CANNES: Director Steven Soderbergh has said that the Liberace bio-pic, Behind the Candelabra will be his last film and if there was ever a case of quitting while you are ahead this is it. One of Soderbergh’s finest efforts the film hits every note a film of its genre should hit.

CANNES: Rome, the eternal city, has inspired some of cinema’s greatest classics and Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty, follows in the tradition of Frederico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita and Roberto Rossellini’s Roma the Open City.

VENICE: The 70 edition of the Venice International Film Festival has announced its programme lineup and Slovenia has scored two hits in the International Critics Week programme.

VENICE: Alienation a first film by Bulgarian director Milko Lazarov will screen in official selection in the Venice Days section at the 70th Biennale this year.  A first film, it was the only film from Central and Eastern Europe to make the cut among the 12 films selected to screen in the Venice Days.

KARLOVY VARY: FNE TV has teamed up with Europa International the organisation of European sales agencies. Together we will be working to create a two-way dialogue between sales agents and film professionals in CEE/Baltics to find ways to bring films from the region to a wider audience.

KARLOVY VARY:  Central European films triumphed at the 48th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (28 June-6 July) www.kviff.com with Hungarian director Janos Szasz long awaited Le Grand Cahier (The Notebook) awarded the Grand Prix and films from Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic  picking up a slew of other top prizes.

KARLOVY VARY: The 10 films of the LUX Prize 2013 Official Selection have been announced at the 48th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.

MOSCOW: Turkey scored big at the 35 Moscow International Film Festival (20-29 June 2013) (MIFF) with Turkish director Erdem Tepegoz taking home the main prize for his film Particle and Turkish actress Jale Arikan winning a Silver George for her role in the film.

MOSCOW: The 5th edition of Moscow Business Square had a special emphasis on film projects from central and eastern Europe including a presentation of new coproductions from Poland sponsored by the Polish Film Institute (PISF) and films from the Baltics and Georgia.

BRATISLAVA: Controversial Slovak doc Normalization, titled Kauza Cervanova in Slovak, has scored the biggest domestic box office success of the year for a doc with almost 20,000 EUR at the box office and 5400 admissions after a month on theatrical release. Slovakia has become one of the hottest countries in Europe for production of docs that score theatrical box office successes and on the international festival circuit.