The 16th Annual Florida Film Festival will take place March 23 - April 1, 2007 when filmmakers and film lovers can enjoy all the best that Florida has to offer. The Festival includes narrative and documentary features and shorts, animation, midnight movies, and a full array of educational forums, glamorous parties, and other special events. The Florida Film Festival is also a qualifying festival for the Oscars in the category of live action short films. The winner of the Grand Jury Prize Award for Best Narrative Short will automatically qualify to enter the Live Action Short Film category of the Academy Awards.

The MFA Film Program is presenting a four-show engagement of Argentinean director Lucrecia Martel’s acclaimed feature debut "The Swamp" (La Cienaga) from June 16-19 at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. For information please visit the MFA website.

The National Film Board of Canada is putting the call out to new filmmaking talent with "Reel Diversity," a national competition for emerging filmmakers of color. Reel Diversity will give three promising directors the chance to direct their own NFB documentary, to be broadcast nationally on CBC Newsworld. As many as eight proposals will be selected for a five-month development period, during which directors will also benefit from an intensive training session. Deadline for submissions is July 15, 2005. For information on eligibility and how to apply, visit the Reel Diversity website .

The Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival (LALIFF) is dedicated to presenting the best Latino films made in the U.S., Spain, the Caribbean and Latin America. The festival runs from October 21-30, 2005. The deadline for entries is July 5, 2005.

For more information, please visit the Latino Film Website .

David Koh & Chris Blackwell announced today the dates for this year's Goldeneye Film Festival & Retreat. The former home of Ian Fleming -- where he wrote all 13 James Bond novels -- hosts the December 7–12, 2005 event. His retreat, Goldeneye, is now an Island Outpost resort in Oracabessa Bay, Jamaica, just outside of the resort destination of Ocho Rios. Goldeneye Film Festival & Retreat is still accepting submissions. For more information, visit the festival's website.

The Walker Art Center presents "Alexander Payne: Sideways Glance at America" from June 3-11 in Minneapolis, MN. Fresh off capturing a screenwriting Oscar for "Sideways," Nebraska-born filmmaker Alexander Payne returns to the Midwest on June 3 for dialogue with Kenneth Turan, film critic for the Los Angeles Times. Their discussion of Payne's creative process and career will be followed by a retrospective of his feature films "Citizen Ruth," "Election," "About Schmidt," "Sideways," and his film school thesis project, "The Passion of Martin."