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Now in its 28th edition, the European Shooting Stars platform run by European Film Promotion brings another 10 promising European acting talents to the Berlin Film Festival, with the goal to help them build their careers internationally. From Feb. 14-17, the selected performers will participate in workshops and panels, as well as meetings with international journalists, producers and casting directors. The program culminates in a ceremony at the Berlinale Palast where they will each receive the European Shooting Stars Award.

This year’s Shooting Stars were selected by a jury comprised of Romanian director and screenwriter Radu Muntean, Swedish casting director Pauline Hansson, Swiss producer Amel Soudani, French actress and former Shooting Star Ludivine Sagnier and Montenegrin journalist and curator Vuk Perović. They were selected from candidates nominated by their national film promotion institutes and film centers.

What this year’s group of Shooting Stars has in common besides the potential...

Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event also selects new Liliana Torres, Dzintars Dreibergs films.

Miriam Heard’s After The Fog, a Chile-uk-France co-production, is among 13 films selected for the Works in Progress strand of Industry@Tallinn & Baltic Event, the industry programme of Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (Poff).

Currently in post-production, Spanish-language drama After The Fog (Spanish title: Despues de la niebla) bears witness to the experiences of Chilean citizens in 1988, when the country ousted military dictator Augusto Pinochet after 16 years.

Scroll down for the full Works in Progress selection

It is written and directed by Heard, and produced by Heard for...

24 companies, all but five launched last decade, descend on Locarno from Aug. 6, mostly in person, to present their production slates.

Every market in international is its own story. So the projects they bring run a huge gamut. Following, a quick drill down on the companies and their banner titles. A second article, published later at Locarno, will look at some of the young indie sector’s major concerns and growth areas.

Estonia

Kafka Films, Karolina Veetamm

Tallinn-based, focused on narrative and doc features, at Match Me with a slate led by a trio of socially-relevant titles: “Tell Me,” a “poetical documentary,” says producer Veetamm; women’s emancipation tale “Aurora,” from Andres Maimik and Rain Tolk; and “The Last Five,” a dark comedy about Tallinn homeless from Triin Ruumet director of 2016 dark comedy, “The Days That Confused,” a Karlovy Vary East of the West Special Jury Prize winner.

Alexandra Film, Marianne Ostrat...

Sundance released their slate for 2010. It includes:43 documentaries on the Middle East12 films about friends who 'discover' something33 movies about people you've never heard about1 comedyHopefully the lineup this year is strong but it doesn't look that way compared to last year. Last year we had Push (Precious), that Lil Wayne documentary that never went anywhere, Mystery Team which might make my top ten, Moon, Mike Tyson documentary, Cold Souls. Just so much last January that was excellent. I hope I don't go out therer and freeze my tail off just to see...I don't know, a documentary about a former Pakistani prime minister or something silly like that.Here's the lineup so far: Premieres To showcase the diversity to contemporary independent cinema, the Sundance Film Festival Premieres section offers the latest work from American and international directors as well as world premieres of highly anticipated films. Presented by Entertainment Weekly.

I feel a special bond with the Sundance Film Festival. Not because I’ve been there, but because the guy in charge of it this year, John Cooper, shares my name. Because we share this bond, I feel that I’m able to take license in referring to the man as Coop for the rest of this article.

For the annual event held in Park City, Utah from January 21-31, thousands of films are submitted and screened — this year, 3,724 films were viewed by the festival’s ten programmers. I wonder when they slept.

Coop has high hopes for the festival as a whole:

“We may even be going into a golden age for independent films, in that the technology will make it possible for the films to be made and for audiences to see them. The industry is going through a major evolutionary stage right now, there’s no doubt about that,...

