The 26th annual Vancouver International Film Festival concluded its 16-day run tonight with the closing gala and announcement of film festival award winners.

Audience awards

Animated feature Persepolis, directed by Marjane Satrapi of Iran and Vincent Paronnaud of France, won the Rogers People's Choice Award for Most Popular International Film. Persepolis is a coming-of-age story about a precocious Iranian girl growing up in the Islamic Revolution.

In cinemas across London, feverish preparations are being made for the 51st annual London Film Festival which begins next week.

Over the space of some 15 days, 180 feature films from across the globe will be shown including 7 world premieres, 29 European premieres, and 128 UK premieres. It promises to be a busy time at some of London's cinema box offices.

Opening film

The 26th annual Vancouver International Film Festival kicks off tomorrow with a gala screening of British world war flick Atonement. Having just come from the Edinburgh International Film Festival, VIFF initially seems like a fairly leisurely and rambling affair.

For Julie Delpy, Two Days in Paris, her debut film as a director, was a true labour of love. She first thought of the idea 5 years ago. Julie has worked on several projects as a writer but getting her first film as a director off the ground with little money to play with, was never going to be easy.

David, In terms of coming to direct the movie, why this film, and why now in particular in your career?

Adobe takes video editing to the next level with a new suite of professional tools for both Mac and PC users.

And it has performed beyond their wildest dreams, winning several awards and earning an Oscar nomination for leading man Ryan Gosling.

He plays Dan Dunne, a maverick history teacher in an inner city school who is secretly battling a self destructive addiction. His crumpled idealism and low self esteem are momentarily challenged by a curious friendship that develops with a 13 year old student, Drey (Shareeka Epps).

This unlikely connection forms the basis of a touching and thoughtful story.

It was sixth time lucky for veteran director Martin Scorsese, who finally won a director's Oscar for undercover cop thriller The Departed. Scorsese, who has previously been nominated for an Oscar for directing for The Aviator (2005), Gangs of New York (2003), Goodfellas (1990), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), and Raging Bull (1980), got a rousing ovation as he stepped up to receive the award from old friends Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. ''Could you double-check the envelope?'' he quipped.

"Conscience. What a thing. If you believe you got a conscience it'll pester you to death. But if you don't believe you got one, what could it do t'ya? Makes me sick, all this talking and fussing about nonsense."
-- Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart) - The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

Sometimes when folks are trying to run you out of town on a rail the best thing you can do is start leading the parade.

The guy from Cupertino (hint that's Steve) made a bold move in that direction with his Manifesto posted on the Apple web site.

Adobe's consumer video editing package Premiere Elements 3.0 builds on the strengths of its previous version with an even less cluttered interface to make the workspace less intimidating for the casual editor and relatively sophisticated tools tucked away for those who want to spend more time manipulating their video.