It is widely recognised that not enough European movies get distributed outside their home country. So a number of bodies have come together to creat TASTE, a programme specifically about developing scripts for European audiences. "TASTE offers a close look at the development process of European films that have been successful in recent years. Screenwriters and producers of films such as "Good Bye Lenin!", "Italian for beginners", "Le goût des autres" and "My Life Without Me" will be present to explain the first development stages of their films."The TASTE seminar takes place from the 15 to 17th of July 2005 in Valencia. Registration deadline is 30th of May. Before you ask, the programme costs €500 and Valencia can be reached by low-cost airlines. For more information and applications, visit Taste.
"Goodbye Lenin" on Amazon UK
"Italian for Beginners" (REGION 1) (NTSC)
"Le goût des autres/The Taste of Others" on Amazon FR
France's Adami are holding a fun event at Cannes: the second "Speed Dating" for writers, directors, actors and composers. Adami showcase young talent every year, with Audrey Tautou and Sami Naceri amongst the actors they championed (in '98 and '94 respectively). The Speed Dating is simply a way of getting actors, writers, directors and composers to meet up and perhaps swap cards on Monday May 16 from 2.30pm at the Adami pavilion. We'll be there! For details, check the 
The second edition of Austria's CROSSING EUROPE Filmfestival Linz presented 150 films from 30 countries as well as 20 further events. This year's award went to the 22-year-old French actress and first-time director Isild Le Besco (France - left on photo), who impressed the competition jury (Cis Bierinckx/Belgium, Nadejda Koseva/Bulgaria, Jan Krüger/Germany, Micha Shagrir/Israel and Elma Tataragic/Bosnia) with her debut film “Demi-Tarif/Half Price”. The CROSSING EUROPE Award 2005 Local Artist, went to Siegfried A. Fruhauf for his most recent work. A special mention went to Barbara Musil and Karo Szmit for their short film "SW-NÖ 04". The EastWest Filmdistribution nominated the documentary “Totally Personal” by Bosnian director Nedzad Begovic for a special presentation at CROSSING EUROPE 2006.
Belgium's slow-burning love triangle "La femme de Gilles/Gilles' Wife" picked up a very appropriate prize at the Istanbul International Film Festival recently. It had to share the top Golden Tulip award with Taiwan's "Cafe Lumière". As it's the story of a woman that has to share her husband with her sister, there must be some sort of poetic justice in that!
It's an old subject and one that is guaranteed to lead to heated debate. Is there something specifically "European" about films that are made in Europe? There are many schools of thought on this one, that some Europeans use as a comfort zone. The comforting thought being, "we are different, and somehow more interesting". Others point out that European cinema is a geographic denomination, not a label of quality.
The legendary Cinecittà studios outside Rome have become a spokesman for Italian cinema over the years. In addition to running a good bilingual news service from their site, they also now produce filmed news reports in English called Cinecittà New Bites. Issue n° 5 covers the impact of the Pope's death on cinema attendance (bad), Italy's presence at the recent Monte Carlo festival and Italians films in the UK (both good). To check it out, visit 
Now in its fourth year, the Festival of German Films will run from April 14-24, in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, and will also be presenting a smaller selection in Canberra from April 28 - May 1.
"Valiant", Britains's first homebrew CGI feature, opened over the Easter weekend in the UK. Ranked fifth overall, the film took £1.1 million at the box office. Based on a story by George Webster, "Valiant" was written by George Melrod and Jordan Katz and directed by Gary Chapman.
We wrote months ago that the Cineuropa news site is useful - but is never updated. Well, the good news is that the site is very much back in action with reports from across Europe, as well as a fairly complete industry database and links to a variety of sites and institutions.
To break through some of the barriers between writers, producers and directors, a bunch of scriptwriters from six countries have come together to present 100 projects as a magazine called "Réservoir Scripts" at Cannes.
Czech Republic's foreign-language nominee "Horem Padem/Up and Down" won three awards at the Czech annual Lions awards on March 5, nothing less than the best film, best director and best screenplay. The film follows the paths of two men, a football hooligan and a professor, as they try to come to terms with massive changes in their lives. All this against the background of the upheavals in Czech society. The director, Jan Hrebejk, co-wrote the film with Petr Jarchovsky. The pair worked together already on 2003's "Pupendo".
For the 4th time, Monaco will host the International Forum of Cinema & Literature between April 1-4. The event acts as an interface between the worlds of cinema and literature, with a literary rights market and screenings of book adaptations. Guests in previous years have included Jean-Jacques Beineix, Sidney Pollack, Mary Higgins Clark, Paulo Coelho, Philippe Geluck and Jim Sheridan.
While "Downfall/Der Untergang" continues to impress audiences across Europe and (as of February 18) the US, France has just released another film recounting the end of a different reign. In "Le promeneur du Champ de Mars/The Walker in the Champ de Mars" director Robert Guédiguian looks at the last months of President Mitterand, suffering from cancer, played with brio by Michel Bouquet. Writer Georges-Marc Benamou and scriptwriter Gilles Taurand dissect the crusty statesman's treatment of his entourage. France's Scenario-mag is offering 
Whatever happened to Shepperton? For decades after the First World War, British cinema was churning out dramas, cheap comedies and literary adaptations. As Matthew Sweet points out in "Shepperton Babylon", many of the films might have been cheap and nasty, but without them there would be no "Great Expectations", David Lean or Alec Guinness. His book is an attempt to put a spotlight back on these forgotten years.