Sundance released their slate for 2010. It includes:43 documentaries on the Middle East12 films about friends who 'discover' something33 movies about people you've never heard about1 comedyHopefully the lineup this year is strong but it doesn't look that way compared to last year. Last year we had Push (Precious), that Lil Wayne documentary that never went anywhere, Mystery Team which might make my top ten, Moon, Mike Tyson documentary, Cold Souls. Just so much last January that was excellent. I hope I don't go out therer and freeze my tail off just to see...I don't know, a documentary about a former Pakistani prime minister or something silly like that.Here's the lineup so far: U.S. Documentary Competition This year’s 16 films were selected from 862 submissions. Each film is a world premiere. Bhutto(Directors: Jessica Hernandez and Johnny O'Hara; Screenwriter: Johnny O'Hara)—A riveting journey through the life and work of recently assassinated Benazir Bhutto,...

The Sundance Film Festival has unveiled the lineup of films playing in competition from January 21 through January 31, 2010. The early fest typically debuts some of the best films the year has to offer, like 2009’s Precious, (500) Days of Summer, and Moon.

I’m bummed I won’t be in Park City, Utah next month because the lineup looks great, and these are just the films playing in competition. Here’s a few that stood out to me:

The Allen Ginsberg trial film Howl starring James Franco, a documentary by Alex Gibney (a truly great filmmaker) on Jack Abramoff, Mark Ruffalo’s directorial debut Sympathy for Delicious, a doc about Joan Rivers, the directorial debut of “How I Met Your Mother” star Josh Radnor titled Happythankyoumoreplease (I wrote a glowing script review of it here), Hesher with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Natalie Portman, and Blue Valentine starring Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams.

I...

Sundance Film Festival 2010 is a little over a month away and that means we can now bring you a list of the competition films that will be playing. Here you go boys and girls… enjoy!

Documentary Competition

“Blue Valentine” – Directed by Derek Cianfrance, written by Cianfrance, Cami Delavigne and Joey Curtis, a portrait of an American marriage that charts the evolution of a relationship over time. With Ryan Gosling, Michelle Williams, Mike Vogel, John Doman. “Douchebag” – Directed by Drake Doremus, written by Lindsay Stidham, Doremus, Jonathan Schwartz and Andrew Dickler, in which a man about to be married takes his younger brother on a wild goose chase to find the latter’s fifth-grade girlfriend. Features Dickler, Ben York Jones, Marguerite Moreau, Nicole Vicius, Amy Ferguson, Wendi McClendon-Covey. “The Dry Land” – Directed and written by Ryan Piers Williams, in which a returning U.S. soldier tries to reconcile his experiences overseas with his life in Texas.

Photo: Sundance Today the Sundance Institute announced the films that will be in competition at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival in both the U.S. and International dramatic and documentary categories. The festival will run from January 21-31 in Park City, Utah. There are a few changes this year as there will be no opening-night picture and the festival will take select festival films to eight cities during as the fest plays out.

Last year notable films such as this year's major Oscar contenders Precious and An Education debuted at Sundance 2009 as did audience and critical favorite (500) Days of Summer.

As for this year's crop I have highlighted a few titles among the list below in red, but I have primarily done so considering the names attached to the pictures not necessarily based on any advanced buzz I've heard around any of the films. Names to look out for include Ryan Gosling,...

The Sundance Film Festival is where some of the great films of the year will get their first viewings, and if you don’t believe me, here’s just some of the great films this year that made their debut at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival: Precious, World’s Greatest Dad, Big Fan, Bronson, Moon and even (500) Days of Summer, which I didn’t care for but made a big splash.

The festival is where buzz starts happening and now Sundance has released the list of which films will be in competition for 2010. Keep in mind that there are plenty of other films which play out of competition and can be just as great. But some of the big names fighting for the crown are the Allen Ginsberg obscenity trial film Howl starring General Hospital’s James Franco, Hesher starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Natalie Portman, Mark Ruffalo’s directing debut Sympathy for Delicious,...

And the first announcement is upon us and includes quite a few movies we've already reported on.. What does that include?

