Venice 2011: 'Alps' by Yorgos Lanthimos

Right after Andrea Arnold's take on Emily Brontë's gothic classic Wuthering Heights, Yorgos Lanthimo's fourth long feature Alps is probably the film I'm most looking forward to out of all the official entries at this year's Venice Film Festival, which is no trifle taking into account that the lineup of the competition strand alone includes films by David Cronenberg, Roman Polanski, Steve McQueen or Todd Solondz.

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Foreign film Oscar shortlist announced: Greece's scandal in, France's gem out

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences seems to be ready to go to great lengths to raise the profile of the ever-tricky and unpredictable Foreign Film category.

Two years ago it set up the so-called Foreign Language Executive Committee as a result of general outrage triggered by the exclusion of Romania's 4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days, which many considered the best film of the year, foreign or not. The task of the Executive Committee is to pick three extra films after the first voting round to avoid embarrassing oversights.

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