XDC, Europe’s Finest and Hoverlord have joined efforts to prepare five European classic films to be screened in digital format at the Ghent International Film Festival.

Ghent 2008 – The Digital Content Lab of XDC in cooperation with Hoverlord and Europe’s Finest - the 'Cinema-on-Demand' service for digital cinemas - has been selected for preparing the digital copies to be screened at the Ghent International Film Festival. With the support of MEDIA, Europe’s Finest will present its program in Ghent. The presentation will be enhanced by 2k digital screenings of European classic films from Europe’s Finest catalogue.

The movies to be screened have been compressed in JPEG2000 and have been quality controlled by the XDC Lab team.

On the evening of October 9th, 2008, “Daisies” a premiere film presentation of the Prague Spring Czech Wave film classic from 1966 SEDMIKRÀSKY will be projected in digital format to an invited audience and followed by a reception.

Serge Plasch, CEO of XDC, will also be part of the symposium addressing all the facets of the business model of Cinema on Demand with others key players from the European digital cinema area.

List of the 5 digital screenings

Daisies – Mélo (1986, Alain Resnais) – So Close To Life (1958, Ingmar Bergman) – The Swimming Pool (1968, Jacques Deray) and Orphée (1950, Jean Cocteau).

For more information visit the Europe’s Finest website at www.finest-film.com
Or for Europe’s Finest screening information at the Ghent International Film Festival visit www.filmfestival.be

CINEMA ON DEMAND – A VIABLE BUSINESS MODEL?
OCTOBER 9TH, 2008, 2 PM- 4PM, KINEPOLIS GHENT

Europe’s Finest will stage a digital distribution symposium introducing the Europe’s Finest ‘Cinema on Demand’ business model as well as providing insights into interoperability issues, perspectives for digitally equipped cinemas and highlighting the opportunities that digital cinema provides for classic and back catalogue titles. The symposium will discuss the viability of this model and the challenges faced in establishing such a service.