The incredible looking Estonian drama The Temptation of St. Tony for which we got the exclusive trailer on a while ago. It's by Veiko Õunpuu who did the incredible Sügisball and I'm greatly looking forward to seeing this.

From Spencer Susser, the director of the incredible zombie short I love Sarah Jane comes Hesher, his first feature which stars Jgl!

David Michôd's Australian thriller Animal Kingdom which stars Guy Pearce.

From Taiki Waititi, director of Eagle vs Shark comes Boy which we previously reported on, but then it was known as The Volcano.

Full list after the break!

U.S. Documentary Competition

This year’s 16 films were selected from 862 submissions. Each film is a world premiere.

Bhutto (Directors: Jessica Hernandez and Johnny O'Hara; Screenwriter: Johnny O'Hara)—A riveting...

Rain Tolk In Director Veiko ÕUNPUU'S SÜGISBALL. Courtesy Strand Releasing. Artists' creativity is sometimes directly proportional to their life experience, and Estonian writer-director Veiko Õunpuu has more than enough to draw on. Õunpuu was born in 1972 on Saaremaa, the biggest island belonging to Estonia, and graduated from high school in 1990 just as the country was glimpsing independence due to the dissolution of the Ussr. Over the next 10 years, Õunpuu had numerous identities: a tyre repair worker, an asylum seeker in Finland, a student at the Estonian Business School, a failed carpet salesman in Sweden, a driver on Hardi Volmer's Estonian movie All My Lenins, an advertising agency employee, a backpacker in Asia, and finally a...

Estonian Film Foundation

Strong on atmosphere and angst, the multistrand drama Autumn Ball takes its time bringing together its orbiting characters, a half-dozen aching souls in a housing complex on the outskirts of Tallinn, Estonia. Although it sometimes suffers from ennui overload, the film gets under the skin, its darkly comic observations filtered through Tarkovsky, Kieslowski and Cassavetes but alive with their own bracing melancholy. Winner of the Horizons Award at the Venice Film Festival and a competition selection at the recent AFI Fest, the film is sure to make an impression as it travels the fest circuit.

Writer-director Veiko Ounpuu's adaptation of Sugisball (Autumn Ball), a 1979 novel by Mati Unt, a leading literary figure of Soviet-era Estonia, is set in the pre-independence 1980s. The future-forward high-rise suburb at the center of the story, abutted by desolate fields, stands as a dated monument to the crumbling USSR. Striking lensing by Mart Taniel makes the most of the cold natural light, penetrating the facades of the well-played characters and the sad spaces they inhabit. Ulo Krigul's brooding score is a key asset as well, especially in the film's wordless stretches, like the powerful breakup scene that opens the film.

Writer Mati (Rain Tolk) stands on his apartment balcony as though poised between life and death. His farewell hug to his departing wife (Mirtel Pohla) turns into a desperate attack. Left alone, he soon embarks on a binge. When not at his typewriter in a room that appears to be constructed of books, he's out making a fool of himself at clubs.

Alcohol comforts and undoes many of the characters. Fueled by brandy, self-consciously fashionable architect Maurer (Juhan Ulfsak) is heartlessly honest with his unhappy wife, Ulvi (Tiina Tauraite). A single mother (Maarja Jakobson) fends off the blunt overtures of strangers, calming her nerves with dainty glasses of liqueur. Sobbing over the "forbidden love" of The Thorn Birds, she's unaware that her young daughter (Iris Persson) is drawn to Kaski (Sulevi Peltola), a friendless barber.

For Theo (Taavi Eelmaa), a doorman at a depressing red-curtained nightclub, the opiate of choice is sex. He tallies his one-night stands -- first name and astrological sign -- adding numbers 210 and 211 after a spirited threesome. But like most everything here, the encounter ends on a note of disconnection. In their botched, often cruel encounters, the characters are often monstrous. In their aloneness -- whether writing, dancing solo or eating breakfast -- they become more human.