BUCHAREST: Vlad Alexandrescu was approved as the Minister of Culture on 17 November 2015.

We launch together with Europa Distribution 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 the VOD, trying to understand how they see the future through these lenses.

TBILISI: Georgian National Film Center (GNFC) will have a cash rebate law by the end of November 2015 that will provide a 20 percent rebate of the qualifying expenses and an additional 2 to 5 percent for Georgian elements.

This month we speak with Christelle Havranek, the programmer of Kino 35, the cinema of the French Institute in Prague. Kino 35 is screening mostly European movies including French language films. It is located in the heart of Prague in a cultural center which also has a gallery, a cafe, a bookstore, a library and a language school.

ZAGREB: Dalibor Matanić (The High Sun) is in preparation with a 12-episode TV series entitled Newspapers / Novine and set to start shooting on 1 December 2015.

BUCHAREST: Radu Jude started shooting Scarred Hearts / Inimi cicatrizate, an adaptation of the writings of Romanian-Jewish author Max Blecher including Scarred Hearts, on 2 November 2015. Ada Solomon is producing through HiFilm Production  in coproduction with Germany’s Komplizen film.

TBILISI: The Georgian National Film Center allotted 22,841.7 EUR / 60,000 GEL for the script development of six comedies and children’s feature films.

ZAGREB: Croatian director Branko Schmidt takes a spot in the feature film competition of the Cottbus Film Festival with The Ungiven.

TBILISI: Georgian National Film Centre allotted 341,769 EUR / 900,000 GEL to three majority feature coproductions directed by Revaz Gigineishvili, Dimitri Tsintsadze and George Ovashvili, but the latter refused the grant.