On the occasion of the French Presidency of the European Union (1 July - 31 December 2008), the European Cultural Season (Culturesfrance) in partnership with the CNC is pleased to highlight the European cinema. 27 directors of the European Union will be invited during the release week of their films in France. This initiative will be coordinated by Europa Cinemas.

150 films from 32 countries in 132 programmes - that is the CROSSING EUROPE Film Festival Linz 2008, at the Moviemento and City Kino cinemas. The Competition European Cinema with 10,000, Euro prize money (powered by Linz09) presents ten examples of young, willful auteur cinema and the return of the award-winners from 2004 and 2005 - Teona S. Mitevska and Isild Le Besco.

In collaboration with the British Council, britspotting will show new British and Irish films, first in Berlin (10-16 April, Hackesche Höfe and fsk Kino), then in Potsdam, Köln and Stuttgart.

The 8th GoEast Festival of Central and Eastern European Film will screen 16 recent Feature films and Documentaries in Competition (including Magnus, Vaclav and The Mosquito Problem And Other Stories) and will pay homage to Armenian master Sergei Paradzhanov. The festival will also be used as a launchpad for a new DVD label, goEast Edition.

This month, the BFI Southbank will be hosting a season of films relating to the spirit of revolution in the era called “Pop Goes the Revolution: French Cinema and May '68”.

7 Virgins and Mataharis were released in French cinemas on Wednesday 2 April, after being featured at the Network's Annual Conference. Two much awaited releases… but not for the same reasons.

Apart from presenting all of the Austrian feature films and documentaries released in local cinemas during the past 12 months - including Hans Weingartner's Reclaim Your Brain and Goetz Spielmann's Europa Cinemas Label Revanche, the Diagonale will also serve as the launchpad for a lot of new feature films.

The largest Film festival in Denmark is boasting a program of more than 160 films from all over the world. 16 cinemas and venues in Copenhagen plus 3 in Aarhus and 1 in Odense participate in the festival.

The CICAE is about to launch the 5th edition of its European training seminar for young managers of Arthouse cinemas, which will take place during the next Venice festival (25 August - 03 September). The application is online only: www.cicae.org with a deadline on June 1st .

3 questions to the co-founders of Homework , a poster agency whose posters have a unique and immediately recognisable style, full of humour and finesse.

2008's is the biggest ¡Viva! yet, with around 60 features and documentaries and another batch of excellent shorts. It's no coincidence that this is also the 5th edition to include Latin American cinema. What seemed an extremely exciting, and scary, move in 2004 has paid off handsomely; the rich vein of films from Latin America complement those of Spain, with many bridging countries and continents as co-productions.

The 3rd International Film Festival "Europe around Europe" will take place in Paris and in Normandy from 4 to 21 March 2008. The main idea at the core of the festival is to show there is a cultural coherence in contemporary European film production. On the agenda this year you will find a selection centered on Eastern Europe films.

The jubilee tenth One World festival will be held in Prague from 5 to 13 March 2008 and will also take place in a further 28 towns and cities throughout the Czech Republic during the months of March and April.

Austrian director Götz Spielmann’s Revanche has won the Europa Cinemas Label as Best European film in the Berlin Film Festival’s Panorama section.

On the occasion of the 58th Berlin International Film Festival the European Audiovisual Observatory released its first estimates for European cinema attendance in 2007. The Observatory estimates that total admissions in the European Union fell by around 2.2% in relation to 2006.

Kornel Mundruczo is back with his much awaited new film Delta, Golden Reel winner at the 39th Hungarian Film Week, his "most mature work to date", according to Screen.

Tricks (Sztuczki) has received the Audience Award and the Special Jury Prize at the Premiers Plans film festival in Angers. The second long feature film by Andrzej Jakimowski won the Europa Cinemas Label at the Venice Days in 2007 and was screened during the Europa Cinemas Annual Conference in Bucharest. The film will be released in the Netherlands in April.

Gutek Film, the exhibitor of the cinema Muranow in Warsaw, won the Prize of the best "Entity Running a Movie Theater" given for the first time by the Polish Film Institute. On the shortlist were 2 cinemas also members of the network.

For its 7th edition, the Marrakech International Film Festival was host on 13 and 14 December 2007 to discussions on digital cinema attended by numerous professionals.

Almost 400 participants, including network exhibitors and distributors, research groups and suppliers of equipment, from 36 countries, as well as Romanian directors, producers and professionals, met in Bucharest from 15 to 18 November for the 12th Annual Europa Cinemas Conference. 

Discussions focused on the future of the cinema in the era of the Internet, the transition to digital technology and on renewing audience interest in European films.

The Romanian directors Corneliu Porumboiu and Catalin Mitulescu and the French director and President of Europa Cinemas Claude Miller presented on Friday 16 Nov the 2007 Europa Cinemas Awards to 3 European exhibitors from the network during an evening at the Cinema Studio.

- Best Programming: Friedrichsbau & Kandelhof, Freiburg (Germany)
- Best Young Audience Activities: Film Center of Gdañsk – Neptun-Helikon-Kameralne – Gdañsk (Poland)
- Best Entrepreneur: Circuito Cinema (Italy)