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Adrien Brody is on the stage and he’s holding a big envelope. Behind him, there’s a glitzy set, with big screens everywhere and the kind of set design than can be seen in any big awards show in the world.

The 33rd edition of the Istanbul Film Festival showcased more than 200 films in over 20 different categories from April 5-20 in the Turkish city. Turkish Cinema is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year and the festival paid tribute with a series of panels devoted to different genres including documentaries, drama, horror as well as Q&As with filmmakers and crews alongside production and distribution meetings such as the traditional “Meetings on the Bridge” panel.

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The Galapagos Islands are famous for their remote and unique ecosystem and for their historic role in inspiring Charles Darwin’s theory of natural evolution. What is surely less known is how, in the 1930s, this idyllic archipelago far off the coast of Ecuador fired the imaginations of a group of Eurpoean eccetrics.

With a lineup of over 30 films, the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles is once again showcasing a selection from one of the world’s vital cinema traditions. Now in its 12th year, the festival founded by Christina Marouda has become an important window on Indian cinema, particularly on the burgeoning independent scene emerging on the Subcontinent.

The 29th edition of the Guadalajara Film Festival concluded last week with Mexican director’s Nicolas Echeverria’s Echo of the Mountain and Argentine Matias Lucchesi’s Natural Sciences respectively winning the Mezcal Prize and best picture, screenplay and actress in the festival’s Latin-American Competition. The Brazilian A Wolf at the Door, by Fernando Coimbra took best director, Marcelo Gomes and Cao Guimaraes’ Man of the Crowd won the special jury prize and cinematography (for Ivo Lopes Araujo), and Daniel Ribeiro’s The Way He Looks took the audience award.

The Cartagena Film Festival is the largest and oldest in South America and celebrates mostly Latin American films. The 54th Edition of the festival directed by Monika Wagenberg, which just concluded, featured counting 12 South American films in the official competition, most of them premieres.

L. A-based writer-director Carlos Marques’ Long Distance (10,000 Km) swept Spain’s Malaga Film Festival, the country’s biggest showcase of Spanish cinema, scooping its top award, the Golden Biznaga, for best movie, best director, best new screenwriter, a critics’ award and best actress to Natalia Tena (a prize she shared with Elena Anaya for her work in Everybody is Dead’s (Todos están muertos).

A court case against Martin Scorsese's Oscar-nominated film could signal a turn towards censorship in a moment of rising tensions. The Wolf here is Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street.