What does a Spanish box office hit look like? Which of their films are the Finnish most crazy about? Why are French films so successful? Spring 2007 sees 10 to 15 national audience successes from various European countries presented on the silk screen in Berlin, Madrid und London at EFP’s new film-event Picture Europe! The Best of European Cinema. This pan-European event is being organized by European Film Promotion (EFP) in cooperation with selected cinemas in the three metropolises:

Madrid: 13.4. – 19.4.2007 in the Cinemas Princesa
Berlin: 26.4. – 02.5.2007 in the CineStar Original at SONY-Center Potsdamer Platz
London: 08.6. – 14.6.2007 in the Curzon Cinema Soho

All three cities will launch the one-week event with a prestigious premiere party featuring guests from the film and TV scenes. Every evening, directors and actors will present their films to the audience and discuss the film landscape of their homeland. The films will be shown in the original language with subtitles in the language of the respective country of presentation.

“Picture Europe!” saw EFP cooperating with marketing agency GREY Hamburg to develop a cross-border marketing concept for successful national films within Europe. To this day, most European films remain unseen beyond their national borders. For years the market share of European films on the EU market has been around 25 percent (market share of US films: around 60 percent), the respective national films making up the largest part thereof. The aim of the project is to win over a new, broad audience for European cinema and to increase awareness of its great variety and entertainment value. Accordingly, the EFP members have spent the past weeks selecting from the manifold European box office hits those films that ran successfully in their home cinemas while also having the potential to enthuse broad cinema audiences abroad.

EFP has found strong partners with the participating cinemas, whose long-standing experience and many-facetted programmes are the ideal prerequisites for the programme of “Picture Europe!”. The programme will be presented in the Cinemas Princesa at the start of the project. The Spanish film distributor Alta Films runs a number of different cinemas throughout all of Spain. President Enrique González Macho: “I value Europe’s cultural diversity very highly. Rediscovering this range in the cinema is something I particularly like about this cross-border project. Another thing I am anxious to find out is how the audience will react to the films in the three metropolises and to what degree cultural differences will come into effect here.”

Marlis Kieft, managing director of the CineStar Group, Germany's largest exhibitors, sees the film event as "the great chance for great films from our European neighbours that would probably not have found their way across the borders without "Picture Europe!". The "CineStar Original." at Potsdamer Platz offers optimum conditions and ideal surroundings: the cinema is one of the most important national premiere cinemas and also has a wide international audience in the German capital with its programme made up exclusively of original versions. We are really keen to see how this extra-special event with an exclusively European dimension will be accepted."

In winning over the Curzon Cinemas in London-Soho, and their Operations Manager Rob Kenny, EFP boasts another partner cinema that is known for its highbrow programme featuring many European titles: “We love European cinema and wish that a larger audience would learn to appreciate its variety and its individuality. That’s why we’re very pleased at cooperating with EFP on “Picture Europe!”. I’m positive that “Picture Europe!” will become firmly established as a brand and that next year other European metropolises will embark on the project alongside London, Berlin and Madrid.”

European Film Promotion is financially supported by the MEDIA Programme of the European Union. The “Picture Europe!” debut 2007 is a cooperation of EFP and its member organizations, the three participating cinemas and partners in the three European capitals. The main sponsor is Volkswagen, EFP’s long-standing partner for the SHOOTING STARS at the Berlinale.