BUDAPEST: Hungarian-born cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond passed away at 85 on 1 January 2016.

PRAGUE: The Czech Republic takes over from Montenegro the Presidency of the Strasbourg-based European Audiovisual Observatory in 2016.

PRAGUE: Home Care, Lost in Munich and The Snake Brothers are the main candidates at the sixth edition of Czech Film Critics´ Awards.  The ceremony will take place on 23 January 2016.

TALLINN: The Fencer, a Finnish/Estonia coproduction directed by Klaus Härö, has been short-listed for the upcoming Oscars in the Best Foreign Language Film category.

LUXEMBOURG: The EAVE Producers Workshop 2016 has selected 52 upcoming producers representing 36 countries, out of 143 applications from 44 countries.

The Cyprus Film Days Festival 2016 currently has an open call for submissions for the international competition section entitled Glocal Images which will feature fiction feature films from Cyrus and abroad.

PRAGUE: Domestic films are holding strong in Lithuania, Czech Republic and Slovenia.

STRASBOURG: The 141st session of the European Co-Production Fund Eurimages, held from 8-11 December in Ljubljana, is providing support to a 24 European feature film coproductions, including 13 films from CEE territories.

HAMBURG: Croatian actress Tihana Lazović is one of the ten rising young European thespians selected for the European Shooting Stars of 2016.