for the fest they have a premium Midnight Screening for Gilles Marchand's Black Heaven and they are closing the festival with Julie Bertuccelli's The Tree. (see Charlotte Gainsbourg in pic above). On the sales side of things, they are working with Marchand's partner in crime Dominik Moll...

The Sales/Distribution/Production company continually pluck from a batch of interesting U.S independent film auteurs (they are back on board with So Yong Kim for her to be released in the Fall title, For Ellen), grabbing select Euro titles Natalia Smirnoff's Puzzle (a Berlin) along with French films which we've been talking non-stop for the better half of year. Among those they have tapped for the fest they have a premium Midnight Screening for Gilles Marchand's Black Heaven and they are closing the festival with Julie Bertuccelli's The Tree. (see Charlotte Gainsbourg in pic above). On the sales side of things, they are working with Marchand's partner in crime Dominik Moll's filmed in Spain fantasy pic and are onboard Pawel Pawlikowski's new project – a helmer who's sabbatical has lasted a tad too long. Black Heaven (L'autre Monde) by Gilles Marchand - Completed The Monk...

Paris -- Arte France is bringing its co-production savvy across borders with three new international films from Lars von Trier, Angelo Cianci and Razvan Radulescu, the Franco-German pay TV group said Tuesday.

Von Trier will try his luck at the horror flick genre with "Anti-Christ," about a couple in an isolated cabin whose son disappears. The Slot Machine, Zentropa and Arte/Zdf co-production will film in August and September in Germany.

In Radulescu's "Felicia plus que tout," co-directed by Melissa de Raaf, actress Ozana Oancea plays a young Romanian immigrant in the Netherlands dealing with family-related drama. "Felicia" will shoot in September and October in Bucarest.

Cianci's first film, "Ici," produced by Tu vas voir and father-son team Peter and Mathieu Kassovitz, is the story of an Maghreb family living in a rough Paris suburb subject to a hostage takeover which turns to absurd comedy.