The Bulgarian Ministry of Culture has denied allegations by the head of the National Film Council of Bulgaria that it intends to cut film funding in 2009 by nearly 59%.
The recent renaissance of Bulgarian film will grind to a halt if the government goes ahead with the planned cuts to subsidies of 59% in 2009.
The 13th edition of the Sofia International Film Festival, 5-15 March, attracted local crowds as well as European industry professionals of both feature and documentary films from all over Europe with an emphasis on the Balkans.
Petr Zelenka's The Karamazovs, based on a theatre production of the famous book, picked up the prize for both best film and best director at this year's Czech Lions, (7 March) the Czech equivalent of the Oscars.
The Trieste Film Festival (www.triestefilmfestival.it) closed on a negative note as the festival's artistic director Annamaria Percavassi announced that the festival's main venue, the Excelsior Cinema, would close its doors permanently shortly after the end of the festival.
Film New Europe is proud to announce that it has been awarded a grant of 68,000 Euros from the MEDIA Programme of the European Union for 2009 to continue its promotion and further access to markets for the audiovisual industries of the 12 new EU member countries. This is the second year that the EU has supported FNE, and we feel that the grant is also an endorsement of the important role FNE has come to play in the European film and television industry.
We would like to thank all our sponsors and supporters in 2008; the MEDIA Programme of the European Union, the Polish Film Institute, the Polish Filmmakers Association and the Slovenian Film Institute. We would also like to thank all the members of the Film New Europe Association and our own FNE correspondents throughout the region who have made FNE the premier source for news and information about the Central European film and television industry since its official launch just over a year ago.
This will be the final edition of FNE daily for 2008. We will resume publishing again on Monday 12 January 2009.
Happy Holidays from all the team at FNE ! !
The 45th edition of the Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival (October 10-19) turned out to be a surprise
Slovenian director Vinko Moderndorfer’s Landscape No 2 (www.pokrajina-st2.org) which is screening in the Venice Days programme of the Venice Film Festival attacks a topic that is front and center in today’s political and ethical debate.
Central European filmmakers have rediscovered Russia with a major focus on central European film at the 30th Moscow International Film Festival (www.moscowfilmfestival.ru), which ran June 19-28.
