The Festival International de Films de Montreal (FIFM) isabout to be the city's shortest-lived film festival.

The unlucky event took another step toward oblivion yesterday with theannouncement that Digimart, its allied digital distribution conference, isabandoning the FIFM for a berth alongside the city's third festival, Festivaldu Nouveau Cinema (FNC), in October 2006.

The FIFM (known in English as the New Montreal FilmFest) was launched inSeptember with Moritz De Hadeln as programmer as a foil to Serge Losique's Montreal World Film Festival (MWFF), however itfailed to catch fire with Montreal audiences.

The announcement, issued by the FNC, is an implicit rejection of an overturefrom FIFM organisers, Regroupement Pour Un Festival De Film A Montreal, for thetwo events to join forces.

In late October, the Regroupement board issued a frank assessment of theinaugural festival's failures and re-proposed a scheme to integrate the FIFM --intended as a competitive premiere-oriented festival -- and the FNC, whichfavours curatorial programming over exclusivity.

Designed to combine the best of both festivals, the proposal was floated lastyear but rejected by then-FNC executive director Claude Chamberlain. TheRegroupement board set itself a deadline of January 15, 2006 to reach anagreement with the FNC. With less than 20 working days to go before thedeadline, the outlook for the FIFM looks bleak. Nobody wants three festivals inthe city in 2006.

It seems the taint of failure - Montreal culture columnists massacred theFIFM - may have been too much for new FNC executive director Bruno Jobin,however he was clearly willing to embrace Digimart.

By contrast, the inaugural four-day conference, an initiative of softwaredeveloper Softimage -- whose president Daniel Langlois is still a board memberof the FIFM -- was a resounding success, at least in terms of attractingtop-flight panelists and generating positive media. This year's keynote speakerwas tech entrepreneur and digital distribution evangelist Mark Cuban of 2929Entertainment.

"We're no longer aligned with that festival," Digimart executive directorSheila de la Varende told Screendaily, referring to the FIFM. She said she had"no information and no news" about the fate of the event. She could not confirmwhether Langlois had resigned his FIFM board position in light of the changesat Digimart. Langlois was not available for comment.

Jobin, who did not return a phone query, said in a statement: "[FNC andDigimart] share common interests and objectives, so it was natural to pursuethis opportunity while respecting the distinct identities of the twoorganisations."

DigiMart is set to run from Oct 16-19, 2006 alongside the 35thedition of the FNC, which takes place Oct 18-26, 2006. Meanwhile, the 30thMWFF is slated to run Aug 24-Sept 4, 2006.