The 11th Annual Austin Film Festival celebrates narrative and documentary films both in long and short form. The conference that accompanies the festival features panelists from the film industry who will discuss their experiences. First place winners receive: a cash prize of $1,000 (Feature Category) or $500 (Short and Student Short Categories); reimbursement (up to $500) of one round-trip airfare to Austin to attend the 2005 AFF; hotel accommodations at an AFF hotel (up to $500); a special Winners Night Screening at the Festival; the AFF Bronze Typewriter Award; and a special Los Angeles screening of their film for industry professionals. Short Films screened in competition at the Austin Film Festival are eligible to be nominated for an Academy Award. For more information, visit www.austinfilmfestival.com.

The 11th annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books event celebrates and animates the written word through panel discussions, poetry readings, cooking demonstrations, book signings and music. The festival affords book lovers the chance to meet bestselling authors, publishers and other literary figures. The hundreds of exhibitor booths, stage events and popular children's characters keep it entertaining for all ages. Admission is free, but tickets are required to attend author-panel discussions and lectures because of limited seating. Free tickets will be available at all Ticketmaster locations in Southern California. The two-day takes place April 23, from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm, and April 24, from 10:00 am until 5:00 pm, on UCLA's campus. General event information about the festival is available at www.latimes.com/events or by calling 1-800-LA TIMES, ext. 7BOOK.

The 11th Annual Slamdance Film Festival highlights the best in short and feature independent films. The 2004 festival received more than 2,600 submissions from all over the world. Selection is narrowed to under 20 features for both the main feature competition, which is strictly devoted to films without domestic theatrical distribution, from first-time feature directors, working with relatively low budgets, and the documentary competition. The early deadline is August 27, 2004. The final deadline for short films under 40 minutes is October 11, 2004 and October 18, 2004 for feature films. The final deadline fee is $35 for all films under 40 minutes, and $55 for all films 40 minutes and over. For more information, visit www.slamdance.com or call (323) 466-1786.

The 11th Brooklyn International Film Festival lineup will include some 150 films selected from over 2,000 submissions. The festival will present more than 75 film programs at multiple venues throughout Brooklyn. BiFF's mission is to discover, expose, and promote independent filmmakers while drawing worldwide attention to Brooklyn as a center for cinema. For more information, visit wbff.org.

The Barcelona International Television Festival (FITB) is a three-day screening for children and young people from around the world: documentaries, animations, TV programs and series. Two prizes: UNICEF and CREATIVE will give awarded. The program includes MEDIA LITERACY, screenings from the ITC service of the department of education of the autonomous government of Catalonia and the exhibit of secondary school news programs, commercials and fiction videos organized by the Blanquerna Communication Department of the Ramon Llull University. The free event takes place at Auditorium of the Museum of History of Catalonia, Pl. Pau Vila, 3, Barcelona. For more information, visit www.oeti.org.

The 11th edition of Milano Film Festival will be held next September in Milan, at the Piccolo Teatro and Castello Sforzesco. The event features two International Competitions open to feature and short films of any genre, language, running time and format, provided that they have been produced after Jan. 1, 2005.

The festival stands out for its continuous and careful attention to young and talented filmmakers from all over the world that are able to experiment with genres, languages, techniques and formats and offer therefore an always wider view

RFX is hosting its annual technology BBQ, featuring free training, product debuts and a chance to meet developers. Below is a list of attending companies: * Alias - Maya 7 & Motion Builder 7, talk with Senior Application Engineers. * Apple - Shake 4, meet Developers and Support Team. * The Pixel Farm - Debut of PFClean (dust removal and clean-up tools), also PFTrack (3D tracking) PFPlay (2k playback). See Shake/PFTrack/Maya workflow. * The Foundry - Furnace 3 Debut Meet with the Developers. * mental images - mental ray + FREE TRAINING meet experts from mental images. More info on training here. * Next Limit - Real Flow + FREE TRAINING talk to fluid dynamics experts. More info on training here. * Silhouette - Debut of Roto with 2D paint. * Cirque Digital - GDI Explorer (asset management). * WaveGen - Textureloader Pro for Maya. * The Gnomon Workshop - Training DVD's. * Pixologic - Zbrush - 3D modeling RSVP to rsvp@rfx.com, including your name, company, email, phone and street address. The event will run from 12:30

The 12th annual Sedona International Film Festival & Workshop is a four-day festival featuring more than 125 films, including features, documentaries, shorts and animation. The Frank Warner Workshop brings Academy Award-winning, industry professionals to Sedona to teach, inspire and share their knowledge with the next generation of filmmakers. Students get an once-in-a-lifetime chance to work shoulder-to-shoulder with the industry

The Slamdance Screenplay Competition accept screenplays in every genre, both feature and short length, on any topic from every country around the world. The grand prize is $7,000 and best short prize is $500. The Duke City Shootout Special Prize gives the winner a production package worth $50,000 for a short screenplay under 15 pages.

The 12th edition of Milano Film Festival collects and selects short and feature films from all over the world and is open to films of any genre, running time, language and format, provided that they have been produced after Jan. 1, 2006.

The call for entries for the State (T)error season is open to works of any language, format and length, produced even before Jan. 1, 2006. The submission deadline is May 31, 2007. Stories depicting crimes, injustice and massacres, committed under the banner of democracy, freedom, security or religion. Terrorism as a strategy of so-called democratic governments. A deliberate, organized, thoroughly planned terrorism consisting in warfare actions, ban on dissent and slanted news coverage. These are the main characteristics of this out-of-competition season, that the festival presents in 2007 for the third year in a row.

The film project will be further enhanced, as a result of a year of commitment in the search for and distribution of films from all over the world. Special consideration will be paid to filmmakers depicting unknown stories and cultures, to independent productions that are usually ignored by commercial circuits. In particular, the aim is to focus on those countries that manage to produce films despite their economic, political and social difficulties. Furthermore, larger participation of feature films will be encouraged.

For more information, visit www.milanofilmfestival.it.