Polish films will have a strong presence at the Venice International Film Festival (31 August-10 September 2011) this year with two Polish films in the official programme. Polish director Roman Polanski’s Carnage a Polish, French, German and Spanish coproduction staring Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz and John C. Reilly will screen in the main competition.

WARSAW: The year’s edition of Two Riversides Film Festival will kick off with the Polish premier of the new Dardenne Brothers film The Kid With a Bike which received the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival. The festival is held from 30 July-7 August 2011 (www.dwabrzegi.pl) in the Polish town of Kazimierz Dolny and hosted by Polish TV star Grazyna Torbicka.

PRAGUE: Central European Media Enterprises (CME) has posted a small 2011 second quarter profit despite a contraction in the advertising market generally in central and eastern Europe. Second quarter net revenues were 249.7m USD and OIBDA1 of 76.9m USD.

ODESSA: The Grand Prix of the Odessa International Film Festival (15-23 July 2011) was awarded to the French film Tomboy directed by Celine Sciamma. The OIFF’s main prize, the Golden Duke along with a cash award of 15 000 USD was handed over by Polish actor and jury president Jerzy Stuhr and accepted on behalf of the director by French actress Sophie Cattani who plays in the film. The jury selected the winner from among 14 films from Hong Kong and Uruguay, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe competing in the international competition.

WARSAW: FNE is happy to announce the launch a new column from leading intellectual property and audiovisual law specialists. Experts from Salans IP & New Tachnology team headed by Małgorzata Darowska will be offering articles about the most important legal developments relating to the film and television industries.

KARLOVY VARY: The Grand Prize for best film went to the Israeli film, Restoration, directed by Joseph Madmony at the 46^th Karlovy Vary IFF (1-9 July 2011 http://www.kviff.com/) at the closing ceremony in the Bohemian spa town. John Turturro was at the ceremony to collect the Festival President's Award from KVIFF director Jiri Bartoska.

PRAGUE: FNE's General Director Anna Franklin met with Czech Minister of Culture Jiri Besser in his office in Prague for an exclusive one on one interview before KVIFF to discuss his views on international and regional cultural cooperation, Czech film and Czech coproductions and the new Czech tax incentives.

MOSCOW: The 33 Moscow International Film Festival (23 June-2 July 2011) closed with Helen Mirren accepting the festivl’s Stanislavsky Award for Lifetime Achievement. Mirren whose real name is Yelena Vasilyevna Mironova is half Russian. She accepted the award from Channel One helmer Konstantin Ernst who called Mirren a real queen referring to Mirren’s role as Queen Elizabeth II for which she won the Academy Award. Her film The Debt about the Mossad searching for a Nazi war criminal closed the festival.

MOSCOW: The 33 Moscow International Film Festival finished last night (2 July 2011) with the awarding of the festival’s Golden and Silver George prizes for the following films:

KARLOVY VARY: French films were the third most popular after USA and Czech productions at the Czech box office in 2010. French films accounted for 2.1% of the Czech box office after US films with 60.4% and Czech films with 34.6%. There were a total of 30 French films released in the Czech Republic in 2010 with 289, 394 admissions.