France's annual movie awards, the Césars, should be good to Jeunet's "Un long dimanche de fiançailles/A Very Long Engagement". The film is nominated for 12 awards, including Best Film and Best Screenplay. "Engagement" was stripped of its French nationality by a French court last year, but the César organisers had changed the regulations enabling French-speaking fims to be eligible months before.
The multi-award-winning "Gegen die Wand/Head On", by Fatih Akim, is to receive a special screening at London's Curzon Cinema on January 27 followed by a Q&A session with the director and editor Andrew Bird. "Head On" is a hard-hitting look at two second generation Turkish misfits tearing each other apart in an attempt to get their lives together. It features remarkable performances from the main leads Birol Ünel and particularly Sibel Kekilli (photo).
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The web is a vast resource, but the biggest resource is probably the people you can find while you're out there. The writers on 
The deadline for applications for the Script & Pitch Workshops is February 15, 2005. One of several projects supported by the EU's Media Plus programme, the Workshops aim to develop a "European style" (their emphasis) in scriptwriting for cinema and TV. Both the participants and tutors come from a wide variety of countries that now include the newer Member States plus Bulgaria. The courses consist of three workshops in Italy, France and Finland accompanied by continued onlin tutoring. The goal is to have 16 ready-to-shoot scripts. All courses are in English. Fees are €2,000 (€1,500 for writers from new Member States).
Two years ago, London-based Ashvin Kumar posted a notice asking for a crew to join him in a non-paid gig on the Indian-Pakistani border. The ensuing film, "Road to Ladakh", won dozens of awards and is now being re-made by Richard Dreyfuss' production company. But before arriving on the screen, it suffered countless setbacks including drunken drivers, torrential rain and the lead actor breaking his arm. Kumar's ensuing film, "Little Terrorist", was another trial of endurance that was again highly praised.
Russia has always had a unique and powerful cinema, starting with one of the early masters, Eisenstein. Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, the country went through a long curve of importing largely American TV and movies. But last year, Russia produced some 120 features - half the number in France, for example, but still a significant number. Consistent investment over the past 10 years has led to the creation of new studios and facilities. Unlike the rest of Europe, Russian cinema has started to focus very quickly on popular cinema. The most recent example is 
Fellow movie bloggers "DougandHannah" have pointed out that Ondrej Trojan's gripping "Zelary" is still playing in a few places in the US. The film was the Czech Republic's candidate for a Best Foreign-Language Film for the Oscars last year. The tale is set in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia during World War II. Two people from different backgrounds are thrown violently together. Moving but not afraid to pull punches, "Zelary" is a harrowing tale of love during war. The story is taken from a famous novel written by an 80 year-old, Kveta Legatova, who also wrote the script. For more details, read this interesting 
Belgium's hit thriller "De Zaak Alzheimer/the Alzheimer Case" is being prepared for a re-make in the US prior to the film's release there. Written by Erik Van Looy and Carl Joos (on a novel by Jef Geeraerts), the Flemish-language film tells the tale of two Antwerp cops on the trail of a killer with memory problems. The film has been seen by 750,000 people since October and won 4 times at Belgium's annual movie awards.
According to a report in Screen International, Joe Eszterhas, the Hungarian-born writer of "Basic Instinct", "Flashdance" and "Showgirls" is looking at dramatising the 1956 water polo match between Hungary and the Soviet Union. Against a backdrop of the Hungarian Revolution, the two teams met at the Olympic semi-finals in Melbourne. The ensuing match is considered to be one of the most violent sports events ever, leaving the pool red with blood.
Germany and Spain came out as the big winners in this year's European Film Awards, held in Barcelona this weekend. Over a 2-hour ceremony, Germany's Fatih Akin (photo) was first on the podium to pick up the People’s Choice Award for best European director with 
Scenario-Mag.com, one of several French sites devoted to scriptwriting, recently decided to throw even more focus on actual scripts. The site currently features 12 pages from "Narco", the tale of a narcoleptic starring Benoit Poelvoorde in an unlikely pairing with Jean-Claude Van Damme. Gilles Lellouche wrote the screenplay from the original story by Alain Attal and Philippe Lefebvre.
Go to 
In the sort of publicity that many films would dearly pay for, the latest Luc Besson production "Banlieue 13" (Suburb 13) has been banned from Brussels largest cinema complex Kinepolis. The stylish, acrobatic gang movie written by Bibi Naceri ("La mentale/The Code") and Besson and directed by Pierre Morel fell foul of the complex which has had problems with young gangs and preferred not to create further tension. "Banlieue 13" is showing at other complexes that belong to the same group in other towns, and has caused no incidents in France where 500,000 people have already seen it in two weeks.