The Berlin Film Festival, held over the weekend, staged the European Film Market event, at which a number of major Sino-French co-productions attracted the avid interest of attendees.

Obama clearly views Hollywood as an expression of American soft power, and its ability to shape the preference and perceptions of other nations.  As for the North Korean regime ... Hollywood movies, in their most surreal forms, constitute a direct assault on political fantasies, which underpin autocracies and their megalomaniac leaders.

San Francisco celebrates Arab Heritage Month with three major events in October. The 20th Annual Arab Cultural Festival kicks off the festivities on Saturday, Oct. 4 in Union Square.

People want to know “what China wants”. And there are many suggested answers. China wants to control the global discourse about it. It wants to change the bad image of itself seen in much of the outside world – the Tank Man; blanket of smog; tainted baby milk; routine police torture; suppression of free speech, and so on.

Mondelez-owned coffee brand Kenco is launching a project to helping young Hondurans reject gangs and violence by becoming coffee-growing entrepreneurs. The year-long Coffee vs Gangs initiative (site yet to go live), conceived by Kenco's agency JWT London, will give 20 recruits in violence-ridden areas of Honduras the training and support to embark on new careers as trainee coffee farmers and therefore build a better life for themselves, away from gangs.

Maharashtra hosted its first Kazakhstan film festival, celebrating the history, culture and evolution of that Central Asian country.  The four-day festival was organized in Pune by the National Film Archives of India (NFAI), Pune International Centre (PIC) and the Indian Council of Cultural Relations.

A decade ago, the Brazilian gangster Li’l Zé took movie screens across the world by storm in the low-budget crime drama “Cidade de Deus,” or "City of God." Set inside the eponymous slum in Rio de Janeiro, the film grossed $30 million, received four Oscar nominations, and won festivals from Los Angeles to Toronto.

Nicholas Cull on the role of film in public diplomacy.