Russian box office is set to more than double in the next five years according to a survey by the U.K.-based cinema industry analysts Dodona Research (www.dodona.co.uk). That compares with research released in August in which Dodona predicted admissions in Central Europe will rise by 25% in the next five years
A special showing of Andrzej Wajda's landmark film Katyń will be screened today as part of the grand opening of the 32nd Polish Film Festival in Gdynia. Poland's most prestigious festival runs through Sept. 22.
Four feature films have been completed or are winding up production on Malta. The neighbouring island of Gozo also saw some summer activity when the long-running UK series Coronation Street shot there for a week.
Empties, a poignant Czech comedy directed by Jan Svěrák, will be on the programme of the Times BFI 51st London Film Festival which opens Oct. 17.
The Polish Film Institute, whose mission is to support the country's film industry, is co-financing Time to Die, a tale of an elderly woman's struggle in communist Poland, at the Toronto International Film Festival where it was screened Thursday.
Films backed by the Polish Film Institute (www.pisf.org) won seven awards at the recent Venice Biennale. Paul Laverty won the Osella prize among the official awards for best screenplay in It's a Free World directed by Ken Loach and co-produced by PFI.
The Smecky Recording Studio, part of the Barrandov Studios complex in Prague, has wound up taping the music for the new animated megafilm The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything, the second feature-length film in the VeggieTales series.
A presentation of upcoming Czech documentary films was held this week in Prague. The presentation, in the style of a cabaret, was organised by the Czech Film Center (www.filmcenter.cz), Institute of Documentary Film (www.docuinter.net) and Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival (www.dokument-festival.cz).
Saviour's Square, a film by Joanna Kos-Krauze and Krzysztof Krauze, qualified as the sole Polish production among 42 films selected by the European Film Academy (www.europeanfilmacademy.org) for this year's European Film Awards. The selection also included films from Romania, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey.
A screening of Andrzej Wajda's long-awaited film Katyń will be featured at the grand opening of the 32nd Polish Film Festival in Gdynia.
