Screening more than 212 films from 55 different countries, this year's 5th Annual Pusan Film Festival kicks off with a screening of The Wrestlers from Indian director Buddhadeb Dasgupta, and closes with In The Mood For Love from Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai. Some of the hottest new directors from around the world will compete for the New Currents Award and the Korean Cinema Award. Wim Wenders, Luc Besson, Tony Leung, Jia Zangke, Maggie Cheung, Ishii Sogo, Olivier Assayas, Wong Kar-Wai, Fruit Chan, and Jafar Panahi, are just a few of the stars expected to attend. om Asia, 92 international films, and 40 Korean films.

Vancouver International Film Festival
Sept 21 - Oct 5
The 19th Annual event continues its course with sold-out screenings, special guests and sunny but cold weather designed to drive audience members into the theaters. Director Alan Franey once again has infused the festival with a sense of ground-breaking aesthetic with an extraordinary lineup of tough-hitting documentaries and similarly-themed Trade Forum panels.

No Goldie for Chicago Film Fest
(October 5 - 19)
Organizers of the Chicago International Film Festival are scrambling to find a new honoree guest, now that Goldie Hawn has backed out at the last minute. She reportedly accepted an invitation for be the Guest of Honor at the Gala ceremony on Oct. 21, but only changed her mind this week. Unfortunately for fest planners, the gala kicks off Thursday 5 October.

Dinard Festival of British Cinema
October 5 - 8 (France)
The Dinard fest lasts barely three days but manages to pack an amazing amount of activity into its short sweet sweep. Several things contribute to Dinard's success. First of all, dozens and dozens of French power brokers and their counterparts from across the Channel attend each year. As Lord Richard Attenborough told me the year he came, "It's absolutely extraordinary to walk down the streets of this tiny town in France and see all these familiar faces. It would be impossible to gather all these people together in the same place at the same time in London.

Cork Film Festival
October 8 - 15 (Ireland)
Guiness and Stout are to Ireland what Whiskey is to Scotland. So it's fitting that, like Edinburgh Film Festival's former sponsor Drambuie Whiskey, this year's Cork Film Festival is headline sponsored by Murphy's, the famous Irish stout second only to Guiness in the drinking leagues. Forty-five this year, Cork is a veritable "old man" of the film festival circuit, and brings to Ireland for the first time many of the strongest players at Edinburgh, Venice and Toronto.

Wrap-up/Awards

Utrecht (Netherlands) Film Festival
20 - 29 September
Lek (also known as Amsterdam Blue) was the big winner at the Netherlands Film Festival, which wrapped September 29 in Utrecht. The film won Best Film, Best Director (for Jean van de Velde) and Best Screenplay (for Jean van de Velde and Simon de Waal).

San Sebastian Film Festival
21 - 30 September
Arturo Ripstein's 24th feature film, The Ruination of Men, was the Grand Winner at San Sebastian scooping up Best Film, Best Screenplay and the FIPRESCI Award.

Grand Marnier at NY Film Fest
Three Grand Marnier fellowships (awarded to graduate film students for excellence in filmmaking, film criticism, and video) were announced during the 38th New York Film Festival. The film award went to Brett Vapnek from NYU for her film Dream Machine, while the video prize went to Kristie Drew from the Art Institute of Chicago for her video, Displaced Artifacts Of A Clockwork Self. They will be screened at the Walter Reade Theater at an Independents Night screening in 2001.

Ratcatcher "Catches" FIPRESCI
At the Arsenals Film Festival of Riga held in Latvia, September 16 - 24, the Prize of the International Film Critics (FIPRESCI Prize) was awarded to British filmmaker Lynne Ramsay for her film Ratcatcher. They jury praised her "for a fresh and truthful debut showing how a young boy's soul matures in a harsh world." In addition, for the first time ever, a prize was awarded to a film in the Baltic film competition: the French/Lithuanian film Kiemas The (Courtyard) by Valdas Navasaitis, "for its sense of time dealing with the stagnation of the seventies."

