The fourth Europa Distribution conference (Nov 12-14) gets underway this weekend in Estoril, Portugal, during the resort’s film festival.

Europa Distribution and the MEDIA Programme are teaming for their fourth annual conference, bringing together 60 distributors from 20 European countries for panel sessions and workshops on current practice and the future of distribution.

Alexandre Mallet-Guy of Memento Film Distribution will present a co-production workshop, moderated by Pascal Guerrin of Backup, while Michael Werner of Non Stop Sales, Peter Buckingham of the UK Film Council and Regine Vial of Les Films du Losange will be among a panel discussing the digital revolution.

The conference will also feature distribution case studies and panels on VOD.

The event takes place during the fourth annual Estoril Film Festival (Nov 5-14). On Friday, Lou Reed opened the festival with an exhibition of his photographs and presented his documentary Red Shirley the following day.

The festival’s 12 competition titles include Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu by Andrej Ujica and Cristi Puiu’s Aurora. This year’s jury includes musician Laurie Anderson and fashion designer Bella Freud.

This weekend director John Malkovich and Anton Corbijn will deliver masterclasses and Woody Allen’s You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger closes the festival on Sunday.