“Our co-operation with M7 Group bears witness to a good partnership connection and the international resonance of the Film Europe brand. We have succeeded in identifying high-quality European films before they have been awarded the Palme d’Or in Cannes. We have succeeded in presenting high-quality films within our own festivals, in cinemas, on DVD and VOD platforms, and quality TV. We have succeeded in transforming Europe’s cinema heritage to an artistically valuable and commercially independent concept. And we have succeeded in doing so even without receiving a contribution from public resources. Film Europe is also an unparalleled start-up within the context of European film owing to its independent economic model. High-quality films are no longer the monopoly of state-supported festivals and television channels. Film Europe, Skylink, Canal Digitaal and TV Vlaanderen offer high-quality films to wide audiences. At the same time, the Film Europe Channel is an optional linear and SVOD alternative to gigantic, often non-curated and non-lucid VOD platforms. A bottom-up initiative, we aim to serve as an example of how a high-quality film brand can be built up in Europe ...” said Ivan Hronec, President and CEO of the Film Europe Media Company.

Jaromír Glisník, a member of the Board of M7 Group, added: “The Film Europe Channel has been part of the menu of the Czech and Slovak Skylink satellite platform for several years now. Owing to its specific content, it has gained great popularity among art film lovers. I firmly believe that Film Europe will also be enthusiastically welcomed by audiences in the Netherlands and Belgium. I feel happy to have been able to markedly extend the number of Film Europe customers by means of our Skylink Live TV internet service (SVOD), which is available to all Skylink subscribers without any additional fees.”

The Film Europe Channel and SVOD library encompasses genre films produced in European countries, particularly the winners of the major festivals in Berlin, Venice and Cannes. Our audiences can watch the majority of the winners of Palme d’Or at Cannes in Czech and Slovak TV premiere. Accordingly, the Film Europe Channel offers an objectively better and more up-to-date festival films programme than all the public and commercial television channels in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Our audience can look forward to such gems as The Great Beauty (La grande bellezza), directed by Italy’s Paolo Sorrentino (Oscar 2014 in the Best Foreign Language Film category), Blue Is the Warmest Colour(La Vie d'Adèle) by France’s Abdellatif Kechiche (Palme d’Or, Cannes 2013), Faust by Russia’s Alexander Sokurov (Golden Lion, Venice 2011), Child’s Pose (Poziția copilului) by Romania’s Calin Peter Netzer (Golden Bear, Berlinale 2013), Dheepan by France’s Jacques Audiard (Palme d’Or, Cannes 2015), as well as splendid Scandinavian crime dramas and Italian comedies. In October, the Film Europe Channel will hold its main non-TV event, the Be2Can festival. Dozens of cinemas in the Czech Republic and Slovakia will screen the prize-winning films from Venice, Berlin and Cannes. And, within its own programme, the Film Europe Channel and SVOD will offer last year’s award-winning films. At the present time, no such coupling of festival films with VOD and Quality TV exists anywhere else in the world.

The Film Europe Channel can be found by Skylink customers within the Kombi, Multi HD, Flexi 7 and Komplet programme packages. Film Europe titles are also available to all Skylink subscribers within the SVOD internet service Skylink Live TV.