The banned Estonian film Magnus by director Kadri Kõusaar captured the top award at the Czech film festival Febiofest which wound up last weekend. The director won €5,000, and another €5,000 was awarded to support distribution of the winning film in the Czech Republic, according to the festival website (www.festiofest.cz).
Twenty-four films will be screened during the 10th edition of the European Film Festival in Malta which begins April 12 and lasts through May 8. The event is organised by the European Commission Representation in Malta.
Bulgaria's Nu Boyana Studios has signed a cooperation agreement with the National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts (NATFA) under which it will provide €35,000 to finance student films made at the academy.
Polish pay-TV operator Cyfrowy Polsat, which has delayed a listing on the Warsaw Stock Exchange twice due to turbulent market conditions, will hold its initial public offering later this month, Reuters is reporting. The news agency quoted a source on April 1 as saying a prospectus would be issued April 10.
French actor and director Gerard Depardieu will arrive in Bulgaria later this year to shoot a film, according to media reports citing producer Gianfranco Pierantoni from Nimar Studios Ltd.
The Imperial War Museum in London has opened a second exhibition of Polish firms and documentaries as part of a unique program called "Polish Paths to Freedom." The current segment focuses on the period from the beginning of the Stalinist period to the workers' revolt on the Baltic coast in 1970.
A memorandum on cooperation signed in March between Poland and Ukraine is yielding swift results. A series of Polish films representative of several generations of filmmakers is being screened this month in Lviv, Kiev, Odessa and Kharkov.
Reflecting on the success of Malta, the government of Cyprus has approved a study to find ways of attracting foreign film producers to the island. The Cabinet also plans to appoint a specialist to conduct a study on the feasibility of establishing a film studio, according to the Cyprus online newspaper Famagusta Gazette.
Barrandov Studios was unable to land production of the latest James Bond film, but some of the sets for Bond 22 have been built in Prague. The film's producers placed an order with Barrandov Studios to create the furnishings for the luxurious International Grand Hotel to be featured in the next episode of the successful film series about Agent 007.
Director Stefan Ruzowitzky, who won this year's Academy Award for best foreign-language film for The Counterfeiters, was in Prague recently to finish shooting the trailer for Love at War. Ruzowitzky brought his statuette along to Barrandov, where he had started working in February with the FFP Agency and Barrandov Productions (www.barrandovproductions.cz)
