The Slovak/Czech documentary Romanies Go To Elections from one of the new Slovak documentary directing stars, Jaro Vojtek (Slovak Oscar candidate The Border), is currently in production with 50% of the filming completed and post-production set to begin in January 2011. The film is scheduled for a November 2011 premiere.

Director Masha Novikova has completed filming her documentary triptych under the working title Sweet Smoke (OF FATHERLAND/ OF HOMELAND) in Lithuania. The release of the film is planned for 2011.

Slovak production company Arina (www.arinafilm.sk) is in development with director Juraj Nvota (Muzika) on We Will Meet in our Dreams. The 1.5 million euro story of thwarted love was presented at the Connecting Cottbus (www.connecting-cottbus.de) pitching forum by producer Silvia Panakova and scriptwriter Daniel Pastircak.

From Love With Best Intentions, the second feature by Adrian Sitaru, has concluded filming after one month and one day of production, producer Ada Solomon told FNE. Postproduction will take place in Romania at Chainsaw Europe (www.chainsaweurope.com) and in Hungary.

BUCHAREST: Italian actor, director and producer Michele Placido made his first trip to Romania for the feature film Itaker, which he is co-writing together with Toni Trupia. The script is in early development. Trupia will direct the film set in the 1960's which follows the story of a boy who leaves Northern Italy in order to find his father in Germany.

The film director and musician Hanno Hoefer (Tales From The Golden Age) is in early development with his first long film The Fountain of Youth/Fântâna tinereţii, a documentary about the Romanian medicine Gerovital, famous during the communist regime for his ability to slow down aging.

BUCHAREST: Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance,the first big American production to film in Romania since Cold Mountain in 2002, starts shooting on 1 November 2010 at Castel Film (www.castelfilm.ro ). The shooting will take place entirely in Romania and will wrap at the end of February 2011. Initially the filmmakers planned to start on 1 October.

BUCHAREST: Bobby Păunescu (Francesca) is in early development with his second feature film, The Ghosts/Fantomele after completing a first draft of the script. Foreign investors and coproducers from USA, Italy and Great Britan have expressed interest in the project.

BUCHAREST: Loverboy, the second feature from Romanian director Cătălin Mitulescu is now in production.

BUCHAREST: The second feature of Moldavian filmmaker Igor Cobileanski, Flying Lessons/La limita de jos a cerului began filming 17 October 2010. The film is based on a script written by Corneliu Porumboiu (Police, Adjective) and Cobileanski, and is produced by Alexandru Teodorescu and the Romanian company Saga Film (www.sagafilm.ro).

BUDAPEST: Oscar-winning Hungarian director István Szabó is mid-way through shooting a film based on the best-selling novel by Hungarian writer Magda Szabó, The Door with Academy Award winner Helen Mirren in the lead role.

BUDAPEST: Hungarian director Frigyes Gödrös is in preproduction with a Hungarian-Cuban coproduction based on Cuban magical realist writer Alejo Carpentier's novella Viaje a la Semilla (The Beginning of Things).

VILNIUS: The Lithuanian-Irish co-production Book Smugglers (Smuigléirí Leabhar, Knygnešiai), a creative documentary bydirector Jeremiah Cullinane, is now in postproduction. The film will be completed in both 72 and 52 minute versions.

BUDAPEST: Abigél, the first feature film based on a popular Hungarian novel for youth, is in preproduction for an August/September 2011 shoot and theatrical release in 2012.

BUCHAREST: Bogdan Dumitrescu Dreyer (A Cold Place In The Sun and Thalassa, Thalassa ) has postponed shooting on So I Say starring Gérard Depardieu and Harvey Keitel. Filming was originally scheduled to take place 28 August - 9 October 2010. It has been rescheduled for May - June 2011, producer Giuliano Doman told FNE.

BUDAPEST - The Maiden Danced to Death directed by Endre Hules and filmed by Oscar-winning cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond has completed shooting in Budapest, Slovenia, and Montreal.