17/11/2006

Europa Cinemas have announced their 2006 award winners at the cinema network’s 11th annual conference in Paris (November 17-19).

The Best Programming award went to Copenhagen cinema Grand Teatret. Founded in 1913, the 773-seat cinema has become one of the top six over the years and is attended by an annual 350,000 film-goers.

Run by Kim Foss, who is also head of the distribution outfit Camera Film, the Grand Teatret has a preference for such domestic titles as Manslaughter [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (one of the big hits in 2005, along with German feature Downfall [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Bernd Eichinger
interview: Joachim Fest
interview: Oliver Hirschbiegel
film profile]), but does not shy away from other European releases, such as François Ozon’s Time to Leave [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Nanni Moretti’s The Caiman [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jean Labadie
interview: Nanni Moretti
film profile], Pedro Almodovar’s Volver [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Agustín Almodóvar
interview: Carmen Maura
interview: Pedro Almodóvar
interview: Pénélope Cruz
film profile] and Stephen Frears’ The Queen [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Andy Harries
interview: Stephen Frears
film profile], currently on release.

Meanwhile, Austrian cinema Paradiso in St. Pölten won the Best Youth Action Award. The theatre can boast being one of the rare Austrian cinemas to record a rise in admissions in 2005.

Lastly, the network presented Spain’s Enrique Gonzáles Macho with the Best Entrepreneur Award for his development work in arthouse and experimental cinema since the opening of the first Renoir cinema in Madrid in 1986. Today, the Renoir circuit includes 65 screens that record an annual 2.5m admissions. The cinema specialises in original version films, which is quite rare in Spain. The exhibitor will soon open another cinema 90km from Madrid, a four-screen Renoir theatre in a 13-screen general multiplex.

"Outside the big cities, it is sometimes difficult to have cinemas dealing with arthouse film alone," explains Gonzáles Macho. "This concept should make it possible to offer a diverse range of films and fill theatres more easily by taking advantage of the dynamic nature of the site as a whole."

The Paris conference also includes 12 preview screenings of European films: My Best Friend [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by French helmer Patrice Leconte, Darkbluealmostblack [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Spain’s Daniel Sánchez Arévalo (see interview), Falkenberg Farewell [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Jesper Ganslandt, The Last King of Scotland [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by UK director Kevin MacDonald, White Palms [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Szabolcs Hajdu
film profile] by Hungary’s Szabolcs Hajdu (see interview), 12:08 East of Bucharest [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Corneliu Porumboiu
interview: Daniel Burlac
film profile] by Romania’s Corneliu Porumboiu, Frozen City [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Aku Louhimies
interview: Markus Selin
film profile] by Finnish director Aku Louhimies (see Focus), French production WWW, What a Wonderful World [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Faouzi Bensaïdi, Austrian documentary Our Daily Bread by Nikolaus Geyrhalter, German film Tough Enough [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Detlev Buck, Cannes winning title Red Road [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by UK director Andrea Arnold and Venice hit Golden Door [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Alexandre Mallet-Guy
interview: Charlotte Gainsbourg
interview: Emanuele Crialese
interview: Emanuele Crialese
interview: Fabrizio Mosca
film profile] by Italian helmer Emanuele Crialese (see interview).

(Translated from French)