Rio Spotlights British Cinema
(October 5 - 18)
The Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival will open with a screening of Terence Davies' The House Of Mirth with the UK writer-director in attendance. Other films on the program are Tim Robbins' Cradle Will Rock and Lars von Trier's Dancer In The Dark. This year, Rio is hosting six sidebars - the World Cinema Panel, UK Focus, Midnight Movies, Gay World, Film Document and Expectation. The UK Focus includes Simon Cellan Jones' Some Voices, Peter Greenway's 8½ Women, and Stephen Daldry's Billy Elliot on the lineup. A separate sidebar will honor British filmmaker Ken Loach, whose recent feature Bread And Roses is also scheduled.

Trio to Lead Cannes
Gilles Jacob, who has been linked to the Cannes Festival for the past 23 years, has appointed not one, but two festival managers to serve directly under him. Veronique Cayla and Thierry Fremaux will report directly to Jacob and the threesome will direct the festival, starting January 2001. Fremaux is currently director of the Institut Lumiere in Lyons and will continue in this position while working for Cannes. Cayla, who served for six years as managing director of MK2, will assume the administrative functions. They replace Olivier Barrot, a noted TV journalist who was originally hired to fill the position, but resigned in March after finding that Jacob was reluctant to share his reign over the famous festival.

Rosie Perez Heats up Conference
Los Angeles, October 12 - 14
With celebrities John Leguizamo & Rosie Perez serving as co-chairs, the Latino indie filmmaking industry conference is heating up to be a top events of the Fall Season. With a motto "the future is now" and the goal of promoting diversity in entertainment, the conference plans to focus on "success … --how to make it and how to get there," explained Leguizamo. This year's conference is a three day event, featuring a case study on the new Showtime series "Resurrection Blvd." Studio executives and VPs will attend a Diversity Report Panel and explain what their studios have done to address the issue of diversity. A general session called "Earning the Producer's Title" will examine how to attain the coveted title of producer and explore the role and tasks of one such VIP. In a special ceremony, Dennis Leoni (executive producer of Showtime's "Resurrection Blvd") and Jeff Valdez (executive producer of Nickelodeon's "The Brothers Garcia") will receive the Vision Award. Other panels will also examine casting, digital filmmaking, and much, much more.

Le Gout Des Autres opens Viennale
Vienna International Film Festival, October 13 - 25
The biggest festival in Austria will open with Agnes Jaoui's hit Le Gout des Autres and close with Curtis Hanson’s Wonder Boys starring Michael Douglas. Other top titles include Terence Davies' The House Of Mirth, Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood For Love, Lars von Trier's Dancer In The Dark and Nagisa Oshima's Gohatto -- all of which will make their Austrian perlieres. In addition, this year will feature a special retrospective of Blacklisted films and tributes to Japanese filmmaker Shinji Aoyama (jury member at Locarno 2000), filmmaker Hartmut Bitomsky, and US director Richard Lester.

Valladolid Echoes Cannes
Valladolid, the second-most important festival in Spain (after San Sebastian, that is), has announced its lineup for the 45th edition of the event. The program reveals a heavy Cannes emphasis with Dancer in the Dark and Bread and Roses scheduled. Other films competing for the Golden Spike include Liam, The House of Mirth and Takeshi Kitano's Brother. The festival runs for eight days and begins October 20.

Mannheim-Heidelberg Unleashes Desire
The Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival (November 9 -18), will open with the premiere of Colleen Murphy's Desire. This will screen in an annual networking section called "Co-production Meetings," along with Lou Ye's Suzhou River and Auli Mantila's Geography Of Fear. Another scheduled sidebar is a program of student films from Korea and new movies from Latin America. The International Competition will screen Julian Kemp's House (UK) and Ragnar Bragason's Fiasco (Iceland), among others.

London Fest Anounces Bookend Films
Two of Toronto's top treats - David Kane's Born Romantic and Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous bookend the 44^th London Film Festival. Unveiling the programme on Wednesday (13^th September), festival director Adrian Wootton described it as London's 'biggest and, we believe, best yet'. With attendance's last year of over 120,000, London is already the UK's largest festival, while a title sponsorship deal with Regus Offices has allowed the programme to increase by 20 to 196 features during the two week run.