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Norwegian Film Critics Per Haddal and Pal Bang-Hansen received the Aamot Statuette, the honorary award of "Film & Kino". Both critics "received the award for their serious film criticism and for having expressed, each in their own way, their opinions about cinema for several decades. With their distinctive voices and a strong urge to reach us with their opinions about the movies, they have put their mark on the Norwegian film life, film discussion and film interest for close to fifty years."

European Film Awards 2009. The procedure to find the nominees for this year's European Film Awards has started. For the category of "Best European Film", FIPRESCI has proposed the Academy to consider the following films: Un prophète / A Prophet, Jacques Audiard — Das Weisse Band / The White Ribbon, Michael Haneke — Sweet Rush / Tatarak, Andrzej Wajda — Les Herbes Folles / Wild Grass, Alain Resnais — Cheri, Stephen Frears — Pandora's Box / Pandora'nin Kutusu, Yesim Ustaoglu — Camino, Javier Fesser — Vincere, Marco Bellocchio — Fish Tank, Andrea Arnold — Jericho, Christian Petzold. The award ceremony will take place on December 12, 2009, in the German city of Essen.

San Sebastian. The 57th edition of the San Sebastian International Film Festival will feature two retrospectives, one dedicated to a great classic Hollywood director, Richard Brooks, and another entitled "Backwash, the cutting edge of French cinema", reflecting the current confluence of groundbreaking talents in France. The festival takes place September 18-26, 2009.

Thessaloniki. German director Werner Herzog is the principal retrospective of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, which this year celebrates its 50th anniversary (November 13-22). Herzog will attend the Festival to present his films, conduct a Masterclass and will be honored with a Golden Alexander for his contribution to the art of cinema. The full retrospective, organized in collaboration with the Goethe Institute in Greece, will showcase the total of Herzog's films, including the filmmaker’s fiction and documentary shorts and features, as well as projects made especially for television.

Claudia Durgnat has been appointed successor of Léo Kaneman as director of the festival "Cinéma Tous Ecrans" in Geneva, Switzerland. Kaneman, who had founded the festival 15 years ago, had established it as a forum of films on the borderline between film and television — films "presented on big screen that have been produced for the small ones". The next edition will take place November 2-8, 2009.

Romania on the Movie Map. Ronald Bergan reports about a conference on Romanian cinema which took place on April 4th, 2009, in Bucharest as part of the NexT Film Festival.

Turbulences in Moscow. Following an extraordinary meeting of the Russian Filmmakers Union, the critics assembled in the Union protested against the president Nikita Mikhalkov's new politics and in particular against the expulsion of critic Viktor Matizen.

Peter Scarlet, Tribeca creative director until a few weeks ago, heads to Abu Dhabi, as new executive director at the Middle East Film Festival. He takes over from Jon Fitzgerald who had launched the Abu Dhabi fest in 2007. Already earlier, Tribeca Enterprises had announced that it has hired Geoffrey Gilmore as its Chief Creative Officer. Gilmore moves to Tribeca after a 19-year career at Sundance, last as director of the Sundance Festival.

Klaus Eder, FIPRESCI's General Secretary, has been honored by Turkish critics and their organization SIYAD ("Sinema Yazarlari Dernegi"). Atilla Dorsay, the 'doyen' of Turkish film criticism, presented him — at the occasion of the 41st SIYAD Awards for Turkish Cinema in March in Istanbul — a Special Prize: "We offer our gratitude to Klaus Eder, for his contribution to the art of cinema, the institution of film criticism and Turkish Cinema."

Critics' Awards 2008. Film Critics and their organizations in a variety of countries voted for the best films of the previous year, among them the National Society of Film Critics (USA) and the associations, among others, in Hungary, Sweden, Poland, Brazil, Turkey, Germany and Australia. All awards

Torino. Italian film director Gianni Amelio has been appointed director of the Torino Film Festival. He succeeds his colleague Nanni Moretti who headed the festival's recent editions. The 2009 festival is scheduled for November 13 to 21.

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