Russia’s National Film Foundation Gosfilmofond is planning an alternative international film festival to be staged in Nice during next year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Speaking to Russian daily newspaper Izvestiya, Gosfilmofond’s general director Nikolay Borodachev said that the new event - tentatively called Alternativa – would show films that had been turned down by the programmers from Cannes, Berlin and Venice.

A particular focus would be placed on films by directors from the Brics countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), he said.

“It will be an international festival with an international jury, and present awards. We will invite leading film critics. We have all of the possibilities to do this,” he said, pointing out that this festival would attract journalists attending the nearby Cannes festival as well as cinema-goers from Nice.

“The distance from Cannes to Nice is small and all journalists, of course, will come to [see] these films to understand why they weren...