The Scottish film director Gillies MacKinnon has had to cancel his jury appointment at Copenhagen International Film Festival in the last minute, and he will be replaced by the Palestinian actor Makram Khoury.
"Gillies was offered to make a film in the 11th hour, which is going into pre-production immediately", explains Jacob Neiiendam, the festival's head of programming. "We are asking professional filmmakers to give up their free time to judge films for us, so it's natural that this kind of thing can happen. Luckily, Makram Khoury, whom we already were in touch with earlier in the year, has just finished shooting a large TV series and he was willing to step in."

Makram Khoury
Actor, Palestine (born 1945)
Makram Khoury is a product of the cultural and religious melting pot he grew up in during the first, chaotic years of the state of Israel. His family is Palestinian, and he trained as an actor in England before returning to Haifa, where he performed with both Arab and Israeli theatre companies. Today, he is one of the country's most respected stage, TV and film actors. Internationally, he has become known through the popular American TV series The West Wing and Steven Spielberg's Munich (2005). In the new, major TV production Between Two Rivers, which is about the Saddam family, Khoury plays the part of Tariq Aziz. Copenhagen International Film Festival has shown a number of his most recent films, such as Eran Riklis's The Syrian Bride (2004), Amos Gitai's Free Zone (2005) and Udi Aloni's Forgiveness (2006).

There will be a special screening of Steven Spielberg's Munich in Cinemax (Tuesday, 25 September at 19.30 hrs) in connection with the festival premiere of the documentary feature Spielberg on Spielberg.

Copenhagen International Film Festival is Denmark's great film event.

From 20 to 30 September 2007, the general public and industry professionals will come together to see magnificent, dramatic, romantic, mesmerizing and macabre European feature films. Many of the films shown are not in Danish distribution, and the festival is therefore the only opportunity to see the films on the big screen.

For further information, please visit www.copenhagenfilmfestival.com