Prague: Director Ivo Bystrican takes a creative view of the morass that is the system for getting around the Czech Republic in Under (the) Construction, a film examining the trauma facing a 72-year-old engineer whose final project, a short stretch of the D8 motorway to Berlin, is held up for years in legal tangles.

FNE together with Europa Distribution continues its Distributor of the Month series in recognition of the hard work and excellence of European distributors and the common problems they face - especially in the transition to digitalization. We choose a distributor from each country covered by FNE each month. We look at the challenges and the successes faced by those distributors who are members of Europa Distribution with a special series of interviews that offer insights that other distributors of European films can benefit from and a platform for the exchange of ideas.

Prague: MIDPOINT, an international educational project aimed at supporting talent and development in European screenwriting, culminated at Prague's FAMU film school this weekend with honors for best projects.

 

Pitch It!
This year, Jihlava IDFF will host a presentation by Sibylle Kurz, an expert in the art of pitching. Her talk will take place as part of the programme for documentary film producers called Emerging Producers. An event will also be held to celebrate the official release of the Czech translation of her book Pitch It, a publication valuable not only to film professionals as it conveys, among other things, a universal message regarding effective pitching skills. The book is published by AMU Press.

BRATISLAVA: The retro family story Hostage is shooting its first segments following a year's delay in what was originally planned as a winter 2012 production. Location work runs through 7 September near Bratislava, employing sites in Borinka, Záhorská Ves and Sandberg.

MALTA: Continuing its push to build a growing slate of international productions, the Malta Film Commission www.mfc.com.mt will be talking up its status as a film-friendly Mediteranean location as the MIPCOM global entertainment content market 7-10 October. Under the slogan "Malta: One Location Fits All," commissioner Peter Busuttil will be meeting with potential producers and production houses looking for different locations, water tank facilities and financial incentives.

PORTOROZ: The story of a certain generation revolving around Toni Riff, the former Yugoslav rock star from the 80s who came to Slovenia during the Balkan war to marry his fan Sonja, screens with Adria Blues at the 16th Portoroz fest.

PORTOROZ: The most successful domestic film in the history of Slovenian cinema has finally had its highly anticipated sequel, screening at the 16th Portoroz fest, running 11-15 September. As implied by the numeral added to the original title, the film builds on the same style of light family comic elements that contributed to the success of the original.

PORTOROZ: With a title using the pejorative term for inhabitants of Slovenia who are of Serbian, Bosnian or Croatian descent, Chefurs raus, screening at the Portoroz fest, was also a notorious graffiti slogan that sparked a nationwide public debate on xenophobia.