KARLOVY VARY: Three films from central and eastern Europe were included in the 10 films selected as finalists for the European Parliament's 2012 LUX Prize. The finalists were announced at a ceremony in Karlovy Vary by Oldrich Vlasak the Vice President of the Euroepan Parliament together with MEP for Slovakia Katarina Nevedalova and LUX selection committee members Mira Staleva, deputy director of the Sofia International Film Festival and Karel Och, artistic director of the KVIFF. The winner of the prize will be awarded on 21 November 2012.

KARLOVY VARY: The 47 Karlovy Vary International Film (www.kviff.com) kicked off with festival president Jiri Bartoska presenting a life-time achievement award to Helen Mirren who visited the Czech spa town to attend the festival.

{mosimage}MOSCOW: Glavkino Studios (www.glavkino.ru), Russia’s newest state-of-the art digital film and studio complex is open for business and ready to invest in international coproductions as well as offering deals on services that are competitive to central European studios.

{mosimage}MOSCOW: Films from Central and Eastern Europe will dominate the Competition of the 34^th Moscow International Film Festival over the next eight days with six of the 17 films in the main competition coming from the region. Poland, Hungary, Latvia, Estonia, Croatia and Finland have all scored places in the lineup.

CRACOW: The 52 Krakow Film Festival (www.krakowfilmfestival.pl) held from 28 May to 3 June 2012 gave its highest honour this year in the Documentary section to Swedish director Peter Gerdehag for his Women With Cows. In the Polish National Competition the top awards went to director Lidia Duda for her film Entangled.

CANNES: Director Michal Haneke's Amour won the top prize, the Palme d'Or, at this year 65^th Cannes Film Festival making the Austrian director only the second director in history to win the top prize twice. Haneke also won the Palme D'Or for his film The White Ribbon in 2009

{mosimage}CANNES: Cypriot Greek coproduction Fish n' Chips is already a Cyprus success story. The film is set top open in Cyprus just after Cannes and has already opened theatrically in Greece earlier this year. Directed by Cypriot born director Elias Dementriou and produced by Monica Nicolaidou the film has also scored a hit on the international festival circuit screening in Montreal, Sofia and Montpelier festivals.

{mosimage}CANNES: Latvian scriptwriter Martins Slisans won the Krzysztof Kieslowski ScripTeast Award for the Best Eastern and Central European Script of this year's edition. The award includes a 10 000 EUR award sponsored by Polish pubcaster TVP (www.tvp.pl).

FNE at Cannes IFF 2012: FNE met up on the terrace of Carlton for an exclusive session with Hungarian Film Commissioner Andy Vajna together with Agnes Havas head of the Hungarian Film Fund and Csaba Bereczki head of international relations at the Fund.

CANNES: Estonia recently established a new film commission to attract productions to the country. According to the commission's helmer Martin Aadamsoo the Estonians plan to put a different twist on this by also establishing Estonia as a high end post production center that will attract AV business to the country not only to shoot but to make the whole production process in Estonia.