Defiance, a U.S. film directed by Edward Zwick (Blood Diamond), will begin filming in Lithuania at the end August for six weeks. Daniel Craig, hot off his success in Casino Royale, will star. The film is produced by The Bedford Falls Company and Grosvenor Park Productions (www.grosvenorpark.com). The budget is estimated at €36 million.
The average Pole spent two hours and 47 minutes before a TV screen daily in July, according to a new survey by the TNS OBOP agency (www.tns-global.pl). That represents a gain of seven minutes from July, mainly due to poor weather in Poland
Several films from Central and Eastern Europe will be shown at the EU Film Week in Durban, South Africa.The festival begins Aug. 17 and ends Aug. 23.
Central European Media Enterprises looks poised to bid for Czech TV channel Top TV as part of a renewed acquisition spree according to media analysts.
Volny (http://web.volny.cz ), a telecommunications company in the Czech Republic, has announced the launch of its new IPTV service. Titled Volny TV, the service offers 40 foreign and national stations as well as film channels.
Granada International (www.granadamedia.com/international), a distribution company based in the U.K., announced the sale of 400 hours worth of dramas to Eastern and Central European broadcasters.
The Press Information Office and Foreign Ministry of Cyprus have just launched a Web site (www.cyprusonfilm.com) dedicated to informing viewers of various aspects of culture, politics and life in Cyprus.
Eastern Europe is making great strides in the upgrade to digital television, according to a new report by the London-based research company Informa Telecoms & Media, which predicts the number of households in the region with digital TV will rise nearly fivefold within six years.
Just as the Czech film fund recently faced a budget cut that still needs to be fully resolved, the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival is also suffering a budget cut, according to the Czech newspaper Mlada Fronta Dnes.
Multimedia Polska, a leading Polish provider of “triple play” packages of TV, voice and broadband internet service, has acquired 15 cable TV networks in northern Poland for 40.9 million zloties (€10.7 million).
