Crossing Europe Film Festival 2008

22-27th April 2008

Over six days, CROSSING EUROPE will be screening about 150 select feature films and documentaries from all over Europe for audiences made up of international visitors and local cinéasts. In recent years, festival director Christine Dollhofer has succeeded in making a real name for CROSSING EUROPE and host city Linz in the Austrian film festival scene and far beyond. Among the beneficiaries of this development are film & video artists in and from Upper Austria, whose productions have been showcased in their own programme ever since CROSSING EUROPE debuted in 2004.
One of the festival’s core elements is its European cinema competition. The winning film is singled out for recognition with the CROSSING EUROPE Award that’s accompanied by a cash prize of 10,000 euros donated by Linz09.

Upper Austrian artist Dietmar Brehm has been commissioned to create this year's festival trailer. The new version, which will be shown in 50 first-run theatres throughout Austria, is made possible through cooperation with Linz09.

Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, will be sharing European Capital of Culture honours with Linz in 2009, and something special is being planned for this lead-in year: CROSSING EUROPE is collaborating with the Lithuanian film festival Scanorama to stage “Lithuanian Documents,” a tribute programme featuring the work of three outstanding Lithuanian film auteurs.

The result of another festival partnership is the presentation of documentary films from the Prizren festival, the first such event in Kosovo. In 2007, CROSSING EUROPE curated a documentary film programme for Prizren. This year, festival director Veton Nurkollari will be presenting three films in Linz.

For more info, log on to www.crossingeurope.at. The complete festival programme will go online 11th April.