Raissa Fomina, of Russia's Intercinema-Art Agency, has announced that Sky and Diamonds is in the final stages of pre-production before its scheduled launch at Cannes in May.

The $2 million picture, described by Fomina as "a love story set in the modern, criminalised Russia", is from Vasily Pichul, who directed Little Vera. It is a co-production between Intercinema - operating in the European Film Market under the "Cinema of Russia" banner - and its French partners: Parnasse, Arte, Canal+ and the CNC.

Intercinema is representing a quartet of films in Berlin: Blokpost (Checkpoint), a modern-day war story, which screens in the Panorama; Okraina (Outskirts), the directorial debut of top Russian scriptwriter Peter Lutsik, which is in the Forum; romantic drama Mu-Mu, based on a story by Turgenev; and Uzel, an interview with Alexander Solzhenitsyn to mark his 80th birthday.

Fomina set up Intercinema, which is 100 per cent privately financed, six years ago with Polina Zhuraleva. Although distribution in Russia is on hold because of the economic crisis (not to mention the failure of Russian TV to pay for acquisitions), the agency still acts as a sales agent for Russian films &emdash; the back catalogue includes such titles as Alexei Balabanov's Brother, which was in Un Certain Regard at Cannes; and Russia's 1995 foreign Oscar submission, Mussulman - and as a co-producer of feature films.

Fomina is now raising funds for Lutsik's The Wind (aka The Steppe Frontier), which she describes as "a story about Russia: how it changes with time and yet doesn't change". Nick Roddick