BUCHAREST: Ionuţ Vulpescu has been re-appointed Minister of Culture at the beginning of 2017, after the Social Democratic Party (PSD) won the parliamentary elections in November 2016. He promised that the Ministry’s budget would double and that he will continue the reforms in the film industry and the revitalisation of cinemas.

This month we speak with Jakub Mróz, the president of Tongariro Releasing, the first distribution company in Poland specialised in LGBT cinema (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender).

This month we speak with Petr Jirásek, the manager, statutory representative and shareholder of Světozor, one of the most adventurous cinemas in Prague. Opened in 2004 and renovated in 2007, Světozor is now an art house cinema functioning on the site of a cinema dating back to 1918.

ZAGREB: Blitz, the leading Croatian distributor, has performed an internal reorganisation and replaced its direct shareholder of operational companies with a holding company registered in Malta.

ZAGREB: Britain’s Global Series Network, which is the exclusive partner of Channel Four, has purchased licensing for the Croatian TV drama series Rest in Peace. This is the first time that a Croatian series will be broadcast in the UK.

TBILISI: Georgian National Film Center granted 169,383 EUR / 480,000 GEL to five low budget feature films set for shooting in 2016/2017.

BUCHAREST: Romanian Film Centre distributed 4,439,766 EUR / 21,440,000 RON at its second session in 2016. Documentaries by Radu Jude and Alexander Nanau, and new feature film by Agnes Kocsis (a Romanian minority coproduction), are among winners.

FNE and Europa Distribution are launching a new chapter in our Distributor of the Month section focusing on new trends and challenges of film distribution. In the coming months we will talk with European distributors about the digital single market and VOD, trying to understand how they see the future through these lenses.