The award was presented in Lisbon to the Kinodvor director, Metka Dariš, the assistant director and programmer Koen Van Daele, and the former director Nina Peče Grilc, For their support and cooperation, Kinodvor would like to thank its founder, the City of Ljubljana, its sponsor, Zavarovalnica Triglav, and all its programming partners, film distributors, and festival and event co-organisers.
Europa Cinemas is a network uniting 3,123 screens in 1,194 cinemas across 43 countries, or 724 cities that follow the network guidelines by paying special attention to European cinema, developing initiatives for children and youth, promoting diversity, and expanding the network of cinema exhibitors, to allow for joint initiatives at national and European levels.
The Europa Cinemas Award for Best Programming is one of three presented by the network. Back in 2010, the Ljubljana city cinema was awarded the Europa Cinemas Award for Best Young Audience Activities in acknowledgement of its pioneering work in film education in the first two years since it was established.
The 2019 Europa Cinemas Awards went to:
– Best Programming: Kinodvor, Ljubljana (Slovenia);
– Best Young Audience Activities: Cinéma Lux, Caen (France) and Café des Images, Hérouville-Saint-Clair (France);
– Entrepreneur of the Year: Yanaki and Christo Dermendjiev – Lucky Cinema Home, Plovdiv (Bulgaria).
21st Europa Cinemas conference: Empowering cinema-going culture in a hyper-connected world
The Europa Cinemas network conference is held every two years. The 21st time this has been held in Lisbon brought together more than 500 professionals from the realm of film, including cinema exhibitors, audiovisual organisations and associations, distributors, and representatives of the EU Commission. The opening panel featured the participation of the President of Europa Cinemas, Nico Simon, the General Director of Europa Cinemas, Claude-Eric Poiroux, Policy Officer for Creative Europe MEDIA at the EU Commission, Gabriele Bertolli, and the Secretary of State for Cinema, Audiovisual and Media in Portugal’s Ministry of Culture, Nuno Artur Silva.
The sessions and workshops discussed topical issues: ways of re-imagining the cinema experience, especially in the light of the “digital generation”; the need to adapt to the shifting cinema landscape, with a focus on smart data, digital marketing strategies, and making cinemas more open, inclusive and sustainable; as well as the future of independent film in the streaming era. The conference also highlighted examples of good practice demonstrated by European cinema exhibitors. The director of Kinodvor, Metka Dariš, made a presentation on Kinotrip, a strand for youngsters run by youngsters.
Other conference events included the presentation of Cinema Makers, a book by Agnès Salson and Mikael Arnal. Published with the support of Europa Cinemas, the book explores 22 cinemas – including Kinodvor – selected by the authors from more than 100 venues they had visited in more than 20 cities across Europe.
In addition to Kinodvor, some other cinemas of the Slovenian Art Cinema Association who are members of Europa Cinemas attended the conference to talk about the first 10 years of the association’s activity.