Following its meeting on Saturday 10th December, the Executive Committee has appointed Luigi Grispello President of MEDIA Salles, the Finnish member Tero Koistinen as Vice President and the English member Mike Vickers as Treasurer.

A new member, Ron Sterk, Director of NVB (Nederlandse Vereniging Van Bioscoopexploitanten), the Dutch Exhibitors' Association, was also welcomed.

The meeting was held in Amsterdam, the city which will be hosting the course "DigiTraining Plus: European Cinemas Experiencing New Technologies" from 29 August to 2 September 2012. In Amsterdam the MEDIA Salles committee members met representatives of the Dutch partners for the course, including NVB and the EYE Film Institute, to decide on the main content of the course's new edition - its ninth - which will be held at a crucial point for digitalisation in Europe: in 2012 over 50% of European cinemas will prove to be equipped with the new projection technologies.

 Luigi Grispello

As from 10 December 2011 MEDIA Salles' President has been the Italian Luigi Grispello, lawyer by profession, member of the AGIS Presiding Office and President of Agis and Anec Campania.

After graduating in law at the University of Naples, he worked for thirty years as a legal consultant on company law, accounting, administration and tax law for numerous bodies and companies.  An outstanding figure on the panorama of the Italian cinema industry, Grispello holds several positions in this sector, including the one he has covered for twenty years now as Coordinator of the Anec's Legislative Commission and his presence on the Board of Directors of the FICE (the Italian Arthouse Cinema Federation).

In addition, Luigi Grispello has for many years been a member of various MIBAC (the Italian Ministry of Culture) commissions for the Department of Entertainment and the Performing Arts.

In 2005, at the Arthouse Cinema Days (Giornate del Cinema d'Essai) in Ravenna, he received the award for best exhibitor of the year.

MEDIA Salles

Founded in 1991, MEDIA Salles operates in the framework of the European Union's MEDIA Programme with the support of the Italian Government. The association has always placed the promotion of European films through information and training specifically for cinema exhibitors at the centre of its mission.

In the field of information, MEDIA Salles provides statistics on trends in cinema-going for all European countries and the leading world markets. This service has been joined, over the past few years, by a census of Europe's digital cinemas and the elaboration of data and trends in digitalization internationally. As regards training, in 2011 the eighth edition was held of the only course offered by the MEDIA Programme to deal with the new technologies from the perspective of the movie theatres: "DigiTraining Plus: European Cinemas Experiencing New Technologies".

On the website http://www.mediasalles.it/ the section DGT online informer is active and periodically updated and the European Cinema Yearbook can also be consulted (http://www.mediasalles.it/publicaz.htm).

The second edition of MediaSalles DiGiTalk is now available online: http://www.mediasalles.it/digitalk2011/index.html 

In addition, MEDIA Salles' Facebook page provides professional players and all those interested with a time to market on the international distribution of Italian films, complete with dates and countries of release and other useful information.