In addition to the rich film offerings, the Festival hosts panels, exhibitions, and other artistic events such as:

The Nam June Paik "Video & Television Art" exhibition, "The Strange Objects of Desire of David Cronenberg" Ingrid Caven's concert, Paintings & Collages by Sergei Paradjanov, "Periplanissis" Photo Exhibit by Josef Koudelka, "Peter Greenaway's Paintings, Drawings & Collages" exhibit; and Jazz master Gato Barbieri in concert.

Over the last five years the Festival has also spotlighted significant, leading directors such as,

Olivier Assayas, Charles Burnett, Paul Cox, Manoel de Oliveira, Atom Egoyan, Philippe Garrel, Lana Gogoberidze, Michael Haneke, Hal Hartley, Otar Iosseliani, Jim Jarmusch, Jon Jost, Karel Kachyna, Chen Kaige, Vitali Kanevski, Aki Kaurismaki, Nikita Mikhalkov, Kira Muratova, Gleb Panfilov, Amos Gitai, Nicos Papatakis, Goran Paskaljevic, Sergei Paradjanov, Raul Ruiz, Daniel Schmid, Istvan Szabo, Andre Techine, Edward Young, John Waters, Frederick Wiseman, Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Mark Rappaport, Joao Cesar Monteiro, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Omer Kavur, Michelangelo Antonioni, Benoit Jacquot, Abolfazl Jalili, Daniele Dubroux, Jan Sverak, Bab Rafelson, Clarie Denis, Dariush Mehrjui, Jacques Doillon, and Sergei Bodrov.

The Festival has promoted the work of emerging young filmmakers from all over the world such as Artur Aristakisjian, Gregg Araki, Wolfgang Becker, Paolo Benvenuti, Xavier Beauvois, Paddy Breathnach, Gerardo Chijona, Pedro Costa, Antoine Desrosieres, Andrei Doinchyk, Boro Draskovic, Sara Driver, Ebrahim Forouzesh, Carl Franklin, Flora Gomez, Sotiris Goritsas, Andreas Gruber, Yeh Hung-Wei, Pinh Ho, Pericles Hoursoglou, Ilkka Jarvilaturi, Andras Jeles, Panos Karkanevatos, Tom Kalin, Fred Kelemen, Lodge Kerrigan , Tian Zhuang Shuang, Justin Kerrigan, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Dino Tsinadze, Lukas Moodysson, Marziyeh Meshkini, Pavel Pawlikowski, Samira Makhmalbaf, Petr Zelenka, Don McKellar, Cedric Khan, Fatih Akin, Darren Aranofsky, Constantine Giannaris, Neil LaBute, Kenny Glenaan, John Gianvito, Lucrecia Martel, Daniel Burman, Marco Bechis, Jia Zhang-ke, Yasim Ustaoglou, Christian Petzold, Zhang Yang, Laurent Cantent, and Pablo Trapero.