Hungarian director János Szász is preparing for his new film, an adaptation of Le Grand Cahier (The Notebook), a novel by Agota Kristof.

Recognized as talented Serbian scriptwriter (The Trap, 2007, Love and Other Crimes, 2008) and original film director (The Red Colored Grey Truck, 2004) the Sarajevo born Srđan Koljevićgave his second feature the peculiar title The Woman with a Broken Nose.

With his first feature, Dolls/Kuklalar, Chingiz F. Rasulzadeh returns to a period 20 years earlier in his home country of Azerbaijan, before the fall of the Soviet Union. He follows several young men working at a seaside park disguised as famous characters (such as Mickey Mouse) as they try to cope with the changes in the society and their own growing up in the process.

Czech director and cinematographer F.A. Brabec, (Kytice, 2000, Bolero, 2004, May 2008) has begun shooting his latest film Under the Duvet (V peřinách ), which he calls "the first 3D feature length fantasy musical." Produced by Hollywood Classic Entertainment (www.hce.cz), Under the Duvet is scheduled for a March 2011 release.

Aurora, Cristi's Puiu tale of murders, is the second in his project Six Stories From the Outskirts of Bucharest, which began with the acclaimed The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu in 2005. Following that black comedy, the Romanian helmer returns with the dark story of a recently divorced father of two wandering through Bucharest and trying to put an end to his nervousness.

Slovenian director Igor Šterk's forth film 9:06 (www.film-906.com) had its world premiere in competition in Montreal World Film Festival 2009 (www.ffm-montreal.org) and in October 2009, won nine awards on 12th Festival of Slovenian film (www.fsf.si) including award for best film, director, screenplay and best performance by an actor in a leading role, and became most successful Slovenian festival film.

BUDAPEST: Hungarian director Robert Pejo is in pre-production on his new film, Paw, a story based on the real life of the famous Hungarian rescue dog and his trainer Laszlo Lehoczki. Produced by Laszlo Kantor's Uj Budapest Filmstudio the film is set to shoot in autumn. Pejo's wife Magda Dajni has written the script.

The first Estonian film ever to screen in the Sundance comptetition, The Temptation of St.Tony by Veiko Õunpuu launched to a controversial reception domestically and became an unexpected box office victim due to the crash of a cinema ceiling. But then, nothing less would be expected from a black-and-white film featuring naked jogging in the snow, dead dogs and bodily dismemberment mixed with Belle Epoque style cabaret performances.

Slovenian director Andrej Košak has started production on his third film, State of Shock (Stanje šoka), produced by Danijel Hočevar of production company Vertigo/Emotionfilm (www.emotionfilm.si). This is the first collaboration of this popular director and the successful producer.

With Don't Look into the Mirror/Mi nayir hayelun, Armenian helmer Suren Babayan directs an ambitious adaptation of the novel written by Perch Zeituntsyan. Producer Vardan Abovyan told FNE that he was fascinated when reading the script "by the way it dealt with the material from the novel," and found "its language was readable for the audience."

Andrzej Saramonowicz, the creator of Polish box office hit Ladies signed an agreement with Warner Bros. Entertainment Poland to produce and distribute at least two new films by the end of 2011.

Former Czech president and playwright Vaclav Havel announced he will begin shooting his film directing debut Leaving on July 2 instead of June, as previously announced. Havel rejected media speculation that he would step aside due to illness.

BUDAPEST: The third sequel of the very successful Hungarian cult-comedy Üvegtigris (Glass Tiger 3) produced by Filmpartners Ltd. (http://www.filmpartners.hu/) will start shooting on June 21 in Hungary. Péter Rudolf, the director, main actor and co-writer of all the three films, promises that this new film will keep the special atmosphere and characters which made a success of the previous movies, but will add more action to it.

Young Slovak script-writer and film director Peter Magat has started preparing the full-length feature film Who's the Boss Here (Kto je tu boss) about the mafia in Slovakia during the 1990's. Peter Vrabel from AM:PM (www.agentura-ampm.sk) will produce the film under the brand New Europe Cinema.

BUDAPEST: Academy Award winning director Istvan Szabo is working on an new film, The Door, an adaptation of a Hungarian novel, written by Magda Szabo, which has been translated to 32 languages. The project has recently been included among the international co-productions which are funded by the two national German funds, German Federal Film Board (FFA) and German Federal Film Fund (DFFF). The film is also backed by the Hungarian Motion Picture Foundation (www.mmka.hu).

Răzvan Rădulescu makes his feature film directing debut with First Of All, Felicia (Felicia, înainte de toate), co-directed by Dutch director Melissa de Raaf.