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The Marrakech International Film Festival features a stellar line up of international cinema in its programming, offering the chance to watch films you might never have the chance to see. For example, the Azerbaijani film, “Nabat,” which was selected as that country’s Foreign Language Academy Awards submission. Directed by Elchin Musaoglu, and starring Iranian actress Fatemah Motamed-Arya in the titular role, “Nabat” tells the story of one woman’s individual struggle during the war in Azerbaijan in the early 1990s. Nabat is an elderly woman caring for her sick husband and grieving for her young son killed in the conflict that has villagers fleeing from missiles that rain down at night. Nabat and her husband remain isolated in their house on top of the hill, though Nabat travels the rocky roads by foot to sell milk and gather supplies and news. She's a doggedly determined person, working tirelessly to...

The Palm Springs International Film Festival has increasingly become an important stop on the awards calendar for foreign language films. While the desert fest hands out an international critics prize, it’s more about the filmmakers getting a chance to rub shoulders with Academy members just before nominations ballots are due. The upcoming 26th annual fest is running January 2-12 and has announced the movies that will compete for the Fipresci prize in its Awards Buzz section. Fifty of the 83 official submissions for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar are on the list with the titles chosen believed by festival programmers to be the strongest entries in this year’s Academy Awards race. A special jury of international film critics will screen the films and hand out a Fipresci for an individual title as well as Best Actor and Best Actress. While the fest doesn’t always match the eventual Oscar winner,...

The organisers of the 26th annual Palm Springs International Film Festival (Psiff) will screen 50 of the 83 foreign-language Oscar submissions.

A jury of international film critics will be convened to bestow the Fipresci Award for best foreign language film of the year, as well as best actor and best actress in this category.

Further film programmes will be announced in the coming weeks. Psiff is set to run from January 2-12.

The Awards Buzz selections in alphabetical order of country are:

A Few Cubic Meters Of Love (Afghanistan), Jamshid Mahmoudi:

Wild Tales (Argentina), Damián Szifrón;

Charlie’s Country (Australia), Rolf de Heer;

The Dark Valley (Austria), Andreas Prochaska;

Nabat (Azerbaijan), Elchin Musaoglu;

Two Days, One Night (Belgium-France-Italy), Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne;

The Way He Looks (Brazil), Daniel Ribeiro;

Mommy (Canada), Xavier Dolan;

To Kill A Man (Chile), Alejandro Fernández Almendras;

The Nightingale (China), Philippe Muyl;

Mateo (Colombia), Maria Gamboa;

Cowboys (Croatia), Tomislav Mršić;

Behavior (Cuba), Director [link=nm...

Boyhood, Foxcatcher, Birdman, Phoenix, Mr Turner among critics choices.

This year’s Talinn Black Nights Film Festival (Nov 13 – 30) will host a strand of 13 films curated by Screen International critics.

The strand includes Boyhood, Foxcatcher, Birdman, Phoenix, Mr Turner, The Tribe and ‘71.

Wendy Mitchell, editor of Screen International commented: “Screen International is proud to present our Critics Choice at Tallinn’s Black Nights Film Festival. 2014 has been a banner year for filmmaking, as evidenced by the diversity and quality of the global films our critics have championed, everything from the showbiz skewering of Birdman to a remarkable Ukrainian dialogue-free thriller, the Tribe.”

Screen International critics’ selection in the programme of Black Nights:

• “Tales” (Iran / director Rakhshan Bani Etemad)

• “Black Souls” (Italy / director Francesco Munzi)

• “The Wonders” (Italy, Switzerland / director Alice Rohrwac)

• “Eden” (France / director Mia Hansen Love)

• “A Pigeon sat on a branch reflecting on existence” (Sweden, Germany, Norway, France / director Roy Andersson)

• “Mr Turner” (United Kingdom / director...