Kirsten Niehuus, deputy board member at the German Federal Film Board (FFA) in Berlin, has been unanimously elected as Vice-President of Eurimages by all of the 29 national delegates of the pan-European co-production fund.

"I am very pleased about the decision, particularly in view of the forthcoming EU enlargement and the connected challenges in the audio-visual sphere", she said.

Last year saw Eurimages providing a total of Euros 20.1m production support for 57 European co-productions, including Raoul Ruiz's Le Livre A Rendre, Alejandro Amenabar's Mar Adentro, Lars von Trier's Manderlay, Philippe Haim's La Vraie Vie Des Dalton, Lajos Koltai's Fateless and Lieven Debrauwer's Confituur.

Together with her Finnish colleague Erkki Astala, Niehuus will deputise for President Jacques Toubon.