BUCHAREST: Palm d'or winner Jacques Audiard will shoot The Sisters Brothers starring Joaquin Phoenix, John C. Reilly and Jake Gyllenhaal in Romania starting 18 August 2017. This western set in Oregon in 1851 is an French/American/Romanian coproduction with Cristian Mungiu's Mobra Films coproducing from Romania.

BUCHAREST: Lucian Romaşcanu has been named the new Minister of Culture, announced by the Romanian Prime Minister Mihai Tudose on 28 June 2017. Romaşcanu said that a new film law will be among his priorities, telling the Romanian press agency Mediafax that he plans to set up an open debate for a new film law.

ZAGREB: Six international projects applied for tax incentives in Croatia by 1 June 2017. According to the Croatian Audiovisual Centre, 2017 will be a better year than the record year 2015.

BUCHAREST: Radu Muntean (One Floor Below) will start shooting his new feature film Alice T. at the beginning of August 2017. The film will be a Romanian/Swedish/French coproduction with the premiere set for 2018.

TBILISI: Russian/Georgian/Polish coproduction Hostages will start its international theatrical distribution in France, when it will be released on 2 August 2017. The third feature by the Georgian director Rezo Gigineishvili premiered in the 2017 Berlinale's Panorama section.

BUCHAREST: The 13th edition of Bucharest IFF (28 June - 2 June 2017) is organising a competition for feature films and short Romanian films, as well as a meeting with the most acclaimed Romanian filmmaker Lucian Pintilie, who will launch a new edition of his book Bricabrac.

TBILISI: Writer/director Tinatin Kajrishvili (Brides) is currently in postproduction with her sophomore feature, Horizon, a Georgian/Swedish/German coproduction set to be finished in November 2017.

ZAGREB: Actress/producer Marija Ratkovic Vidakovic is penning, producing and co-directing together with Dinka Radonic her first film, the autobiographical documentary In Search of a Lost Country / U potrazi za izgubljenom državom (working title).

BUCHAREST: The first VR cinema in Romania and only the second in Europe will open in Bucharest on 13 June 2017. The launch follows an initiative that started with the opening of the International Center for Research and Education in Innovative Creative Technologies – CINETic in 2016 and continued with a special Romanian VR programme presented at the Romanian pavilion at Cannes 2017.