Film Europe Channel Launches

BRATISLAVA/PRAGUE: The Film Europe Media Company has begun regular broadcasting for the Film Europe Channel, a paid TV service that exclusively highlights cinema from countries throughout Europe.

The channel is being implemented in Slovakia and the Czech Republic with plans to expand. Film Europe channel has some 500 European films to air 24 hours a day, seven days a week per year, without advertisements. The original films with subtitles will be broadcast in SD via satellite with an HD option. The satellite platform Skylink and Slovak Telecom are the project partners in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Slovak Telecom will include the television channel as part of its satellite package.

Ivan Hronec, the founder and CEO of Film Europe Media Company, said: “We will offer viewers film productions not only from the traditionally strong countries like Great Britain, France, Italy, Poland and Russia, but also from smaller countries, such as Portugal, Denmark, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Austria and even Lichtenstein, the latter being the co-producer of the film Paris je t’aime, which we aired symbolically yesterday as the very first film on our programming schedule. It sounds unbelievable, but you won’t find a television channel that provides a balanced presentation of European films from all the countries of Europe anywhere else.”

Hronec continues: “Film Europe Channel is a private undertaking. We are building it without contributions from national ministries of culture or Brussels. We want to show that the project has a strong commercial foundation and only then will we take on partners. This is the path that culture today must take—responsible projects that have a healthy financial approach while at the same time bringing cultural and artistic value to audiences.”