Distribution - New talent - Cutting edge Propositions

Back in 1962, the German directors who signed the Oberhausen Manifesto (the birth point for the 'New German Cinema') were among the first to recognise film festivals were becoming the main launch pad for directorial talents. The acclaim given to various short films at international festivals, said the Oberhausen collective, showed "the future of the German film lies in the hands of those who have proven that they speak a new film language".

In a world where Wong Kar Wai, Alexander Sokurov or Michael Haneke can outperform many Hollywood directors at the box office, we have all learned to speak that language - with subtitles, anyway. Even when a film does not travel too far beyond the red carpet, careers can still be boosted, thanks to feedback from acquisition scouts and critical word of mouth.

Take Australian film-maker John Hillcoat, whose film The Proposition debuted to rave reviews in Toronto two years ago, but performed disappointingly at the UK and US box office: that festival platform ensured Hillcoat - who had made just two films in the previous 20 years - landed the plum job of directing 2929 Productions' adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road, set to star Viggo Mortensen, which is due to shoot in Washington State next spring.

Further down the pecking order, the chances of stumbling across new talent is reduced by the sheer number of films; the pressure on journalists to see high-profile 'newsworthy' titles; and the sense that, if something was really good, it would already have been the subject of a bidding war (as Cristian Mungiu's soon-to-be Palme d'Or-winner 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days was in Rotterdam).

The Berlin competition threw up few new directorial stars this year, although David Mackenzie should find things a little easier in future after Hallam Foe. The Forum, though, showcased emerging talents in Serbia's Srdan Golubovic, with his second film, The Trap, and Arkansas newcomer Jeff Nichols with Shotgun Stories.

Karlovy Vary, where the pickings can be slim, yielded a promising debut from Norway's Bard Breien with The Art Of Negative Thinking, a black comedy about disability. Two documentaries from the Transylvania International Film Festival in Cluj, Romania also impressed: Beyond The Forest, by Austrian film-maker Gerald Igor Hauzenberger, a compelling view of Romania's last surviving German-speaking Saxons; and American Nina Davenport's Operation Filmmaker, about an Iraqi jack-the-lad who attaches himself to various US film-makers, which has gone on to screen in Toronto and at other festivals.

The ever-reliable Motovun in Croatia yielded one highly efficient slasher thriller (already a hit in Austria), Dead In Three Days, whose director Andreas Prochaska has a bright if bloody future.

Old favourites fared less well. At Cannes, Quentin Tarantino and Emir Kusturica began to edge perilously close to the relegation zone, and even the mighty Wong Kar Wai received a yellow card from most critics. However, Turkish-German director Fatih Akin moved up a division with The Edge Of Heaven, and Julian Schnabel straddled arthouse and mainstream with The Diving Bell And The Butterfly.

The most promising newcomer was the other Romanian, Cristian Nemescu, who made California Dreamin'. Sadly Nemescu died in a car crash before he could finish editing his film, let alone see it win the Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes.