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Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

It’s hard enough as it is getting up early each morning for the earliest screenings – and in the Berlin cold – without the knowledge that the first film of the day has the dispiriting English title Our Grand Despair. Turkish competition entrant Bizim Buyuk Caresizligimiz, which follows a girl whose parents have recently perished in a car crash, could have been a truly harrowing start to the day were the title taken to its most literal extreme. Instead it turned out to be the opposite: a warm and funny film about friendship and love – bittersweet perhaps, but not at all depressing.

Surprisingly the title does not really refer to the grief of the young girl, Nihal (Gunes Sayin), who overcomes her sadness – at least on the surface – fairly early on. Instead it is about the lighter and more comedy-friendly – though no less real – despair of two men,...

Matt Damon in Joel Coen and Ethan Coen's True Grit The Berlin Film Festival runs Feb. 10-20. In competition: A Torinoi Lo (The Turin Horse), Bela Tarr Bizim Buyuk Caresizligimiz (Our Grand Despair), Seyfi Teoman Coriolanus, Ralph Fiennes El premio (The Prize), Paula Markovitch Jodaeiye Nader az Simin (Nader and Simin, A Separation), Asghar Farhadi Les contes de la nuit (Tales of the Night), Michel Ocelot Lipstikka, Jonathan Sagall Margin Call, J. C. Chandor Saranghanda, Saranghaji Anneunda (Come Rain Come Shine), Lee Yoon-ki Schlafkrankheit (Sleeping Sickness), Ulrich Koehler The Forgiveness of Blood, Joshua Marston The Future, Miranda July Un Mundo Misterioso (A Mysterious World), Rodrigo Moreno V Subbotu (Innocent Saturday), Alexander Mindadze Wer wenn nicht wir (If Not Us, Who?), Andres Veiel Yelling to the Sky, Victoria Mahoney Out of competition: Almanya, Yasemin Samdereli Les femmes du 6eme etage (Service Entrance), Philippe Le Guay Mein bester Freund (My Best Enemy...

I love getting IndieWire’s Cannes Wish List. IndieWire's commentary on each film is interesting in and of itself. I find myself remarking "I didn't know that!" at every other entry. My former Tipped for Cannes Report (when FilmFinders was my company) was one of my most popular reports because film buyers and programmers could immediately hone in on their targets. So, in keeping with tradition, I pulled together the list Screen International (Si) and blogger ion (he did a lot of research for this!) published in February just after the Berlinale and am now going to compare it with Iw’s. My links for the title are to IMDbPro and for the contact either to the seller (Isa=International Sales Agent) or the producer.

After this, I will track which of these land in Cannes, which in Toronto, Venice, etc.; which get acquired by whom (to be gathered together...

New logo. New website. New artistic director. Olivier Pere exited to become the head honcho at Locarno, so the Director's Fortnight, also known as La Quinzaine des Réalisateurs, will be Frederic Boyer's baby this year. The mandate will remain the same, but will the tastes differ? Pere's legacy includes some of my favorites over the past decade such as Corneliu Porumboiu's 12:08 East of Bucharest... - New logo. New website. New artistic director. Olivier Pere exited to become the head honcho at Locarno, so the Director's Fortnight, also known as La Quinzaine des Réalisateurs, will be Frederic Boyer's baby this year. The mandate will remain the same, but will the tastes differ? Pere's legacy includes some of my favorites over the past decade such as Corneliu Porumboiu's 12:08 East of Bucharest, Anton Corbijn's Control, Ramin Bahrani's Chop Shop, Pablo Larraín's Tony Manero,...

• You have to admire European film industry folks - they go to bat for their filmmakers. Further proof that European filmmakers do have it good, the Board of Management of the Council of Europe's Eurimages Fund agreed to support 13 feature films with some Euros and among the featured projects and filmmakers we have veterans Istvan Szabo (Being Julia), Nanni Moretti (Quiet Chaos) and Bent Hamer (O'Horten) receiving some coin for their latest. Danis Tanovic, who just preemed his film Triage at Tiff will receive once again multi-territory support for Cirkus Columbia, while A Town Called Panic pair Vincent Patar & Stéphane Aubier team for another animated project. Spanish director Iciar Bollain (see pic) is prepping her film Even the Rain - a biopic on Christopher Columbus with actors Luis Tosar and Belén Rueda. Here is the full list below of films to watch out for in late 2010, 2011 and beyond.  Kai

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London -- A quartet of Dutch production banners will each receive €50,000 ($70,000) from the Hubert Bals Fund Plus cashpool, a fund from the International Film Festival Rotterdam and the Netherlands Film Fund.

Circe Films, Idtv Motel Films, Volya Films and Waterland Film have been selected by fund managers to co-produce four films from filmmakers from Turkey, Mexico, Argentina and Uzbekistan.

Seyfi Teoman's project "Our Grand Despair" from Turkey, "Los ultimos cristeros" (The Last Cristeros) from filmmaker Matias Meyer in Mexico, Milagros Mumenthaler's "Ausencias" (Absences) from Argentina and "40 kun chilla" (40 days of silence) by Saodat Ismailova, Uzbekistan have been selected.

The Hubert Bals Fund manager Iwana Chronis said: "Looking back on the last four years, the Hbf Plus program can be considered a great success and we are happy to see so many of the supported films doing so well at international festivals."

Previous Bals' beneficiaries have gone on to...

• Caran Hartfield's Bury Me Standing and Jake Mahaffy's Free in Deed are two in development projects looking for funding among the 15 selected by Cannes' Atelier de la Cinéfondation. As explained to me by some Sundance directors who had a chance to have their projects take part in the Cannes' The Atelier, in a nutshell, it acts as one extra way to meet with other producers in an attempt to get some coin (mostly foreign) prior to production. Mostly reserved to first, second and third time directors, this year selection includes two U.S. based projects. The directors and producers meet with industry people during the festival's hustle and bustle. Supported by indie producers Effie Brown (Real Women Have Curves) and Gina Kwon (Me and You and Everyone We Know), Bury Me Standing already has three players attached to the project (Mos Def, Kerry Washington and Alfre Woodard) and

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