Film New Europe is happy to announce its partnership with Locarno Film Festival's Industry Days STEP IN initiative. STEP IN will provide insight and look for global and pan-European solutions into the major issues the AV industry in Central and Eastern Europe is facing in its inaugural session 5 August. Film New Europe applauds this initiative and will be a key partner with members of the five members of the FNE team present in Locarno. Watch FNE daily for our series of Country Reports to be published in the run-up to STEP IN.

{mosimage}KARLOVY VARY: The 47th Karlovy Vary IFF (29 June-7 July 2012) awarded its Grand Prix to Norwegian director Martin Lund for his film The Almost Man. The team from the winning film told the audience an almost fairy tale-like story at the closing ceremony about how they had been surprised to be invited, had rushed to finish the film to be on time to be screened in the competition and had arrived at the festival carrying the print of the film in their hands with no expectations of any awards.

KARLOVY VARY: Nine Polish films are screening at the 47th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (www.kviff.com) with seven of the nine in official competition.

FNE together with Europa Distribution today launches its new 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. This month we focus on Poland and we launch our series with an interview with Jakub Duszynski, the Co-President of Europa Distribution who is Head of Acquisitions for Gutek Film.

MOSCOW: The 34 Moscow International Film Festival (21-30 June 2012) ended with the British film Junkhearts directed by Tinge Krishnan winning the Golden George for Best Film and an honourary Life Time Achievement award for festival guest Catherine Deneuve which was presented by the new Russian Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky.

KARLOVY VARY: Three films from central and eastern Europe were included in the 10 films selected as finalists for the European Parliament's 2012 LUX Prize. The finalists were announced at a ceremony in Karlovy Vary by Oldrich Vlasak the Vice President of the Euroepan Parliament together with MEP for Slovakia Katarina Nevedalova and LUX selection committee members Mira Staleva, deputy director of the Sofia International Film Festival and Karel Och, artistic director of the KVIFF. The winner of the prize will be awarded on 21 November 2012.

 

KARLOVY VARY: The 47 Karlovy Vary International Film (www.kviff.com) kicked off with festival president Jiri Bartoska presenting a life-time achievement award to Helen Mirren who visited the Czech spa town to attend the festival.

{mosimage}MOSCOW: Glavkino Studios (www.glavkino.ru), Russia’s newest state-of-the art digital film and studio complex is open for business and ready to invest in international coproductions as well as offering deals on services that are competitive to central European studios.

{mosimage}MOSCOW: Films from Central and Eastern Europe will dominate the Competition of the 34th Moscow International Film Festival over the next eight days with six of the 17 films in the main competition coming from the region. Poland, Hungary, Latvia, Estonia, Croatia and Finland have all scored places in the lineup.

CRACOW: The 52 Krakow Film Festival (www.krakowfilmfestival.pl) held from 28 May to 3 June 2012 gave its highest honour this year in the Documentary section to Swedish director Peter Gerdehag for his Women With Cows. In the Polish National Competition the top awards went to director Lidia Duda for her film Entangled.