CANNES: Nanni Moretti's story of drama and humour inside the Vatican manages to take a witty yet reverent look at the institution of the papacy. His story unfolds as the Pope has just died and a new Pope is selected. Moretti focuses on the crushing weight of responsibility that the Pope bears and his first scene is stunningly effective. The cardinals have met in Conclave to select a new Pope and each and every one of them is praying that they will not get the job.

CANNES: Nuri Bilge Ceylan returns to Cannes IFF for the fourth time with Once Upon A Time in Anatolia and looks set to take home another prize with this latest film that turns a search for a missing corpse in central Turkey into a journey of discovery of a completely different kind. His previous films Distant, Climates and Three Monkeys all screened in Cannes with Distant winning the Grand Jury Prix in 2002.

WARSAW: French films made major gains at the Polish box office in 2010 compared to 2009 with 6.050.224 Euros earned by French films in 2010 compared to 1 463 955 Euros in 2009. This represents a gain of 4.2% in 2010 compared to 2009.

VIENNA: The Austrian Film Institute has announced funding of 3.16m Euros for 45 new projects including just over 2m Euros for eight new feature film projects.

Polish films will have a strong presence at the Venice International Film Festival (31 August-10 September 2011) this year with two Polish films in the official programme. Polish director Roman Polanski’s Carnage a Polish, French, German and Spanish coproduction staring Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz and John C. Reilly will screen in the main competition.

WARSAW: The year’s edition of Two Riversides Film Festival will kick off with the Polish premier of the new Dardenne Brothers film The Kid With a Bike which received the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival. The festival is held from 30 July-7 August 2011 (www.dwabrzegi.pl) in the Polish town of Kazimierz Dolny and hosted by Polish TV star Grazyna Torbicka.

PRAGUE: Central European Media Enterprises (CME) has posted a small 2011 second quarter profit despite a contraction in the advertising market generally in central and eastern Europe. Second quarter net revenues were 249.7m USD and OIBDA1 of 76.9m USD.

ODESSA: The Grand Prix of the Odessa International Film Festival (15-23 July 2011) was awarded to the French film Tomboy directed by Celine Sciamma. The OIFF’s main prize, the Golden Duke along with a cash award of 15 000 USD was handed over by Polish actor and jury president Jerzy Stuhr and accepted on behalf of the director by French actress Sophie Cattani who plays in the film. The jury selected the winner from among 14 films from Hong Kong and Uruguay, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe competing in the international competition.

WARSAW: FNE is happy to announce the launch a new column from leading intellectual property and audiovisual law specialists. Experts from Salans IP & New Tachnology team headed by Małgorzata Darowska will be offering articles about the most important legal developments relating to the film and television industries.

KARLOVY VARY: The Grand Prize for best film went to the Israeli film, Restoration, directed by Joseph Madmony at the 46^th Karlovy Vary IFF (1-9 July 2011 http://www.kviff.com/) at the closing ceremony in the Bohemian spa town. John Turturro was at the ceremony to collect the Festival President's Award from KVIFF director Jiri Bartoska.